ὁ Οἰκονομικὸς τοῦ Ξενοφῶντος (ἀναγιγνώσκωμεν)

Discussion of Greek texts that do not fall into the other categories, including texts in other dialects or texts from other periods.
Forum rules
This is not a beginner's forum, competence in Greek is assumed.
Post Reply
Stephen Hughes
Posts: 3323
Joined: February 26th, 2013, 7:12 am

ὁ Οἰκονομικὸς τοῦ Ξενοφῶντος (ἀναγιγνώσκωμεν)

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Εἰσαγωγή
Xenophon's Oeconomicus is a lesser read work of social and historical importance written in good, yet simple, Attic Greek. It was written shortly before the Koine period in Attic by the Athenian historian and professional soldier Xenophon. It is a work about economics (which at that time meant managing one's household) and agriculture written in the form of a Socratic dialogue.

The text of Xenophon's Oeconomicus is available on perseus. If you get really stuck for a form, you can click on it there. There is also an English translation of you are absolutely stuck for the sense. The text is also available as a wiki source text.

Xenophon's work is one of the stock standard choices for first (or second) year students of classical Greek due to it's simplicity of style and regular grammar. Traditionally the text read is Xenophon's Anabasis (The Persian Expedition) - a story of war and military exploits - serving the same role that Caesar's Gallic Wars does in a Latin cirriculum. While that might be entirely suitable for Victorian era school boys, perhaps (in view of the fact that much of the material in the NT Epistles and in the fathers is about social and family relations) household management and a commentary on Athenian society in the late-4th century might be more interesting in this B-Greek context.

This dialogue has been divided into 21 chapters, and each chapter has a number of sections (verses). I plan to post post one section at a time, except where the sense requires that two or more sections be taken together. I think it might be better to plod along at the rate of a dray horse rather than canter like a show pony. If we finish, well and good, if we do not, we will have enjoyed our journey none the less - the νόστιμον ἦμαρ is quite rightly the goal of our journey, but there are still so many things to enjoy along the way, so reading a text is so much more than getting to the end it's who we become, and who we find ourselves to be along the way.

Many of the syntactic constructions that we are (or want to become) familiar with in the New Testament are also found in this work, and the vocabulary doesn't look too onerous. If anyone is willing to put in the time to learn and read together with me either consistently or from time to time, I'm sure that that will be better all that want to follow this thread.- either in their armchairs or at their study desks.
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Stephen Hughes
Posts: 3323
Joined: February 26th, 2013, 7:12 am

Re: ὁ Οἰκονομικὸς τοῦ Ξενοφῶντος (ἀναγιγνώσκωμεν)

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Index of the Sections
Here is an index to the sections of the first six chapters of Xenophon's Oeconomicus.

Chapter One
{1}, {2}, {3}, {4}, {5}, {6}, {7}, {8}, {9}, {10}, {11}, {12}, {13}, {14 & 15}, {16}, {17}, {18}, {19}, {20}, {21}, {22}, {23}

Chapter Two
{1}, {2}, {3}, {4}, {5}, {6}, {7}, {8}, {9}, {10}, {11}, {12}, {13}, {14}, {15}, {16}, {17}, {18}

Chapter Three
{1}, {2}, {3}, {4}, {5}, {6}, {7}, {8}, {9}, {10}, {11}, {12}, {13}, {14}, {15}, {16}

Chapter Four
{1}, {2}, {3}, {4}, {5}, {6}, {7}, {8}, {9}, {10}, {11}, {12}, {13}, {14}, {15}, {16}, {17}, {18}, {19}, {20}, {21}, {22}, {23}, {24}, {25}

Chapter Five
{1}, {2}, {3}, {4}, {5}, {6}, {7}, {8}, {9}, {10}, {11}, {12}, {13}, {14}, {15}, {16}, {17}, {18}, {19}, {20}

Chapter Six
{1}, {2}, {3}, {4}, {5}, {6}, {7}, {8}, {9}, {10}, {11}, {12}, {13}, {14}, {15}, {16}, {17}[/quote]
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Stephen Hughes
Posts: 3323
Joined: February 26th, 2013, 7:12 am

Re: ὁ Οἰκονομικὸς τοῦ Ξενοφῶντος (ἀναγιγνώσκωμεν)

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Subject headings and sub-suject headings
As a point of administration, let me mention that for some technical reasons, Jonathan has suggested that the subject heading be better left unchanged throughout a thread.

In a big thread, (if this becomes one) there will be need for some marking of the individual posts. In order to both have an individual subject for each post when necessay, and to not change the subject of the posts throughout the thread, I will write sub-subjects at the beginning of my posts.

There are no forum requirements, rules or guidelines about this, but if others would like to do that too, it is done by highlighting the sub-subject at the beginning of the body of the thread, changing the text-size from "Normal" to "Large" and changing the font colour from black (top-left corner) to the colour in the square 1 up from the bottom, and 1 in from the right (BF0040, RGB = ¾ red + ¼ blue).
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Stephen Hughes
Posts: 3323
Joined: February 26th, 2013, 7:12 am

Re: ὁ Οἰκονομικὸς τοῦ Ξενοφῶντος (ἀναγιγνώσκωμεν)

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Chapter 1, section 1 - Text and hints

The work begins with a simple introduction:
Xenophon, Economics 1.1 wrote:ἤκουσα δέ ποτε αὐτοῦ καὶ περὶ οἰκονομίας τοιάδε διαλεγομένου: εἰπέ μοι, ἔφη, ὦ Κριτόβουλε, ἆρά γε ἡ οἰκονομία ἐπιστήμης τινὸς ὄνομά ἐστιν, ὥσπερ ἡ ἰατρικὴ καὶ ἡ χαλκευτικὴ καὶ ἡ τεκτονική; ἔμοιγε δοκεῖ, ἔφη ὁ Κριτόβουλος.
Hints (Look at these if you need to)
  • αὐτοῦ - (τοῦ) Σωκράτους
  • τοιόσδε τοιάδε τοιόνδε - such as this. The word is only used once in the NT at 2 Peter 1:17 Λαβὼν γὰρ παρὰ θεοῦ πατρὸς τιμὴν καὶ δόξαν, φωνῆς ἐνεχθείσης αὐτῷ τοιᾶσδε ὑπὸ τῆς μεγαλοπρεποῦς δόξης, Οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ υἱός μου ὁ ἀγαπητός, εἰς ὃν ἐγὼ εὐδόκησα· ("in such a wise" or "as follows") (ἐνεχθείσης< φέρειν (VI principal part)).
  • διαλεγομένου - (genitive after ἀκούω) agreeing with αὐτοῦ i.e. Σωκράτους - διαλεγόμενος is common in the Acts to refer to Paul's reasoning with the Jews as διαλεγόμενος, e.g. Acts 19:8 Εἰσελθὼν δὲ εἰς τὴν συναγωγὴν ἐπαρρησιάζετο, ἐπὶ μῆνας τρεῖς διαλεγόμενος καὶ πείθων τὰ περὶ τῆς βασιλείας τοῦ θεοῦ. Hellenistic modes of reasoning between individuals were presumably (an educated presumption, not a wishful one) based on the models that had been taught to the Macedonians and used by the Greeks in their homeland and throughout diaspora (colonies, mercenaries, traders and settlers), who then Hellenised great parts of the then known world. (Paul was in Corinth (Greece) at Acts 19:8.)
  • ἐπιστήμη - one of the branches of knowledge (sciences in the old sense of the word) / fields of study.
  • ὥσπερ - this is picked up by a οὕτω καὶ in section 2
  • χαλκευτική - metal working
  • τεκτονική - the carpenter or builder's art (for a fuller list of trades, they could be extracted from this search with a little patience if someone were interested to do so.)
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Wes Wood
Posts: 692
Joined: September 20th, 2013, 8:18 pm

Re: ὁ Οἰκονομικὸς τοῦ Ξενοφῶντος (ἀναγιγνώσκωμεν)

Post by Wes Wood »

Chapter 1, section 1

But I formerly heard him reasoning about stewardship like this. “Tell me,” he was saying, “O, Kritobulus, whether stewardship is the name of a certain branch of knowledge, just as medicine, smithing, and carpentry are?
“It seems so to me,” Kritobulus was saying.
Ἀσπάζομαι μὲν καὶ φιλῶ, πείσομαι δὲ μᾶλλον τῷ θεῷ ἢ ὑμῖν.-Ἀπολογία Σωκράτους 29δ
Stephen Hughes
Posts: 3323
Joined: February 26th, 2013, 7:12 am

Re: ὁ Οἰκονομικὸς τοῦ Ξενοφῶντος (ἀναγιγνώσκωμεν)

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Chapter 1, section 1 - Feedback for Wes Wood
Wes Wood wrote:But I formerly heard him reasoning about stewardship like this. “Tell me,” he was saying, “O, Kritobulus, whether stewardship is the name of a certain branch of knowledge, just as medicine, smithing, and carpentry are?
“It seems so to me,” Kritobulus was saying.
Good!

This type of reasoning where the philosopher's dialoguing partner agrees point by point is typical - an argument is not laid out first in full for complete consideration.

Some time in the twentieth century, there was a reaction against the Latin form of names derived from Greek, in favour of a transliteration of the Greek letters. For the name Κριτόβουλος, the Latin form would be Critobulus and the form transliterated directly from Greek as Kritoboulos. He is mentioned in this Wiki article about his father Crito of Alopece (Κρίτων Άλωπεκῆθεν) (N.B. Άλωπεκή is the name of one of the ancient demes (δῆμος in its classical rather than NT sense) of Athens from which Socrates came, and the -θεν means "from". It is not directly related to ἀλωπεκία "fox-mange" "hair-loss" as a medical condition rather than the regular φαλακρόομαι, which leads to a person being φαλακρός "bald (on the crown)", (ἀλωπεκία became Latin alopecia "hair-loss". The usual adjectives; areata, totalis and universalis are all Latin not Greek).
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Stephen Hughes
Posts: 3323
Joined: February 26th, 2013, 7:12 am

Re: ὁ Οἰκονομικὸς τοῦ Ξενοφῶντος (ἀναγιγνώσκωμεν)

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Chapter 1, section 2 - Text and hints

There are a lot of genitives here, take it easy with them, rather than jumping to first conclusions:
Xenophon, Economics 1.2 wrote:ἦ καὶ ὥσπερ τούτων τῶν τεχνῶν ἔχοιμεν ἂν εἰπεῖν ὅ τι ἔργον ἑκάστης, οὕτω καὶ τῆς οἰκονομίας δυναίμεθ᾽ ἂν εἰπεῖν ὅ τι ἔργον αὐτῆς ἐστι; δοκεῖ γοῦν, ἔφη ὁ Κριτόβουλος, οἰκονόμου ἀγαθοῦ εἶναι εὖ οἰκεῖν τὸν ἑαυτοῦ οἶκον.
Hints (Look at these if you need to)
  • Optative mood + ἂν - sounds hypothetical
  • - marks the beginning of a question "Is it also that.. ?" would be one way to take it.
  • ὅ τι - perhaps you are used to ὅ,τι.
  • οἰκόνομος - the person, whose wife is referred to as οἰκονόμισσα. .
  • οἰκονόμου ἀγαθοῦ - an accusative is to understood here, the undertaking / makings (of a good steward) might be a way to render it.
  • οἰκεῖν - LSJ A.2 manage, direct a household or a state, (rather than inhabit)
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Stephen Hughes
Posts: 3323
Joined: February 26th, 2013, 7:12 am

Re: ὁ Οἰκονομικὸς τοῦ Ξενοφῶντος (ἀναγιγνώσκωμεν)

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Xenophon, Oeconomicus Chapter 1, section 3 - Text and hints

There shouldn't be any surprises here:
Xenophon, Economics 1.3 wrote:ἦ καὶ τὸν ἄλλου δὲ οἶκον, ἔφη ὁ Σωκράτης, εἰ ἐπιτρέποι τις αὐτῷ, οὐκ ἂν δύναιτο, εἰ βούλοιτο, εὖ οἰκεῖν, ὥσπερ καὶ τὸν ἑαυτοῦ; ὁ μὲν γὰρ τεκτονικὴν ἐπιστάμενος ὁμοίως ἂν καὶ ἄλλῳ δύναιτο ἐργάζεσθαι ὅ τι περ καὶ ἑαυτῷ, καὶ ὁ οἰκονομικός γ᾽ ἂν ὡσαύτως. ἔμοιγε δοκεῖ, ὦ Σώκρατες.
Hints (Look at these if you need to)
  • οἶκος - outside of an urban environment, this could refer to a landed estate.
  • - marks the beginning of a question "Is it also that.. ?" would be one way to take it.
  • ἐπιτρέποι - optative.
  • ὁ μὲν γὰρ... - the beginning of Critobulus' reply.
  • ὁμοίως / ὡσαύτως - similarly (adv.) / likewise (adv.) - these are closer to each other in English translation than they are to each other in Greek. The first (ὁμοίως) relates two things - here doing work in the same way for himself or another, while the second (ὡσαύτως) relates two sentences in that it can bring the whole structure of what has just been said about one thing to bear on what should be said about another thing - here the ὁ ... τεκτονικὴν ἐπιστάμενος "The one who has studied carpentry and building ... (does such and so).", "ὡσαύτως and the same could be said of ..." ὁ οἰκονομικός "the estate (or household) manager".
    Matthew 22:26 wrote:Ὁμοίως καὶ ὁ δεύτερος, καὶ ὁ τρίτος, ἕως τῶν ἑπτά.
    means that all the brothers (the people in the story) tried their hand at raising up offspring (actually something other than their hand :roll: ). [quote="Luke 6:31]Καὶ καθὼς θέλετε ἵνα ποιῶσιν ὑμῖν οἱ ἄνθρωποι, καὶ ὑμεῖς ποιεῖτε αὐτοῖς ὁμοίως.[/quote]The same action that others will do.
    James 2:25 wrote:Ὁμοίως δὲ καὶ Ῥαὰβ ἡ πόρνη οὐκ ἐξ ἔργων ἐδικαιώθη, ὑποδεξαμένη τοὺς ἀγγέλους (messengers), καὶ ἑτέρᾳ ὁδῷ ἐκβαλοῦσα;
    The action of the same kind happens within the "story" (our attention is that we see the characters copying or being similar to each other). It is not ὡσαύτως, but if it was, it would refer to the situation in a different way. For ὡσαύτως, we as readers or listeners are asked to apply our thinking to the situation.
    Matthew 12:21 wrote:καὶ ὁ δεύτερος ἔλαβεν αὐτήν, καὶ ἀπέθανεν, καὶ οὐδὲ αὐτὸς ἀφῆκεν σπέρμα· καὶ ὁ τρίτος ὡσαύτως.
    Okay so, for ὁ τρίτος ὡσαύτως we think ὁ τρίτος ἔλαβεν αὐτήν, καὶ ἀπέθανεν, καὶ οὐδὲ αὐτὸς ἀφῆκεν σπέρμα. Something like the ditto, that SC is more fond than anyone else on this forum of using in his writing.
    Romans 8:26 wrote:Ὡσαύτως δὲ καὶ τὸ πνεῦμα συναντιλαμβάνεται ταῖς ἀσθενείαις ἡμῶν·
    The (Holy) Spirit doesn't copy our actions in His helping us, but it is being suggested that we as readers / listeners can apply our understanding of what we just heard in the previous verse (or previous 3 verses) to understand the help. Bringing that back to this passage here... it probably seems obvious to you now that the ὁμοίως means the same tradesman can do a job of similar quality for another, and that the Ὡσαύτως means that he is not going to spell it all out. [Οὕτως is not under consideration here, but it could be.]
  • ἐργάζεσθαι - do a job, accomplish something.
Sorry about the extended note on ὁμοίως / ὡσαύτως.
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Wes Wood
Posts: 692
Joined: September 20th, 2013, 8:18 pm

Re: ὁ Οἰκονομικὸς τοῦ Ξενοφῶντος (ἀναγιγνώσκωμεν)

Post by Wes Wood »

Chapter 1, section 2


“May it be that, just as we would have something to say about what the work of each of these trades is, we also want to be able to say something about what the work of a steward is?”

“At least it seems.” Kritoboulos was saying, “that good stewardship is to manage your own house well.”
Stephen Hughes wrote: Optative mood + ἂν - sounds hypothetical
Thanks especially for this. The optative stills troubles me.
Stephen Hughes wrote: ὅ τι - perhaps you are used to ὅ,τι.
I cannot say that I am "familiar" with any use of τις. I don't feel like I have a reliable way of dealing with it in a text. This, as I have mentioned before, is especially true with questions.
Ἀσπάζομαι μὲν καὶ φιλῶ, πείσομαι δὲ μᾶλλον τῷ θεῷ ἢ ὑμῖν.-Ἀπολογία Σωκράτους 29δ
Stephen Hughes
Posts: 3323
Joined: February 26th, 2013, 7:12 am

Re: ὁ Οἰκονομικὸς τοῦ Ξενοφῶντος (ἀναγιγνώσκωμεν)

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Xenophon, Oeconomicus Chapter 1, section 2 - Feedback for Wes Wood
Xenophon, Economics 1.2 wrote:*ἦ* καὶ ὥσπερ ***τούτων τῶν τεχνῶν*** ἔχοιμεν ἂν εἰπεῖν ὅ τι **ἔργον** ***ἑκάστης***, οὕτω καὶ τῆς οἰκονομίας δυναίμεθ᾽ ἂν εἰπεῖν ὅ τι **ἔργον** αὐτῆς ἐστι; δοκεῖ γοῦν, ἔφη ὁ Κριτόβουλος, *^οἰκονόμου ἀγαθοῦ*^ εἶναι εὖ οἰκεῖν τὸν ἑαυτοῦ οἶκον.
Wes Wood wrote:“*May it be that*, just as we would have something to say about what the **work** of each of these trades is, we also want to be able to say something about what the **work** of a steward is?

“At least it seems.” Kritoboulos was saying, “that *^good stewardship*^ is to manage your own house well.”
I don't think that the word order in English makes it clear that you are writing a question here. Addditionally, you could consider these points...
  • * ἦ - Are you somehow taking ἦ as subjunctive? The accent is the spiritus asper, not a lenis.
    ** ἔργον LSJ IV.1.a Perhaps you could go beyond a one word equivalence here.
    *** τούτων τῶν τεχνῶν ... ἑκάστης - each of those (three) trades in turn - referring to those in the previous section
    *^ οἰκονόμου ἀγαθοῦ (ἔργον) - "good stewardship", are you understanding and paraphrasing this or guessing?
Wes Wood wrote:
Stephen Hughes wrote:Optative mood + ἂν - sounds hypothetical
Thanks especially for this. The optative stills troubles me.
I personally feel that the "help" that you are thanking me for is too simplistic to be of much use. I am an (grammatical) experientialist more than a theorist, so the general plan is to see the optative in practice, then later to test your own experience / explain in theoretical terms what you are already familiar with from reading. If you prefer a different learning path, then perhaps you would like to read Smyth on the optative with ἄν, remembering that this use here is within the context of a question.
Wes Wood wrote:
Stephen Hughes wrote:ὅ τι - perhaps you are used to ὅ,τι.
I cannot say that I am "familiar" with any use of τις. I don't feel like I have a reliable way of dealing with it in a text. This, as I have mentioned before, is especially true with questions.
I assume you are, but let me ask anyway... Are you aware that there are two words written τις rather than one? (Is the computer plugged into the wall?) Anyway, whether or not you knew that, this is actually a form of ὅστις, ἥτις, ὄ τι. LSJ A.III.1. (The neuter singular is written ὅ,τι or ὅ τι, to distinguish it from ὅτι.) It represents the τις (actually τι) that would have been in Socrates question to Critobulus that Xenophon is retelling to us - a so-called indirect question, which I mention because it is not so clear that you are taking this as a question here.
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Post Reply

Return to “Other Greek Texts”