εὐχρηστέω
(Phryn. Ecl. 381)

D. General commentary

This entry of Phrynichus’ Eclogue (A.1) compares the verbs εὐχρηστέω ‘to be serviceable’ and κίχρημι ‘to lend’, rejecting the former and recommending the latter. Because the primary meaning of εὐχρηστέω is ‘to be serviceable’ (see LSJ s.v.), scholars in the past wondered why Phrynichus treated it as a synonym of κίχρημι. Rutherford (1881, 487), commenting on εὐχρηστέω, went as far as to say that ‘[t]here seems to be no instance of this euphemism in Greek literature, ‘to be of service to’, instead of ‘to lend to’’. Lobeck (1820, 402), while generally inclined to conclude that the entry conflates two originally distinct items, also dubiously reported de Pauw’s suggestion that ‘one who lends is serviceable’ (‘utilis est qui commodat’), and added that in Libanius’ Declamation 32 (C.4) κιχράω, the thematic by-form of κίχρημι, governs τὴν χεῖρα as its direct object, so that ‘to lend a hand’ would indeed mean ‘to be serviceable, to be of assistance’. In Libanius’ passage, the context is both literal (i.e. using one’s hand to help write someone else’s documents) and metaphoricalMetaphors, for the speaking character has just enumerated a series of services he has rendered to others. The pairing of κίχρημι/κιχράω with χεῖρα is also attested elsewhere in late antique and Byzantine texts with the general meaning of ‘to be helpful’ (see e.g. Greg.Naz. Or. 40, MPG 36.421.29–30; Cyr.S. V.Sab. 164.5; Nicephorus Vita Theophanis Confessoris 22.10, etc.).

These earlier scholars were perhaps not yet aware that εὐχρηστέω, attested since Polybius in the main sense ‘to be serviceable’ (see C.2, where the meaning in context is ‘to do comfortably’), acquired in legal jargon the specific meaning ‘to lend, to give someone a loan’. LSJ s.v. cites two attestations of this usage, the earliest of which is found in a papyrus petition (C.3) sent by a Thracian man to the strategos Posidonius, in which the writer requests Posidonius to order certain individuals to return the loan which he had given them (τυγχάνω εὐχρηστηκώς, l. 26; on this text, first published in 1866 and thus unknown to Lobeck, see Lewis 1986, 28). The second attestation of this technical meaning of εὐχρηστέω quoted by the LSJ occurs in a slightly later honorary decree from Priene for a man named Moschion (I.Priene B – M 64.109–11, after 129 BCE): εὐχρήστησεν δὲ καὶ εἰς ἀπό[δο]σιν τιμῆς σίτου δραχμὰς Ἀλεξανδρείας χιλίας [δια]κοσίας (‘[Moschion] also lent [the city] one thousand two hundred Alexandrian drachmas for the payment of the price of corn’). PapyriPapyri contain several further attestations of εὐχρηστέω in this technical sense: see, for instance, CPR 15.10A (= TM 9902) [Soknopaiu Nesos, Arsinoites, 7 BCE–14 CE], where at l. 3 εὐχρήστησα refers to a loan, or P.Oxy. 2.241 (= TM 20510) [ca. 98–99 CE], where at l. 30 ηὐχρήστησεν denotes a kind of advance payment. Forms of κίχρημι, κιχράω, and related verbs (such as προχράω ‘to advance [a sum of money]’) are rarer in papyri. An interesting instance occurs in P.Fay. 109 (= TM 10774) [Euhemeria (Arsinoites), perhaps 34 CE], where the expression ὅταν πρὸς ἀνάγκην θέλῃς παρʼ ἐμοῦ χρήσασθαί τι (‘when out of need you wish to borrow something from me’) at ll. 1–2 is followed further down by νομίσας ὅτι κιχρᾷς μοι αὐτούς (‘considering that you are lending them (i.e., three coins) to me’, ll. 10–1).

Thus, despite Lobeck’s misgivings, in this entry of the Eclogue Phrynichus is indeed addressing an issue of synonymitySynonyms. His approval of κίχρημι likely depends on the verb’s unimpeachable Attic pedigree, since it is used in the sense ‘to lend’ by Demosthenes (C.1) and further by Theophrastus (Char. 30.20: καὶ παρὰ τῶν γνωρίμων τοιαῦτα κίχρασθαι, ἃ μήτ᾿ ἂν ἀπαιτήσαι μήτ᾿ ἂν ἀποδιδόντων ταχέως ἄν τις κομίσαιτο, ‘and he borrows from acquaintances the sorts of things one wouldn’t ask for back, or wouldn’t pick up if people offered them back’, transl. Rusten, Cunningham 2003, 143). By contrast, the exclusive post-classical usage of εὐχρηστέω earned the verb Phrynichus’ disapproval – especially since high-register literary Greek continued to use κίχρημι/κιχράω with the meaning ‘to lend’. See for instance Ph. De virtutibus 83.5–6: εἰ δὲ μὴ βούλοιντο δωρεῖσθαι, κιχράναι γοῦν ἑτοιμότατα καὶ προθυμότατα, μηδὲν ἔξω τῶν ἀρχαίων ἀποληψομένους (‘and if they are unwilling to give, they should at least lend with all the readiness and alacrity, not with the prospect of receiving back anything except the principal’, transl. Colson 1939, 213) or Plu. De vitioso pudore 534b.8–11: ὡς Θεόκριτος, δυεῖν [αὐτὸν] ἐν βαλανείῳ στλεγγίδα κιχραμένων, τοῦ μὲν ξένου τοῦ δὲ γνωρίμου κλέπτου, μετὰ παιδιᾶς ἀμφοτέρους διεκρούσατ’ εἴπας ‘σὲ μὲν οὐκ οἶδα σὲ δ’ οἶδα’ (‘like Theocritus, being asked in the bath to lend his scraper by two persons – one of them a stranger, the other a notorious thief – he evaded both with a witty reply, saying: ‘You, I do not know; and you, I know’’).

This entry in the Eclogue is part of a small cluster of lemmas in which Phrynichus takes issue with terms belonging to contemporary legal jargon. Other examples include Ecl. 274Phryn. Ecl. 274, where he criticises the use of ὑπάλλαγμα instead of ἐνέχυρον ‘pledge, security’ (see entry ὑπάλλαγμα), and Ecl. 342Phryn. Ecl. 342, again directed against the replacement of ἐνέχυρον with another term, ἐνεχυριμαῖον (see entry ἐνεχυριμαῖον). An additional reason for Phrynichus’ disapproval of εὐχρηστέω may lie in its morphology. The verb is a denominative formation from the already classical compound εὔχρηστος ‘serviceable, useful’, whose second member is a verbal adjective from χράομαι. Since the morphology of the compound itself is unimpeachable classical Attic, it is possible that Phrynichus’ aversion to the verb reflects his general mistrust of compound -έω verbs, which are a defining feature of post-classical technical language (see Phryn. Ecl. 370Phryn. Ecl. 370 with entry χρεολυτέω and Phryn. Ecl. 92Phryn. Ecl. 92 with entry καλλιγραφέω).

E. Byzantine and Modern Greek commentary

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F. Commentary on individual texts and occurrences

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