X. An. 1.3.6

Greek Learning Greek
1

I had some difficulty scaling the mountain of this first speech by Clearchus, especially when I encountered an avalanche of ἀν’s in verses 5 and 6. But I managed to reach the summit only to puzzle over this last sentence:

ὡς ἐμοῦ οὖν ἰόντος ὅπῃ ἂν καὶ ὑμεῖς οὕτω τὴν γνώμην ἔχετε.

After wrestling with this for awhile I came up with the following:

“So hold this belief then: I am going wherever you may.”

Note that I’ve reversed the two clauses here. I did this because (as I understand it) οὕτω anticipates ὡς.

Does this sound good?

2

Yes it’s a splendidly strong final flourish, the main weight of it delectably falling on the participial phrase, with its introductory ὡς anticipating (rather than anticipated by) the οὕτω of the closing imperative.

αν is a thing that makes Latinists green with envy. It’s especially nice here, where the “me/you” structure obviates the need for a verb in the ὅπῃ ἂν clause. (I don’t care how you translate it, so long as you get the Greek. Still, I read ἰόντος as future.)

3

Thanks Michael, but I’m wondering, can this not be read as a result (consecutive) clause? e.g. reversing the construction for a moment to simplify the structure:

καὶ οὕτω τὴν γνώμην ἔχετε ὡς ἐμοῦ οὖν ἰόντος ὅπῃ ἂν ὑμεῖς.

“And so (οὕτω) then, hold on to this thought: that (ὡς) I will go wherever you may [decide to go].”

The above is why I thought οὕτω anticipates ὡς and not vice versa, even though the result clause actually comes before the matrix clause in the sentence.

(But I do like that his speech ends with τὴν γνώμην ἔχετε as a strong statement of the certainty of his support for his troops!)

4

No Mitch, there’s no result clause. The ὡς and the οὕτω are correlative (adverbs of manner, cf. Lat. ut … ita), despite the fact that the genitive absolute is not in syntactical parallel with the main verb. You seem to be reading it as if it were an indirect statement, e.g. ταυτην ουν τὴν γνώμην ἔχετε, οτι εγω εῖμι (or εμε ιεναι) ὅπῃ ἂν καὶ ὑμεῖς (ἴητε).

5

OK help me understand this then. If ὡς and οὕτω are correlative (adverbs of manner) here then would this be a clause of comparison? For example like this fragment from Demosthenes (fr. 13.27 Baiter-Sauppe) quoted in CGCG 50.37:

ωσπερ οινος κιρναται τοις των πινοντων τροποις, ουτω και φιλια τοις των χρωμενων ηθεσιν

which CGCG translates as:

“Just as wine is mixed with the customs of those who drink it, thus also [in the same manner] friendship is mixed with the characters of those who enjoy it”

It looks to me like the structure of that sentence is similar to X. An. 1.3.6:

ὡς ἐμοῦ οὖν ἰόντος ὅπῃ ἂν καὶ ὑμεῖς οὕτω τὴν γνώμην ἔχετε.

which might then be (literally) translated as:

"Just as I will go, then, wherever you may [decide to go], so also [in the same manner] hold that belief.

But I’m not sure that makes sense.

6

What compromises that analysis for the Xenophon of course is that ἐμοῦ οὖν ἰόντος has no finite verb (not even an “understood” one).