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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.

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There was some question last week about the use of δια + the genitive in the clause that begins εαν δια των αυτων λογων ακουητε. We basically construed the meaning of the clause to be, if you hear me using those arguments (logoi) as I make my defense, i.e. the ones Socrates was accustomed to use in the agora and near the trapeze.

Here’s Smythe on δια + the genitive. He basically explains that it indicates through and out of and apart (separation by cleavage), cognate with Latin dis- and German zwi-schen. So in Homer, “the spear went clear through his shoulder.”

But 1685 d. is important for our instance:

4. “Other relations: Means, Mediation (per): dia toutou grammata pempsas…sending a letter by this man.

Sorry to be lazy about transcribing the Greek here, but I think we can now construe the sentence in Plato, if by means of those same arguments you hear me make my defense, such as those I am accustomed to use in the agora and by the trapeze…

It also struck me thinking of this sentence, what exactly is the source of the marvel or the ruckus that the jury might make? I suggested, I think, Thursday, that these types of logoi that Socrates was accustomed to make were by their very nature wondrous and ruckus-rousing. However, given what follows (in the passage we’ll be reading Thusday), perhaps it’s more appropriate to think of it in terms of what Burnet calls “forensic speech,” and that the truly marvelous and/or ruckus-rousing thing about Socrates’ defense is that he is going to eschew that forensic speech (at least he will claim to do so) in favor of something like his “natural” speech (which itself he wants the jury to conceptualize as “foreign”) which will end up sounding quite inappropriate in the courtroom setting.