denniston, j. d._technical terms in aristophanes_1927_cq, 21, 3-4, pp. 113-121

Technical Terms in AristophanesAuthor(s): J. D. DennistonSource: The Classical Quarterly, Vol. 21, No. 3/4 (Jun. - Oct., 1927), pp. 113-121Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/636388 .

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THE CLASSICAL QUARTERLY

JULY-OCTOBER, 1927.

TECHNICAL TERMS IN ARISTOPHANES.

EVERY living science, especially in its early stages, is compelled to devise fresh terms, either by coining new words or by giving new meanings to old ones. Unless and until these fresh terms become absorbed in the vocabulary of everyday speech, their unfamiliarity makes them a target for the shafts of the humourist. There can be no doubt that in the late fifth century B.c. literary criticism (using the expression in its widest sense, to include all methodical investigation of literary technique) was still a new science. We can trace its beginnings in the treatises of the Sophists, many titles of which have been handed down to us. Strepsiades' lesson in metric, though of itself

amusing enough, would certainly gain in topical appropriateness if enacted at a time when such investigations were not only much in the air, but were still novel. And the whole 'Agon' of the Frogs, the character of which is forecasted in lines 796-802, depicts in the strongest colours the contrasted views of technician and inspirationist. We should therefore naturally expect a play of such a kind, written at such a time, to be full of technical jargon, barely understood by the ' man in the street,' and forming the object of his half-con-

temptuous amusement. That is, I believe, exactly what we do find, to an extent insufficiently recognized. Professor Radermacher, in his recent edition of the Frogs, has rendered valuable service by pointing out the frequent occurrence in that play of technical terms which meet us later in Dionysius of Halicarnassus and other critics. But I believe that technical language lurks

unsuspected in many other passages, though the precise meaning may often be

beyond recovery. Let us take the points seriatim. In 98,

/ydvqos~ is a word used literally of a fertilized egg, as opposed to a

wind-egg (avettLatos). Both words are used metaphorically by Plato in

7heaet. 150C to 15IE. As applied to a poet, y6vtp/ow clearly means 'full of pro- ductive energy.' The word is palpably unfamiliar to the audience. The Philistine

Herakles repeats it with a puzzled air, and Dionysus explains, repeating the

word yet again, so that no one may miss it. We come across ydvetos later, in

its literary sense, in Lucian's Orator's Instructor, ? 25, in a context which

suggests that in his day, too, the expression had something comic about it:

nrdura ai7r'

i' (sc. 1) yXTcta) E•drWo-drlo Kca• govt/LJL•07pa 7E71vi&Oo. (In Long. 31.

I ydSvtpov probably governs a lost genitive.)

18twra%, in 459, is admittedly difficult. It can hardly, as most editors

believe, equal 7roXtas~. Tucker ingeniously suggests that the chorus are NOS. III. AND IV., VOL. XXI. I



114 J. D. DENNISTON

speaking out of their proper r61le, as the poet's mouthpiece, and that i6&Tra9, introduced wraph 7rpoo'oicav, means 'private citizens' as opposed to public characters. But there is nothing to fix the meaning of iLC7rT here. The word simply means 'amateur' or 'layman,' and depends always on a correla-

tive, expressed or implied, exactly as the two English words do. But here we have no hint of a correlative. I suggest that 1&8Tbr was a catchword of the

literary critics for a poet who ' doesn't know his job,' and that Aristophanes drags it in here 7raph 'n'po8o'oodav

as a topical hit. We use 'amateur' and

' amateurish' in exactly the same way. This adds point to 1Stw-rats' 9eo0t in

891 (rightly interpreted by several editors as ' amateur gods '). In 799-802 we are told that Euripides is going to produce a whole

carpenter's shop for testing Aeschylus' tragedies line by line. Carpentering metaphors are freely used in the lyric introducing the 'Agon' (814-29) in

describing Euripidean methods. They recur in 881 and 902 (wrapa7rpto-caT'

edrwiv: IaT6epptvld.vov).1 The insistence on metaphors from the smithy in

Knights 461-71 is equally or even more remarkable, especially 464:

orpot a)8'

0ov'&.v

O e~ aeaoupryou

XeeL9v; And Agathon's way of writing a play is similarly described in Thesm. 52-7.

There are grounds, then, for supposing that metaphors from carpentry and

metal-working were being used at this time to describe the processes of literary composition, and that they were still sufficiently unfamiliar to be certain of

raising a laugh. In 800 7rXal•oa t

t.vT7rrvKCTa (clearly the right reading) is an odd phrase.

Now (I) Pherecrates (Fr. 79) talks of an e Ovp/L.a'T

KcalN , oviL/rJl oTV K va-

7rato'-TOV; (2) Zonaras (1555) gives, as one meaning of

rrXatl•ov, etso9 (PIrpov.

Perhaps, then, we have here a comic jumble of two technical terms used by the metrists. A similar supposition may explain

aXtv8aXda•ov w'apayjvta (819).

oXtLv8dXap/ov means a splinter, and so a straw-splitting argument (Clouds 130).

,1'apa•tovLov is a linch-pin, or else an axle-box. Now Radermacher points out

that Isaak Porphyrogennetos talks of ~-obv 7-c7W PopLKcv do'ywv 'atova'. If the

metaphorical use of #o'wv existed in Aristophanes' day, he may well be making it ridiculous here by substituting an allied, but trivial, metaphor, and com-

bining it with a different metaphor, which clashes with it violently. If so, it is wasted labour to endeavour to get connected sense out of the combination.

In 827 cplovepob; 1covoDJa XaXtvob\ is a curious phrase. KtvoDv-a is usually taken as equivalent to o-eovoa, which it is not. And even if it were, the verb is inappropriate to envy, a close and niggling emotion. Telvovoa, 'straining tight,' is a slight emendation which would improve the sense. But the impor- tant word for our purpose is

XaXtvo•v. Radermacher reverts to Kock's inter-

pretation 'the corners of the mouth.' But may not XaXLvo; s symbolize 'artistic restraint?' Isocrates remarked that Theopompus needed the curb

1 For ca eeX TLeara (819) cf. Alexis, Fr. 221 : 6teo LktevdLva •

povri6se.



TECHNICAL TERMS IN ARISTOPHANES 115

and Ephorus the spur: and it is possible that Aristophanes may here be

making fun of a similar literary metaphor.

avOaU6arooov in 837, and a'8d6w4 in Io2o, are the earliest examples of a term which later became stereotyped in Greek literary criticism. Dio

Chrysostom, in his essay on the three Philoctetes plays (52. 4), applies it to

Aeschylus; and Plutarch, in his Comparison of Aristophanes and Menander

(854A), uses it in disparagement of Aristophanes. Cf. Longinus, 22. 3.

a•TeptXaX?7Tov in 839 must be taken in connexion with 7rXetXY V j? a81 i

XaXio-repa in 91, and XaXhev in 954. XaXo9 seems an odd word to apply to literature. No doubt it expresses the easy, half-colloquial style of Euripides. Radermacher points out that Menander, a rhetorician of the third century A.D.,

speaks of Tr XahaXt•s• E(8o as Xplo-J•raTov

vpa v8pl 0oc•-a7-.

I may add that Plutarch (De Rect. Rat. Aud. 45B) mentions the attribution of XaXtd to

Euripides as a stock clich6 of criticism in his day. 'reptXaXkev (cp. Eccl. 230) is a refinement on XaXetv, and seems to mean 'chatter discursively all round a

subject.' It is used in reference to Euripides in a fragment of the first edition of the Clouds (Fr. 376)

' 7ta4

paypTla ;ro~ov Ta 7h r7Tpt'Xaok•oa9. In view of this it is tempting to take aepaLXdXIp-ov here as active, 'lacking in discursive babble.' (Radermacher takes it as active, but he takes wrept- as intensive, which seems unlikely in the case of a verb.)

In 854 c~cfaXatcp 'jart is illustrated by Antiphanes, Fr. 113, where someone is described as-

' 7O

O eo'HPdcKXELv t avo ^

elvp/•YI ' tevO, 0 77YV eEO8E0KTOV Coo vV? 7K(0(; T6XVIM

r 7•a KE0aXata ovy7ypdaov Ebpt7'ry.

Kce• Xata there seems to denote the clear-cut, formal headings under which

the poet's characters are accustomed to group their rather forensic arguments. And it is possible that aK 6edXatov 'r^a is a sort of 'key-word,' which expresses the theme of a icedXatov, and that it, like xdcEXatov, was particularly associated with Euripides. Other expressions of the same category are

Ecpo06eXe;•-~ov wro9, quoted by Bekk. Anecd. from Phrynichus, and explained

as 7i X ea7-ov KefaXa'o'v TIP6; and Plat. Corn. Fr. 67

o'av 8koWat ,ycvwalov

pnpaTO9.

d4LEXetav in 897 has been suspected. A metaphor from the tragic dance

certainly seems pointless; but to excise the word, as Dindorf and Radermacher have done, is surely arbitrary. Its interpolation is difficult to account for, and the disturbance of strophic correspondence is best explained by assuming a lacuna in 993, as in the Oxford text. Now Dionysius (Dem. 50) mentions

JuL~LLeLa as one of the characteristics of Demosthenes, and later on uses

EfFeX47 ~puovla as a synonym. And Plutarch (De Rect. Rat. Aud. 7), speaking of the devices of oratory, says: 7-?v wyrvv ~peXleaiv - 7Lo

ica2

paXaKo?r?yo, scat

rapLaOo'ecrv ~~lSvowvoe9 ~l/caEcXe ovoL Kcat

wapadcpovoa-t 70o

a/cpooLEVov9. In view of these passages, I believe that d4JEXeLav in the Frogs



116 J. D. DENNISTON

means either euphony in the literary sense, or the melodious recitation of lines, and that Aristophanes drags the word in by the heels because it is a novelty. He also uses the comparative adverb in an odd context in Eccl. 807:

7roXb y7hp ep'jeXco-7-epov

7TpOTepov X•oa~ 7rXELv 7 7rpLtEaxovO' ')lpa9

That passage, too, looks like parody. aLXv8?Opa in 904 is explained by the lexicographers as meaning a rolling-

place for horses, or the sanded floor of the wrestling ring. It is to the second sense that we must look in the present passage. Wrestling has, it is true, been mentioned in the strophe (878): but &aXtL8'Opa is a curious metaphor in itself, and clashes rather violently with the picture of Aeschylus as a giant, rooting up words like tree-trunks. Here, as in 819, I believe that we have an inten- tional confusion of metaphor, and that XtLv6jOpa was already known to the audience in a technical sense. It is exactly the sort of metaphor which might well be used to denote a LtEXET?, or exercise-a training ground, as it were, on which to practice for bigger things.

In 942 6irvXXhlov is usually explained as denoting the metrically lighter line, with frequent resolved feet, employed by Euripides, particularly in his later period. This view is supported by the verse-weighing scene (1378-1410). But in Athenaeus (65A) dTrhlXXov means a miniature epic: and it is conceivable that in Aristophanes it may be used to describe the elaborate messenger- speeches which are so prominent a feature in Euripides' plays. But whatever its sense, the word is closely connected with Euripides' art. It occurs thrice in classical Greek, and every time in reference to him. Dicaeopolis, on calling at the poet's house, is informed that-

0 vOi9 LeV e &) ?vXXE7&fl EC'rVXXta

oUK EvlSov, a1 V7 T ' q vov aJva/3a`lv TroLE

Tpayr(wav. A ch. 398-400.

And, in the Peace (532), Trygaeus enumerates 6d7rTXXta EiptwrClov among the

blessings of peace, along with roast thrush and Sophoclean lyrics. All this

suggests a definite connexion between Euripides and the word 6d7rXXtov. No doubt the diminutive form also contributes to the jest. We may compare

p•?J7aTLov, used of the epigrams of demagogic orators in Knights 216 and

Wasps 668, and of Euripides in A ch. 444, 447, the second time with emphatic repetition e ' 7 otov (iY pm-art

ipl~?oh•r a , and Peace 534 7'otrOT

pyjartov t~cavnitov. Cp. also the string of diminutives in Knights Ioo 1 ovxev0arlov cal

rPL-pTTr7aot in 942 has usually been taken to mean philosophizing.

(Hesychius may be thinking of our passage when he writes: 7repnracov- at

lo-roplaL. rcat o[ X6yo. ?) rrwot SlaKClojeOOv.) But editors who offer this

explanation give no grounds for supposing any connexion between walking and

philosophizing, before the foundation of the Peripatetic School. That Plato



TECHNICAL TERMS IN ARISTOPHANES 1I7

(Prot. 314E) represents Protagoras as dv 7•- orpoo--74 wrrepura7o3vra, while he

converses with his friends, is not very remarkable: and the earliest passage I can find implying a connexion between the two activities is Alexis, Fr. 147:

Ect Katpolv ?IKeL9, c9E eyW' aWropov1.LeL avo6 KaTdo 7TE 77-rEpt7raTovO crOrOr7p IXroWv 0oo00v o cEV EVp x K hXXh KQO7TrLO TX ctceX77.

Radermacher regards 7reppTrdTot9 as a 'rhetorischer Kunstausdruck,' and

explains it as allied to XaXtd, and opposed to Tb o-Y-Vro1ov. This is a reasonable conjecture, but we may look for alternatives. Lucian, in the Orator's Instructor (?? 21-2), recommends the aspiring orator to walk up and down the platform while speaking: and the word he uses is 7r1EpiTraTo9. Now Eustathius (pp. 1343, 62: 1941, I) tells us that Aeschylus was fond of present- ing silent, veiled, motionless characters in an attitude expressing some form of emotion. Aristophanes himself refers to this in 911-2o. Aeschylus may have

been, as Eustathius suggests in one case, influenced by paintings he had seen. At any rate, he appears to have had a liking for a sort of tableau treatment of his actors, while devising elaborate movements for his chorus. Euripides, who did not intend his characters to be mere 7rpoo-X/Xpaa 7Ti0• 'parycasl,

may well

have made them move about the stage with greater freedom and naturalness, and described this by the more or less technical term 7rplwraToS. Whether or not this explanation is correct, there can be no doubt that the word 7reptnraToS was topical. It is dragged in by the heels, with obvious emphasis, in 953. And Astydamas (whether the elder or the younger) combines it with ryX@77a

(another topical word: see below) in the remarkable line-

yXco-o-7•s rep7TraT'ro9 7Ttv JoXeaoXta.1

doj-oXtS (956, 1104) is thrice used by Longinus in the sense of opening (e.g. 38. 2

dvo 7^ eLpo f 70T I

Hlavf/yvprKco). But earlier in date, and more apposite

to our purpose, is a fragment from Antiphanes' Poets (Fr. 191), where dlo-oX is used for the opening of a play, as opposed to KaTao-TpoO75, the carrying of it to its climax or conclusion. It seems likely that the literary sense of this word, too, was comparatively new in the year 405, and was possibly originated by Euripides. He was clearly much preoccupied with the problem of expounding TO / y•o• '70o 8Sp/aro9 (946) without relapsing into the stereotyped form of opening parodied in the XictV0tov episode: the extant plays illustrate the resourcefulness with which he devised openings (a wish, a prayer, a gnome, etc.) as far as possible removed from formal narrative.

The word t/phliov had a special significance for an Aristophanic audience, as many passages show. There is a plague of books in

NEfeXoKoK/tta. The

Xpo-prldXoyo/ enters with one, which provides the main joke of the episode.

The 'Earl-,oorow attributes his arrival to a 4aiXov /t/Xlov TeXlov (Ioz4), which 1 Fr. 7. There is nothing remarkable in the

occurrence of such a line in fourth-century tragedy, when the mixture of genres was not un- common.



118 J. D. DENNISTON

seems a rather unnatural expression.' And when on the top of this the

'PrT a o-/aro'rc~X' enters with yet another volume open in his hand, Pisthetaerus

can stand it no longer. ov70T1 7• t'o-r ai IcacOv 7• 13/Xiov; (lo36). The cumulative effect of these episodes is remarkable. Even more striking is a

fragment from the Tagenistae (Fr. 490):

7oovov 7Gv Avrp' 4 SePXtlov Sed lopeV TOTIIpT)ov

0avp , * ot 8o-X

v e,/C 0y.ev _1 fp'KO9! T^V

' 7(07 aoo AEt7X( EL9 Tyt !'u.

We have no context, but clearly a book is represented as a dangerous object in itself. In the light of these passages, we should be chary of interpreting

c,•t3ov in Frogs 1114 as a work on literary criticism, a book of the words, or

any other definite book. What, then, is the point of the 'book' joke ? It would be simple enough if books had been inordinately rare in the Athens of

Aristophanes, as rare, say, as peacocks. But this can hardly have been so. Books were a normal article of export in Xenophon's day (An. VII. v. 14), and Socrates in the Apology talks of picking up the works of Anaxagoras at a drachma apiece. Booksellers are often mentioned in the comic fragments. The truth seems rather to be that, while books were not excessively rare, they were still rare enough to be the hall-mark of a type. The fact that an individual in fifth-century Athens was always seen with a book marked him

out, even if you did not know what the book was, as a member of the 'reading set.' Euripides certainly belonged to the set. He was one of the first Greeks to amass a considerable library (Ath. 3A). His plays were 'concentrated essence of books' (943). In the weighing scene he is invited to throw his books into the scale as a makeweight (1409). HipPolytus 451-2

Qo-OL /t E ovi ypaqa re TOW MrraXatErcpaov

eXOVO-Lv, aV7Vo 7' ELTlaV ev [LOvoatL• a

seems to imply interest in reading as a pursuit (as Nauck observes in his Vita

Euripidis. rypacafx in the sense of 'paintings' is less probable). Still more

significant is Fr. 369, where the chorus expresses a desire to hang its armour

on the wall and enjoy a tranquil old age-

XOX7WT 7' avarr7TVO-'OLl.kL

77PVV

av a4o'o KXEOVCTat.

It must be remembered, too, that in the fourth century appear the ava-

y1vooTIcoi, who wrote plays for the study: and it may not be fortuitous that

Euripides' devoted admirer Dionysus read the Andromeda on board ship.

1 In spite of Dittenberger, Syll. 117, quoted by van Leeuwen: r7 0 • Sh'liov [r6b n1P iO5aroS rapa-

a6vac a r]i t 7b 6ypat.upariAaa "T^s

PoXi~s adtuKa zdcXa. Birds 1288 is also curious:

,carrjpav i r& fPLtLXla.

We scarcely know enough of Greek idiom to say with certainty whether the word gLtXMov, without

qualification, is used naturally in these passages.

Linguistic conventions are so capricious that in Oxford to-day if you talk to a' Greats' man of Herodotus and Thucydides as 'texts,' he under- stands you: whereas no 'Mods' man would understand the word as applied to the Poetics and A rs Poetica.




In all the passages quoted above there is, I think, something in the context to suggest that technical jargon is being satirized. Either the expressions used are odd in themselves, or they are odd in their surroundings, or combined in odd ways, or else they are repeated at a close interval with an unmistakable insistence. But besides these there are many other expressions which probably struck the audience as new-fangled, pompous, or pedantic: 862 -ra veGpa 7rj

rpaycolas": 899 C/CI'ortL (see Radermacher): 1122

do-ab'a ,v i.

& p T et racv

7rpay/daTawv (cf. Phrynichus, Fr. 55, 7• &aO&-es Wtv rTwrov): 1iio

ro 'rparov

7i? T7paYLaa9 te'pol":

1178 oUTot/jv: 1281 rTa~o-tv eXCov: Clouds 1367 a O-dTaTOV: Cratin. Fr. 85 div /i nCvaTrpE6y a r rparyLaTa: Fr. 427

erEK•pokX": Fr. 386

',Tavaylovatal (collate).

Closely allied to these literary terms are certain others which I will describe as ' intellectualist.' Here Euripides and Socrates are on common

ground,' and the vocabulary of the Frogs often coincides with that of the

Clouds.

XE7rTod in the intellectual sense is never found in Aeschylus or Sophocles, but occurs three times in Euripides: Med. 529 vo3s Xe7rs: ib. 1082 Xe7rT0oTpwv

dwov" : Fr. Inc. 924 Xe6rTWJv )uI wv. Elsewhere we find it in Hippocrates

(295- 25 6d 7'h 4Txva4 7raXes o; ' X67r7o), Antiphon (3. 8. 2 XerTb Sal Kat aL/ptS), and Fr. Iamb. Adesp. 16 XETrroV vbov. Otherwise it only seems to be found in

satirical passages, where it often appears, sometimes coupled with 7rvKV6S4, almost invariably with reference to the philosophers or Euripides. Plato, in

fact (Rep. 607c), quotes Xe7TTrCS )epetYPUwvV'es as a typical sneer of the poets at the philosophers; and Alexis (Fr. 221) speaks of the philosophers' Xd0'/o

Xe7TT•o1 8tEoLLEtXEVLevatL

T' /povTc16. Cf. also A ch. 445 7rv1J ~YP Xe6rrTa \nxaY

bpevt: Eccl. 571 7rKcv\v pdfva Ica\l LtXo'aoov od~lpetv : Amphis, Fr. 33, Xerr1TTs Kat 7rvKPE v i•deTa :tv: Hermipp. Fr. 22 Xe6roXolytav: Cratin. Fr. 307 i7roXero-

X6yov: Anaxandr. Fr. 36 Xe7rToTpm6o. In the Clouds Socrates is Xer7TTOTadO

X7peov lepcvs, and Strepsiades is all agog XErroXoryev. The word, with its

compounds, is, in fact, strewn freely over the Clouds. 8taXeT7oXoryoi/0at TavL

SOKOL Tv47 olKda%, Strepsiades observes maliciously as he sets fire to the

4?povrTo-Tr7ptov. In the Frogs, too, it is well to the fore: e.g. 876, 956, and

especially IIo8-II, with the pointed repetition of the word. But the clearest

indication of the amusement it afforded is Lys. 28-9:

KA. T )rot •e XF7Tdv Er07t Lovpp7rTraa•Tvov.

AT. o0170) CY XE7TTlJS (0(70' OXflS T79 cEXX6~ov El

-atv yvVcatt$v ••'7tV 17

To-Tflpta.

Here the repetition, as in Frogs 96-8, throws the whole stress on the adjective.

!Lppweva, with its verb teptJLv&iv, seems to have been a poetical expression

1 Euripides is said to have been a pupil of Anaxagoras and a friend of Socrates. His interest in philosophy and science in general,

and in the doctrines of Diogenes of Apollonia in

particular, can be freely illustrated from his poetry.



120 J. D. DENNISTON

brought into prose use by the philosophers. Aristophanes, who never uses

peipLtva elsewhere, has it thrice in the Clouds, and the compounds Ueptlvo-

(pov'rto'~r s and aErepqkepqtvwo4 once each. Fr. 672 8k Ta /h .cv /av0i pLept.lv

Ta xa/aa~ ^ev d~oOlet clearly refers to a philosopher. XETrr6?sv t, LpteLMvT•e

I have mentioned above.

Opow-rls and Opo1VTL'ELv are scarcely used by Aristophanes, in a positive

sense, except of the philosophers. Eccl. 571-2 7rwvlv vpeva Ial ?tLX6crooov

4povrita: Nub. 723 oi70 To 7otLEV; obX~ Vpovtft"s: Epicr. Fr. II. 4 7rola

poVrLy, 7rotor ' 4 Xo 7 . ...; id. Fr. II. 22 8te~PYpoVYtov. fpoJTur7tS and, of course,

cpovTt•7rptOpov are peculiar to the Clouds. 6K4poTrooat (695) and

EaTcr•7epoVT•T•a (857) are comic variants on the simple verb.

The humorous use of •-X7a-ra

is a stock clich6 of comedy. Cratinus

(Fr. 293) addresses Pericles as c~t, eyt7r7 0 XyaV7TVa rTv 'EEXX7v8(o3. Strepsiades is compelled to swear allegiance to 'Chaos, Clouds, and Tongue.' The victim's tongue is taken out at sacrifices, in compliment to the

'Y•/Xorroydo7- Topeq (Birds 1705). Under the care of the "A&K8ico

Ab7yo Pheidippides' tongue will grow in inverse ratio to his

rrvTy (Clouds 1013-8). Its 'double edge' will

'glitter' (ib. 116o). A character in Plato's ZeIV K aKcovdlevo7, singing the praises of the tongue, reminds his hearers that they wear tongues in their shoes, and

v7roy•owTTt8a~?-whatever that may mean-on their heads at dinner. I have

already alluded to /yXcr'q 7repltraToS in Astydamas. In the Frogs Aristophanes

makes the tongue uncoil itself (827 yXha^o-' wveXtroop `v77), and lose its temper (898 7yX7o-a pev ycap q7ypiworat). The hinge on which it wags, ryX0ooavs

Crrp6/Octy, is one of the deities to whom Euripides prays. Satyrus tells us

that Aristophanes expressed a desire to measure this wonderful tongue of

Euripides: 77q XeTra a p71LaT' 4EcTI'j/XETO.

Cf. also Eccl. 573-4 xatvq7 . . . .XXW;vj Errivota. What is the point of all this? It seems possible that ryXarTa was a

popular sobriquet for an intellectual of any kind. Cratin. Fr. 293 and Bekk.

Anecd. 31. 17 (for what it is worth-T\v yvoaate wroXa7v Ka~c UvvXeOd 70r e

ipowp•vov? SapaXltT7ovTa. HaXdCov) tend to support this explanation. Or else

/yXc^rra was a term used by intellectuals in some kind of esoteric

significance, to represent, say, the power of expressing thought. Cf. Eur.

Supp. 203-4 : Wrp-JTov /L1V EV8'L9 TVV`cLV, ,ElTa' "3 yyeXov

7rXWAooav Xorywv 8ovl.

Or, again, yVh7tra may have been primarily an esoteric term, and, secondarily, a nickname for a type. But, whatever the reason, there can be no doubt that the word was a source of amusement to an Athenian audience.

(It may be objected to all this that, so far as we can discover from Plato and other sources, Greek philosophers, at any rate before the time of Aristotle,




used a language noticeably free from technicality. That is a point, however, on which it is unsafe to dogmatize. How much, after all, do we know of the style and diction of many of these philosophers ? In any case, the evidence I have given above shows clearly that the philosophers were popularly believed to talk a language of their own, whatever the grounds for this belief may have been.)

In an investigation of this kind it is as necessary to use the imagination as it is perilous to abuse it. Anything in the nature of demonstration is

usually out of the question. The last word is with personal feeling, and I cannot expect universal acceptance of judgments which, for my own mind, have grown more confident as I have re-read Aristophanes. But the evidence must be taken cumulatively. And if it be granted that Aristophanes abounds in words of which the esoteric or technical character can be detected, but at the meaning of which we can only guess (any attempts I have made in this direction are purely tentative), we should be chary of explaining words of this

category, and still more chary of athetizing them without strong reason. What the text of Aristophanes wants is, not obeli, but inverted commas.

J. D. DENNISTON.



denniston, j. d._technical terms in aristophanes_1927_cq, 21, 3-4, pp. 113-121

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