two

Some small miscellanies on our passage for tonight!

First, the use of the accusative εβδομηκοντα + γεγονως. Smythe explains the “accusative expresses extent in space and time.” The special use is discussed briefly in §1584: “Duration of life may be expressed by gegonôs: etê gegonôs hebdomêkonta seventy years old P. A. 17d . (Also by einai and the genitive, 1327.)

Secondly, two perspectives on the sentence beginning ωσπερ ουν αν:

Gildersleeves:

467. Repetition of an and ke(n)

an is not unfrequently repeated in the same clause, sometimes in order to resume a distant an, sometimes for rhetorical emphasis, especially with the negative or equivalent interrogative. ke(n) is also repeated, though rarely, and both an and ke(n) are occasionally found in the same clause.

Adams:

When the sentence merely affirms or denies that one act, if it had occurred, would be accompanied by another act, and there is no necessary relation between the two acts as cause and effect, and there is no argument drawn from the admitted unreality of the conclusion to prove the opposite of the condition, no denial of the apodosis is implied in the expression, although we may know from the context or in some other way that the action of the apodosis does not (or did not) occur. Thus in PLAT. Ap. 17 D, ei tôi onti xenos etunchanon ôn, xunegignôskete dêpou an moi ei en ekeinêi têi phônêi elegon, etc., “if I were really a foreigner, you would surely pardon me if I spoke in my own dialect, etc.”, it is not implied that now you do not pardon me. We should rather say that nothing at all is implied beyond the statement you would pardon me in that case. If the apodosis were you would not be angry with me, the impossibility of understanding but now you are angry would make this plainer.

Oh Adams, how clear thou art.