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The Renaissance of the First Century and the Origin of Standard Late Greek

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 July 2017

Martin J Higgins
Martin J Higgins*
Affiliation:
The Catholic University of America
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Extract

Greece, once the mother at whose feet European civilization sat and learnt, has ever quickened to the inspiration of her own past. When at intervals her learning and literature have languished and all but died out, her steadfast awareness of her ancient glory has always stirred in her a new impulse and a new life. How like her, then, on the morrow of her emancipation from the Turk, to look back to the period of her greatness for an answer to the problem confronting her! Reborn Greece needed desperately a common tongue. She had at her disposal only local patois, and possessed neither a national literature nor a national language. It had been preeminently the strong sense of a history, the reawakening of the age-old urge to vie with antiquity, that had kindled her to revolt against her overlord. To revive the idiom of classic Athens, to make it the symbol and bond of a resurgent Hellas appealed irresistibly to the enthusiastic patriotism of the victors. Others with equal ardor espoused the cause of the vernacular. Thus arcse the strife over the katharevousa and the demotike, an ever-recurrent conflict of never reconciled elements in the nation's psychology, the tug of the past over against the insistence of the present.

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Traditio , Volume 3 , 1945 , pp. 49 - 100
Copyright
Copyright © 1945 by Cosmopolitan Science & Art Service Co., Inc. 

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References

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24 Cf. Daux, G., Delphes au II e et au I er siècle (Bibliothèque des Écoles Françaises d'Athènes et de Rome 140, Paris 1936) 187–209 for the date. Hermann follows the chronology of Pomtow, but this has been proven inaccurate.Google Scholar

25 Cited from Horn (n. 11) 146.Google Scholar

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27 p. 42.Google Scholar

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29 This can be seen at a glance from the tabulation of all conditions in the manumissions by Hermann (n. 12) 40–49. However, disregard his chronology, supra, n. 24.Google Scholar

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32 Lejeune, 74f.; Stahl (n. 17) 291–93.Google Scholar

33 Cf. Hermann's tabulation, 41–49. Hermann looks at the conditions from the exclusively juridical point of view, and accordingly classifies as an expected eventuality. As we have seen above, there was a personal reason for the optative in this clause. If we remove it and analogous examples from Hermann's list, we have left but one instance in which, among the upwards of 1,000 protases analyzed by him, the mood appears in a desirable contingency, GDI 3217.10 (Priesthood XV, 84–59 B. C.). Lejeune, p. 39 n. 88, quotes Delph.3(6) 95, but with the indicative, not the optative. This is certainly the identical inscription in a later edition, but I cannot be sure of this because the latest fascicules of Fouilles de Delphes were inaccessible to me.Google Scholar

34 The following pages cite all optative protases referring to the future or vague present in the papyri down to 400 A. D. It is assumed that Horn (n. 11) is complete to 1926 and, for the Ptolemaic papyri to 1934, E. Mayser, Grammatik der griechischen Papyri aus der Ptolemäerzeit II. Satzlehre 1 (1926) 293; 3(1934) 91. The excerpts have been made long enough to enable the reader to judge the precise shade of meaning without reference to the original. The editors of the various collections often provide a version. I have always found this extremely helpful. I have seldom taken the editorial rendition without altering it somewhat, but I have not felt it necessary to indicate this in detail. Furthermore, any student of grammar feels a most fervent gratitude to the growing number of editors that index completely the conjunctions. It lightens enormously the task of culling the occurrences of syntactical phenomena and saves a deal of dreary reading through tax receipts, etc. The following works are frequently cited: Meyer, Paul M., Juristische Papyri (Berlin 1920); Hunt, A. S. and Edgar, C. C., Select Papyri with English Translation (Loeb Classical Library, 2 vols. London and New York 1932–34); Schubart, W, Ein Jahrtausend am Nil (2 ed. Berlin 1923). Cf. also supra, nn. 8 and 23, for other signs and abbreviations. As for papyri publications proper, PMerton was inaccessible to me, but I have examined all others for the Ptolemaic papyri since 1934 and for the later from 1926, i.e., from the point at which Mayser and Horn leave off. Also inaccessible were PFuad i, PHaun. i, PUniv. Giss. vGoogle Scholar

35 Cf. Mayser, loc. cit. Google Scholar

36 Edd. supply some such word as Google Scholar

37 P Lond.i.19 (= UPZ i.38) 18 = P Lond.33 (= UPZ i.39) 15 = P Par.33 (= UPZ i.40) 11 is definitely excluded; it is not optative, but infinitive, as Mayser says, op. cit. II, 2, 293. On the other hand, BGU iv.1187.24 may belong here and makes the possible twelfth Ptolemaic optative protasis. The editors date it s. i a. C.; Mayser, II, 3, 91, puts in 5 B. C.—though on what information I've been unable to discover. However, I've followed him and classified it with the post-Ptolemaic, infra, at n. 43.Google Scholar

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41 Cf. note to passage, p. 201.Google Scholar

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44 Supra, p. 64.Google Scholar

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46 At least, I find none in Thucydides nor in the Republic. No standard grammar cites any instance.Google Scholar

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49 Supra, p. 64.Google Scholar

50 This excludes POxy.viii.1100.16, 21 (206 A. D., Prefect's edict). The papyrus is badly mutilated.Google Scholar

51 Mitteis, , Chr 23 (262 B. C.), 353 (c. 250 B. C.), 35 (133 B. C.), 47 (91 B. C.), etc.Google Scholar

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54 E.g., IG 12.1.5. The Index lists none of these particles with or without Google Scholar

55 Supra, p. 70.Google Scholar

56 Supra, p. 59.Google Scholar

57 Supra, pp. 60–63.Google Scholar

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59 Supra, p. 73.Google Scholar

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62 Goodwin, W W, Syntax of the Moods and Tenses of the Greek Verb (2 ed. Boston and New York 1890) pp. 167, 172f.; Kühner-Gerth (n. 17) II, 2, 474 n. 1; Stahl, 294–98; Smyth, 525; Hermann (n. 12) 277–79.Google Scholar

63 Hermann, , loc. cit., also 9, 14, 29–38.Google Scholar

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67 The following enumeration is complete to 400 A. D., positis ponendis; cf. supra, n. 34. Horn (n. 11) 64 cites BGU iii.811.7f., but the condition is eliminated by the correction in the same volume. Berichtigungsl. I, 168 reads the indicative in PGen.79.10. BGU i.326. ii. 9 and PLips.50.14 are editorial restoration.Google Scholar

68 Mayser (n. 34) II, 1, 293; 3, 88 and I, 285 n. 4; 3, 86 is strongly tempted to eliminate these subjunctives by emendation. However, the fragmentary P Zen. Col.ii.114b is unmistakably a pure subjunctive and establishes them.Google Scholar

69 I have taken the liberty to differ with the editor's interpretation as given with the papyrus and also: Wilcken, Chr. I, 1, p. 125.Google Scholar

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71 Supra, p. 64.Google Scholar

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73 Horn (n. 11) 63f. enumerates all examples. Stud. Pal. xxii. 4. iii. 19 should be read otherwise, he shall repay one and one-half times the original amount.—P Teb.ii.293.21 is the editor's restoration and the subjunctive would suit better the average of letters to the line. Horn, p. 66, quotes two very doubtful examples of with fut. ind., neither later than the second century A. D. Finally, there is P Lond. ii. 417, pp. 229f. (= Wilcken, Chr 129 = Hunt-Edgar Sel. Pap. I, 161 = Schubart, Jahrt, am Nil 94) 11 (346 A. D., private letter); this may be taken for At all events, the future indicative is the least likely reading, if we take into account that this would then be the unique example later than the second centuryGoogle Scholar

74 Stahl, (n. 17) 277, 287, 411f.; Goodwin (n. 62) 169f., 192; Kühner-Gerth, II, 2, 481–83; Smyth 527,532f.; Hermann (n. 12) 282f. The Attic examples have been borrowed from Smyth 533 and Stahl 412.Google Scholar

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76 The enumeration is complete. P Rein. 7 (= Mitteis, Chr 16) 23 is infinitive; cf. Mayser (n. 34) II, 1, 295 n. 2. In P Bouriant 20.40 (cf. b, supra, p. 66), Google Scholar

77 Supra, n. 39.Google Scholar

78 Note the lack of concord in this and the previous example, an odd constructio ad sensum. Google Scholar

79 Horn (n. 11) 165 quotes P Lond. 1344.7ff. of 710 A. D.Google Scholar

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81 All exx. to 400 A. D. are cited.Google Scholar

82 Stahl, (n. 17) 292; Hermann (n. 12) 279 n., 283.Google Scholar

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84 Sister Rose de Lima (n. 13) 34–37Google Scholar

85 Only three examples of the optative in the relative clause, P Lille 3.38, BGU vi. 1253.10, and P Petr ii.13(5) 1, are mentioned by Mayser (n. 34) II, 1, 292; 295 y and Anm. 4, resp. The optative in P Petr depends on conjecture and has been variously emended, Berichtigungsl. II, 2, 108. The text of BGU vi.1253.10 also offers considerable difficulty: when they had this bit of business attended to, in their insubordination they seized the cattle and absconded with them, with intent to dissipate whatever our wealth had accumulated. The papyrus is mutilated and the lacuna indicated has been read variously, What I make of the passage is that the serfs on an estate had rebelled and taken vengeance on their masters in wanton destruction. So far as I can see, the only text that would give sense is The optative is iterative. Finally, in P Lille 3.38 even if we took the form as optative, it differs in no way from δóρaτa with all the spears that a man could just manage to carry,—X. An. 5.4.25 (quoted from Smyth 574), a characteristic potential.Google Scholar

86 Supra, p. 72.Google Scholar

87 This very mutilated papyrus has been quoted here because the optative in this formula is very well attested later, Horn (n. 11) 146f.Google Scholar

88 Ibid.; Harsing (n. 10) 37Google Scholar

89 This peculiarity of the papyri has been previously noted: Blass-Debrunner (n. 7) 209; most of the above exx. are already cited by J. H. Moulton, Grammar of New Testament Greek I (3 ed. Edinburgh 1908) 169, 239.Google Scholar

90 Hermann, (n. 12) 14.Google Scholar

91 Horn, (n. 11) 55.Google Scholar

92 Sister Rose de Lima (n. 13) 2.Google Scholar

93 For Lucian, , Schmid, , Atticismus (n. 5) I, 620; for Basil, J. Trunk, De Basilio Magno sermonis attici imitatore (Wissenschaftliche Beilage zum Jahresbericht d. kgl. Gymn. Ehingen a. D. für d. Schuljahre 1907/08 u. 1910/11, Stuttgart 1911) 56. The statement about Gregory Nazianzen rests upon my own observation.Google Scholar

94 Supra, p. 62.Google Scholar

95 Horn, (n. 11) 63–66. The exx. of fut. ind. are all to be taken as pure subjunctive.Google Scholar

96 Harsing, (n. 10) 37 Google Scholar

97 Sister Rose de Lima (n. 13) 47Google Scholar

98 Schmid, Atticismus (n. 5) I, 244.Google Scholar

99 Op. cit. (n. 1) 5f.Google Scholar

100 Schmid, Atticismus, I, 97Google Scholar

101 H. Reinhold, De graecitate patrum apostolicorum librorumque apocryphorum Novi Testamenti quaestiones grammaticae (Diss. philologicae Halenses 14, 1, Halle 1898) 35.Google Scholar

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103 Mayser (n. 34) II, 1, 296.Google Scholar

104 Op. cit. (n. 10) 57Google Scholar

105 Schmid, Atticismus (n. 5) IV, 607Google Scholar

106 Ibid. II, 59; IV, 90.91; I, 244.Google Scholar

107 Ibid. IV, 85; I, 244.Google Scholar

108 Ibid. IV, 599.Google Scholar

109 Ibid. 589.Google Scholar

110 Ibid. I, 35.Google Scholar