πολίτης, συμπολίτης, πατριώτης, συμπατριώτης
(Phryn. Ecl. 144, Poll. 3.51, [Hdn.] Philet. 176, Antiatt. σ 2, Poll. 3.54)

D. General commentary

Five entries in Atticist lexica deal with the admissibility of the prefixedPrefixes forms συμπολίτης ‘fellow citizen’ and συμπατριώτης ‘fellow countryman’ vis-à-vis the simple forms πολίτης (Phrynichus’ Eclogue, A.1; Pollux, A.2; the Philetaerus, A.3) and πατριώτης (the Antiatticist, A.4; Pollux, A.2 and A.5). In addition, Pollux (A.5) addresses the question of whether it is correct to call one’s fellow countryman πατριώτης, or whether only πολίτης is appropriate.

Concerning the first issue, Phrynichus (A.1), Pollux (A.2), and the Philetaerus (A.3) reject συμπολίτης, arguably because the prefix is semantically redundant: πολίτης, as is well known, can by itself denote fellow citizens (cf. LSJ s.v. I.2). The same proscription surfaces in schol. rec. Soph. OT 513–5: πολίται] οἱ ἀπὸ τῆς αὐτῆς ἐμοὶ πόλεως. πολίτης ἐμός ἐστιν ὁ δεῖνα· οὐδέποτε μετὰ τῆς σύν. ἤγουν, ἀπὸ τῆς αὐτῆς ἐστιν ἐμοὶ πόλεως (‘πολίται: Those who are from the same city as me. ‘So-and-so is my fellow citizen’, i.e. he is from the same city as me’). The Atticists thus oppose – explicitly in Pollux, implicitly in Phrynichus – Euripides who, in the Children of Heracles (C.1), overtly applies the plural ξυμπολῖται to Demophon’s fellow citizens (another use of the word is ascribed by Pollux to Euripides’ Theseus, C.2). Given the lack of other attestations of the word in Attic texts, it may be that Euripides is using a colloquialismColloquial language here, which later gained traction in the koine. In rejecting Euripides’ model, the lexicographers probably adhere to the principle that hapax usages are not to be imitated, even when supported by the authority of the most distinguished Attic authors (this is explicitly stated by Phrynichus in Ecl. 255Phryn. Ecl. 255, cf. entry βρέχει, and in Ecl. 129Phryn. Ecl. 129, see entry ἥρως, ἥρωες; see further Ecl. 93Phryn. Ecl. 93, with entry ἀκμήν; Ecl. 151Phryn. Ecl. 151, with entry κυνίδιον, κυνάριον; Ecl. 330Phryn. Ecl. 330, with entry ἀκολουθεῖν μετ’ αὐτοῦ). In A.1, Phrynichus may also be showing his caution towards tragic languageTragic language as a repository of approved and reusable Attic vocabulary (see especially Phryn. Ecl. 318Phryn. Ecl. 318, on Euripides’ use of Λακωνική with the meaning ‘Laconian woman’, and entry Λάκαινα, Λακωνική; cf. also entry πρόσφατος. On the different approach to tragedy in the Praeparatio sophistica, see Tribulato 2025, 185–6). No doubt, συμπολίτης was also doomed by the fact that after Euripides it occurs again only in koine texts of the Roman period, starting with the New Testament (C.3) and continuing with Josephus (AJ 19.175.4), becoming especially common in Christian texts. The term is absent from Atticising texts except for a lone occurrence in Aelian (C.10 – I am grateful to the reviewer for pointing this out). Apart from hagiographies – such as the Vitae sanctorum Nicandri et Hermaei 6.71 and the Translatio vitae et miraculae sancti Abercii 73.2, whose dating is uncertain – the occurrences in Eusebius (e.g. HE 1.13.18), Gregory of Nazianzus (Or. 8 MPG 35.796.19), and Origen’s fragments preserved in the catenae help to show that the term was in widespread use in a variety of middle- and low-register texts from the early centuries CE down to the Byzantine era.

Coming to συμπατριώτης, the issue here is not only the admissibility of the prefixed form – a mostly post-classical word, often used by Christian authors (starting with Theodorus Bestus, Laudatio sanctae Euphemiae 15.11–4, 9th c. CE) – but also the exact meaning and correct sphere of application of the simplex πατριώτης, attested in 5th-century Attic sources also in an adjectival function (see also the feminine πατριῶτις ‘of one’s country’ in Eur. Heracl. 755, πατριῶτις γῆ). The meaning and semantic evolution of πατριώτης are discussed by Kontos (1877) and Piatkowski (1963), the latter with a focus on the socio-historical background. The Antiatticist (A.4) appears to admit both συμπατριώτης and πατριώτης on the authority of two comic poets, Archippus (C.4) and Alexis (C.5) – loci which, however, lack context (on Archippus, see Miccolis 2017, 313–4; on Alexis, see Arnott 1996, 807). Pollux (A.5), no doubt drawing from the same lexicographical material, adds that πατριώτης is used with reference to barbarians. He also records, without comment, the occurrence of συστρατιώτης and συμπατριώτης (the latter quoted with the prefix ξυν-) in Archippus. That the two words occurred in the same fragment is doubtful (see Miccolis 2017, 313; on the Attic attestations of συστρατιώτης, see Miccolis 2017, 314). Pollux explicitly states that he is ignoring Plato’s application of πατριώτης to the Greeks in the Laws. However, in the passage at hand (C.8), Plato makes no overt mention of Greeks, but rather of slaves in a general sense (some may well be Greeks, but some may belong to non-Hellenic lands: on this, see Piatkowski 1963, 44). He thus uses πατριώτης to refer to individuals who, by definition, are not citizens.

This is precisely the point later made by the synonymic lexica. Apart from the confusingly phrased statement in Herennius Philo (B.1), where οἱ <μὴ> κατὰ τὸν νόμον ἐν τῇ αὐτῇ ὄντες must be interpreted as referring to individuals who do not possess citizen rights (hence slaves), Ps.-Ammonius (B.2) explicitly states that the πατριώτης is a δοῦλος. All these different explanations reflect the fact that in Post-classical Greek πατριώτης could indeed be used as a loose synonymSynonyms of πολίτης (see Iamb. VP 5.21.6, referring to the Samians who are Pythagoras’ fellow citizens; cf. Piatkowski 1963, 45; other loci are discussed by Kontos 1877, 829). The distinction between πολίτης as a designation of free citizens and πατριώτης as one applied to slaves is maintained in Photius (B.5, B.6). Hesychius (B.3), by contrast, employs the contrasting categories of Athenian and barbarian. The scholia to Lucian’s Solecist further explain the distinction between πολίτης and πατριώτης by appealing to the fact that barbarians do not have city-states (πόλεις). Reflection on the different notions of citizenship among the Greeks and other peoples is first introduced by Ps.-Ammonius (B.2), who quotes Homer in support of understanding πατρίς not merely as one’s city but, more broadly, as the land (χώρα) from which one originates. By contrast, Stephanus of Byzantium (B.4) understands πατρίς as the city of one’s father.

Other Attic texts, besides Plato, may also be interpreted as using πατριώτης in contexts involving Greeks. However, none of these usages is straightforward. In Sophocles’ Oedipus the King (C.6), πατριώτης is applied to Mount Cythaeron, whom the chorus predict will be revealed to be a fellow countryman of Oedipus. While Oedipus is a Greek, it may be argued that πατριώτης, rather than πολίτης, is used in line 1091 because the reference is to a mountain rather than a person; moreover, Cythaeron belongs to the same region (Boeotia), not the same city (Thebes), as Oedipus (see Finglass 2018, 495). In Pherecrates (C.7), the reference is to an Athenian, Lycurgus (probably the same character attacked in Aristophanes’ Birds 1296, the grandfather of the 4th-century BCE orator and politician of the same name: see DNP vol. 7 s.v. Lykurgos [7]). However, the fragment mentions Egypt and the scholium to Aristophanes that quotes this line of Pherecrates informs us that there was an ancient theory according to which this Lycurgus was an Egyptian (schol. Ar. Av. 1296a: Σύμμαχος· φαίνονται τὸν Λυκοῦργον Αἰγύπτιον εἶναι νομίζοντες ἢ τὸ γένος, ἢ τοὺς τρόπους. Φερεκράτης Ἀγρίοις […] (VE), ‘Symmachus: They seem to believe that Lycurgus was an Egyptian, either by birth or by customs. Pherecrates in the Agrioi […]’. Cf. also Cratin. fr. 32, quoted by the same scholium). In other classical Attic texts, the context does not allow us to pinpoint the exact meaning of πατριώτης: see X. Cyr. 2.2.26 (where, in a speech given by Cyrus, πατριῶται refers to horses from the same country) and Nico fr. 1 (a one-liner). πατριῶται was also the title of a play by Nicostratus (cf. test. 1.4). In conclusion, Pollux’s information that πατριώτης applies to a barbarian does find some support in Attic sources, where the word never straightforwardly denotes a Greek. Some echo of these puristic discussions can be heard in the parodic dialogue Solecist, attributed to Lucian, where the use of πατριώτης to refer to a Greek is ridiculed as in fact implying that the person is a barbarian (C.9).

In summary, the Atticists – with the only probable but unsurprising exception of the Antiatticist – are unanimous in rejecting the prefixed words συμπολίτης and συμπατριώτης. While their objections are grounded in the limited Attic attestations of both words, another reason – probably hinted at in the Philetaerus (A.3), which also proscribes the prefixed forms of δημότης and φυλέτης, on which see Kontos (1877, 831–2) – may be their wariness of the proliferation of prefixed nouns and verbs, a common phenomenon in the koine, as evidenced by the almost exclusively post-classical use of these terms.

E. Byzantine and Modern Greek commentary

Despite the Atticist stigma, συμπολίτης and συμπατριώτης thrive in Byzantine texts of all registers. As noted in D., συμπολίτης is a common term of Christian Greek because of its occurrence in a famous line of St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians (C.3). This line is quoted countless times in Byzantine texts as well. However, συμπολίτης also frequently occurs outside this citation context: for instance, in John Malalas Chronographia 10.27.5 and 15; Theodore Studites Epistulae 547.8; Phot. Homiliae 7.79.9 Laourdas, Bibl. cod. 158 100b.23; Tz. in Il. 1.20.4, and many others. For examples of the many occurrences of συμπατριώτης, see e.g. Symeon Metaphrastes Vita sanctorum Menae, Hermogenis et Eugraphi 404.7; Theodore Prodromus Rodanthe et Dosicles 7.213; Tz. Ep. 104.150.27 Leone, among others. Both συμπολίτης and συμπατριώτης, together with their feminine forms συμπολίτισσα and συμπατριώτισσα, like the simplicia πολίτης and πατριώτης, are still used in Modern Greek. However, πατριώτης and συμπατριώτης are terms of learned origin influenced by French (see LKN s.vv.): Kontos (1877, 832–3), who quotes an earlier opinion of Adamantion Korais, vehemently criticises this usage, stating that the correct Greek word for ‘patriot’ should be φιλόπατρις. Echoing the ancient puristic debate, he protests that the use of πατριώτης instead turns the Greeks into barbarians. For its part, the French patriote (attested since the second half of the 15th century) and the earlier compatriote (attested since the 13th century) derive from the corresponding late-Latin terms patriōta (itself derived from Greek: see TLL s.v., which records its first attestation in Gregorius Magnus) and compatriōta (a calque on Greek συμπατριώτης, attested in glossaries and late antique inscriptions: see TLL s.v.). From the original meaning (‘person from the same city, fellow citizen’), the French patriote developed the sense ‘person who loves their country’, attested from the 1560s onwards. In revolutionary France, the term acquired the further nuance ‘partisan of the Revolution; (free) citizen’ (see TFLi s.v.). From French, this political meaning of the word spread to other European languages.

F. Commentary on individual texts and occurrences

N/A