21st Century Classical Greek -- the Korinthians go on and on...

Book I section 39.

‘καὶ φασὶ δὴ δίκῃ πρότερον ἐθελῆσαι κρίνεσθαι, ἥν γε οὐ τὸν προύχοντα καὶ ἐκ τοῦ ἀσφαλοῦς προκαλούμενον λέγειν τι δοκεῖν δεῖ, ἀλλὰ τὸν ἐς ἴσον τά τε ἔργα ὁμοίως καὶ τοὺς λόγους πρὶν διαγωνίζεσθαι καθιστάντα.

[2] οὗτοι δὲ οὐ πρὶν πολιορκεῖν τὸ χωρίον, ἀλλ᾽ ἐπειδὴ ἡγήσαντο ἡμᾶς οὐ περιόψεσθαι, τότε καὶ τὸ εὐπρεπὲς τῆς δίκης παρέσχοντο. καὶ δεῦρο ἥκουσιν οὐ τἀκεῖ μόνον αὐτοὶ ἁμαρτόντες, ἀλλὰ καὶ ὑμᾶς νῦν ἀξιοῦντες οὐ ξυμμαχεῖν, ἀλλὰ ξυναδικεῖν καὶ διαφόρους ὄντας ἡμῖν δέχεσθαι σφᾶς:

[3] οὓς χρῆν, ὅτε ἀσφαλέστατοι ἦσαν, τότε προσιέναι, καὶ μὴ ἐν ᾧ ἡμεῖς μὲν ἠδικήμεθα, οὗτοι δὲ κινδυνεύουσι, μηδ᾽ ἐν ᾧ ὑμεῖς τῆς τε δυνάμεως αὐτῶν τότε οὐ μεταλαβόντες τῆς ὠφελίας νῦν μεταδώσετε καὶ τῶν ἁμαρτημάτων ἀπογενόμενοι τῆς ἀφ᾽ ἡμῶν αἰτίας τὸ ἴσον ἕξετε, πάλαι δὲ κοινώσαντας τὴν δύναμιν κοινὰ καὶ τὰ ἀποβαίνοντα ἔχειν..

Subsection 1 is complicated.

‘καὶ φασὶ δὴ δίκῃ πρότερον ἐθελῆσαι κρίνεσθαι,

            The word tool wants ethelisai to be an impersonal gerundive in executive voice, indicative modality, meaning that while the Korinthians are not being definite about what the Kerkyraeans said, the Korinthians are subscribing to the truth of what the Kerkyraeans said. This is the opposite of what section 38 said: the Korinthians would not sign up to the truth of why the Kerkyraeans were sent out to Epidamnos. However, the number of this verb is wrong if it’s an epistemic. We would have to find an example of Thucydides using fasi plus a singular conjugated verb for a collective noun subject. While we have that in Biblical Hebrew, I haven’t noticed it in Classical Greek.

ἥν γε οὐ τὸν προύχοντα καὶ ἐκ τοῦ ἀσφαλοῦς προκαλούμενον λέγειν τι δοκεῖν δεῖ,

            “which…somebody ought to expect to say”, under specific circumstances. Those circumstances are not when “a pretext is proposed from a position of safety”,  

ἀλλὰ τὸν ἐς ἴσον τά τε ἔργα ὁμοίως καὶ τοὺς λόγους πρὶν διαγωνίζεσθαι καθιστάντα.

            “…but for the sake of fairness offered words before picking up arms.”

In fact this is Freudian projection. The Korinthians did not notify the Kerkyraeans of what they were going to do but acted first. Now they have been soundly beaten and pretend that their multi-polis fleet was unfairly beaten.

Subsection 2 is similar, “these, not before starting a siege, but after we acted [so as] not to let it go on”, offered to arbitrate.

Subsection 3 has a nonsensical statement. Look at a map. Kerkyraea is now called Corfu, and it is well north and on the opposite side of the Peloponnese from Athins, whose colony of Ionia is to their east, within easy reach of their large navy. Epidamnus is north of Corfu in what is now Albania. Why would Kerkyraea bother Athins about Epidamnus? Why, with a history of having no alliances, would it share power with Athins? What would Korinth have done if such a thing had happened, sit on their thumbs? Not very likely.

And finally, the Korinthians having been soundly whipped, why do they claim that Kerkyraea is in danger? This is bad policy. The Kerkyraeans have just shown Athins that if Korinth gets control of Kerkyraea’s navy, they will have the power to destroy Athins. The Korinthians are actually underlining that they believe they can beat Athins anyway even if its navy is as big as that of Kerkyraea, and will do so after trumping up a reason.

Korinth has one more mistake to make, relative to the actual treaty. What do they say?

Mendel Beilis -- a contemporary document

I found this posted on the Online Books page this morning; it went online last night. You can read it online; if you belong to Hathi Trust member organizations you can print and download it. I'd love to have a download but I don't want to jeopardize your membership or privileges.

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nnc1.cr60954140&view=1up&seq=6

Rabbi Harry Mayer published this in 1913, just after the trial ended. One of the first things in it is a detailed history of the 1840 Damascus case that Pranaitis referred to on Day 28 (IIRC). 

Notice that the first two cases are not ritual murder in the sense that was used at the Beilis trial. The first two cases involved adults, not children.

The German work that Rabbi Mayer has is probably Johann Eisenmenger's work, which Justinas Pranaitis copied for his thesis (rejected by the Russian diocese of the Catholic church). Pranaitis came from a German-speaking part of Lithuania. It was proven at trial that he never learned any of what Eisenmenger said; the prosecution had to ask leading questions and sometimes Pranaitis even answered those wrong. 

http://pajheil.blogspot.com/2016/12/fact-checking-torah-sources.html

My take on the trial is here. There are short items about it as well as a translation of the transcript.

https://pajheil.blogspot.com/p/mendel-beilis.html

Now for a final chilling note. The current "adenochrome" conspiracy theory about the COVID vaccine is the same wording as the blood libel -- torturing children to obtain something from them. The people promoting this conspiracy theory -- like Qanon and possibly OANN before it deleted the article -- are fronts for Putin outside Russia. Government officials are promoting the lie. 

https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-qanon-became-obsessed-with-adrenochrome-an-imaginary-drug-hollywood-is-harvesting-from-kids?source=articles&via=rss

We know how this works. It only takes a few shifts in wording, and Putin is now attacking the Jews, something he has held off on because, worshipper of Hitler that he is, he knows Hitler should have won the war before wasting so much of his logistics material on genocide. Yet Putin is waging genocide and committing crimes against humanity in Ukraine -- site of the Beilis trial and the Babi Yar massacre -- and he is getting dumped keyn ahora. 

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.

]

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.

21st Century Classical Greek -- imperatives

Book I section 36. And the hammer blow to the argument.

‘καὶ ὅτῳ τάδε ξυμφέροντα μὲν δοκεῖ λέγεσθαι, φοβεῖται δὲ μὴ δι᾽ αὐτὰ πειθόμενος τὰς σπονδὰς λύσῃ, γνώτω τὸ μὲν δεδιὸς αὐτοῦ ἰσχὺν ἔχον τοὺς ἐναντίους μᾶλλον φοβῆσον, τὸ δὲ θαρσοῦν μὴ δεξαμένου ἀσθενὲς ὂν πρὸς ἰσχύοντας τοὺς ἐχθροὺς ἀδεέστερον ἐσόμενον, καὶ ἅμα οὐ περὶ τῆς Κερκύρας νῦν τὸ πλέον ἢ καὶ τῶν Ἀθηνῶν βουλευόμενος, καὶ οὐ τὰ κράτιστα αὐταῖς προνοῶν, ὅταν ἐς τὸν μέλλοντα καὶ ὅσον οὐ παρόντα πόλεμον τὸ αὐτίκα περισκοπῶν ἐνδοιάζῃ χωρίον προσλαβεῖν ὃ μετὰ μεγίστων καιρῶν οἰκειοῦταί τε καὶ πολεμοῦται.

[2] τῆς τε γὰρ Ἰταλίας καὶ Σικελίας καλῶς παράπλου κεῖται, ὥστε μήτε ἐκεῖθεν ναυτικὸν ἐᾶσαι Πελοποννησίοις ἐπελθεῖν τό τε ἐνθένδε πρὸς τἀκεῖ παραπέμψαι, καὶ ἐς τἆλλα ξυμφορώτατόν ἐστιν.

[3] βραχυτάτῳ δ᾽ ἂν κεφαλαίῳ, τοῖς τε ξύμπασι καὶ καθ᾽ ἕκαστον, τῷδ᾽ ἂν μὴ προέσθαι ἡμᾶς μάθοιτε: τρία μὲν ὄντα λόγου ἄξια τοῖς Ἕλλησι ναυτικά, τὸ παρ᾽ ὑμῖν καὶ τὸ ἡμέτερον καὶ τὸ Κορινθίων: τούτων δὲ εἰ περιόψεσθε τὰ δύο ἐς ταὐτὸν ἐλθεῖν καὶ Κορίνθιοι ἡμᾶς προκαταλήψονται, Κερκυραίοις τε καὶ Πελοποννησίοις ἅμα ναυμαχήσετε, δεξάμενοι δὲ ἡμᾶς ἕξετε πρὸς αὐτοὺς πλείοσι ναυσὶ ταῖς ἡμετέραις ἀγωνίζεσθαι.’

[4] τοιαῦτα μὲν οἱ Κερκυραῖοι εἶπον: οἱ δὲ Κορίνθιοι μετ᾽ αὐτοὺς τοιάδε.

Gnoto is our first imperative and, as we might expect, it uses the all-purpose imperfective eventive.  This is for an event that is supposed to happen right now, if the audience accepts the speaker’s authority. This is different from how imperatives work in Biblical Hebrew. They are a test of whether the speaker has authority at all. If not, the imperative is never carried out.

I’m going over subsection 1 in detail because it’s pretty involved.

‘καὶ ὅτῳ τάδε ξυμφέροντα μὲν δοκεῖ λέγεσθαι,	to whoever says he thinks this is expediency,
φοβεῖται δὲ μὴ δι᾽ αὐτὰ πειθόμενος τὰς σπονδὰς λύσῃ,	yet fears lest by this means we convince him to [take steps] to possibly violate the treaty
γνώτω	know this
τὸ μὲν δεδιὸς αὐτοῦ ἰσχὺν ἔχον τοὺς ἐναντίους μᾶλλον φοβῆσον,	given – having strength – to the enemy fears [fears given to the enemy when you have strength]
τὸ δὲ θαρσοῦν μὴ δεξαμένου	[to the end of] making bold not to ally with us
ἀσθενὲς ὂν πρὸς ἰσχύοντας	is weak in relation to the strong
τοὺς ἐχθροὺς ἀδεέστερον ἐσόμενον,	the enemy being caused no fear,
καὶ ἅμα οὐ περὶ τῆς Κερκύρας νῦν τὸ πλέον ἢ καὶ τῶν Ἀθηνῶν βουλευόμενος,	and at the same time not of the Kerkyraeans now more than of the Athinaians thinking
καὶ οὐ τὰ κράτιστα αὐταῖς προνοῶν,	nor of his own greatest concerns,
ὅταν ἐς τὸν μέλλοντα	whenever what is about to happen
καὶ ὅσον οὐ παρόντα πόλεμον	or the war that has not yet occurred
τὸ αὐτίκα περισκοπῶν ἐνδοιάζῃ	but is imminent, carefully considering does he hesitate
χωρίον προσλαβεῖν ὃ μετὰ μεγίστων καιρῶν	to take a land as partner that in the greatest measure
οἰκειοῦταί τε καὶ πολεμοῦται.	can be made either friend or enemy.

In other words strong people who hesitate to become stronger yet by an alliance with a strong partner, because they fear their enemy, do not frighten the enemy from starting a war.

Subsection 3 has the really important point. A, B, and C are equal in strength and none of them are allied to each other. If A lets C take B over, C has all of B’s resources to use against A. Whereas if A allies with B, they can easily defeat C. Up to now Korinth has had to spend money to hire Athinaians. If they can’t do that any more, which the Kerkyraeans urged in section 35, they need to take Kerkyraea over to stand off Athins. It’s in Athins’ best interests to make sure that doesn’t happen either, but if they let a little old treaty stand in their way – which Korinth will not – it’s over.