Is τρεφόμενον here neut. sg. nominative or accusative? I’m reading τοῦτο τρεφόμενον τὸ στράτευμα. as a nominative noun phrase i.e. “This army being maintained” or “the maintenance of this army” which would make the sentence read “The maintenance of this army was also secretly done by [or for?] him.” Is that correct? The Cambridge Greek Grammar (CGL) says λανθανω takes a nominative participle, but section 52.11 of the Cambridge Grammar of Classical Greek (CGCG) says it takes accusative. Argh.
The army “escaped notice being maintained for him” i.e. the army was being maintained for him in secret. τοῦτο τὸ στράτευμα is the subject, τρεφόμενον predicative. This is how λανθάνω typically works. It’s simple enough once you grasp the syntax.
(An accusative would be the direct object of ἐλάνθανεν, i.e. it would say whose notice the action escaped. E.g. πάντας it escaped everyone’s notice i.e. no-one was aware that the army ….)
Thanks Michael, so if I understand correctly τρεφόμενον is nominative because it’s a predicative modifer (as participles often are) that modifies the head of the noun phrase τοῦτο τὸ στράτευμα, which means it must agree in case, number and gender with the noun it modifies (στράτευμα). And it’s (sort of) in attributive position (i.e. τοῦτο … τρεφόμενον … τὸ στράτευμα) as it describes a characteristic of the referent (the “state of being maintained” of the army). Is that right?
Not quite Mitch. τρεφόμενον is not in attributive position (it’s not τὸ τρεφόμενον, and it doesn’t mean “the army that was being maintained”). But it is of course nominative, in agreement with τὸ στράτευμα. There are no accusatives here, since ἐλάνθανεν isn’t given a direct object.
Yes of course, my mistake. τρεφόμενον isn’t attributive here as it doesn’t have the article. And your earlier comment that a literal translation might be "the army “escaped notice being maintained for him” makes everything clear, thanks
