LC Ancient Greek flashcards

32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Middle voice meaning

In present and future forms the -ομαι ending can be middle: the subject acts on or for itself, or causes something to be done. Check for a passive agent with ὑπό plus genitive before choosing passive.

Genitive absolute

A participle and noun both in the genitive, grammatically separate from the main clause, expressing time, cause, or condition: τούτων λεχθέντων, 'when these things had been said'.

Accusative and infinitive

Indirect statement construction after verbs of saying, thinking, or perceiving: the subject of the reported clause goes into the accusative and the verb becomes an infinitive. Negative is οὐ.

Future less vivid condition

εἰ with the optative in the protasis and ἄν with the optative in the apodosis, expressing a hypothetical future possibility regarded as remote: 'if he were to do this, he would…'.

ἵστημι voice shift

Present and imperfect are transitive-causal, 'I make stand, I set up'. Aorist ἔστην, perfect ἕστηκα and pluperfect are intransitive, 'I stood, I stand'. A frequent translation trap.

Contract verb τιμάω

-αω verbs contract: α + ε/η → η (long alpha), α + ο/ου/ω → ω, α + ι → αι. Thus τιμάω gives τιμῶ, τιμᾷς, τιμᾶν; the uncontracted form reveals the dictionary entry.

Purpose clause markers

ἵνα, ὡς, and ὅπως take the subjunctive after a primary main verb and the optative after a secondary one. The negative is μή, not οὐ.

Dative of agent

With a perfect passive or verbal adjective, the person who performs the action stands in the dative without a preposition: ταῦτα ἡμῖν πέπρακται, 'these things have been done by us'.

Iambic trimeter pattern

Six iambic feet (x – u –) repeated three times, with the last foot usually u –. Resolutions replace one long with two shorts, common in later tragedy and comedy.

Dactylic hexameter

Six feet of dactyl (– u u) or spondee (– –); the fifth foot is nearly always dactylic and the sixth is a spondee or trochee. A caesura often falls in the third foot.

Particle μέν and δέ

A correlative pair marking contrast: μέν introduces the first item and is not translated, δέ marks the second, usually rendered 'on the other hand' or simply 'and' or 'but'.

Crasis and elision

Elision drops a final short vowel before a following vowel (ἀλλ' ἐγώ). Crasis fuses two words, usually article plus noun (κἀγώ = καὶ ἐγώ, τοὔνομα = τὸ ὄνομα). Restore full forms before parsing.

Article as identifier

ὁ, ἡ, τό commonly marks a definite, known, or previously mentioned referent. Without the article an abstract noun is often general or predicative: σοφία ἐστίν, 'it is wisdom'.

Genitive of comparison

After a comparative adjective, the standard of comparison stands in the genitive without ἤ: μείζων τούτου, 'greater than this man'. With ἤ the same case as the first term is used.

ἄρα and οὖν

Both are inferential particles: ἄρα marks a conclusion drawn or a surprised realisation, οὖν marks a natural consequence. Neither is stressed, and either may be left untranslated.

Aorist versus imperfect

Aorist presents an event as a single complete whole and advances narrative. Imperfect presents ongoing, repeated, or background action. Choice of tense is a deliberate narrative signal.

Messenger speech convention

In tragedy a messenger reports offstage violence in vivid narrative, sparing the audience the sight while supplying detail. Its rhetoric, not its factual content, is usually the interpretative point.

Stichomythia

Rapid line-for-line exchange between two characters, each speaking one verse. Used for confrontation, interrogation, and escalating tension; word choice and repetition carry the dramatic weight.

Dramatic irony

A gap between what the audience knows and what the character understands. Loaded words spoken in ignorance, especially about death or identity, are the standard markers in tragedy.

Choral ode function

Stasima separate episodes and comment obliquely through myth, prayer, or general reflection. They may qualify rather than endorse the action, so their relevance must be argued from the text.

Asyndeton

Omission of connectives between parallel words or clauses, producing a clipped, urgent, or emphatic effect. A stylistic feature to name and then link to a specific emotional effect.

Ring composition

A structure in which a sequence returns to its opening element (A B C B' A'), common in epic speeches and narrative. The framing device often signals the passage's thematic centre.

City Dionysia

Athenian festival in spring at which tragedies and comedies were performed competitively. A choregos funded each production; three actors with masks played all roles.

Athenian citizenship limits

Citizenship was restricted to adult male children of citizen parents; metics, women, slaves, and freedmen were excluded from the assembly, jury courts, and political office.

Persian Wars dates

Marathon 490, Thermopylae and Artemisium 480, Salamis 480, Plataea and Mycale 479. These dates frame fifth-century Athenian self-presentation and much later literary allusion.

Peloponnesian War phases

431–404 BC: Archidamian phase to 421, Sicilian expedition 415–413, Ionian war to the Athenian defeat at Aegospotami 405. Thucydides and Aristophanes are read against this sequence.

Delphi and Dodona

Delphi, sanctuary of Apollo, gave responses through the Pythia; Dodona, sanctuary of Zeus, used oak leaves and doves. Oracles shape plot in Herodotus and tragedy, often ambiguously.

Homeric epithet formula

A repeated phrase combining epithet and noun, metrically shaped to fill a fixed slot in the hexameter. Variation between formulae can be poetically meaningful, not merely convenient.

Tragic structural units

Prologue, parodos, alternating episodes and stasima, then exodos. Each unit has its own conventions, and the chorus's role shifts between actor, commentator, and framing voice.

Xenia and its violation

Xenia is the guest-host relationship protected by Zeus. Violation, as in the Cyclops or the house of Atreus, drives plots and signals a breakdown of civilised order.

Essay thesis requirement

A thesis must state a position and a reason, for example that a character is presented as culpable because the text repeatedly shows deliberate choice, so the claim can be argued from evidence.

Counter-argument in essays

State the strongest opposing reading, give its textual support, then show why your reading survives or must be qualified. Acknowledging complication scores higher than one-sided assertion.