21st Century Classical Greek -- purpose clauses again

Book I section 37. In which I get to argue against Goodwin again.

‘ἀναγκαῖον Κερκυραίων τῶνδε οὐ μόνον περὶ τοῦ δέξασθαι σφᾶς τὸν λόγον ποιησαμένων, ἀλλ᾽ ὡς καὶ ἡμεῖς τε ἀδικοῦμεν καὶ αὐτοὶ οὐκ εἰκότως πολεμοῦνται, μνησθέντας πρῶτον καὶ ἡμᾶς περὶ ἀμφοτέρων οὕτω καὶ ἐπὶ τὸν ἄλλον λόγον ἰέναι, ἵνα τὴν ἀφ᾽ ἡμῶν τε ἀξίωσιν ἀσφαλέστερον προειδῆτε καὶ τὴν τῶνδε χρείαν μὴ ἀλογίστως ἀπώσησθε.

[2] ‘φασὶ δὲ ξυμμαχίαν διὰ τὸ σῶφρον οὐδενός πω δέξασθαι: τὸ δ᾽ ἐπὶ κακουργίᾳ καὶ οὐκ ἀρετῇ ἐπετήδευσαν, ξύμμαχόν τε οὐδένα βουλόμενοι πρὸς τἀδικήματα οὐδὲ μάρτυρα ἔχειν οὔτε παρακαλοῦντες αἰσχύνεσθαι.

[3] καὶ ἡ πόλις αὐτῶν ἅμα αὐτάρκη θέσιν κειμένη παρέχει αὐτοὺς δικαστὰς ὧν βλάπτουσί τινα μᾶλλον ἢ κατὰ ξυνθήκας γίγνεσθαι, διὰ τὸ ἥκιστα ἐπὶ τοὺς πέλας ἐκπλέοντας μάλιστα τοὺς ἄλλους ἀνάγκῃ καταίροντας δέχεσθαι.

[4] καὶ τοῦτο τὸ εὐπρεπὲς ἄσπονδον οὐχ ἵνα μὴ ξυναδικῶσιν ἑτέροις προβέβληνται, ἀλλ᾽ ὅπως κατὰ μόνας ἀδικῶσι καὶ ὅπως ἐν ᾧ μὲν ἂν κρατῶσι βιάζωνται, οὗ δ᾽ ἂν λάθωσι πλέον ἔχωσιν, ἢν δέ πού τι προσλάβωσιν ἀναισχυντῶσιν:

[5] καίτοι εἰ ἦσαν ἄνδρες,ὥσπερ φασίν, ἀγαθοί, ὅσῳ ἀληπτότεροι ἦσαν τοῖς πέλας, τόσῳ δὲ φανερωτέραν ἐξῆν αὐτοῖς τὴν ἀρετὴν διδοῦσι καὶ δεχομένοις τὰ δίκαια δεικνύναι..

Go to Wiktionary and look up φημί. Then go down to Synonyms and click on λέγω. Now scroll down to the second set of usage notes, which apply to its meaning of “say, speak”. Notice that lego is a suppletive like erkhomai. Learn both these verbs because there are a lot more speeches in Thucydides.

Subsection 3 is supposed to talk about the wrong the Kerkyraeans do, but the law of the sea awards wrecks to whoever finds them. If the Kerkyraeans put out false signals to lure ships onto the rocks, that would be illegal. So this is a pointless point.

Subsection 4 has, first a “final” clause with hina, and then an object clause with hopos. So “final” clauses don’t come at the end of a subsection, sentence, or thought; the labels contradict how Thucydides actually uses the material – or else he is making fun of the Korinthians by pretending that they use bad grammar. Frankly, given what we’ve been doing for over 100 weeks now, I tend to think the label should be changed to “purpose clause”.

Now what is an object clause? It’s the object of some verb. What do the bolded verbs (all obliques) hang off of? Ir’s the copula, which is unexpressed since there’s an equational clause, καὶ τοῦτο τὸ εὐπρεπὲς ἄσπονδον.

An equational clause does not take an object, it takes a predicate.

What’s more, an object clause should use imperfective conceptual indicative, not oblique like adikosi or kratosi, etc. (See Goodwin page 292, section 1372ff.) At the bottom of the page, Goodwin admits that object clauses can use oblique or epistemic.

In a final mess, on page 293, section 1378ff, Goodwin claims that mi should not be here unless the main verb has to do with fearing something. I already talked about how these verb categorizations are useless and misleading. The plain fact in subsection 4 is a negation.

What is Thucydides really doing in subsection 4? He’s using the verbs as true obliques, the way Biblical Hebrew does: to express a purpose and to hang belief in this purpose from the verb of the main clause. If the Athinaians accept that the Kerkyraean neutrality is euprepes, “specious”, then they will go along with the Korinthians’ ad hominem argument.

Because remember, the Korinthians haven’t presented any facts yet. And subsection 5 is a really stupid argument to make. The Kerkyraeans did propose arbitration. The Korinthians forgot to add “before attacking Epidamnus”, and so they are confusing the Athinaians about what the real complaint is.