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Preverbs and Dowries*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Extract

A fairly frequent syntactic phenomenon both of Greek and of Latin is, in the words of Calvert Watkins, ‘the iteration of a compound verb in a succeeding clause or sentence by the simple verb alone, but with the semantic force of the compound’.

Type
Shorter Notes
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1987

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References

1 HSCP 71 (1966), 115–19, at p. 115. Watkins gives references to earlier scholars who have collected instances of the idiom; further examples are adduced by R. Renehan, Greek Textual Criticism: A Reader (Cambridge, Mass., 1969), 77–85.

2 The same verband its suppletive perfect passivefigure on two Attic horoi (IG ii2 2758/9) which neatly demonstrate that the omission of the preverb is entirelyoptional and has no effect on the sense. 2758 readsFHHHin 2759 the mortgagee is given 'possession and control' by almost precisely the same formula - but he is called

3 Cf. Renehan (n. 1), 79, citing PI. Symp. 21 lb-c and plausibly emending Xen. Hell. 5.4.54.Google Scholar

4 Reiske's conjecturebut certain: Kiron could not' give back' a dowry to a man who had not previously possessed it.Google Scholar

5 See H. J. Wolff, Traditio 2 (1944), 54–8 (German version, with updated notes, in Wolff, Beitrage zur Rechtsgeschichte Altgriechenlands und des hellenistisch-rdmische Agypten [Weimar, 1961], 174–9); H. J. Wolff, RE xxm1 (1957), 137–9; A. R. W. Harrison, The Law of Athens I (Oxford, 1968), 47; D. M. Schaps, Economic Rights of Women in Ancient Greece (Edinburgh, 1979), 10–12, 101–5.Google Scholar

6

7 Wolff (n. 5), locc. citt

8 Schaps (n. 5), 10, 101–5Google Scholar

9 In his Traditio paper ([1944] 57 = [1961] 178) Wolff spoke of the clothing and jewellery as being given 'to the bride herself; in his RE article, on the other hand, he describes them as ' appurtenances' (' Zubehor') of the wife, which' came with her to the husband' and automatically went with her from the husband in the event of divorce.Google Scholar

10 Schaps (n. 5), 11 (‘the trousseau… belonged to [the husband] permanently’), 12 (‘once the marriage was terminated…the return of the trousseau…could take place by direct gift to [the woman]’).Google Scholar

11 Schaps (n. 5), 1

12 Wolff in both his discussions (see n. 5) tries to obviate the ambiguity by placing a strong stop before depawaivas, forgetting apparently that this modern convenience was not available to PasionGoogle Scholar

13 M. I. Finley, Studies in Land and Credit in Ancient Athens (New Brunswick, N.J., 1952), 243 n. 53. Harrison (n. 5), 47 n. 1 is wrong to say that in a later paper (Seminar 12 [1954], 23 n. 58) Finley 'withdrew and accepted Wolff's interpretation': in fact Finley (rightly) withdrew his suggestion that twiSiSco/Lti 'APXITTTT) meant 'I further give to Archippe' and accepted that the meaning of the phrase was 'I give along with Archippe', but beyond that he gave no indication of how he would now interpret the passageGoogle Scholar

14 I do not say 'the property which was to constitute Archippe's dowry', since only the first three items are assigned a value and only they, therefore, were capable of being part of her irpoi in the legal sense (cf. n. 6); ApoUodoros in speaking ofis using the term looselyGoogle Scholar

15 Buermann: anoSiSwaiv (del. avrw) Scheibe. There can be no doubt that kmSlSwatv is correct. One eni a dowry to a woman's husband at the time of her marriage; one a-jroStSwoi a dowry either to her next of kin upon divorce (cf. [Dem.] 59.52) or when an agreement has been made that the dowry shall not be paid immediately upon marriage but shall become a debt to be paid later (as in Dem. 30.7–8). Here the latter sense of cmoSiSujai is irrelevant, and the former is not appropriate when the giving of the dowry is being mentioned in direct connection, not with the divorce, but with the remarriage. The manuscripts' auTi could be right, but is a little clumsy when all the other unemphatic or unexpressed pronouns in the sentence (abrqv, avrfi, the subject of JjXdtv and the dative governed by rjv) refer or would refer to Menekles' ex-wife.

16 That is, the dowry (twenty mnai) which he had received when he married her (§5).

17 One grammatical point, however, may tell in favour of taking namely that if Sovvai meant 'to give outright' one would expect avrrj to be added. For one could hardly understand avrrj out of TTJ yvvaiKi just before, since the two datives would be of quite different kinds - the first comitative and governed by km-, the second a dative of the recipient governed by Sovvai.Google Scholar

18 For the other relevant evidence see Schaps (n. 5), 101–5.1 leave aside Men. Koneiazomenai 2–5, which cannot be used as evidence given the tattered state of the text and the uncertainty as to how it should be supplemented; though the supplements proposed by Sandbach (in the 1972 Oxford text), the most plausible yet suggested, make the verb iinSiSovai govern both a dowry and a 'trousseau' as objects, in full conformity with the interpretations here advanced

19 T k. 47.57

20 I am indebted to Professor MacDowell for emphasizing this point: 'there is no doubt', he writes, 'that it was possible for an Athenian woman to own things (cf. Lys. 32.6 KareXint...), so that, if her father or other relative wished to give her something on the occasion of her marriage, I do not see how that can have been legally impossible, even if we do not happen to know of an instance'.Google Scholar

21 When Plato in the Laws prohibits dowries (5.742c) but allows the bride's kyrios to make a gift of limited valuehe assumes that such a gift would be made to the husband, not the wife; for if the value of the gift exceeds the prescribed limit, 6...voiv (n.b. masculine) is liable to punishment

22 Cf. e.g. Otto Hense (Teubner, 1914), 171; Achilles Beltrami (Brescia, 1916), 179; Richard M. Gummere (Loeb, 1917), 374; Francois Prechac (Bude, 1958), 62; L. D. Reynolds (Oxford, 1965), 148

23 See Oxford Latin Dictionary, edited by P. G. W. Glare (Oxford, 1982) s.v. tubula

24 Cf., e.g., Ep. 90.26 in which Seneca writes per tubam ac tibiamGoogle Scholar

25 Select Letters of Seneca (London, 1910, reprinted 1965), 62–3 n. 7.

26 The name of this fountain is descriptive of its appearance, resembling a goal in the circus (meta), flowing, spraying, or 'sweating'jets of water (sudans). The Meta Sudans in Rome stood between the Arch of Constantine and the Colosseum at the meeting point of the five regions of Augustus, I, II, III, IV, X. After thorough excavation in 1933, Mussolini removed the remains in 1936 to construct for his fascist parades the great street which passes through the imperial fora area. See Samuel B. Platner and Thomas Ashby, A Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome (Oxford, 1929), 340–1; Ernest Nash, Pictorial Dictionary of Ancient Rome (New York, 1962), n.61–3; Raymond L. DenAdel, 'Seneca the Younger and the Meta Sudans', CB 60 (1984), 1–4; Filippo Coarelli, Guida Archeologica di Roma (Milan, 1975), 175.Google Scholar