ἐπιμελῆ καὶ καρτερικὸν καὶ ἀγχίνουν καὶ φιλόφρονά τε καὶ ὠμόν, καὶ ἁπλοῦν τε καὶ ἐπίβουλον, καὶ φυλακτικόν τε καὶ κλέπτην, καὶ προετικὸν καὶ ἅρπαγα, καὶ φιλόδωρον καὶ πλεονέκτην, καὶ ἀσφαλῆ καὶ ἐπιθετικόν, καὶ ἄλλα πολλὰ καὶ φύσει καὶ ἐπιστήμῃ δεῖ τὸν εὖ στρατηγήσοντα ἔχειν.
See also I, 2, 5; IV, 3, 1; Oec. XII, 19; Hipparch. IV, 12; V, 2, 5, 12–15; and Isocr. II, 24; IX, 46 (paromoiosis).
This influence of the philosophers and sophists in fostering a wide use of forms in -κός, which is so strikingly shown in Xenophon's writings, manifested itself much earlier among the rich Athenian youths of the last quarter of the fifth century who followed and imitated the new teachers. Like words in -ist in English, the -κός formations had a learned sound, and, moreover, gave the young men an opportunity to display their newly acquired culture. Hence these forms came to be very much in vogue in fashionable society, and were then affected by a wider circle of people. Aristophanes ridiculed the practice by crowding eight remarkable adjectives in -κός into four consecutive verses in the Knights (1378–81):
ΛΗΜΟΣ.τὰ μειράκια ταυτὶ λέγω, τἀν τῷ μύρῳ,
ἃ τοιαδὶ στωμύλλεται καθήμενα·
σοφός γ᾽ ὁ Φαίαξ, δεξιῶς τ᾽ οὐκ ἀπέθανεν.
συνερτικὸς γάρ ἐστι καὶ περαντικὸς
καὶ γνωμοτυπικὸς καὶ σαφὴς καὶ κρουστικὸς
καταληπτικός τ᾽ ἄριστα τοῦ θορυβητικοῦ.
ΑΛΛΑΝΤΟΠΩΛΗΣ.
οὔκουν καταδακτυλικὸς σὺ τοῦ λαλητικοῦ;
These sentences were written nearly half a century earlier than the passages from the Memorabilia quoted above, at a time when Sophocles was writing his greatest plays, Herodotus had probably just passed away, and Plato was only three years old, and consequently the effect of piling up so many forms in -κός at this early date was much more telling. Previously in the Banqueters, which contained a criticism of the new kind of education furnished by the sophists and hence was similar in this respect to the Clouds, Aristophanes (fr. 198) had held up to ridicule other newly coined words used by a follower of the new teachers, and had assigned each of the innovations to its proper source, viz. σορέλλη to Lysistratus, καταπλιγήσει to the orators, ἀποβύσεται (conj.) to Alcibiades, and καλοκἀγαθεῖν to Thrasymachus or one of his sort. Note further that Strepsiades in conversation with the
