Abstract

The use of with the future indicative is admittedly rare in post-Homeric Greek. In the passages concerned many deny the usage completely and either omit the particle or resort to emendation, or dismiss the construction as a mere ana-colouthon. In an instructive article in the Classical Quarterly, xl , Moorhouse argues in favour of retaining many of the readings, and it is only his interpretation that is in question here. His main thesis is that in Homeric Greek, where the usage is common enough, κ or with the future means either ‘in that case’ or ‘probably’ . The latter usage, however, he regards as sometimes assuming a tone of dogmatic certainty , and this ‘emphatic future’ came to be the regular and literal meaning of the later idiom, without any irony being involved