Edward H. Spieker was a scholar of Greek prose composition and wrote several textbooks on the subject. This article provides a linguistic analysis of the genitive absolute, one of the key constructions of the Greek language and often compared to the Latin Ablative Absolute despite some key dissimilarities. It argues against reading the genitive absolute as if it were a Greek version of the Latin Ablative Absolute (as most students are initially taught to do), and gives the reader and composer of Greek sentences new ways of understanding this feature of the Greek language as it was understood by those who spoke it.