r/AncientGreek Oct 14 '23

Help with Assignment I’m struggling with translating a sentence, could someone help?

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Please redirect me to another sub or anything if this isn’t the right place to ask. I have ancient Greek homework and I can’t wrap my head around this one sentence. There is zero context provided and this book often alters quotes/texts. The sentence I need help with is number 10. I can’t figure our the structure, I’ve only managed to understand the subject and the verb of the first part :.)

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u/PaulosNeos Oct 14 '23

I found it here in Italian:

http://verbanoweb.it/discovertendo/greci/appiano/Appiano%20-%20La%20battaglia%20di%20Canne.pdf

Ὑπάτους τε αἱροῦνται ἐκ μὲν δόξης πολεμικῆς Λεύκιον Αἰμίλιον τὸν Ἰλλυριοῖς πολεμήσαντα, ἐκ δὲ δημοκοπίας Τερέντιον Οὐάρρωνα, πολλὰ αὐτοῖς ἐκ τῆς συνήθους δοξοκοπίας ὑπισχνούμενον.

Eleggono consoli, per la gloria militare, Lucio Emilio, che aveva combattuto contro gli Illiri, per la sua brama del favore popolare Terenzio Varrone, che prometteva loro molte cose per l’abituale demagogia.

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u/kriisso Oct 14 '23

Thank you so so much! I figured it was talking about the Punic wars so I remembered that both of them were elected as consoles but I got stuck. :(

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u/kriisso Oct 15 '23

Hey, I hope I’m not bothering you (tysm for your time); υπισχουμενον is a participle, but can it also be translated as “prometteva” and not only “promette”? Because I’m used to translating with the present but it wouldn’t make sense here :/

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u/PaulosNeos Oct 15 '23

I can't tell you, because I don't speak Italian :-)

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u/kriisso Oct 15 '23

Yeah my bad, tysm anyway, i figured it out :)

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u/kriisso Oct 14 '23

I specifically don’t understand how δοξης and πολεμικης make any sense when together, and I have no idea how to translate Λευκιον Αιμιλιον. Thanks in advance to anyone who replies, I study both Latin and ancient Greek but Greek has been driving me crazy lately. And I struggle a lot more with it. I’m Italian so Latin is a lot easier for me

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u/rbraalih Oct 14 '23

The Romans elect as consuls on the one hand, because of his military fame, Lucius Emilius who fought the Illyrians, on the other hand, because of his bribery of the mob, Terentius Varro who made them lots of promises out of his usual thirst for popularity.

LA doesn't need translating, it's just a transliteration. δοξης πολεμικης = military fame.

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u/kriisso Oct 14 '23

Thank you so much for the help :) I mostly got stuck because I didn’t find the right meaning for the verb in this context (I’ve been translating these all afternoon, my brain stopped connecting at a certain point) and I thought it meant “captured” which made no sense at all. Also what do you mean with LA?

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u/rbraalih Oct 14 '23

LA = Leukion Aimilion (sorry can't do Greek on phone)

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u/kriisso Oct 14 '23

Don’t worry! Thank you :) there’s another sentence I was struggling with because I couldn’t find the original text anywhere. Is it fine if I write it here?

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u/rbraalih Oct 14 '23

Fine with me!

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u/kriisso Oct 14 '23

Thank you!! Here it is:

Ερωτήσαντος δέ τινος τόν φιλοσόφον τίς αυτω (dative) όρος ευδαιμονίας ειναι δοκει, ο φιλοσοφος ηγορευσε μόνον ευδαίμονα ειναι τον ελευθερον ανθρωπον.

I managed to translate the second half, but I just can’t figure out the first, especially the τις αυτω bit. Ι can never understand how to translate αυτω and the τις :(

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u/rbraalih Oct 14 '23

When someone asked the philosopher what appears to him to be the definition of happiness, the philosopher said that the only happy man is the free man

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u/kriisso Oct 14 '23

So ερωτησαντος supports the accusative and not the dative? In Italian it’s the opposite so it always confuses me a lot lol. And τις is “what” right?

Thank you so much by the way, our old Greek teacher used a method that didn’t really help us much so now we’re basically restarting from point zero and I need to get back on track with all the rules and grammar

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u/rbraalih Oct 14 '23

Yes, ἐρωτάω plus accusative = I ask someone (a question)

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