ἐχθροτέρως, ἐπιτηδειοτέρως
(Antiatt. ε 21)

D. General commentary

The Antiatticist lemma (A.1) concerns the formation of adverbs from comparative adjectives in ‑τερος (see too Sicking 1883, 21 re. Antiatt. α 39: see entry ἀληθεστέρως). Standard Greek employs the neuter singular adjective in the adverbial function, as clearly stated by Apollonius Dyscolus (Adv. GG 2,1.169.1–8Apoll.Dysc. Adv. GG 2,1.169.1–8) à propos of comparatives in ‑τερος. Although the suffix ‑ως was originally restricted to the positive grade, it had already begun to be extended to comparatives and superlatives in Classical Greek (see K–G vol. 1, 577 and μειζόνως), gaining ground in koine Greek.

In the Antiatticist entry, ἐχθροτέρως lacks its locus classicus, identified by scholars with an occurrence in Demosthenes’ On the peace (C.1). As for ἐπιτηδειοτέρως, there is no trace of the adverb in Thucydides, though ἐπιτήδειος is a typically Thucydidean word. One option is that ἐπιτηδειοτέρως was a varia lectio for the adverbial ἐπιτηδειότερον of Thuc. 5.54.3 (C.2), as suggested by Valente (2015, 156). ἐπιτηδειοτέρως is later attested only in the Hippocratic Diseases of women (C.3), which is dated to the late 5th or early 4th century BCE (Craik 2015, 206). Hippocrates is never quoted by the Antiatticist as a source, so the possibility that this lemma refers to a passage in the Hippocratic corpus is unlikely. Perhaps the compiler of the lexicon wished to draw attention to the classical pedigree of a form more common in the spoken Greek of his times.

While the Antiatticist entry is unequivocally concerned with the formation of adverbs, a further element of interest in the comparative ἐχθρότερος may have been the use of the suffix ‑τερος instead of the primary suffix -ίων, which was the norm in earlier Greek for a few adjectives ending in ‑ρός (ἐχθρός : ἐχθίων, αἰσχρός : αἰσχίων, etc.: see K–G vol. 1, 556). However, the analogical forms in ‑τερος and ‑τατος are already attested in Classical Greek (ἐχθρότατος is first documented in Pindar, C.4, ἐχθρότερος in Sophocles, C.5; see too C.1). Later erudition singled out ἐχθίων and ἔχθιστος as typically Attic (see Moeris, B.1), perhaps because of their use in the work of prominent Attic authors (e.g. C.6, C.7). In fact, while ἐχθίων is rarer and more markedly Attic and later mostly found in Atticising prose (see e.g. C.8), ἔχθιστος is amply used in non-Attic texts as varied as Homer (e.g. Il. 1.176), Pindar, Herodotus, and the Septuagint, and remains common in later Greek as well (see E.). The classification of ἐχθίων and ἔχθιστος as Attic is likely to have depended on their morphologically ‘irregular’ status, which probably contributed to their being perceived as marked forms. This can be contended based on the fictional derivational chain offered in the Et.Gen. (B.4), which posits the intermediate form **ἐχθρίων: the explanation was clearly meant to help later speakers of Greek come to terms with the non-transparent derivation of ἐχθίων from ἐχθρός.

E. Byzantine and Modern Greek commentary

Consistent with the distribution observed in Ancient Greek, ἔχθιστος is frequent in all genres of Byzantine literature, while ἐχθίων seems to have died out: a rare exception is Theodorus Prodromus, who uses forms of ἐχθίων twice in his poetry (Carmina historica 79.43 Hörandner; Epigr. in Vetus et Novum Testamentum, Jud. 93b.4 Papagiannis). In spite of this distribution, late antique and Byzantine erudition usually lemmatises ἔχθιστος (see B.2, B.3, B.4), except for the Suda, which devotes a lemma specifically to ἔχθιον (see B.5). Perhaps Hesychius and the Synagoge depend on the same locus classicus (though one should note that there is no lemma of this kind in Cyril).

F. Commentary on individual texts and occurrences

N/A