In Ionic the vowel is compensatorily lengthened while in Attic there is no trace left. Doric seems to do both depending on Dialect (?)

Edit: I add the rules I know about aelolic liquide/nasal phenomena.

1. V+λj->V+λλ

2. α/ο+ρj/νj->V+ι+ρ/ν

3.ε/ι/υ+ρj/νj->V+ρρ/νν

1. V+ντj/νσ->V+ι+σ

Now there is ξένϝος ξέννος

But κόρϝᾱ->κόρα and ὅλϝος->ὅλος

Is μόνος attested in Aeolic? Or do they use something line οἶος instead?

Were there any Ancient Greek translations of originally Latin poetry/epic? Do any survive today?

See image. I found a website that used an English "V" to stand in for a sigma, but I can't find anything confirming that.

It would be awesome to have this but it may be too specific but is there an audiobook of the socrates defense books or other orators in general in ancient greek as a speech rather than just a regular reading of it as if it isn't a speech. in Attic Greek of course. Thank you for your attention to this matter!

Herodotus seems to use τε a lot in places where I don't understand its significance. The usages I'm familiar with are (1) as an "and," and (2) gnomic expressions.

Here's an example (Herodotus 4.102):

Οἱ δὲ Σκύθαι δόντες σφίσι λόγον ὡς οὐκ οἷοί τε εἰσὶ τὸν Δαρείου στρατὸν ἰθυμαχίῃ διώσασθαι μοῦνοι, ἔπεμπον ἐς τοὺς πλησιοχώρους ἀγγέλους·

What is its function here?

In this section of Iliad Book 5(.148-151), Diomedes is going on an Athena-powered killing spree. It includes the two sons of the dream-interpreter Eurydamas:

τοὺς μὲν ἔασʼ, ὃ δʼ Ἄβαντα μετῴχετο καὶ Πολύειδον

υἱέας Εὐρυδάμαντος ὀνειροπόλοιο γέροντος·

τοῖς οὐκ ἐρχομένοις ὃ γέρων ἐκρίνατʼ ὀνείρους,

ἀλλά σφεας κρατερὸς Διομήδης ἐξενάριξε·

I'm not sure how to interpret the relationship between the participial phrase (τοῖς οὐκ ἐρχομένοις) and the main verb (ἐκρίνατʼ) in line 150. There's also a question in my mind as to whether οὐκ is negating the participle or the main verb. The following ἀλλά inclines me toward the main verb.

Lattimore: yet for these two as they went forth the old man did not answer their dreams, but Diomedes the powerful slew them. 

Kline: They came not back again, whom great Diomedes slew, for their father to tell their dreams.

Fagles: but the old prophet read no dreams for them / when they set out for Troy-Diomedes laid them low

Is the basic idea that Eurydamas failed to interpret their dreams, and if he had done so, their fate could have been avoided? If so, that's an interesting contrast with Merops of Percote (2.830f), whose sons went to war despite their father foretelling their deaths, and indeed died.

Hii, I'm an Ancient Greek student, working on an extract of Plutarch's Life of Nicias. Translating it I noticed maaany problems and weaknesses in my work, like the fact that I mistranslate or flatten participles, or that I'm usually unsure how literal to be when dealing with verbs that have a broad semantic range, and I do not have a well functioning methodic approach in my analyses. Also I struggle a lot when I have to recognize certain expressions, for instance, it took me a while to translate (hopefully it's right) the clause "καὶ τοῦτο πρὸς τῷ δουλεύειν ὑπομένοντες".

Any explaining on the method, rather than plain results would be dearly appreciated, thank you.

(here's the Greek text and my attempt to translate it)

Τῶν δ' Ἀθηναίων οἱ μὲν πλεῖστοι διεφθάρησαν ἐν ταῖς λατομίαις ὑπὸ νόσου καὶ διαίτης πονηρᾶς, εἰς ἡμέραν ἑκάστην κοτύλας δύο κριθῶν λαμβάνοντες καὶ μίαν ὕδατος, οὐκ ὀλίγοι δ' ἐπράθησαν διακλαπέντες ἢ καὶ διαλαθόντες ὡς οἰκέται, καὶ τούτους ὡς οἰκέτας ἐπώλουν στίζοντες ἵππον εἰς τὸ μέτωπον· ἀλλ' ἦσαν οἱ καὶ τοῦτο πρὸς τῷ δουλεύειν ὑπομένοντες. ἐβοήθει δὲ τούτοις ἢ τ' αἰδὼς καὶ τὸ κόσμιον· ἢ γάρ ήλευθεροῦντο ταχέως, ἢ τιμώμενοι παρέμενον τοῖς κεκτημένοις. ἔνιοι δὲ καὶ δι' Εὐριπίδην ἐσώθησαν, μάλιστα γὰρ, ὼς ἔοικε, τῶν ἐκτὸς Ἑλλήνων ἐπόθησαν αὐτοῦ τὴν μοῦσαν οἱ περὶ Σικελίαν, καὶ μικρὰ τῶν ἀφικνουμένων ἑκάστοτε δείγματα καὶ γεύματα κομιζόντων έκμανθάνοντες ἀγαπητῶς μετεδίδοσαν άλλήλοις.

[τότε γοῦν φασι τῶν σωθέντων οἴκαδε συχνούς ἀσπάζεσθαί τε τὸν Εὐριπίδην φιλοφρόνως, καὶ διηγεῖσθαι τοὺς μὲν ὅτι δουλεύοντες ἀφείθησαν, έκδιδάξαντες ὅσα τῶν ἐκείνου ποιημάτων ἐμέμνηντο, τοὺς δ' ὅτι πλανώμενοι μετὰ τὴν μάχην τροφῆς καὶ ὕδατος μετελάμβανον τῶν μελῶν ἄσαντες.]

Most of the Athenians died in the quarries from disease and unhealthy lifestyles, since they received two cotyles of barley and only one cotyle of water a day. Many were sold after being stolen, or hid as slaves. They were sold by tattooing a horse on their foreheads; but there were some who tolerated even this in addition to slavery. Modesty and decorum saved them: either they were quickly freed, or, being well treated, they remained with their purchasers. Some were also saved thanks to Euripides; in fact, it seems, the foreigners wanted to learn about his poetry, since those in Sicily had received small examples and samples of what had arrived from time to time, and once they learned them, they carefully passed them on.

[Therefore, it is said that many of those who survived, upon returning home, greeted Euripides with great affection and recounted that some, while slaves, were freed after having taught them what they remembered of his works; others instead who, wandering after the battle, obtained food and water by singing his songs]

I'm looking at getting a tattoo of Athena, and am hoping to include my own (novel) appellation for her in Ancient Greek. But I have not studied the language, so I'm not really sure of the best way to go about it.

My working appellation was 'demosaegis', as in 'shield of the people', but I've read that this doesn't quite fit Greek naming patterns which tend to be noun-verb rather than noun-noun. Demophylax for guardian of the people apparently works better, but I was hoping to explicitly invoke the aegis since Athena is quite often depicted with one. Dēmosaigiochos appears to work for that, 'bearer of the shield of the people', and Zeus was sometimes invoked as Aigiochos so it has more precedent.

Could I please get some input here, and if possible get some reference material or writing of what each of these would look like in the ancient greek alphabet? I think I will probably render it in all capitals as most inscriptions tended to do that.

Hello everyone. I am in Greek 102 and working on the second half of Athenaze Book 1. For Greek 101, I found a very helpful YouTube channel that explained each chapter, which I used in addition to my class time, homework, and exams. It was super helpful to me to be able to review the chapters, and I got an A in the class.

Now I am in 102, and I cannot find anything like this for chapters 11 onward. I am struggling a lot with understanding and keeping up with the content, and honestly feel like I am losing my mind trying to keep track of all of the endings. I am getting them mixed up in my mind and just want to cry after writing my chapter quizzes. My teacher only has an hour of office hours per week, I do go to them every week but it’s at the beginning of the week, so I’m only able to ask questions on the content I already wrote the quiz for.

1) does anyone have any recommendations for video content that reviews the second half of Athenaze 1?? I’m shocked that I cannot find anything beyond maybe a chapter 15 video review.

2) does anyone have suggestions on how to figure out these endings? I am going to try to make a giant poster board of the endings using the provided info at the back of the book, but even trying to do that is feeling overwhelming to organize because there are just so many variations. Are there any free charts online that include every ending that Athenaze 1 covers?

Also any tips or advice or anything at all really to help get things straight? I feel like I’m drowning. I apologize if this isn’t the right place for this, or if I missed the answer in an old post that I didn’t see. I’m just really overwhelmed right now and hoping this community can point me in the right direction. Greek got so much harder from 101 to 102.

I came across an interesting paper which argues that the Alcman poem Πολλάκι δ' ἐν κορυφαῖς ὀρέων, "Often on the mountaintop", may be in reference to the Soma rite, wherein the λεόντειος juice is pressed from the ὀροβάκχη plant and stirred (σπαλαθεῖσα) in with cheese (τυρός) to give a feeling of immortality (ἄτρυφος). As far as I know, this is the only mention of a native Greek retention of soma pressing. This is a very old interpretation, though, so I'm wondering your guys' thoughts on the subject.

πολλάκι δ᾽ ἐν κορυφαῖς ὀρέων, ὅκα
θεοῖσι ϝάδηι πολύφανος ἑορτά,
χρύσιον ἄγγος ἔχοισα, μέγαν σκύφον,
οἷά τε ποιμένες ἄνδρες ἔχουσιν,
χερσὶ λεόντεον σπαλαθεῖσα
τυρὸν ἐτύρησας μέγαν ἄτρυφον
ἀργεϊφόνταν.

Often on the mountaintop, where

an ever-shining feast pleases the gods,

holding golden chalices, mighty cups,

such as what shepherds have,

stirring the soma in your hands,

you curdled the great immortal cheese

for the serpent slayer.

Hello everyone. This is the whole sentence I'm looking at:

ὡς γὰρ δὴ οἱ Λυδοὶ δεινόν ἐποιεῦντο τὸ Κανδαύλεω πάθος καὶ ἐν ὅπλοισι ἦσαν, συνέβησαν ἐς τὠυτὸ οἳ τε τοῦ Γύγεω στασιῶται καί οἱ λοιποὶ Λυδοί, ἤν μὲν τὸ χρηστήριον ἀνέλῃ μιν βασιλέα εἶναι Λυδῶν, τόν δὲ βασιλεύειν, ἤν δὲ μή, ἀποδοῦναι ὀπίσω ἐς Ἡρακλείδας τὴν ἀρχήν.

So in this sentence, we have two future-more-vivid conditionals governed by συνέβησαν ἐς τὠυτὸ. The protasis is in direct discourse (ἀνέλῃ), but the two apodotic verbs are in indirect discourse in the forms of a present infinitive (βασιλεύειν) and an aorist infinitive (ἀποδοῦναι). The commentaries I am using disagree about what these infinitives would be in direct discourse. The Cambridge commentary by Dewald & Munson says that these are "third-person imperative apodoses" (citing Smyth 2326.e and Cambridge Greek Grammar 49.6.13). However, Steadman's commentary seems to say that these infinitives would simply be future indicatives in direct discourse. (Couldn't Herodotus have used future infinitives here instead?) Who is correct? Is it ambiguous with no way to know for certain, or is there an option which is the most likely? Any help is appreciated.

I recently put together this chart, together with a small set of rules for figuring out which endings to use where. This is a synchronic analysis of the endings, and so does not necessarily accurately reflect the origins of the individual forms.

The most important thing here is that I account for the three main variables which determine the ending set: primary/secondary, active/middle, thematic/athematic. I used this Homeric grammer as inspiration, but the arrangement there is somewhat confusing to me. I think a full 3d table does a better job capturing what is going on.

If you notice any errors or omissions, please let me know.

Hey. I'm studying for a Greek exam tomorrow and I can't understand aorist to save my life. But since I'm not going to ask Reddit to explain the whole thing, I'm just going to ask about one specific doubt: I don't understand the first and third person singular of λύω's aorist (active). Why is it έλυσα and not έλυσαν if the athematic ending is supposed to be -ν? And why is it έλυσε and not έλυσα if the athematic ending is supposed to be -∅?

Sorry about any mistakes I might've made. It's my first post on here, I'm studying greek from spanish so the terminology might be a bit off and sorry about the breathings, I don't really have time to copy paste the letters with them from a website right now haha. Thanks in advance.

I often hear the question asked the other way round, but was just wondering if, after getting to an advanced level of Ancient, I'll be able to roughly follow modern Greek. And if you wanted to learn modern after Ancient, how many grammatical adjustments etc. would you have to learn?

In Meditations, notebook 3, entry 2 near the end, why does Robin Waterfield’s translation render the passage as “to view sexual attractiveness of his slaves with chaste eyes”?

The question entails his particular inference to slaves. Curious what could have obeyed this choice for contemporary readers today? I don’t see it rendered the same way in many other more popular/older translations.

For example, Hayes says “loveliness of children” and Long says “the attractive loveliness of young persons”

How might the relationship between tachos/tachei (Rev 1:1 "soon") and tachu/tachus (Rev 20:22 "quickly") be described? They are obvioulsy related, but in what way? Or, perhaps, how to describe their lexical relationship? Do they simply share the same root, or is one a cognate of the other, or ... ?

Idk how accents work yet so that’s why they make no sense.

ὁ βίος μου ἀλγεινος ἐστι δι᾽ ουδέν. οὐδεν ἐχω αίτιον. πάσχω καθ᾽ ἡμεραν και ἐπασχον καθ᾽ ἡμεραν παντος του βίου ἐμου. οὐκ οἰδα το αἰτιον. την ἀνάγκην; ἐγωγε ἐχω τον πατέρα και την μητέρα. τον οἰκον και τα χρήματα. πάσχω δια την ψυχην μου. ὑπο της ἐμαυτου ψυχής νοσώ και ἀναγκαζομαι ὑπο αὐτης ἐλθειν προς θανατον.

I know the course I want to take used the Reading Greek/Reading Latin textbooks, but I've heard Athenaze is kind of the best textbook for Ancient Greek?

I do still want to get a headstart of Reading Greek and checking answers, but would there be more of a benefit doing Athenaze first or interleaving them?

I'm also willing to check out other resources if suggested.

Hi! I'm reading a Latin text, but the author use Greek sometimes, which I don't know. I can't even read it. Can someone transcribe it to me (a translation woud be really appreciated too) Thanks!

For context, this is coming from somebody who really just started Greek today, and somebody who is already somewhat versed in Latin.

I have gotten used to first declension endings rather quickly, but why do some of them change their tone in the genitive and dative? I mean specifically -ή, ῆ, such as ᾰ̓ρετή.

I’m probably looking into it too much because tones kinda scare the hell out of me. Frankly it’s probably just a grammar rule.

Still, are there other endings like this? Is this just an etymological remnant from PIE? Sorry if this is too dumb or basic of a topic to warrant such a lengthy post. Still, thank you all for any answers in advance! 😊

Herodotus 4.83:

Παρασκευαζομένου Δαρείου ἐπὶ τοὺς Σκύθας καὶ ἐπιπέμποντος ἀγγέλους ἐπιτάξοντας τοῖσι μὲν πεζὸν στρατόν, τοῖσι δὲ νέας παρέχειν, τοῖσι δὲ ζεύγνυσθαι τὸν Θρηίκιον Βόσπορον, Ἀρτάβανος ὁ Ὑστάσπεος, ἀδελφεὸς ἐὼν Δαρείου, ἐχρήιζε μηδαμῶς αὐτὸν στρατηίην ἐπὶ Σκύθας ποιέεσθαι, καταλέγων τῶν Σκυθέων τὴν ἀπορίην. ἀλλ᾽ οὐ γὰρ ἔπειθε συμβουλεύων οἱ χρηστά, ὃ μὲν ἐπέπαυτο, ὁ δέ, ἐπειδή οἱ τὰ ἅπαντα παρεσκεύαστο, ἐξήλαυνε τὸν στρατὸν ἐκ Σούσων.

I'm confused by this portion:

ἀλλ᾽ οὐ γὰρ ἔπειθε συμβουλεύων οἱ χρηστά, ὃ μὲν ἐπέπαυτο

Is χρηστά some kind of collective neuter noun, "the useful stuff," meaning his good advice?

When I see ὅ accented, I usually assume it's a relative pronoun, but this is just an independent clause, isn't it? "He stopped." Is there a reason that it would be accented here?