21st Century Classical Greek -- negating a "pluperfect"

Book I section 15.

τὰ μὲν οὖν ναυτικὰ τῶν Ἑλλήνων τοιαῦτα ἦν, τά τε παλαιὰ καὶ τὰ ὕστερον γενόμενα. ἰσχὺν δὲ περιεποιήσαντο ὅμως οὐκ ἐλαχίστην οἱ προσσχόντες αὐτοῖς χρημάτων τε προσόδῳ καὶ ἄλλων ἀρχῇ: ἐπιπλέοντες γὰρ τὰς νήσους κατεστρέφοντο, καὶ μάλιστα ὅσοι μὴ διαρκῆ εἶχον χώραν.

[2] κατὰ γῆν δὲ πόλεμος, ὅθεν τις καὶ δύναμις παρεγένετο, οὐδεὶς ξυνέστη: πάντες δὲ ἦσαν, ὅσοι καὶ ἐγένοντο, πρὸς ὁμόρους τοὺς σφετέρους ἑκάστοις, καὶ ἐκδήμους στρατείας πολὺ ἀπὸ τῆς ἑαυτῶν ἐπ᾽ ἄλλων καταστροφῇ οὐκ ἐξῇσαν οἱ Ἕλληνες. οὐ γὰρ ξυνειστήκεσαν πρὸς τὰς μεγίστας πόλεις ὑπήκοοι, οὐδ᾽ αὖ αὐτοὶ ἀπὸ τῆς ἴσης κοινὰς στρατείας ἐποιοῦντο, κατ᾽ ἀλλήλους δὲ μᾶλλον ὡς ἕκαστοι οἱ ἀστυγείτονες ἐπολέμουν.

[3] μάλιστα δὲ ἐς τὸν πάλαι ποτὲ γενόμενον πόλεμον Χαλκιδέων καὶ Ἐρετριῶν καὶ τὸ ἄλλο Ἑλληνικὸν ἐς ξυμμαχίαν ἑκατέρων διέστη.

We have a use of mi here with an adjective, “enough”, the attacks happened when people didn’t have enough land and wanted to take over new turf.

Subsection 2 is where Thucydides talks about the border wars. He says they could never be anything but border wars, each polis fighting on its own behalf, not allying under pre-eminent states.

Thucydides has an interesting use of perfective eventive, ksuneistikesan, in subsection 2. As a perfective, it ought to relate to a permanent result. However, it is negated. Why would Mr. T negate a perfective instead of an imperfective, the default verb form?

Because he’s not negating the action. He’s negating the result.

Think about it this way.  Why does Thucydides use perfective aspect for the works of the poets? Because “the moving finger having writ, moves on, and not thy piety nor wit, can wipe it out nor change a word of it.”

In subsection 3, Thucydides gives information that shows why he’s negating the result. His audience know who was allied to whom in the Peloponnesian War. In subsection 3, Thucydides talks about another war, in which the allies were different to what they are at the time of his writing.

So he can’t negate that there were alliances. All he can negate is that the alliances remained in effect in his own day.

And that’s another benefit of looking at things aspectually instead of by tense.