Print

Digital edition: dynamic lexicon of re-used words

Looking for text re-uses and quotations of works means also analyzing the language used by ancient authors to refer to other sources and, most important of all, to explore how words are re-used in different contexts and different languages.
The Perseus Digital Library has developed The Dynamic Lexicon to automatically create bilingual dictionaries using parallel texts and construct lexical entries that illustrate how a word is used not simply in all of Greek or Latin literature, but in any subset of that collection. 

Building a dynamic lexicon of re-used words means therefore to explore the re-use of the language across texts pointing out different meanings of the same term, synonyms, morphological curiosities, and topic-based terminology.

In this page we show two examples with possible results deriving from a dynamic lexicon of re-used words:
1) different forms of the Greek name ἄρτος (bread) and the proper name Ἄρτας in Athenaeus and Thucydides
2) a mistake due to the change of the second syllable of the genitive of the Greek name of the god Hermes (Ἑρμοῦ)

 

1) This example shows a passage of the Deipnosophists where Athenaeus quotes Thucydides and plays with different forms of the name ἄρτος (bread) and the proper name Ἄρτας.

 

Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae 3.73 = 3.108f-109b:
ἔτι τοῦ Οὐλπιανοῦ τοιαῦτά τινα παίζοντος ὁ Κύνουλκος ἀνέκραγεν "ἄρτου δεῖ καὶ οὐ τοῦ Μεσσαπίων βασιλέως λέγω τοῦ ἐν Ἰαπυγίᾳ, περὶ οὗ καὶ σύγγραμμά ἐστι Πολέμωνι. μνημονεύει δ᾽ αὐτοῦ καὶ Θουκυδίδης ἐν ζ᾽ καὶ Δημήτριος ὁ κωμῳδιοποιὸς ἐν τῷ ἐπιγραφομένῳ δράματι Σικελία διὰ τούτων:

κἀκεῖθεν εἰς τὴν Ἰταλίαν ἀνέμῳ Νότῳ
διεβάλομεν τὸ πέλαγος εἰς Μεσσαπίους:
ἄρτος δ᾽ ἀναλαβὼν ἐξένισεν ἡμᾶς καλῶς.
Β. ξένος γε χαρίεις. Α. ἦν ἐκεῖ ... μέγας
καὶ λαμπρὸς ἦν.

οὐ τούτου οὖν τοῦ Ἄρτου ὁ νῦν καιρὸς ἦν, ἀλλὰ τῶν εὑρημένων ὑπὸ τῆς Σιτοῦς καλουμένης Δήμητρος καὶ Ἱμαλίδος, οὕτως γὰρ ἡ θεὸς παρὰ Συρακοσίοις τιμᾶται, ὡς ὁ αὐτὸς Πολέμων ἱστορεῖ ἐν τῷ περὶ τοῦ Μορύχου. ἐν δὲ τῷ α᾽ τῶν πρὸς Τίμαιον ἐν Σκώλῳ φησὶ τῷ Βοιωτιακῷ Μεγαλάρτου καὶ Μεγαλομάζου ἀγάλματα ἱδρῦσθαι". ἐπεὶ δὲ ἤδη ἄρτοι εἰσεκομίζοντο καὶ πλῆθος ἐπ᾽ αὐτοῖς παντοδαπῶν βρωμάτων, ἀποβλέψας εἰς αὐτὰ ἔφη:

"τοῖς ἄρτοις ὅσας
ἱστᾶσι παγίδας οἱ ταλαίπωροι βροτοί,

φησὶν Ἄλεξις ἐν τῇ Εἰς τὸ φρέαρ. ἡμεῖς οὖν εἴπωμέν τι καὶ περὶ ἄρτων".

Thucydides 7.33.4:
... καὶ ὁρμηθέντες αὐτόθεν κατίσχουσιν ἐς τὰς Χοιράδας νήσους Ἰαπυγίας, καὶ ἀκοντιστάς τέ τινας τῶν Ἰαπύγων πεντήκοντα καὶ ἑκατὸν τοῦ Μεσσαπίου ἔθνους ἀναβιβάζονται ἐπὶ τὰς ναῦς, καὶ τῷ Ἄρτᾳ, ὅσπερ καὶ τοὺς ἀκοντιστὰς δυνάστης ὢν παρέσχετο αὐτοῖς, ἀνανεωσάμενοί τινα παλαιὰν φιλίαν ἀφικνοῦνται ἐς Μεταπόντιον τῆς Ἰταλίας. 

 

Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae 3.73 = 3.108f-109b:
While Ulpian was still jesting in this way, Cynulcus bawled, "We want bread (artos), and I don't mean the Artos who was king of the Messapii in Iapygia, concerning whom there is a tract by Polemon. He is mentioned by Thucydides also in Book vii, and by the comic poet Demetrius in the play entitled Sicily: 'A. From there, with the wind in the south, we crossed the main to Italy and the country of the Messapii. And Artos received and entertained us nobly. - B. Ay, a pleasant host. - A. Large was he in that country, and white'. On the present occasion, it wasn't Artos (Bread) that was wanted, but the loaves invented by Demeter, our Lady of the Grain and of Abundance. For with these titles the goddess is honoured in Syracuse, as the same Polemon records in his work on Morychus. And in Book i of his Reply to Timaeus he says that in the Boeotian town of Scolus there are images enshrined of Megalartus and Megalomazus".
When, presently, loaves of bread were brought in and there was, in addition, an abundance of all sorts of food, he looked at them and said, "'How many traps to catch bread do unhappy mortals set'", quoting Alexis in the comedy called Into the Well. "Suppose we, then, talk about Bread".

Thucydides 7.33.4:
... and starting from thence (sc. Demosthenes and Eurymedon) touched at the Choerades Isles lying off Iapygia, where they took on board a hundred and fifty Iapygian darters of the Messapian tribe, and after renewing an old friendship with Artas the chief, who had furnished them with the darters, arrived at Metapontium in Italy.

 [top]

 

2) In this example we show a passage from Plutarch, Theseus 26 where the author shows that the difference between the genitive of the name of the god Hermes (Ἑρμῆς -> Ἑρμοῦ) and the genitive of the name of the hero Hermos (Ἕρμος -> Ἕρμου) is the length of the last syllable. An incorrect change of this syllable is at the origin of a misunderstanding on the part of the inhabitants of Pythopolis, the city founded by Theseus in Bithynia.

 

Plutarch, Theseus 26.5:
ἣν ἔκτισεν, ἀπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ Πυθόπολιν προσαγορεῦσαι, Σολόεντα δὲ τὸν πλησίον ποταμὸν ἐπὶ τιμῇ τοῦ νεανίσκου. καταλιπεῖν δὲ καὶ τοὺς ἀδελφοὺς αὐτοῦ, οἷν ἐπιστάτας καὶ νομοθέτας, καὶ σὺν αὐτοῖς Ἕρμον ἄνδρα τῶν Ἀθήνησιν εὐπατριδῶν: ἀφ᾽ οὗ καὶ τόπον Ἑρμοῦ καλεῖν οἰκίαν τοὺς Πυθοπολίτας, οὐκ ὀρθῶς τὴν δευτέραν συλλαβὴν περισπῶντας καὶ τὴν δόξαν ἐπὶ θεὸν ἀπὸ ἥρωος μετατιθέντας.

Plutarch, Theseus 26.5:
For this cause he (sc. Theseus) founded a city there (sc. in Bythinia), and called it, from the Pythian god, Pythopolis, and the adjacent river, Solois, in honor of the young man. And he left there the brothers of Solois, to be the city's presidents and law-givers, and with them Hermus, one of the noblemen of Athens. From him also the Pythopolitans call a place in the city the House of Hermes, incorrectly changing the second syllable, and transferring the honor from a hero to a god. 

[top]