372 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



future condition, differing merely in the vividness with which they state 

 the supposition, — el tovto yevija-erat, if this shall Jtappen ; lav tovto 

 yevrjrai, if this happens (i. e., shall happen) ; and tl tovto yivoiTo, if this 

 should happen. 



Now the Latin, not having the same abundance of forms as the 

 Greek, commonly uses its present subjunctive in both protasis and apo- 

 dosis as the equivalent of the Greek optative ; as, dies defciat, si velim 

 numerare, &c., the day ivoidd fail me, if I should wish to enumerate, 

 &c. The adverb av, used in Greek to mark the apodosis, has no equiv- 

 alent in Latin. We have already seen that the Latin subjunctive is 

 sometimes used as the equivalent of the Greek subjunctive, as in the 

 example, nee si ciipias licebit ; but this is an exceptional use, the future 

 or future perfect indicative being the ordinary form. Still this fact 

 that the Latin could use its subjunctive to express both the subjunctive 

 and the optative in Greek is a strong proof that no such metaphysical 

 distinction as is commonly supposed existed between the last two. 



The Greek optative and the Latin subjunctive can of course express 

 general suppositions ; but as the form would not differ from that of 

 particular suppositions in this case, they present no peculiarities which 

 require notice here. 



IV. There remain to be considered those forms of present and 

 past conditions which imply that the condition is not or was not ful- 

 flled. Here the Greek uses the past tenses of the indicative in both 

 protasis and apodosis, with av in the apodosis ; the Latin uses the im- 

 perfect and pluperfect subjunctive. The Greek uses the imperfect in- 

 dicative to express continued or repeated action in either present or 

 past time, and the aorist (rarely the pluperfect) to express single or 

 momentary action in past time; the Latin uses the imperfect subjunc- 

 tive to refer to the present, the pluperfect to refer to the past. Thus, 

 TavTa ovK av e dvvavTO iroielv, el fir] diaiTfj fieTpia i)(pa>vTo, they would 

 not be able to do this (as they do), if they did not lead an abstemious 



life, XeN. Cyr. I. 2, 16: ovk av vrjaoov iKpdrei, (I /hi) vavTiKov fixtv, 

 he would not have been master of the islands, if he had not had a navy, 

 ThuC. I. 9 : et 6 $iX(7r7roy TavTrjv eax^ "f"^" yvcopLrjv, oiibev av av vvv\ TrenoirjKev 



fTrpa^ev, if Philip had formed this opinion, he would have done noth- 

 ing of what he has done, Dem. Phil. 1. p. 41, 18. A, caution is ne- 

 cessary here against introducing the idea of possibility or impossibility 

 into our definition of this construction. The construction implies 

 merely that the condition is not or was not fulfilled ; the supposition 



