[B-Greek] Justin and objective genitives

Carl Conrad cwconrad2 at mac.com
Tue Mar 8 12:23:36 EST 2011


On Mar 8, 2011, at 11:40 AM, Stephen Carlson wrote:

> On Tue, Mar 8, 2011 at 11:07 AM, Ehrman, Bart D <behrman at email.unc.edu> wrote:
>>    Thanks, these are useful.  They all seem to me to mean "Memoirs that (ultimately)
>> derive from X" rather than simply "Memoirs that are about X."  Do you agree?
> 
> I wish I understood the Athenaeus reference to the "memoirs of the
> other courtesans" better, but that's my general impression too.

LSJ:

ἀπομνημόν-ευμα, ατος, τό [APOMNHMONEUMA, ATOS, TO],
memorial, record, τινός [TINOS]  D.S.1.14, Plu. Pomp.2; ἀ. σύντομον [A. SUNTOMON]  memorandum, PSI1.85 (iii A.D.): in pl., memoirs, as those of Socrates by X., D.H.Rh.9.12, Plu.Cat.Ma. 9.

It may be worth noting that the standard title of Xenophon's recollections of Socrates is APOMNHMONEUMATA. This was Latinized as Memorabilia, "things worth recollecting." Socrates himself, it is thought, wrote nothing, unless, as Plato's Phaedo indicates, it was some verse-formulations of Aesop's fables -- and  Xenophon's recollections have nothing to do with that. On the other hand, I've read that Caesar's "Comentarii" on the Gallic Wars ("De Bello Gallico") were termed APOMNHMONEUMATA. As for those cultured ladies ("Geishas"?) termed hETAIRAI, it looks to me like the APOMNHMONEUMATA in question are very much like Xenophon's work, stories of what they did and said. Is it really to be supposed that these illuminate the original question posed in this thread?

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)






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