ἴδιος
(Phryn. Ecl. 409)

D. General commentary

Phrynichus (A.1) rebukes koine speakers (οἱ πολλοί, ‘the multitude’) for using the adjective ἴδιος (‘one’s own’, ‘private’) as a 1st- or 2nd-person possessive adjective. As an alternative, he prescribes the genitive of the 1st- or 2nd-person reflexive pronoun (ἐμαυτοῦ, σαυτοῦ), which is one of the standard expressions of possession in Classical Greek.

The adjective ἴδιος may be traced back to the IE root of the reflexive pronoun *swe (cf. the Homeric ἕ, ‘him, her’). The form that best preserves this etymology is the Argolic ϝhεδιεστας (= Attic ἰδιώτης, ‘private citizen’), which occurs in a 6th-century BCE inscription from the acropolis of Argos (SEG 11.314.7; cf. Vollgraff 1929, 206–34; Bourguet 1930, 1–5; Schwyzer 1930, 323–4; Schwyzer 1939, 256; Méndez Dosuna 1985, 111–6; Sihler 1995, 378–9; EDG s.v. ἴδιος; on this inscription, see recently Probert, Dickey 2015. The Homeric adjective ἑδανός at Il. 14.172 has been linked by Lejeune 1963 to *ϝhέδ-ιος, but this view was subsequently challenged by De Lamberterie 1999). All other continuants of the old form reveal the assimilation of ε to ι; the original /w/ is preserved in the Doric form ϝίδιος, while the reflexes of /h/ remain visible in the Argolic form hίδιος). Overall, across its development throughout the history of Greek, ἴδιος fulfills various functions, which will be dealt with in detail below and may be summarised as follows: as a simple adjective, ἴδιος initially means ‘private’, but in the koine it also assumes the possessive meaning ‘my own’, ‘your own’, etc. (cf. below), while in Modern Greek it is used to mean ‘same’ (cf. E.). However, from as early as the classical period, ἴδιος is also used as an intensifier in emphatic expressions that convey the idea of possession (e.g. ἴδιος + possessive adjective/pronoun, or ἴδιος + possessive genitive; cf. below), while in Medieval Greek it occurs with the definite article in the intensive pronominal phrase ὁ ἴδιος (cf. E.).

The basic adjectival meaning of ἴδιος in Attic Greek is ‘private’ (cf. LSJ s.v.), and it is often used in opposition to terms indicating that which is ‘public’ (such as δημόσιος and κοινός) or ‘belonging to another’ (such as ἀλλότριος); cf. e.g. Thuc. 1.80.3: πρὸς δὲ ἄνδρας οἳ […] τοῖς ἄλλοις ἅπασιν ἄριστα ἐξήρτυνται, πλούτῳ τε ἰδίῳ καὶ δημοσίῳ καὶ ναυσὶ καὶ ἵπποις καὶ ὅπλοις καὶ ὄχλῳ […] πῶς χρὴ πρὸς τούτους ῥᾳδίως πόλεμον ἄρασθαι (‘but why should we lightly begin a war against men […] who are best equipped in all other respects, with wealth both private and public, ships, horses, arms and [greater] numbers?’); Isoc. 18.28: καὶ τὰς ἰδίας ἔχθρας καὶ τοὺς κοινοὺς πολέμους διαλυόμεθα (‘we solve both the private animosities and the common wars’); Arist. de An. 420a.18: ὁ ψόφος ἀλλότριος καὶ οὐκ ἴδιος (‘the sound is external and not a property [of the ear]’). Already in this phase, ἴδιος is also frequently used as an intensifier of the standard expressions of possession – namely, the possessive adjectives/pronouns ἐμός, σός, ἡμέτερος, ὑμέτερος, σφέτερος (‘my, mine’, ‘your, yours (2nd pers. sing.)’, ‘our, ours’, ‘your, yours (2nd pers. plur.)’, ‘their, theirs’) and the genitive of personal, reflexive, and demonstrative pronouns (see e.g. Cooper 1998 vol. 1, 507–10; Van Emde Boas et al. 2019, 349–51): expressions such as τὰ ἐμὰ ἴδια (‘my own things’, D. 50.66) and τὴν αὑτῆς ἰδίαν ἀρετήν (‘her own virtue’, Pl. Plt. 305b.7) are indeed very common in Attic.

In the koine, the possessive adjectives (ἐμός, σός, etc.) occur far less frequently than they do in Classical Greek and tend to be replaced either by the genitive of the personal, reflexive, and demonstrative pronouns – sometimes in prepositional phrases such as ἡ παρ’ ἐμοῦ ἐπιστολή, lit. ‘the letter from me’, instead of ἡ ἐμὴ ἐπιστολή, ‘my letter’ (for a recent study of the reflexive-possessive use of personal pronouns in John’s gospel, see Tops 2022) – or by ἴδιος alone (with or without article; cf. Blass, Debrunner 1976, 235–6; Horrocks 2010, 92, 104). In other words, koine speakers used ἴδιος (1) in its basic adjectival meaning of ‘private’ (see above); (2) as an intensifier of expressions of possession (for the evidence in papyri and inscriptions, see Gignac 1981, 171; Threatte 1996, 326); and (3) as an adjective invariably conveying the idea of possession for all grammatical persons. This latter usage is clearly visible in the Septuagint and the New Testament (C.4, C.5; cf. Blass, Debrunner 1976, 236) as well as in Hellenistic authors (e.g. C.3), but it is found sporadically already in 4th-century authors, such as Aeschines (C.1: cf. Martín Velasco 1996, 63). Authors from the imperial period also employ ἴδιος alone as a possessive adjective, cf. e.g. Plu. Quomodo adulator ab amico internoscatur 66a: ἡμεῖς δὲ πολλὰ πολλαχοῦ τῶν ἰδίων αἰσχρὰ καὶ λυπηρὰ καὶ ἀτελῆ καὶ ἡμαρτημένα καθορῶντες […] (‘if we observe many of our own [faults] on many occasions, shameful and grievous, both of omission and commission […]’, transl. Cole Babbit 1927, 351, adapted); D.Chr. 26.7–8: καθάπερ οἱ μουσικοὶ καὶ οἱ γεωμέτραι καὶ οἱ κυβερνῆται περὶ τῶν ἰδίων ἔργων <οὐκ> ἀτέχνως σκέπτονται […], οὕτω δὴ καὶ ἡμεῖς περὶ τῶν ἰδίων ἱκανοὶ ὦμεν βουλεύεσθαι καὶ λέγειν (‘just as musicians, geometricians, and ship-captains consider with professional skill their own particular work […], in like manner let us also be competent to deliberate and speak about our own business’, transl. Cohoon 1939, 345).

The use of ἴδιος as a possessive adjective is found also in papyriPapyri as early as the 3rd century BCE: cf. e.g. C.2 as well as P.Enteux. 26.1.3 (= TM 3301) [Magdola, Arsinoites, 221 BCE]: ἀκληρήσαντος δέ μου κατὰ τὸ ἴδιον σῶμ[α], ‘when I was stricken with ill-health in my body’ (cf. Mayser, Gramm. vol. 2,2, 73–4). InscriptionsInscriptions from the 2nd century BCE onwards also attest to this usage: cf. e.g. IG 2².1011.71–2 (Attica, 106–5 BCE): ὑπόδειγμα τῆς ἰδίας φιλαγαθίας, ‘as a token of their benevolence’ (cf. Threatte 1996, 325–6; Galdi 2000, 77–8).

The status of ἴδιος as a possessive adjective was further consolidated during the imperial period by its usage in phrases that were typical of the formal language of official letters and inscriptions (both public and funerary). In these texts, ἴδιος frequently occurs in combination with personal names, nouns denoting family relations, and official titles, and ‘there is a strong suspicion that this use of ἴδιος might be a translation of Latin suus’ (Bülow-Jacobsen, Whitehorne 1982, 237; cf. also Leiwo 1994, 54–5, 127 n. 57). For instance, the opening of the private letter preserved in P.Oxy. 49.3505.1 (= TM 26609) [2nd century CE?] reads Παποντῶς Ἀλεξάνδρῳ τῷ ἰδίῳ (‘Papontos to his own Alexander’); funerary inscriptions from various parts of the Roman empire (cf. e.g. I.Tomis 173.8–9 [Flavian period]; IGUR 2.756.6–7 [Rome, undated]) carry the formula τοῖς ἰδίοις τέκνοις (= Lat. filiis suis, ‘to his/her/their children’); the official letter of O.Krok. 1.81.1 (= TM 88672) [between 98 and 138 CE] is written by a certain Papirius ἰδίῳ ἐπάρχῳ (= Lat. praefecto suo, ‘to his prefect’; for further papyrological examples, see the list in Exler 1976, 31; cf. also Koskenniemi 1956, 104 and Cuvigny 2002 for a comprehensive analysis of the documentary evidence).

To sum up, at the time when Phrynichus (A.1) condemned phrases such as τὰ ἴδια πράττω and τὰ ἴδια πρᾶττε, ἴδιος was commonly used as a generic possessive adjective, both in the literary language (regardless of the register, see above) and in the formal language of documents, official letters, and inscriptions. The fact that A.1 only deals with the expression of possession in the 1st and 2nd persons singular may initially suggest that Phrynichus allowed for simple ἴδιος as a 3rd-person possessive adjective. However, it seems easier to assume that the phrases τὰ ἴδια πράττω and τὰ ἴδια πρᾶττε are simply examples, and that Phrynichus condemned ἴδιος as possessive in all grammatical persons. Notably, Thomas Magister (B.1) includes the same proscription of the possessive ἴδιος in his lexicon and clearly also rejects its use in the 3rd person (καὶ τὰ ἴδια πραττέτω μὴ λέγε). The expression of possession that Phrynichus (A.1) recommends in place of ἴδιος is the genitive of the reflexive pronoun (ἐμαυτοῦ, ‘of myself’, σεαυτοῦ, ‘of yourself’), which was one of the means of conveying the idea of possession that was standard in Classical Greek (see above) and had remained in use in the koine (cf. Blass, Debrunner 1976, 234). The text of the entry in the redaction of the Eclogue preserved by the MSS of the q family (cf. the apparatus of A.1) contains the addition ἢ τὰ ἴδια ἐμαυτοῦ πράττω καὶ τὰ ἴδια σαυτοῦ πράττεις (‘or [you should say] ‘I do my own things’ and ‘you do your own things’’), thus conveying the possibility of using ἴδιος as an intensifier, as is typical in Classical Greek (cf. above). No traces of a similar proscription of ἴδιος are to be found in the other Atticist lexica of the imperial period, although Arnott (1989; 1996, 464–5) maintained that the lemma of Antiatt. η 5Antiatt. η 5 (ἥδιον· Ἄλεξις Ὀδυσσεῖ ἀπονιπτομένῳ, ‘ἥδιον (‘more pleasant’): Alexis [uses it] in the Odysseus Washed Clean’) was not ἥδιον (as transmitted by cod. Par. Coisl. 345) but ἴδιον and that the entry was intended as a response to the proscription of the possessive ἴδιος. However, this interpretation is not generally regarded as convincing (see entry ἡδίων).

The usage of ἴδιος as a generic possessive likely began to recede in Late Antiquity (arguably as a result of the spread of clitic personal/possessive pronouns, which were part of a new system of personal pronouns that first appeared around 500 CE; cf. CGMEMG vol. 2, 861), and the adjective began to develop the new semantic nuances that appear to have been well established in Byzantine times (cf. E.).

E. Byzantine and Modern Greek commentary

During the Byzantine period, the semantic spectrum encompassed by the simple adjective ἴδιος spans from the idea of possession (‘one’s own’) to other concepts pertaining to proximity and closeness (see the meanings ‘similar’, ‘genuine’, ‘intimate’; cf. Kriaras, LME s.v.).

In its function as an intensifier of the possessive genitive, ἴδιος survives not only in Byzantine texts that are specifically Atticising from a linguistic perspective (cf. e.g. Michael Choniates Or. 21.357.19: ἐπί τε κοιναῖς καὶ ἰδίαις ἐμαυτοῦ συμφοραῖς, ‘for the events, the common ones and those of my own’) but also – albeit as a residual form – in Medieval and early modern texts that do not imitate Attic Greek but nonetheless ‘aim at a higher or more formal register’ (CGMEMG vol. 2, 913). The more common way to convey the ‘emphatic possessive’ in Byzantine and Early Modern Greek is to use the synonymous forms ἰδικός, ἐδικός or δικός directly followed by a possessive clitic pronoun in the genitive (i.e., μου ‘my’, σου ‘you’, του ‘his’, etc.): this usage is found in texts of various registers from the 12th century onwards, which suggests that such phrases were established in popular language by that time (cf. CGMEMG vol. 2, 910). ἰδικόςἰδικός (from ἴδιος, with the addition of the common derivative suffix -ικο-) occurs already in Post-classical Greek (e.g. Galen 10x, Apollonius Dyscolus 13x, Alexander of Aphrodisia 13x), while ἐδικός is a Byzantine analogical development that was influenced by forms such as the personal pronoun ἐμέ (‘me’, acc.) and the demonstrative ἐκεῖνος (‘that person’, ‘he’). ἰδικός and ἐδικός ‘co-exist as alternatives for several centuries, often in the same texts’ (CGMEMG vol. 2, 911). While ἐδικός remains widespread throughout Early Modern Greek, ἰδικός becomes increasingly unpopular and is undoubtedly rarer than ἐδικός by the 17th century. The gradual disappearance of ἰδικός is paralleled by the rise of δικός (from the 15th century onwards), which becomes standard in Modern Greek. The aphaeresis in δικός, while it reflects the ‘overall diachronic tendency of Greek towards CV syllable structure’ (CGMEMG vol. 1, 61), was also likely influenced by the fact that the word was frequently preceded by forms ending in vowels, such as the prepositions μέ (‘with’) or σέ (‘to’, ‘at’) and the verb εἶμαι (‘to be’); cf. CGMEMG vol. 1, 61–3; vol. 2, 911.

In Modern Greek, ίδιος is in use both as a simple adjective and as an intensifier. In its adjectival function, ίδιος does not carry the meaning that is attested in Classical, Post-classical, and Byzantine Greek (i.e. ‘private’, ‘one’s own’, ‘intimate’; see above) but rather means ‘same’, said of multiple things that appear identical (e.g. έχουν τα ίδια μάτια, ‘they have the same eyes’) or of one thing that remains unchanging in different contexts (e.g. μένουν στο ίδιο σπίτι, ‘they live in the same house’). As an intensifier, ίδιος is paired with the article to form an intensive pronominal phrase (e.g. ο ίδιος, ‘he himself’), a usage that first appears in 16th-century Cretan texts and is possibly influenced by the Italian ‘stesso’ (cf. Horrocks 2010, 356; CGMEMG vol. 1, 1002–3).

F. Commentary on individual texts and occurrences

N/A