21st Century Classical Greek -- quoted speech

Book I section 25.  Learn the verb πολιορκέω, besiege. There were lots of sieges in the war. Also learn πέμπω,  send, which is high-frequency anywhere and used as a paradigm for the conversion of pi to psi in the imperfective; it is quite regular otherwise.

γνόντες δὲ οἱ Ἐπιδάμνιοι οὐδεμίαν σφίσιν ἀπὸ Κερκύρας τιμωρίαν οὖσαν ἐν ἀπόρῳ εἴχοντο θέσθαι τὸ παρόν, καὶ πέμψαντες ἐς Δελφοὺς τὸν θεὸν ἐπήροντο εἰ παραδοῖεν Κορινθίοις τὴν πόλιν ὡς οἰκισταῖς καὶ τιμωρίαν τινὰ πειρῷντ᾽ ἀπ᾽ αὐτῶν ποιεῖσθαι. ὁ δ᾽ αὐτοῖς ἀνεῖλε παραδοῦναι καὶ ἡγεμόνας ποιεῖσθαι.

[2] ἐλθόντες δὲ οἱ Ἐπιδάμνιοι ἐς τὴν Κόρινθον κατὰ τὸ μαντεῖον παρέδοσαν τὴν ἀποικίαν, τόν τε οἰκιστὴν ἀποδεικνύντες σφῶν ἐκ Κορίνθου ὄντα καὶ τὸ χρηστήριον δηλοῦντες, ἐδέοντό τε μὴ σφᾶς περιορᾶν φθειρομένους, ἀλλ᾽ ἐπαμῦναι.

[3] Κορίνθιοι δὲ κατά τε τὸ δίκαιον ὑπεδέξαντο τὴν τιμωρίαν, νομίζοντες οὐχ ἧσσον ἑαυτῶν εἶναι τὴν ἀποικίαν ἢ Κερκυραίων, ἅμα δὲ καὶ μίσει τῶν Κερκυραίων, ὅτι αὐτῶν παρημέλουν ὄντες ἄποικοι:

[4] οὔτε γὰρ ἐν πανηγύρεσι ταῖς κοιναῖς διδόντες γέρα τὰ νομιζόμενα οὔτε Κορινθίῳ ἀνδρὶ προκαταρχόμενοι τῶν ἱερῶν ὥσπερ αἱ ἄλλαι ἀποικίαι, περιφρονοῦντες δὲ αὐτοὺς καὶ χρημάτων δυνάμει ὄντες κατ᾽ ἐκεῖνον τὸν χρόνον ὁμοῖα τοῖς Ἑλλήνων πλουσιωτάτοις καὶ τῇ ἐς πόλεμον παρασκευῇ δυνατώτεροι, ναυτικῷ δὲ καὶ πολὺ προύχειν ἔστιν ὅτε ἐπαιρόμενοι καὶ κατὰ τὴν Φαιάκων προενοίκησιν τῆς Κερκύρας κλέος ἐχόντων τὰ περὶ τὰς ναῦς (ᾗ καὶ μᾶλλον ἐξηρτύοντο τὸ ναυτικὸν καὶ ἦσαν οὐκ ἀδύνατοι: τριήρεις γὰρ εἴκοσι καὶ ἑκατὸν ὑπῆρχον αὐτοῖς ὅτε ἤρχοντο πολεμεῖν)

Paradoien is an imperfective eventive executive uncertainty epistemic. This is not a conditional sentence, it’s a specific question, and ei, as I said before, should be translated “whether”, not “if”.

Our indirect question uses an “aorist”, although it is obviously about a future event and therefore using a past tense is nonsense. If you try to say that it’s in the past of Thucydides and his writing, I can counter with the fact that it’s clearly in the future of the people doing the speaking and Goodwin and others agree that the indirect speech should use the same tense as the original speech.

Aspectually, the Epidamnians are asking for an answer about an event that they are not sure will happen. Calling this a “future less vivid” assumes that it is a conditional, which is not correct. Calling it a future at all is a cognitive dissonance with its being in aorist tense.

Goodwin gets wrapped around the axles about “unreal conditions” but gives no examples. He refers to earlier sections about suppositions contrary to fact, which are conditionals. He is also misled by the concept of “future less vivid” which his sources tack onto “optative”.

The Epidamnians are asking should they deliberately do something without any certainty that the oracle will tell them to do it. They use the default aspect, imperfective eventive, to focus on the deed regardless of whether it has permanent results. Thus the reported speech could be using the same grammar as the original speech, without creating cognitive dissonance.