MATSEC AM Greek flashcards

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Genitive absolute

A participial phrase whose noun and participle both stand in the genitive and are grammatically independent of the main clause, usually expressing time, cause, or circumstance.

Aorist indicative meaning

The aorist presents an event as a complete whole, translated as simple past in English. It does not imply long duration or repetition, which belong to the imperfect.

Future less vivid condition

A conditional using εἰ with the optative in the protasis and ἄν with the optative in the apodosis, presenting a future possibility as remote or hypothetical.

Middle voice

A voice form marking that the subject acts with reference to itself, whether reflexively, for its own interest, or reciprocally, as in λούομαι, 'I wash myself'.

Recessive accent

The rule that verbs accent as far back from the final syllable as the quantity of the final syllable permits, giving acute on the antepenult only when the final is short.

Indirect statement with infinitive

After verbs of saying or thinking, reported speech may use an infinitive with its subject in the accusative, without any conjunction such as ὅτι.

μέν and δέ

Postpositive particles pairing clauses: μέν introduces the first item and δέ the contrasted second, often rendered 'on the one hand' and 'on the other'.

Dactylic hexameter

The epic metre of Homer and Hesiod, six feet of dactyls or spondees with a fixed cadence, allowing formulaic phrases to fill metrical slots.

Tragic messenger speech

A speech in Greek tragedy reporting offstage action, especially deaths, so that violence is narrated rather than shown on stage.

Dramatic irony in Oedipus

The audience knows Oedipus is the killer he curses and the son of Laius, while he does not, so his confident speeches carry a second meaning.

Herodotean historia

Herodotus' method of inquiry, combining ethnographic digressions, reported logoi, and causal explanation of conflict, especially between Greeks and Persians.

Euripides' Medea

A tragedy in which Medea, betrayed by Jason and threatened with exile, kills their children and escapes in Helios' chariot, denying Jason burial of the bodies.

Socratic elenchus

The question-and-answer method in Plato's early dialogues, testing an interlocutor's definition by drawing out contradictions and ending often in aporia.

Parabasis

In Old Comedy, a choral section where the chorus speaks directly to the audience, often on topical or political themes, breaking dramatic illusion.

Sophoclean peripeteia

A reversal of the situation, as when the messenger's news in Oedipus Tyrannus, intended to reassure, instead advances the discovery of Oedipus' identity.

Purpose clause with ἵνα

A subordinate clause expressing purpose, using ἵνα, ὡς, or ὅπως with the subjunctive after a primary main verb or the optative after a secondary one.

Result clause with ὥστε

A clause of result using ὥστε with the infinitive when the outcome is natural or expected, or with the indicative when it is actual.

Verbal aspect

The distinction carried by Greek stems: present stem for ongoing process, aorist stem for a complete event, perfect stem for a resulting state.

Accusative and infinitive

A construction after verbs of ordering, allowing, or saying, where the subject of the infinitive stands in the accusative, e.g. ἐκέλευσεν αὐτὸν ἐλθεῖν.

Fear clause with μή

After verbs of fearing, μή with subjunctive or optative expresses fear that something will happen; μή οὐ expresses fear that it will not.

Contract verb τιμάω

A verb whose stem ends in a vowel; α contracts with ο and ου to ω, giving τιμῶμεν from τιμάομεν, and with ει to ᾳ in the dative.

Augment in compounds

In compound verbs the past-tense augment is placed after the prepositional prefix, as in ἀποβάλλω becoming ἀπέβαλλον, not ἐἀποβαλλον.

Dative of possession

A dative pronoun or noun with the verb εἰμί expresses possession, as in ἔστι μοι βιβλίον, literally 'a book is to me'.

πρίν with infinitive

After a negative main clause, πρίν with the infinitive means 'before', as in οὐκ ἀπῆλθε πρὶν ἰδεῖν, 'he did not leave before seeing'.

Cleisthenes' reforms

Reorganisation of Attica into ten tribes and demes in 508/7 BC, creating the Council of 500 and weakening older aristocratic regional power.

Delian League

An alliance founded in 478/7 BC under Athenian leadership against Persia, whose tribute and fleet were later controlled by Athens as an empire.

Spartan gerousia

The Spartan council of twenty-eight elders plus the two kings, preparing business for the assembly and holding judicial powers over major cases.

Ephialtes' reforms

Athenian reforms of 462/1 BC that stripped the Areopagus of its political and judicial powers, transferring them to the Council, assembly, and jury courts.

Metic status

Resident foreigners in Athens who were free but lacked citizenship, paid a metic tax, and needed a citizen sponsor for legal and property matters.

City Dionysia

Athens' major festival of Dionysus, featuring competitions in tragedy and comedy funded by choregoi, where the great tragic and comic plays were performed.

Attic red-figure pottery

A technique introduced around 530 BC in which figures are reserved in clay colour against a black background, allowing finer painted detail than black-figure.

Athenian strategoi

Ten generals elected annually, one per tribe, who commanded military forces and could be re-elected, unlike the lot-chosen archons.