21st Century Classical Greek -- who do the Korinthians think they are?

Book I section 43.

ἡμεῖς δὲ περιπεπτωκότες οἷς ἐν τῇ Λακεδαίμονι αὐτοὶ προείπομεν, τοὺς σφετέρους ξυμμάχους αὐτόν τινα κολάζειν, νῦν παρ᾽ ὑμῶν τὸ αὐτὸ ἀξιοῦμεν κομίζεσθαι, καὶ μὴ τῇ ἡμετέρᾳ ψήφῳ ὠφεληθέντας τῇ ὑμετέρᾳ ἡμᾶς βλάψαι.

[2] τὸ δὲ ἴσον ἀνταπόδοτε, γνόντες τοῦτον ἐκεῖνον εἶναι τὸν καιρὸν ἐν ᾧ ὅ τε ὑπουργῶν φίλος μάλιστα καὶ ὁ ἀντιστὰς ἐχθρός.

[3] καὶ Κερκυραίους τούσδε μήτε ξυμμάχους δέχεσθε βίᾳ ἡμῶν μήτε ἀμύνετε αὐτοῖς ἀδικοῦσιν.

[4] καὶ τάδε ποιοῦντες τὰ προσήκοντά τε δράσετε καὶ τὰ ἄριστα βουλεύσεσθε ὑμῖν αὐτοῖς.’.

Kolazein is one of those “due and owing” uses of the impersonal gerundive. Notice that there’s no particle for a purpose clause. The point is, not the purpose for which the Korinthians spoke, but the appropriateness of kolazein under certain circumstances. The Korinthians want those circumstances to apply now, but they didn’t have the Kerkyraean situation specifically in mind when they spoke back then.

As usual, Jowett turns the end of this subsection upside down. From kai mi on, Thucydides says “and not being helped by our vote, by yours we will be wounded.” The instrumental case used here has the -ois case of an inanimate agent.

Blapsai is another multi-assignment word. It’s imperfective eventive, but is it an i.g. or an epistemic? Well, as an i.g. it would again mean “due and owing” because this is not a purpose clause. As an epistemic, it falls in line with other uses of that form by the Korinthians. They not only don’t want to sign up to the truth of being harmed, they argue to keep it from happening.

But on the other hand, if blapsai is conjugated, it’s conjugated in the singular, and the pronoun is plural. So we have to go with i.g.; the Korinthians regard this harm as the due outcome of the  Athinaians not voting with them.

Antapodote is an imperative. What does it order? An action. But it’s an “aorist” and the only way you could consider this as a past tense is because it’s in Thucydides’ past. As reported speech, this ought to use the same “tense” as the original speech, but for the Korinthians to issue an imperative using a past tense in this situation is nonsense. Under an aspectual definition of verb forms, the imperfective eventive is the default verb form and you have to have special reasons for using a progressive or perfective.

Dekhesthe may be an imperative but it is progressive. That means it has a special nuance. Progressive means a situation, and it is negated. The Korinthians are saying don’t get into this situation. Now notice that the same argument against the eventive applies here as it did relative to the aorist: no grammarian of a tense system would seriously argue that the Korinthians told the Athinaians to avoid a past action, which this form would be if we called it imperfect tense.

The next verb, amunete, is the same thing, with the addition of a possible imperfective conceptual oblique. I think we can forget about it being oblique, in the interests of parallelism.

I’m going with progressive imperatives for getting into a situation, negated.

Now, remember, if you issue an imperative, it ought to be due to having authority over somebody. How is it that the Korinthians feel they can give orders to Athins? Is it just because they have a treaty? In fact, as we just saw, the treaty allows voting on what treaty members do. So this is pretty overbearing and supports the Kerkyraeans’ claim of ill treatment by the Korinthians.

Do the Athinaians consider the Korinthian vote (discussed in section 41) as a favor in return for which favors are due now? The Korinthians do. Or at least, they do now that they want something. I once had a millennial get mad at me because she gave me the chance to do her a favor (her expression) and I didn’t take her up on it. I don’t trade in favors anyway, and it was one of several signs that she and I had different ethical systems. So how different are the ethical systems of Athins and Korinth?

There are two seeming proverbs in this section. The question is, do all the city states have the same set of proverbs? If not, then the Korinthians are wasting their breath to quote proverbs instead of providing facts.

And they are dishing out orders right and left to an ally but not a subordinate, somebody at least equal to Korinth in naval power, and with a prospect of doubling that power whichever way Athins jumps. Ultimata are signs of weakness.