κατακορής, διακορής
(Phryn. PS 83.3)

D. General commentary

This entry of the PS (A.1) registers the expression κατακορὴς οἴνῳ ‘saturated with wine’, which is very likely based on Plato’s κατακορὴς τῇ μέθῃ ‘saturated with drink’ (Lg. 645e.1–3: C.1). In its extant form, the entry simply lists this expression before stating that the synonymicSynonyms and cognate adjective διακορής is more πολιτικός. The adjectivesAdjectives derive, respectively, from κατακορέω and διακορέω, both of which are denominatives of κόρος ‘satiety’ and serve as the intransitive and intensified equivalents of κορέννυμι ‘to satiate’ (on the semantic range of κόρος and its cognates, see Helm 1993). In this context, πολιτικός likely denotes ‘more appropriate to a civil register’ (a meaning that it has in other entries of the PS: see the general discussion in entry ἄψοφον ἔχειν στόμα and Tribulato, forthcoming) and does not appear to refer to the style appropriate to the oratorical genre of the πολιτικὸς λόγος, since no clear distribution of the two forms may be detected across different literary genres (see below). A.1 likely partakes of Phrynichus’ interest in prefixation, as also shown – among many others – by the immediately preceding lemma (PS 83.2Phryn. PS 83.2, dealing with καταριστάω ‘to devour’, cf. entry καταριστάω), by PS 78.25–6Phryn. PS 78.25–6, addressing καταστωμύλλομαι ‘to chatter’ (see entry καταστωμύλλομαι), and PS 78.21–2Phryn. PS 78.21–2 (καταχῶσαι λόγοις καὶ ὕμνοις καὶ ἐπαίνοις· οἷον καταπληρῶσαι λόγοις, ‘‘to bury [one] in a heap of words and hymns and praises’: meaning to fill [one] with words’). In all these forms, κατα- has a strengthening function (see LSJ s.v. κατά E.V), denoting ‘to eat something completely, until one is full’; the prefix renders these verbs more emphatic than the corresponding simplicia.

κατακορής is a rather common adjective in technicalTechnical language contexts, where it qualifies things or people saturated with something, such as wine in C.1 or colour in C.2, while in C.3, it originally blends the images of the drowning sailor’s being literally drenched with water and being overwhelmed by the situation (see Budelmann 2018, 238; on ‘blending’ techniques in Timotheus’ Persians see Budelmann, LeVen 2014). The application of κατακορής to food and drink is common: apart from C.1, see B.3 with the passage by Procopius quoted therein. The interpretamentum in Hesychius (B.2) ‘troublesome’ probably depends on the same passage of the Laws (C.1) in which Plato discusses the intoxicating and negative effects of wine.

According to the text transmitted by cod. Par. Coisl. 345, Phrynichus judged the synonym διακορής to be more πολιτικός ‘civil’ than κατακορής. The motivation behind this judgement, however, is unclear, since it is uncertain whether πολιτικός is here intended in a meliorative or pejorative sense. διακορής, a variant of the rarer διάκορος (first attested in Hdt. 3.117, cf. Thom.Mag. 104.16–105.2), has the same semantic range as κατακορής, denoting being ‘filled with something, satiated’ (see e.g. B.5 and B.6): Pollux (B.1) mentions both forms in a section dealing with expressions used to denote satiety. Like κατακορής, διακορής is also used by Plato (C.4 and C.5, the latter the locus classicus behind Hsch. δ 1064, B.5, and other lexica depending on it). The only, slight difference that is perceptible in the two adjectives’ occurrences is that while κατακορής occurs once in a poetic text, Timotheus’ Persians (C.3), and is then amply attested in technical authors such as Aristotle, Theophrastus, Hippocrates, and medical writers but generally not in high-register Atticising prose, διακορής is instead the preferred form in Plutarch, Dio Chrysostom, Aristides, Aelian, and other imperial, late-antique, and Byzantine prose-writers. Whether this is sufficient evidence to interpret Phrynichus’ πολιτικώτερον as a label marking the preference for διακορής in Atticising prose remains open to speculation, since διακορής also occurs in authors who do not write in Atticising style (for instance, Philo, Plotinus, Oribasius, and Byzantine writers, on which see E.). Bekker (1814–1821 vol. 1, 48) undoubtedly intended to resolve this discrepancy when he corrected the transmitted πολιτικώτερον into πολιτικώτερα, thus hypothesising that Phrynichus’ original statement concerned both adjectives, which – being attested almost exclusively in prose – the lexicographer might have considered suitable for educated language.

E. Byzantine and Modern Greek commentary

Both διακορής and κατακορής are employed by Byzantine authors: διακορής features, for example, in John of Damascus, Theodorus Studites, Constantinus VII, Psellus, and Anna Comnene as well as in medical and hagiographical texts. κατακορής occurs in Procopius (several times), Constantinus VII, Psellus, and Nicetas Choniates. Neither survives in Modern Greek, though κόρος ‘satiety’ is registered as a learned synonym of κορεσμός in expressions such as κατὰ κόρον ‘until satiety, ad nauseam’.

F. Commentary on individual texts and occurrences

N/A