21st Century Classical Greek -- an Anatolian remnant?

Book I sections 47-49.These sections have some vocabulary you’ll need for the rest of the work.  In these sections the war between the Korinthians and the allied Kerkyraeans and Athinaians starts.

προσπλέοντας from πλέω, which you should learn since there are lots of sea battles ahead.

ἐστρατοπεδεύσαντο from στρατοπεδεύω, make camp

πεζὸς foot soldiers

ὁπλῖται, ὁπλίτης, heavy troopers. “Hoplites”

βεβοηθηκότες and παραβεβοηθηκότες from βοηθέω, assist, help

ναυμαχία is a sea battle

ἀντιπαρετάσσοντο from τάσσω which conjugates like prasso. Source of words like tactics, taxonomy.

δεξιὸν “right side”

κέρας literally horn (“rhinoceros”, nose horn), but wing as a part of a military formation

μέσον “middle”, in military terms, “center”

εὐώνυμος literally “of a good name”, euphemism for left side

σημεία, identifying flag. Apparently nobody knew which side other ships fought on until these were raised.

κατάστρωμα deck of a ship

τοξότης archer

ἀκοντιστής javelin thrower

In section 47.1, we have this phrase:

…ὧν ἦρχε Μικιάδης καὶ Αἰσιμίδης καὶ Εὐρύβατος,…

There are three people leading the force, but irkhe is singular and it is executive voice, not passive or ergative. This may be a parallel to Biblical Hebrew. If you know BH, then you know that from Exodus on, a number of verses start with a singular verb and then mosheh v’aharon, Mosheh and Aharon. These are verbal sentences; they always start with a singular verb, even when they have a compound subject. The same thing happens in Arabic. This might be an Anatolian thing but so far I can’t find anything on line that says Hurrian worked this way.

In section 49.1 we have this phrase:

… τῷ παλαιῷ τρόπῳ…

It’s the -ois case. This phrase is an adverb of manner, “the ancient manner” specifically, which Thucydides says is more like a land battle fought on the decks of a ship, with the ship moving the soldiers into place. This argues against the trireme as a “guided missile” which has its greatest effect as a ram against other ships. That tactic may have developed later in the war, we’ll know when we get to it.

Section 49.3 has epistemics.  Identify them and remember what they mean: though I have defined conjugated verbs as definite, it is not possible to use a gerundive in the epistemic. You can’t be less than definite in the epistemic (or oblique), the modality itself backs off of making a direct statement. In this case, Thucydides is refusing to say that any specific ship charged another; the story he got back says that the mass of ships prevented easy maneuvering. The same is true of diekploi.

Section 49.7 reads:

οἱ δὲ Ἀθηναῖοι ὁρῶντες τοὺς Κερκυραίους πιεζομένους μᾶλλον ἤδη ἀπροφασίστως ἐπεκούρουν, τὸ μὲν πρῶτον ἀπεχόμενοι ὥστε μὴ ἐμβάλλειν τινί: ἐπειδὴ δὲ ἡ τροπὴ ἐγίγνετο λαμπρῶς καὶ ἐνέκειντο οἱ Κορίνθιοι, τότε δὴ ἔργου πᾶς εἴχετο ἤδη καὶ διεκέκριτο οὐδὲν ἔτι, ἀλλὰ ξυνέπεσεν ἐς τοῦτο ἀνάγκης ὥστε ἐπιχειρῆσαι ἀλλήλοις τοὺς Κορινθίους καὶ Ἀθηναίους.

This is a perfective eventive, negated (in base voice). So far, the Athinaians have held aloof but they acted to end that when things started going bad for the Kerkyraeans. Jowett’s translation of this subsection is as bad as anything he did.