Classics@15: A Concise Inventory of Greek Etymology

Ádmētos (Ἄδμητος) is the son of Pheres, sovereign of Pherae, a Thessalian kingdom. He is a friend of god Apollo, who once served him as his herdsman for one year and helped him in winning the hand of Alcestis. Furthermore, Apollo grants Ádmētos the privilege to avoid death. However, someone else must die in his place. Alcestis, his wife, chooses to die on his behalf but, as we learn from Euripides’s Alcestis, Heracles manages to bring her back to her husband—on Heracles’s pónos in Euripides’s drama, that is, his wrestling match against Death, see Nagy 1990, ch. 5, §4; 2018, vv. 956–960.

The proper name Ádmētos is a homophone of the adjective ádmētos ‘un-tamed’ (Greek ἄδμητος), which is commonly considered the poetic form for the more common adámatos (Greek ἀδάματος) ‘un-tamed’. Both adámatos and ádmētos display a privative alpha (from Indo-European *n̥-) as their first compound member and a second compound member, which can be traced back to the Indo-European root *demh2- ‘tame’. This root underlies Greek dámnēmi (: δάμνημι), damázō (: δαμάζω) ‘tame, overpower’ as well as a variety of cognate verbs with a meaning ‘tame, overpower’, such as, among others, Vedic dami, Old Norse temjan ‘to tame, overpower’. In the epic corpus, the adjective ádmētos occurs in feminine and applies to:

 

The analysis of the poetic phraseology in Greek and in other Indo-European languages suggests that Ádmētos is ‘un-tamed’ because he does not die. In a variety of contexts, dámnēmi and damázō denote ‘to kill’ in Greek:

 

The syntagma ἄνδρα … δαμάσασθαι ‘to tame … a man’ perfectly matches the compound androdámas (ἀνδροδάμας, Alcman+) ‘man-taming or man-killing’ (Massetti 2019: 19–21). Moreover, the verb occurs in connection with θάνατος ‘death’, cf. Euripides Medea 650 θανάτῳ θανάτῳ … δαμείην “may I be tamed by the death, by the death!” In a later phase of Greek poetic language, the epithet pandamátōr (: πανδαμάτωρ) ‘all-taming’ came to apply to Hades, (Greek Anthology 16.213.4+). The semantic development from ‘tame’ to ‘kill’ is attested in other Indo-European languages as well. For instance, Vedic damⁱ ‘to overpower (in battle), dominate’ partially overlaps Vedic han ‘to smash, kill.’ Hence, the compound dasyuhántama– ‘the super smasher (: han) of the Dasyus’ (Rigveda 8.39.8) semantically equals the collocation adamāyo dásyūm̐r “you tamed (damⁱ) the Dasyus” (Rigveda 6.18.3).

In conclusion, the phraseological analysis reveals that Ádmētos’s destiny lies in his name, since he is one who is ‘un-tamed (by Death)’.

 

The etymology of Apollo’s name, Apóllōn, has defied linguistic reconstruction for a long time. A breakthrough came with a 1975 article by Walter Burkert, where he proposes that the Doric form of the name, Apéllōn, be connected with the noun apéllai, designating a seasonally recurring festival—an assembly or thing, in Germanic terms—of Dorian kinship groups. The linguistic principles underlying Burkert’s proposal have been definitively restated in a posthumously published work by Alfred Heubeck, who shows that the earliest recoverable form of the name is *apelyōn, built on a noun shaped *apelya: thus the meaning would be something like ‘he of the assembly’. A Cypriote by-form of Apollo’s name is Apeílōn (to-i-a-pe-lo-ni = τῶι Ἀπείλωνι), showing the earlier e-vocalism as opposed to the innovative o-vocalism of Apóllōn. Following a suggestion from Leonard Muellner, we can say that the name of Apollo can be connected, with recourse to this Cypriote by-form, to the Homeric noun apeilḗ, meaning ‘promise, boastful promise, threat’, and to the corresponding verb, apeiléō ‘make a promise, boastful promise, threat’. The meaning of these forms apeilḗ and apeiléō is based on the concept of a speech-act, and on the fact that this concept dovetails with the meaning of apéllai, based on an actual context of speech-acts. Such dovetailing helps explain the essence of Apollo, ‘he of the *apelya’, as the god of authoritative speech, the one who presides over all manner of speech-acts, including the realms of songmaking in general and poetry in particular.

The word apeiléō designates the actual performance of a speech-act, a mûthos, while the word teléō, derivative of télos ‘fulfillment’, guarantees that the speech-act is really a speech-act, in that the course of events, which amounts to actions emanating from the speech-act, bears out the speech-act. We may compare the Homeric instances where apeiléō can be translated as ‘vow’ in the context of prayers addressed to gods (Iliad 23.863, 892).

Burkert draws attention to the fact that Apollo is conventionally represented as beardless and unshorn, looking like an éphēbos ‘ephebe’, that is, like a pre-adult male. Unlike human pre-adult males, however, the god Apollo is a permanent ephebe. Unlike human males, he will never take over from his father. The basic ephebism of Apollo can be connected with the semantics of apéllai. As Burkert points out, the feast of the apéllai at Delphi is technically a “Feast of Ephebes.” Moreover, we may consider the wording of the so-called Great Rhetra of Sparta, attributed to Lycurgus the lawgiver: ὥρας ἐξ ὡρᾶν ἀπελλάζειν ‘to hold assemblies [apéllai], season [hōrā] after season [hōrā]’ (Plutarch Lycurgus 6). In this case the theme of seasonality, as conveyed by hōrā ‘season’, can be connected with the celebration of young boys’ coming of age, that is, of human seasonality, on the occasion of the apéllai of Delphi.

Apollo, ‘he of the *apelya’, is the god of authoritative speech, the one who presides over all manner of speech-acts. Apollo is not only the god of speech-acts: he is also the god of poetry and song. The god of eternal promise, of the eternity of potential performance, he is the word waiting to be translated into action.

 

The term aretḗ (ἀρετή) is conventionally translated as ‘excellence’ and is first attested in the hexametrical traditional poetry. Here, it applies to both human and non-human qualities, take, for instance, Iliad 15.642–643 παντοίας ἀρετάς, ἠμὲν πόδας ἠδὲ μάχεσθαι || καὶ νόον ἐν πρώτοισι Μυκηναίων ἐτέτυκτο ‘in all kind of aretaĩs (qualities), both in fleetness of foot and in fight, and in mind he was among the first of the men of Mycenae’, and Iliad 23.276 ἴστε γὰρ ὅσσον ἐμοὶ ἀρετῇ περιβάλλετον ἵπποι ‘for you know how far my two horses surpass in excellence’. In parallel, the plural form aretaí (ἀρεταί), which originally meant ‘the aretḗ-deeds’, came to denote ‘achievements’, compare, Pindar Nemean 3.32–33 παλαιαῖσι δ᾿ ἐν ἀρεταῖς γέγαθε Πηλεὺς ἄναξ, ὑπέραλλον αἰχμὰν ταμών ‘in achievements of long ago lord Peleus took delight, after cutting his matchless spear’. Moreover, in philosophical works, aretḗ acquired the semantic nuance of ‘(moral) virtue’, such as in Plato Crito 53c ἢ οὕσπερ ἐνθάδε, ὡς ἡ ἀρετὴ καὶ ἡ δικαιοσύνη πλείστου ἄξιον τοῖς ἀνθρώποις καὶ τὰ νόμιμα καὶ οἱ νόμοι; ‘Or will they be the ones (: arguments) you use here, that goodness and justice are of the highest value to mankind together with institutions and laws?’

The noun aretḗ (ἀρετή) may be traced back to the same root as Greek ararískō (ἀραρίσκω) ‘to fit’, harmózō (ἁρμόζω) ‘to join’ and hárma (ἁρμα) ‘chariot’, or ‘the vehicle, whose parts have been fitted together’ (Prellwitz 1931), as well as Greek ἄριστος ‘the best’ (‘the most fitting one’). Indeed, a gloss by the ancient lexicographer Hesychius reflects a synchronical connection between aretáō (ἀρετάω), a denominative verb based on aretḗ and harmózō: Hesychius α 41 L ἀρέτησαν· ἥρμοσαν ‘arétēsan (they did with aretḗ): they harmonized / they joined together’.

As the Greek words aretḗ, ararískō, harmózō and hárma display an initial alpha, all these terms can be traced back to a Proto-Indoeuropean root *(H)ar- ‘fit, join’, that is to say, a root which can be reconstructed as *h₂er- or *h₁ar- und underlies Vedic sám aranta ‘join’, Young Avestan arånte ‘fasten’.

Some of the Greek terms belonging to this word family have a non etymological initial aspiration, while others lack it. Specifically, Greek hárma (ἁρμα) retains a regressive non etymological aspiration. It may reflect *(H)ar-s-mn̥-, a derivative from the root enlarged with an complex -sm(e)n-suffix or a *(H)r̥s-mn̥- stem, that is to say, a neutral derivative built on the zero grade of a putative s-stem *(H)ar-o/es-. The aspiration of harmózō (ἁρμόζω) ‘join’ could be explained as secondary as well.

By assuming a root *h₁ar-, Greek árnumai (ἁρνυμαι) ‘to win, to struggle to win’ and Cuneiform Luvian ārlanuwa- ‘to make (something) owned (by someone)’ (Melchert 1999:246), as well as the Hittite adverb āra– ‘right’, which show no trace of an initial laryngal two, may be included as further linguistic congeners of Greek aretḗ (ἀρετή). As pointed out by Nagy’s comment on Iliad 18.121 and Odyssey 1.5 (Nagy 2017), the Greek hexametrical poetry árnumai (ἁρνυμαι) is often attested in connection with ‘epic goals’, such as, among others, kléos, kũdos (κλέος, κῦδος) ‘glory’, timḗ (τιμή) ‘honor’, aéthlia (ἀέθλια) ‘prize’, nóstos (νόστος) ‘homecoming’. A semantic development from ‘fit’ (Indo-European *h₁ar-) to ‘make something fit to oneself’, that is to say, ‘take, win, gain’ (Greek árnumai, Luvian ārlanuwa-) is easily conceivable and, at any rate, not unparalleled, compare German eignen ‘to fit’, zueigen ‘to take something’.

Greek aretḗ (ἀρετή) can thus reflect *(H)ar-eteh₂, a feminine or a collective form of an etó-derivative, which originally meant ‘(what is) good to join / to articulate’ (Vine 1998:61). A nominal derivative with a suffix –etó- exists beside a -tó-formation, *(H)r̥-tó-, underlying Vedic r̥tá- ‘cosmic order, rightness, truth’ and *(H)ar-tó-, reflected by Avestan ašạ- ‘rightness, truth’.

The etymological connection between aretḗ (ἀρετή), r̥tá- and ašạ- is confirmed by a wide set of collocations and associations that the three terms have in common (Massetti [in preparation]). To begin with, Greek aretḗ (ἀρετή) is associated to ‘truth’ (alḗtheia, Greek ἀλήθεια) and ‘justice’ (díkē, δίκη), which are semantic structural components of both Vedic r̥tá- and Avestan ašạ-:

 

Greek poets and philosophers have sometimes likened positive concepts such as ‘truth’ and ‘justice’ to objects consisting of several parts, which have been fitted together, such as the ‘wheel’ and the ‘chariot’. In Parmenides (1.29 DK), the Truth (alḗtheiē) is said to be eukuklḗs (εὐκυκλὴς) ‘which has a beautiful circle / wheel’, while Simonides (11.12 W) speaks of the ‘chariot of the justice’, hárma díkēs (ἅρμα δίκης). As pointed out by Calvert Watkins (1979), Vedic r̥tá– and Avestan ašạ– are associated with the same images. Vedic r̥tá– occurs in the collocations ‘wheel of the r̥tá-’, Vedic cakrám […] r̥tásya (RV 1.164.11b) and the ‘chariot of the r̥tá-’, Vedic ráthaḥ […] r̥tásya (RV 2.23.3b+). Furthermore, both Vedic r̥tá– and Avestan ašạ– are connected to the Proto-Indoeuropean root *u ̯egh- ‘drive’, as few examples can show: ašạhiiā važdr ə̄ ṇg ‘conveyors of the ašạ-’ (Y. 46.4), ūhyā́the […] r̥tám ‘you have conveyed the r̥tá-’ (RV 4.56.6c). Strikingly, Pindar makes aretḗ the direct object of a verb ‘lead’, Greek elaúnō, which commonly applies to chariots and horses in the epic poetry:

 

The Pindaric image indirectly provides a twofold parallel for the semantic shifts underlying aretā́. The ‘team of four aretaí’ recalls the image of a chariot, which is both the vehicle consisting of many parts, which have been fitted together (hárma), and the means for winning a prize in races (árnumai).

Just as Vedic r̥tá- and Avestan ašạ-, Greek aretḗ is associated with the image of the ‘straight, direct path’:

 

Consequently, in a passage of Plato’s Phaedrus (253de) the horse that possesses aretḗ is opposed to the skoliós (σκολιός) ‘crooked’ one:

 

Analogously, Vedic r̥tá– is mentioned as the opposite of ‘crooked things’ in R̥gveda 4.23.8b r̥tásya dhītír vr̥jinā́ ni hanti ‘the vision of truth smashes the crooked’.

In conclusion, the term aretḗ (ἀρετή), ‘excellence’ can be traced back to *(H)ar- ‘to fit, join’ which underlies Greek ararískō (ἀραρίσκω) ‘fit’, harmózō (ἁρμόζω) ‘join’ and probably árnumai (ἄρνυμαι) ‘win’. The form *(H)ar-etéh₂ parallels *(H)r̥-tó- and *(H)ar-tó-, which are reflected by Vedic r̥tá- and Avestan ašạ– ‘justice, rightness, truth’. The analysis of common associations and collocations supports that aretḗ (ἀρετή) matches Vedic r̥tá- and Avestan ašạ- almost perfectly.

 

Bellerophóntēs, (Βελλεροφόντης, short form Bellerophôn, Greek Βελλέροφῶν) is the name of the Argive hero credited with the slaughtering of the Chimaera (Greek χίμαιρα ‘goat’). In the sixth book of the Iliad, we learn through Glaucus’s words that his ancestor Bellerophóntēs, a descendant of Sisyphus, is sent to Lycia by Proetus after Proetus’s wife Anteia (called Stheneboia in other versions of the same story) falsely accuses him of raping her. When the king of Lycians, who is Anteia’s father and Bellerophontes’s host, finds out about his daughter’s accusations, he first sends off Bellerophontes to accomplish three dangerous tasks (namely: [1] the killing of the Chimaera, [2] the battle against the Solumoi, and [3] the battle against the Amazons, compare also Pindar Olympian 13.84–90, which relies on Iliad 6.179–186 as a narrative model), then tries to ambush the hero on his way back to Lycia (compare Iliad 6.184–190). Bellerophontes manages to survive to the king’s murderous attempts and finally marries his daughter, who gives birth to his three children: Isandros, Hippolochus (Glaucus’s father), and Laodamia (Sarpedon’s mother).

Since Antiquity, the name of Bellerophóntēs was interpreted as ‘Killer of Belleros’, i.e., as a compound name featuring a second member -phóntēs ‘killer’, compare

The identification of Belleros, however, is problematic: a character with this name apparently plays no role in any of the versions of Bellerophontes’s myth in our possession. Ancient scholars attempted to identify this ghost-figure as a Corinthian man, whom the Bellerophontes had killed before being hosted by Proetus. However, this explanation looks more like an ad hoc narrative creation, tailored by ancient commentators to provide the opaque back-formed name Belleros with a meaningful background story than as the reflex of an actual lost narrative.

Several alternative explanations have been suggested by modern scholars: Kretschmer (1948) put forth the proposal to identify Greek Bélleros as a local demon, eponymous of the landscape Pelleritis, infesting the Corinthian-Argive border area; Bonfante (1969: 188) proposed to connect Bélleros with a ‘Balkan’ terms meaning ‘dragon’, such as Romanian baláur. By contrast, Katz (1998), pointing out that the name of the hero is actually preserved as Ellerophóntēs by Zenodotus (Eustathius, Commentarii ad Homeri Iliadem 1.446.21), managed to etymologize Ellerophóntēs in ‘Indo-European terms’, providing an explanation which fits well Bellerophontes’s heroic career. In this scenario, however, we will still have to assume that the name Bellerophóntēs is the result of a Greek reshaping and/or re-adaptation of the name, maybe due to secondary connection with one of the names mentioned above (the ethnographic name Pelleritis, baláur or the like).

As already anticipated, it is safe to say that the second compound member – phóntēs etymologically belongs to the Indo-European root *g^u̯hen- ‘to slay, kill’, which, among others, underlies the Mycenaean second compound member -qo-ta / -k^u̯ontās /, the Greek thematic present theínō (θείνω) and the reduplicated thematic aorist épephnen (ἔπεφνεν), the Hittite preterit form kuenta ‘he killed’, and the Old Indic root han ‘to kill/slay’. Specifically, the compounds with a second member -phóntēs or – phontās ‘killer’ have been recently interpreted by Nussbaum (2021:403, footnote 32) as resulting from the analogical remodeling of a participial second member—that is, in our case, *-φων, *-φον- —through the addition of the Greek agentive suffix *-tā- (the kind of suffix seen in names like Greek naútēs ‘sailor’).

The first compound member Ellero- may be etymologically related to a variety of terms or compound members, which apply to ‘water-serpents’ or ‘watery’ places, namely: Latin anguīlla, the ‘serpent (angui-, compare Latin anguis) eel (-illa)’; Greek énkh-elus (ἔγχ-ελυς) ‘water-snake’, Hittite illuy / illui-, the first compound member of the name ^MUŠIlluy-anka, the monster defeated by the Hittite Storm-god (cf. Watkins 1995:321), and the Hittite substantive ellueššar ‘snake-pit’ (Watkins 1985: 251) or ‘freshwater’ (Katz 1998: 324). Greek –elus (as in énkhelus), Hittite illuy- or illui- and Greek Ellero- (as in Ellerophóntēs) all exhibit word-formations which can be framed in the so-called ‘Caland-System’, a system of suffix-replacements transversally productive within all the Indo-European languages. The following ‘Caland-like’ formations are indeed recognizable:

According to this theory, the first compound Ellero- should be interpreted as adjectival, i.e., ‘watery’. The hero’s name Ellerophóntēs would thus reflect ‘killer of the watery (creature)’ and would be built with the same lexical material as the Hittite sequence ‘(the Storm) god killed Illuy-anka’, compare:

Significantly, in Iliad 6, Glaucus describes the Bellerophontes’s accomplishments through the verb theínō (compare πεφνέμεν, at 180, κατέπεφνε, at 183), while the Chimaera as a hybrid creature, having a snake tail (ὄπιθεν δὲ δράκων, at 181), compare

If Katz (1998) is correct in reconstructing that a sequence *(B)Ellero-ophi-phóntēs ‘killer of the eel-/water-snake’, matching Hittite ^MUŠIlluy-ankan kuenta ‘he killed the monster (^MUŠ[scilicet named]) Water-Snake’, lies at the basis of the name (B)Ellerophóntēs, we may argue that the semantic focus of the first compound member Ellero- in Ellerophóntēs corresponds to the dragon-component of the Chimaera.

Still, one may wonder if this assumption is completely correct. After all, the name Chimaera seems to emphasize a quadruped component of the monster, the goat-body part (Greek χίμαιρα ‘goat’). Could then the Chimaera be interpreted as a sort of water-goat or water-quadruped monster? In order to verify this hypothesis a few remarks on the Chimaera’s mythological genealogy are in order.

A mythological relative of Tuphṓn and Húdrā, the Chimaera is a hybrid, fire-blasting creature (compare Blanc 2006), provided with a threefold body (see Iliad 6.181, quoted above) or three different heads.

While Hesiod clearly states that the Chimaera is the daughter of Tuphṓn, the identification of the monster’s mother is a debated matter (cf. West 1966: 254–255): in the Hesiodic passage quoted above, the nominative feminine ḗ dé (Greek ἣ δέ) may refer to the Echidna (Hesiod Theogony 304) or to the Hydra (Hesiod Theogony 314). If the Echidna were the mother of the Chimaera, the link between Chimaera and the snakes could be well founded, since the Echidna (Greek Ἔχιδνα) bears a speaking name based on the Greek term for ‘viper’, ékhis (Greek ἔχις). Conversely, if we imagine that it is the Hydra who gave birth to the Chimaera, as it is more likely given that Greek Húdra is the closest feminine name to ḗ dé in the Hesiodic text, we may frame the Chimaera’s description within an inherited system of mythological water-quadruped-monsters found in other Indo-European traditions. To be sure, the Hydra is commonly imagined to be many-headed, just like the Chimaera, and came to be represented as a serpentine being since an early age (compare the Boeotian fibula from circa 700 BCE preserved at British Museum: https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/G_1898-1118-1). However, as R. Ginevra emphasizes (see Húdra), Hesiod makes the Hydra the sister of two canid monsters: Othros, who is Geryon’s dog, and Kerberos, the three-headed watchdog of the underworld. The name of the Hydra, being itself a feminine adjective derived from the term for ‘water’, húdōr (Greek ὕδωρ), might have primarily applied to a canid monster (cf. Nagy 1985–1986). If the feminine adjective húdra primarily designated the ‘she-hound/dog of the waters’, the mythological name of the monster would semantically parallel those of other canid-like monsters who infest waters, found in the Scandinavian and Celtic traditions, namely: the Irish monster-name On-chú ‘Water-dog’ (Caithréim Cellaig) and the Old Norse Fenris-ulfr (Gylfaginning 34, on which see Ginevra 2018:285). In this connection, it is significant that the choir of Euripides’ Heracles calls the Hydra as ‘the dog of Lerna’:

I want to highlight here that the sequence (κύνα) ὕδραν φονεύσας semantically matches the collocation underlying Ellero-phóntēs, namely ‘to kill’ (-phóntēs, phoneúsas, derivatives of Indo-European *g^u̯hen-) and a -(e)ro-adjective belonging to the semantic field of ‘water’ (húdra, Ellero-). The passage in questions thus prompts (i) the hypothesis that the Chimaera might have inherited some of her hybrid components (in particular, her association with quadrupeds) from the Hydra, and (ii) the reconstruction of the phraseology ‘kill(er) (of the) water-monster’ as underlying the mythological name Ellerophóntēs.

The presented linguistic and comparative evidence concerning (B)Ellerophóntēs and the Chimaera thus supports the reconstruction of the hero’s inherited background and his identification as the quintessential ‘killer of the water-(snake or quadruped-)monster’.

The name Dáeira (Δάειρα) or Daîra (Δαῖρα), with contraction, belongs to a mysterious female deity, who was worshipped in the Eleusinian rites. The goddess is mostly connected with the realm of the dead by ancient literary sources. According to a fragment by Aeschylus (fragment 277 Radt) Daîra is Persephone; differently, Aristophanes identifies her as Semele’s mother (fragment 804 Kassel–Austin). Apollonius of Rhodes (3.847) identifies her with Hecate, while Lycophron (Alexandra 706–710) mentions her as Hades’ spouse. According to Pausanias (1.38.7), Dáeira is the wife of Hermes and the mother of Eleusis/Eleusinos, the eponymous Attic hero.

The identification of the goddess with Persephone or Hecate is consistent with the synchronic etymological explanations of the name, which connected it to the term daḯs ‘torch’. Indeed, both Persephone and Hecate associated with the gesture of ‘torch-bearing’, compare Etymologicum Genuinum, under Δάειρα: ἡ Περσεφόνη παρὰ Ἀθηναίοις, παρὰ τὴν δᾷδα, ἐπειδὴ μετὰ δάιδων ἐπιτελεῖται αὐτῆς τὰ μυστήρια, ἢ ὅτι δαῖδα φορεῖ ‘[Dáeira:] Persephone according to the Athenians, because of [the term] dâida [torch], because her rites are celebrated with torches, or because she bears torches’; Bacchylides, fragment 1b.1 Maehler Ἑκάτα δαϊδοφόρε ‘torch-bearer Hecate.’

Modern etymologies (Frisk 1960:338, Beekes 2009:295–296) support a connection with the Indo-European root * dens – ‘to become wise’, which underlies the Greek verb δαῆναι ‘to learn’ and Sanskrit dasrá- ‘effecting miracles’. Although, from a merely linguistic point of view, nothing speaks against this proposal, texts provide no support for Dáeira as the ‘Knowing goddess.’

It is more likely, however, that Dáeira / Daîra has to be kept apart from daḯs ‘torch’ and daênai ‘to learn’. As Alexander Nikolaev points out, Pherecydes tells us that Dáeira was associated to the idea of ‘moistness’ by the ancient ones (palaioí), compare:

One may add that Dáeira’s connection to ‘water’ is also reflected by her mythological pedigree. According to Pherecydes (fragment 45 Fowler) she is the sister of River Styx, while Pausanias (1.38.7) identifies her as the daughter of Okeanos. All these data provide support for Nikolaev’s (2019) etymology: Dáeira is a substantivized feminine adjective of the same type as Greek píeira, Sanskrit pī́varī ‘fat’, with a suffix *-u̯er-ih₂ entangling a possessive meaning ‘having/possessing X.’ The basis *da- of Dá-(w)eira could be connected with the same root figuring in several names of rivers or mythological/divine figures linked to the element ‘water’, such as OInd. Dānu- (name of the water serpent Vr̥tra), Scythian Tanais, Irish Danu, Welsh Don, Lithuanian Dunōjus, Latvian Duņavas, Germanic Danube, and the Greek god’s name Poseidon (Poseidáōn), which is commonly etymologized as ‘Lord of the Water(s)’ (maybe reflecting an univerbation of a vocative ‘O Lord of the Waters!’).

To sum up: Dáeira or Daîra, daughter of the Ocean and sister of the Stynx, is to be identified as the ‘Lady of the Waters.’

A. Nagy comments on the notion of ‘division’ latent in daís and overt in the Homeric expression δαιτὸς ἐίσης ‘of an equal daís’.

“Not just for Achilles but for any Homeric character, the eating of meat at feasts is by nature a sacrificial occasion: in the words of George M. Calhoun, “every meal was a sacrifice and an act of worship, and every sacrifice a meal.” This statement may be overly one-dimensional in its view of epic action, but it remains a valid observation about the contents of Homeric narrative: feasts where meat is consumed are indeed regularly occasioned by sacrifice. The Homeric word for such occasions is daís/daítē (e.g. Odyssey 3.33/44, etc.), and both nouns are etymologically derived from the verb daíomai ‘divide, apportion, allot’. Consider the following Homeric collocation of verb and noun:

 

The notion of ‘division’ latent in daís becomes overt in expressions involving δαιτὸς ἐίσης ‘of an equal daís’ (as at Iliad 1.468, 1.602; 2.431; 7.320; 23.56)—denoting situations where everyone has his proper share at the sacrificial feast.”

B. Achilles has a special relationship to the daís, which is shared by all of this heroic lineage, the Aeacids. The key to this special relationship is the etymological connection of daís to the idea of division and distribution.

“Is there, then, a special relationship of Achilles to the daís? Certainly this seems to be so not only in the case of Achilles but also in the case of all his heroic lineage, according to the Hesiodic passage that describes the Aeacids as follows:

 

The key to such a close relationship of the Aeacids to the daís is the etymological connection of the word with the notion inherent in daíomai ‘divide, apportion, allot’. This notion constitutes a mythological theme that runs through the whole line of Aeacids, starting with the prime ancestor himself. The hero Aiakos, in the words of Pindar, was so fair and just as to be worthy of settling matters pertaining to the gods themselves:

 

The correlation here of the word díkē with the concept of making fair allotments reminds us of the wording used to describe how the honor of Achilles himself is to be tested one more time in the Iliad. As the actual setting for Agamemnon’s final offer of compensation to Achilles in return for having at the outset deprived him of his fair share, Odysseus proposes the holding of a special daís:

 

It is at this dais, when Achilles is to be tested one more time with the compensation offered by Agamemnon (Iliad 19.268–281), that he even bids his fellow Achaeans to go and feast (Iliad 19.275)—though without his participation. As we now follow the line of Aiakos down to his son Peleus, the association of the Aeacids with the themes of the daís becomes more involved. The singular occasion for the daís of Peleus, where the Olympian gods themselves attended, was the feast of his wedding with Thetis—a traditional theme celebrated by the Cypria as an appropriate setting for the onset of the entire Trojan Cycle (Proclus 102.14–15 Allen). At this daís celebrating a marriage that led to the conception of Achilles himself, Zeus willed that Éris ‘Strife’ would bring about a neîkos ‘quarrel’ among the gods; these specific themes of éris/neîkos at a daís constitute the opening scene of the Cypria in particular and of the Trojan Cycle in general (Proclus 102.13–19: Éris/neîkos at 14/15). Short range, these themes are appropriate to the motivation of the Trojan War; long range, the very same themes also provide a setting for the evolution of Achilles as a heroic figure.”

C. Nagy discusses the metonymic meaning of the word daís, which encompasses the whole sequence of events typical of festivals. A case in point is Odyssey 9.3–12.

“As Odysseus himself says later on in Odyssey ix, when he finally identifies himself, there is in fact no greater gratification in the whole world that the combination of good feasting and good singing, and the model for the general reference to singing here is the singer Demodokos:

 

The feast that is going on here is a continuation of the feast that is already signaled by the word daís at line 429 of Odyssey viii, which basically means ‘feast’. In that context, daís refers short-range to an occasion of communal dining (dórpon ‘dinner’: 395), which will take place after sunset (417). The intended guest of honor at this feast will be Odysseus. This occasion of communal dining leads into the third song of Demodokos (484–485). But this same word daís at line 429 of Odyssey viii is also making a long-range reference: it refers metonymically to a stylized festival that has been ongoing ever since an earlier occasion of communal dining (71–72), which actually led into the first song of Demodokos (73–83). And let me go even further back in time. Leading up to the communal dining, there had been an animal sacrifice (as expressed by the word hiereúein ‘sacrificially slaughter’: 59). Then, the meat of the sacrificed animals (twelve sheep, eight pigs, and two oxen: 59–60) had been prepared to be cooked at the feast (61). The word at line 61 for ‘feast’ is once again daís.

The noun dais ‘feast’ is derived from the verb daíesthai in the sense of ‘distribute’, which is used in contexts of animal sacrifice in referring to the ‘distribution’ of cooked meat among the members of a community (as in Odyssey 15.140 and 17.332). Then, by way of synecdoche, the specific idea of distribution extends metonymically to the general idea of feasting and further to the even more general idea of a festival. Following the logic of this sequence of meanings, we see that the animal sacrifice in Odyssey 8 (59) had led to the cooking and the distribution of the meat (61), which had led to the communal dining (71–72), which had led to the first song of Demodokos (73–83), and so on. In terms of this logic, the metonymic use of the word da í s ‘feast’ marks a whole complex of events that are typical of festivals: animal sacrifice, communal feasting, singing as well as dancing at the feast.”

 

Erútheia (Ἐρύθεια), ‘the Red one’, is a personal name, which is connected with the homonymous place name Erutheíā. This is an island located in the West and inhabited by Geryon and the Hesperides, as in Hesiod Theogony 289–290 τὸν μὲν ἄρ᾽ ἐξενάριξε βίη Ἡρακληείη / βουσὶ πάρ᾽ εἰλιπόδεσσι περιρρύτῳ εἰν Ἐρυθείῃ ‘Heracles’ force killed him (: Geryon) beside his rolling-footed cattle in sea-girt Erutheíē.’ The personal name Erútheia belongs to a marginal actor of the Sun-god’s travel:

Erútheia is connected to Geryon and, consequently, to the island Erutheíā in different ways. According to Pausania (Periegesis 10.17.5) Erútheia is Geryon’s daughter, while Apollodorus (Library 2.114.2) identifies her as one of the Hesperides, compare μετὰ τούτου δὲ Ἑσπερίδες ἐφύλαττον, Αἴγλη Ἐρύθεια Ἑσπερία Ἀρέθουσα ‘with it (: the dragon) the Hesperides also were on guard: Aiglē, Erútheia, Hespería, and Aréthousa.’

The association between Erútheia and Helios’ golden cup in Antimachus’ verses suggests that Erútheia is one of the Hesperides, the goddesses of the Evening. Indeed, the ‘golden dépas (cup)’ is a vehicle used by Helios during his nocturnal travel, as revealed by Mimnermus:

In the light of Mimnermus’ passage, it is likely that Erútheia, is one of the Evening goddesses, who guides or escorts Helios during the night, while he is sleeping in his golden dépas.

The mythological name has a transparent etymology. It is a feminine derivative to the Indo-European root *h₁reudh- ‘to turn red; redden’, which underlies the adjective ‘red’ in several cognate languages, compare Greek eruthrós (ἐρυθρός), Latin ruber, Umbrian rufru, Tocharian A rtär, Tocharian B ratre, all reflecting a ro– derivative to the same root.

The association between a female character associated with the Sun-god, the evening and the color red finds a striking parallel in the Baltic poetic tradition. Specifically, Latvian folksongs, the Dainas, tell us that the Sun-goddess Saule glows red every evening and wakes up in red the next day:

A further Daina explicitly confirms that Saule turns red during the night:

Dainas may preserve a further link between the color red and the travel of the Sun-goddess. In one folksong, attested in the Latvian regions of Vidzeme, Kurzeme and Zemgale, Saule’s vehicle on the Daugava is pulled by a red fish :

Significantly, the Latvian name of the red-fish, rauda, is an etymological congener of Erútheia, since it reflects a thematic derivative *h₁roud^h–o– ‘red’, also underlying Vedic lohá– ‘red metal’, Umbrian rofu, rofa, Gothic rauþs, Old Irish rúad ‘red.’

In conclusion: as a character, Erútheia is the red Evening goddess who helps the Sun-god Helios during his nocturnal travel. The association between the color red and an evening-goddess may reflect an Indo-European pattern, since in the Baltic tradition, the same color is associated with the nocturnal travel of the Sun.

Erusíkhthōn (Ἐρυσίχθων) is the name of a prince who is afflicted with such an insatiable hunger that he turns into the famine demon Aíthōn (Αἴθων, ‘Mr. Burning’), compare Hesiod fragment 43a.2–6 Merkelbach-West Ἐρυσίχθονος […] τὸν δ’ Αἴθων’ ἐκάλεσσαν ἐπ]ών[υ]μ̣[ο]ν εἵνεκα λιμοῦ || αἴθωνος κρατεροῦ ‘of Erysichthon […] him they also called Aithon] by name because of his hunger, blazing strong.’ According to Callimachus’ Hymn to Demeter and Ovid’s Metamorphoses 8.728–778, Erusíkhthōn is guilty of cutting down the trees from the sacred grove of Demeter and is punished by the goddess with unrelenting appetite:

 

From the formal point of view, Erusíkhthōn (Ἐρυσίχθων) reflects a compound with a first verbal member ἐρυσι°, belonging to the verb erúō (ἐρύω), ‘drag, draw, tear apart’, and a second member khthṓn (χθών), ‘earth’. Therefore, he is ‘the one who tears the earth apart’. The verb erúō (ἐρύω) has a vehement semantic component. In the Iliad and in the Odyssey, it commonly describes the vigorous dragging of ships to sea (Iliad 1.141+), or ashore (Odyssey 10.403+). Moreover, it applies to:

 

• warriors dragging off dead bodies (nekrón, nekroús, see Iliad 5.573+) for plunder or ransom;
• dogs and birds of prey dragging corpses and tearing them apart, e.g. Iliad 11.454 οἰωνοὶ ὠμησταὶ ἐρύουσι ‘but the birds that eat raw flesh will rend (you)’;
• the violent dragging of someone by one of his/her body-parts, indicated in the genitive case, by means of a complement [ἐκ – body-part_gen.] or an equivalent adverb, see, for instance, Odyssey 22.187–188 τὼ δ᾿ ἄρ᾿ ἐπαΐξανθ᾿ ἑλέτην ἔρυσάν τέ μιν εἴσω || κουρίξ “then the two of them sprung upon and seized him. They dragged him (: Melanthios) in by the hair”;
• the vehement extraction of an object from a surface, e.g. Iliad 16.862–863 δόρυ χάλκεον ἐξ ὠτειλῆς || εἴρυσε λὰξ προσβάς “he drew the spear of bronze out of the wound, planting his heel (on the dead man)”
• the ripping of a plant, e.g. Odyssey 10.302–303 ὣς ἄρα φωνήσας πόρε φάρμακον Ἀργεϊφόντης || ἐκ γαίης ἐρύσας “so saying, Argeïphontes gave me the herb, pulling it out of the ground.”

Remarkably, erusíkhthōn occurs as an epithet of a plowing animal in a fragment by the comic poet Straton (4th–3rd century BCE):

Indeed, plowing may be visualized as ‘cutting the earth’, as the use of Greek γῆν τέμνειν, γητομέω (‘earth-cut, i.e. plow’) shows, see, e.g. Solon fragment 13.47–48 West ἄλλος γῆν τέμνων πολυδένδρεον εἰς ἐνιαυτόν || λατρεύει “another one, cleaves the thickly wooded land and slaves away for a year.” It is probably not by chance that Lycophron, who calls the hero by his alias Aíthōn, describes him as γατομῶν* ‘earth-cutting, plowing’: Lycophron Alexandra 1395–1396 βούπειναν ἀλθαίνεσκεν ἀκμαίαν πατρός […] γατομοῦντος Αἴθωνος ‘(Mestra) assuaged the raging hunger of her fire, Aithon, who cuts the earth.’

At the same time, the ‘cutting down a (sacred) grove’ is imagined as a sort of violation or sexual abuse of the earth, since earth’s vegetation is commonly referred to as the hair of the Earth. In poetic contexts, κομάω ‘let hair grow long / wave the hair’ applies to the growth of trees and grass, compare Homeric Hymn 2.454 ταναοῖσι κομήσειν ἀσταχύεσσιν ‘(the ploughland) would come to wave the hair with long ears of corn.’ In a complementary way, ‘cutting the grass / the field / the vegetation’ is also a widespread sexual metaphor. Take, for instance, Pindar’s Pythian 9.36–37, in which Apollo asks Chiron for permission to have sex with young Cyrene: ὁσία […] ἐκ λεχέων κεῖραι μελιαδέα ποίαν; ‘is it right […] to reap the honey-sweet flower from the bed of love?’ Thus, on the one hand, Erusíkhthōn’s crime matches his name. On the other, the hero commits a major violation against Demeter, a goddess closely associated with Earth’s fertility, who consequently turns him into insatiable ‘Mr. Burning’ (Aíthōn, Αἴθων).

Significantly, in other Indo-European traditions, such as Old Indic and Old Norse, characters associated with the element ‘fire’ cause damage to Earth-goddesses or Earth-goddesses’ avatars and are punished in a way that affects their appetite.

Just as Erusíkhthōn is the name of the hero who cuts the woods (of Demeter) and the epithet of an ox (boûs, see above), in the Rigveda, the insatiable fire-god Agni is compared to the blade and to an ox:

 

Agni is additionally said to shave the hair of the earth, Rigveda 1.65.8 yád vā́tajūto vánā víy ásthād / agnír ha dāti rómā pr̥thivyā́ḥ “when, sped by the wind, he has spread out through the wood, Agni cuts the hair of the earth”. Moreover, in a Sanskrit epic tale from the Mahābhārata (1.1.5–7), he accidentally causes damage to Pulomā, whose name is likely to reflect *pulu-loma(n)- ‘whose hair(s) is/are many’, with a first compound member pulu° standing for purú- ‘much, many’ (: Indo-European *pl̥h₁-ú-) and a second member °lomā- related to Vedic róman- ‘hair’. As the Earth is the ‘hairy’ one also in the Old Indic tradition (compare Rigveda 8.91.6 asaú ca yā́ na urvárā […] tā́ romaśā́ kr̥dhi “that field of ours […] make all these hairy!”), the figure of Pulomā might be interpreted as a narrative avatar of the Earth-goddess. Not only does Agni’s offense resemble that of Erusíkhthōn against Demeter, but he is also punished in an analogous way. Bhr̥gu, Pulomā’s husband, condemns him to become insatiable, compare:

 

As properly underlined by Ginevra (2017), the main events and characters of the Sanskrit account may parallel those of an Old Norse story, namely: that of Loki’s offense against Sif.

Loki is a big-eater, who competes against the wild fire in appetite, compare Gylfaginning 46bd Hafði þá Loki etit slátr allt af beinum, en Logi hafði ok etit slátr allt ok beinin með ok svá trogit, ok sýndisk nú ǫllum sem Loki hefði látit leikinn “by that time Loki had eaten all the meat from the bones, but Logi [: the wild fire] likewise had eaten all the meat, and the bones with it, and the trough too; and now it seemed to all as if Loki had lost the game.” Like Erusíkhthōn and Agni, Loki damages a character associated with the element earth, by cutting her hair:

 

Sif is a heiti (i.e. a poetic designation) for the ‘Earth’ (Skáldskaparmál 75: Jǫrð … gyma, Sif “earth […] (is) humus, Sif”), whose vegetation is referred to as ‘hair’ (haddr Iarðar ‘Eath’s hair’, Biarkamál fr. 7.1+), or ‘mane’ (Iarðar fax, ‘Earth’s mane’, Snjólfr 5.1⁴) in the skaldic poetry. After mutilating Sif, Loki looses his head in a competition against Brokkr, a skillful smith, and is punished by having his mouth sewn together, which may ultimately represent a sort of restraint on his mouth.

To sum up: Erusíkhthōn is the hero ‘who tears the Earth apart’, whose crime—cutting a sacred grove of Demeter—matches his name. In a similar way as he becomes ‘Mr. Burning’ (Aíthōn) in connection with this event, characters associated with ‘fire’ in other Indo-European languages (Sanskrit Agni and Old Norse Loki) cause damage to characters associated with the element ‘earth’ (Sanskrit Pulomā, Old Norse Sif). Furthermore, they are punished in a way which affects their appetite. In this regard, the insatiable appetite of Agni in Mahābhārata 1.1.6.13 is strikingly reminiscent of that of Erusíkhthōn/Aíthōn, who suffers of burning hunger.

 

The symbolism of the hestíā ‘hearth’ as the generatrix of authority and kingship is envisioned by Clytemnestra’s dream in the Electra of Sophocles: she dreams the Agamemnon comes back from the dead and plants his scepter in the family hearth. From the hearth, there grows out of the scepter a shoot so vigorous that it covers with its shade all the kingdom of Mycenae (417–423).

This symbolism of the Greek hestíā ‘hearth’ as the generatrix of authority is a matter of Indo-European heritage. Turning to the evidence of other Indo-European languages, specifically the hieratic diction of such disparate organizations as the Atiedian Brethren of Umbrian Iguvium and the Brahmans of the Indic Vedas, we find some striking convergences with the Greek model. Such convergences are likely to represent the actual traces of cognate religious attitudes, or even of cognate institutions.

According to Georges Dumézil, the root *wes– of Greek hestíā ‘hearth’ (ἑστία) and Latin Vesta, Roman goddess of the hearth, has a cognate in the Indic form vi-vás-vat-. The mythical figure Vivasvat (vi-vás-vat-), is the first person ever to receive fire on earth, by virtue of being the first sacrificer on earth; he is ipso facto the ancestor of the human race. In Vedic diction, to say sádane vivásvataḥ ‘at the place of the Vivasvat’ (Rig-Veda 1.53.1, etc.) is the same as saying ‘at the sacrifice’. The root of this Indic verb vas– is cognate with the root *wes– of Greek hestíā ‘hearth’ (ἑστία) and of Latin Vesta, Roman goddess of the hearth.” There is a further possibility that root *wes– of Greek hestíā could be reconstructed further as *h₂wes-, and that this root *h₂wes– is a variant of *h₂es-.

As a verb, *h₂es– must have meant something like ‘set on fire’—or so we might infer from the comparative evidence of various Indo-European languages. Purely on phonological grounds, we may expect the root *h₂es– to survive in the Hittite language as ḫaš-, and there is indeed an attested Hittite noun ḫašša– meaning ‘sacrificial fireplace’. This noun, it is generally agreed, is related in form to Latin āra ‘sacrificial fireplace, altar’. There is also a Hittite verb ḫaš– meaning not ‘set on fire’ but ‘beget’. Despite this semantic anomaly, this Hittite verb ḫaš– ‘beget’ may be related to the noun ḫašša– ‘sacrificial fireplace’. The actual context for a semantic relationship between the concepts of “beget” and “fireplace” may be latent in the heritage of myth and ritual. There is a related problem in the semantics of the Hittite noun ḫaššu-, meaning ‘king’, which has been connected in some studies with the verb ḫaš– ‘beget’. Both this noun and ḫašša– ‘sacrificial fireplace’ are derived from the same Hittite verb has– ‘beget’.

Going beyond Dumézil’s position, the root *wes– could be reconstructed further as *h₂wes-, despite the absence of any phonological trace of word-initial *h₂ before *w in Greek *westiā, whence hestíā ‘hearth’ (ἑστία). Is this reconstruction turns out to be valid, then the root *h₂wes– of the Greek noun hestíā ‘hearth’ may possibly be interpreted as a variant of the root *h₂es– as in the Hittite noun ḫašša– ‘hearth’—and in the Hittite verb ḫaš– ‘beget’. Such a root-variation *h₂es– vs. *h₂wes– would be in line with an Indo-European pattern attested in a series of possible examples shaped CeC(C)- vs. Cu̯eC(C)-. Given that Indic vas– ‘shine’ conveys simultaneously the themes of the shining sun, the kindling of sacrificial fire, and the begetting of progeny, the reconstruction *h₂wes– of this root would make it a formal variant of *h₂es-, as in Hittite ḫaš– ‘beget’ and ḫašša– ‘sacrificial fireplace’.

The Indic verb vas– ‘shine’, tentatively reconstructed as *h₂wes-, has a noun-derivative uṣás– ‘dawn’, which in turn can be reconstructed as *h₂us–os-. There is an e-grade variant, h₂eus–os-, attested in Latin aurōra ‘dawn’ and in Greek aúōs/ēṓs (Aeolic αὔως/ Ionic ἠώς) ‘dawn’. According to this scheme, there is a possibility that both Latin and Greek have words for the macrocosm of ‘dawn’ built from the root *h₂ews– and for the microcosm of ‘sacrificial fireplace’ built from the same root, but with a different configuration: *h₂wes– as in Greek, hestíā (ἐστία) and Latin Vesta.

In addition to the linking of the hearth with the ideas of generation and kingship, there is, then, an Indo-European pattern of thought that links the rising of the sun at dawn as parallel to the kindling of the sacrificial fire. This parallelism is explicit in the ritual language of the Vedas and it is implicit in the possible affinity between Indo-European roots in words for ‘dawn’, notably Greek ēṓs and Latin aurōra, and in words for ‘hearth’, notably Greek hestíā and Latin Vesta. In other words, the possibility remains that the macrocosm of dawn and the microcosm of sacrificial fire are designated with variants of the same root, with *hews– for ‘dawn’ and *hwes– for ‘fireplace’.

 

According to an isolated tradition, Eurupháessa (Εὐρυφάεσσα) is the name of the mother of Helios (Sun), Selene (Moon), and Eos (Dawn):

 

The theonym is a compound with the meaning ‘widely-shining’. The first compound member is the adjective εὐρύς ‘wide, broad’, which can be transposed as *(h₁?)urHú-, and parallels, among others, Vedic urú- ‘wide, broad’, Tocharian A wärts, Tocharian B wartse ‘broad’. The second member, °φάεσσα ‘shining’, belongs to the same Indo-European root as Greek φαίνω ‘to shine’, namely: Indo-European *b^heh₂– ‘shine’ and it is best analyzed as a feminine active participle, proceeding from Indo-European *b^heh₂-n̥t-ih₂–. The expected outcome *phāssa-, from *phānti̯a-, may have been remodeled into °φάεσσα, by analogy with the productive Greek adjective type χαρίεις, χαρίεσσα, χαρίεν (‘graceful’).

As Enrico Campanile (1987) pointed out, Eurupháessa is an avatar of the Indo-European Dawn-Goddess. Indeed, she shares a number of specific features with the Vedic Dawn-Goddess Uṣas. To begin with, Uṣas is often described through the epithet vibhātī́-, ‘widely shining’, which displays the adverb vi° ‘away’ as a first member, and a second member °bhātī́-, reflecting *b^heh₂-n̥t-ih₂–, a feminine participle to the Vedic root bhā ‘to shine’, compare Greek φαίνω. The Vedic epithet is often combined with the adverbial form urviyā́– ‘widely’, which is etymologically related to Greek εὐρύς, compare:

 

Moreover, like Eurupháessa ‘wide-shining’, U ṣas is the mother of the Vedic Sun-god:

 

On the basis of Homeric Hymn 31.1–3 it is possible to reconstruct a collocation ‘the Widely-Shining One generated the Sun’, compare ἥλιον […] φαέθοντα, τὸν Εὐρυφάεσσα βοῶπις / γείνατο “Of Helios, […] the shining one, whom mild-eyed Euruphaessa bore.” The entire collocation constitutes a threefold partial match to Vedic vibhātī́ḥ ájījanan sū́r_iyam (Rigveda 7.78.3bc)

Eurupháessa (Εὐρυφάεσσα) partially matches Vedic vibhātī́- ‘radiating’;

Greek γείνατο and Vedic ájījanan go back to the same Indo-European root *ĝenh₁– ‘to generate’;

Greek ἥλιος is etymologically related to Vedic sū́r_iyam ‘sun’. These terms can be respectively traced back to *seh₂u̯li̯o- (Greek ἥλιος) and *súh₂li̯o- (Vedic sū́r_iya-).

In conclusion, it is likely that Eurupháessa reflects an epithet of the Indo-European Dawn-Goddess, which came to designate the mother of the Sun-god.

 

Ēridanós (Ἠριδανός) is the name of a river-god, son of Okeanos and Tethys (compare Hesiod Theogony 338) (→ Ōkeanós and → Tēthus). Ancient sources differ on where the water stream of Ēridanós is located: Aeschylus (Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta III 73) identifies the river with the Rhone and thus situates it in Spain; Euripides (Hippolytus 736–737) states that the Ēridanós empties into the Gulf of Venice and thus corresponds to the river Po; Herodotus (3.115) contends that the Ēridanós is a mythical river and does not actually exist.

As Gregory Nagy (1990:237) points out, Ēridanós is thematically parallel to his mythological father Okeanos: just like Okeanos (compare Hesiod Theogony 133), Ēridanós is said to be bathudínēs ‘deep-eddying’ (Hesiod Theogony 338). Moreover, according to Aeschylus (Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta III 73), the daughters of the Sun turned into poplars on the banks of Ēridanós. The same plants are said to grow on Okeanos’ banks in Odyssey 10.508–512. Furthermore, both Okeanos and Ēridanós are imagined as rivers which join the world and the netherworld. Finally, the description of the ‘fall’ (Greek épesen , Iliad 8.458) of the sun-light into Okeanos verbally resembles the representation of Phaethon’s fall into Ēridanós. The mythological analogy between Okeanos and Ēridanós is mirrored at a genealogical level: Okeanos is the father of Ēridanós, while Helios is Phaethon’s father.

The synchronic etymology of Ēridanós connected it to Greek verb δαίω (daíō) and, probably, the adjective δᾱνός (dānós) ‘dry, burnt’, derivatives of Indo-European * deh₂u̯– to burn. This intuitive linguistic connection underlies a passage by Nonnos of Panopolis:

However, Ēridanós displays a short – a – and it is not likely to contain dānós ‘dry’.

As suggested by Nagy (1990:246) it is rather likely that the name is a compound. Accordingly, it displays a first member ēri-, i.e a locative form from *h₂eu̯s-er-i ‘at dawn’ meaning ‘early’, compare Greek ἦρι (êri) ‘early’. The second compound member –danós is etymologically related to the basis *da-, Indo-European *deh₂-, which is featured in several river names, like Scythian Tanais, Irish Danu, Welsh Don, Lithuanian Dunōjus, Latvian Duņavas, Germanic Danube. As further suggested by Janda (2002:256–8) and Nikolaev (2019) *deh₂– may underlie the goddess name Daeîra (→ Daeîra) and the god’s name Poseidon (Poseidáōn), which might ultimately result from the univerbation of a vocative ‘O Lord of the Waters!’. Accordingly, the semantics of the name would reflect ‘Early watery’*. As Nagy (1990:246) explains: “Since Okeanos is thematically parallel with Eridanos, the sunset theme of a dead Phaethon falling into Eridanos implies an inverse sunrise theme of a reborn Phaethon emerging from Eridanos.” We may conclude that the river stands as a symbol of rebirth.

The mythological background of Ēridanós thus supports the interpretation of the name as ‘Early-watery’.

The name of Hesiod is announced in the Hesiodic Theogony (22): it is Hēsíodos (Ἡσίοδος). I interpret the etymology of this name as *hēsíwodos, meaning ‘he who emits the voice’. The first part of this compound formation *hēsíwodos comes from the root of the verb hiénai (ἱέναι) ‘emit’, while the second part comes from the root of the noun audḗ (αὐδή) ‘voice’. And the Muses literally ‘breathe’ (pneîn) into him an audḗ ’voice’ that makes him a poet (31 ἐνέπνευσαν δέ μοι αὐδήν). This poetic voice is his inspiration. There is a semantic correspondence between this etymology of *hēsíwodos meaning ‘he who emits the voice’ and the description of the singing Muses as ὄσσαν ἱεῖσαι ‘emitting the voice’ (Theogony 10, 43, 65, 67), which applies to these goddesses in descriptions of their singing and dancing (7–8, 63).

 

According a gloss collected in the corpus of the ancient lexicographer Hesychius, Ithas (Ἴθας) or Ithax (Ἴθαξ) is the herald of the Titans, that is to say, Prometheus: Ἴθας· ὁ τῶν Τιτήνων κῆρυξ. Προμηθεύς. τινὲς Ἴθαξ (Hesychius ι 387 L) “Ithas: the herald of the Titans. Prometheus. Some (say) Ithax.”

Both Ithas and Ithax can be traced back to a Proto-Indo-European root *h₂ei̯dh- ‘kindle’ (Latte 1966:354, Morani 1983:42). In the light of the Hittite cognate verbs aāri ‘is warm’, inuzi ‘makes warm’, which show no trace of an initial laryngeal two, the Indo-European root for ‘produce warmth, kindle’ can be reconstructed as *h₁ai̯dh-.

Specifically, Ithas could reflect a type Thóas, -antos (proper name, related to Greek thoós ‘swift’) or a type phugás, -ádos ‘fugitive’ with accent shift. In both cases, the form Ithas may ultimately be based on a thematic unattested stem *ithós. On the other side, a name Ithax could exist beside a feminine ithḗ ‘*warmth/heat’ (compare Hesychius ι 392 L ἰθή· εὐφροσύνη “ithḗ: mirth”), and count as a further example of the Greek synchronic pattern for names like pîdax (πῖδαξ) ‘water spring’ and sálax (σάλαξ) ‘sieve’ described by Kölligan (2017). According to this pattern, an –ak-form pairs with a feminine stem, for instance pîdax ‘water-spring’ beside pidḗ (πιδή*) ‘water-spring’, which might lie at the basis of the adjective pidḗeis (πιδήεις) ‘rich in springs’. A possible meaning for both Ithas and Ithax would then be ‘the one who produces warmth, the one who kindles (the fire)’.

The role of ‘fire-lighter’ perfectly suits Prometheus, the Titan who delivered fire to the human race (Hesiod Theogony 561–570, Works and Days 48–58). Consequently, according to Diodorus Siculus, Prometheus invented the pūreîa (fire-lighters): Ἰαπετοῦ δὲ Προμηθέα […] πρὸς δ᾽ ἀλήθειαν εὑρετὴν γενόμενον τῶν πυρείων, ἐξ ὧν ἐκκάεται τὸ πῦρ (Diodorus Siculus Library 5.67.2 ) “and to Iapetus was born Prometheus […] the truth is that he was the discoverer of fire-sticks, from which fire is kindled”.

The link between Prometheus and the role ‘herald’, however, can be only tentatively reconstructed within the Greek tradition, where it is very scarcely documented. A possible starting point could be the comparison between the action of ‘carrying fire’ and that of ‘carrying messages’. Pausanias (Description of Greece 1.30.2) reports that Prometheus was worshipped through torch races in Athens. The athletic gesture of ‘carrying fire’ is equated to that of ‘carrying a message’ by Greek literary sources of the Classical Age (for example, Herodotus Histories 8.98.1–2, Aeschylus Agamemnon 281–316) and by Hyginus (Astronomica 2.15.1.5–15).

The comparative data pertaining to the Vedic myth of the fire-theft cast new light on the figure of Ithas, who shares a set of characteristics with the Vedic fire-thief, namely:

 

We can conclude: the name Ithas or Ithax may be interpreted a ‘the one who produces warmth / kindles fire’ while its bearer is identified as Prometheus in a Hesychian gloss. Prometheus steals fire and bestows it to the human race. Therefore, he is also the inventor of the fire-sticks. In the same gloss, Ithas / Ithax is also identified as the messenger of the Titans (Ἴθας· ὁ τῶν Τιτήνων κῆρυξ. Προμηθεύς. τινὲς Ἴθαξ “Ithas: the herald of the Titans. Prometheus. Some (say) Ithax,” Hesychius ι 387 L). The missing links between Ithas / Ithax, Prometheus, and the function ‘messenger’ can be very clearly reconstructed by taking into account the phraseological comparison between the Greek and the Vedic fire-theft episode. Here, Mātariśvan ‘steals fire’ (Vedic math), ‘kindles’ it (Vedic sam-idh), and is sporadically identified with Agni, the messenger (Vedic dūtá-) of the gods par excellence.

 

Îris (Ἶρις) is the name of the messenger of the gods and the rainbow in the epics (as in ἠΰτε πορφυρέην ἶριν θνητοῖσι τανύσσῃ / Ζεύς ἐξ οὐρανόθεν, ‘as Zeus stretches for mortals a dark-shimmering rainbow out of heaven’, Iliad 17.546–547).

The name displays an initial digamma in Greek, [W]îris ([Ϝ]ἶρις). It has long been interpreted as an individualizing i-stem built on a ro-adjective to the Indo-European root *u̯ieh₁– ‘to wrap, envelop, turn’ (compare Latin viēre ‘to bend, twist’). In this scenario, the ro-adjectives and substantives meaning ‘wire’, Old English wīr, Old Norse vīrr, and Welsh gŵyr ‘bent’ would be the closest linguistic relatives of the name (DELG under Ἶρις, Weiss 1996: 204–205). Moreover, the semantics of the Greek word for ‘rainbow’ as something ‘enwrapping, curved’ would parallel that of ‘rainbow’ in Latin arcus and Old Norse regnbogi. This explanation perfectly fits îris ‘rainbow’ as a physical phenomenon, but is less suitable for Îris as the messenger of the gods.

As recently underlined by G. Nagy 2017 (on Iliad 17.547–549, Odyssey 18.006–007), it is possible to connect Îris to the Indo-European root *u̯ei̯h₁– ‘to be eager, strive’ or ‘to have fresh energy’, which lies at the base of the adjectival form *u̯ih₁-ro-. This form is continued by Tocharian A wir ‘young’, and several substantives meaning ‘man, hero’ in a variety of Indo-European languages, such as Vedic vīrá– ‘young man’, Avestan vīra– ‘young man’, Latin vir ‘man’. The ro-adjective also underlies the personal name Îros (Ἶρος). Îros, the Ithacan beggar who fights against Odysseus in Odyssey 18, is so called by the young men because like the messenger goddess Îris, ‘he used to run on errands when anyone bade him’ (Ἶρον δὲ νέοι κίκλησκον ἅπαντες, / οὕνεκ᾽ ἀπαγγέλλεσκε κιών, ὅτε πού τις ἀνώγοι, Odyssey 18.6–7). Additionally, several word-plays in the episode make reference to the diachronical etymology of the name (see, for example, ἦ τάχα Ἶρος ἄϊρος ἐπίσπαστον κακὸν ἕξει, ‘soon now shall Iros, un-Irosed (literally ‘Îros deprived of strength’), have a trouble of his own creation’, Odyssey 18.73, in which the adjective ἄϊρος perfectly matches Vedic avīrá– ‘powerless’).

Being the messenger of the gods, Îris is characterized by ‘fresh energy’, which commonly manifests itself as swiftness. For instance, in Hesiod Theogony 266–269, she is mentioned as the sister of the swift-flying harpies, and in fragment 327 V of Alcaeus, she mingles with the wind-god Zephyros. In the Iliad she is described as takheîa ‘swift’ (ταχεῖα, Iliad 8.399), pod ḗnemos ōkéa ‘wind-footed’ (ποδήνεμος ὠκέα, Iliad 2.786), aellópos ‘storm-footed’ (ἀελλόπος, Iliad 8.409), or as the ‘golden-winged messenger’ (χρυσόπτερον ἀγγελέουσαν, Iliad 8.399).

If Îris goes back to a root *u̯ei̯h₁– ‘to be eager, strive’, her name is etymologically related to a Vedic personal and divine name Vena (Vená– ‘Seeker’, reflecting *u̯ei̯h₁-nó-, compare vená– ‘tracker’ RV 1.83.5b+). In the only hymn dedicated to this divine figure (Rigveda 10.123), Vena’s description matches that of Îris in several respects. Like Îris, Vena

 

In conclusion, Îris, the messenger of the gods and the personified rainbow, can be formally explained as an individualizing i-stem, built on a ro-adjective, namely (i) *u̯ih₁-ro-, belonging to *u̯ieh₁– ‘to wrap, envelop, turn’ (compare Old English wīr ‘wire’), or (ii) *u̯ih₁-ro-, belonging to *u̯ei̯h₁– ‘to be eager, strive’ / ‘to have fresh energy’ (compare Latin vir ‘man’). The latter etymology can be supported by some phraseological data: Îris is swift-flying and golden-winged like her putative Vedic counterpart Vená– (*u̯ei̯h₁-nó-), who is possibly identified with the rainbow in the Rigveda.

 

Kástōr (Κάστωρ) is a personal and mythological name, which is first attested in Mycenaean as ka-to /Kastōr/ (KN Dv 1169, on which compare García Ramón 1988, 1992). In hexameter poetry, Kástōr is the name of the twin (half)-brother of Poludeúkēs (Πολυδεύκης, → Poludeúkēs). As a pair, Kástōr and Poludeúkēs are commonly identified as the Dióskouroi or Tundarídai, i.e. as the sons Leda bore to Zeus and the Spartan king Tyndareos, compare

According to the myth (compare, for example, [Apollodorus] Library 3.10.7), Tyndareos is Kástōr’s father, while Zeus is Poludeúkēs’ father. This myth may have parallels in Old Indic (Frame 2009:62–76 and Pirart 1995) As explained by Nagy (2013, 0§5), since immortality is ‘a recessive gene’ in Greek mythology, “the absolute mortality of Castor is symmetrically counterbalanced by [the] absolute immortality [of Pollux]” (Nagy 2016, with my addenda or changes between square brackets). That is, if Pollux had been the only child of Zeus and Leda, the combination of a mortal woman with an immortal god would have resulted in Pollux being a mortal. However, Kástōr and Poludeúkēs are born as twins and manage to recombine their absolute (im)mortality components. After Kástōr is killed in a fight against Idas and Lynkeus, a rival pair of twins from Messenia (compare Pindar, Nemean Ten), Poludeúkēs makes a mystical deal with Zeus. Accordingly, both Kástōr and Poludeúkēs become half immortal and half mortal, but count as dominantly immortal as a pair.

Remarkably, the cosmological visualizations of the Dioskouroi imagine them as coexisting in alternating times and places, as when they represent the Morning and the Evening Star, Lucifer and Hesperus (compare Nagy 1990:258–259, Frame 2009: 74–84).

In this connection, it is significant that the cosmological dimension of the Greek Dióskouroi matches that of the Vedic and Baltic Divine Twins (Mannhardt 1857). The characteristics and myths of the Vedic Aśvins/Nāsatyas (see → Néstōr), the Lithuanian Diẽvo sunẽliai, and the Latvian Dieva dēli also mythologize the cosmological functions of the Morning and Evening Star, the (alternating) escorts of the Sun by day and night (compare Gotō 2009 on the Vedic twins). Indeed, within the three Indo-European traditions the Divine Twins are related or connected with Sun-deities or characters associated with the sun: the Dioskouroi are brothers of Helen, who is commonly thought to have inherited some features belonging to the Indo-European Sun-Maiden (Jackson 2006, see → Diòs thugáthēr); the Aśvins/Nāsatyas woo or marry the Sun-Maiden Sūryā; the Baltic ‘Sons of God’ rescue the Sun-goddess Saule or are the groomsmen of the Sun-Maiden.

Names and attributes of the Divine Twins in Greek, Vedic, and Baltic are also the same: the twin gods are young, splendid, and extremely mobile. They are indeed associated with ‘horses’, ‘boats’ and ‘chariots’ (compare Ginevra (forthc.) with reference to an Old Norse comparandum). The juncture ‘Kástōr tamer of horses’ (Kástora th’ hippódamon, see above) thus perfectly aligns with the standard traits of the Indo-European Divine Twins.

From the etymological point of view, Kastōr is a –tor-agent noun built on the Indo-European root *(s)ḱend– ‘to appear, become visible’, which, among others, underlies the Vedic root śad ‘to excel, triumph’ (García Ramón 1992). Significantly, Vedic śad, which mostly applies to the Dawn goddess Uṣas in the Rigveda, is once referred to the Divine Twins and their ‘swift (horses)’ (Pirart 1995: 160–161): In Rigveda 1.116, a hymn to the Aśvins enumerating their many achievements, the gods are said to have been exulting (śā́śadānā) thanks to their swift-speeding animals, compare

Although the term ‘horse’ (Vedic aśvá-) does not occur in the passage, it is possible to assume that āśuhémabhiḥ, instrumental plural to the compound āśuhéman– ‘swiftly impelling/impelled’ applies to these very animals, since both āśú– ‘swift’ and the root hi/hay ‘to impel’ commonly refer to the horses. To begin with, the u-stem adjective āśú-, matching Greek ōkús may reflect a reduplicated formation: *h₁o-h₁ƙ-ú-, which, in turn, may be etymologically related to the word ‘horse’, underlying, among others, Greek híppos, Vedic aśvá-, Avestan aspa-. All these terms may reflect *h₁eƙu̯ó-, a thematic derivative to a u-stem *h₁eƙ-u-, attested in Hittite and Hieroglyphic Luwian, compare Hittite ANŠE.KUR.RA-u– ‘horse’ and Hieroglyphic Luwian asu <^EQUUSá-sù> (compare Kloekhorst 2008, s.v. ekku-). The semantic tie between ‘swiftness’ and ‘horse(s)’ is transparent and also well-reflected on the phraseological level. Horses are the swiftest animals on the earth, so both Greek and Indo-Iranian poetic texts preserve collocations and compounds of the type ‘swift horses’ or ‘possessing swift horses’, compare Greek collocations like ōkéas híppous, híppous … thoás, tákhe’ híppō, attested in hexameter poetry and elsewhere, the compound hippṓkēs (Bacchylides), and their Indo-Iranian phraseological counterparts Vedic āśuvàśva– ‘possessing swift horses’, áśvāḥ … āśávaḥ ‘horses … swift’, Avestan āsu.aspa– ‘possessing swift horses’, and aspā̊ŋhō […] āsauuō ‘swift … horses’ (on which see Schmitt 1967: 165–166). The Vedic verb hi/hay ‘to impel, spur’ and its compound (anu-hi, pra-hi and others), a congener of the second compound member (āśu-)héman– frequently applies to horses. Take, for instance, the compound aśvahayá– ‘impelling the horses’ or a passage like Rigveda 10.188.1ab prá nūnám … áśvaṃ hinota vājínam ‘Spur forth now … the prizewinning horse’.

In the light of these inner-Vedic phraseological evidence, it is thus safe to state that the combination āśuhémabhiḥ … śā́śadānā, which in RV 1.116.2 applies to the Divine Twins as a pair, is partly built with the same lexical material as the Greek formula Kástora … hippódamon: a derivative of Indo-European *(s)ḱend– ‘to appear, become visible’, i.e. Greek Kástōr and Vedic śā́śadānā, (perfect middle participle dual to Vedic śad), and derivatives to the ‘swiftness-root’ *h₁eƙ-u-, Greek hippó(-damos) and Vedic āśu(-héman-). [1]

The substantive krátos (κράτος) has a variegated semantics. Its meaning ranges from ‘power’ to ‘physical strength’, compare Il. 7.142 ἔπεφνε δόλῳ, οὔ τι κράτεΐ γε ‘he slew him by guile, not by strength.’ For this reason, personified Krátos is brother of Bíē, according to Hesiod’s Theogony, compare

However, as Breuil (1989:25) points out, in traditional hexameter poetry, krátos has often ‘an abstract value, it expresses a relationship, and does not designate perceptible, countable objects’ (translation from French original: Massetti). For this reason, in a variety of contexts, it is possible to render the term as ‘overpower, victory.’ Take, for instance:

As for the etymology of the term, krátos reflects a neutral s-stem *kr̥-te/os- from an Indo-European root with the shape *kret-, whose meaning may be reconstructed as ‘to be superior.’ Further derivatives to the same root are preserved in Greek and can be recognized as ‘Caland-derivatives’, namely, among others: the thematic adjectives κραταιός and κρατερός ‘strong, mighty’; the comparative and superlative forms κρείττων/κρείσσων (kreíttōn/kreíssōn) ‘more/the most powerful/victorious’ and κράτιστος/κάρτιστος (krátistos/kártistos) ‘the best’; the first compound member κρατι-/καρτι- (krati-/karti-); the u-stem adjective κρατύς (kratús) ‘mighty’; the verb κρατύνομαι (kratúnomai) ‘to prepare krátos, that is, superiority’ (Nagy 1999, 5§25, n. 51, who stresses that krátos ‘superiority’ is opposed to ákhos ‘grief’).

In his 1969 book on Indo-European institutions, Benveniste proposed that krátos is an etymological congener of two Indo-Iranian u-stem substantives, which display a great formal resemblance to it: Vedic krátu- ‘resolve’ and Avestan xratu- ‘guiding intellect.’

Indeed, these terms share a variety of collocations with Greek krátos, such as, among others, the combination with

The phraseological matches support that an etymological tie exists between Greek krátos, Vedic krátu- and Avestan xratu-, since all these words can be understood as derivatives to a root *kret- and can be framed within the ‘Caland-system.’

Kúknos (Κύκνος) is a son of Ares, who takes control over Apollo’s grove at Itonos. He challenges Herakles in a duel and gets killed, even though he receives help by his father, the War-god himself (on the homonymous Kúknos, son of Poseidon and enemy of Achilles in Pindar and in the Cypria see Nagy 1990, ch. 14). The personal name Kúknos is identical to the name of the ‘swan’, kúknos (κύκνος). Therefore, ancient scholars and commentators have sporadically tried to reconstruct a connection between Kúknos and the swan. For instance, according to Eustathius of Thessalonica, the episode of Kúknos ended with a katasterismós ‘transformation [of a character] into a star’: after being defeated by Herakles, Kúknos became the constellation of the Swan.

The personal name Kúknos has a transparent etymology. It is a no-derivative to an Indo-European root with a meaning ‘to blaze up’ reconstructed as *ƙeu̯k– by LIV² (331) and as *(s)keu̯k– by Lubotsky (2001:25). Derivatives of the root are well attested in the Indo-Iranian languages, compare Vedic śócati ‘glows, burns’, Young Avestan saociṇt– ‘glowing, burning’. Nominal derivatives of the same root can be framed in the ‘Caland system’. This is “a certain subset of Indo-European roots that take a more or less well-defined subset of Indo-European nominal suffixes that stand in a close derivational relationship and can be thought of as mutually implying one another” (Rau 2009:70). Caland-derivatives usually behave in the same way as Greek kûdos (κῦδος, s-stem) ‘glory’, kudrós (κυδρός, ro-adjective) ‘glorious’, kudi° in kudiáneira (κυδι-άνειρα, i-first compound member) ‘bestowing glory upon the men’, kudnós (κυδνός, no-adjective) ‘famous’.

According to the same pattern, among the Indo-Iranian derivatives of Indo-European *ƙeu̯k– (or *[s]keu̯k-) we count:

 

An adjectival derivative in –no-, shaped *ƙuk-nó-/*(s)kuk-nó– (with possible accent retraction), with a putative meaning ‘glowing’, could perfectly fit into the same system. Greek Kúknos could exist beside Vedic śukrá-, Avestan suxra– and Vedic śúci° in the same way as Greek kudnós (κυδνός) exists beside Greek kudrós (κυδρός) and kudi-áneira (κυδιάνειρα).

The etymology of Kúknos can be supported through the analysis of the Greek phraseology. In Hesiod’s Shield, the entry scene of Kúknos and Ares remarkably insists on the semantic field of ‘fire’ and ‘light’, compare:

 

The comparison between Kúknos and ‘fire’ seems to be not limited to the scenes in which he fights side by side with his father. Hesiod compares dying Kúknos to a tree struck by a smoky thunderbolt:

 

Significantly, in Old Indic, Vedic śukrá-, śúci– and their compounds apply to Agni, the fire-god, compare:

 

The ‘fiery’ nature of Kúknos may root in a poetic topos. In several Indo-European traditions, armed or fighting warriors are compared to fire and light (West 2007:455–458). In Iliad 5.4–7, Athena, who is standing by Diomedes, lights a flame from his helmet and shield, from his head and shoulders (compare Iliad 5.4 δαῖέ οἱ ἐκ κόρυθός τε καὶ ἀσπίδος ἀκάματον πῦρ “she lighted up an exhausted fire from the helmet and the shield”). In Iliad 18 (vv. 205–214, 225–7), Athena surrounds Achilles with a golden nimbus so that the hero emanates fire. In other Indo-European traditions, the epiphany of warriors is not less spectacular: the Old Indic hero Rāma, protagonist of the Sanskrit epic Rāmāyaṇa, burns like a smokeless flame before going to battle (Rāmāyaṇa 3.23.15+); in the Irish tradition the lúan laith ‘hero’s light’ glows upon the Cú Chulainn (Campanile 1990:20–24). It is thus possible that Kúknos is the ‘Glowing (warrior)’ par excellence, as he might ultimately embody the ‘warrior’s fire’.

As for the etymology of kúknos (κύκνος) ‘swan’, it is commonly accepted that kúknos is to be traced back to the same Indo-European as the personal name Kúknos. The semantics of name of the ‘swan’ may thus hint at the white color of the animal, which is referred to in a variety of contexts, compare, for instance, χιονόχρως κύκνου (Euripides Helen 215–216) “of a snow-white swan”; στίλβουσι δ’ ὥστε ποταμίου κύκνου πτερόν (Euripides Rhesus 618) “they dazzle like the wing of a river swan.” However, it is possible that kúknos ‘swan’ has to be kept apart from Kúknos ‘son of Ares’. On the basis of the Lithuanian verb šaukiù ‘to cry, call’ and Tocharian B verb śauśäṃ ‘to call’, Young Avestan saocaiia– ‘mockery’ LIV² (331) and Cheung (2007:340) set up an Indo-European root *ƙeu̯k– ‘to cry (out)’, which, as such, is possibly homophone with *ƙeu̯k– ‘to glow.’ The same root is likely to underlie the Old Indic bird name śúka– ‘parrot’, and, I will propose, the first member of compound of Vedic śúcikranda-, a hapax eiremenon with a second compound member to the Vedic root krand ‘to roar’, compare:

 

A thematic derivative śúka– [*ƙúk-o-] and a first compound member śúci° [*ƙúki°] together with an adjective (substantivized) form kúknos [*ƙúk-no-] can be framed in the Caland system. According to this etymology, the ‘swan’ could be identified as the ‘bird, which cries up’. A meaning of this description is highly compatible with the descriptions of swans preserved by the Greek and Latin literary sources. As pointed out by Nagy (1994§§28–29) classical texts refer to the swan as to the crying or singing animal, compare Hesiod Shield 315–316 κατ᾽ αὐτὸν || κύκνοι ἀερσιπόται μεγάλ᾽ ἤπυον “over it swans were soaring and calling loudly” (compare also (Homeric Hymn to Apollo 1, Euripides Phaethon 78, Hercules 692, Euripides Iphigenia in Tauris 1104, Aristophanes Birds 769–773+). Therefore, in a complementary fashion, the “swan is the archetypal poet” (Nagy 1994§29). In a renowned passage of the Phaedo Plato specifies that swans sing their most beautiful song out of joy, when they are about to die:

 

The connection between swans and singing was so close that, in another passage from the Republic (620a), Plato states that the soul of Orpheus chooses to reincarnate as a swan since “the choice was determined for the most part by the habits of their former lives.” Finally, in a later attested tradition the transformation of Kúknos, son of Sthenelos, into a swan is directly put in connection with the mourning song with which Kúknos sang for Phaethon, compare

 

In conclusion, while the name Kúknos, son of Ares and enemy of Herakles, can be traced back to an Indo-European root meaning ‘glowing, blazing’ (Indo-European *ƙeu̯k– or *(s)keu̯k-), the animal name kúknos ‘swan’ could be etymologically connected to a different root (Indo-European *ƙeu̯k-) meaning ‘to utter a sound’. Both proposed explanations find support in the analysis of the ancient literary sources.

 

Kúpris (Κύπρις) is an appellative of Aphrodite, which first occurs in the fifth book of the Iliad (5.330, 422, 458, 760, 883). According to an internal Greek etymology, the epithet Kuprogen ḗs (Κυπρογενής) was attached to the goddess ‘because she was born on sea-girt Cyprus’ (Κυπρογενέα δ’, ὅτι γέντο περικλύστῳ ἐνὶ Κύπρῳ, Hesiod Theogony 200); however, it is possible to separate Kúpris from Kúpros (the island Cyprus) and to consider the association as secondary.

The first attestations of Kúpris connect the appellative to the sphere of desire (as in Κύπριδος, ἥ τε θεοῖσιν ἐπὶ γλυκὺν ἵμερον ὦρσε, ‘of Kúpris, who aroused sweet longing among the gods’, Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite 5.2). Moreover, in classical and late Greek sources, kúpris means ‘sex’ (as in οἴνου δὲ μηκέτ᾽ ὄντος οὐκ ἔστιν κύπρις, ‘without wine there is no sex’, Euripides Bacchae 773).

It has long been suggested that Kúpris has to be traced back to an Indo-European root *keu̯p- ‘to experience a strong feeling (of desire)’ (Enmann 1886), which underlies the Latin verb cupiō ‘to desire’ and the divine name Cupidō, among others. More precisely, Kúpris can be related to some ró-adjectival forms, attested in three Indo-European branches, namely Italic, Celtic, and Anatolian:

 

• the Sabellic adjective cyprum, glossed as bonum ‘good’ by Varro, which lived on in the divine appellative cupra dea (i.e. bona dea ‘Good Goddess’), and in the Italian toponym Cupra Marittima;
• the South Picenian adverb < kuprí > (AQ 2, Capestrano) ‘beautifully’ (as a last reference, see Martzloff 2011:196);
• the Old Irish compound accobor (reflecting *ad-kŭpro-) ‘desire’, related to the verb ad·cobra ‘he wishes, desires’;
• the Lycian verb kupri– ‘to want’ (Serangeli: forthcoming), whose denominative formation matches the structure of the Old Irish verb.

This set of forms speaks for the existence of a ró-adjective, *kupró- ‘desirable’, which was substantivized into *kupri– ‘desire’ through the morpheme –i-. Kúpris is therefore the personification of ‘Desire’.

To sum up: Kúpris can be interpreted as an originally individualizing i-stem derivative built on an adjective with the affix *-r ó –. The form originally meant ‘the Desire (in person)’ and came to be employed as an epithet and an appellative of Aphrodite as the ‘goddess of (sexual) desire’.

 

The term márgos (μάργος) is commonly translated as ‘gluttonous, wanton’ and first occurs in traditional hexametrical poetry. On the one side, it is related to the verbs margaínō (μαργαίνω) and margáō (μαργάω) ‘to rage (in battle)’. On the other, it occurs in connection with the semantic field of ‘eating’ and ‘drinking’. For instance, in Odyssey 18.2–3, Iros is said to be reknowned for his gastéri márgēi (‘gluttonous belly’), that is to say, for the capacity of eating and drinking without end (… μετὰ δ’ ἔπρεπε γαστέρι μάργῃ / ἀζηχὲς φαγέμεν καὶ πιέμεν).

As Gregory Nagy points out (1979 12§8–10), gluttony belongs together with phthónos in the diction of praise poetry . Consequently, in praise poetry, márgos came to apply to ‘those whose words are inimical to the institution of praise’ (Nagy 1979 12§8). According to Ibycus, a quarrelsome man possesses the ‘glutton mouth of Strife’:

It’s not a coincidence that Margī́tēs, a ‘speaking name’ etymologically related to márgos, is the name of a blame poet in the homonymous mock epic whose initial verses display a variety of similarities to the opening of Odyssey 18 (Nagy O. 18.001–004). The name Margī́tēs is the same type of another ‘speaking name’, Thersī́tēs. This personal name, which might be translated as ‘Mr. Bold’, is built on Greek thársos / thérsos ‘boldness’. However, and despite its basically positive semantics, Thersī́tēs is a negative character in the Iliad, who embodies the verbal ‘boldness of envy’ (confer Bacchylides 13.199 thersiepḗs phthónos).

The derivational history of márgos deserves close consideration. According to an internal Greek pattern, a verb pair -aínō and -áō points to a feminine noun. Just as huphaínō ‘to weave’ and hupháō ‘to weave’ exisist besides huphḗ ‘web’, margaínō ‘to rage’ and margáō ‘to rage’ may have existed besides a feminine form * margā́, which is unattested in alphabetical Greek. Such a feminine form might have been the starting point for internally deriving márgos as a possessive adjective (‘provided with the X’) to the feminine noun in question.

Interestingly, Mycenean might attest a feminine form margā- (García Ramón 2010: 87), namely: ma-ka. In the Thebes tablet Fq 254, ma-ka occurs in connection with a delivery of barley:

The term has been interpreted as /māi gāi/ ‘for mother earth’ by Ruijgh (1996) and as a dative /magāi/ ‘for the kneading’ by Palaima (2000–2001). Both these interpretations are problematic: /māi gāi/ ‘for mother earth’ is linguistically defendable, but incompatible with the context of the Thebes tablet Fq 254; /magāi/ ‘for the kneading’ is linguistically difficult since it does not match its alleged alphabetical Greek correspondent máza (μάζα, from *magi̯a-).

It is more likely that Mycenean ma-ka conceals /Margāi/ ‘for Margas’, the dative of a personal name, or/margāi/, dative of a feminine form margā-. Since ma-ka parallels de-qo-no /deik^wno-/, alphabetical Greek deípnon ‘banquet’ in the tablet, and it is allotted a large amount of barley, the possible meaning of the noun may be ‘repast’ or ‘large repast’.

Both Mycenean ma-ka and Greek márgos can be traced back to the Indo-European root *merg- ‘to divide, cut’, which underlies the Hittite verb mark- / mark-^ḫḫif ‘to separate, butcher’ as well as several words for ‘border(land)’, such as, among others, Young Avestan marəza- ‘borderland’, Latin margo, marginis ‘boundary’, Old Norse mǫrk– ‘forest, (border)land’ and Old Irish mruig ‘borderland’. As for Greek márgos and Mycenean ma-ka, they could reflect a syllabification marg- of the zero-grade (instead of the expected outcome *brag-), which could be explained as secondary and analogical to that of the full-grade *morg– or *merg-. This kind of syllabification is just like the one seen in the Mycenean and Greek congeners of the Indo-European root *kerp– ‘to seize’, Mycenean ka-po /karpos/, Alphabetical Greek karpós (καρπός) ‘fruit’. Both the -o-full-grade morg– and the -e-full-grade merg– are attested in Greek glosses:

The Greek congeners of Indo-European *merg– ‘to divide, cut’ can thus be grouped in three main semantic fields: (a) ‘voracity’ (márgos, possibly Mycenean ma-ka, mérgize), (b) ‘to rage’ (margaínō, margáō) and (c) ‘border(land)’ (mórgos, mórgion). Semantic evolutions/developments of this kind partially match those identified by Michael Weiss (1998: 35–47) for the Indo-European root *h₁erh₂– ‘to divide’, which lies at the basis of both Hittite arḫāš ‘border’ and Greek ἔρανος ‘meal’.

In conclusion, the Greek term márgos can be traced back to the Indo-European root *merg– ‘to divide, cut’, whose congeners are widely attested in several branches of the Indo-European family. Greek cognates of Indo-European *merg– display a rich polysemy, which parallels that of other Indo-European roots with a similar meaning as *merg-.

Marsúās (Μαρσύας) is the name of a Phyrgian satyr who picked up the musical wind instrument known as the aulos ‘double-reed, pipe’ that had been thrown away by Athena. The goddess had invented the instrument, but she could not stand the fact that her cheeks were puffed up while she played it (for example, [Apollodorus] Library 1.24). Marsúās is thus recorded as the inventor of the music of the aulos by a variety of classical sources. For instance, in Plato’s Symposium (215ac), Alcibiades mentions the festive custom of peeling the outer layer of Marsyas’s figurines, which concealed smaller figures of gods on their inside. According to Nagy 2017 (ad Odyssey 22.437–479), Marsyas’s figurines probably concealed a smaller Apollo. Thus, in the framework of the ritual re-enactment of Apollo’s punishment, festive merriment counterbalanced the grim death of the outrageous (Greek ὑβριστής) satyr.

The proper name Marsúās has long been interpreted as a loanword (Buck 1909) from Young Avestan maršuiiā̊, genitive singular of a name maršuuī-*, attested only in Yašna 11.1 (yō mąm xvāstąm nōit̰ baxṣ̌ahe […] / haoiiā̊ vā maršuiiā̊, ‘who does not allot me, when I am ritually prepared [… except] for his own maršuī’). The term is commonly taken to be a Daēuuic word—a word that applies to the daēuuas, ‘the demons’, and to impious worshippers—glossed as Sanskrit duṣṭodaram, ‘bad belly’. In turn, maršuuī-* may be traced back to an Indo-European root *merǵ– ‘to cut’, reflecting a feminine noun built on a u-stem adjective, which derives from an s-stem (Massetti 2016: 122–126).

Some Greek phraseological elements allow us to reconstruct a connection between Marsúās and the image of the ‘belly’. To begin with, the proper name Marsúās is probably related to Greek marsippos/marsuppos (μάρσιππος/μάρσυππος), ‘pouch’, whereby marsip(p)os (μάρσιπ[π]ος) reflects a compound meaning ‘weight of marsu-’ (marsu-*, īpos ‘weight’, see Frigione 2017). This term denotes a leather bag, hanging from and weighing down the waistline like a belly. It is likely that the mythical prototype of the marsipos was the myth of Marsúās’s flaying, encapsulated in the Greek phrase ‘Marsuās’s skin’, (Μαρσύεω ἁσκός, Herodotus Histories 7.26.14; ἀσκός … Μαρσύου, Plato Euthydemus 285d). According to classical sources, Apollo flayed the satyr alive after defeating him in a musical competition and let his skin hang on a tree. Significantly, Nonnus of Panopolis visualizes Marsyas’s skin as resembling a ‘belly’, using the verb kolpóō (κολπόω) ‘to create a kolpos (bosom, lap, womb, fold)’ to describe it (compare Nonnus of Panopolis Dionysiaca 1.42–43, ἐξ ὅτε Μαρσύαο θεημάχον αὐλὸν ἐλέγξας / δέρμα παρῃώρησε φυτῷ κολπούμενον αὔραις ‘since he (Apollo) humiliated the god-fighting flute of Marsyas / and hung his skin, bellying in the breezes, on a tree’).

To sum up: It is likely that Mars úā s, as a mythological character, was shaped on an Iranian loanword, maršuuī-*, meaning ‘belly’, as supported by the Greek phraseological evidence. The ‘skin of Mars úā s’ was the first marsup(i)os, ‘pouch (that hangs on the belly)’, since Apollo hung the satyr’s skin on a tree with his belly to the wind.

 

Νέστωρ, the name of the king of Pylos in Homer, is in form an agent noun ending in the IE agent suffix –tor. It is one of eighteen names in Homer with this suffix, some of which also occur as common nouns and all but one of which contain the root of a Greek verb. It is thus in a class of names that is unusually clear in meaning, even in the absence of a corresponding common noun. [1] Such is the case, for example, of Ἕκτωρ, whose role as ‘protector’ of Troy is closely linked with his name when he is said to ‘keep’ (ἔχειν) his city’s people. [2] Like Ἕκτωρ, Νέστωρ has no corresponding common noun, but unlike Ἕκτωρ Nestor’s name does not conjure anything up in the minds of readers of the Homeric poems beyond the vigorous and sagacious old man himself. [3]

This is not to say, however, that his name had no meaning within the Homeric poems themselves. In fact the name had a clear meaning which was subsequently lost, and which has now been recovered in light of the evidence of Linear B. The first element of Néstōr is the verbal root *nes– of the verb néomai ‘to return.’ This is plain enough, but Néstōr ‘the returner’ hardly seems a ‘significant name’, since any hero who, like Nestor, returned from Troy could have been so called. What was previously unsuspected is that in Néstōr the root *nes– has an active, transitive meaning, ‘bring back.’ In Linear B the personal name ne-e-ra-wo occurs on a Pylos tablet [4] and is interpreted as Ne^he-lawos, from earlier *Nese-lawos ‘he who brings the war-folk back’. This name is of the same type as, for example, Age-lawos (Ἀγέλαος) ‘he who leads the war-folk’, which also occurs in Linear B, as a-ge-ra-wo. [5] In these names the first element (Nese-, Age-) is a transitive verb governing the object lawos. The transitive verb *néō ‘bring back’ is not otherwise attested, although this statement requires an important qualification to be discussed below. Mycenaean Nehe-lawos is the basis of Nestor’s father’s name, Nēleús, and thus of Nestor’s own patronymic, Nēlēiádēs ‘descendant of Neleus.’ [6] Nēleús is an Aeolic version of Nestor’s father’s name befitting his origin in Aeolian Thessaly. [7] The Ionic form of Nehe-lawos is Νείλεως (Neíleōs), a regular phonological outcome from the Mycenaean name. In Ionia the royal family of Miletus traced its origin to Nestor’s father, and they were thus called the Neleids. But they were also, in their local context, the Neileids, in claiming descent from Neíleōs, the legendary founder of Miletus from Athens. This figure was an Athenian descendant of the founder of Pylos; he was the basis of the claim by the Milesian royal family to have a proximate Athenian origin as well as a more distant Pylian origin. [8]

The Linear B evidence led quickly to the realization that Nestor the son had a name that repeated in part the name of Neleus the father, when the latter is understood as original *Nese-lawos: the father was ‘he who brings the war-folk back’ and the son was simply ‘he who brings back’. The first thought was that these were the names of an actual pair of rulers of Bronze Age Pylos, the founder of that city and his long-lived son. But the source of our information about both figures must be taken into account. The significant thing about the name Neleus is that the royal family of Miletus effectively had it as their name. The significant thing about the name Nestor is that everything we know about its bearer comes from his role in the two Homeric poems. Whereas Neleus was regarded as the Milesian family’s ancestor, his son Nestor was not. The line of descent was traced through another son of Neleus, Periklymenos. [9] Nestor was not the Neleids’ ancestor, but their epic hero. The root *nes– in his name undoubtedly relates to their name, but not in terms of ancestry. Nestor bears out his name on a wholly different plane.

For Nestor to have borne out his name in Homeric epic his name must still have been understood in Homeric epic, but was this the case? The evidence of Mycenaean Greek hardly counts when it comes to the understanding of 8/7th-century BC poets and audience. [10] But in fact there is strong evidence for a transitive verb *néō ‘bring back’ disguised as something else in the Odyssey. In Odyssey 18 Penelope recalls before the suitors what Odysseus told her to do if he failed to return from Troy by the time Telemachus came of age, namely to remarry. Odysseus began by telling her that he did not think all the Achaeans would ‘return home’ (ἀπονέεσθαι, 18.260) in view of the great prowess of the Trojan foe (18.261–264), and then he says: “therefore I do not know whether the god will save me or I shall die in Troy,” (τῶ οὐκ οἶδ’, ἤ κέν μ’ ἀνέσει θεός, ἦ κεν ἁλώω / αὐτοῦ ἐνὶ Τροίῃ, 18.265f.). Will save me must be what is meant by the phrase μ’ ἀνέσει, but the form ἀνέσει cannot give that meaning. [11] With the change of one vowel from μ’ ἀνέσει to με νέσει everything comes clear: νέσει here is the future of the hypothesized verb *néō and means ‘will bring back’, which gives perfect sense: “therefore I do not know whether the god will bring me back or I shall die in Troy.” The root *nes– in the middle verb ἀπονέεσθαι at the beginning of Odysseus’ speech is repeated five lines later in the active verb νέσει.

If the Homeric audience understood the verb νέσει in Odyssey 18.265 to mean ‘will bring back’ they would also have understood the name Νέστωρ as ‘he who brings back’. The meaning of Nestor’s name is in fact crucial to understanding his role in Odyssey 3, when he tells Telemachus about the ‘returns’ (νόστοι) of the Achaeans from Troy, including his own return. Telemachus wants to know the fate of his father and Nestor does tell him something about that, but in less than explicit terms. A close reading of his speech shows that he and Odysseus, who never disagreed with each other in counsel during the war, quarreled upon leaving Troy at the island of Tenedos on the very issue of ‘return’. Odysseus turned back to Troy where Agamemnon still remained, but Nestor fled in the opposite direction for home. When Nestor is understood to be ‘he who brings back’, Odysseus’ decision to part ways with him has a clear implication. This implication is made explicit when Nestor does for Diomedes what he did not do for Odysseus. Diomedes flees with Nestor and stays with him through each fraught turn across the Aegean until he is home in Argos three days later. Nestor, who sails on to Pylos, has done for Diomedes what his name says, he has brought him home. On the other hand Odysseus, whom Nestor has not brought home, has a νόστος of ten years awaiting him when he again leaves Troy. [12]

In the Iliad we get to the basis of Nestor’s function as ‘he who brings back’. In Iliad 11 Nestor motivates Patroclus to take Achilles’ place in battle by telling him how he once saved his own beleaguered people. Nestor alone among Neleus’ sons had been left to defend Pylos against neighbors who took advantage of the city’s weakened state. Pylos had earlier been sacked by Heracles, who slew Neleus’ other sons, in particular the redoubtable Periklymenos. As in Odyssey 3 to Telemachus, Nestor is less than explicit in Iliad 11 to Patroclus, but his message reduces to this, that as Nestor once took the place of his warrior brother Periklymenos to defend the Pylians in battle, Patroclus should now take the place of the absent warrior Achilles to defend the Achaeans in battle.

Nestor’s standing epithet in Homer is ἱππότα, the ‘horseman’. His story in Iliad 11 tells how he first became a warrior horseman by taking the place of his dead brother in battle. The youthful Nestor is shown earning his epithet ἱππότα when he slays the leader of the enemy horsemen and wins for himself horses and chariot with which to rout the foe, as he proceeds to do virtually single-handedly. As Odyssey 3 shows Nestor as Νέστωρ, ‘he who brings home’, Iliad 11 shows him in the other half of his dual nature. The phrase ἱππότα Νέστωρ, ‘the horseman Nestor’, in fact has deep roots in Indo-European, where twin gods, ancestral to the Dioskouroi, are differentiated from each other by terms related to ἱππότα on the one hand and Νέστωρ on the other hand. The evidence is in the Rig Veda, where the twin gods cognate with the Greek Dioskouroi are the Aśvins (Aśvinau/ Aśvinā). This name, cognate with Nestor’s epithet ἱππότα, means ‘possessors of horses’. [13] It is in the dual, designating both twins, but the Vedic twins also have a second name in the dual, Nāsatyā, which contains the root *nes– in a transitive sense, and is thus a close comparison for Greek Νέστωρ. The Vedic twins are ‘saviors’ of distressed mortals (a function they share with the Greek Dioskouroi), and their name has long been compared with the Germanic evidence for the root *nes-, in particular the causative verb found in Gothic (nasjan ‘to save’) and in the other branches of Germanic as well. [14] The name Nāsatyā is demonstrably old, [15] and while the verbal root in the name is clear, the form of the name is not obvious. The derivation I prefer begins with the Sanskrit cognate of Greek néomai, namely nasate, meaning ‘approach, resort to, join’ in attested Sanskrit. I propose that in Common Indo-Iranian an active verb *nasati ‘bring back’ was formed from the middle verb nasate ‘return’, just as in Greek the active verb *néō was formed from the middle verb néomai. [16] A syntagma composed of the third person singular verb *nasati and the relative pronoun ya-, *nasati-ya, was then nominalized with regular lengthening of the root vowel to produce Nāsatya-, literally ‘he who brings back’. [17]

In the Rig Veda the twin gods are for the most part viewed as an identical pair, and their two dual names thus each designate both twins. But the diction of the Rig Veda contrasts the two names in a way that correlates with distinctions between the twins found in Sanskrit epic in two of the heroes of the Mahabharata. The five heroes of the poem are all sons of different gods, and the two youngest are sons of the twin gods. One son, Nakula, is characterized as a warrior and is associated with horses, the other son, Sahadeva, is characterized as intelligent, and is associated with cattle. In a series of texts in the Rig Veda the two names of the twin gods are differentially associated with cattle and horses, the name Aśvinā ‘horsemen’ being associated with horses, and the name Nāsatyā ‘saviors’ being associated with cattle. [18] The two Vedic names can thus be paired with their two epic sons, such that Aśvinā properly designates the father of Nakula and Nāsatyā properly designates the father of Sahadeva. [19]

The combined evidence of the Mahabharata and the Rig Veda imply that one of the Vedic twins was a Nāsatya- ‘savior’ while the other was an Aśvin ‘horseman’, but the basis of this distinction is not explained in Indo-Iranian. For that we turn to the Greek Dioskouroi, where IE distinctions between the twins are more clearly preserved. One such distinction, which is also found in Vedic, is between the separate fathers of the two divine twins, the sky god on the one hand (Greek Zeus, Vedic Dyaus) and a mortal on the other hand (Greek Tyndareus, Vedic Sumakha). [20] In Greek the distinction between fathers is the basis of a distinction between the twins themselves, the immortal son of the sky god, Polydeuces, and his mortal brother, Castor. [21] The mortal Castor is further characterized as a warrior horseman who dies in battle, and who is then brought back to life by his immortal twin. [22] The singular Nāsatya- of Common Indo-Iranian should be interpreted in the light of the basic myth of the Greek twins, and given the meaning ‘he who brings back to life’. [23]

The verbal contrast in the two names of the Vedic twins, Nāsatyā and Aśvinā, can be posited for Indo-European when Greek ἱππότα Νέστωρ is compared. While the processes of noun formation are different in Indic and Greek, the contrast in both cases has a common core in the transitive root *nes– on the one hand and the noun *ekwos on the other hand, indicating an Indo-European origin for the contrast itself.

In Indo-European myth the mortal twin standing behind Indic Aśvinā and Greek ἱππότα was brought back to life by the immortal twin standing behind Indic Nāsatyā and Greek Νέστωρ. Nestor’s myth, however, is a variant of the Indo-European twin myth: when his mortal twin dies, he does not bring him back to life, but takes his place as a warrior horseman. He thus combines both twins of the Indo-European myth in one figure when he becomes ἱππότα Νέστωρ. This is the example he sets for Patroclus, who takes the place of Achilles in battle. Patroclus follows his example, but unlike Nestor he does not survive the experience. At his funeral the difference in outcome between Nestor’s youthful triumph and Patroclus’ tragic death is featured in the chariot race over which Nestor, along with Achilles, presides. The narrative is elliptic, as usual with Nestor, but close reading again reveals what is not spoken. The youthful Nestor, before he became a ‘horseman’ on the battlefield, lost a chariot race to a pair of twins, as he narrates himself, and he did so in spectacular fashion by crashing at the turning post. This he omits to say, but it can be worked out from the description of the twins to whom he lost, who each had a different function in the race. Nestor, on the other hand, knew only how to ‘incite’ with the whip, the function of one of the twins, not how to ‘restrain’ with the reins, the function of the other twin. [24] This fits his version of the twin myth, for he had only the function of the immortal twin, namely to ‘bring back to life’, but not yet the mortal twin’s function to ‘restrain’. Nestor’s failed chariot race has a retrospective relevance to Patroclus’ fate, as Nestor’s youthful triumph in combat had a prospective relevance to Patroclus’ day of glory when Nestor induced him to take Achilles’ place in battle. [25]

The etymology of Νέστωρ, with its roots in the Indo-European twin myth, relates to the etymology of Greek νόος ‘mind’ already preliminarily discussed in a separate entry. Reconstructed as *nosos, a verbal noun from the root *nes-, νόος has somehow to do with a ‘return to life’, and ‘consciousness’ has already suggested itself as what the noun originally designated. The question now is whether νόος was originally a ‘returning to life’ or a ‘bringing back to life’, either of which meanings seems possible to designate ‘consciousness’. There is in fact good reason to believe that νόος originated in the context of the twin myth and that the action of the immortal twin in bringing the mortal twin back to life is what defined νόος. The Dioskouroi still retain this basic element of the Indo-European twin myth, and Pindar’s description of what the immortal Polydeuces does for the mortal Castor clearly suggests ‘consciousness’. Given the choice between sharing his immortality with Castor or becoming entirely a god himself Polydeuces “chose the life of Castor who had perished in battle,” εἵλετ’ αἰῶνα φθιμένου Πολυδεύκης Κάστορος ἐν πολέμῳ: going to his brother’s side, Polydeuces “opened the eye, and then the voice of bronze-clad Castor,” ἀνὰ δ’ ἔλυσεν μὲν ὀφθαλμόν, ἔπειτα δὲ φωνὰν χαλκομίτρα Κάστορος (Pindar Nemean 10.59 and 90). [26]

The Dioskouroi come as close as it is possible to come to showing what νόος looks like as a ‘bringing back to life’. The Dioskouroi do not themselves embody the root *nes– or the word νόος, although they come close to doing that as well. [27] Their Vedic counterparts contain the root of νόος in their name Nāsatyā ‘they who bring back to life’, and their miraculous rescues and cures of mortals bear their name out, but the Vedic pair does not make explicit the foundational myth of the Indo-European pair in which one twin brings the other back to life. This myth is implied, as previously discussed, by Rig Vedic verses opposing the names Nāsatyā and Aśvinā and pairing the names differentially with ‘cattle’ and ‘horses’. The originally singular Nāsatya- ‘he who brings back to life’, who is implied by these paired oppositions, was marked by intelligence in opposition to the warlike nature of his brother. This is revealed in the ‘intelligence’ of the epic hero Sahadeva, the son of the divine twin once called the son of Dyaus in the Rig Veda, who is thus the counterpart of Polydeuces, the son of Zeus. The intelligence of this divine twin is implied by the epithet dasrā ‘miracle-working’, which is used in the dual of both twins in connection with their miraculous rescues and cures. Etymologically the epithet means ‘intelligent’, and it characterizes one twin in opposition to the other in Rig Vedic verses where cattle and horses are again contrasted, but instead of the name Nāsatyā standing in opposition to the name Aśvinā, the epithet dasrā stands in opposition to the name Aśvinā. [28] The name Nāsatyā and the epithet dasrā are to this extent interchangeable, and it is an easy step to take to say that the name Nāsatya– itself implies ‘intelligence.’ Vedic Nāsatya– ‘he who brings back to life’ is thus a valid comparison for Greek νόος, reconstructed as a ‘bringing back to life’.

The name Νέστωρ, reconstructed as ‘he who brings back to life’, is virtually equivalent to νόος, a ‘bringing back to life’, the difference being the difference between an agent noun and an action noun. Nestor’s variant of the twin myth precludes that he do for his brother what Polydeuces does for Castor, namely bring him back to life. Nestor thus does not enact the myth that defines νόος in its Indo-European context, but in his own variant of the myth his connection with νόος is nonetheless peculiarly marked. Beyond Homeric occurrences of the word that seem to make Nestor the very personification of νόος, [29] two episodes are especially noteworthy. In the chariot race for Patroclus, as discussed, Nestor himself characterizes the difference between the two twins who defeated him in his youthful race as the incitement of the whip on the one hand and the restraint of the reins on the other hand. In the chariot race itself Nestor’s son Antilochus reenacts what it meant for Nestor to use only the whip and to lose control of the reins. Antilochus does not crash at the turning post as his father did, but his rash maneuver to overtake Menelaos in a dangerously narrow pass is the reenactment of his father’s unrestrained incitement as a youth. [30] After the race Antilochus is forced to apologize to Menelaos, and his apology reveals that the incitement that characterizes him as a young man—and that once characterized his father as a youth, be it understood—is precisely a matter of νόος. “You know the transgressions of youth,” Antilochus says to his older opponent, “his νόος is swifter, but his μῆτις is slight,” (κραιπνότερος μὲν γάρ τε νόος, λεπτὴ δέ τε μῆτις, 23.590). In terms of the chariot race νόος is equated with the incitement of the whip. [31] Νέστωρ, before he became ἱππότα Νέστωρ, was, so to speak, all whip, which is to say that he was the embodiment of νόος.

The chariot race in Iliad 23, when closely read, reveals that the virtual equivalence between the agent noun Νέστωρ and the action noun νόος was very much alive in the minds of poets and audience in the Homeric era. Nestor, as already discussed, was the epic hero of the Neleid family of kings in Miletus. Traditions about the youthful Nestor must have been their special, even unique inheritance. These traditions preserved the myth of ἱππότα Νέστωρ, who takes the place of his fallen brother on the battlefield. The old man Nestor, on the other hand, would have been created in the context of Homeric epic itself. As seen, the aged Nestor in the foreground of the Iliad and the Odyssey acts out his name, ‘he who brings home’, in Odyssey 3. [32] Since Νέστωρ is virtually equated with νόος in the story of his youthful chariot race forming the background to the chariot race in Iliad 23, there is good reason to think that the same connection is present when he acts out his name as the aged hero in Odyssey 3. [33] To follow Nestor as he brings Diomedes home to Argos is to watch νόος in operation. The key to Nestor’s action is that he correctly chooses to go in one direction and not another until the voyage is successfully completed, and his decision in each case depends upon his correctly interpreting a sign. The decisions begin in Troy when the Atreidai themselves split from one another and Nestor does not remain in Troy with Agamemnon but sails with Menelaos to Tenedos. On Tenedos he quarrels with Odysseus and flees for home, as Odysseus turns back to Troy and Agamemnon. He does so because he ‘recognizes’ that ‘the god planned evil’ (φεῦγον, ἐπεὶ γίνωσκον, ὃ δὴ κακὰ μήδετο δαίμων, 3.166); Diomedes, who flees with him (φεῦγε δὲ Τυδέος υἱὸς Ἀρήϊος, 3.167), has the benefit of his insight into how things stand with the gods. Οn the island of Lesbos all hesitate and ask for a sign whether to cut straight across the Aegean to Euboea or to take a safer route by way of the islands, and the god gives them a sign (ᾐτέομεν δὲ θεὸν φῆναι τέρας· αὐτὰρ ὅ γ’ ἥμιν/ δεῖξε, καὶ ἠνώγει πέλαγος μέσον εἰς Εὔβοιαν/ τέμνειν, ὄφρα τάχιστα ὑπὲκ κακότητα φύγοιμεν, “We were asking the god to show a sign; he then gave us one and bade us cut across the middle of the sea to Euboea, that we might escape the evil as quickly as possible,” 3.173–175). Nestor does not say who it was that correctly read this sign, [34] but signs are Nestor’s peculiar domain, in the Iliad as well as the Odyssey. [35] Nestor does not need to take credit for choosing the right course; it can only have been he who correctly read the sign at this most critical turning point on the return home.

Binary decisions fit well with Νέστωρ ‘he who brings back to life’ as a twin figure. But clearly his action, if it is understood as the operation of νόος, a ‘bringing back to life’, reflects a more evolved mental process than simply ‘consciousness’. The noun νόος ‘mind’ was of course not restricted in use to its original meaning, any more than any noun is bound in meaning to its etymology, and νόος has a normal range of meanings in Homeric and later Greek. It required a special medium, that of traditional poetry, and a special channel, the traditions of a particular family, for etymology to remain alive in this case. It is telling that it is in the chariot race of the youthful Nestor that νόος appears closest to its origin in the Indo-European twin myth, and that it is in the νόστος of the aged Nestor that νόος, as personified by this aged figure, has become something more evolved. [36]

I save until the end of this entry on Νέστωρ a point left unaddressed at the start of the entry on νόος. There the Mycenaean name Wiphinoos is cited in support of the derivation of nóos from the root *nes-, on the tacit assumption that the name is valid evidence for the noun. While it is clear that the Linear B name contains the root *nes– in its second element –noos, more needs to be said about the relationship of the name to the noun nóos ‘mind.’ Wiphinoos in fact means ‘he who brings back by his strength’, where –noos contains the root *nes-, and the formation of the name is like that of the Homeric epithet laossóos ‘inciting the warfolk’, in which –soos contains the root of seúō ‘incite’ (IE *ki̯eu̯-). This raises the question whether the name Wiphinoos may have nothing to do with the noun nóos, and there may instead be two different kinds of compounds ending in –noos, that represented by Mycenaean Wiphinoos, in which –noos means ‘bringing back’, and that in which – noos means ‘mind.’ [37] There are in fact two such kinds of compounds, but it is implausible to think that they are unrelated. The Mycenaean name instead confirms the active sense of the root *nes– in both the name Néstōr and the noun nóos. Another name formed exactly like Wiphinoos sheds light on the question. Alkínoos, the name of the Phaeacian king in the Odyssey, has virtually the same meaning as Wiphinoos, ‘he who brings home by his might/strength’. The name clearly fits the function of the Phaeacian king in the Odyssey, and it also relates directly to the name Néstōr. The Phaeacian king, who brings Odysseus home, is in fact modeled on Nestor, [38] whose role in the Odyssey is pointedly not to bring Odysseus home. Alkínoos is a second Nestor and his name is meant to evoke Nestor’s name and their common function of ‘bringing home’. By its form the name also evokes the noun nóos as a ‘bringing back to life and light’. The name is a clear indication of the root connection between nóos ‘mind’ and Néstōr, the memory of which Homeric epic has retained.

Greek nóos ‘mind’ (contracted form noũs) contains a verbal root. It has the same shape as such Greek nouns as lógos or phóbos, the verbal roots of which are clear: logos ‘word’ contains the root of légō ‘speak’, and phóbos ‘panic flight’ contains the root of phébomai ‘flee in panic’. By contrast the root of nóos is not clear because the second consonant of the root has dropped out between vowels and could have been three different things. The formal evidence points to the root *nes– insofar as the roots *new– and *ney– are both improbable. The classical Greek name Ἰφίνοος, a compound with the second element –noos, occurs in Mycenaean Greek as Wiphinoos (Linear B wi-pi-no-o). If this name is taken as evidence for the noun nóos, [1] the missing consonant cannot have been –w– as –w– was still preserved in Linear B, as in the first element Wiphi– of the Mycenaean name. The Mycenaean name does allow its second element –noos to be recontructed as original *-noyos insofar as –y-, unlike –w-, had already dropped out between vowels in Linear B. A verb with the root *ney– occurs in Sanskrit nayati ‘to lead’, but Greek has no trace of this verbal root. The Sankrit noun nayaḥ from the root of nayati ‘to lead’ means ‘conduct, management, policy, wisdom’, but a comparison with Greek nóos is illusory. The dictum to seek Latin etymologies on the Tiber should be followed in this case as the root *nes-, in contrast to *ney-, is abundantly attested in Greek. Like the consonant –y-, the consonant –s– had already dropped out between vowels in Linear B, and the Mycenaean name Wiphinoos can thus be reconstructed with confidence as earlier *Wiphinosos, with a trace of the lost –s– likely surviving as –h– in pronunciation, Wiphino^hos, in Mycenaean Greek.

The Greek verb néomai ‘return home’ contains the verbal root *nes-. The –s– of the root has dropped out between vowels in néomai but is preserved in nóstos ‘return home’, a noun from this root. The root occurs in other Indo-European domains, principally Indic and Germanic. Sanskrit násate ‘resort to’ is an exact cognate of néomai, and various forms containing the root occur in the different branches of Germanic. Gothic ganisan and Modern High German genesen, both meaning ‘return to life, get well’, contain the root prefixed by a perfective element ga/ge. A causative form from the root is found in all three branches of Germanic: Gothic nasjan, Old English nerian, and Old Norse, nœra, all mean ‘save, bring back to life’; Modern High German nähren ‘feed’ shows a semantic development from these meanings.

To explain the noun nóos as a derivative of the root *nes– the semantics of the root in Indo-European and in Greek must be analyzed. “Revenir à un état familier,” Benveniste’s formulation for the Indo-European meaning of the root, [2] combines the notion of ‘return home’ of Greek néomai with a different sense of ‘return’ in the Germanic evidence, where ‘return’ is to a state, ‘life’, rather than to a place, ‘home’. The notion of ‘returning to life’, the basic meaning of the root in Germanic, can also be demonstrated for the Greek root in the traditional diction of Greek epic, where “returning home” implies “returning to life” in a demonstrably old Homeric formula. In the thrice-repeated formula ἄσμενοι ἐκ θανάτοιο the form ἄσμενοι is to be reconstructed as a root aorist participle of néomai with zero-grade of the root (*ṇs-menoi), and the formula means literally “having returned from death.” In the context of Odysseus’s adventures in the Odyssey, where this formula caps three adventures in which some of the hero’s men perish and the others are saved, a “return from death” is recast as an “escape from death.” The stronger sense of a “return from death,” which the formula expressed in earlier epic tradition, bears comparison with the meaning “return to life” of the Germanic evidence. [3] The notion of a return to a place in néomai ‘return home’ is also old, as the Sanskrit evidence attests. While násate ‘resort to’ is bleached in meaning, it shows that physical movement was implied in the IE verb from which the Greek and Sanskrit verbs descend; even the notion of a “return home” can be reconstructed for IE on the basis of a Sanskrit noun with zero-grade of the root *nes-, namely astam ‘home’ from *ṇs-to.

In sum, the line between the notions of returning to a place and returning to a state may not have been sharply drawn in Indo-European, especially in the domain of myth and poetics. In Germanic the notion of a state predominates, whereas in Greek a place and a state continue to coexist in the meaning of the root, although the notion of a state (“life”) has faded by the time of Homeric epic.

If “return” was the basic notion of the root of nóos the noun most likely designated “consciousness” in the first place. [4] Waking and sleeping are a daily alternation between consciousness and unconsciousness, and unconsciousness also characterizes the dead in ancient myth: among the dead only Teiresias, the exception to the rule, has nóos in the Odyssey: τῷ καὶ τεθνηῶτι νόον πόρε Περσεφόνεια / οἴῳ πεπνῦσθαι· τοὶ δὲ σκιαὶ ἀΐσσουσιν (10.494–495). “Consciousness” is a “return to life,” whether for one and all each morning, or from the realm of the dead in the context of myth and ritual. [5]

“Consciousness” seems a satisfactory notion for what nóos originally designated, but it leaves unanswered the exact semantics of nóos as a verbal noun. Was nóos simply a ‘returning’ in contrast to ‘nóstos’, a ‘return’? Or was there a sharper semantic distinction between the two nouns? The Homeric figure Nestor, whose name contains the root *nes-, is the key to this question. The name Νέστωρ is discussed in a separate CIGE entry.

 

A. Etymologically, the form is a compound *hóm-āros meaning ‘he who fits / joins together’, composed of the prefix homo– ‘together’ and the root of the verb arariskein (ἀρ-αρ-ίσκειν) ‘fit, join’. So Hómēros is ‘he who fits [the song] together’.

Nagy emphasizes the importance of the word kúklos in building a metaphorical relationship between Homeric poetry, the epic cycle, and the master-carpenter, téktōn. Thus “the etymology of Hómēros, in the sense of ‘fitting together’, is an aspect of this metaphor: a master poet ‘fits together’ pieces of poetry that are made ready to be parts of an integrated whole just as a master carpenter or joiner ‘fits together’ or ‘joins’ pieces of wood that are made ready to be parts of a chariot wheel.”

B. “The etymology of the noun hómēros (ὅμηρος) … [has] the sense of ‘hostage’, which derives from the same compound *hóm-āros meaning ‘he who fits / joins together’.” (2§331)

Further, “a hostage is the visible sign of a pact or agreement between two parties, that is, of a ‘joining together’ or ‘bonding’. Such a meaning evidently derives from metaphors of social bonding inherent in derivatives of ararískein (ἀρ-αρ-ίσκειν) ‘fit, join’: an ideal case in point is arthmós (ἀρθμός) ‘bond, league, friendship’ and related forms. The etymology of the noun hómēros (ὅμηρος) in the sense of ‘hostage’ is in turn compatible in meaning with the etymology of the verb homēreîn/ homēreúein (ὁμηρεῖν / ὁμηρεύειν) in the sense of ‘joining’ the company of someone or ‘accompanying’ someone.” (2§332)

 

C. The reconstructed noun *hóm-āros can be interpreted as a compound formation meaning ’he who fits [the song] together’, composed of the prefix homo– (ὁμο-) ‘together’ and the root ar– of the verb ararískein (ἀραρίσκειν). As we see from a survey of the oldest attested formations involving the root ar-, this form expresses primarily the idea of woodwork and secondarily the idea of other handicrafts that involve the fitting together of distinct pieces into a unified whole. Moreover, this form extends metaphorically to the art of songmaking. The name Hómēros in its traditional contexts is linked to all these meanings. The name means literally ‘joiner’ or ‘carpenter’. So, etymologically, Hómēros is a master joiner of woodwork; and, metaphorically, Homer is a master joiner of song. (2§282 )

 

The adjective poikílos, Nagy argues, generally means ‘varied’, with the specialized meaning ‘pattern-woven’. It is closely related to the verb poikíllein, which means ‘pattern-weave’. The noun poikílma is also derived from the verb poikíllein ’pattern-weave’, and refers to fabric that is “woven … rather than embroidered.” Nagy cites the following comparative evidence for interpreting poikíllein as referring to pattern-weaving: “The verb poikíllein itself, along with the adjective poikílos, meaning ‘varied’, is derived from the root *peik-, also attested in Latin pictūra. So poikíllein means literally ‘make (things) be poikíla’, that is, ‘make (things) be varied’. These words poikílos and poikíllein convey not only the general idea of variation. They convey also the specific idea of a picture, whether static or moving: in fact, they are cognate with the Latin word pictūra. This word evokes for us the celebrated formulation ut pictūra poesis ‘like the painting is the poetry’ in Horace’s Ars Poetica (Epistulae 2.3.361).” In applying this etymology to the epithet of Aphrodite, poikilóthronos (Sappho Song 1.1), Nagy understands Aphrodite poikilothronos as ‘Our Lady of the varied pattern-woven floral love charms’.

 

The starting point for this examination of poludeukḗs is Odyssey 19.520, where the nightingale is described as follows:

 

Aelian in De natura animalium (5.38) records a variant reading “poludeukḗs as an alternative to poluēkhés ‘with many resoundings’ in Odyssey 19 (521) and glosses it as τὴν ποικίλως μεμιμημένην ‘making imitation [mimesis] in a varied [poikílōs] way’. Aelian is interested mainly in the nightingale’s versatility as an imitator, but the epithet poludeukḗa draws attention also to the continuity of the singer’s performance.

If indeed poludeukḗs implies that the nightingale is τὴν ποικίλως μεμιμημένην ‘the one who makes imitation [mimesis] in a varied [ poikílōs ] way’, then this variant epithet poludeukḗs points to the songbird’s capacity for variety. But there is even more to Aelian’s description of the nightingale’s birdsong, since he insists on the notion of mimesis in his definition: τὴν ποικίλως μεμιμημένην ‘the one who makes imitation [mimesis] in a varied [poikílōs] way’. If Aelian is right, then the variant epithet poludeukḗs conveys not only variety but also the very idea of mimesis, which is translated here as ‘imitation’. If he is right, then poludeukḗs is closely parallel in meaning to poluēkhḗs ‘with many resoundings’, since ēkhṓ ‘resounding, echo’ likewise conveys the idea of mimesis. Moreover, there is a deeper meaning of mimesis, which can be understood by discovering the deeper meaning of the epithet poludeukḗs.

Pierre Chantraine in his Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque and Ernst Risch in his Wortbildung der homerischen Sprache are both uncertain about how to explain the meaning of the root *deuk / *duk in poludeukḗs, but they are both quite certain about the morphological relationship of this word with two other words, the negative adeukḗs and the adverb endukéōs. Aelian as well, in his discussion of poludeukḗs as an epithet of the nightingale, treats adeukḗs as the negative of poludeukḗs. He thinks that adeukḗs means ‘incapable of mimesis’. The word mimesis in such a context means more than ‘imitation’: it conveys also a deeper sense of continuity.

Another related word is endukéōs, which is associated with the notion of an uninterrupted sequence, as for example in contexts like the verse in Odyssey xiv (337) involving the action of sending or accompanying someone on a journey (verb pémpein at 333, 334, 338). Conversely, the negative adeukḗs occurs in contexts referring to an interrupted sequence, as in a quoted question about the Achaeans coming home from Troy in Odyssey 4 (489).

The words poludeukḗs, adeukḗs and endukéōs “are all derived from the same root *deuk / *duk that we find in Latin dūcere, dux.”

In their etymological dictionary of Latin, Ernout and Meillet explain dūcere as an old pastoral word conveying the basic idea of pull rather than push (agere): the herdsman or dux is “pulling” or leading (dūcere) the herd when he goes in front, while he is “pushing” or driving (agere) when he is coming up from behind. Going beyond this formulation of Ernout and Meillet, Emile Benveniste adds the notion of a continuum, so that the dux who marches in front of the aggregate is necessarily connected, as the prime linking force, as it were, to the train that follows.

The Latin expression “fīlum dēdūcere ‘draw out a thread [in spinning]’ (e.g. Ovid Metamorphoses 4.36; cf. Tibullus 1.3.86)” is comparable to places where the verbs dūcere or dēdūcere are “metaphorically combined with objects like carmen ‘song’ to mean ‘compose the song’ (e.g. Propertius 4.6.13, Ovid Metamorphoses 1.4).

The association of the root *deuk / *duk with the idea of songmaking takes us back to the meaning of poludeukḗs, variant epithet for the nightingale’s song in Odyssey 19 (521), which we may now interpret as meaning ‘having much continuity’ or ‘having continuity in many different ways’ or even ‘patterning in many ways’ (or ‘many times’). The translation ‘patterning’ highlights the idea of continuity through variety and diversity. And the patterns of continuity through variety and diversity are conceived as the distinctly poetic skills of songmaking in performance. Morevoer, the idea of ‘many different ways’ (or ‘many times’) is an inherently agonistic one, with each new performance ever competing against previous performances. Thus poludeukḗs in the sense of ‘patterning in many different ways’ (or ‘many times’) is an apt description of oral tradition itself.”

 

The earliest attestation of the myth about Promētheús (Προμηθεύς) and Epimētheús (Ἐπιμηθεύς) is in Hesiodic poetry: Theogony (507–616) and Works and Days (47–105), on which see the rich analysis by Vernant (1974:103–120, 177–194, commented by Nagy 1990:80–81). The story goes that Promētheús tricked Zeus on the occasion of a proto-sacrificial division of the meat of a slaughtered ox. He wrapped the ox’s meat in its hide, while he covered the bones of the animal in fat. After choosing the heap covered in fat, Zeus realized that the Titan had tricked him. As a consequence, he decided to conceal fire from the mortal men. But Promētheús stole it from Zeus and bestowed it to humanity. This time, Zeus ordered to Hephaestus to mold a beautiful virgin, whom the Olympians adorned with all gifts, Pandora. Despite the warnings of his brother Promētheús, Epimētheús decided to open the lid of Pandora’s box, which released all sorts of woes for the mortal men.

According to ancient commentators, the name Promētheús was related to the Greek adjective promēthḗs (προμηθής) ‘forethinking’ and to the verb promanthánō (προμανθάνω) ‘to learn in advance’. As such, the name Promētheús is the exact opposite of his brother’s, Epimētheús, which is connected with the verb epimanthánō (ἐπιμανθάνω) ‘to learn after’. In contrasting “artful and wily Promētheús” and “defective in his thinking Epimētheús” as Hesiodic poetry retains a reflex of the synchronic etymology of the terms:

 

Although the names ‘Forethought’ and ‘Afterthought’ suit the two brothers, who display opposite intellectual qualities, it is likely that the name Promētheús has a different etymology and that the connection with both promanthánō and Epimētheús are secondary developments which took place within Greek.

It has long been proposed that the name of Greek Promētheús is etymologically related to Sanskrit pramantha– ‘fire-drill’ (Kuhn 1886:17–8), a nominal derivative to the same Vedic root as manthⁱ ‘to churn, to rub’, which goes back to the Indo-European root *menth₂– ‘to churn, to rub’. Vedic manthⁱ commonly applies to the production of fire in both the Rigveda and late Vedic texts: as pointed out by Nagy 1990:105, Mātariśvan, the Vedic fire-thief, produces fire by friction, a ritual gesture commonly reproduced in the Vedic fire-sacrifice, compare the collocation agním manthāma ‘let us rub fire’ (Rigveda 3.29.1d). However, despite the meaning and collocations of Vedic manthⁱ and pramantha-, which would be highly compatible with the role of Promētheús in Greek, the two terms are phonologically incompatible with the Greek name: it is impossible to derive a basis *pro-māth – (Greek Προμηθεύς, Thessalian Προμᾱθεύς) from a root *menth₂–. The coincidence between Promētheús and pramantha– ‘fire-drill’ can therefore be classified as a Scheingleichung, that is to say, as an ‘apparent/superficial coincidence’ which can be proved as false through the analysis of the linguistic details.

The name of Promētheús can actually be traced back to an Indo-European verbal root *math₂– ‘to rob’, which underlies Vedic mathⁱ ‘to rob’. The past participle mathitá- happens to be identical to the one of Vedic manthⁱ ‘to rub’, which opens to a palette of different interpretations in the passages involving the fire-theft episode: take, for instance, the final phrase of Rigveda 3.9: devébhyo mathitám pári, which, as noticed by Jamison – Brereton (2014:481), “is translated ‘stolen from among the gods,’ could also mean ‘churned from among the gods.’” As Narten (1960:132–135) firstly pointed out, in the Rigveda, Vedic mathⁱ describes the main achievement of the fire-thief Mātariśvan, who is the Vedic counterpart of Promētheús:

 

More specifically, since Greek names in -eús usually pair with names in -o-, just as in the case of ^hippeús ‘horseman’ and ^híppos ‘horse’ (Schindler 1976), a name Pro-mētheús might have paired with a form reconstructable as *pro-māthó- a derivative with lengthened a-grade to the root *math₂– ‘to rob’ (see Oettinger 2016), underlying the Sanskrit term pramātha– ‘theft’. The very same root may underlie the name of another Old Indic fire-thief. As firstly suggested by Fay (1904:155), in the Śatapatha-Brāhmaṇa (1.4.1.10-21), Agni is said to have been carried in the mouth of King Māthava, who accidentally let him flash out in pronouncing the word for ‘ghee.’ The name Māthava, who acts as a ‘fire-concealer’ in the Vedic episode, could be a further Old Indic congener of Greek Promētheús (Gotō 2000:110, 2014:241).

As for Greek *Promātheus / *Promētheus, although the outcome -t^h– notated 〈θ〉 from a sequence *-th₂– (like in Indo-European *math₂–) is apparently problematic in Greek, the synchronic etymology of the Titan’s name as ‘Forethought’ may have played a role in reshaping *Promāteus (the putative outcome of *pro-māth₂–) to *Promātheus / *Promētheus (Massetti 2018:155).

In conclusion, the data from Indo-European phraseology show that Promētheús is the ‘Thief’ by name. However, his name was re-interpreted as ‘Forethought’ in Greek. The analysis additionally allows us to establish a relative chronology for the creation of the brother of Promētheús, Epimētheús ‘Afterthought’. This character must have entered Greek myth after the name of Promētheús had come to be perceived by the Greek speakers as ‘Mr. Forethought’.

 

Brugmann’s etymology of the word sēma ‘sign’ connects it to the Indic dhyāma ‘thought’ (Brugmann 1886–1900 2:348); the forms would then reflect an Indo-European *d^hiéh₂–mn- (Beekes 2010 s.v.). Nagy supports Brugmann’s etymology (Greek Mythology and Poetics Chapter 8):

 

Nagy thus endeavors “to show that the semantics of sêma are indeed connected with the semantics of thinking” by examining the word “not only in context but also specifically in the contexts of its behavior within the formulaic systems of archaic Greek poetic diction” (202), namely, by considering its relationship to the noun nóos ’mind, sense, perception’, and the derivative verb noéō ’perceive, take note, think, think through’ (203).

Nagy adduces a number of literary examples to demonstrate that in Greek, a sēma serves as a key to recognition, that recognition requires interpretation, and that nóos is the Greek word expressing the “basic faculty of recognition and interpretation” (204). For example, before the chariot race in the funeral games of Patroklos in Book 23 of the Iliad, Nestor gives his son Antilokhos a sign (sêma) when he gives him advice about how to win the chariot race, a sign which Antilokhos understands: “Antilokhos himself uses the verb noéō to express what he is doing (νοήσω 415). What, then, makes Nestor’s sēma work as a key to victory? It is the ability of his son to recognize how the sēma works within its code, which is equated with simply noticing it. And the word for this noticing/recognition is noéō” (209). Nestor’s advice is to turn as closely as possible to the térma ’turning point’ (Iliad 23.327–345), which he says is either the “tomb [sēma] of a man who died a long time ago, or it was a turning post in the times of earlier men” (Iliad 23.331–332) (215). Nagy connects the meaning of sēma ’tomb’ with the meaning ‘sign’: “As a ‘sign’ of the dead hero, the ‘tomb’ is a reminder of the hero and his kléos” (216).

The associations between the meanings of sēma lead Nagy to a discussion of Douglas Frame’s (1978) etymology of the word nóos: “The question is: what do these associations of sêma have to do with the semantics of nóos? As Frame argues in the course of his illuminating hook, nóos is an action-noun derived from the Indo-European root-verb *nes– meaning ‘return to light and life’. . . . The root-verb *nes– is attested in Greek as néomai, but in this case it means simply ‘return’, not ‘return to light and life’. One derivative of néomai is nóstos ’return, homecoming’—and another is nóos. As Frame also argues, the theme of ‘return to light and life’ is recovered by way of the pervasive interplay between the themes of nóos and nóstos within the overall framework of the Odyssey: the key to the nóstos ‘homecoming’ of Odysseus is his nóos, and the nóstos is endangered whenever the nóos is threatened by lḗthē ‘forgetfulness’, as in the story of the Lotus-Eaters. There are in fact two aspects of nóstos in the Odyssey: one is of course the hero’s return from Troy, and the other, just as important, is his return from Hades. Moreover, the theme of Odysseus’s descent and subsequent nóstos ‘return’ from Hades converges with the solar dynamics of sunset and subsequent sunrise. The movement is from dark to light, from unconsciousness to consciousness, as expressed by nóos” (218–219).

Nagy connects this to the language of the Iliadic chariot race:

 

In conclusion, Nagy connects the interpretation of to the reading of poetry: “the testimony of Greek poetry about sēma and nóēsis turns out to be a lesson in how to read this poetry: the Greek poem is a sēma that requires the nóēsis of those who hear it” (222).

 

A. The meaning of this name can be connected with the presence of the tomb of the hero Achilles in the environs of that city. Confirmed by comparative evidence in another part of the Greek-speaking world, the city of Taras (Latin Tarentum, modern Taranto) in Magna Graecia offers a traditional explanation for the naming of the city after a sacred space of Achilles that was called Sígeion by ‘the Trojans’ who once lived there. The morphology of the place name Sígeion is parallel to that of Akhílleion; the root of the form Sígeion, is cognate with the root of the adverb sîga ’silently’ and of its derivatives, including the verb sigân ’be silent’ and the adjective sígēlos ’silent’. The name Sígēlos is even attested as the secret name of a cult hero (see Alciphron Letters 3.22.3).

The observance of reverential silence in passing by the tomb of a cult hero is relevant to the naming of another Aeolian site, Sigíā, which is directly comparable to the naming of the old Aeolian site Sígeion. The site of Sigíā is associated with rocky heights overlooking the Hellespont and with tumuli marking the burial places of cult heroes. Both Sígeion and Sigía refer to heights imagined as markers of sacred places where tombs of heroes are located. As for the actual meaning of these Aeolic place names Sígeion and Sigía, both signal a sacred space of reverential silence. By metonymy, the naming of these heights Sígeion and Sigíā is connected with the practice of observing reverential silence at the tombs of heroes.

 

B. Sígeion: A site in the Troad near which the tomb of Achilles was said to be located; “Achilles was worshipped as a cult hero at this tomb” (Homer the Preclassic II§44). The root of Sígeion is “cognate with the root of the adverb sīga ’silently’ and of its derivatives, including the verb sigân ’be silent’ and the adjective sígēlos ’silent’ (II§134). According to Nagy, the name of the town has its origins in the ritual silence owed to the sacred spaces of cult heroes; he draws a parallel from a reference in Alciphron Letters 3.22.3 to a cult hero Sígēlos and the custom that ”those who pass by the tomb of the cult hero Sígēlos must observe reverential silence” (II§134). The name Sígeion also parallels that of another Aeolian site, Sigíā, which he connects with the name of one of the old cities in the region, Kolōnai, from the plural of kolōnē, ‘tumulus’ (II§135). Nagy concludes that “both Sígeion and Sigíā refer to heights imagined as markers of sacred places where tombs of heroes are located. As for the actual meaning of these Aeolic place names Sígeion and Sigíā, both signal a sacred space of reverential silence. By metonymy, the naming of these heights Sígeion and Sigíā is connected with the practice of observing reverential silence at the tombs of heroes” (Homer the Preclassic II§136).

 

The etymology of húbris is uncertain but deserves attention in view of the cultural importance of the concept. In Homer, húbris is attested in contexts of violence and excess. In particular, Penelope’s suitors are characterized by húbris, and their húbris is both hupérbios ‘exceedingly violent’ (Odyssey 1.368=4.321, 16.410) and atásthalos, a difficult adjective with clear connotations of excess, conventionally translated as ‘reckless, excessive’ (Odyssey 16.86).

The connection between húbris and atasthalíē ‘recklessness, excess’ is also evidenced in Hesiod, where húbris is again atásthalos (Works and Days 134). In Works and Days, húbris is a feature of both the silver (134) and the bronze generations (146). The bronze generation is also described as óbrimos (δεινόν τε καὶ ὄβριμον ‘terrible and mighty’ (145); see below on a possible etymological connection between húbris and óbrimos).

Αnalyzing Pindar’s Pythian 3, addressed to Hieron the tyrant of Syracuse, Nagy observes that the poet, in praising Hieron’s wealth, also issues an implicit warning about the potential danger of excess and the reversals of fortune that can befall those whose material prosperity falls too heavily on them (Nagy 1994:280281). The lines in question are these:

 

Nagy argues that in this passage ἐπιβρίσαις / epibrísais, derived from the verb epi-brī́thō ‘weigh heavily’, hints at húbris, since “this verb is semantically parallel to the noun húbris, the etymology of which is recapitulated in these quoted words of Pindar concerning material prosperity, ólbos, described as coming down with its full weight upon its owner.”

The etymology in question is as follows: húbris is composed of the prefix hu-/u- (ὑ-/ὐ-) in the sense of epí- (ἐπί-) ‘on, on top of’ and bri-/brī- (βρι-/βρῑ-) as in brī́thō ‘to be laden, heavy, full of’ and briarós ‘heavy, massive, solid, strong’. (Perpillou 1987; Chantraine 1968-1980 (DELG) under ὕβρις ascribes this suggestion to “les étymologistes.”)

The stem brī/bri ‘heavy’ is attested in Greek in two forms. The long-vowel form is evidenced by a retrojected word βρῑ, ascribed to Hesiod: Ἡσιόδου δέ, ὅτι τὸ βριθὺ καὶ βριαρὸν βρῖ λέγει ‘[An example on apocope] from Hesiod is that he says brī for brithú and briarón’ (Hesiod fragment 239 MW via Strabo 8.5.3). The short-vowel variant is attested in Herodian: πᾶσα λέξις ἀπὸ τῆς βρι συλλαβῆς ἀρχομένη διὰ τοῦ ι γράφεται οἷον Βρισηΐς, βρί τὸ μέγα, βριθοσύνη τὸ βάρος, βριαρός ὁ ἰσχυρός, βριάειν αὔξειν καὶ οὐκ ἔχει δίφθογγον ‘Every word beginning with the syllable -bri- is written with -i- and not with a diphthong, for example Brisēḯs, brí ‘great’, brithosúnē ‘weight’, briarós ‘strong’, briáein ‘to increase’.’ (Herodian On Orthography 3.2.428). García Ramón traces both forms, brī and bri, to IE * g^u̯rh₂-i, the long form by laryngeal metathesis: *g^u̯rih₂– < g^u̯r̥h₂-i-. Among other reflexes of * g^u̯r̥h₂-i- are Vedic girí- and Avestan gairi– ‘high mountain’, Albanian gur, Armenian kar ‘strength, force.’ In Greek, the stem brī /bri is also found in a denominative brīáō which has a double stative/causative function, both ‘to be heavy/strong’ and ‘to make heavy/strong’, as in Works and Days 5: ῥέα μὲν γὰρ βριάει, ῥέα δὲ βριάοντα χαλέπτει ‘for he [Zeus] easily makes one strong, and easily crushes the one who is strong’. Derivatives built on the same stem include brī́thō ‘to be heavy, weighed down’ and also ‘to outweigh, prevail’, brīthús ‘heavy’, brιarós ‘heavy’. All these forms ultimately belong to the root of barús (βαρύς) < *g^u̯r̥h₂-ú, which, de Lamberterie suggests, is a verbal root *g^u̯erh₂– ‘to crush, press with one’s weight’> ‘to be heavy, strong’ (de Lamberterie 1982).

Homeric óbrimos ‘strong, mighty’ may belong to the same group (see Perpillou 1987, de Lamberterie 1990, García Ramón 2009). De Lamberterie discusses further important derivatives, a series of nominal forms in -m-, rare but certainly ancient, such as the denominative brīmámai ‘to scold, threaten’, and adjective brimós (glossed by Hesychius as μέγας, χαλεπός ‘big, heavy’).

A Mycenean personal name pu₂-ke-qi-ri, attested in Pylos (PY Ta 711) and Thebes (TH Of 27.3, TH Gp 119.1), also contains an element -bri. This name was interpreted by Lejeune (1965) as Φυγέ-βρις. García Ramón analyzes it as Phugeg^wrīns (the dative form pu₂-ke-qi-ri-ne on TH Gp119.1 confirms that the second member of the compound in an n-stem). On the basis of the Homeric usage brīthús, barús, and óbrimos, García-Ramón argues that the Mycenean Phugeg^wrīns “reflects a verbal phrase, namely a two-member collocation consisting of a verb ESCAPE and a transferred epithet HEAVY.” The transferred epithet designates spear, misfortune, or enemy/Ares. The name, therefore, can be understood as ‘he who escapes the heavy spear/misfortune/enemy’ (García Ramón 2009:19), this being a characteristic of a successful warrior. García Ramón (2009:14n45) notes that “it is possible that ὕβρις belongs to the same lexical group, if it originally means “pression sur” (Perpillou 1987:197) and if ὑ- actually matches ἐπί.” In support of this etymology, and specifically of the equivalence between prefixes epi– (ἐπί) and hu- (ὑ-), de Lamberterie adduces Iliad 7.343 μὴ ποτ’ ἐπιβρίσῃ πόλεμος Τρώων ‘lest the Trojan attack crushes [us]’ and argues that the etymological meaning of húbris suggested by Perpillou, namely ‘pressure upon’, is part of a coherent phraseology associated with the element bri-. In Homer, brīthús, briáō and óbrimos belong to the epic vocabulary of war in which heaviness is linked to violence and oppression (de Lamberterie 1990:534-541).

In Hesiod, a direct link is made between húbris and the verb barúthō ‘to weigh down’ (which, in turn, is connected to br ī́ thō ‘to be heavy’):

 

The sentiment of these Hesiodic lines is nearly equivalent to that expressed in Pindar’s Pythian 3.105–106, discussed by Nagy and quoted at the beginning of this entry (Nagy 1994:280–281). In both cases, the mortal is unable to bear the weight that falls upon him. In Hesiod, this weight is explicitly húbris. In Pindar, the weight is that of excessive prosperity, ólbos, but, as Nagy, suggests, a hint at húbris is contained in the participle ἐπιβρίσαις / epibrísais (derived from epi-brī́thō ‘weigh heavily’), which recapitulates the etymology of húbris (the prefix epi– (ἐπί) corresponds to hu- (ὑ-) and is followed, as in húbris, by the stem bri-).

The etymological connection between húbris and brī́thō/brīarós, then, correlates with the poetic connotations of húbris, which link this word both to violence and to the notion of excess. In support of his analysis of epi-brī́thō in Pythian 3, Nagy observes that “the built-in connotations of húbris in this quoted Pindaric passage [Pythian 3.105-106] are reinforced by the following two parallels (Nagy 1994: 281):

 

The derivation of húbris from bri-/brī- has to remain uncertain because of the scarcity of evidence for the prefix hu-/u-, whose existencе was advocated by Perpillou (1987). The most likely attestations of the prefix are Cypriot ὔχηρος = ἐπίχειρον ’gratuity’ (ICS 217.5, 15) and ὐ τύχα = ἐπὶ τύχῃ (ICS 266, where u-tu-ka in place of the common i-tu-ka (ἰ(ν) τύχα(ι)) is so interpreted by Χατζηϊωάννου 1971, but may stand for σὺν τύχῃ). Α Cypriot gloss in Hesychius may constitute further evidence, although here the prefix seems to appear in the form eu-, not hu-/u-:

 

An alternative etymology, not connected to synchronic contexts of húbris, is proposed by Alexander Nikolaev (2004), who suggests that húbris goes back to an i-stem abstract noun *Hxi̯ó/é(h₂)g^u̯-ri ‘power’ (transponant), internally derived from *Hxi̯á(h₂)gu̯-ro ‘mighty’, which is continued by Greek habrós ‘delicate’, both words being built to the root of Greek hḗbē ‘youth’, the preform of which Nikolaev reconstructs as *Hxi̯ēh₂g u̯-eh₂. Nikolaev’s suggestion involves a number of presuppositions, among them the modification of the pre-form of hḗbē from the usual *Hxi̯ēgu̯-eh₂ to *Hxi̯ēh₂gu̯-eh₂ in light of its proposed connection with habrós, which, however, is unclear and semantically difficult. One has further to assume a subsequent loss of h₂ by the so-called Wetter-rule (postulating the loss of a laryngeal which follows a vowel and precedes a consonant and a sonorant), which is debatable, and an application of Cowgill’s law (o>u in labial environment) which conflicts with a recently updated formulation of this law (Vine 1999). Semantically, Nikolaev’s theory suggests that an earlier meaning of húbris is ‘strength’ or perhaps ‘strength of youth’, depending on the exact historical semantics of hḗbē.

Although there is no consensus regarding the prehistory of húbris, synchronic semantics of this word in its poetic contexts support the etymology advocated by Perpillou, Nagy, and de Lamberterie. The salience of the connection between húbris and the idea of heaviness/weighing down is demonstrated by Nagy’s analyses of húbris in Pindar, Theognis, and Solon.

 

Phorōneús (Φορωνεύς) is the name of the first man according to a local Argive tradition, where his figure overlaps with that of Prometheus, Φορωνέα ἐν τῇ γῇ ταύτῃ γενέσθαι πρῶτον […] οὐ γάρ τι ὁμολογοῦσι δοῦναι πῦρ Προμηθέα ἀνθρώποις, ἀλλὰ ἐς Φορωνέα τοῦ πυρὸς μετάγειν ἐθέλουσι τὴν εὕρεσιν “(some say that) Phoroneus was the first man in this land […] for they do not admit that fire was given to mankind by Prometheus, but insist on assigning the discovery of fire to Phoroneus” (Pausanias Description of Greece 2.15.5).

The name Phorōneús reflects a personal name ending in –eús, which in Greek usually occurs beside a thematic stem in –os, for example híppos ‘horse’ beside hippeús ‘horseman’. Not only do names in –ōneús pair with thematic stems in –ōnós, but sometimes they also point to an original n-stem as their derivational basis. For instance, kolōnós ‘hill’ (κολωνός Homeric Hymn 2.272) pairs with Kolōneús (Κολωνεύς, toponym in Inscriptiones Graecae 2.944.48); meledōnós (μελεδωνός) ‘attendant, guardian’ (Herodotus Histories 3.61) pairs with melodōneús (μελεδωνεύς) ‘attendant, guardian’ (Theocritus Idylls 24.106). A man’s name Phorōnós is preserved in the corpus of the Suida (under φ 616): Φορωνεύς· ὄνομα. καὶ Φόρωνος, ὄνομα κύριον “Phorōneús: name. Also Phorōnós, proper name.” Both Phorōneús and Phorōnós belong to the same root as Greek phérō (φέρω) ‘bring’, that is to say, Indo-European *bher– ‘bring, carry’, which underlies verbs for ‘carry, bring’ in several languages, such as Latin ferō, Vedic bhar, Gothic bairan. The etymology of the personal name, together with the role of Phorōneús in the Argive tradition, is a clue at the inherited background of this figure.

If the ‘Argive Prometheus’ Phoroneus is ‘the one who brings (something)’, Prometheus is the ‘fire-bringer’, as evidenced by his epithet pūrphóros (πυρφόρος) in Sophocles’s Oedipus in Colonus 55. In turn, the Vedic counterpart of Prometheus, Mātariśvan, is described both as the ‘fire-robber’ and the ‘fire-bringer’. Indeed, Vedic bhar ‘bring’ (also occurring in a prefixed form, ā́-bhar) often describes Mātariśvan’s achievement: Rigveda 1.93.6a ā́nyáṃ divó mātaríśvā jabhāra “Mātariśvan bore the one here from heaven” (translation Jamison and Brereton 2014).

Just as Phorōneús is both a ‘fire bringer’ and the ‘first Argive man’, the role of ‘fire-bringer’ is assigned to the first inhabitant of a place in other literary traditions. In a north Scandinavian tradition, the Guta Saga, it is Þieluar, Gotland’s first inhabitant, that brought fire on the island for the first time, cf. Gutland hitti fyrsti maþr þann sum Þieluar hit … En þann maþr quam fyrsti eldi a land “Gotland was first discovered by a man named Þieluar … that man, however, was the first that brought fire to the island.”

In conclusion, Phorōneús can be identified as a doppelgänger of the fire-thief. Indeed, like Prometheus in Greek and Mātariśvan in Vedic he is a ‘fire-bringer’. At the same time, the role of Phorōneús as the first inhabitant of Argos parallels that of the Gutnic fire-bringer Þieluar.

 

The subastantive phúlaх (φύλαξ) means ‘sentinel’ and is first attested in the Greek epics. As convincingly proposed by Kölligan (2016:127–131), it can be traced back to the Indo-European root *b^helH– ‘to utter a sound’, which, among others, underlies Old English bellan ‘to cry out’, Old High German bellan ‘to bark’, and Lithuanian prabìlti ‘to start to talk.’ Greek substantives in –ak– commonly pair with thematic forms and, possibly, thematic verbs in –i̯e/o-. For instance, Greek múlax (μύλαξ) ‘millstone’ exists besides the feminine substantive múlē ‘hand-mill’ (μύλη), which ultimately points of a thematic stem *molo/eh₂-, and a present múllō ‘to have sex’ (μύλλω, found in Theocritus 4.58), reflecting *molh₂ i̯e/o– with u -vocalism mul– instead of mol– due to the evolution of the group *oli̯– into Greek –ull– (Vine 1999:564–567, 582). In an analogous way, phúlax may pair with a thematic form *phólos and a present in *phol(H)–i̯e/o– (from *b^holH–i̯e/o-), which would have appeared as *phúllō in Greek. Although such a form is unattested, Old Norse beljan ‘to cry out’ may reflect a present *b^holH-i̯e/o-.

The phraseological analysis provides support for the proposed etymology. Indeed, sentinels are commonly associated with the idea of ‘emitting a loud sound, giving the alarm’ in Greek.

The parallel between barking dogs and sentinels is also found in Plato: In the Republic (375a, 375e), Plato explicitly compares the sentinels of the ideal state, phúlakes, to young dogs (skúlakes, kúnes).

Finally, it is significant that Delphic hero Phúlakos is connected to the idea of great clamor of war. Herodotus (8.37.3) tells us that when the Persians were attacking the temple of Athena Pronaia at Delphi (480BCE) two rocks broke off from Parnassus and came rushing [[crushing?]] among them, while ‘a shout and a cry of triumph’ (βοή τε καὶ ἀλαλαγμός) came from the temple. According to the survivors, however, two local heroes, Phúlakos and Autónoos, had pursued the barbarians. The clamor heard from the temple could thus be connected with the alarm given by Phúlakos and Autónoos, the sentinels par excellence.

In conclusion, Greek phúlax (and Phúlakos) can be rightly identified as the ‘the one who gives the alarm.’ The phraseological analysis supports the etymological connection between Greek phúlax and the Indo-European root *b^helH– ‘to utter a sound.’

Chiron, the son of the nymph Philyra and of Cronus (Pherecydes fr. 2.3 M), is described in the epics as ‘the most righteous among the Centaurs’ (δικαιότατος Κενταύρων, Iliad 11.832) and as ‘having friendly thoughts’ (φίλα φρονέων, Iliad 4.219). His name is attested in three variants: Kheirōn (Χείρων) is the most recurrent in the literary sources (from Homer onward, with a few exceptions, such as Pindar, Euripides fr. 14.13 P, Acusilaus fr. 16.2 DK); Khīrōn (Χίρων) is often attested in the documentary sources (for example, Attic vase paintings of the fifth century BCE and one inscription from Thera in the sixth century BCE); Kherrōn (Χέρρων) occurs only in Alcaeus (fr. 42.9 V).

If Kheirōn (Χείρων) is the original form, the name may be related to Greek kheir (χείρ) ‘hand’ (Kretschmer 1919:58–62), meaning ‘the one who has a special hand’. The form Kherrōn (Χέρρων), if genuine and not the result of a secondary ‘aeolicization’, supports this assumption (compare χέρρες ‘hands’ Sappho fr. 90[1].2 V).

If Khīrōn is the primary form, the etymology is unclear. In this scenario, the forms Kheirōn and Kherrōn should both be explained as secondary formations under the influence of folk etymologies linking Chiron’s name to kheir ‘hand’ (Wachter 2001:263–264).

Without any doubt, ancient literary sources connected Chiron with the ‘healing hand’ and the ‘healing practice’ (kheirourgiā). Indeed, Chiron mentors a number of young heroes connected with both hunting and healing, such as Jason, Aristaeus, Asclepius, and Achilles. Specifically, Pindar says that Chiron ‘taught’ his students ‘the gentle-handed province of medicines’ (Χίρων … τὸν φαρμάκων δίδαξε μαλακόχειρα νόμον, Pindar Nemean 3.53–55). Additionally, the name of Jason (Ἰάσων), one of Chiron’s pupils, actually means ‘healer’ (compare Greek ἰάομαι ‘to treat’, ἰατήρ ‘physician’).

Chiron’s distinctive features are comparable to those of other divine figures who have a healing ‘hand’ (Greek kheir, Vedic hástaḥ, Hittite keššar, from the common Indo-European root *ghes-, enlarged with different suffixes) in other Indo-European traditions, namely the Vedic god Rudra, who has a ‘merciful’ (mr̥ḷayā́kuḥ, R̥gveda 2.33.7) or ‘healing hand’ (bheṣajaḥ … hástaḥ, R̥gveda 2.33.7), and the Hittite ‘Sun-god of the hand’ (Hittite kiššeraš ^DUTU-uš) invoked in the ritual of the Catalogue des Textes Hittites 402.

The three figures share an association with the activity and equipment of the hunt, that is, of the bow, arrows, and hounds. In the epics, Chiron, who is an experienced hunter, is mentioned in connection with remedies applied to arrow wounds (Iliad 4.217–219); however, he is killed by one of Heracles’ arrows (Diodorus Siculus Library 4.12.8, Hyginus Astronomica 2.38.1). Afterwards, he is transformed either into the constellation Sagittarius (‘the arrow shooter’ Lucan Pharsalia 6.393–394) or into the constellation Centaurus (Hyginus Astronomica 2.38.1). The Vedic god Rudra controls remedies while also causing diseases and death with his arrows. He is the god ‘who possesses good arrow’ (s_uviṣúḥ, R̥gveda 5.42.11) and ‘good bow’ (sudhánvā, R̥gveda 5.42.11), but he is also ‘men-smiting’ (nr̥hán-, R̥gveda 4.3.6). Additionally, he protects hounds, masters of hounds, and hunters (Vājasaneyi Saṃhitā 16.27–28). In the Hittite Ritual of Allī against Bewitching (Catalogue des Textes Hittites 402), the Hittite kiššeraš ^DUTU-uš (‘Sun-god of the hand’) is opposed to a hunter clay-figure, who has hounds, arrows, and a bow. In the ritual, the hunter and his arrows represent, like Rudra’s arrows, what the ‘Sun-god of the hand’ has to remove (Mouton 2010).

Chiron and Rudra have further traits in common. They are compared to or called ‘wild beasts’ (Greek φήρ; Vedic mr̥gáṃ ná bhīmám ‘like a fearful beast’, R̥gveda 2.33.11). Furthermore, they are inhabitants of mountains par excellence. Chiron dwells on Mount Pelion in Thessaly (Χείρων ἵν’ οἰκεῖ σεμνὰ Πηλίου βάθρα ‘where Chiron lives, the holy glens of Pelion’ Euripides Iphigenia at Aulis 705), and, like other Centaurs, he is a ‘mountain dweller’ (Greek oreiskōios, of all the Centaurs, Iliad 1.268). Likewise, Rudra is called ‘mountain dweller’ (giriśayá-, Vājasaneyi Saṃhitā 16.29). Finally, Chiron and Rudra are connected with young warriors: Chiron rears several young heroes and is a wise friend of heroes and gods. He bestows upon Peleus his ‘ash spear for the smiting of men’ (μελίην φόνον ἔμμεναι ἡρώεσσιν, Iliad 16.143, 19.390), suggests that he take Thetis as his bride by force ([Apollodorus] Library 3.168), and predicts to Apollo that he will carry away the nymph Cyrene after their consensual union (Pindar Pythian 9). In the R̥gveda, Rudra is the ‘father of the Maruts’ (pitar marutām, R̥gveda 2.33.1), a group of atmospheric deities portrayed as young warriors and young bride wooers, which vaguely recalls Chiron’s role with regard to young and unmarried heroes.

In conclusion, the folk etymological association between Chiron’s name and the ‘healing hand’ might itself be based on a set of associations shared by Greek and two cognate languages, Vedic and Anatolian. Here, (semi-)divine figures dwelling in wild and liminal realms are connected to young age groups, hunting activity, and the healing of arrow wounds, which frequently occur on the occasion of hunting incidents and group fights. Therefore, Chiron, the Greek ‘Mr. (Healing) Hand’, might be interpreted as a continuation of a more ancient ‘Mr. (Healing) Hand’.

 

Ōkeanós, often translated as ‘Ocean’, is the name of a cosmic potamós ‘river’ (Iliad 18.607, Odyssey 11.639) of Ancient Greek mythology, from whom all rivers and streams are said to flow (Iliad 21.195-197). A Titan son of Gaia ‘Earth’ and Ouranos ‘Sky’, according to Hesiod (Theogony 337) Okeanos was the father of all deified Potamoí ‘Rivers’ (on which see further Potamós), whom he begot together with the female Titan Tethys (on which see further Tēthū́s), his sister and spouse. The following are some of Okeanos’s earliest features in epic diction (as summarized in Nagy 1990:236-239) that are most relevant here: he marks the boundaries of Earth (Iliad 14.301-302); the Sun rises from him (Iliad 7.421-423; Odyssey 19.433-434) and falls into him at sunset (Iliad 8.485); correspondingly, Okeanos must surround the Earth, as also shown by the fact that the scenes of everyday life on the Shield of Achilles are framed as a whole by a depiction of Okeanos along the shield’s rim (Iliad 18.607-608). As pointed out by Nagy (1990:237), several of Okeanos’s features have correspondences in those of his and Tethys’s son Eridanos, on which see Ēridanós.

An Indo-European etymology for Ōkeanós is considered unlikely by Robert Beekes (2010:1677, s.v. Ὠκεανός), who states that “since the idea of a world river is not of IE origin, the word must be a loan”, and traces it back to “a Pre-Greek form *ūkān”: however, on the one hand, the latter reconstruction finds no parallels in any ancient or modern languages known to us; on the other hand, the belief that a generic body of water encircles the entire Earth may well be of Indo-Europeanm origin, as it is actually attested not only in the earliest Greek tradition (as argued by Nagy), but also (at least) in the Indic and Germanic ones (cf., e.g., West 2007:349 —who is, however, skeptical). Indeed, the role of Okeanos as “encircler of the Earth” has led Michael Janda (2005:231ff; 2010:57ff) to argue in favor of an IE etymology for Ancient Greek Ōkeanós that had been first formulated explicitly by Adalbert Kuhn (1860:240; building on previous proposals by Theodor Benfey and Adolphe Pictet—see Janda 2005:231-233 for a summary), namely as the reflex of an inherited formation *ō-ḱei̯m̥h₁no– ‘lying (up)on, near’, a middle participle stem of the verbal root *ḱei̯- ‘to lie, to be lying’ (Ancient Greek keî-mai ‘lie’, Vedic Sanskrit śáy-e ‘lie’) prefixed with the particle *ō- ‘(upo)on, near’ (Vedic preverb ā́- ‘near, near to, towards’), whose Vedic Sanskrit reflex ā-śáyāna- ‘lying (up)on, near’ is indeed attested several times with the serpent Vr̥tra (vr̥trá-) as referent and a term for body of water as location, either in the locative case (as sirā́su ‘in/on the streams’) or in the accusative case (as síndhum ‘towards the river’ and apá ‘towards the waters’):

In the light of these correspondences, Janda thus traces Okeanos’s character and name back to those of an inherited figure, the IE cosmic serpent *ōḱei̯m̥h₁no- ‘lying upon, near’ the waters that encircle the Earth (on which see further Pýthōn). Given that the expected Ancient Greek reflex of an inherited participle *ōḱei̯m̥h₁no- ‘lying (up)on, near’ would actually be something like †Ōkeemeno- or †Ōkeimēno- (the sequence *m̥h₁ may have both Ancient Greek eme and mē as outcomes), Janda needs to assume a (relatively unproblematic) early deletion of the laryngeal in compound form (by the so-called “neognós Rule”), which would indeed have resulted in *ōḱei̯m̥no- and its straightforward Ancient Greek outcome Ōkeanós; within this account, the Vedic Sanskrit reflex ā-śáyāna- must have undergone restoration of the suffix at some point (either as earlier *-m̥h₁no- or Vedic -āna-).

As discussed by Janda (2005:235-236), this proposal is supported by famous depictions of Okeanos himself with serpentine features in both iconographic sources (cf. LIMC 7/2, 22) and poetic texts, such as Hesiod’s Theogony, where Okeanos is described as heiligménos ‘coiling, winding, whirling’, a form of the verb elíssō ‘coil, wind, roll’, elsewhere often used with snakes and serpents as referents:

If one accepts Janda’s proposal that Okeanos originated as a Greek reflex of the IE cosmic serpent *ōḱei̯m̥h₁no- ‘lying (up)on, near’ the waters, a further interesting etymological and thematic parallel, supporting Janda’s analysis, may be found in Sanskrit epic. Within this tradition, one of the two names of the great cosmic serpent (beside Ananta-) is Sanskrit Śeṣa-, which, as briefly suggested during a CIGE meeting by Olga Levaniouk, may easily traced back to the IE verbal root *ḱei̯- ‘lie, be lying’ (Sanskrit śe-/śay-), matching his characterization as a giant serpent who lies around the earth and the encircling waters:

As for the derivational process leading to Sanskrit Śeṣa-, I analyze the latter as either a more recent deverbal formation (e.g., based on the aorist subjunctive stem śéṣa- attested in RV 1.174.4a) or as a reflex of earlier śeṣá-, regular outcome of an inherited formation of the “pexus type” (Höfler 2017:58ff) *ḱei̯-s-ó- ‘who has (the property of) lying around’, a possessive derivative of an earlier -s- abstract *ḱéi̯-es- ‘(the property of) lying around’. An exact parallel for this analysis would be the Vedic noun jeṣá- ‘winning, gaining’ (RV. 1.100.11; 6.44.18), which may be analyzed (see Höfler 2017:469 for the details) either as a recent deverbal formation (based on the aorist subjunctive stem jéṣa-) or as the substantivized reflex of an inherited “pexus type” *g^u̯ei̯-s-ó- ‘who has (the property of) winning, gaining’, a possessive derivative of an -s- abstract *g^u̯éi̯-es- ‘(the property of) winning, gaining’ (attested by the Vedic infinitive jiṣé in RV 1.111.4; 1.112.12).

If it is indeed a reflex of the IE cosmic serpent *ō-ḱei̯m̥h₁no- ‘lying (up)on, near’ the waters that encircle the Earth, the character and name of Okeanos may thus have a close etymological and thematic parallel in the character and name of the cosmic serpent Śeṣa of Sanskrit epic, if the latter is indeed a reflex of *ḱei̯-s-ó- ‘who has (the property of) lying around’.

On the names of Okeanos’s spouse and children, see further Tēthū́s and Potamós respectively; on other Greek reflexes of the IE cosmic serpent associated with water, see further Pýthōn.

Translations of Classical sources are adapted from the Loeb Classical Library. Translations of the RV are adapted from: