μάλιστα ὁμοιότατος
(Antiatt. μ 29)

D. General commentary

The Antiatticist lemma is devoted to the intensification of superlatives through the superlative adverb μάλιστα. From the perspective of standard grammar (cf. B.1, B.2), this construction is incorrect as it characterises the highest degree of the adjective through another superlative (as in, e.g., **the most highest). It is, however, not uncommon in Greek, where the double marking of comparatives and superlatives is attested in various forms (Gignac 1981, 157 calls this ‘double comparison’). The most common kind of double marking is morphological. This arises from the need to re-characterise formations that are no longer transparent, as for instance with μειζότερος and μεγιστότατος, which formally show two degree-markers (the phenomenon is addressed in the entry on ἀμεινότερος). Conversely, the double comparison of μάλιστα + superlative has a pragmatic motivation: the speaker wishes to further intensify the highest degree of the adjective for emphasis or emotional involvement. This kind of intensification is typically found in elatives, i.e. in superlatives that are not set against a ‘standard’, as in the sentence She is very smart (on elatives, see Keydana, Hock, Widmer 2012, 23–4). Most examples of μάλιστα + superlative in this entry are elatives (though see C.5, C.11, and C.14 for exceptions).

The use of μάλιστα with a superlative must be partly due to the fact that μάλιστα could accompany positive adjectives to form superlatives (e.g. μάλιστα ἐχθρός ‘most hateful’: for the various usages of this function of μάλιστα, see Schwab 1893–1895, vol. 1, 5–40). At the same time, it is possible that it was influenced by syntactic contexts in which μάλιστα modified another part of the sentence, rather than the superlative itself. The clearest examples are those where a strengthened form of μάλιστα such as ὡς μάλιστα and ὅτι μάλιστα appears. Consider the following passage from Antipho Soph. 1.28Antipho Soph. 1.28: οὐ γὰρ δή που μαρτύρων γ’ ἐναντίον οἱ ἐπιβουλεύοντες τοὺς θανάτους τοῖς πέλας μηχανῶνταί τε καὶ παρασκευάζουσιν, ἀλλ’ ὡς μάλιστα δύνανται λαθραιότατα (‘For surely those who plot the murder of those close to them do not make their schemes and preparations in front of witnesses, but as much as they can in the utmost secrecy’), where ὡς μάλιστα – though occurring close to a superlative – in fact modifies δύνανται. Indeed, one might argue that the same interpretation could apply to some of the earliest examples in which μάλιστα occurs near to a superlative. Thus, in C.1 μάλιστα could be taken with σοί (‘for it is very dear especially to you’), though it is usually interpreted as a strengthened superlative (see e.g. Macleod 1982, 115; the same could also apply to ἔχθιστος δ’ Ἀχιλῆϊ μάλιστ’ of Hom. Il. 2.220Hom. Il. 2.220; according to Zeilfelder 2001, 363, however, this is a superlative expressing a ‘scalar’ notion). Similarly, in C.2, μάλιστα might refer only to τῆς νυκτερίδος πτεροῖσι (‘[wings] that are very likely those of the bat above all’); and in C.3, it could be taken as emphasising τῇ πρώτῃ ἡμέρᾳ (‘he was most terrible to the enemy especially on the very first day’).

Be that as it may, at some point μάλιστα evidently became merely a strategy to intensify a superlative, as is already evident in C.5. Rarely used in poetry (cf. C.1, C.5, and the Aeschylus and Aristophanes lines quoted in B.2), the usage is typical of prose (see C.6, C.7, C.8, C.9 and C.10), especially from the 4th century onwards, and there is seemingly no detectable distinction between Attic and Ionic, high- and low-register texts. Prose authors include, among others, the 3rd-century BCE historian Ister (C.10), Diodorus Siculus (C.11), Philo of Alexandria (C.12), and Procopius (C.14), as well as Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Appianus, Origenes, Cyril, etc. An occasional attestation in papyri is C.13 (cf. Mayser, Gramm. vol. 1,3, 51). Superlatives strengthened by μάλιστα are also found in Dio Chrysostom and Aelian (see Schmid, Atticismus vol. 1, 93; vol. 3, 61), which shows they were admissible in the most Atticising prose.

We have no evidence that this construction was condemned in 2nd-century CE Atticist lexica, in spite of the proscription in the pseudo-Herodianic treatise Περὶ τῶν ζητουμένων (B.1). However, Thomas Magister’s criticism (B.2) makes it probable that a proscription against this kind of construction must have existed in earlier Atticist lexica, too: for a parallel, see the lemmas of the Eclogue (106Phryn. Ecl. 106 , 382Phryn. Ecl. 382) that criticise double comparatives such as ἀμεινότερος and καλλιώτερος (see entry ἀμεινότερος, ῥᾳότερος). On balance, a likely scenario is that the Antiatticist entry was meant to trace a common usage of Post-classical Greek back to the classical age, though why the lexicon resorts to Herodotus and not Thucydides (C.3) or Plato (C.6) is impossible to say (on this, see F.1).

E. Byzantine and Modern Greek commentary

In Byzantine Greek, μάλιστα + superlative can be used where intensification of the superlative is required. The construction tends to be more common among non-Atticising authors (in the example from Anna Comnene, C.15, the superlative is actually introduced by ὅτι μάλιστα, perhaps for extra emphasis), though there does not seem to be a clear distinction in register: Eustathius, a learned author, uses φιλοτεκνότατον μάλιστα ‘one who is most loving of his children’ in his commentary on the Iliad (C.16), while Michael Psellus uses τὸ μάλιστα ἐπιτιμότατον γνώρισμα ‘the most valuable mark’ in Orationes panegyricae 4.519Michael Psellus Orationes panegyricae 4.519. Double forms of the comparative, with the comparative adverb πλιό (in various forms: see CGMMG vol. 2, 815) followed by a further comparative adjective, are attested in Medieval Greek (CGMMG vol. 2, 843). The CGMMG has no information, however, on similar forms of the superlative. Double comparatives (with πιo + a synthetic comparative) are a common error in Modern Greek too, where expressions such as πιο καλύτερος are reserved only to the superlative degree ('most beautiful'). In Standard Modern Greek and its dialectal varieties, relative superlatives tend to be expressed by analytic constructions, but some residues of synthetic formations with the ancient suffix -τατος are preserved in the dialects (see Melissaropoulou, Papanagiotou 2019, 155). Various adverbs may be used with adjectives in the positive or even comparative degree to express a superlative (see Melissaropoulou, Papanagiotou 2019, 151 for some options), for instance πολύ 'very'. However, μάλιστα is not one of the adverbs that can form superlatives. As for absolute superlatives, Melissaropoulou, Papanagiotou (2019, 157) report a tendency towards synthetic formations (by means of prefixes or suffixes).

F. Commentary on individual texts and occurrences

(1)    Antiatt. μ 29 (A.1)

The reference to Book 5 of the Histories is certainly corrupt. In the apparatus, Valente (2015, 217) comments: ‘ε′] ft. corruptum; nescio an aliquid exciderit’. As a possible Herodotean locus classicus, he tentatively suggests C.2 (μάλιστά κῃ ἐμφερέστατα, cf. van Dam 1873, 41) and wonders whether the lemma may have been influenced by εἰ τῇ γραφῇ παρόμοιος ‘if [the phoenix] is like its picture’ of Hdt. 2.73 (C.4), while rejecting τῶν ἀστῶν ἀνὴρ δόκιμος ὅμοια τῷ μάλιστα ‘as notable a man as any of his townsmen’ of Hdt. 7.118 (cf. Sicking 1883, 124). In fact, the correct locus classicus is probably still Hdt. 2.73 (C.4), though not the expression εἰ τῇ γραφῇ παρόμοιος but the one that immediately follows: ἐς τὰ μάλιστα αἰετῷ περιήγησιν ὁμοιότατος. Although this is not the simple μάλιστα that strengthens the superlative, as in the Antiatticist entry and other examples, the whole adverbial expression ἐς τὰ μάλιστα is still an intensification of ὁμοιότατος. It may be, therefore, that the compiler of the lexicon, seeking a classical model for a common feature of Post-classical Greek, chanced upon this Herodotean expression and considered it a good enough antecedent. The wrong reference to the fifth book instead of the second can easily be explained as a copying mistake from the text in majuscule (B > E).

(2)    [Hdn.] Περὶ τῶν ζητουμένων 73 Dain (B.1)

The text is retrieved by Dain (1954, 73) in cod. Par. suppl. gr. 1238. The initial part of the treatise was edited by Cramer (1835–1837) in vol. 3 of his Anecdota Graeca, and the text’s origin is briefly discussed by Dain (1954, 10–11).