ὀψαίτερος, ὀψίτερος
(Philemo [Vindob.] 395.27, Thom.Mag. 255.2, Phot. ο 758)

D. General commentary

TThe entry in Philemon’s lexicon (A.1), on which Thomas Magister (A.3) depends, proscribes the form ὀψαίτερον ‘later’ in favour of the variant ὀψιαίτερον. Photius (A.2) also gives ὀψιαίτερον as the correct form, contrasting it with the variant ὀψίτερον. While ὀψίτερον is surely a morphological variant of the approved form, it is unclear whether ὀψαίτερον arises from a morphological or a phonetic change.

Appearing from Pindar onwards, ὀψιαίτερον can be read as the nom./acc. neuter singular comparative of the adjective ὄψιος ‘late’, a derivative of the adverb ὀψέ ‘late in the night’ found since Homer. The earliest and most often attested use of the comparative is in the adverbial neuterAdverbs of time ὀψιαίτερον ‘at a later time’ (cf. also the superlative ὀψιαίτατα ‘very late’). This opens the possibility that the word arose as an analogicalAnalogy antonymAntonyms of πρωϊαίτερον ‘earliest’, πρωϊαίτατα ‘earliest’ (from πρωΐ ‘early in the morning’; note that the form with hiatus -ωϊ- is found mainly in Aristotle, Theophrastus and the Hippocratic texts, as well as in later Greek; Xenophon and Plato use the form πρῳαί- with the long diphthong πρῳαί-). The model for these forms were παλαίτερον and παλαίτατα, comparative and superlative from πάλαιπάλαι ‘long ago’ (see K–B vol. 1, 560; Schwyzer 1939, 534; Chantraine 1961, 114; Szemerényi 1964, 251–2). An analogical formation from πρωϊαίτερον may also explain the -ι- in ὀψιαίτερον; alternatively, this could derive from the form ὀψι- which was common in Homeric compound adjectives (cf. e.g. ὀψί-γονος ‘late-born’). In literary texts, the gradation forms of πρωΐ and those of ὀψέ ‘obviously contrast and are used side by side’ (Szemerényi 1964, 251, citing Pl. Prt. 326c and X. Superlatives can be found in HG 4.5.18; for the comparatives see e.g. C.2, C.3). At any rate, the analogical insertion of -ι- in comparatives in -αίτερος is a common phenomenon, still productive in Medieval Greek (see D’Amelia 2023, 125‒7 on the case of ἀρχιαίτερος from ἀρχαῖος and προὐργιαίτερον, found in Thucydides onwards, from προὔργου ‘of consequence’). The variant ὀψίτερος may be formed by adding the comparative suffix directly to ὀψι-, but it is probably based on the model of πρωΐτερον ‘earlier in the morning’. ὀψίτερος is found very rarely and only in non-Attic authors (Pi. fr. 52f.82, Hp. Int. 6.16, Plu. Mor. 119d), a distribution that explains why it is condemned by Photius (A.2). ὀψιαίτερος, on the other hand, is used by Plato (C.1) and appears five times in Hippocrates, including within a passage (C.2) that ‘became famous and developed a special text through repeated citations in drug books’ (Smith 1994, 49 n. 16; see further F.1); in the 4th century BCE, ὀψιαίτερον is also found in Aeneas Tacticus (C.3) and Eubulus (C.4). In later prose, the form is especially frequent in Aristotle, Theophrastus, and Galen, but it appears also in Aesop’s fables (C.5). The only epigraphic attestation is in an iambic funerary inscription (SEG 51.827.7‒8 [Macedonia, late 3rd/early 2nd century BCE] δύστηνοι γονεῖς, | οἳ παιδὸς εἰς ὄλεθρον ὀψιαίτεροι ‘unhappy are the parents who come to death later than their child’). It is noteworthy that the rarer ὀψίτερον, ὀψίτατα are used by Pollux (B.1), albeit in a passage where part of the manuscript tradition has the more usual form ὀψιαίτερον. The lexicon preserved in cod. Par. gr. 3027Par. gr. 3027 (B.4), tentatively attributed to Nicephorus Gregoras (13th century CE; see Hermann 1801, xv), correctly observes the rarity of ὀψίτερον as compared to ὀψιαίτερον, in contrast to πρωΐτερον and πρωϊαίτερον, which are of comparable frequency. The forms in ὀψιαί- approved by Atticists are also the only ones prescribed in a passage of the pseudo-Herodianic Epimerismi devoted to the orthography of gradation forms in -αίτερος, -αίτατος (B.3).

Though ὀψίτερος is rare in literary sources, it is not so in documentary papyriPapyri, where it occurs about 13 times, starting in Egypt around 232 BCE (APF 62.398r.4 [= TM 8832]). Usually, though not here, the word is part of the formula ὀψίτερον τῆς ὥρας: see Baetens, Clarysse 2016, 403‒4). The comparative ὀψαίτερος is in fact virtually unattested in literary or documentary texts. Its doubtful occurrence in P.Erl. 64.6 (= TM 33363) [Egypt, 4th–5th century CE], as published by Schubart (1942, 73) is strongly contested by Hickey (2003, 204). The only other attestation of ὀψαίτερον is in Eustathius’ commentary on the Odyssey. Cullhed (2016, 324), whose text is reproduced here (B.2), tacitly corrected it to ὀψιαίτερον. Given the very scarce number and very late date of the possible attestations, it is hard to say whether the ὀψαίτερον condemned by Philemon is a morphological variant without the compositional -ι- (cf. ὀψ-αρότης ‘one who ploughs late’), or the result of phonetic simplification. In the latter case, one need not necessarily think of syncope proper, as Brown (2008, 226) does: before another vowel, the unstressed /i/ could have lost its syllabicity becoming a glide /j/, which was then ‘absorbed’ by the preceding consonant cluster /ps/. Although Threatte (1980, 433) gathers evidence for this development in Attic inscriptions, examples are not particularly widespread in the source material. Some Medieval and Modern Greek dialects tend to lose the glide /j/ after sibilants (and /r/) by a process often called ‘depalatalisation’ (on the correctness of this nomenclature, see CGMEMG vol. 1, 17–22). It is therefore possible that Atticist lexicographers heard similar forms spoken among their contemporaries.

E. Byzantine and Modern Greek commentary

In Byzantine Greek, the adverb ὀψέ develops the variant forms ὀψές, ἐψές, ψές and another meaning: ‘last night, yesterday’, which it acquired by analogy with (ἐ)χθές ‘yesterday’ (see Kriaras, LME s.v.). The learned form ὀψιαίτερος, its synthetic comparative, is attested throughout this period. In formal and official texts, in fact, the adverbial neuter ὀψιαίτερον enjoys almost exclusive use, with the classical meaning of ‘later’. The Suda (π 1200) glosses the meaning of ὀψιαίτερον with the phrase περὶ λύχνων ἁφάς (‘rather late in the day’, literally ‘at lamp-lighting time’). Modern Greek still has (ε)ψές and the rarer ψε, meaning ‘last night, yesterday’ (see LKN s.v. ψές), as well as the compound απόψε meaning ‘tonight’ or ‘last night’.

F. Commentary on individual texts and occurrences

(1)    Hp. Epid. 2.3.2 (C.2)

This passage from Hippocrates’ Epidemics is quoted and commented upon in the pseudo-Galenic treatise Theriac to Piso (on the problem of authenticity see Leigh 2015, 19–61; Boudon-Millot 2016, LII‒LXXIV). Galen himself discusses the passage in the Commentary on the Epidemics, preserved only in an Arabic translation. As Leigh (2015, 183) observes, ‘there are serious problems with the text as transmitted in this treatise and in the Hippocratic tradition’; these have been recently discussed by Boudon-Millot (2016, 128–34; 2021, 238–50). The participle ληφθέντα, in particular, has been understood by some ancient and modern commentators as referring to drugs that must be taken by the patient at an earlier or later time, but both Galen and the author of the Theriac to Piso claimed that it actually referred to the harvesting of drugs at different times (see Boudon-Millot 2016, 132; 2021, 248). It is noteworthy that the codd. of the Epidemics here have comparative forms in -ίτερον, while the Theriac to Piso has -ίαιτερον, which is the reading adopted by the editors of Hippocrates (Littré, Smith).