Philetas - he was 18 in the year o f Hyperides' death** - as the standard-bearer o f Alexandrian literature, marked with his poetry the direction which later was labelled with the maxim o f Callimachus jjéya PipXiov pAya kockov, ‘big book big evil’. The goal was to
break with the traditional genres and to achieve perfection in forms. His attention - like that o f the Sophists who undertook the polishing o f prose - turned accordingly to the choice o f words. The glossaries helped him not only in the understanding o f poets fi’om previous ages, but also in choosing words carefiilly for his X£7TCCùç, ‘gracefully’ written verse. *^ In all probability, he was led by such intentions in the compilation o f his Homeric ctxaKTOi yXroaaai.^ His pupü Zenodotus, who gave up his poetic ambitions, ordered his glosses in alphabetical sequence,^ ^ in which not only ‘the’ Poet Homer, but several others appear as well.^^
Nevertheless it would be a mistake to imagine a linear development fi'om generation to generation o f a more advanced scholarship, which from the time o f Philetas within one hundred years reached the level presented in the A é^iç, ‘Expressions’ o f Aristophanes o f Byzantium. For the genesis o f this new genre o f lexicography, which refers to a wider range o f material - in which gradually the Hyperidean words began to become involved - perhaps this interest on the part o f scholar-poets would not have been enough in itself. Another question raised by the age played at least a similarly important part.
With a newly expanded world, language inevitably began to change. What could be regarded as real, ‘EAXrjviojiOç in contrast to common usage, and what could be
^ Tolkiehn, col. 2436. Pfeiffer, 90.
^ Its meaning is doubtful; cf. A. von Blumenthal ‘Philetas’ R E XIX (1938) col. 2169
Pfeiffer, 115; ICNickau, Untersuchmgen zur textkritischen Methode des Zenodotos von Ephesos
(Berhn, New York, 1977) 44. ^ ToUdehn, col. 2436.
considered as real literature?^^ Moreover - a fact that is more relevant to the ‘oeuvre’ o f Hyperides - which rhetorical style is preferable for imitation, the Asianic by which the rules o f formal rhetoric were completely disregarded, or something else?^'^ When and by whom these questions were formulated is unimportant here. In any case the works o f Aristophanes o f Byzantium entitled Hepl irov \)7ioîCT£\X)pfvcov pf) EipipOoa toîç TcoXmoîç,
‘On expressions which presumably were not used by the ancients’ and Hepl Kaivoiépov Xi^Ecov, On more recent phrases’ were perhaps already stimulated by this debate.^^ Whether this inquiry should be regarded as being responsible for the emergence o f AÉ^iç literature generally, - which finally led into classicism and Atticism - or whether the special ’AmKcd XÉ^Eiç, ‘Attic expressions’, go back to dialect glosses which flourished for a long time remains an open question.^
For, step by step, the title ‘Glosses’ was replaced by the more general ‘Expressions’ whose aim was not restricted to the explanation o f unusual and dialectical words; rather, as the title itself indicates, a wider range o f material was worked on.^^ Eratosthenes, not yet under this title, but in the same spirit, composed his study entitled llEpi xfjç àpxociccç KcoptpÔuxç, ‘On Old Comedy’, in which he collected plenty o f everyday expressions, rare and new words, jokes, Attic particularities.^* In all probability Didymus Chalkenteros relied on this compendium in explaining the phrase o f Hyperides èm KÔppriç TüTCtEiv, on which occasion he refers to him by name. It occurs in Pherecrates the comedian^ and therefore got its deserved place in the dictionary o f Eratosthenes. Didymus supports on the one hand his interpretation with other evidence, such as that o f Plato and Demosthenes, that is, the phrase should be understood as ‘to smack in the face’, but on the other hand he refers to the Hyperidean context in which according to him it
93
K.Latte, ‘Zur Zeitbestimmiing des Antiatticista’ Hermes 50 (1915) 385. ^^Norden,!, 131-2.
RReitzenstein, Geschichte der Griechischen Etymologika (Leipzig, 1897) 378; cf. C.K Callanan, Die
Sprachbeschreibung bet Aristophanes von Byzanz (Gottingen, 1987) 75-89.
^ On the possible content and structure of the works of Aristophanes of Byzantium cf. R.Tosi, ‘La lessicografia e la paremiografia in eta’ Alessandrina e il loro sviluppo successivo’ {unpublished) 10. According to Tosi they were not rigorously organised alphabetical compendia.
Pfeiflfer, 198.
98
Tolkiehn, col. 2438. ^ F g . 155b. Kock.
means ‘to smack on the j a w ' T h e divergent example seems to be collected by him and not by his predecessor.
The achievements o f centuries in this field were summarised in the scholarly activities o f Aristophanes o f Byzantium at the beginning o f the second century In his A é^iç the expressions were categorised partly by themes, imitating the first occurrence, the ‘Onomasticon’ o f Callimachus, and partly by d i a l e c t s . T h e ’A m xai
and AaxcoviKal yXroaaca provide an example for the latter. The Onomasticon system is attested by titles like - beside the above mentioned work - Ffepi ôvopaoioç
fi^udcov, IlEpl ooYyeviKcov ovopaxtov and noA^ixucà ôvôpam. Aristophanes’
interpretations were illustrated by literary parallels as set out in Appendix H below. Although among the fi’agments edited by August Nauck we search in vain for Hyperidean evidence, the thematic titles mentioned show a considerable similarity with some material quoted in Appendix II. In the works o f Aristophanes, there has been a solid basis established for the compilers o f later centuries; though in the case o f Hyperides it cannot be proved, in several other instances it is manifest that Didymus, Hesychius, Pollux and Athenaeus, even Eustathius in the twelfth century, drew on him as an important source.
Before the blossoming o f the Atticising movement by which the later compilers o f dictionaries were stimulated to quarry more deeply the speeches o f Attic Orators, there is no evidence that the words o f Hyperides aroused the special interest o f grammarians in Alexandria. In contrast with Isocrates and Demosthenes,*®^ who already appear among
Cf. Appendix II, s,v.
For a recent study on the subject: W.J.Salter, ‘Aristophanes of Byzantium and Problem-solving in the Museum’ CQ 32 (1982) 336-49.
The title of the first chapter of the ’EOvucod ovoprxcjuxi was presumably pTjvmv Ttpocrnyopioa wotxoc eBvn Koà TioXeiç, ‘The names of months in different nations and states’.
Cohn, (Griech. Lex.) 683.
In the case of KaBu the Lexicon of Orus and the Antiatticista also refer to Hyperides and Cratinus or to Hyperides’ Cratinus. W.Luppe, ‘Zu einigen Kratinosfragmenten’ Wiss.Zeitschr. d. Univ. Halle 16 (1967) 406; has proposed a conjecture and argues for a copulative connection o f the two names instead o f a reference to Hyperides’ Cratinus speech. According to K Alpers, Das attizistische Lexicon
des Oros (Berlin, New York, 1981) 108,n.37, Luppe’s suggestion is questionable. On the other hand
the example seems be a common borrowing from Aristophanes’ work (Alpers, (Oros) 108; 178). The assumption died very hard in the literature that Aristophanes was in fact the one who classified the best of each genre into canons. Moreover the assortment of quotations fi’om different authors in his works is alreacfy influenced by this: cf. L.Cohn, ‘Aristophanes’ RE n (1896) col. 1000; F.Montanari,
the quotations o f Aristophanes, the composers o f ’AxxiKal did not - to judge at least by the ‘ex silentio’ evidence o f the fragments - regard the Hyperidean ‘lexis’ as significant.