Lucian (Verae Historiae 1.7) has this description of a river:
ἦν δὲ καὶ ἰχθῦς ἐν αὐτῷ πολλοὺς ἰδεῖν
Clearly this means “you could see fish” or “there were fish to be seen.” I’m interested in this use of the infinitive. What do the grammarians call it? I have done some looking but can’t find it in my reference books.
Could it be that ἦν, since it is at the beginning of the sentence, is acting as an impersonal verb (was possible), and that ἰδεῖν is the subject infinitive of ἦν? So the meaning would be “to see many fish was possible.”
That seems quite right. So then ἰχθῦς is the object of the subject. I would like to see examples for other verbs of perception meaning “it was possible to hear X” or “there was X to be heard.”
In case you have a copy of Mastronarde, the source that I used was on page 85, section 3:
“Emphatic ἔστι may be used with an infinitive subject in the same sense as the compound ἔξεστι (it is possible to X).”
So my thought with your example was that the ἦν, at the beginning of the sentence and thus used emphatically, was a synonym of ἐξῆν, meaning was possible.
Thanks for the help katalogon!
Using your reference I tracked this down in CGCG §§ 51.8 and 24.34 n. 1