Lys 1, 20

[Constantinus Philo]

κατηγόρει πρῶτον μὲν ὡς μετὰ τὴν ἐκφορὰν αὐτῇ προσίοι, ἔπειτα ὡς αὐτὴ τελευτῶσα εἰσαγγείλειε καὶ ὡς ἐκείνη τῷ χρόνῳ πεισθείη, καὶ τὰς εἰσόδους οἷς τρόποις προσίοιτο -it should be probably προσιεῖτο. Lys., 1, 20.
She started accusing him, telling, first, how he had been approaching her after the funeral, then, how she ended up carrying messages and how in time that woman was persuaded, and by what means she was preparing his entrances.

[mwh]

Constantinus, In your previous post, on σῖγ’, you misquoted the passage concerned and pronounced that σῖγ’ “stands probably for σιγῇ.” You gave no reason for this statement, which was quite false. Now, on this Lysias passage, you pronounce that προσίοιτο (which you don’t seem to recognize is a conjecture) “should be probably προσιεῖτο.” Again you give no reason for thinking so. You do not even say what you think προσιεῖτο would mean (certainly not “she was preparing” as you translate it).

You have a habit of making such foolhardy and ill-informed statements, without a word to back them up. It’s annoying. Please quit, or if you absolutely must continue (but why?), at least explain your reasoning. Still better, try harder to understand the text, and if you can’t, ask.

[Constantinus Philo]

I think that τὰς εἰσόδους is the direct object of προσιεῖτο, which means 'to accept', 'tolerate', 'permit'. And I cannot identify προσίοιτο . The English translation that can be consulted on Perseus translates προσίοιτο as 'procured', and for me it is unclear why.

[phalakros]

Constantinus:

You’re right that τὰς εἰσόδους is the direct object. προσιεῖτο, προσίοιτο, and προσιοῖτο are all possible forms for the pres. mid. opt. of προσίημι. The first is the most regular. With -μι verbs, there are alternate opt. forms following -ω or -έω inflection (accentuation fluctuates between uncontracted and contracted in mss) in the plural and 3rd sing.

The mss all have προσιοι here, which doesn’t work. There are several conjectures (see Carey’s OCT for more). As mwh points out, your “preparing” won’t do for προσίημι (but you could read ποιοῖτο/ποιοίη instead). Better "admit" (his visits) or “let in”—in the sense of, e.g., ἡμᾶς γ᾽ οὐ δεῖ τοιοῦτον προσέσθαι εἰς τὴν πόλιν.

Reviewing the morphology of -μι verbs is almost never a waste of time.

[Constantinus Philo]

Actually, I cannot find this form anywhere, neither in Smythe, nor in LS, so obviously its wrong.

[Constantinus Philo]

Constantinus: I have not found the forms προσίοιτο, and προσιοῖτο listed anywhere, neither in Smythe nor in LS.

You’re right that τὰς εἰσόδους is the direct object. προσιεῖτο, προσίοιτο, and προσιοῖτο are all possible forms for the pres. mid. opt. of προσίημι. The first is the most regular. With -μι verbs, there are alternate opt. forms following -ω or -έω inflection (accentuation fluctuates between uncontracted and contracted in mss) in the plural and 3rd sing.

The mss all have προσιοι here, which doesn’t work. There are several conjectures (see Carey’s OCT for more). As mwh points out, your “preparing” won’t do for προσίημι (but you could read ποιοῖτο/ποιοίη instead). Better "admit" (his visits) or “let in”—in the sense of, e.g., ἡμᾶς γ᾽ οὐ δεῖ τοιοῦτον προσέσθαι εἰς τὴν πόλιν.

Reviewing the morphology of -μι verbs is almost never a waste of time.

[Aetos]

Actually, I cannot find this form anywhere, neither in Smythe, nor in LS, so obviously its wrong.

I think this is what you're looking for:
Smyth, 746.c
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... ythp%3D746

[jeidsath]

I didn't find the anacoluthon of the manuscripts, "καὶ τὰς εἰσόδους οἷς τρόποις προσίοι," so very terrible. It's easy enough to mentally insert something like "καὶ [ἐδήλου] τὰς εἰσόδους οἷς τρόποις προσίοι". The LSJ gives an example of πρόσειμι being used absolutely to visit a woman. And there is no ὡς in front of τὰς εἰσόδους.

Ocellus: "...ὅτι οὐχ ἡδονῆς ἕνεκα πρόσιμεν ἀλλὰ τέκνων γενέσεως"

[mwh]

προσίοι here is indefensible (as I expect all scholars agree). There’s surely been contamination from προσίοι above, where it’s unproblematic.
I take it that τὰς εἰσόδους is simply fronted, placed ahead of οἷς τρόποις. It will be the object of whatever verb προσίοι has displaced (hardly προσίοιτο). There's no anacolouthon.

[jeidsath]

What makes it indefensible, rather than simply unlikely? It's intelligible enough, meaning something like: "<she indicated> the entrances by which he rendezvoused". The first and main difficulty is κατηγόρει, but that's far enough back that the anacoluthon from "accuse" to "explain" or "reveal" does not seem strange. The exact force of προσιεναι might be a second difficulty. But "to rendezvous (for a sexual encounter)" seems supported enough. The manuscript tradition is uniform. A verb dropping out because of the previous προσιεναι is likely enough, I agree, or even probable. But I don't quite see what makes the reasonably intelligible manuscript reading here impossible.

[mwh]

“intelligible enough,” you say, and “supported enough,” and you continue to talk of an anacoluthon. You and you alone, outside of the ballpark where scholars play. I simply say Enough.

My contribution here (though surely it can’t be an original observation—I haven’t checked Carey or other commentary) was just to point out the untenable repetition of προσίοι in the transmission. I think that’s the starting point, and quite possibly the ending point. But as I say, Enough. It's clear we’re not going to make progress here.

[Constantinus Philo]

I thought from the start that προσίοι cannot be here because τὰς εἰσόδους cannot be its direct object. So another verb should be chosen to replace it, προσιεῖτο for instance, though it does not very well agree with the context.
Another thing, which I have not mentioned but which has been pointed to by Joel is that κατηγόρει conflates here two meanings: to accuse and to say. Is this common in Attic?

[jeidsath]

"Outside of the ballpark where scholars play". Here's a discussion from Frohberger (1868), who doesn't dismiss the manuscript version out of hand. (He has a different explanation from mine, and in the end he concludes that the possible parallels are not exact.) I'm sorry that I don't have anything newer for you, if Frohberger bothers you, but Google Books doesn't exactly do a great job on the 20th century. I would doubt that he was the only one to consider the idea.

[seneca2008]

Another thing, which I have not mentioned but which has been pointed to by Joel is that κατηγόρει conflates here two meanings: to accuse and to say. Is this common in Attic?

Todd (A Commentary on Lysias, Speeches 1–11 (2007)) is interesting on this:

"κατηγόρει . . . ὡς (‘she accused him of’, lit. ‘accused, that he had’). The verb normally used for a slave denouncing a criminal is mēnuō (for the offences covered by this procedure, see pp. 388–389 below). The use of katēgoreō here is striking though not unparalleled (similar language is used of another slave at Ant. 5.35), because it is the word normally given to a prosecutor—something for which qua slave, let alone qua woman, she did not have the independent standing. Just as the old woman uses language normally associated with prosecution (§16n), so here the maid is temporarily accorded that status: within the terms of the metaphor, therefore, Euphiletos does not have to assume this rôle, and can simply deliver and carry out the sentence. (For the presentation but also the subversion of Euphiletos as prosecutor, see §1nn, §26n.)"

It seems difficult to imagine that κατηγόρει means other than accuse here. It's yet another example where Lysias tries to pull the wool over the eyes of the jury.

[Hylander]

Actually, Frohberger seems to come very close to rejecting προσίοι out of hand, doesn't he? Allerfalls means "at best," and he dismisses the arguments in favor, instead citing 10 (I think) attempts at correction by a variety of scholars, including one of his own, none of which preserves προσίοι.

"to rendezvous (for a sexual encounter)" seems supported enough.

I'm not sure that meaning is supported very strongly -- just one instance, as far as I can tell, in LSJ from Xenophon and one of προσέρχομαι from the Hippocratean corpus, and in those cases it simply means "have intercourse with", not "rendezvous". But in any case it's unlikely it would have that meaning here, because he's just used προσίοι in the sense of "approach" in the phase of the relationship before the wife gave in.

Edited: Carey prints προσιεἲτο, "admitted", attributed to Thalheim, and that seems to make good enough sense, although the direct object of the verb seems to be the person or thing admitted, so τὰς εἰσόδους . . . προσιεἲτο is perhaps a slight stretch. Actually, the alternative form προσίοιτο would seem a better choice because it would help explain the erroneous προσίοι, wouldn't it?

κατηγόρει with an indirect question seems slightly odd, but perhaps not so much when packaged in a string of ὡς clauses (another follows).

LSJ προσίημι:

II. more freq. in Med., let come to or near one, admit, προσίεσθαί τινα ἐς ταὐτὸ ἡμῖν αὐτοῖς admit one into our society, Id.An.3.1.30; “π. τινὰ εἰς ὁμιλίαν” Pl.Phdr.255a; ἐγγὺς π. [τοὺς Ἕλληνας] let them approach, X. An.4.2.12; “π. τὸν πόλεμον εἰς τὴν χώραν” D.9.51; of animals, “ἵπποι χαλεπῶς π. ἃ πρόδηλα αὐτοῖς ἐστιν” X.Eq.3.3; “τιθασεύεται καὶ π. τὰς χεῖρας” Arist.HA608a26; “π. τὰ παιδάρια τῷ μαστῷ” Plu.Cat.Ma. 20.

[Hylander]

It's yet another example where Lysias tries to pull the wool over the eyes of the jury.

All of the "Attic orators" play fast and loose with the truth. But I don't think there's necessarily much warrant for assuming that any of the speeches collected in the Lysianic corpus were actually written by Lysias, with the exception of his personally delivered speech against the Eratosthenes who was a member of the Thirty (and who may or may not have been the same person as the subject of this speech).

[jeidsath]

I understand the dismissal, and mostly agree with it, though I worry a lot about smoothing out awkward bits in texts along with the wrong bits. A nicer reading can still be wrong. But the point is that it received discussion there, which I take as the opposite of "out of hand."

The fast and looseness of the truth that was mentioned was a trick for getting a slave's testimony admitted. So more like Atticus Finch than Saul Goodman, I'd think. But I do think that that this entire case is just as fictional as any worked on by those two lawyers. The πρεσβῦτις mentioned leading up to this section is particularly unbelievable.

[seneca2008]

But I don't think there's necessarily much warrant for assuming that any of the speeches collected in the Lysianic corpus were actually written by Lysias, with the exception of his personally delivered speech against the Eratosthenes who was a member of the Thirty (and who may or may not have been the same person as the subject of this speech).

There is an interesting and extensive discussion of the question of the disputed authorship of Lysias' speeches (which dates from antiquity) in Todd, which I referred to above. On Lysias 1 he says:

"Lys. 1 is among the few speeches of which the authorship seems never to have been seriously questioned, even in the nineteenth century (Darkow 1917: 10 n. 15). There have however been some doubts as to how far our text represents a speech that was genuinely delivered. "

[seneca2008]

The fast and looseness of the truth that was mentioned was a trick for getting a slave's testimony admitted. So more like Atticus Finch than Saul Goodman, I'd think. But I do think that that this entire case is just as fictional as any worked on by those two lawyers. The πρεσβῦτις mentioned leading up to this section is particularly unbelievable.

Whether this speech was some kind of rhetorical exercise or a speech that was actually delivered does not to my mind affect its "believability". What matters of course is not whether we think, as readers who have time to reflect on a particular testimony, but the effect it had on the jurors.

Todd (see above) quotes an anecdote as follows: "Plutarch (On Garrulity, 5 = Moralia, 502c5–10), writing in the second century AD, tells a story about Lysias himself having written a speech and given it to a litigant
(λόγον συγγράψα ἔδωκεν), only for the latter to come back and complain that each time he read it, what had initially seemed a brilliant speech appeared less persuasive. The point of the story as Plutarch tells it is of course Lysias’ predictable response that the jury would only hear it once; "

[jeidsath]

Whether this speech was some kind of rhetorical exercise or a speech that was actually delivered does not to my mind affect its "believability". What matters of course is not whether we think, as readers who have time to reflect on a particular testimony, but the effect it had on the jurors.

How would it have had an effect on jurors if it was never delivered to any jurors? If this isn't a real speech and doesn't cover a real incident, of course that would change how we judge it.

[seneca2008]

How would it have had an effect on jurors if it was never delivered to any jurors? If this isn't a real speech and doesn't cover a real incident, of course that would change how we judge it.

I think you need a little bit more imagination than this.

[jeidsath]

If it's -- possibly -- a fictional case created to serve as a legal advertisement for his services, it's actually far more interesting to evaluate it based on what it is, and the effect it was intended to have on potential clients, than on any sort of make-believe legal fan-fiction basis.