[B-Greek] Dative participial clauses

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Sun Jul 8 06:22:38 EDT 2007


On Jul 7, 2007, at 4:24 PM, Elizabeth Kline wrote:

>
> On Jul 5, 2007, at 4:52 AM, Carl W. Conrad wrote:
>
>> Preliminary unscientific foreword: Classical author Thucydides
>> certainly is; prototypical he is anything but. On the other hand,
>> these are from narrative rather than from speeches, and these texts
>> are themselves readily intelligible enough.
>
> Carl,
>
> I selected G.Cooper's citations from Thucydides primarily because I
> had the Harvard text of Thucydides at hand. Cooper also cites
> Xenophon and the pattern is similar to what we saw in Thucydides.
>
> X.A. 3.5.7-8
>
> Ἐπεὶ δὲ ἐπὶ τὰς σκηνὰς ἦλθον, οἱ
> μὲν ἄλλοι περὶ τὰ 2 ἐπιτήδεια ἦσαν,
> στρατηγοὶ δὲ καὶ λοχαγοὶ συνῇσαν.
> καὶ 3 ἐνταῦθα πολλὴ ἀπορία ἦν.
> ἔνθεν μὲν γὰρ ὄρη ἦν ὑπερύψηλα,
> ἔνθεν δὲ ὁ ποταμὸς τοσοῦτος βάθος
> ὡς μηδὲ τὰ δόρατα ὑπερέχειν
> πειρωμένοις τοῦ βάθους.
> ἀπορουμένοις 2 δ’ αὐτοῖς προσελθών
> τις ἀνὴρ Ῥόδιος εἶπεν· Ἐγὼ θέλω, ὦ
> 3 ἄνδρες, διαβιβάσαι ὑμᾶς κατὰ
> τετρακισχιλίους ὁπλίτας, ἂν 4 ἐμοὶ
> ὧν δέομαι ὑπηρετήσητε καὶ
> τάλαντον μισθὸν πορίσητε.
>
>
> EPEI DE EPI TAS SKHNAS HLQON, hOI MEN ALLOI PERI TA 2 EPITHDEIA HSAN,
> STRATHGOI DE KAI LOCAGOI SUNHiSAN. KAI 3 ENTAUQA POLLH APORIA HN.
> ENQEN MEN GAR ORH HN hUPERUYHLA, ENQEN DE hO POTAMOS TOSOUTOS BAQOS
> hWS MHDE TA DORATA hUPERECEIN PEIRWMENOIS TOU BAQOUS. APOROUMENOIS 2
> D' AUTOIS PROSELQWN TIS ANHR hRODIOS EIPEN: EGW QELW, W 3 ANDRES,
> DIABIBASAI hUMAS KATA TETRAKISCILIOUS hOPLITAS, AN 4 EMOI hWN DEOMAI
> hUPHRETHSHTE KAI TALANTON MISQON PORISHTE.
>
> Once again we have switched reference. The [referent of the] subject
> of the pre-verbal dative participle APOROUMENOIS is STRATHGOI KAI
> LOCAGOI. The subject of PROSELQWN and EIPEN is TIS ANHR hRODIOS. Once
> again we have a pronoun AUTOIS to deal with but I think that is a
> minor distraction. I wonder why Cooper selected this example to
> illustrate a loosely connected pre-verbal dative participle? Perhaps
> there is some reason I am not aware of that a dative would not
> construe with the participle PROSELQWN.

What exactly was Cooper's rubric here? (I had my hands on his work a  
few years ago, but it was on interlibrary loan even then). I agree  
that this passage seems quite unexceptional. PROSELQWN and EIPEN are  
quite enough to make the choice of the dative for the participial  
clause intelligible.

> X.A. 6.3.10
>
> Χειρίσοφος δὲ ἀσφαλῶς πορευόμενος
> παρὰ θάλατταν 2 ἀφικνεῖται εἰς
> Κάλπης λιμένα. Ξενοφῶντι δὲ διὰ τῆς
> 3 μεσογείας πορευομένῳ οἱ ἱππεῖς
> καταθέοντες ἐντυγχάνουσι 4
> πρεσβύταις πορευομένοις ποι.
>
> CEIRISOFOS DE ASFALWS POREUOMENOS PARA QALATTAN 2 AFIKNEITAI EIS
> KALPHS LIMENA. XENOFWNTI DE DIA THS 3 MESOGEIAS POREUOMENWi hOI
> hIPPEIS KATAQEONTES ENTUGCANOUSI 4 PRESBUTAIS POREUOMENOIS POI.
>
> Here the subject of POREUOMENWi is XENOFWNTI. The subject of
> ENTUGCANOUSI is hOI hIPPEIS. ENTUGCANOUSI takes a dative argument but
> it is PRESBUTAIS not XENOFWNTI.

The context is what is encountered by different groups proceeding by  
different courses along the Black Sea -- Cheirisophos along the  
coast, Xenophon deeper inland -- after their successful getaway from  
Babylonia.  My take on this particular passage is that XENOFWNTI here  
is a dative of reference -- the hIPPEIS who encounter the old men  
belong to Xenophon's command.  This is not the same as a Dative of  
Possessor (normally with a copula verb) but it's similar; I'd  
understand this to mean something like: "While Xenophon was making  
his way through the inner part of the land, HIS [here's where the  
dative impacts the English version] horsemen came upon some old men  
who were wayfarers headed in some direction." So here too I wouldn't  
be tempted to explain this as any instance of a "Dative absolute."

Again, what descriptive header is Cooper using to group this dative  
participial constructions?

I guess if someone wanted to insist that both these dative  
participial constructions are "temporal" I wouldn't protest too  
loudly, but I'd rather just call them "circumstantial." They are like  
Genitive "Absolutes" with the difference that the choice of the  
dative can be explained in terms of the syntactic usage in the  
clauses on which they depend.


Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad2 at mac.com
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/





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