patrii sermonis egestas

So Lucretius 1.832 and 3.260. Horace, Ars Poetica, also addressed this point and others of lexical interest (ll. 47-72).

dixeris egregie, notum si callida verbum

reddiderit iunctura novum. si forte necesse est          

indiciis monstrare recentibus abdita rerum et

fingere cinctutis non exaudita Cethegis,          

continget dabiturque licentia sumpta pudenter,           

et nova fictaque nuper habebunt verba fidem, si

Graeco fonte cadent parce detorta. quid autem

Caecilio Plautoque dabit Romanus ademptum

Vergilio Varioque? ego cur, adquirere pauca

si possum, invideor, cum lingua Catonis et Enni

sermonem patrium ditaverit et nova rerum

nomina protulerit? licuit semperque licebit    

signatum praesente nota producere nomen.    

ut silvae foliis pronos mutantur in annos,

prima cadunt: ita verborum vetus interit aetas,

et iuvenum ritu florent modo nata vigentque.

debemur morti nos nostraque: sive receptus

terra Neptunus classes Aquilonibus arcet,

regis opus, sterilisve diu palus aptaque remis             

vicinas urbes alit et grave sentit aratrum,       

seu cursum mutavit iniquum frugibus amnis   

doctus iter melius: mortalia facta peribunt,    

nedum sermonum stet honos et gratia vivax.   

multa renascentur quae iam cecidere cadentque          

quae nunc sunt in honore vocabula, si volet usus,      

quem penes arbitrium est et ius et norma loquendi.

Words and meanings come and go. Cf. too 'The missing plays of Sophocles will turn up piece by piece, or be written in another language. Ancient cures for diseases will reveal themselves once more. Mathematical discoveries glimpsed and lost to view will have their time again.' -- Tom Stoppard, Arcadia.

'The best words in the best order', as my English teacher used to quote.

Other notes from the AP shall follow. For now, there is the plural of the personal name Piso (ll. 6 and 235, in reference to the father and his sons) and of the toponym Anticyra (ll. 299-301): nanciscetur enim pretium nomenque poetae, | si tribus Anticyris caput insanabile numquam | tonsori Licino commiserit (Loeb: 'for surely one will win the esteem and name of poet if he never entrusts to the barber Licinus a head that three Anticyras cannot cure'). Cf. Persius 4.16.

Homerica: a conspectus of key forms

Ι) Data on the forms of the dative plural of ἔπος is not presented by LSJ s.v. (but some etymological comment is at the head of the entry, not at the foot, with the dialect forms: older Ϝέπος SIG9 (v. infr.), etc., εος, τό (Skt. vácas 'word', 'hymn', cf. εἶπον): ):

a) ἔπεσσι Od.19.214 (-ν); ἔπ- τε μειλίχοισι# Il.9.113, Od.9.258 (-ν), 363, and 376, and 19.415; cf. Hes.Op.186 χαλεποῖς βάζοντες ἔπ-#; also Pi.O.13.25.

b) ἔπεσιν Il.1.77.

c) ἐπέεσσιν# Il.1.223 (ἀταρτητοῖς ἐπ-), 304 (ἀντιβίοισι μαχεσσαμένω ἐπ-); cf. 6.325 and 337 (αἰσχροῖς ἐπ-#), without and then with -ν.

ΙΙ) The endings ᾱο and εω:
Il.21.84-86: μινυνθάδιον δέ με μήτηρ | γείνατο Λαοθόη, θυγάτηρ Ἄλτᾱο γέροντος, | Ἄλτεω, ὅς Λελέγεσσι φιλοπτολεμοισι ἀνάσσει, |

The original 'Aeolic' Ἄλτᾱο and the latest Ionic Ἄλτεω (a spondee by synizesis) a:-stem masculine genitive singular forms are found in adjacent lines. Sappho and Alcaeus would use Ἄλτᾱ. In this instance, line 86 could be omitted without damage to syntax or to sense.

III) Diectasis:
ὁράω (of which there are no uncontracted forms in Hom., e.g. *ὁράεις, cf. Il.21.108. cited below) - ὁρῶ Il.3.324 (also ὁρᾷς, ὁρᾷ, ὅρα, ὁρᾶν, ὁρῶν, ὁρῶμαι, ὁρᾶται, ὁρᾶσθαι, ὁρώμενος), ὁρόω Il.5.224 (ὁράᾳς Il.21.108, ὁράασθαι Od.20.317, ὁρόωνὁρόων Il.1.350, 3.325, Od.8.314, ὁρόωντες Il.24.633, Od.7.145, 9. 295, and 20.373, ὁρόωσα Od.19.514, 2pl. opt. ὁρόῳτε Il.4.347). Contrast Ionic ὁρέω Hdt.1.80 and the dialectal 3rd person plural ὁρεῦντι in Theocritus 9.36.

IV) The second person singular of 'be':   
ἐσσί Il.1.176, 280, 3.164, 172, etc.: Od.1.175, 297, etc.
εἶς (εἴς) Il.16.515, 24.407; of the 9 instances of this form, only 1 cannot be altered to ἐσσ(ί) because it is not pre-vocalic, namely Od.17.388: ἀλλ’ αἰεὶ χαλεπὸς περὶ πάντων εἰς μνηστήρων.
εἰς Il.16.538, 19.217, etc.: Od.1.170, 207, 4.371, 611, etc.
εἶ is, it seems, not found, nor ἐσί (citable from Cretan GDI 4959a).

Ablative absolutes with future participles

I vividly remember my school master telling me in my upper-sixth year that there was only one ablative absolute with a future participle in Latin literature and that we were looking at it. I do not, however, recall what the unseen passage was.

Now, thanks to the persistence in doing good of a colleague, there is a candidate, Ovid, Heroides, XVIII (Leander Heroni) 111-112:

iamque fugaturā Tithoni coniuge noctem
     praevius Aurorae Lucifer ortus erat;

This has a strong claim to being the one instance, if there is only one. I remember reading about Hero and Leander and being told a cautionary tale about confusing transitive fugāre with intransitive fugere (not to mention the difference of conjugation).

From phrase to compound adjective

ἀγκύλα τόξα Il.5.209+ : ἀγκυλό-τοξος Il.2.484+


θρόνα ποικίλα Il.22.441 : ποικιλό-θρονος Sapph.1.1.

Pindar has ἀγλαό-γυιος (N.7.4) and -δενδρος (O.9.20) and the Homeric Hymn to Demeter has -δωρος, while Homer has ἀγλαά both of γυῖα (Il.19.385) and of δῶρα (Il.1.213+) and Pindar has it of δένδρα (O.2.70). The Odyssey has ἀγλαά ἔργα, while Maximus (hexameter 68, section 5 'about marriage') has ἀγλαο-εργός 'ennobled by works' (LSJ s.v.).

For Pindar's Ἀγλαο-τρίαινα (Ο.1.40), cf. N.11.4 ἀγλαῷ σκά̄πτρῳ πέλας.

δημιουργός [δημιοεργός (Od., Hdt.), δημιοργός (Ion.), δᾱμιοργός (Dor., NWGr., Arc., Boeot.), δᾱμιωργός (Astypal.), δᾱμιεργός (Astypal., Nisyr.) name of an official.] "from *δημιο-ϝεργός, in turn from <*>δήμια ἔργα with verbal reinterpretation of the second member after the types ψυχο-πομπός; partly from -ϝοργός." (Beekes, s.v.).

ἀκρὴ πόλις Il.6.88, 257 : ἀκρό-πολις Od.8.494+

κύνες πόδας ἀργοὶ (ἕποντο|) Il.18.578 (cf. 18.283 πρίν μιν κύνες ἀργοὶ ἔδονται. |): Πόδ- and πόδ-αργος. See Meissner-Tribulato 2002: 297.

πόδας ὠκὺς Ἀχιλλεύς Il.1.58+: ποδ-ώκης Il.2.860. (Contrast the order of elements in

ὠκῠ-πέδῑλος, ον, with swift sandals, swift-footed, Nonn.D.8.220).

οἰνο-βαρής Il.1.225: οἴνῳ βεβαρηότες Od.3.139, 19.122.

ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν (cf. Il.1.7) Ἀνάξ-ανδρος, Ἀναξ-ήνωρ, and Ἀναξ-ά̄νωρ.

From compound to personal name: 
λᾱο-σσόος Hom.+: a Boeotian Λαϝό-σοϝος CEG I 444. 

τανηλεγέος θανότοιο#

In defence of τανηλεγής (as < tanw-, not a reanalysis of τ᾽ ἀνηλεγής), Ο. Szemerényi, Syncope in Greek and Indo-European and the Nature of the Indo-European Accent (Naples: Istituto Universitario Orientale di Napoli, 1964), 159, cited τανήλοφος 'long-necked' (Hesychius) whose age is unfortunately unknown. The latter adjective is in LSJ, but is not found by the TLG and is not a lemma in any edition of Hesychius to which I have access.

UPDATE (09/08/2016): LSJ also has an entry for δανήλοφα: '= μακροτράχηλα or ὑψηλοτράχηλα, Id. (i.e. ταν-).', in which 'Id.' refers to H(e)s(y)ch(ius) in the preceding entry.

The full entry in Hesychius reads as follows:
δανήλοφα· μακροτράχηλα, ἐκτεταμένους ἔχοντα τοὺς λόφους.
ἢ ὑψηλοτράχηλα, μετεώρους ἔχοντα τοὺς λόφους. ἢ πίονας<.>

On the subject of Homer and Hesychius, note the following entry in the latter:
ναύποδα· μακρόποδα <ι 464, etc.>. Od.9.464 has τὰ μῆλα ταναύποδα and LSJ comments '(false division of ταναύποδα)'.

Note also Hesychius' entry for σπελλάμεναι· στειλάμεναι. LSJ, reasonably, indicates that the former is Aeolic (σπ-, -ελλ-, -μεναι).

A Laconian hexameter and elegiac inscriptions

CEG 373 (525 BCE) IG V, 1 919 (an elegiac couplet) is from Sellasia in Laconia.
Note Διοσκο̄́ροισιν (nisi divisim?) with -οισι and-ν under epic influence.

It seems that (-)κο̄́ρ- stands for Ionic κούρ-, as in epic (cf. too CEG 391 550-525 BCE Cephallonia and CEG 427 6th-c. BCE Cnidos). Theoc.15.120 shows κῶρος, which, in the absence of evidence for omega in this inscription, would be written with omicron, just as in Διοσκο̄́ροισιν here. Cf. the middle column of Buck 1955: § 51 (for Ionic and the 'Doric' of Argolis, Crete, Thera, Cos, Rhodes, and colonies in contrast to dialects that preserved post-consonantl digamma and those, like Attic, in which the vowel was not affected).


SEG XLVI 400 (= Colvin, no. 34; see also SEG L 394 and LVII 353 on the division and identity of ΚΑΛΗ) was found as recently 1988.

Notes on Euboean inscriptions: Nestor's Cup... et al.

IGASMG III 2 presents a very diplomatic edition of this very famous and much discussed inscription (discovered in 1954). Colvin, no. 25 is less conservative. Other restorations have been proposed by Calvert Watkins and P.A. Hansen. Anne Jeffery's notes are online.

Colvin notes that ποτήριον is not a Homeric word, but survives into Modern Greek as ποτήρι. Its place in Modern Greek follows its place in the Koine (e.g. 1 Corinthians 11: 25 f.), but it is found as early as Sappho (44.10) and Alcaeus 376 and in early Attic epigraphy (e.g. IG I^3 292 ποτέ̄ρια ἀργυρᾶ). In Athenaeus 11.460b, Semonides of Amorgos is said to have been the first to use it (the corrupt iambic quotation is fragment 26 West). The noun also appears in Latin. Plautus has poterium twice (at least): Stich. 694 and Trin. 1017.

As a name, Nestor has some historical currency.

There is also the seventh-century maker's mark of Pyrrhos, for once an early name that is not rare, on an aryballos (so LSAG 88.22, but Buck, no. 9 'lecythus').
The digamma is absent in ἐποίε̄σεν, but present in Ἀγασίλε̄ϝος (< λᾱϝός), who is Ἀγασίλεως in LGPN I (cf. Ἀγασίληϝος).

Notes on inscriptions: Nikandre's Central Ionic

ID 2 (= LSAG 303, 2; Buck, no. 6; Colvin, no. 23), a specimen of 7th-c. BC Central Ionic. The Anne Jeffery Archive offers a very full range of materials. The text of the inscription is presented in the Beazley Archive and details of the monument by the Museum of Classical Archaeology, Cambridge (whose cast is depicted below).

→Νικάνδρη μ’ ἀνέθε̄κεν ℎ(ε)κηβόλο̄ι ἰοχεαίρηι | ϟο̄́ρη Δεινο-
←δίκη̆ο̄ το̑ Ναℎσίο̄ ἔℎ3σοχος ἀλ(λ)ή̆ο̄ν | Δεινομένεος δὲ κασιγνε̄́τη
→Φℎράℎσο̄  δ’ ἄλοχος μ[ήν?].

ℎ(ε)κηβόλ- (cf. Il.1.14 of Apollo) was originally ϝεκᾰ-βόλ- (cf. ἕκων and σάφα: see the Mantiklos dedication to Apollo). The metrical lengthening to allow its use in a hexameter (by eliminatyed a run of three light syllables) must predate the Attic-Ionic change of */a:/ to /æ:/ (see below) and then to /ε:/. That is, the long vowel arose early enough to be treated as an original or inherited /a:/. The epithet (ϝ)ἑκα(ϝ)εργος (Il.1.147, etc.) required no such lengthening because there was no run of three light syllables.

Of course, ἰοχέαιρα an epithet of Artemis is passim in Homer. Apart from two instances (Il.20.71 after Ἄρτεμις, Il.21.480 νείκεσεν), it is always, as here, the last word in its line. In Il.9.538 and Od.6.102, 11.198 , as here, Artemis is not named.

Although masculine ἔξοχος ἄλλων ends plenty of hexameters in Homer and in related poetry, its Ionic feminine form ἔξοχος ἀλλέων is only found here. AR.4.792 has what would be an earlier feminine form at the opening of a hexameter: ἔξοχον ἀλλά̄ων. Call.Art.189 is signficantly different.

κασιγνε̄́τη shows, in a single word, epsilon for the inherited long e vowel and eta for the (Central) Ionic outcome (/æ:/) of the inherited long a vowel. At length Νικάνδρη μ’ ἀνέθε̄κεν shows the same phenomenon. Later inscriptions use eta for vowels of both origins. Cf., albeit a supplement, [τὰ̄ν κασιγ]νήτᾱν in Sapph.5.9. (See ZPE 189 (2014) 11 for the corroboration provided by the 2014 discovery: ' τὰ̄ν κασιγ . [ '.

On the -ηο and -ηων a-stem genitive endings, Geoffrey Horrocks noted (1987: 281-282n. 35) [the original macra have been replaced with : as a marker of a long vowel]:

"No length distinctions are represented graphically, with E spelling /ε/, /ε:/ and /e:/ [ἀνέθε̄κεν = ἀνέθηκεν], O spelling /o/, /ɔ:/ and /o:/>[ℎ(ε)κηβόλο̄ι = ἑκηβόλωι; το̑ Ναℎσίο̄  = τοῦ Ναξίου], so there is no reason to think that H is being used exclusively to represent /æ:/; it was presumably also used to represent the shortened form of this sound that resulted from quantitative metathesis. In other words, the spelling -ΗΟ(Ν) almost | certainly represents a sequence of short vowell plus long vowel run together in pronunciation by synizesis exactly equivalent to the conventional -εω(ν) of Ionic literary texts. There can be no question of forms without quantitative metathesis surviving in the sixth century in spoken Ionic (cf. note 32), or, given the developmments that place in the epic tradition as evidenced by Homer, in literary Ionic.".

There is no example of spelling /e:/, but there are Δεινο|δίκη̆ο̄  and Δεινομένεος with the genuine diphthong seen in δεινός < *dwei-no-. Cf. gen.sg. Δ̣ϝε(ι)νία in IG IV 358 see (also Anne Jeffrey's materials and Buck, no. 91]

Note that Nikandre's father and brother have names with the same first element: δεινο-. Her name is unique, as is her father's, but her brother's name had a good innings. Her husband's name, Phraxos, is also unique.

ἀταλάφρονα Il.6.400 and Iliadic childhood

Il.6.400 reads παῖδ’ ἐπὶ κόλπῳ ἔχουσ’ ἀταλάφρονα νήπιον αὔτως, which could be redivided to give (at a colleague's suggestion) ἔχουσα ταλάφρονα νήπιον αὔτως (cf. Il.13.300). As is, ἀταλάφρονα 'tender-minded' is restated or explained by νήπιον. Indeed, νήπιον is one of the glosses given by Hesychius.

Could a child be described as 'stout-hearted, determined, stubborn'? Could νήπιον αὔτως mean 'yet still a child' marking a contrast with 'stout-hearted'? Babies and toddlers can be quite determined. This one used to eat 'only marrow and the rich fat of sheep' (Il.22.501). He will refused to go to Hector's arms (Il.6.467-470) and put up quite a fuss, but there fear seems to be the point (ἀτυχθείς, ταρβήσας, δεινόν). Il.22.486 has πάις δ’ ἔτι νήπιον αὔτως, a youth, yet still in infancy', which recalls 6.400 but with the important addition of δέ and ἔτι.

The transmitted adjective is regularly glossed by ἁπαλόφρων, which otherwise is only in Marcus Argentarius (Anth.7.403).

The transmitted adjective is otherwise only in Q.S.13.122-123, which shares other items of vocabulary with the Iliadic passage: Οἰμωγὴ δ’ ἀταλάφρονας ἔκβαλεν ὕπνου | νηπιάχους τῶν οὔ πω ἐπίστατο κήδεα θυμός. For νηπιάχους (Il.6.408), cf. GVI 741 (2nd. c. CE or later).

The form expected from ἀταλός would be ἀταλ-ό-φρων, which is attested epigraphically and as a personal name.

Leumann proposed that ἀταλός is a ghost word that arose in the epic tradition when (de-adjectival) *ἀταλαφρονέων was misunderstood as ἀταλὰ φρονέων (cf. Il.18.567 masc.nom.pl., Hes.Th.989 masc.acc.sg., hHom.2.24 fem.nom.sg.). As M.L. West noted, other members of the word group (esp. ἀτιτάλλω and, at Gortyn, ἀτιτάλτᾱς) imply great antiquity for ἀταλός, whose neut.pl.super.adv. appears as early as the Dipylon Oenochoe (closely comparable to the neut.pl.adv. in Hom. Hes. and hHom.). Beekes wrote:

"This [*ἀταλαφρονέων ] is based on ἀταλάφρων, and this again is the negation of ταλάφρων. Although it explains the compositional vowel α, the whole analysis is too complicated.".

Perhaps, then, it is simpler to address the question of "the compositional vowel α" in isolation from ἀταλός and its derivatives. There seems to be a word group based on a real stem ἀταλο-. The adjective ἀταλάφρων should be investigated in isolation: (1) is it the negative of ταλάφρων, misunderstood by later poets, namely Quintus Smyrnaeus? (2) Is it the product of misanalysis of the Iliadic line? (3) Or should a correction to ἀταλόφρονα be implemented?

(1) For alpha privative as the third element of a compound, cf. ἀνιπτόπους in the Iliad, ἀταλαίπωρος said to be first in Aeschylus and Thucydides, ἀωρόνυκτος in Aeschylus, and ἀπειρομάχᾱς in Pindar. It is possible that it was misunderstood within the Homeric tradition, but not such that it gave rise to ἀταλός.

(3) Later poets certainly saw ἀταλάφρονα in Il.6.400 and understood it as 'tender-minded'. By contrast apart from the epigraphy mentioned above, ἀταλόφρονα has left its mark in Hsch. (glossed by νήπια [neut.pl.!], ἁπαλόφρονα), in the scholia to Hes.Op.130 ἀτάλλων (ὁ μετ’ ἐπιμελείας τρεφόμενος, καὶ ὡς ἂν νηπιάζων ἀταλλόφρων (sic),...), and in the Encomium in sanctum Isacium et Dalmatum 29, an eighth-/ninth-century work by Michael Syncellus. Therefore it seems unlikely that ἀταλόφρονα had the prestige of a recherché Homeric epithet.

(θ)εἱλόπεδον (Od.7.123) is an intriguing question involving similar phenomena. See Dubois RPh. 71 (1997): 162. A non-verse inscription (not dated) from Caria turned up θιλοπ[, which has been taken as evidence for the currency of θειλόπεδον in its own right, not as a misunderstanding of εἱλοπεδον.

Eumelos Korinthios

Pausanias (Description of Greece, IV.33.2) quotes two (almost complete) hexameters from Eumelos, a poet of the seventh or sixth century BC.

τῷ γὰρ Ἰθωμάτᾳ καταθύμιος ἔπλετο μοῖσα
ἁ καθαρὰ<ν κιθάραν> καὶ ἐλεύθερα σάμβαλ’ ἔχοισα.


The underlined parts are certainly not Ionic, while those in bold either are (-ons- > -ois-) or could be Aeolic (Hooker 1977: 61 and 96, n. 116). In fact, ἔχοισα is an alteration of the transmitted form, ἔχουσα, whose warrant comes soley from μοῖσα (or Μοῖσα).

Sapph.110a.2 has σάμβαλον for σάνδαλον, but so too do Call.fr.631 and perhaps fr.297.4 and 8, Herodas 7.60, and Diotimos, Anth.6.267.

Beekes cites the 'coriander' pair of  κορίανδον and κορίαμβλον (from a glossary and from Hesychios respectively), alongside κορίαννον the form known from literature.

The lexicographers gloss σάμβαλα either with σανδάλια (with the diminutive, not with σάνδαλα !) or with ὑποδήματα. They make no comment about dialectal affiliations.

'Tmesis' in Ennius

Skutsch, Annales 14.376-7 (unless prep. super + undas, a 'most unusual' word order):
Labitur uncta carina, uolat super impetus undas  
Verrunt extemplo placidum mare: 

Cic.carm. 22.15 M, Virg.Aen.6.254, and Virg.Ecl.6.81 (= Cir. 51) are cited (p. 542) for comparison.

Skutsch, fragmenta spuria v and vi:
(from Servius on Aeneid 1.412 circum se fudit, also citing Georg.3.381 septem subiecta trioni): saxo cere comminuit brum.'

The B and T scholia to Iliad 17.522 and 542 are mentioned (p. 788), where 'attention is drawn to Anacr.95 D. (80 B.) = 441 PMG.

This second instance is discussed by Palmer (1954: 101), who also cites de me hortatur 'he dissuades me' (= Skutsch 13.371-2
Hannibal audaci cum pectore de me hortatur 
Ne bellum faciam,... ).

A reverse index of Latin vocabulary

All adjectives ending, e.g., in -ifer can be collated from Lewis and Short on Perseus, so can all adjectives in -bundus, of which adminicul-, baccha- (Q. Curt. Ruf. IX.10: foot), and vaga- are favourites.

Fermor on the verbal music of Greece

This recent posting by Laudator Temporis Acti deserves to be echoed here.

Patrick Leigh Fermor, Roumeli: Travels in Northern Greece (London: John Murray, 1966), Chapter VI (Sounds of the Greek World):

The seas of Greece are the Odyssey whose music we can never know: the limitless sweep and throb of prosody, the flux and reflux of hexameters scanned by winds and currents and accompanied, for its escort of accents, 

for the fall of its dactyls
the calm of spondees
the run of tribrachs
the ambiguity of trochees
and the lash of anapests;
for the flexibility of accidence,
the congruence of syntax
and the confluence of its crasis;
for the fluctuating of enclitic and proclitic,
for the halt of caesurae and the flight of the digamma,
for the ruffle of hard and soft breathings,
for its liquid syllables and the collusion of diphthongs,
for the receding tide of proparoxytones,
and the hollowness of perispomena stalactitic with subscripts,
for the inconsequence of anacolouthon,
the economy of synecdoche,
the compression of hendiadys
and the extrvagance of its epithets,
for the embrace of zeugma,
for the abruptness of asyndeton
for the swell of hyperbole
and the challenge of apostrophe,
for the splash and the boom and the clamour and
the echo and the murmur of onomatopoeia

by the

islands and harbours and causeways and soundings and crescents of shingle, whirlpools and bays and lagoons and narrows and chasms and roadsteads, seismic upheavals of crags in the haze of dying volcanoes; islets lying in pale archipelagos, gulfs, reefs and headlands, warrened with cavities, that end in a litter of rocks and spikes where the limestone goes dark at sunset; thunderbolt sea-marks scattered on the water, light in the reign of the Pleiades, slowly spinning the sea-sounds that sigh in the caves of solitary islands.

~Typoios