Der Vergleich des hebrä ischen Originaltextes 1. Sam. 19, 11 –17, wo die Episode mit dem Trick der Saulstochter Michal vor den Boten Sauls erzä hlt wird, mit dem entsprechenden Passus der Septuaginta-Übersetzung (1. Regn. 19) zeigt einen krassen Unterschied: Statt des masoretischen Ausdrucks, der gewöhnlich als ‘Ziegen-Haargeflecht’ oder ‘Ziegenfell’ übertragen wird (העִ זִּים כְּ בִ יר ) steht im griechischen Text ἧπαρ τῶν αἰγῶν, ‘Ziegenleber’. Die Entstehungsgründe dieser Merkwürdigkeit sind in der Forschung schon etliche Male erkannt worden; nach F. Field mag schon Origenes das hinter ἧπαρ steckende Geschichte des Abschreibens, Lesens und Deutens des Ursprungstextes treffend rekonstruiert haben, und zwar wie ein alexandrinischer Übersetzer a. a. O. hinter כבר oder כבד ein כָבֵ ד, also ‘Leber’, erahnt. Denn der Duktus von daleth und resh (ד and ר) sah sehr ä hnlich aus, was oft Anlass zu einer Verwechselung in beide Richtungen gab. Desto bemerkenswerter ist, dass die Masoreten die Lesart vorzogen, welche nicht allein traditionsmä ßig, sondern auch sinngemä ß bessere Chancen gibt, das einheitliche Bild von den virtuellen Geschehnissen zu bekommen: Ein behaarter Gegenstand auf dem Kissen kann doch natürlich den Eindruck eines Menschenkopfes machen. Was nun die allem Anschein nach fehlerhafte LXX-Deutung betrifft, so versucht Josephus Flavius (AJ VI, 11, 3–4), welcher, wie viele hellenistisch ausgebildeten Juden (u. a. Philo und Apostel Paulus), die Bibel in der griechischen Sprache popularisierte, diese Eigenheit der Septuaginta zu untermauern, indem er damit den eigentlichen Trick Michals verbindet: Wenn sie die mit einer Hülle verdeckte Ziegen-Leber leicht anrührt, antwortet die Masse mit einer Bewegung, welche den Eindruck eines mühsam atmenden (ἀσθμαίνειν) Menschen hervorruft. So entsteht aus einem (vermeintlichen) Überschrift- bzw. Übersetzungsfehler eine witzige Deutung, welche aus der Not eine Tugend macht und die Septuaginta über hebrä isches Original zu erheben versucht
This paper traces the semantic and constructional development of the complement-taking verb εὑρίσκω ‘find’ from Homeric Greek to Post-Classical Greek. First, the paper details the semantic development of εὑρίσκω using characteristics such as predicate type, semantic role of the subject and factivity. Subsequently, explanations are offered for the constructional development of εὑρίσκω, using insights from grammaticalization research such as reanalysis and analogy. In contrast to previous studies on Ancient Greek complementation which support the idea of a systematic Classical Greek opposition of factive participial versus non-factive infinitival complementation, this paper shows how bridging contexts of mental judgment εὑρίσκω with a participial complement do not follow this opposition as they are non-factive and changed their meaning (with reanalysis) before changing their complementation structure (through analogy). Also, by extending our view to the individual history of other cognitive predicates (ἐπίσταμαι, γιγνώσκω and οἶδα) the author shows that other cognitive predicates undergo similar developments from factive+object to factive+ACP to non-factive+ACI, although their individual histories are still in need of a systematic diachronic account. Thus, complementation patterns per period could be analysed in a more fine-grained way by analysing complementation patterns bottom-up from the semantic and constructional evolutions of individual predicates. Also, the findings from this paper provide evidence towards a diachronic solution of the so-called matching-problem: diachronically related semantic and constructional stages strongly motivate the choice of a specific complementation structure but absolute factivity oppositions in Classical Greek complementation are rather strong tendencies
The perfect tense in Greek which is used to denote a state of affairs in the present as resulting from a past action does not find an exact equivalent in the system of Latin tenses: when faced with the need to express this idea a Latin speaker could either focus on the expression of the state by using the present tense (whereby the connection with the past was not expressed and would only be inferred), or use the perfect, in which case the effect of the past action on the present was not directly expressed and could only be deduced (the so-called resultative perfect). The article analyses Latin speakers’ attitude to this difference between Greek and Latin verbal systems, in particular, on the basis of the evidence collected from Roman epistolography when the letter-writer felt that the idea he wished to express could most aptly be rendered by a Greek perfect and switched to the Greek solely for that perfect form. The corpus of texts used for this study included the letters of Cicero to Atticus and his Epistulae ad Familiares, the Letters of Pliny the Younger, Seneca’s Letters to Lucilius, excerpts of Augustus’ letters preserved by Suetonius, and M. Cornelius Fronto’s correspondence with Marcus Aurelius
The paper analyzes Ch. 24 of the 11th book of Aelian’s De natura animalium devoted to the so-called sea-leopard (πάρδαλις) and the oxyrrhynchus fish, both living in the Red Sea. Aelian compares the body colour of the sea-leopard to the mountain leopard, i. e. the snow leopard or the ounce (Panthera uncia Schreber, 1775). This comparison clearly demonstrates that the sealeopard is to be identified with the sand tiger shark or the spotted ragged-tooth shark (Carcharias taurus Rafinesque, 1810). This fish usually resides and hunts in the depths of the sea, but also swims to the coast and sometimes attacks the swimming people. The attacks of sand tiger sharks must have taken place in ancient times, so the fish was easily recognizable not only by the Greeks but also by the inhabitants of the Red Sea’s seashore. The Greek ichthyonym ὀξύ(ρ)ρυγχος refers to five different species of fish, but Aelian uses it to denote an oriental kind of shark existing in the Red Sea (NA 11, 24). The oxyrrhynchus shark has an elongated mouth, golden eyes and white eyelids, i. e. nictitating membranes, typical of sharks belonging to the order Carcharhiniformes. Its tail is oblong in shape and its fins are black and white. There are also pale and green parts of its body. On the basis of Aelian’s description it is possible to suggest that the unknown fish should be identified with the bignose shark (Carcharhinus altimus S. Springer, 1950).
This article argues that Greek σφαδᾴζω ‘struggle, toss one’s body about’ is etymologically related to Proto-Iranian *zgad- ‘to ride, gallop’ and *zganda- ‘messenger’, the source of loanwords σαγγάνδης and ἀσγάνδης in Greek. Iranian nominal stems *zgandá- ‘rider, mounted messenger’ and *zgánda- ‘riding’ (reflected in Sogdian non-finite forms) suggest the reconstruction of a Proto-Iranian root *zgand-, the zero-grade form of which is found in tudáti-type verbal stem *zgadá-ti ‘rides, gallops’ (*zgad- < *zgn̥d-). The correspondence between Greek σφ- and Iranian *zg- is unproblematic, since these are regular reflexes of PIE *sg wh - in both languages, compare Younger Avestan zgərəsna- ‘round, circular’ vis-à-vis Greek σφαῖρα ‘sphere, ball, globe’. Importantly, in its earliest attestations Greek σφαδᾴζω is used to refer to horses that are prancing, struggling, and moving violently: the application of the verb to human agony is demonstrably secondary. The Greek verb is best analyzed as a denominative *σφαδαι-ιζω derived from an unattested adjective *σφάδαιος, itself made from a nominal stem *σφάδη or *σφαδή, cf. ματᾴζω ‘speak foolishly’ ← μάταιος ‘foolish’ ← μάτη ‘foolishness’; the underlying unattested noun, whether *σφάδη ‘kicking, tossing’ or *σφαδή ‘kick, toss’, is based on a thematic verbal stem *σφαδε/ο- ‘to kick, toss, move swiftly (of horses)’ identical in origin with Proto-Iranian *zgadá- ti. On the basis of these forms, a new PIE root *sg whend- / *sgwhn̥d- ‘to move quickly (of horses)’ can be reconstructed
The fragment of the Syriac translation of Aristotle’s Poetics preserved by Jacob (Severus) Bar Shakko (d. 1241) comprises Poet. VI 1449b24–1450a10. In spite of its small size, it serves as an important witness both to the Greek text of the Poetics, and to the reception of this work in the Christian Orient and, later on, in the Muslim world. The fragment derives from a translation, which most likely appeared in West Syriac circles in the 7th/8th centuries AD and later served as the basis for the Arabic translation of the Poetics made by Abū Bishr Mattā ibn Yūnus in the 10 th century. The present article includes a new edition of the Syriac text preserved by Bar Shakko, which is based on the collation of six manuscripts and is accompanied by an English translation. The article also provides a detailed analysis of the Syriac fragment as compared to the transmitted Greek text of the Poetics, on the one hand, and to the Arabic translation of it by Abū Bishr, on the other. This comparison allows an assumption that the Syriac version is most likely based on a Greek manuscript, which may have contained glosses and scholia. A Greek and Syriac glossary is attached at the end of the article
The present article offers a reassessment of Hom. ἄφρων [adj.] ‘unreasonable, senseless, foolish’, which is traditionally accounted for as an ablauting compound (of the type πατήρ: ἀπά- τωρ) based on the simplex φρένες [f. pl. tant.] ‘midriff, diaphragm’ (+Il.). This archaic ablauting pattern (viz. °φρων vs. simplex φρήν*) is totally unparalleled for body parts; besides, the Ancients’ interpretation of φρένες as ‘diaphragm’ is flawed. Φρονέω ‘to have (good) understanding or intelligence’ is a back-formation coined after ἀφρονέω ‘to act senselessly, to be foolish’. From zero-graded ἀφραίνω (via a synchronic reanalysis of -αίνω as a deverbative suffix of the type °φαίνω), an adverb *ἀφρα-δόν ‘senselessly, foolishly’ was eventually coined, which was the starting point of a whole new group. From this group was reanalyzed a “new” synchronic root √φραδ- ‘to heed, to consider’, reflected by Hom. φράζω. The lack of comparative evidence for this sprawling word family leads the author to assume that Hom. ἄφρων [adj.] ‘senseless, fool, heedless’ is in fact the reflex of a PIE etymon *ń̥ -gʷʱr(h1)-on- ‘without sense of smell, not able of scenting’, from PIE *gʷʱreh 1- ‘to smell’ (cf. Ved. jí-ghr-a- < *gʷʱí-gʷʱr(h 1)-V-). This verbal compound of the type νήφων [*-on-adj.] ‘sober’ (< PIE *ń̥-h 1gʷʱ-on- ‘not having drunk’) would have been eventually reanalyzed as a privative bahuvrīhi (viz. ‘lacking φρένες’).
This article examines the Greek noun σαγγάνδης ‘messenger’ which is attested in two lexica, dated to the Roman or early Byzantine periods: the Cambridge Rhetorical Lexicon by an anonymous author and Difficult Words in the Attic Orators by Claudius Casilo. In both works, σαγγάνδης appears together with three words of likely Iranian provenance: ὀροσάγγης ‘benefactor of the Persian king; bodyguard’, παρασάγγης ‘parasang; messenger’ and ἄγγαρος ‘messenger, courier; workman, labourer’. The word σαγγάνδης is analysed in comparison with ἀσγάνδης/ἀστάνδης ‘messenger’ occurring for the first time in Plutarch’s works and closely linked to the Achaemenid administration. According to the hypothesis put forward in the present paper, both σαγγάνδης and ἀσγάνδης (with its secondary variant ἀστάνδης) are connected to Manichaean Middle Persian/Parthian ižgand ‘messenger’, Sogdian (a)žγand/(ɔ) žγand/ž(i)γant ‘id.’, Jewish Aramaic ʾîzgaddā ‘id.’, Syriac izgandā/izgaddā ‘id.’, Mandaic ašganda ‘helper, assistant, servant; the Messenger’, and go back to Old Persian *zganda- or to early Middle Persian/early Parthian *žgand- (or *zgand-) with the original meaning ‘mounted messenger’. The reconstructed noun is derived from the Proto-Iranian root *zga(n)d- ‘to go on, gallop, mount’, attested in Avestan (Younger Avestan zgaδ(/θ)- ‘to go on horseback, gallop’) and in some Middle and Modern Iranian languages. The original form of the loanword in Greek was probably *σγάνδης which then underwent certain transformations
The present article aims to elucidate an interesting narrative that forms a portion of Aelian’s paradoxographic work Περὶ ζῴων ἰδιότητος (On the Characteristics of Animals, Lat. De natura animalium). The passage under discussion describes some horned animals of oriental origin that were involved in the annual fighting contests during a one-day competition held on the initiative of a “great king of India” — probably Chandragupta (4th–3rd c. BC), the founder of the Maurya dynasty. Aelian’s chapter (NA 15, 15) was perhaps taken from Megasthenes’s Ἰνδικά (Description of India). The passage includes two hapax legomena referring to two species of animals: †μέσοι† and †ὕαιναι†. The first of these should be identified with the Ladakh urial (Ovis orientalis vignei Blyth); cf. Prasun məṣé ‘ram, urial’ (< Vedic mēṣá- m. ‘ram’). Aelian’s exact description of the horned animals called †ὕαιναι† clearly demonstrates that the alleged “striped hyena” (Gk. ὕαινα) must represent the chinkara, i. e., the Indian gazelle (Gazella bennettii Sykes). The Indo-Aryan term for ‘chinkara’ (Ved. hariṇá- m ‘Indian gazelle’, hariṇī́- f. ‘female gazelle’; cf. Pa. and Pk. hariṇa- m., hariṇī- f.) suggests that the corrupted form in Aelian’s passage should be emended as ὑάριναι [hyárinai]. This seems a near-optimal adaptation of the Pali or Prakrit appellative háriṇā pl. ‘chinkaras’
Ἐπικράτεια and ἐπαρχία are two terms used by the ancient sources to describe the Carthaginian presence in Western Sicily. Due to a lack of information about the character and details of this presence, it is crucial to precisely understand the terminology employed by our sources and all its nuances. The article challenges the widely accepted opinion that the nouns ἐπικράτεια and ἐπαρχία can be treated as synonyms. To verify whether this assumption is correct or not, a careful analysis of how the ancient authors (Polybius, Diodorus Siculus and Plutarch) used both nouns, as well as other related forms, is conducted. To make up for the limited number of occurrences of ἐπικράτεια in the analysed corpus, the relevant part of the examination also includes the use of this noun in Strabo’s Geography. The analysis allows us to highlight a significant change in the meaning of the two terms between the 2 nd century (Polybius) and the mid-1st century BC (Diodorus). This change reflects a development in the Greek political and administrative vocabulary, which was adjusting to a new reality of the Mediterranean world being organised into Roman provinces. The conducted analysis also allows us to better understand the complexity of the Carthaginian position in Western Sicily
The article examines an unpublished inscription conserved in the Nerantzia Castle of Kos (Greece). It consists of four elegiac couplets that Coan scholar Stamatios K. Pantelidis (Παντελίδης) composed some time before 1879. It was supposed to be located in the facade of the school founded the year indicated in the inscription. Seemingly, after the earthquake which devastated Kos in the year 1933, it was relocated in the warehouse of the Nerantzia Castle in northern Kos along with many other inscriptions. On the one hand, it provides the possibility of knowing how stonegravers work, to what extent Greeks knew their very own language in its ancient form and the way they dealt when it came to use (then and now) unusual forms of the language. On the other hand, the inscription is relevant to the cultural history of Greece in the last years of Ottoman rule and in the years after it, as Kos was part of the Ottoman Empire until 1912, date in which it passed under Italian rule until 1947, when the isle was incorporated into the Hellenic Republic. Therefore the purpose is to clarify the historical and real circumstances of the inscription, as well as to analyze the compositional process of this dedicatory epigram from the metrical point of view (it contains many deviations from to the classical precepts), style and classical tradition. The inscription has not been previously studied due to its peculiar characteristics. Indeed, it is an epigram written in modern times but in an archaizing Greek (i. e. roughly respecting the rules of classical grammar), so it is not studied by neohellenists given the ancient character of its language, nor by classicists because it was composed in recent times
The Greek grammarian and lexicographer, Hesychius of Alexandria (5 th–6th c. CE) included a Pamphylian gloss: βουρικυπάρισσος ἡ ἄμπελος. Περγαῖοι in his dictionary of rare and dialectal words. Based on a microphilological and lexical analysis, I suggest that the Greek text should be read as follows: βουρίꞏ κυπάρισσος ἢ ἄμπελος. Περγαῖοι (“bourí: cypress or grapevine. Citizens of Perge”). The Pamphylian gloss in question represents two different borrowings of terms originating in the Near East. The first item βουρίꞏ κυπάρισσος (‘cypress’) seems to have been borrowed from Akkadian burāšu(m) ‘a kind of conifer tree; juniper or cypress’ with a Lycian intermediary (Akk. burāšu → Luw. *burašiš > Lyc. *burehi > *burhi → Pamph. βουρί), whereas the second one βουρίꞏ […] ἄμπελος (‘grapevine’) reflects a separate loanword from an Anatolian source, cf. Hitt. and Luw. muriš c. ‘a grapevine, a vine, a cluster or bunch of grapes or other fruit’. The Pamphylian dialect of Ancient Greek represents an extraordinary idiom, which was used in the neighbourhood of numerous Anatolian languages such as Lycian, Milyan, Sidetic, Pisidian and Cilician. It is therefore not surprising that the Pamphylian Greeks borrowed a number of cultural terms for plants from an Anatolian Indo-European source, as well as from Akkadian or other West Semitic languages via Luwian and Lycian. Additionally, other possible Anatolian borrowings into Ancient Greek (e. g. Gk. dial. βωληνή ‘a type of grapevine’, μῶλαξ ‘id.’ vs. Hittite maḫlaš c. ‘grapevine, Vitis vinifera L.’) are mentioned and reviewed
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