Reading Social Conflict through Greek Grammar 115 fact that the optative was on the decline in the Hellenistic era, it will be necessary to extend our review back into the classical period in order to get the full effect of its semantic range and the change that took place. 3.1. Semantics of the Fourth-Class Condition in the Classical Period In classical Greek, there were primarily two ways in which one could communicate a future supposition: the third and the fourth-class conditions15. In both cases, the forms could be used to describe a future action or circumstance that was potential. There was diversity on the scale of potentiality within each of these constructions; nevertheless, the two remained semantically distinct16. Very often the difference between the two was essentially what separated the subjunctive mood from the optative, namely, the degree of probability. If one wished to indicate a greater probability of fulfillment, the third-class condition would have been the natural choice. So, for instance, in Menander, Mon. 165, we read: ἐὰν δ᾽ἔχωμεν χρήμαθ᾽, ἕξομεν φιλους (“If we have money, we will have friends”). If, on the other hand, one wanted to communicate a less likely probability on the continuum of potentiality, the fourth-class condition would have been expected. Aeschylus, Prom. 979 provides an example of this type of construction: ἔιης φορητὸς οὐκ ἄν, εἰ πράσσοις καλῶς (“If you were prosperous, you would be unbearable”). Generally speaking, then, the fourth-class condition indicated a future contingency that was 15 On conditional sentences in classical Greek, see J.L. Houben, “The Conditional Sentence in Ancient Greek”, (Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, 1976). Cf. also E. Schwyzer, Griechische Grammatik auf der Grundlage von Karl Brugmanns Griechische Grammatik. Bd. 2, Syntax und Syntaktischer Stilistik (5th ed.; HAW 2.2; Münich 1988) 682-88. 16 There has been great debate over the classification of conditional sentences in classical and Hellenistic Greek. One view, which was championed most prominently by W.W. Goodwin, A Greek Grammar (rev. ed.; Boston 1892) 295-304, is to classify them according to a complex temporal scheme (so, e.g., E. Burton, Syntax of the Moods and Tenses in New Testament Greek [3rd ed.; Edinburgh 1898] 101-12; Smyth, Greek Grammar, 512-37; M. Zerwick, Biblical Greek Illustrated by Examples [trans. J. Smith; Scripta Pontificii Instituti Biblici 114; Rome 1963] 101-13). A second approach, which was most notably promoted by B.L. Gildersleeve, “On εἰ with the Future Indicative and ἐάν with the Subjunctive in the Tragic Poets”, Transactions of the American Philological Association 7 (1876) 6-14, is to organize conditions according to the mood in which they are expressed (so, e.g., G.B. Winer, A Treatise on the Grammar of New Testament Greek (3rd ed.; trans. W.F. Moulton; Edinburgh 1882) 363-70; R. Kühner and B. Gerth, Ausführliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache, Zweiter Teil: Satzlehre (3rd ed.; Hannover/Leipzig 1898) 2:463- 88; A.T. Robertson, A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research (4th ed.; Nashville 1934) 1004-27). It is a modified view of the latter that we will be following in our study. For a discussion of the debate and a defense of the position adopted in this section, see S.E. Porter, Verbal Aspect in the Greek of the New Testament, with Reference to Tense and Mood (SBG 1; New York 1989) 291-316, and Wallace, Exegetical Syntax, 701-12.