21st Century Classical Greek -- me fussing at Jowett again

Book I section 46. 

αἱ μὲν δὴ νῆες ἀφικνοῦνται ἐς τὴν Κέρκυραν, οἱ δὲ Κορίνθιοι, ἐπειδὴ αὐτοῖς παρεσκεύαστο, ἔπλεον ἐπὶ τὴν Κέρκυραν ναυσὶ πεντήκοντα καὶ ἑκατόν. ἦσαν δὲ Ἠλείων μὲν δέκα, Μεγαρέων δὲ δώδεκα καὶ Λευκαδίων δέκα, Ἀμπρακιωτῶν δὲ ἑπτὰ καὶ εἴκοσι καὶ Ἀνακτορίων μία, αὐτῶν δὲ Κορινθίων ἐνενήκοντα:

[2] στρατηγοὶ δὲ τούτων ἦσαν μὲν καὶ κατὰ πόλεις ἑκάστων, Κορινθίων δὲ Ξενοκλείδης ὁ Εὐθυκλέους πέμπτος αὐτός.

[3] ἐπειδὴ δὲ προσέμειξαν τῇ κατὰ Κέρκυραν ἠπείρῳ ἀπὸ Λευκάδος πλέοντες, ὁρμίζονται ἐς Χειμέριον τῆς Θεσπρωτίδος γῆς.

[4] ἔστι δὲ λιμήν, καὶ πόλις ὑπὲρ αὐτοῦ κεῖται ἀπὸ θαλάσσης ἐν τῇ Ἐλαιάτιδι τῆς Θεσπρωτίδος Ἐφύρη. ἐξίησι δὲ παρ᾽ αὐτὴν Ἀχερουσία λίμνη ἐς θάλασσαν: διὰ δὲ τῆς Θεσπρωτίδος Ἀχέρων ποταμὸς ῥέων ἐσβάλλει ἐς αὐτήν, ἀφ᾽ οὗ καὶ τὴν ἐπωνυμίαν ἔχει. ῥεῖ δὲ καὶ Θύαμις ποταμός, ὁρίζων τὴν Θεσπρωτίδα καὶ Κεστρίνην, ὧν ἐντὸς ἡ ἄκρα ἀνέχει τὸ Χειμέριον.

[5] οἱ μὲν οὖν Κορίνθιοι τῆς ἠπείρου ἐνταῦθα ὁρμίζονταί τε καὶ στρατόπεδον ἐποιήσαντο..

Jowett ignores the first phrase in subsection 1, ending in kerkyran, which is about the Athinaians sending to Kerkyra the ships referred to in section 45. This is Thucydides either being fussy, or reading his work to an audience who remind him that he never said the ships were actually sent, just that they were prepared, staffed, and put under orders to not violate the treaty.

Thucydides starts subsection three with “after reaching the Kerkyraean mainland, having sailed from Leukados”. Jowett reverses this. The important issue to Thucydides is reaching Kerkyraea; he follows that up by orientation as to how long that might have taken, by identifying the port from which the fleet sailed. Leukados is about 170 km southeast of Kerkyraea, and about 270 km northwest of Korinth. Thesprotia is on the main peninsula right across a narrow channel from Kerkyraea.

The Kerkyraeans were right: Korinth contemplated more attacks. And the stupid Korinthians did exactly what the Athinaians had promised to defend the Kerkyraeans from.

21st Century Classical Greek -- section 45, a little vocabulary

Book I section 45.

τοιαύτῃ μὲν γνώμῃ οἱ Ἀθηναῖοι τοὺς Κερκυραίους προσεδέξαντο, καὶ τῶν Κορινθίων ἀπελθόντων οὐ πολὺ ὕστερον δέκα ναῦς αὐτοῖς ἀπέστειλαν βοηθούς:

[2] ἐστρατήγει δὲ αὐτῶν Λακεδαιμόνιός τε ὁ Κίμωνος καὶ Διότιμος ὁ Στρομβίχου καὶ Πρωτέας ὁ Ἐπικλέους.

[3] προεῖπον δὲ αὐτοῖς μὴ ναυμαχεῖν Κορινθίοις, ἢν μὴ ἐπὶ Κέρκυραν πλέωσι καὶ μέλλωσιν ἀποβαίνειν ἢ ἐς τῶν ἐκείνων τι χωρίων: οὕτω δὲ κωλύειν κατὰ δύναμιν. προεῖπον δὲ ταῦτα τοῦ μὴ λύειν ἕνεκα τὰς σπονδάς.

Jowett turns the bolded phrase in subsection 1 into “now”, instead of “not much later”. He moves it into subsection 2 from where it is in subsection 1, breaking the sentence after apelthonton. This is a bad break. Thucydides records the action in subsection 1; in 2 he tells who commanded this force. Then in subsection 3 he moves back to the action.

Look up στρατηγέω and ναυμαχέω in Wiktionary. You’ll see them often from here on out. Notice that in subsection 2 we have estratigei in progressive eventive: like a treaty, this is a situation being set in place.

Auton in subsection 2 is “of them”, of the Korinthians.

In subsection 3 we have koluein kata dunamin, resist as much as they could. It’s a version of dunamei plus the impersonal gerundive.

21st Century Classical Greek -- conditional 8

I have this as conditional 9 in my file but it's only the 8th time conditionals are listed on the index. Anyway.

Book I section 44.

 

τοιαῦτα δὲ καὶ οἱ Κορίνθιοι εἶπον. Ἀθηναῖοι δὲ ἀκούσαντες ἀμφοτέρων, γενομένης καὶ δὶς ἐκκλησίας, τῇ μὲν προτέρᾳ οὐχ ἧσσον τῶν Κορινθίων ἀπεδέξαντο τοὺς λόγους, ἐν δὲ τῇ ὑστεραίᾳ μετέγνωσαν Κερκυραίοις ξυμμαχίαν μὲν μὴ ποιήσασθαι ὥστε τοὺς αὐτοὺς ἐχθροὺς καὶ φίλους νομίζειν (εἰ γὰρ ἐπὶ Κόρινθον ἐκέλευον σφίσιν οἱ Κερκυραῖοι ξυμπλεῖν, ἐλύοντ᾽ ἂν αὐτοῖς αἱ πρὸς Πελοποννησίους σπονδαί), ἐπιμαχίαν δ᾽ ἐποιήσαντο τῇ ἀλλήλων βοηθεῖν, ἐάν τις ἐπὶ Κέρκυραν ἴῃ ἢ Ἀθήνας ἢ τοὺς τούτων ξυμμάχους.

[2] ἐδόκει γὰρ ὁ πρὸς Πελοποννησίους πόλεμος καὶ ὣς ἔσεσθαι αὐτοῖς, καὶ τὴν Κέρκυραν ἐβούλοντο μὴ προέσθαι τοῖς Κορινθίοις ναυτικὸν ἔχουσαν τοσοῦτον, ξυγκρούειν δὲ ὅτι μάλιστα αὐτοὺς ἀλλήλοις, ἵνα ἀσθενεστέροις οὖσιν, ἤν τι δέῃ, Κορινθίοις τε καὶ τοῖς ἄλλοις ναυτικὸν ἔχουσιν ἐς πόλεμον καθιστῶνται.

[3] ἅμα δὲ τῆς τε Ἰταλίας καὶ Σικελίας καλῶς ἐφαίνετο αὐτοῖς ἡ νῆσος ἐν παράπλῳ κεῖσθαι..

In subsection 1, notice how Thucydides hedges his statement: the first assembly of the Athinaians considered the Korinthian speech “no worse” than the Kerkyraean. Jowett misstates this.

The parenthetical expression is a full-up conditional. The protasis uses a conjugated indicative verb in executive voice but we have a problem. This protasis can only happen if there’s a full-up treaty. But Thucydides just said that’s not what the Athinaians agreed to. So this should be a supposition contrary to fact. Goodwin wants the protasis to use a past tense, for no reason that anybody can see. The verb we have is “imperfect”, which should mean something that has been interrupted, except that Goodwin explains that this past tense is being used for a present circumstance….

Now that we are aspectual, that explanation goes away. We are talking about a situation – the treaty – that didn’t exist. And as a situation, progressive is correct instead of imperfective.

When the grammars define a term and then have to undermine it with a lot of exceptions such as the “conditional contrary to fact” using past tense for something that didn’t happen, they are repeating centuries of tradition: “That’s the way it has always been taught” was fine in pre-Galileo times. This is the 21^st century.

Now. Goodwin tells you that the apodosis needs an, which we do have. But the an in this case is our change-of-focus: the Korinthians would have given the orders, but eluont’ is the Athinaians violating the treaty – that didn’t exist. So this is not an for something that happened – because the protasis didn’t happen. It couldn’t, since there was no treaty.

Notice that this is how you use the certainty indicative in a situation that definitely doesn’t exist.

Since accepting the orders of the Kerkyraeans would have been an open breach of the treaty, Athins concludes a defensive pact only. So the Korinthians didn’t get their way, but the Kerkyraeans didn’t get everything they wanted. They just got assurances if the Korinthians repeat their attack.

In subsection 2 Jowett negates the wrong thing. He essentially negates the progressive eventive eboulonto but Thucydides negates the impersonal gerundive proesthai; the Athinaians planned for Kerkyraea not to be conquered by the Korinthians. What they did plan (in Thucydides’ original parallelism) is to set the Korinthians against the others so as to weaken both prospective opponents as much as possible before the war broke out. Jowett hides this purpose by putting it at the end of the sentence, another example of a transposition that interferes with what Thucydides says.

21st Century Classical Greek -- the last imperative

We have now seen imperatives in two aspects, one imperfective eventive and the other progressive conceptual, dekhesthe from last week.

Oddly enough, in perfective White’s grammar lists no imperative for the executive voice, but only for the base voice. How could you issue an imperative to bring about a result, without having it produced deliberately?

Well, are there any examples? I used my search engine and did find an example, and the result is sort of weird. This is Demosthenes’ 25^th oration, section  21:

τί γὰρ ἂν τοῦτον αὐτὸν οἴεσθε ποιεῖν λυθέντων τῶν νόμων, ὃς ὄντων κυρίων τοιοῦτός ἐστιν; ἐπειδὴ τοίνυν οἱ νόμοι μετὰ τοὺς θεοὺς ὁμολογοῦνται σῴζειν τὴν πόλιν, δεῖ πάντας ὑμᾶς τὸν αὐτὸν τρόπον ὥσπερ ἂν εἰ καθῆσθ᾽ ἐράνου πληρωταί, τὸν μὲν πειθόμενον τούτοις ὡς φέροντα τὴν τῆς σωτηρίας φορὰν πλήρη τῇ πατρίδι τιμᾶν καὶ ἐπαινεῖν, τὸν δ᾽ ἀπειθοῦντα κολάζειν.

The problem I had to work out is, how can you have a passive voice imperative?

Well, Demosthenes is saying that Aristogiton is an enemy of the state, which operates by certain laws. His behavior being such in the current conditions, says Demosthenes, get the laws repealed! That result being achieved, you will see him behave worse.

This is the only example on Perseus of luo in perfective imperative. I would appreciate it if you could send me citations to actual examples of perfective imperatives in executive voice for any verb; remember, send me the citation, not just a copy of the text. I intend to keep looking for them.

But with this wildly limited dataset, it looks as if imperatives work according to aspect, like personal gerundives, which is not much of a surprise since their functions complement each other, imperative being for immediate action just because I say so, and i.g.s being for action  that is due and owing based on prior developments.

Mendel Beilis -- the scene of the crime

Again, my mind works slowly or I would have posted this in 2013, when I translated the transcript, or even in 2019 when I posted about the missing dvornik. But I woke up this morning wondering why there's no report on the scene of the crime in the transcript. It turns out that the government suggested multiple scenes for the crime, but only examined the scene that they then had to cover up because it identified the one person they were trying to protect from suspicion.

Part of the problem is the Whiffle Ball Theory. It became obvious during closing arguments that the government made up its claims to suit its theory, instead of letting evidence drive the case. That's why Beilis was tried at all. 

Because the government was trying to cover up for Vera Cheberyak, they created confusion about the scene of the crime. Oh, sure, at first when the police thought that Andrey's family had killed him, they searched the room that the Prikhodkos lived in. But they identified four places on the Zaitsev factory grounds as possible scenes of the crime:

-- Beilis' home, the two rooms where he, his wife, and his four surviving children lived.

-- the "upper" kiln, the one at the highest point of the factory grounds.

-- the stables.

-- the pomeshchenie, some rooms where Beilis' wife moved in after the arrest, that is, July 1911.

The transcript has no police information about any of these locations. They had from July to October to examine the stables. In October the stables burned down and were no longer available for tours (like the one on day 6). Nobody forged a police report saying anything was found there before October. The government brought them up to confuse the case.

The upper kiln was empty from March, when the murder happened, to April 10 or so when brick making started up again. During this period the police still thought the family killed Andrey so no report was done.

Beilis' house was full of the family and nobody suggested that Beilis let his wife and kids stay in the house while Andrey was murdered.

That leaves the pomeshchenie, where there is another problem which I outline in Accounting for the Grebenki Workers. In the interests of cutting their coat to fit the cloth, the government had to assume a morning murder. If it was in the afternoon of March 11, the Grebenki brick haulers were already living in these rooms. It had to be in the morning for the pomeshchenie to qualify. At that time the rooms would have been empty. Mrs. Beilis and the children lived there -- but not until after the arrest in July. After that she got Zaitsev to white-wash the walls. Notice that the police still had from March to July to examine this place -- if the government theory fingered Beilis as the murderer before July. 

But the signs are that the "Beilis and his two sons" story was invented by the government after Beilis' July arrest, and the lack of police reports about any of the locations on the Zaitsev grounds agrees with this.

What place did the police examine in detail? Vera's apartment and its contents -- the carpet, and the walls. This produced the report of using chemical tests that found semen on the walls. 

Why make the tests? When Zinaida Malitskaya went to Fenenko in the summer, her tale was vague and Fenenko didn't believe her. Nobody took her seriously until November when her husband made her go back. The police made her report identify a morning murder, although in the summer she said the incident she reported happened at night. 

But the tests failed to turn up blood spots. Examination of Vera's carpet also failed to turn up blood spots. Examination of the shred of bloody pillowcase suggested one that belonged to Vera, but Ksenya Dyakonova, who sewed the pillowcase for Vera, never saw this shred, see Day 15, statements 2515-2520. And again, the police examined this shred, found in the pocket of Andrey's jacket, as Vera's property, not Beilis'.

Here's the scenario. Beilis is in jail. From September to October, Vygranov and Vera entertain Brazul Brushkovsky with Vera's fairy tales. Then things quiet down. At the end of November, however, Malitsky brings his wife Zinaida to Fenenko where they get information out of her that points at Vera. They convince her to agree that the incident she heard happened in the morning, although Zinaida was suspicious of nighttime goings-on. They bring Vera in and she tells them the story she told Brazul: it was the family. Brazul is the only one who believes this.

I think Vera's old apartment, still empty, was examined at this time -- just to show there was no evidence of the murder there. In November the Kozachenko letter was forged. And the "Beilis and his two sons" story was invented. The government tried to teach it to Vasily Cheberyak; they failed as his deposition shows.

The only place the government had a detailed police report on, that might be the scene of the crime, is the last place the crime could have happened, if Beilis was the murderer. The direct evidence points at Vera; the evidence against Beilis was faked. QED.

21st Century Classical Greek -- who do the Korinthians think they are?

Book I section 43.

ἡμεῖς δὲ περιπεπτωκότες οἷς ἐν τῇ Λακεδαίμονι αὐτοὶ προείπομεν, τοὺς σφετέρους ξυμμάχους αὐτόν τινα κολάζειν, νῦν παρ᾽ ὑμῶν τὸ αὐτὸ ἀξιοῦμεν κομίζεσθαι, καὶ μὴ τῇ ἡμετέρᾳ ψήφῳ ὠφεληθέντας τῇ ὑμετέρᾳ ἡμᾶς βλάψαι.

[2] τὸ δὲ ἴσον ἀνταπόδοτε, γνόντες τοῦτον ἐκεῖνον εἶναι τὸν καιρὸν ἐν ᾧ ὅ τε ὑπουργῶν φίλος μάλιστα καὶ ὁ ἀντιστὰς ἐχθρός.

[3] καὶ Κερκυραίους τούσδε μήτε ξυμμάχους δέχεσθε βίᾳ ἡμῶν μήτε ἀμύνετε αὐτοῖς ἀδικοῦσιν.

[4] καὶ τάδε ποιοῦντες τὰ προσήκοντά τε δράσετε καὶ τὰ ἄριστα βουλεύσεσθε ὑμῖν αὐτοῖς.’.

Kolazein is one of those “due and owing” uses of the impersonal gerundive. Notice that there’s no particle for a purpose clause. The point is, not the purpose for which the Korinthians spoke, but the appropriateness of kolazein under certain circumstances. The Korinthians want those circumstances to apply now, but they didn’t have the Kerkyraean situation specifically in mind when they spoke back then.

As usual, Jowett turns the end of this subsection upside down. From kai mi on, Thucydides says “and not being helped by our vote, by yours we will be wounded.” The instrumental case used here has the -ois case of an inanimate agent.

Blapsai is another multi-assignment word. It’s imperfective eventive, but is it an i.g. or an epistemic? Well, as an i.g. it would again mean “due and owing” because this is not a purpose clause. As an epistemic, it falls in line with other uses of that form by the Korinthians. They not only don’t want to sign up to the truth of being harmed, they argue to keep it from happening.

But on the other hand, if blapsai is conjugated, it’s conjugated in the singular, and the pronoun is plural. So we have to go with i.g.; the Korinthians regard this harm as the due outcome of the  Athinaians not voting with them.

Antapodote is an imperative. What does it order? An action. But it’s an “aorist” and the only way you could consider this as a past tense is because it’s in Thucydides’ past. As reported speech, this ought to use the same “tense” as the original speech, but for the Korinthians to issue an imperative using a past tense in this situation is nonsense. Under an aspectual definition of verb forms, the imperfective eventive is the default verb form and you have to have special reasons for using a progressive or perfective.

Dekhesthe may be an imperative but it is progressive. That means it has a special nuance. Progressive means a situation, and it is negated. The Korinthians are saying don’t get into this situation. Now notice that the same argument against the eventive applies here as it did relative to the aorist: no grammarian of a tense system would seriously argue that the Korinthians told the Athinaians to avoid a past action, which this form would be if we called it imperfect tense.

The next verb, amunete, is the same thing, with the addition of a possible imperfective conceptual oblique. I think we can forget about it being oblique, in the interests of parallelism.

I’m going with progressive imperatives for getting into a situation, negated.

Now, remember, if you issue an imperative, it ought to be due to having authority over somebody. How is it that the Korinthians feel they can give orders to Athins? Is it just because they have a treaty? In fact, as we just saw, the treaty allows voting on what treaty members do. So this is pretty overbearing and supports the Kerkyraeans’ claim of ill treatment by the Korinthians.

Do the Athinaians consider the Korinthian vote (discussed in section 41) as a favor in return for which favors are due now? The Korinthians do. Or at least, they do now that they want something. I once had a millennial get mad at me because she gave me the chance to do her a favor (her expression) and I didn’t take her up on it. I don’t trade in favors anyway, and it was one of several signs that she and I had different ethical systems. So how different are the ethical systems of Athins and Korinth?

There are two seeming proverbs in this section. The question is, do all the city states have the same set of proverbs? If not, then the Korinthians are wasting their breath to quote proverbs instead of providing facts.

And they are dishing out orders right and left to an ally but not a subordinate, somebody at least equal to Korinth in naval power, and with a prospect of doubling that power whichever way Athins jumps. Ultimata are signs of weakness.

21st Century Classical Greek -- another stunning translation problem

Book I section 42.

‘ὧν ἐνθυμηθέντες καὶ νεώτερός τις παρὰ πρεσβυτέρου αὐτὰ μαθὼν ἀξιούτω τοῖς ὁμοίοις ἡμᾶς ἀμύνεσθαι, καὶ μὴ νομίσῃ δίκαια μὲν τάδε λέγεσθαι, ξύμφορα δέ, εἰ πολεμήσει, ἄλλα εἶναι.

[2] τό τε γὰρ ξυμφέρον ἐν ᾧ ἄν τις ἐλάχιστα ἁμαρτάνῃ μάλιστα ἕπεται, καὶ τὸ μέλλον τοῦ πολέμου ᾧ φοβοῦντες ὑμᾶς Κερκυραῖοι κελεύουσιν ἀδικεῖν ἐν ἀφανεῖ ἔτι κεῖται, καὶ οὐκ ἄξιον ἐπαρθέντας αὐτῷ φανερὰν ἔχθραν ἤδη καὶ οὐ μέλλουσαν πρὸς Κορινθίους κτήσασθαι, τῆς δὲ ὑπαρχούσης πρότερον διὰ Μεγαρέας ὑποψίας σῶφρον ὑφελεῖν μᾶλλον (ἡ γὰρ τελευταία χάρις καιρὸν ἔχουσα,

[3] κἂν ἐλάσσων ᾖ, δύναται μεῖζον ἔγκλημα λῦσαι),

[4] μηδ᾽ ὅτι ναυτικοῦ ξυμμαχίαν μεγάλην διδόασι, τούτῳ ἐφέλκεσθαι: τὸ γὰρ μὴ ἀδικεῖν τοὺς ὁμοίους ἐχυρωτέρα δύναμις ἢ τῷ αὐτίκα φανερῷ ἐπαρθέντας διὰ κινδύνων τὸ πλέον ἔχειν..

Why you have to watch out for the Word Tool: its assignments don’t match how we understand the grammar, even without the 21^st century stuff. WT has four entries for enthumithentes, two labeled passive (which is correct) and two labeled middle-passive. Why does it say middle-passive? It labels the “tense” as “aorist”, which never has a middle-passive. It also has two entries labeled “comp_only” for no reason that I can see. What, in fact, does “comp_only” mean? So on top of everything else, somebody doing the WT labeling used some incomprehensible assignment method.

At any rate, the dictionary entry for this verb ends in -mai; this is evidence that the base voice and passive in imperfective aspect of -mai verbs have identical morphology. What we have to figure out is which of them is appropriate. Because Thucydides uses enthumithentes with hon, clearly an object, we have to assign it to the base voice.  

Enthumithentes expresses the concept of thinking something over. There are non-mai verbs in Middle Liddle that have that idea. What Thucydides is going for is the root of the verb, thumos, soul or heart. It’s kind of late in the game for an appeal to hearts and minds, but the Korinthians are making a stab at it. It could be another rhetorical mistake: OK so you don’t think this is the logical thing to do, but there’s a morality beyond the law and that is what you have to consider.

The two words I have bolded are translated differently by Jowett and not just as a matter of noun case. This same type of error occurs in the horrible Septuagint. In subsection 1 Jowett has “neighbor”, in subsection 4 he has “like, similar”. I keep saying that you have to translate in accordance with the context, but what is the context?

In subsection 1, the phrase is akiouto tois homoiois himas amunesthai. All the old translators want this to mean a quid pro quo. Akiouto is an imperative in progressive conceptual, which ought to tell the Athinaions to immediately form a specific habit of thought.  It has a complement in amunesthai, which with the -ois case phrase should mean to defend those like the Athinaians. But for some reason the Korinthians stick in himas, “us”, in the -ous case. As the object of amunesthai, this should mean defending those like the Athinaians against the Korinthians, which is surely not what they plan to suggest.

The old translators don’t have a  problem with this, because they are used to thinking of the -ous case as the subject of an “infinitive”. However, we have already seen that this is not universally true, and that using himas implies an anti-passive structure. There is no prior verb which would take himas as an object. If it is supposed to be the object of aksiouto, then the context means to think it fit that the Korinthians be defended, but there’s no room for the tois homoiois unless it means “like yourselves”.

Taking it as meaning “quid pro quo” probably derives from the translators being trained to think of the -ois case as meaning “for”, but that’s another example of bad training. It means “for” in the sense of “for the benefit of”. “Quid pro quo” means “in exchange for” and in any case, Middle Liddell shows that it not only requires the -ous case, it also requires a form of didomi. In general, exchanges for something require the -ous case of the thing exchanged for, one example being Iliad 6.235-236. I have said before that the grammar books keying on one of several meanings produced mistakes; Jowett’s translation is an example of how the grammars have failed.

Most translators of classical material (even the Bible), make the inevitable bad decision to copy familiar translations. I had to fight myself all the time when I wrote Narrating the Torah to avoid this, even though I knew that the old translators knew nothing of 21^st century grammar or the other concepts I was trying to express. The copying makes the work go faster, but it reproduces old errors. And the other location of homoiois or rather homoious in subsection 4 argues for a different meaning. The phrase is τὸ γὰρ μὴ ἀδικεῖν τοὺς ὁμοίους ἐχυρωτέρα δύναμις ἢ τῷ αὐτίκα φανερῷ ἐπαρθέντας διὰ κινδύνων τὸ πλέον ἔχειν, “not doing wrong to somebody like you is safer for power than by an instantaneous appearance being led through dangers to have more.”

In this case we also have an -ous case with an impersonal gerundive, but all the translators agree that it is an object, not a subject. The position probably promotes that interpretation, since it resembles English syntax. It does, however, make nonsense of Jowett’s translation of “neighbor”, which the other translators don’t use.

In any case, the Korinthians made a mistake in telling the Athinaians that the Kerkyraeans were not their like but the Korinthians were and should be supported in preference to the other party.