In Acts 21:39 Paul says EGW ANQRWPOS MEN EIMI IOUDAIOS, TARSEUS THS
KILIKIAS, OUK ASHMOU POLEWS POLITHS. Here the adjective ASHMOS appears in a
rhetorical double-negative expression OUK ASHMOU that is termed "litotes"
in the rhetorical manuals (and I earnestly hope this won't tick off a
thread on Litotes!); I would translate the phrase, "not undistinguished" =
"distinguished." Using the double negative, however, makes the assertion
much more powerful rhetorically, as when we say, "This is no little task"
rather than "This is a big job."
The antithetical adjective EUSHMOS appears in a highly ironic sense in a
memorable passage in Aeschylus's _Agamemnon_ 818, where the king who has
just returned home from the sack of Troy says of it:
KAPNWi D' hALOUSA NUN ET' EUSHMOS POLIS
"Still now the city, though conquered, is distinguished--by smoke."
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics/Washington University
One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018
Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cconrad@yancey.main.nc.us
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/