The Termination -κός, as used by Aristophanes for Comic Effect

by Charles William Peppler

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III.—THE TERMINATION -κός, AS USED BY ARISTOPHANES FOR COMIC EFFECT.^[1]

After the Persian wars Athens abandoned her former isolation and sought a wider acquaintance with the outside world, having been roused to vigorous thought and action by her encounter with the Mede. This contact with foreigners, her intercourse later with the other members of the Delian Confederacy, and in particular her widely extended commercial relations enlarged her intellectual horizon and quickened her intellectual life. The result was the so-called "New Culture" of the latter half of the fifth century. Of the influences from without the most potent for the stimulation of thought was the Ionic and Italic philosophy that was imported from across the seas. Moreover, Anaxagoras, Parmenides, and Zeno visited Athens in person, and left the impress of their doctrines upon the city. Following close upon these theorists and speculative philosophers came the sophists, the practical teachers of education, Protagoras, Prodicus, Hippias, Gorgias, and others, who in response to a demand of the times for a higher mental culture than that given in the schools professed to furnish practical instruction of a kind that would fit men for every sphere of life, but especially for public life. Because of the sovereign power of speech in the law-courts, senate, and popular assembly, and the supreme value of the gift of eloquence as a means to success, this training consisted largely in teaching the art of public speaking. With ultimate triumph as an inducement, the higher education became a craze, particularly among the young men of means who flocked to the new teachers: witness the youthful company gathered around the sophists at the house of Callias in Plato's Protagoras, and the eagerness of the high-born Hippocrates to meet Protagoras, as shown by his early morning visit to Socrates whom he aroused from sleep before daylight and begged for an introduction to the great sophist.

The "New Culture" brought with it an increasing use of derivative adjectives in -κός (usually -ι-κός). In the early literature such words are rare: Homeric παρθενική occurs also in Hesiod, two of the Homeric Hymns, Alcman, Pindar, and Bacchylides, and besides this the only other words, exclusive of derivatives from proper names, are ὀρφανικός (Homer), βαρβαρικός (Simonides), μουσικός (Pindar), and παιδικός (Bacchylides).^[2] They become more numerous in Aeschylus (12 examples). When the influence of the philosophers and sophists began to be felt in Athens, just those writers who were most affected by them in other respects show relatively the largest use of -κός formations. Compare, for example, Sophocles and Euripides who died the same year: the one, orthodox in religion, of a calm, tranquil mind that was apparently undisturbed by the problems of philosophy; the other, not bound by tradition but deeply imbued with the scepticism and rationalism of the times. Now, while Sophocles uses only 8 adjectives in -κός, Euripides has 24.^[3] Take for further comparison the history of Herodotus with its quaint stories and "running" style, and the critical work of the philosophic Thucydides which shows in its periods the influence of the rhetoric of his day. Though separated by only two decades, Herodotus employs 13 and Thucydides 38 words in -κός. Again, Isocrates the most illustrious of the disciples of Gorgias has 55 such forms, while Isaeus whose ornamental figures of language are few uses only 7 forms in -κός, and three of these are in one of the latest of his speeches, the seventh, which is noteworthy as having something of the epideictic style and embellishment of Isocrates.^[4] Three others occur in short fragments (fr. XLVI) of only two or three words found in Pollux, so that there is left but one word in -κός in the remaining eleven extant orations of Isaeus, not counting the seventh.

Philosophy is the peculiar sphere of these adjectives in -κός and their adverbs. Plato has 347 of them in the dialogues accepted by Christ (391 according to Ast's lexicon), and Aristotle between six and seven hundred. The extant fragments of the early philosophers and sophists do not justify us in attributing the sudden prominence in literature of this class of words to the example set by some one individual of commanding influence.^[5] It is due rather to the increased intellectual activity of the age and the consequent need of additional means for the expression of thought. The speculations of the philosophers and the growing tendency toward logical analysis demanded a more extended vocabulary.^[6] The suffix -κός was among the available material which the language already possessed within itself, and, though before used comparatively little, it had great possibilities of productiveness, as its popularity in philosophic discourses and its free use in postclassic times prove.^[7] Plato and Xenophon have in common 27 words in -κός that do not occur in the extant literature before their time so far as the Thesaurus shows, and Plato alone uses about 200 more that are not found in any earlier writer. In Campbell's list of 56 words from the Sophistes and 78 from the Politicus that are not used again by Plato, 44 in each group are words in -κός, and of this number 41 in each dialogue^[8] are not found in the previous literature. Though the entire literature is not preserved for comparison, these facts nevertheless show that the language was very materially enriched in this respect by the incoming of philosophic thought, and that the sudden and extensive use of the termination -κός is directly traceable to the Greek philosophers and sophists as a class.

Croiset characterizes Xenophon as "a perfect specimen of the καλὸς κἀγαθός, . . . . . . of sound, well-balanced mind, judicious, not over enthusiastic, obedient to reason, thoughtful of good order and harmony, and as highly educated as was possible for a well-bred Athenian in the time of the sophists and Socrates".^[9] It is interesting to note the effect that the "New Culture" produced on this typical Athenian of the early part of the fourth century, as regards his use of words in -κός. He employs an unusually large number of them, about 136; he has one-half of this number, i. e. 68, in the Memorabilia, his most important work dealing with matters of philosophy, 36 in the Oeconomicus, and 40 in the Cyropaedia,^[10] both of the latter numbers including, of course, some words already counted. Sauppe's Lexilogus shows that 48 words in -κός, or 35 per cent. of the author's complete list of such words, occur only once in Xenophon, and that 9 of these are found seldom, if ever, in other authors—figures which indicate that he sometimes went out of his way to use them. And not only has he many, and often unusual, words in -κός in his works, especially in those that relate to Socrates, but he occasionally crowds several into one passage, as, for example, Mem. I, 1, 7:

καὶ τοὺς μέλλοντας οἴκους τε καὶ πόλεις καλῶς οἰκήσειν μαντικῆς ἔφη προσδεῖθαι· τεκτονικὸν μὲν γὰρ ἢ χαλκευτικὸν ἢ γεωργικὸν [ἢ ἀνθρώπων ἀρχικὸν] ἢ τῶν τοιούτων ἔργων ἐξεταστικὸν ἢ λογιστικὸν ἢ οἰκονομικὸν ἢ στρατηγικὸν γενέσθαι, πάντα τὰ τοιαῦτα μαθήματα καὶ ἀνθρώπου γνώμῃ αἱρετὰ ἐνόμιζεν εἶναι.

and Mem. III, 1, 6:

Ἀλλὰ μήν, ἔφη ὁ Σωκράτης, τοῦτό γε πολλοστὸν μέρος ἐστὶστρατηγίας· καὶ γὰρ παρασκευαστικὸν τῶν εἰς τὸν πόλεμον τὸν στρατηγὸν εἶναι χρὴ καὶ ποριστικὸν τῶν ἐπιτηδείων τοῖς στρατιώταις καὶ μηχανικὸν καὶ ἐργαστικὸν καὶ ἐπιμελῆ καὶ καρτερικὸν καὶ ἀρχίνουν 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 Clouds longs to be εὑρησιεπής (447), that the ἄδικος λόγος says that he will shoot the δίκαιος λόγος dead with ῥηματίοισιν καινοῖς (943, cf. Plat. Theaet. 180 A), and that Cratinus (fr. 226) jokes about the ἀργυροκοπιστῆρας λόγων in his Trophonius.

Another factor enters into Aristophanes' caricature (Eq. 1378–81) of the philosophers and sophists and their imitators for their excessive use of the termination -κός. It is that he applies most of these adjectives to persons, whereas they are restricted almost entirely to inanimate objects in the previous literature that has survived, and used but rarely, if at all, of persons, before the incoming of the new teachers.^[11] The Homeric use of παρθενική and ὁρφανικός differs in meaning from the later usage (cf. Monro, Hom. Gram., p. 110), and cannot be counted. Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Herodotus have no example,^[12] while Euripides and Thucydides, who through the influence of the philosophers and sophists employed a comparatively large number of -κός words, show the same influence in that they have some instances of this personal use. Barring πᾶσαι παρθενικαί Electr. 174, a Homeric reminiscence, and ξενικοὺς ἱκτῆρας Cycl. 370 (cf. ξενικῶν 366) where the text has been variously emended, the only examples in Euripides occur in the case of the word μουσικός, viz. μουσικώτεροι λέγειν Hipp. 989 and τὸν μουσικώτατον Ἀμφίονα fr. 224. Thucydides has two examples in speeches, πολεμικοί I, 84, 3, and θεῶν τῶν ξυμμαχικῶν III, 58, 1, and two other words, πατρικὸς ξένος VIII, 6, 3, and ναυτικοί I, 18, 2; 93, 3; VII, 21, 3. Over against these exceptions, the two authors combined furnish more than 300 examples of the non-personal use of -κός derivatives from appellatives. Thucydides, however, wrote his history after the appearance of the Knights (424 B. C.), and the Antiope to which Nauck assigns Eur. fr. 224 came out probably ten or fifteen years later than this date (cf. schol. Ar. Ran. 53), and so there remains but one case, the Hippolytus passage of 428 B. C., which antedates the Knights. In striking contrast to this paucity of examples of the personal use in the previous literature stands the fact that in those passages in which there is the most conscious use of -κός forms in imitation of the new teachers, that is to say, those passages above quoted and referred to where these words are crowded together in a small compass, viz. Xen. Mem. I, 1, 7; 2, 5; III, 1, 6; IV, 3, 1; Oec. XII, 19; etc., it is the personal use that is found almost without exception, as if this too were a part of the innovation of the philosophers and sophists. And this is a part of Aristophanes' caricature in Eq. 1378–81. Besides, the Knights, Clouds, and Wasps, comedies which more than any of the others attack the sophists and the new fashions of the day, together have 19 instances of the personal use of -κός words out of the 28 in the eleven plays, and the ratio of the number of instances of this personal use in any play to the total number of occurrences of -κός forms in that play is higher for these three comedies than for the others.^[13] About one-half of the comic words in -κός that are mentioned in this paper are applied to persons.

We pass now to the Clouds, the play which attacks the sophists in the person of Socrates whom Aristophanes took as the representative of the class. When at the suggestion of the chorus (476) Socrates proceeds to give Strepsiades his first lessons and asks him whether he has a good memory (ἦ μνημονικὸς εἶ;), the comic poet makes Socrates employ a form in -κός in conformity with his character as a sophist;^[14] but the rustic in reply uses μνήμων (484). In 414 the chorus too had encouraged him to be μνήμων. Strepsiades is soon admitted to the thinking-shop. After some efforts to teach him meters, rhythms, and genders, Socrates bids him lie down, wrap himself up, and discover some device for cheating, νοῦς ἀποστερητικός (728), the -κός form being appropriate to the sophist. But when in reply Strepsiades longs to find such a device, he calls it γνώμη ἀποστερητρίς 'a robber notion', not daring as yet in his uneducated condition to use the -κός form that his master had employed, but going to the extreme of personifying γνώμη by the use of the feminine suffix of agency in order to avoid the -κός form that belongs to the learned. Later, however, when he has thought out a means of cheating, he calls it in delight γνώμην ἀποστερητικήν (747): the budding sophist ventures to employ a -κός form. But in a short time he proves to be a hopeless case and is dismissed by Socrates. He has, nevertheless, learned to swear 'by Mist' (814) and 'by Air' (667), he knows that Vortex reigns in place of Zeus, and he has imbibed the Protagorean doctrine of gender. Hence, when his son swears by Olympian Zeus (817), he reproves him for his folly and tells him that his notions are antiquated (φρονεῖς ἀρχαιϊκά), thus using ἀρχαιϊκός in place of the usual ἀρχαῖος,^[15] whereas later on (1469) in a similar expression (ἀρχαῖος εἶ) and under similar circumstances his son Phidippides uses ἀρχαῖος, not ἀρχαιϊκός, for though he had been in training he had not followed the sophists willingly, and does not use a single -κός form in the whole play. Yielding reluctantly to his father's demand, Phidippides goes to the thinking-shop in his stead and witnesses the contest between the δίκαιος λόγος and the ἄδικος λόγος; and now on his return, after having been fully instructed by the latter, he is greeted by his glad father with the words^[16] (1172–73):

νῦν μέν γ᾽ ἰδεῖν εἶ πρῶτον ἐξαρνητικὸς
κἀντιλογικός,

words well adapted to start him out on his new sophistic life. It is again the would-be sophist Strepsiades, proud of his knowledge of gender, who uses εὐηθικῶς^[17] (1258) in place of εὐήθως when the money-lender Pasias calls the kneading-trough κάρδοπος instead of καρδόπη, the form of the word which the feminine gender seems to Strepsiades to warrant.

The Κόννος of Amipsias was produced at the same time (423 B. C.) as the Clouds, winning the second prize over it. The chorus is composed of φροντισταί, and Socrates is introduced in his τρίβων either as an actor or as one of the chorus. As he enters, his fellow-φροντισταί salute him and call him καρτερικός^[18] (fr. 9) instead of καρτερός. Note also κομψευριπικῶς in Ar. Eq. 18, a fling at the subtleties of Euripides.

Cooks were kitchen-philosophers, grandiloquent and pompous; hence νησιωτικὰ ξενύδρια Menand. 462, δειπνητικός Anaxip. 1, 36, κριτικός, χναυστικός, προσκαυστικός Posidip. 1, Ὁμηρικός Strato 1, 30 (l. Dobr.).

Aristophanes, to whom the innovations of his time seem to forbode danger for the state, employs the -κός forms, among other means, to poke fun at the advocates of the new order of things. Just as it is the sophists in the Clouds, so it is fashionable society in the Wasps, that he ridicules in this way. The scene of 143 lines (1122–1264) in which Bdelycleon prepares his father for the dinner-party contains about one-third of all the words in -κός in the play, and the Wasps has a larger number of these words than any other play of Aristophanes, both absolutely and in comparison with the number of lines in the play. The 400 lines following the parabasis, which deal with the conversion of the old dicast into a man of fashion, contain just twice as many forms in -κός as the 1000 lines preceding it, which satirize the mania of the Athenians, especially the older citizens, for attending the law-courts.

The scene in the Wasps in which Bdelycleon, the type of the fashionable young Athenian of the day, gets his old-fashioned father ready for the banquet, is the counterpart of the situation in the Clouds wherein Strepsiades forces his son to attend the school of the sophist, and one is not surprised therefore to find that in this scene of preparation Bdelycleon uses all of the words in -κός that occur, with one inconsiderable exception. This exception is νεανικώτατον in 1205, where the poet purposely makes Philocleon repeat Bdelycleon's word νεανικώτατον (1204), because he is to employ it in a different sense ('youngest') from that in which his son first used it ('most daring'). On the other hand, just a few lines before this, a striking contrast is made between Bdelycleon's ἀνδρικώτατον and Philocleon's ἀνδρειότατον in two successive lines (1199, 1200), the one word taking up and repeating the thought of the other. Turning to the other words in -κός in this scene, one notes first the comic adverb τριβωνικῶς (1132) from τρίβων 'skilled' (cf. 1429, Nub. 869, 870), with a further reference to τρίβων 'an old cloak'. Later on, Bdelycleon urges his father to be ξυμποτικὸς καὶ ξυνουσιαστικός (1209) at the dinner-party, the very kind of new-fangled talk that his father is likely to hear in the fashionable company into which he is going. He instructs him further (1212) to throw himself down carelessly on the dinner-couch in an easy posture as an athlete would ( γυμναστικῶς), and to tell some witticism of Aesop or a joke from Sybaris (1260):

Αἰσωπικὸν γέλοιον ἢ Συβαριτικόν.

With the last passage compare Philocleon's Αἰσώπου τι γέλοιον in 566, the expressions οἱ Αἰσώπειοι λόγοι in Aristot. Rhet. II 20, 2, and Αἰσώπειοι μῦθοι in Hermog. Progymn. init., Theon Progymn. 3, and in the scholium on Av. 471, and especially a fragment of Aristophanes' Banqueters (fr. 216) in which a father while reprimanding his son for adopting the innovations of the sophists is careful to avoid all -κός words, and so uses Συβαρίτιδας εὐωχίας (cf. Theocr. V 146; Dio Cass. LVII, 18, 5) and even goes so far as to say Λάκαιναι [κύλικες] instead of Λακωνικαὶ κύλικες (cf. Phryn. 341 Lob.).

On his return from the banquet Xanthias (or Sosias) is so much affected by contact with these Athenians of rank and fashion and by his master's conversion to the new views of the times that he employs some of the stylish -κός forms, νεανικῶς (1307, cf. 1362), the ridiculous νουβυστικῶς (1294), used later by the younger Cratinus (fr. 7) with reference to the philosophers and sophists, and the long superlative παροινικώτατος (1300) in place of the corresponding form of παροίνιος.^[19] The chorus too has been affected, and in the same way: the second parabasis (1265–91) which, as Zielinski, Müller-Strübing and others think, should exchange places with the canticum 1450–1473, contains two other remarkable superlatives of -κός formations, χειροτεχνικώτατος 1276 and θυμοσοφικώτατος^[20] 1280, that are applied to the sons of Automenes and especially to the dissolute and bestial Ariphrades.

φωνάριον ᾠδικὸν καὶ καμπτικόν Ar. fr. 644 "was probably written in derision of some fashionable, foppish advocate of the new order of things". Comic Termin., p. 26.

As the opposition of the new and old culture, of the new and old fashions, is not primarily the subject of any of the other plays, the remaining instances of the comic use of forms in -κός are more scattered and the circumstances that call them forth more varied. When the new ways are brought in contact with the old, when one who is up-to-date, progressive, or on the road to fortune, or at least to better things, confronts another who clings to the past, when innovations are made, clever tricks performed, or smartish things done,—it is chiefly under these circumstances that -κός forms are employed to reflect the new spirit of the times. They are used either by the character himself who represents the new fads and fashions, or by others with direct reference to him.

In the latter part of the Acharnians where a contrast is made between the joys of peace and the miseries of war in the parallel and antithetic commands of Dicaeopolis the inventor of a new kind of peace (cf. 972) and Lamachus the advocate of war (620) as of old, Dicaeopolis who models his injunctions on the form of expression used by Lamachus answers the old soldier's words χειμέρια τὰ πράγματα (1141) with συμποτικὰ τὰ πράγματα (1142, cf. μανικὰ πράγματα Vesp. 1496). Previously (1080) he had ridiculed Lamachus with a long, pompous -κός form πολεμολαμαχαϊκόν coined for the purpose. Still earlier (1015–6) the chorus in calling attention to the happiness and good fortune that Dicaeopolis enjoyed in his newly made peace had employed two adverbs μαγειρικῶς and the comically formed δειπνητικῶς to describe his skillful and dainty preparations for the feast. In the same way the chorus in the Peace used εὐδαιμονικῶς^[21] (856, cf. πράττειν εὐδαιμόνως Pl. 802) in speaking of the success of another innovator Trygaeus, who had drawn up Peace out of the pit and brought down Plenty from heaven to be his bride, and the chorus in the Ecclesiazousae designated Blepyrus as a εὐδαιμονικὸν ἄνθρωπον (1134) in view of the good things in store for him.

The Sausage-seller in the Knights is an upstart and one of the latest products of the times. Hence the chorus tells him to strike the Paphlagonian ἀνδρικῶς^[22] (451) and ἀνδρικώτατα (453), and then the Knights salute their newly found chieftain with ὦ γεννικώτατον κρέας (457) which, like ὦ δεξιώτατον κρέας (421), also addressed to the Sausage-seller, is a humorous combination of words decidedly unsuited to each other. Besides, γεννικός takes the place of the usual word γενναῖος, and the sophistic suffix -κός makes still more striking the contrast with the grossly material word κρέας. Again in 611, upon his return from the Senate after his triumph, he is greeted by the chorus with the words:

ὦ φίλτατ᾽ ἀνδρῶν καὶ νεανικώτατε.

The slave Demosthenes uses μαγειρικός 216, 376, δημαγωγικός 217, and ἀνδρικῶς 379 with reference to him. When, on the other hand, Demosthenes makes the brilliant suggestion that he grease his neck with lard in order that he may slip out of the clutches of Cleon's calumnies, he in turn recognizes the cleverness of the trick and declares that it is worthy of a wrestling-master, εὖ καὶ παιδοτριβικῶς 492, just as Euelpides in Av. 362:

ὦ σοφώτατ᾽, εὖ γ᾽ ἀνηῦρες αὐτὸ καὶ στρατηγικῶς,

commends the wisdom and inventiveness of Peithetaerus for improvising armor out of kitchen-utensils, and just as Peithetaerus later (1511) shows his delight at Prometheus' ingenious and subtle device of hiding himself from Zeus under a parasol, by the words:

εὖ γ᾽ ἐπενόησας αὐτὸ καὶ προμηθικῶς.

Adopting the form of expression, εὖ καὶ followed by another adverb, that is familiar in the conversational language of Plato,^[23] Aristophanes in these three passages substitutes for the second adverb, which elsewhere is a word in common use, a long one with the sophistic termination -κῶς, thereby giving a pretentious and quasi-scientific close to a familiar formula.

In the Lysistrata and Ecclesiazousae women are the innovators. They are ridiculed as θωπικαί Lys. 1037, τὸ σκυτοτομικὸν πλῆθος Eccl. 432 (cf. Pl. 787), πρᾶγμα νουβυστικόν 441, and ἱππικώτατον χρῆμα Lys. 677, neuter noun and suffix -κός both expressing something of contempt. It is fitting too that Lysistrata, the arch-innovator, should use αὐθαδικός 1116, a ἅπαξ εἰρημένον in the extant literature, instead of the usual word αὐθάδης.

Chremylus has turned his back on the past (cf. Pl. 323) and is on the road to fortune (783, 802 sq.), now that Plutus has sight and comes to dwell with him. Hence the crowd of old men who immediately swarm about him and make a show of their friendship as soon as his good fortune becomes known, he calls ὄχλος πρεσβυτικός (787, cf. πρεσβυτῶν ὄχλος Vesp. 540). The Youth has likewise been made wealthy through the recovery of Plutus' sight (968, 1004), and in consequence spurns his former love; when he sees the multitude of wrinkles in the face of his ἀρχαίας φίλης (cf. 1082–3), he exclaims (1050):

ὦ Ποντοπόσειδον καὶ θεοὶ πρεσβυτικοί.

In a few instances there is a deliberate change from the usual termination of a word to the fashionable -κός for the comic effect, when no special reason for the employment of such a sophistic form appears in the context and surrounding circumstances.

ὡρικός for ὠραῖος, translated "beautisome" by Professor Gildersleeve, occurs first in Crates 40:

⁠πάνυ γάρ ἐστιν ὡρικώτατα
τὰ τιτθί᾽ ὥσπερ μῆλον ἢ μιμαίκυλα,

then in the merry phallic song Ach. 263 sq.,^[24] where the scholiast reports that Aristophanes had previously used ὡρικὸν μειράκιον καὶ κόρη in the Banqueters (fr. 235), and finally in Pl. 963, used of the wrinkled old woman who is dressed in girlish costume like a coquette and affects to be young.

βαδιστικός Ran. 128 'walkist' for βαδιστής. Cf. Poll. III 92; Bekk. An. 55, 20.

ποτικός Alcae. Com. 9. No context to show the tone of the passage. Cf. πότης and πότις.

εἰρηνικός in Ran. 715 has a different meaning from εἰρηναῖος in Eq. 805. The former denotes character, 'a man of peace', 'a peace man', the latter a state or condition, 'at peace'. There is therefore no comic purpose here. It is this characterizing force of formations in -κός that makes them so well adapted for use as adverbs.

ἀνδρικός is found in the early plays only (Ach. to Pax); 18^[25] out of the 21 occurrences of ἀνδρεῖος are in the later plays (Av. to Pl.). ἀνδρικός is used as an adverb in three-fourths of its occurrences, viz. Eq. 81, 82, 379, 451, 453, 599, Vesp. 153, 450, Pac. 478, 498, 515, 1307; where ἀνδρείως occurs (Pac. 732, Th. 656, Ran. 372), the anapaestic verse excludes ἀνδρικῶς. ἀνδρικός, on the other hand, suits iambic and trochaic rhythms, and to these it is confined with one exception, Ach. 696.

ἀνδρικός occurs twice (1077, 1090) in the epirrhema of the parabasis of the Wasps which precedes the scene of preparation for the banquet referred to above, and serves to prepare us for the fashionable use of the -κός termination in this scene (cf. especially ἀνδρικώτατον 1199 over against ἀνδρειότατον 1200), but an additional reason for its use here was the opportunity it afforded to play on the double meaning, 'manlike' (applied to the wasps) and 'manly', 'brave'. Compare the play on ἀνθρήνια (Ἀθήνας) 1080 and θυμὸν (θύμον) 1082. Elsewhere ἀνδρεῖος is the word that Aristophanes always employs in the case of persons (about a dozen examples).

A certain amount of incongruity results from attaching the suffix -κός, which belonged originally to the high sphere of scientific thought and philosophic inquiry, to words that stand on a much lower level, that is, words that denote the common things of daily life, colloquial words, and comic coinages. Such forms were put together by Aristophanes in consequence of the free and no doubt indiscriminate use of the suffix that was made by the fashionables of the time and men of the Phaeax type who affected words with this termination because of their learned sound. To ridicule the practice, Aristophanes both multiplied -κός forms and added the suffix to words that were not suited to receive it. Although it is true that when -κός forms once began to pour into the language the suffix was added to a variety of words without much restraint or discrimination, yet the incongruity of some of the comic poet's formations remains and is felt in proportion as one keeps in mind the high sphere to which the suffix properly belongs.

νουβυστικός Vesp. 1294, Eccl. 441, Cratin. jun. 7. βύω 'cram', 'stuff', 'plug', 'bung', and its compounds are found chiefly in the comic poets and Lucian, and belong to a low sphere. νουβυσικός = 'crammed full of sense'. In Eccl. 441 Praxagora is quoted as saying that woman is a πρᾶγμα νουβυστικόν.

βαδιστικός Ran. 128. βαδίζω 'trudge' is "almost confined to comedy and prose" (Liddell and Scott).

ἀριστητικός Eupol. 130 (ἀριστᾶν), δειπνητικός Ar. Ach. 1016, Anaxip. 1, 36 (δειπνεῖν), μελλοδειπνικός Eccl. 1153, μαγειρικός Ach. 1015, Eq. 216, 376, Pac. 1017, fr. 138, λαρυγγικός Pherecr. 32 (λάρυγξ for φάρυγξ 'gullet'), and τριβωνικῶς Ar. Vesp. 1132 (in so far as it refers to τρίβων 'an old cloak'), all deal with domestic matters.

ἐριοπωλικῶς Ran. 1386 (ἐριοπώλης), καπηλικῶς Pl. 1063 (κάπηλος), δημιουργικῶς Pac. 429 (δηιμουργός), ἀνδραποδιστικῶς Eupol. 396 (ἀνδραποδιστής), σκυτοτομικός Ar. Eccl. 432 (σκυτοτόμος). As those engaged in trade were not highly esteemed, the words to which the -κός termination is here added do not stand on a high level.

Such comic coinages as πολεμολαμαχαϊκός and κομψευριπικῶς are ill-adapted to have the serious suffix -κός.

Adjectives in -κός Derived from Proper Names.

These in the main denote things rather than persons. There are a dozen exceptions in the extant literature before Aristophanes. This number does not include the Persian word Δροπικοί (Hdt. I 125) nor the Italic 'orfpiKoi (I 94; IV 49), nor the neuter ἀνδράποδα Ὑκκαρικά (Thuc. VII, 13, 2), since no other adjective with a neuter form was available; nor does it embrace a long list of adjj. in -κός modifying such collective nouns as γένος, ἔθνος, λεώς, στράτευμα, or used in the neuter with the article in the sense of a collective. The exceptions follow: Ζεῦ Πελασγικέ Hom. Il. XVI 233—"no approach here to the later meaning of the suffix" (Monro); ἀνάκτων Τρωικῶν [Eur.] Rhes. 738—a Homeric reminiscence; κοιράνοισι Πυθικοῖς Eur. Ion. 1219, μάντεσιν Πυθικοῖς Andr. 1103—the epithet Πύθιος belongs to Apollo, cf. Aesch. Ag. 509, Cho. 1030; Λιβυστικαῖς γυμαιξίν^[26] Aesch. Suppl. 279, τόνδ᾽ Ἀχαϊκὸν λάτριν Eur. Tro. 707—cf. Dittenberger, Hermes XLII 31 sq., 161 sq.; Ἀττικὰς θεραπαῖνας Hdt. III 134—Ἀττική is the correct form of the feminine of Ἀθηναῖος, cf. Eustath. on Hom. Il., p. 84, 12, and Hermes XLII 10 sq.; τῶν ἄλλων Ἑλληνικῶν τυράννων Hdt. III 125, τῶν στρατηγῶν τῶν Περσικῶν IX 102—cf. Hermes XLII 20; Ἑλληνικοὶ θεοί Hdt. IV 108—'Greek-like' rather than 'Greek', i. e. 'having the attributes and qualities of the Greek gods' without being distinctly and wholly Greek;^[27] Ἀττικός Solon 2 (Bergk)—used in place of Ἀθηναῖος for the sake of the sneer; and Ἀττικοί Alcae. 32 expresses perhaps the same contempt, but the text is uncertain. The exceptional character of these examples is still further emphasized by the fact that there are nearly 600 instances in the tragic poets, Herodotus, and Thucydides in which derivatives in -κός from proper names are not applied to persons.

In contrast to these 12 cases of the personal use in the whole literature before Aristophanes stand 19 examples in his eleven extant plays alone. This is because the characterizing force of the suffix was well-suited to the liveliness of the language of daily life, and consequently the sermo familiaris made a large use of such words just as it did of character names.^[28] Character names in -αξ, gen. -ακος, e. g. Ῥόδαξ (= Ῥόδιος, Bekk. Anecd. 856, 33), πλούταξ, θαλάμαξ, κ. τ. λ., and short names in -ιχος^[29] approach them closely in the form of the ending. Though -κός is not found as a diminutive suffix in Greek, it does have this force frequently in Sanskrit, Persian, and some other Indo-European languages.^[30] Greek proper names with this suffix signified men who had the characteristics of a people or a community, and when substituted in familiar speech for the usual name of a people were not far removed from character names, being used chiefly for the purpose of ridicule. The scholiast on Ar. Pac. 215 says that the effect of using Λακωνικοί for Λάκωνες is ὑποκορισμός, and in a previous note on Ἀττικωνικοί he implies that the contempt (cf. ἑνυβρίζοντες) arises from cheapening (εὐτελίζοντες) them by applying to them this modified form of their name. The change was made, of course, for fun (cf. παίζει), and Ἀττικωνικοί was then comically formed to resemble Λακωνικοί. The half-starved Spartans captured on Sphacteria are likewise called Λακωνικοί in Nub. 186, and so also the Spartans mentioned in Lys. 628 who can be trusted no more than a gaping wolf. There is a spirit of pleasantry in the use of the word in Lys. 1226 and Eccl. 356. In a tone of superiority, mingled with a little of the natural antipathy of Athenian for Spartan, the triumphant Lysistrata orders the "Laconics" (1115) to be brought forward, and if she hesitates to use this form in direct address (cf. 1122, 1137), such deference and respect is not manifested toward the Acharnians (324) and the Megarian (830) by the similarly triumphant Dicaeopolis who has successfully negotiated a private treaty of peace. In pleading with the Acharnians for a hearing he descends within the space of three verses from the epic grandeur of the patronymic Ἀχαρνηίδαι to the familiarity of the colloquial Ἀχαρνικοί (324). The latter title the Acharnians quote in a tone of resentment in 329. Amphitheus had used it in 180—'some Acharnian fellows'. Compare 'that Acharnian chap Telemachus' in Timocles 7, cf. 16. 'What! a Megarite!' cries Dicaeopolis (750), when the starved Megarian first comes to his market, and later, after rescuing him from the Informer, he says, 'Cheer up, old boy' (830).

Ἀττικός is used in a familiar, colloquial way in the following passages: Pherecr. 145 (with contempt, cf. ὁ κατάρατος), Ar. Vesp. 1076 (with self-laudation), Strattis 28, and Machon 1. In Diphil. 17 and Menand. 462, up-to-date cooks who boast of their discrimination in the kinds of food they offer to guests from various localities call Athenians Ἀττικοί, the Arcadian Ἀρκαδικός (cf. Ἀρκάς), and the Ionian Ἰωνικός (cf. Ἴωνες, and Ἴων Dionys. Hal. Rhet. XI 5, Theocr. XVI 57).

Charles W. Peppler.

Emory College, Oxford, Ga.

 

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1. There is one monograph on the subject of -κός, viz. Das Suffix κός (ικός, ακός, υκός) im Griechischen. Ein Beitrag zurWortbildungslehre. Von Dr. Jos. Budenz. (Göttingen, 1858), but being a study in morphology it has contributed little to the present paper, which is a continuation of the author's Comic Terminations in Aristophanes and the Comic Fragments. Part I: Diminutives, Character Names, Patronymics. (Baltimore, Murphy, 1902).
2. The MSS. give also κασωρικός Hippon. 68 and σκυβαλικός Timocr. 1, 6.
3. This count covers the fragments too. Derivatives from proper names are not included in any of these statistics. The difference in bulk of the two authors must be kept in mind, but the exact effect of this difference is indeterminate. No account is here taken of the number of times the same word recurs, that is, the sum total of all the occurrences in each author.
4. Cf. Blass, Att. Bereds². II 499, 513 sq., 555.
5. Parmenides, Zeno, Anaxagoras, and Diogenes of Apollonia, all of whom came to Athens, have none of these words in their fragments. Protagoras, Prodicus, and Gorgias have one or two each, and Democritus, Philolaus, and Archytas from six to nine each. The Hippocratean tract on the art of medicine, entitled περὶ τέχνης, which Gomperz ascribes to Protagoras, has nothing more than the word ἰητρική. The only passage in which there is a suggestion of the heaping up of -κός forms is Philolaus fr. 11 (Diels), one sentence of which is γνωμικὰ γὰρ ἁ φύσις ἁ τῶ ἀριϑμῶ καὶ ἡγεμονικὰ καὶ διδασκαλικὰ τῶ ἀπορουμένω παντὸς καὶ ἀγνοουμένω παντί.
6. A long list of derivative and compound words which may be assumed to have come into use shortly before Plato's time from the fact that they occur in Plato and no earlier writer, is given in Jowett and Campbell's Republic of Plato II 263–279, where Campbell remarks, "This effervescence of language is naturally correlated to the stir and eager alacrity of thought which the sophists set in motion and to which Socrates himself contributed."
7. Budenz, on p. 7, estimates the total number of -κός forms in Greek to be about 2000. This number apparently includes derivatives from proper names also.
8. Many of them are used to designate various τέχναι, since an effort is made to arrive at definitions of the sophist and statesman by the process of division and subdivision.
9. Abr. Hist. of Gr. Lit., p. 313, Eng. trans. Cf. Id., Xénophon, son charactère et son talent, p. 8 et suiv., 251.
10. In der Cyropädie . . . . . . führt er mit Vorliebe geistreiche Gespräche ein, u. s. w. Blass, Att. Bereds². II 476.
11. Passages in which adjectives in -κός modify such collective nouns as γένος, λεώς, στράτευμα, κ. τ. λ. are not regarded as examples of the personal use.
12. Derivatives from proper names, which are discussed later in a separate chapter, are not here included.
13. The Birds too has a high ratio, but may be neglected because of the smallness of the number (2) of instances in it of the personal use.
14. See also Cratin. 154 together with Bergk Comm. 182.
15. Cf. 915, 984, 1357, Vesp. 1336, Pl. 323, Eupol. 139. See also ἀρχαιϊκός in Antiph. 44.
16. With ἐξαρνητικός, a ἄπαξ εἰρ., compare ἔξαρνος Nub. 1230, Pl. 241. ἀντιλογικός is common in Plato.
17. Cf. εὐηϑικῶς in the saucy dialogue of Eccl. 520 sq. εὐήϑης occurs in fr. 671. εὐηϑικός is found in Plat. Rep. 343 C; 529 B; Charm. 175 D; Hipp. Mai. 301 D.
18. καρτερικός occurs also in Xen. Mem. I, 2, 1 (applied to Socrates), III, 1, 6 (where adjj. in -κός are crowded together; see above pp. 431, 432), Hippocr. περὶ εὐσχ. 3 (similar crowding), Isocr. VIII 109.
19. Cf. παροίνιος Ach. 981; Anacreont. 2, 8; Athen. 629 E; Luc. Salt. 34, Laps. 2; Plut. Dem. 4; Schol. Ar. Vesp. 20, 1239, 1240; and πάροινος Pratin. 1, 8; Lys. IV 8; Antiphan. 146.
20. Cf. θυμόσοφος Nub. 877; Schol. Vesp. 1280.
21. Metrical convenience may be urged as an explanation of the use of εὐδαιμονικῶς instead of εὐδαιμόνως.
22. "ἀνδρικὸς is a less serious word than ἀνδρεῖος". Neil on Eq. 81.
23. εὖ καὶ καλῶς Rep. 503 D, Legg. 876 C, Lach. 188 A, Conv. 184 A, Hipp. Mai. 304 AC; εὖ καὶ γενναίως Theaet. 146 C, 151 E, Gorg. 521 A; εὖ καὶ ἀνδρείως Charm. 160 E, Theaet. 157 D, Legg. 648 C, 855 A. Cf. εὖ καὶ ἐπισταμένως in the epic poets; εὖ κἀξίως Eur. Hec. 990; εὖ κἀνδρείως Plat. Com. 109, Ar. Th. 656; εὖ κἀνδρικῶς Eq. 379, Vesp. 153, 450.
24. Cf. ὡραῖος in Ach. 1148, Ran. 291, 514.
25. The rest are Nub. 1052 (person), Vesp. 1200 (cf. supra p. 436), and Pac. 732 (adv.).
26. Cf. Λιβύσσας γυναικός Pind. P. IX 182.
27. Cf. θεοὶ οἱ Ἑλλήνιοι Hdt. V 49 and 92 fin., Ζεὺς Ἑλλήνιος Hdt. IX 7, Ar. Eq. 1253, πατὴρ Ἑλλάνιος Pind. N. V 10, and Ἀϑηνᾶ Ἑλληνία Aristot. Mirab Ausc. 108.
28. Cf. Comic Termin., p. 32 sq.
29. Cf. Fick, Personennamen, S. XLII.
30. Cf. Schwabe, De Demin. Graec. et Lat., p. 44 sq.