21st Century Classical Greek -- who is at fault?

Book I section 38.

ἀλλ᾽ οὔτε πρὸς τοὺς ἄλλους οὔτε ἐς ἡμᾶς τοιοίδε εἰσίν, ἄποικοι δ᾽ ὄντες ἀφεστᾶσί τε διὰ παντὸς καὶ νῦν πολεμοῦσι, λέγοντες ὡς οὐκ ἐπὶ τῷ κακῶς πάσχειν ἐκπεμφθεῖεν.

[2] ἡμεῖς δὲ οὐδ᾽ αὐτοί φαμεν ἐπὶ τῷ ὑπὸ τούτων ὑβρίζεσθαι κατοικίσαι, ἀλλ᾽ ἐπὶ τῷ ἡγεμόνες τε εἶναι καὶ τὰ εἰκότα θαυμάζεσθαι.

[3] αἱ γοῦν ἄλλαι ἀποικίαι τιμῶσιν ἡμᾶς, καὶ μάλιστα ὑπὸ ἀποίκων στεργόμεθα:

[4] καὶ δῆλον ὅτι, εἰ τοῖς πλέοσιν ἀρέσκοντές ἐσμεν, τοῖσδ᾽ ἂν μόνοις οὐκ ὀρθῶς ἀπαρέσκοιμεν, οὐδ᾽ ἐπιστρατεύομεν ἐκπρεπῶς μὴ καὶ διαφερόντως τι ἀδικούμενοι.

[5] καλὸν δ᾽ ἦν, εἰ καὶ ἡμαρτάνομεν, τοῖσδε μὲν εἶξαι τῇ ἡμετέρᾳ ὀργῇ, ἡμῖν δὲ αἰσχρὸν βιάσασθαι τὴν τούτων μετριότητα: ὕβρει δὲ καὶ ἐξουσίᾳ πλούτου πολλὰ ἐς ἡμᾶς ἄλλα τε ἡμαρτήκασι καὶ Ἐπίδαμνον ἡμετέραν οὖσαν κακουμένην μὲν οὐ προσεποιοῦντο, ἐλθόντων δὲ ἡμῶν ἐπὶ τιμωρίᾳ ἑλόντες βίᾳ ἔχουσιν..

The bolded word at the end of subsection 1 is not only epistemic, it’s passive (imperfective eventive) and conjugated. It’s definite, but the Korinthians are not signing up to some truth here. What could it be?

Well, this is reported speech, and according to the grammars, it’s supposed to copy the tense of the original speech. But we just saw how the Kerkyraeans said it, and they used the progressive conceptual indicative (conjugated) in base voice for this same verb. They signed up to their truth. The Korinthians are undermining the idea that it is true.

There are two ways to jump with this, tell me if you can think of a third. The first is that, as usual, Goodwin copied from his source grammars and so have all the other grammarians, right down to Baugh here in the 21^st century, without examining the corpus carefully. This is supported by last week’s post which shows that the “final” clause doesn’t always come at the end of the sentence. So it's Goodwin's fault that his grammar differs from the Korinthians.

The second possibility is that Thucydides is representing the Korinthians as bad speakers and this is a breakdown in their grammar, as they broke down in logic in the previous section. So it's their fault that they can't think or speak right.

In subsection 4 the Korinthians make another logical error. The conditional says that if their other colonies love them, there’s no reason for the Kerkyraeans not to love them. This begs the question, do the Korinthians treat all their colonies the same. The noteworthy issue is that colonies generally go out from the mitropolis. In the case of Epidamnus, part of the colony came from Kerkyraea. This means that as joint founders, Kerkyraea deserves equal treatment with Korinth, but Korinth did not even consult them.

The other problem with this conditional is that it doesn’t fit into Goodwin’s categories. The protasis is claimed to be true and ought to have ean instead of ei, and the apodosis should be in the indicative – the progressive conceptual indicative at that – and not the epistemic. So again, is Goodwin a bad grammarian or are the Korinthians bad speakers.

The Korinthians have the same grammatical problem in the conditional in subsection 5. Look back at section 24 where this narrative began. Epidamnus did not appeal to its mitropolis, Kerkyraea, against barbarian (Persian) attacks. The rebels who threw out the nobility sent their embassy only when the nobles were on the brink of taking back power over the city, backed by those barbarians. The exiled nobles probably were descended from the Kerkyraeans sent out to run the colony in the first place. It’s a bit much to throw these people out and then ask for help keeping them out.

But Korinth was willing to help out if only to poke a sharp stick in Kerkyraean eyes. The consequence in section 26 was predictable, and the Korinthians had to form a coalition of a number of polises to feel they could stand off the Kerkyraeans who fought alone and won.

At the end of subsection 5 the Korinthians make another claim that they fail to back up with examples.

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