Hi.

Are there any major ancient Greek figures who were intellectuals, athletes, and musicians?

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I had seen one a while ago and thought he was cool but I forgot his name T_T

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Thanks!

would the G in names like Diogenes be pronounced with something more closely approximating an English "J" sound or an English "G" sound?

It's again from the Symposium (218e-219a). Socrates is explaining to Alcibiades that in an erotic relationship between the two of them, he would suffer a loss, since his spiritual beauty is so much more valuable than Alciabiades's physical beauty. And he employs a metaphor he gets from the Iliad:

καὶ τῷ ὄντι “χρύσεα χαλκείων” διαμείβεσθαι νοεῖς

and you really think of exchanging "gold stuff with copper stuff"

The reference is to a passage where Glaucus exchanges his weapons with Diomedes as a chivalrous act, but while the former's are made out of gold, the latter's are made out of copper (6.234-6)

ἔνθ᾽ αὖτε Γλαύκῳ Κρονίδης φρένας ἐξέλετο Ζεύς, / ὃς πρὸς Τυδεΐδην Διομήδεα τεύχε᾽ ἄμειβε / χρύσεα χαλκείων, ἑκατόμβοι᾽ ἐννεαβοίων

and there Zeus, son of Cronus, bereaved of his mind Glaucus, / who exchanged with Diomedes, son of Tydeus, weapons / made out of gold for others made out of copper, that is, weapons worth a hundred oxen for weapons worth nine oxen

Homer makes very clear the fact (pretty obvious by itself) that it isn't a good deal for Glaucus, like it wouldn't be a good deal for Socrates. But then, why is Alcibiades the one who exchanges χρύσεα χαλκείων and not Socrates himself? I have 2 hypothesis.

1. Despite vocabularies not reporting this usage for ἀμείβω nor for διαμείβω, Plato is employing the verb in a passive sense, with the subject being obviously not the exchanged object but the exchanging person. The expression would be literally translatable as "being exchanged gold stuff with copper stuff". It's true that Homer doesn't use the verb with a double accusative (nor vocabuliaries report such use), but it's clear the person receiving the weapons can somehow be considered an object of the action; also, Plato could have used the active form to be closer to Homer, still he decides to adopt a middle-passive form. By the way, no vocabuly I've checked quote this Platonic passage except the DGE who classifies its usage as middle without dwelling too much on it.
2. Socrates is being wickedly ironic, meaning something like such golden objects you'd exchange for my "copper" objects!

So, what do you guys think?

EDIT: thinking about it, there may be a third possibility:

3. the accusative doesn't necessarily refer to what the subject owned before, and the genitive doesn't necessarily refer to what the subject receives; therefore the subject of such a phrase can be both the one who gets a good deal (like Alcibiades) and the one who doesn't (like Glaucus), the change from active to middle diatesis being a mere stylistic choice. This could be confirmed by the quote from Euripides you can see in the LSJ s.v. διαμείβω. The fact Plato uses διαμείβω instead of a simple ἀμείβω like Homer could have a role in that.

Hi! I was in Barcelona not too long ago and visited La Sagrada Familia. This symbol was on one of the faces of the building and the tour guide said it was the Greek letters alpha and omega. I like the symbol but am wondering how accurate it is. The omega is clear, but I haven't been able to find any alpha characters with the horizontal line on top (Ā) in any variations of the Greek alphabet. Am I missing where this is found? Or is this purely for stylistic reasons (vertical symmetry)? Would it look stupid to anyone who knows anything about Greek letters? Thanks for the help!

https://preview.redd.it/n39zibc81gwc1.jpg?width=3492&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=62161725c01c24aa3240980bb067bbdcdfddd5e4

Hi there, I was wondering what do some letters mean when used alongside with number to indicate a chapter. E.g. Plato, Nomoi 23a etc. (I made this up, I don't know if it even exists.)

Hey everybody! So I was just shopping around looking at Greek textbooks trying to see what was out there if I wanted to try and teach myself to read Greek. First off, I will note I took Greek during my undergrad, but I don’t really remember any of it. I am familiar with the process of learning ancient languages, though, as I am a history grad student and I can read Middle Egyptian hieroglyphs and hieratic.

My question is basically this: what is your preferred method for learning Greek, and what resources do you recommend? With my foundation in Egyptian, I am used to a very grammar heavy learning approach, so when I was shopping, I was looking at books like the Reading Greek book, Smyth’s grammar, and Hansen’s Greek Intensive Course. When I looked at this subreddit, though, everybody is arguing in favor of Athenaze for its more inductive methods.

Really, I am just trying to figure out what would be best for me. I have a very solid foundation in English grammar and grammar based learning approaches, so those do not really intimidate me, however I am wondering if it is just an inefficient way to learn the language. I would love to hear anyone’s thoughts.

When I learned Latin years and years ago, the method that I used to learn vocab or grammar was repeated exposure. This seems to work over time, but I'm wondering (now that I'm getting ready to learn Ancient Greek) how I could think about language acquisition in a new way. Are there ways of thinking about acquisition that could help with the challenge of this language?

Hi! Next semester I'm taking a class about Greek epic and I have to get a 'complete' text of both the Ilias and the Odysseia. I found two editions, those being the ones from Oxford Classical Texts and Bibliotheca Teubneriana/Teubner. Which one would you guys recommend?

(If you guys know about another publisher having published Homeros' works in Greek, I would love to hear about them!)

Hi, I wonder if anyone would be willing to help me learn Ancient Greek. It would be a passion project for me as an adult. A person with credentials might be best, but a knowledgeable amateur could be good too. Take care!

I've studied some Koine Greek and was curious about this tombstone that had no translation. Here's what I have so far. I'm wondering if anyone can improve it.

ΑΥΡ ΘΕΟΔΟΤΗ ΔΙΟ ΓΕΝΟΥΣ ΝΙΚΑ ΕΙΣ ΟΙΚΟΥ ΣΑ ΕΗ ΦΥΛΗ ΔΙΑ ΕΝΕΙ ΔΙΟ ΙΣΤΗΝ ΕΠΙΣΤΗ ΜΗΗΘΙΝΟ ΠΩΛΗΣ ΖΩΑΕ ΑΥΤΗ ΚΑΙ ΤΗ ΓΛΥΚ ΓΑΤΗ ΜΟΥ ΘΥΓΑΤΗ ΑΥΡ ΠΟΛΥ ΧΡΟΝΙΑΗ ΓΟΡΑΣ ΑΤΗΝ ΚΑ ΜΑΡΑΝ ΕΙ ΤΙΣ ΔΕ ΑΥΤΗΝ ΣΚΥΛΗΝ Δ Ψ ΣΗ ΘΕΟ ΛΟ ΤΟΝ ΝΙΚ _ ΡΑ ΚΡΙΣΕΩΣ

ΧΑΙΡΕΤΕ ΠΑΡΟΔΙΕ

Aur Theodoti, descendant of Nika (Nicea?), of the house/family of Sa?, in tribe of Enei?, may her living memory remain standing (lasting), my sweet daughter, daughter of Aur, much time strong ? …

If anyone disturbs it/her… may God judge  anyone who bothers it/her.

Greetings to you, passerby

Hello. I need to know one word whether it is present continuous tense or not.

It might be little religious but all I need is to understand in what tense it is since then the whole meaning of the verse is different with each different tense.

Hebrews 10:26 (NA28) 26 Ἑκουσίως γὰρ ἁμαρτανόντων ἡμῶν μετὰ τὸ λαβεῖν τὴν ἐπίγνωσιν τῆς ἀληθείας, οὐκέτι περὶ ἁμαρτιῶν ἀπολείπεται θυσία,

what it would be more “keep on sinning” or “to sin”. Is it more like to sin once, or it’s a continuous thing to keep on sinning

Thank you.

Hi there, I'm looking for a good grammar book. I've been studying greek since 2016 and, even tho I'm not very good at it, I think I have now the ability to penetrate a complex text on the topic. I'm also interested in learing more about historical aspects of this language, so anything related will be much appreciated.

I'm not a native speaker, sorry for my writing skills. (English grammars are fine, anyway, I can understand this language.)

Hi guys,

I made a post on my anxieties entering the AG realm as a person who didn’t basic grammar a while ago. I am halfway through semester 1 and I am very good at grammar and enjoy every lecture, so I am choosing to take it forward.

Though I know this ease won’t last forever but I am still feeling pretty optimistic. We haven’t tackled things beyond Athenaze sentences which is probably why it’s so simple.

Going fourth, does anyone have advice on how to optimise my time and studies? And little techniques/things you wish you could’ve told yourself when you began learning?

Thank you!

Hi, I just need to share a beautiful example of constructio ad sensum, which I found in Soph. Aiax:

Ὦ Ζεῦ, προγόνων προπάτωρ,

    πῶς ἂν τὸν αἱμυλώτατον,

    ἐχθρὸν ἄλημα, τούς τε δισ-

     σάρχας ὀλέσσας βασιλῆς,

    τέλος θάνοιμι καὐτός;

O Zeus, forefather of my ancestors,

If only I could destroy that arch-deceiver,

That evil trickster, and the twin

Chieftains, and then

Finally die myself.

(Trad. Finglass)

So I'm familiar with a handful of Koine Greek words from studying the Bible. This summer I'll be jumping into Classical Greek for the first time. Are there any major differences in vocabulary I should know about? Thanks!

One of the first syntactic concepts introduced to an ancient Greek student is attributive position, we all know an adjective (or a participle) stands in the attribuitive position if it's preceded by the article, while it stands in the predicative position if that's not the case, e.g. ὀ σοφὸς ἀνήρ is the wise man, while ὀ ανὴρ σοφός is a man (being) wise, or something like that, depending on the context.

But there are cases where an article is nowhere to be found, for example because the author want to characterize the noun as indefinite, e.g. ἀνήρ, a man. If an adjective is present too, will be forced to believe it stands in the predicative position? Or in other words, is ἀνὴρ σοφός necessarily a man (being) wise, or could it be a wise man as well? And if it's the former, how could a concept such as a wise man be expressed in Greek?

Another example: is αὐτὸν νικῶντα necessarily him when/because/etc. he wins or could it be him who wins? Αὐτόν can't be associated with an article when it's by itself (least it changing its meaning to the same, but that's a whole different situation), so could participles be considered its attributes even if they're not introduced by an article? Of course you could find αὐτὸν τὸν νικῶντα, but I think it would be more precisely translated as him, the one who wins than as him who wins.

In my experience, adjectives and participles can in fact have an attributive function even when not preceded by an article, if there's no article involved at all. But it's hard to find such a concept explicitly stated in grammars. What do you guys think?

EDIT: A corollary can be added about substantivized adjectives and participles. Sometimes it's obvious a participle is working as a substantive even if it has no article, with the same syntactical function of a noun left without an article for the sake of indefiniteness.

I have an 11 year old cousin who wants to learn Ancient Greek and I really want to help him in this, because I’ve gone through some Arabic and Russian stuff with him before (at his request) and he was really attentive and perceptive, and he just generally seems to have a real interest in languages. I have an L.A. Wilding “Greek for Beginners” book but i’m sceptical about how useful it will be because I have it from when I was 11 and also trying to learn Ancient Greek, and I remember not finding it particularly interesting.

If anyone has any resources they would recomend that would be great!

I know this is a r/NoStupidQuestions type of post and I'm not doubting they weren't plosives. I was just wondering, how do we know exactly?

https://preview.redd.it/zmwn4ena9nvc1.png?width=1406&format=png&auto=webp&s=a46acf0688b617e881db6a5004883b301350ce84

Looking at the wiki, the Nominative singular form of this word is as follows.

νεα(long)νι(short-accute)α(long)ς

I don't understand that the accent of the Nominative plural is in penult.

νεα(long)νι(short-accute)αι(short)

Since the noun is Persistent, when the length of the vowel of the last two syllables changes, it must change according to the general principle of the accent, which is not the case.

Shouldn't the accent come to the antepenult because the last two syllables of the Nominative plural are short-short (penult-ultima)?

When αι comes at the end of the word, it is treated as a short vowel, so I think the accent of the νεανιαι should come to the antepenult, so please tell me your opinion.

I got this as a gift and I'm trying to find what it's written on it. I tried Google Translate with google lens but it didn't pick up anything.

This is posted gere because I don't know how to get the text so that I could put it in the pinned post.

I'm a beginner, reading Eros, the Bittersweet by Anne Carson. In her chapter Ice-Pleasure, she comments on a fragment from Sophokles which contains the word εφέμερον, which she translates as "contingent upon the day," more or less equivalent to "ephemeral". So, I wanted to look it up in my Middle Liddell to get a better feel for it, but I can't find it. So I assume I don't know the correct root. Can someone help me parse this word?

It's the climax of the whole dialogue, and an extremely famous passage. Diotima is describing the contemplation of absolute beauty:

"τοῦτο γὰρ δή ἐστι τὸ ὀρθῶς ἐπὶ τὰ ἐρωτικὰ ἰέναι ἢ ὑπ’ ἄλλου ἄγεσθαι, ἀρχόμενον ἀπὸ τῶνδε τῶν καλῶν ἐκείνου ἕνεκα τοῦ καλοῦ ἀεὶ ἐπανιέναι, ὥσπερ ἐπαναβασμοῖς χρώμενον, ἀπὸ ἑνὸς ἐπὶ δύο καὶ ἀπὸ δυοῖν ἐπὶ πάντα τὰ καλὰ σώματα, καὶ ἀπὸ τῶν καλῶν σωμάτων ἐπὶ τὰ καλὰ ἐπιτηδεύματα, καὶ ἀπὸ τῶν ἐπιτηδευμάτων ἐπὶ τὰ καλὰ μαθήματα, καὶ ἀπὸ τῶν μαθημάτων ἐπ’ ἐκεῖνο τὸ μάθημα τελευτῆσαι, ὅ ἐστιν οὐκ ἄλλου ἢ αὐτοῦ ἐκείνου τοῦ καλοῦ μάθημα, καὶ γνῷ αὐτὸ τελευτῶν ὃ ἔστι καλόν."

"For this is the right way to go or to be led by someone else towards erotic stuff, to always ascend, starting from these beauties (we have in this plan of reality) with the goal of that (metaphysical) beauty, like using stair steps, from one beautiful body to two beautiful bodies, and from two beautiful bodies to all beautiful bodies, and from beautiful bodies to beautiful works, and from works to beautiful learnings, and from learnings reaching accomplishment up to that learning, which is the learning of nothing else but of that (metaphysical) beauty, and for him to know, reaching accomplishment, this (knowledge) itself, what beauty is."

or perhaps:

"for him to know (...), beauty itself, what it is."

Now, that τελευτῆσαι itself is a bit weird, as it could work as the verb in the last colon (καὶ ἀπὸ τῶν μαθημάτων ἐπ’ ἐκεῖνο τὸ μάθημα τελευτῆσαι), forcing the syntax a little, but it can't work as the verb of the previous ones for semantic reasons (for example, contemplating the beauty of two bodies can't be considered a τέλος). But the sentence still works, more or less.

The real issue is γνῷ. It should be an aorist subjunctive active 3rd person singular of γιγνώσκω, but there hasn't been a single finite verb since the beginning of the sentence (where an ἐστι works as the regent for everything after), and all of the different passages of the knowledge journey have been described by employing either infinitives or participles. This also means there's no subject γνῷ can be linked to. Add that it misses the ἄν which usually is associated with subjunctives.

Am I right to believe it's an outiright anacoluthon? Anacolutha are frequent in Plato (the τελευτῆσαι case from before could be considered one as well) because there's an attempt to mimic spoken language. In my translation I've assumed the subject to be the philosopher, who semantically is the subject of most of the sentence, and the subjunctive form to be justified by the fact the contemplation of beauty is presented as an hypothesis rather than as a fact (the philosopher will reach it only if he follows Love in the right way). On the other hand, ἄν missing is strange.

Has anyone read 'Learning to Write the Medieval Greek Minuscule Script: A step-by-step approach to reading and writing the Byzantine cursive hand by Joshua Rudder? I have seen some sentence long reviews here and there on amazon, but I wonder if anyone here has an opinion on it.

It's surprisingly difficult to find a translation I am satisfied with. Χρηματίζειν and πράττειν seem to be for a business context instead of a war context. Πρεσβεύειν may also work, but I am not sure if it can be used transitively. Ἐπικηρυκεύεσθαι doesn't work in a personal meeting.

Thanks in advance.

Hey guys,

I am looking for mentions of Ottoman influenced gardens in greek ancient philosophy/texts.

If you know of any work of Aristotle, Theophrastus or others on this topic, it would be very helpful.

If I recall well, while Alexander the Great was in Macedonia, Aristotle went to tutor him, during this time, Theophrastus managed to bring exotic plants from across the eastern part of the Greek empire
Thank you very much in advance for your kind help.

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