Sir Richard C. Jebb, Selections from the Attic Orators

γνώμης δ᾽ ἐπίδειξιν ‘a display of intellect’ (in the recitation of poems, orations, etc.); but not properly ἀγῶνα, a contest, since at Olympia there were not prizes for a μουσικὸς ἀγών, as there were at Delphi. Lucian, it is true, says of Herodotus, ἀγωνιστὴν παρεῖχεν ἑαυτὸν Ὀλυμπίων: but he presently explains that this is metaphorical — ἀνακηρυχθεὶς οὐχ ὑφ᾽ ἑνὸς μὰ Δία κήρυκος ἀλλ̓ ἐν ἁπάσῃ πόλει, κ.τ.λ. (Her. 2). Besides the ‘sophists, historians and speech-writers’, Lucian mentions Aetion as having exhibited at Olympia his picture of the marriage of Alexander and Roxana (ib. 3).

<ἂν> γενέσθαι] It seems probable that we should supply ἄν, rather than change γενέσθαι to γενήσεσθαι. One of the two remedies is necessary. The aor. infin., without ἄν, might be used if the context made it clear that the reference was to the future: but, here, ἡγήσατο γενέσθαι would mean ‘thought that it had become’. On p. 69, § 19, ᾤοντο κτήσασθαι means, indeed, ‘thought to acquire’; but there a difference is made (a) by the fact that the sense of ‘expecting’ can be given to οἴομαι more easily than to ἡγοῦμαι: (b) by the fact that the context is clearer.