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The distribution of Greek loan–words in Terence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Robert Maltby
Robert Maltby
Affiliation:
University of Sheffield
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Extract

The aim of this paper is to discuss Terence's use of Greek loan-words and to examine their distribution by plays and by characters. How far are they used for stylistic effect and what relationship do they have to the themes of different plays? Is there any evidence for the concentration of these words, which often tend to be colloquial in tone, in the mouths of slaves and characters of low social status for the purposes of linguistic characterisation? Finally, does Terence's use of these words develop in the course of his short career? The usefuleness of a previous note on this subject by J. N. Hough is limited by the absence of any comprehensive list of occurrences, so that its objectivity is difficult to check. A more helpful discussion by P. Oksala gives a fuller list, but concentrates mainly on a comparison with Plautine usage in the type and frequency of these words and does not discuss their distribution within the Terentian corpus.

The question of characterisation by linguistic means, particularly in the field of New Comedy, has received considerable attention in recent years. The doctrine that a character's speech should be appropriate to his or her age, sex or social status, is well attested in the ancient world, with reference both to the theatre and to the law-courts. The ancient scholia on Aristophanes, as well as the fourth-century commentary on Terence that goes under the name of Donatus, contain comments on the appropriateness of particular words and phrases to particular character types. Leo, commenting long ago on the distribution of Greek words in Plautus, observed that they were used predominantly by slaves and characters of low social standing, a point made earlier by N. Tuchhaendler. More recently M. E. Gilleland has produced detailed statistical evidence for both Plautus and Terence which tends to back up these observations.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 35 , Issue 1 , May 1985 , pp. 110 - 123
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1985

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References

1 ‘Terence's Use of Greek Words’, CW 41 (1947), 18–21Google Scholar.

2 Die griechischen Lehnwörter in den Prosaschriften Ciceros (Helsinki, 1953), 24–35Google Scholar.

3 See especially: Katsouris, A. G., Linguistic and Stylistic Characterisation, Tragedy and Menander (Ioannina, 1975)Google Scholar and Gilleland, M. E., Linguistic Differentiation of Character Type and Sex in the Comedies of Plautus and Terence (Ph.D. thesis, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, 1979)Google Scholar. Cf. Sandbach, F. H., ‘Menander's Manipulation of Language for Dramatic Purposes’, Entretiens sur l'antiquité classique 16 (1969), 113–43Google Scholar; Arnott, W. G., ‘Phormio Parasitus’, G & R n.s. 17 (1970), 32–3Google Scholar; Maltby, R., ‘Linguistic Characterisation of Old Men in Terence’, CP 74 (1979), 136–7Google Scholar.

4 See Steinmann, H., De Artis Poeticae Veteris Parte Quae Est Περ⋯ Ἠθ⋯ν (diss. Göttingen, 1907), 32–3Google Scholar; Katsouris, op. cit. 22–32; Gilleland, op. cit. Ch. 1, pp. 1 f.

5 E.g. Plutarch, , Comp. Arist. et Menand. Compend. 1–2Google Scholar, 853d–f, Hor. AP 112–18.

6 E.g. Arist. Rhetoric 1390a24 ff.

7 Examples quoted in Gilleland, op. cit. 5.

8 Reich, V., ‘Sprachliche Charakteristik bei Terenz, Studien zum Kommentar des Donat’, WS 51 (1933), 72–94Google Scholar.

9 Plautinische Forschungen 2 (Berlin, 1912), i. 106Google Scholar, Gesch. der röm. Lit. (Berlin, 1913), 140Google Scholar; cf. Hermes 18 (1883), 566Google Scholar.

10 De Vocabulis Graecis in Ling. Lat. Translatis (diss. Berol. 1876), 70Google Scholar.

11 Op. cit. Ch. 2,84–178.

12 Gilleland gives the role lengths in words.

13 Attribution of lines according to the Oxford text of Kauer and Lindsay. Shared lines were counted as ½,⅓,¼ etc. depending on whether 2, 3 or 4 characters shared them. Line totals are given to the nearest ½.

14 This list is substantially the same as that of Oksala op. cit. (O) and Gilleland op. cit. (G), but differs in some points of detail. 14 words, mainly interjections, are included by me but omitted from one or both of the other lists: ecastor (omitted by G), edepol (G), eu (O), heia (O, G), hercle (G), mecastor (G), meherc(u)le (G), papae (G), pax (O), perperam (O; G), phy (O; G), plaga (G), scopulus (G), techina (G). 6 words, found in one or both of the other lists, are omitted by me on the grounds that their status as Greek loan-words is dubious: aerumna (found in O, G), ganeo (O), ganeum (O), gerro (G), leno (O), macellum (O, G). On aerumna, ganeo and ganeum, leno see Ernout, A., Meillet, A., Dictionnaire Etymologique de la Langue Latine, 20–1, 475 and 625Google Scholar respectively. On macellum in the sense ‘market’ as a probable loan-word from Latin into Greek see De Meyer, L., Ant. Class. 31 (1962), 148–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On gerro, Sonny, A.ALL 10 (1898), 377–8Google Scholar suggests a connection with Gk. γέρρα = αἰδοῖα and a conjectured comic figure * Γέρρων, but the exact etymology remains uncertain; cf. Ernout-Meillet 488, Walde-Hofmann, i. 596.

15 Hough, op. cit. 19 f.; Oksala, op. cit. 24 f.; Hofman-Szantyr, , Lat. Gramm. 2.2.2. pp. 760 f.Google Scholar; Kramer, J., Studii Clasice 18 (1979), 130Google Scholar.

16 Gilleland, op. cit. 92.

17 Total Plautine lines included in Gilleland's study I calculate to be 20,255; total Terentian lines, excluding prologues, are 5,834.

18 Hough, op. cit. 18.

19 Some 19 in all: astu, asymbolus, cetarius, citharistria, comissator, collacrimo, debacchor, lacrimula, parasitaster, phaleratus, prologus, psaltria, pytisso, eunuchus, riscus, satrapes, scopulus, scaenicus, stomachor.

20 The non-Ciceronian words are: apage, arrabo, astu, attat , bolus, cetarius, cistella, citharistria, colaphus, cyathus, debacchor, ecastor, mecastor, euge, hymenaeus, gonger, logus, mastigia, mussito, papae, parasitaster, patrisso, pax, pessulus, phaleratus, phy, platea, prologus, pytisso, riscus, sandalium, satrapes, sycophanta, symbola, asymbolus, techina. The words pol and edepol occur in Cicero only in quotations.

21 On Scipio's purity of style see Astin, A. E., Scipio Aemilianus (Oxford, 1967), 18 and notes 3 and 4Google Scholar.

22 See Ernout, A., Notes de Philologie latine (Geneva and Paris, 1971), 61–3Google Scholar.

23 On pessulus see Friedmann, B., Die ionischen und attischen Wörter im Altlatein (Helsingfors, 1937), 59 f., 66 ff., 98 fGoogle Scholar.

24 On tessera see B. Friedmann, op. cit. 59 f., 66, 117.

25 The spelling percunctor, attested from Livy, by popular etymology on cunctor, argues for its complete latinisation, at least by the Classical period.

26 On fucus and gubernator as early borrowings see B. Friedmann, op. cit. 86.

27 The later appearance of the form hilaris, modelled on tristis, argues for its complete latinisation, at least by the Classical period.

28 Hercules and the Dioscuri had been worshipped at Rome long before Plautus' time, and the latinised form of these expressions argues for early borrowing. For further discussions see Nicolson, F. W., ‘The Use of Hercle (Mehercle), Edepol (Pol), Ecastor (Mecastor) by Plautus and Terence’, HSCP 4 (1893), 99 f.Google Scholar; Ganger, A., De hercle mehercule ceterisque id genus particulis priscae poesis latinae scaenicae (diss. Greifswald, 1920)Google Scholar; Hofmann, J. B., Lateinische Umgangssprache (Heidelberg, 1926), 29 f.Google Scholar; Ullman, B. L., ‘By Castor and by Pollux’, CW 37 (1943–4), 87 f.Google Scholar; Bickel, E., ‘Mehercules in Frauenmund’, RhM 93 (1950), 190f.Google Scholar; Gilleland, op. cit. 179f.

29 Aul. Gell. 11.6.1 in veteribus scriptis neque mulieres Romanae per Herculem deiurant neque viri per Castorem; cf. Don. Ter. And. 486; Charis. Gramm. i.198.17 (K).

30 Gilleland, op. cit. 184 f.

31 In the Eunuchus the total is increased further by the greater frequency of the male only hercle (mehercle).

32 poeta, prologus, scaenicus, thensaurus occur only in the prologues.

33 The use of the character designation parasitus at Eun. 228, 264, 347 and Phorm. 122 is unlikely to have been deliberate Greek colouring and is excluded from the list at the end of Section 4.

34 In Eun. and Phorm. Terence uses the Latin equivalent fidicina, which is the only word used by Plautus. See Martin, R. H., Terence Adelphoe (Cambridge, 1976), 164Google Scholar.

35 Cic. de orat. 3.45: ‘equidem cum audio socrum meam Laeliam — facilius enim mulieres incorruptam antiquitatem conservant… eam sic audio, ut Plautum mihi aut Naevium videar audire’.

36 Op. cit. 158.

37 The language of the Hecyra generally tends to be ‘purer’ than that of any other Terentian play, while the language of the Eunuchus tends to be the most ‘Plautine’. Adding up the non-Classical forms in Terence cited by Tscherjaew, P., Terentiana (Kasan, 1900), 98–104Google Scholar gives the following totals (as a rough indication): And. 112, Hec. 89, H. T. 157, Eun. 204, Phorm. 137, Adelph. 171.

38 This varied between 1:37 and 1 :15 lines. See Hough, op. cit. 18.

39 Cf. Petron. 66.7 and see Hofmann, op. cit. 24.

40 These are: from the list at the end of Section 4 astu, papae, propino, riscus, sandalium and from the list in Section 1 cetarius, cistella, comissor, elephantus, stomachor.

41 Chaerea 344 platea; Antipho 540 and 607 symbola; Chremes 727 and 756 attat, 756 apage; senex 987 astu; Phaedria 1064 platea.

42 My thanks are due to Mr P. G. McC. Brown and to Professors F. Cairns, R. H. Martin and F. H. Sandbach for their comments and criticisms on an earlier draft of this paper.