εκ δε τουτου θαττον προιοντων συν κραυγη (dative) απο του αυτοματου δρομος (nominative) εγενετο (aor.mid. 3s) τοις στρατιωταις (dative) επι τας σκηνας.
. . . with a shout the troops broke into a run . . .
Is “the troops” dative because of “with a shout”?
Hi! My conjecture is that τοις στρατιωταις is dative because of εγενετο, so that it literally says “running happened to the soldiers.”
Many thanks - I wasn’t really convinced by my reasoning - and was wondered about εγενετο causing the dative. Yes, makes perfect sense.
The passage under discussion appears as an example in Smyth, here:
[*] 1495. The dative may be used of a person to whose case the statement of the predicate is limited.
““φευγειν αὐτοῖς ἀσφαλέστερόν ἐστιν ἢ ἡμῖν” it is safer for them to flee than for us” X. A. 3.2.19, τριήρει ἐστὶν εἰς Ἡρά_κλειαν ἡμέρα_ς μακρᾶς πλοῦς for a trireme it is a long day’s sail to Heraclea 6. 4. 2. Such cases as ““δρόμος ἐγένετο τοῖς στρατιώταις” the soldiers began to run” X. A. 1.2.17 belong here rather than under 1476 or 1488.
https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0007%3Asmythp%3D1495
Is the thought perhaps this: a race took place [involving] the soldiers.
Thanks Hugh. Yes, I should have consulted good ol’ Smyth! - Fred
I was not smart but lucky, for I stumbled on the citation while skimming Perseus’s Smyth on uses of the dative.
This leads to the question: Is it possible & efficient to search online for citations in Smyth?
I don’t know about searching online, but Schumann’s Index is a great resource:
https://archive.org/details/indexofpassagesc00schu/page/n1/mode/2up
@truks - This is great! Thanks!
Delighted to learn about this, truks! Imagine: some of Schumann’s Greek students compiled this and presented their work to him.
Here is another download source for Schumann’s index, formatted slightly differently:
https://grbs.library.duke.edu/public/journals/11/grbs-supplemental-files/Schumann.pdf
Thanks Hugh, that’s better than the archive.org version as this one a smaller PDF file that opens and scrolls faster in my browser!
What a terrific learning resource the Textkit community is 