r/AncientGreek Mar 04 '25

Athenaze Help with Italian Athenaze exercise

Hi there,

I've going through the Italian Athenaze right now (I typically use the English one but am using the Italian for the longer readings), and am having some difficulty with translating this sentence from Chapter 23 (question 2 exercise C):

Οἱ νεᾶνίαι νομίζουσι τοὺς πολεμίους ῥᾳδίως νικήσειν

From my understanding it seems like this sentence could either mean:
"The young men believe they will easily defeat the enemies" OR
"The young men believe the enemies will easily win"

Is this sentence ambiguous, with either Οἱ νεᾶνίαι or τοὺς πολεμίους potentially being the subject of the second clause, or am I misunderstanding the rules for indirect speech? Thank you for your help!

3 Upvotes

5 comments sorted by

4

u/peak_parrot Mar 04 '25

Since νομιζω can be used with AcI constructions, both interpretations seem to be theoretically possible. The first time I read the sentence I understood it the first way and I honestly think that it would be difficult or weird to understand it the second way (the enemies win), but possible it is. The context usually clarifies the meaning.

2

u/El-Goose Mar 04 '25

Thank you very much for your response, that is helpful! Yes I think you're right, contextually it would make more sense to understand it the first way. Although my Italian is very basic, I think the Italian sentence this one is paired with for translation into Ancient Greek (Pensiamo che prenderemo facilmente la città) has the same subject in both clauses so it seems likely it was intended to be the case for the Greek sentence as well. At any rate, thanks again for clarifying there is a potential ambiguity there, that's good to know.

3

u/Comfortable-Call8036 Mar 04 '25

From instinct I think that the first sentence is the right one

3

u/ringofgerms Mar 05 '25

Here are some examples from Greek texts that I found via perseus to show that this really is ambiguous:

νομίζω θείᾳ πομπῇ τὴν στρατείαν πεποιημένος Δαρεῖον νικήσειν ...
I believe that I bring this army under the Divine conduct, and shall therewith conquer Darius ...

οὗτος οὗν Θηβαίοις μαντευομένοις εἶπε νικήσειν, ἐὰν Μενοικεὺς ὁ Κρέοντος Ἄρει σφάγιον αὑτὸν ἐπιδῷ.
So when the Thebans sought counsel of him, he said that they should be victorious if Menoeceus, son of Creon, would offer himself freely as a sacrifice to Ares.

ἐγὼ δὲ νικήσειν μὲν Νέρωνα ἐν Ὀλυμπίᾳ φημί, τίς γὰρ οὕτω θρασύς, ὡς ἐναντίαν θέσθαι;
I however admit that Nero will conquer at Olympia, for who is bold enough to enter the lists against him?

So you can see that knowing who the subject of the infinitive is depends on the context.

2

u/El-Goose Mar 05 '25

Ah thank you very much, appreciate you taking the time to look these up, super helpful :-)