διακονοῦμαι, διακονῶ
(Moer. δ 20, Moer. δ 21)

D. General commentary

Two entries in Moeris’ lexicon (A.1, A.2) characterise the use of the middle voice of the verb διακονέω ‘to serve’ as typically Attic, both in the present and in the imperfect (for the verb’s etymology and the Atticist prescriptions concerning its augmentation and reduplication, see entry δεδιακόνηκα, διηκόνηκα, ἐδιακόνουν, διηκόνουν). Philemon’s Atticist lexicon (B.1, an entry transmitted in different formats by both cod. L and V) likewise prescribes the middle forms, while in the early transmission of Thomas Magister’s lexicon (B.2) a milder formulation – admitting both active and middle forms – appears to have replaced a stricter one prescribing the middle (see F.1).

The lexicographical entries seem at variance with the attested distribution. In classical Attic, indeed, διακονέω is overwhelmingly employed in the active voice, either transitively, with the meaning ‘to minister, to supply’ something to someone (e.g. C.5), or intransitively, with the meaning ‘to serve, to act as a servant’ (e.g. C.4). Only three occurrences of the middle voice survive from this period, all with the meaning ‘to cater, to provide for oneself’: the reflexive pronounPronouns, reflexive ἑαυτῷ is either redundantly expressed (C.3, C.6 – the latter contrasting with the active διακονοῦντες) or left implicit (C.1). These instances may be classified as indirect reflexive middles, in the former two cases with the redundant use of both middle voice and reflexive pronoun (Allan 2003, 112–5). A fourth possible attestation of the present middle participle διακονούμενος (C.2), likewise in Sophocles, is quoted without context in a scholium (B.5), although the fact that it is mentioned among examples of middle forms used in place of active ones may suggest a different meaning from that of other classical attestations (but see F.2). Other forms of διακονέω with medio-passive morphology attested in the classical period are better interpreted as passives, cf. e.g. D. 51.7: τῶν δὲ καλῶς δεδιακονημένων, ‘of the good services rendered’. By contrast, the middle διακονοῦμαι becomes more common in Post-classical Greek, where it is attested in most of the senses of the active, with no semantic difference (see DGE s.v.). Meanwhile, attestations of the reflexive middle διακονέομαι (ἐμαυτῷ) ‘I provide for myself’ almost disappear after the classical period: when διακονέω is used alongside a reflexive pronoun, it typically appears in the active voice and lacks the specialised sense it bears in classical Attic, functioning simply as the reflexive of the usual active meaning ‘to serve, to attend, to wait on’; cf. e.g. Str. 10.4.20: (οἱ παῖδες) διακονοῦσί τε καὶ ἑαυτοῖς καὶ τοῖς ἀνδράσι, ‘(the boys) wait on the men as well as on themselves’ (though here the use of the active may also be influenced by the presence of a second, non-reflexive argument).

A rationale for the rise and early disappearance of the reflexive construction of διακονέομαι may be found in a recent study by Horrocks (2020), who challenges the common view that in Classical Greek the middle constitutes a full-fledged grammatical voice distinct from both active and passive. He argues instead that the middle comprises verbal forms that are either deponent (i.e. lacking an active counterpart, e.g. βούλομαι, γίγνομαι, etc.) or have developed a sufficiently distinct meaning to become semantically autonomous from the active (i.e. they were de facto deponents, e.g. αἱρέω ‘take’/αἱρέομαι ‘choose’, ἀποδίδωμι ‘give back’/ἀποδίδομαι ‘sell’, γράφω ‘write’/γράφομαι ‘indict’, πείθω ‘persuade’/πείθομαι ‘obey’, etc.). According to Horrocks (2020, 13–4), the indirect reflexive use of the transitive middle – traditionally regarded as typical of the Greek middle as a whole – is actually ‘restricted to a relatively small set of semantically linked verbs’ meaning ‘to make, to prepare, to provide’ (e.g. ποιέομαι, παραρασκευάζομαι, παρέχομαι), since these are actions that people ‘frequently and naturally’ perform for themselves. One may observe that διακονέω, given its lexical meaning, was arguably another good candidate for developing an indirect reflexive use. However, unlike the verbs just mentioned, this use did not take hold, possibly owing to the overall lower frequency of διακονέω relative to verbs such as ποιέω ‘to make’, παρασκευάζω ‘to prepare, to procure’, or παρέχω ‘to provide, to supply’.

It is unlikely that the lexicographers simply ignored the extreme rarity of middle διακονέομαι in classical texts. Rather, their entries should be read as part of the broader Atticist tendency to recommend the middle voice in place of the active, in reaction to the gradual loss of the middle as a distinct grammatical category in Post-classical Greek and the decline of ‘deponent’ verbs (for other cases in which the form attributed to the ‘users of Greek’ is not strictly post-classical, but rather unmarked in contrast to ‘marked’ Attic usage, see entry Moeris, Ἀττικιστής). In fact, although several deponent verbs were preserved (and still survive in Modern Greek: see E.), they were conjugated exactly like the passive of transitive verbs, whereas several verbs that were deponent in classical Attic shifted to the active inflection in the koine (for attestations of these developments in the papyri, see Mayser, Gramm. vol. 2,1, 91–116; Gignac 1981, 325–7). The Atticists were doubtless aware of this diachronic change (on their awareness of morphosyntactic change between Classical and later Greek, see La Roi 2022), and their attempts to resist it easily lead to hypercorrection. As Horrocks (2010, 138) observes, the ‘[i]mportant hallmarks of correct Attic usage included […] [e]xtensive use of middle verb forms, both where the Koine had replaced anomalous middles with regular actives or passives, and also gratuitously as a mark of ‘learning’’. Philemon was especially keen to prescribe the use of deponent verbs in place of active ones; indeed, this is the single most frequently treated type of verbal change in his lexicon, discussed in 14 entries, including B.1 (see Brown 2008, 219).

There is therefore no need to posit alternative, less likely explanations – e.g. that the Atticists wished to signal that the middle was indeed attested in canonical authors and thus safe to use, or to highlight the classical reflexive use of the middle as more correct than its later use as a synonym of the active.

The same tendency to extend the middle of διακονέω beyond its classical usage is observable in certain Atticising writers. To give a first example, Dio Chrysostom uses this verb five times, mostly in the middle, with the exception of the present active participle διακονοῦντος in Or. 10.13, but the reason for this variation is not obvious. Even more telling is the case of Lucian, who employs the verb διακονέω at least 17 times (21 including spurious works and those of disputed authorship). Apart from the aorist active infinitive διακονῆσαι in the probably spurious Charidemus (27), all occurrences are in the medio-passive. In none of these, however, is the middle used in the classical reflexive construction. Rather, Lucian employs διακονέομαι in the same sense ‘to serve’ that in Classical Greek was restricted to the active voice, both intransitively (C.8) and transitively (C.9). This forms part of a broader tendency in his usage to treat as media tantum several verbs that are usually found in the active in earlier authors (see Schmid, Atticismus vol. 1, 239, 392). A starkly different picture emerges from the usage of Aelius Aristides, who, with a comparable number of occurrences of διακονέω (22x), uses exclusively active forms. In the same period, an isolated example of the classical construction occurs in Galen (C.7), who employs διακονέομαι with the reflexive pronoun (the only occurrence of this verb in the Galenic corpus). In an author who, though not a strict Atticist, was well acquainted with classical usage, this is unlikely to be accidental. Later authors striving for a classicising style likewise do not conform to the classical norm in their use of voice with this verb: Libanius, for instance, employs the middle of διακονέω only once (C.10), with an active sense, as against 17 occurrences in the active.

The different views on the proper use of διακονέω with respect to grammatical voice persist in late Byzantine grammatical sources. Thus, the anonymous dialectological treatise known as the Grammaticus Meermannianus (B.3) reiterates the Atticist position that the use of deponent διακονέομαι is an Attic trait, whereas the Atticist lexicon transmitted in cod. Par. gr. 3027 (B.4), edited by Hermann (1801, 319–52), and possibly compiled by Nicephorus Gregoras in the 13th century, includes διακονέω/διακονέομαι among verbs that may be used interchangeably in the active and the medio-passive. This latter view – as discussed above – reflects more accurately the post-classical rather than the classical state of affairs (see also F.1).

E. Byzantine and Modern Greek commentary

By the beginning of the Byzantine period, the middle voice had ceased to exist as a productive morphological category, except for relics in higher-register texts; Medieval and Early Modern Greek only contrasts an active and a passive (sometimes called medio-passive) voice, the latter of which may retain some of the functions of the Ancient Greek middle, such as reflexive and reciprocal uses (see CGMEMG vol. 3, 1758–65; vol. 4, 1929). Modern Greek preserves several deponent verbs inherited from Ancient Greek, with medio-passive morphology and active, either transitive or intransitive, meaning (cf. γίνομαι ‘to become’, ἔρχομαι ‘to come’, φοβάμαι ‘to fear, be scared’, δέχομαι ‘to receive, accept’, etc.).

As far as διακονέω is concerned, in the Byzantine period the verb is abundantly attested across all registers and is in fact much more frequent than in antiquity, owing to its Christian sense ‘to be, to serve as a deacon’. In the vernacular Greek of the medieval period, both the active and the middle voice are used in the sense ‘to serve’, while the middle also appears with the innovative meaning ‘to settle down’ (see Kriaras, LME s.v.). In Standard Modern Greek διακονώ ‘to serve (with devotion); to be a deacon’ shows active morphology, but see Andriotis (1974 s.v.) for modern dialectal forms preserving deponent morphology, including Cretan δι̯ακονούμαι and – with the addition of the suffix -ίζ- – Cretan δικονίζομαι, and Cypriot δι̯ακονίζομαι.

F. Commentary on individual texts and occurrences

(1)    Thom.Mag. 79.11–3 (B.2)

The text of this entry, as printed in Ritschl’s edition of Thomas Magister’s lexicon, reflects a more tolerant stance, admitting both the active form διακονέω and the medio-passive διακονέομαι; as an example of the latter, a passage from Lucian (C.8) is quoted, where – as is typical of this author – the middle is used in the same sense as the active (see D.). However, the shorter version of Thomas’ lexicon transmitted by codd. F and Pa presents a different, more restrictive doctrine, recognising only διακονέομαι as Attic. Gaul (2007, 296–326) has argued that this shorter recension, transmitted by earlier MSS (whereas Ritschl based his edition exclusively on 15th-century MSS), is closer to the original lexicon as compiled by Thomas Magister. The version edited by Ritschl would be the product of subsequent expansions, first undertaken in Thessaloniki – possibly under Thomas’ own direction –    and later continued in Constantinople within the circle of Nicephorus Gregoras (see entry Thomas Magister, ’Ονομάτων Ἀττικῶν ἐκλογή). In the present case, therefore, it is likely that the softening of the prescription and the addition of the quotation from Lucian reflect this later elaboration (it is suggestive that B.4, possibly compiled by Gregoras himself, likewise presents διακονέω and διακονέομαι as equivalents; on the reception of Thomas’ lexicon in Gregoras’ circle, see Gaul 2007, 320–6). The more restrictive stance found in the older codd. may derive from either Moeris (A.1, A.2) or Philemon (B.1), both known to have been among Thomas’ principal sources (on Thomas’ dependence on Philemon, see Gaul 2008, 189–90). Philemon, however, appears to be the more likely source in this case, since B.2 belongs to a small cluster of consecutive entries with parallels in one or both recensions of Philemon’s lexicon (cf. Thom.Mag. 79.14Thom.Mag. 79.14 and Philemo (Laur.) 358Philemo (Laur.) 358 on δικροῦν/δίκρουν, on which see also entry δίκρανος, δίκροος; Thom.Mag. 79.15–7Thom.Mag. 79.15–7, Moer. δ 28Moer. δ 28, and Philemo (Laur.) 358Philemo (Laur.) 358 on δεσμά/δεσμοί; Thom.Mag. 80.3–14Thom.Mag. 80.3–14 and Philemo (Laur.) 358Philemo (Laur.) 358 (= Vindob. 393.6Philemo (Vindob.) 393.6) on διηλλάγη/κατηλλάγη; Thom.Mag. 80.15Thom.Mag. 80.15 and Philemo (Laur.) 358Philemo (Laur.) 358 (= Vindob. 393.7Philemo (Vindob.) 393.7) on διαπαίζω/καταπαίζω). Finally, it is worth noting that the indication that Attic uses διακονέομαι in place of διακονέω also appears in the Planudean-era lexicographical miscellany preserved in cod. Par. gr. 2662, f. 90r.

(2)    Soph. fr. 1148 (C.2)

The scholium to Soph. Ph. 1108 (B.5) notes the use of the active προσφέρων in place of the middle προσφερόμενος, and contrasts it with cases in which Sophocles did the opposite, using a middle form instead of an active one. Neither of the examples adduced occurs in the text of the extant Sophoclean plays. As regards the last example (= fr. 1097), the compound verb στιβαδοποιούμενος, transmitted by the codd. and accepted by Papageorgiou (1888, 384), has been emended to the phrase στιβάδα ποιούμενος, both meaning ‘making himself a straw bed’ (see Pearson 1917 vol. 3, 161–2; Radt, TrGF vol. 4, 629). The other parallel cited by the scholiast, διακονούμενος instead of διακονῶν, has been taken (since Wolff 1843, 23) as an imprecise reference to Ph. 287 (C.1), where the middle infinitive διακονεῖσθαι occurs; but, as Pearson (1917 vol. 3, 162) remarked, ‘the inference is far from certain’. Indeed, since in C.1 the middle is employed in a sense distinct from that of the active (and consistent with the other classical attestations of the middle: C.3, C.6), this line would not constitute a particularly apt illustration of the phenomenon discussed in the scholium – namely the use of a middle where an active is expected. It therefore remains possible that the middle participle διακονούμενος was used somewhere in Sophocles’ plays.