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Translation Assistance => Other language pairs => Ancient Greek→English translation forum => Topic started by: stix on 06 Oct, 2009, 20:18:55

Title: second aorist participle for παράγω: meaning?
Post by: stix on 06 Oct, 2009, 20:18:55
In the following sentence taken from Lucian's ΒΙΩΝ ΠΡΑΣΙΣ:

σὺ δὲ στῆσον ἑξῆς παραγαγὼν τοὺς βίους

why do we not have ἄγων or ἄξας ? Would it have changed the meaning? What particular meaning does the second aorist confer to the sentence?
Title: Re: second aorist participle for παράγω: meaning?
Post by: billberg23 on 06 Oct, 2009, 21:21:48
As pointed out in your previous topic, there is no difference in meaning between first and second aorists of ἄγω.  In any case, first aorist is extremely rare in classical (or, as here, second-century would-be classical) prose.

Not having the text, I don't have a context here.  But we can make the definite generalization that the aorist participle always expresses an acltion that takes place before (even immediately before) the action of the main verb.  Here, the translation would be apparently something like "Bring on the lives and set them up one by one."  If the writer had used παράγων, the participle would have expressed action simultaneous with the action of the main verb, and the translation would have been "set them up while you are bringing them on" — which would seem to make less sense logically.