[*] 129. The future optative occurs first in Pindar, in an indirect question, “ἐκέλευσεν διακρῖναι ἅντινα σχήσοι τις ἡρώων,” “to decide which maiden each of the heroes should take” (τίνα σχήσει;), Py. ix. 126 . It is used chiefly by the Attic prose writers, as the correlative of the future indicative, that tense having had no corresponding optative form in the older language, as the present, perfect, and aorist indicative and subjunctive had. It is never used with ἄν.
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