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[*] 321. The subjunctive thus used for the optative makes the language more vivid, by introducing more nearly the original form of thought of the person whose purpose is stated. As the two forms are equally correct, we sometimes find both in the same sentence, just as we find the indicative and optative interchanged in indirect discourse (670; see 677 and 690). E.g. Ἑξακοσίους λογάδας ἐξέκριναν, ὅπως τῶν τε Ἐπιπολῶν εἴησαν φύλακες καὶ, ἢν ἐς ἄλλο τι δέῃ, ταχὺ ξυνεστῶτες παραγίγνωνται, i.e. they selected them, that they might be guards of Epipolae, and that they might be on hand if they should be needed for anything else. THUC. vi. 96. Παρανῖσχον δὲ φρυκτοὺς, ὅπως ἀσαφῆ τὰ σημεῖα τοῖς πολεμίοις ᾖ καὶ μὴ βοηθοῖεν, they raised fire-signals at the same time, in order that the enemy's signals might be unintelligible to them, and that they (the enemy) might not bring aid. Id. iii. 22. A common interpretation of the latter and of similar passages, that “the subjunctive mood indicates the immediate, and the optative the remote consequence of the action contained in the principal verbs, the second being a consequence of the first” (Arnold), manifestly could not apply to the first example.
Macmillan. London, Melbourne, Toronto. 1889. reprint edition:. St. Martin's Press. New York. 1965.
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