21st Century Classical Greek -- tell me how you want it

Book I section 24.

Ἐπίδαμνός ἐστι πόλις ἐν δεξιᾷ ἐσπλέοντι ἐς τὸν Ἰόνιον κόλπον: προσοικοῦσι δ᾽ αὐτὴν Ταυλάντιοι βάρβαροι, Ἰλλυρικὸν ἔθνος.

[2] ταύτην ἀπῴκισαν μὲν Κερκυραῖοι, οἰκιστὴς δ᾽ ἐγένετο Φαλίος Ἐρατοκλείδου Κορίνθιος γένος τῶν ἀφ᾽ Ἡρακλέους, κατὰ δὴ τὸν παλαιὸν νόμον ἐκ τῆς μητροπόλεως κατακληθείς. ξυνῴκισαν δὲ καὶ Κορινθίων τινὲς καὶ τοῦ ἄλλου Δωρικοῦ γένους.

[3] προελθόντος δὲ τοῦ χρόνου ἐγένετο ἡ τῶν Ἐπιδαμνίων δύναμις μεγάλη καὶ πολυάνθρωπος:

[4] στασιάσαντες δὲ ἐν ἀλλήλοις ἔτη πολλά, ὡς λέγεται, ἀπὸ πολέμου τινὸς τῶν προσοίκων βαρβάρων ἐφθάρησαν καὶ τῆς δυνάμεως τῆς πολλῆς ἐστερήθησαν.

[5] τὰ δὲ τελευταῖα πρὸ τοῦδε τοῦ πολέμου ὁ δῆμος αὐτῶν ἐξεδίωξε τοὺς δυνατούς, οἱ δὲ ἐπελθόντες μετὰ τῶν βαρβάρων ἐλῄζοντο τοὺς ἐν τῇ πόλει κατά τε γῆν καὶ κατὰ θάλασσαν.

[6] οἱ δὲ ἐν τῇ πόλει ὄντες Ἐπιδάμνιοι ἐπειδὴ ἐπιέζοντο, πέμπουσιν ἐς τὴν Κέρκυραν πρέσβεις ὡς μητρόπολιν οὖσαν, δεόμενοι μὴ σφᾶς περιορᾶν φθειρομένους, ἀλλὰ τούς τε φεύγοντας ξυναλλάξαι σφίσι καὶ τὸν τῶν βαρβάρων πόλεμον καταλῦσαι.

[7] ταῦτα δὲ ἱκέται καθεζόμενοι ἐς τὸ Ἥραιον ἐδέοντο. οἱ δὲ Κερκυραῖοι τὴν ἱκετείαν οὐκ ἐδέξαντο, ἀλλ᾽ ἀπράκτους ἀπέπεμψαν.

Learn the difference between pro, “before”, in subsection 5, which is used only with the -on case, and pros, “in the direction of”, in section 16.1, which is used with all the oblique cases.

The bolded words represeent a situations Goodwin does not discuss. To him, mi is used with “infinitives” or “subjunctives,” not with indicative conjugated verbs, unless in a final clause preceded by ina, opos, etc. That’s not what we have here.

This phrase is a quasi-command or imperative. As such, it is a modality called deontic; the world is not as one would wish and a deontic attempts to make it that way or expresses a wish to make it that way. Biblical Hebrew has both in several different grammars: the volitive for wishes; imperatives from an authority to a reliable person for immediate action; commandments to regulate social behavior; and the aspectless verb (“infinitive”) for on-demand actions that are due and owing under the circumstances, especially capital punishment.

Goodwin discusses deontics (although not under that name) in sections 1342ff, starting on his page 287.  He gets around to our usages here in section 1351, but we have not just an indicative, we have an impersonal gerundive.

Goodwin gets around to this use of the i.g. in section 1536, page 329. He does not list it in the commands section of his index, or in the infinitive section. You pretty much have to memorize all of Goodwin, including his confusing or misleading or downright false material, to find this explanation.

Perioiran is a progressive conceptual i.g. standing for a habit that should not be allowed to continue. Later we have ksunallaksai, an imperfective eventive i.g., thus an action to be taken. Why not an imperfective conceptual for the action to be taken?

Because that’s not what the imperfective conceptual i.g. is for. It’s for the complement of a verb like mello or elpizo. The imperative in Biblical Hebrew looks like a “future” in Mishnaic and Modern Hebrew, but in Biblical Hebrew it’s a form of the imperfect.

Also, this command is not in perfective. The command refuses to take into account the result. It only requests action.

This is a case where a tense description of Greek creates cognitive problems; if we were still thinking of “aorist, a past tense”, the command would make no sense because the action hasn’t happened yet. But since it’s imperfective, there’s no cognitive problem, besides the fact that at least one other language does the same thing. And in fact, subsection 7 shows us that the Kerkyraeans refused to act.

Illyria is the Balkan states region. Illyria is the Greek name for a multi-ethnic region and the names the peoples used for themselves have not survived.

In subsection 2 we see the seeds of the opening conflict of the Peloponnesian war. Kerkyraea itself was a colony of Korinth, and although it founded its own colony, a Korinthian led the expedition. But when troubles came, the city sent to Kerkyraea, not Korinth, and thereby hangs the tale.