χρύσεος, χάλκεος, φοινίκεος
(Phryn. Ecl. 178, Moer. χ 3, Philemo [Vindob.] 396.28)

D. General commentary

Several lemmas in the Atticist lexica, particularly those of Phrynichus (A.1, B.1) and Moeris (A.2, B.2, B.3), deal with the inflection and accentuation of the so-called contract adjectives of material belonging to the thematic declension. Atticists almost unanimously prescribe the contracted forms while rejecting the uncontracted forms as ‘Ionic’Ionic; an isolated and puzzling exception is found in the lexicon of Philemon (A.3), which unexpectedly recommends an uncontracted form (see F.2).

The adjectives of material, such as χρύσεος, Attic χρυσοῦς ‘golden’, are formed with the suffix -εο- < *-ei̯o- (cf. Latin -eus, Sanskrit -aya-). This suffix has a variant -ειος, of disputed origin (see Chantraine 1933, 50‒1; Ruijgh 1967, 234‒46). Both variants are attested in Mycenaean Greek, where -e-o alternates with -e-jo (see Hajnal 1994 on the distribution of the Mycenaean forms and their Indo-European background); in the Homeric language, the type χάλκεος coexists with the type χάλκειος, while -εος prevails in later Ionic. In Attic, the two variants acquired distinct specialisations, with -οῦς < -εος used for most adjectives of material (including those of colour) and -ειος reserved for adjectives derived from animal namesAnimals, names of (χοίρειος ‘of a swine’ < χοῖρος ‘pig’). Adjectives derived from names of minerals also have -ειος in Attic in some specialised usages, cf. χρύσεια, ἀργύρεια (μέταλλα or ἔργα) ‘gold, silver mines’ (see C.8, C.9), although Ruijgh (1967, 236) argued that these were actually adjectives in *-εϝ-jο- derived from unattested agent nouns in -εύς (*ἀργυρεύς ‘silver miner’). Nevertheless, Atticist lexicographers were aware of these latter forms’ special behaviour (see B.5). A further Attic peculiarity is found in some material adjectives that appear to exhibit a kind of double suffixation in -εοῦς or -ιοῦς: this, too, is discussed in a lemma that likely originates with Phrynichus (see B.1, F.2). The multiplicative adjectives in -πλόος, such as διπλόοςδιπλόος, Attic διπλοῦς ‘double’, behave in a manner that is partly similar to adjectives of material, and are often treated in parallel to them in both ancient and modern scholarship (cf. B.1, and see entry ἁπλᾶ, διπλᾶ, τριπλᾶ); the adjective ἀθρόοςἀθρόος ‘gathered together’ is attested across dialects in various forms that pose particular problems and that were extensively discussed in ancient scholarship (see entry ἄθρους).

While adjectives of material in -εος were recessively accented in other Greek dialect, in Attic, they have perispomenon accent. This columnar accentuation was introduced by analogicallyAnalogy extending to the entire paradigm the accent that the contraction produced in the case-forms that had a long final syllable (i.e., nom. sing. χρύσεος > *χρύσους > χρυσοῦς after gen. sing. χρυσέου > χρυσοῦ: see Dieu 2022, 465‒8). Consequently, Atticist prescriptions regarding the above forms are twofold: not only is the difference between the Attic contracted form and the Ionic or koine uncontracted form emphasised (as is the case for other contract nouns and adjectives), but in the case of material adjectives, the different accent position is also an issue (explicitly remarked in B.1). An entry (B.4) from the lexicon of pseudo-Zonaras, identified by Alpers as a fragment of Orus, is particularly perplexing, in that it opposes Attic nom.-acc. neut. plur. ἐρεᾶἐρεοῦς ‘woollen’ and λινᾶλίνεος ‘linen’ to their alleged non-Attic counterparts ἐρεᾰ́ and λινᾰ́, despite the fact that the latter should have been recessively accented.

In Attic prose authors, the material adjectives appear only in contracted form. However, uncontracted forms are not uncommon in tragedyTragedy: χρύσεος, for instance, actually outnumbers χρυσοῦς in Sophocles and Euripides (for the latter, the TLG counts 68 occurrences of the uncontracted forms versus 17 contracted instances). Aristophanes uses uncontracted forms in passages with a (mock-)solemnParody tone (see, e.g., for χρύσεος, Nu. 272 = C.6, Av. 1748, Th. 108, 327). This distribution offers a key to interpreting the occasional appearance of uncontracted forms in later comedyComedy, exemplified by Theopompus (C.10) and Xenarchus (C.12). As Farmer (2022, 38) observes, the Theopompus fragment exhibits an elevated style, manifested in the absence of metrical resolutions in the trimeters, the use of the tragic word μεσόμφαλος, and the pronoun νιν. He argues that Telestes’ dithyrambic style may be parodied here (see also Kassel, Austin, PCG vol. 7, 710‒1 ad loc.). The Xenarchus fragment is also characterised by an exuberant dithyrambic diction (Nesselrath 1990, 263). Comparison with the Aristophanic attestations of χρύσεος suggests that these occurrences may be explained as a parody of elevated style, rather than as a concession to informal language. Regarding non-literary sources, material and multiplicative adjectives are invariably contracted in Attic inscriptions (see Threatte 1996, 286‒91) and in Ptolemaic papyri (see Mayser, Gramm. vol. 2, 53‒5), with the exception of metrical or dialectal texts. In later times, the distributions begin to diverge: Gignac (1981, 116‒27) observes that in Roman papyri, multiplicative adjectives are invariably contracted and material adjectives usually so, although ‘open forms sometimes occur in ἀργύρεος, χάλκεος, and χρύσεος, as well as in the new σμάλλεος [‘woollen’]’.

The use of contracted second-declension forms is typically regarded as a hallmark of Atticist style (see Horrocks 2010, 138; Kim 2010, 470). Schmid (Atticismus vol. 4, 580) argued that the occasional uncontracted forms found in Atticising authors of the Second Sophistic are largely interpretable as literary Ionicisms, though they may coincide with forms that were usual in the koine (see also Schmid, Atticismus vol. 3, 19 on Aelian and vol. 4, 14, 312, 337 on Philostratus). This is debatable, given that in the case of forms such as χρύσεος, which were ubiquitous in the koine and not marked as low, an infiltration of koine forms presents itself as the more economical explanation. The actual picture, however, may be more complicated, and in practice, the different categories may have been treated in a slightly different manner by individual authors. Gammage (2018, 130‒52; 2019, 42‒55), for instance, provides a thorough analysis of the use of contracted thematic forms in Achilles TatiusAchilles Tatius. She concludes that this author ‘shows a preference for Attic-leaning forms over non-Attic alternatives’, but sometimes distances himself from the usual practice of Attic authors: for example, he consistently chooses the contracted forms of material adjectives with the exception of κυάνεοςκυάνεος (a word that is rare in classical Attic and appears both contracted and uncontracted in the koine), which he only uses (2x) in uncontracted forms. Gammage (2019, 59) ultimately suggests that ‘Achilles’ use of a mild but inconsistent Atticism was deliberate’, possibly because, like Lucian or Galen, he was at pains to demonstrate his knowledge of classical Attic while rejecting the stricter impositions of Atticist lexicographers (see already Vilborg 1962, 12).

E. Byzantine and Modern Greek commentary

In Byzantine Greek, contract adjectives in -οῦς are a residual, unproductive category: they are mainly limited to mixed- and higher-register texts and, with the exception of a few compounds based on existing words (e.g., κοκκινοχρυσοῦς ‘red-golden’), no new items are formed in this category. When these adjectives are employed at all, the endings are typically contracted, while the uncontracted endings are even rarer. More commonly, however, these adjectives shift to the class of adjectives with simple o- and ā-stem declensions, a process that was facilitated by most endings’ identities; this similarity was enhanced by the loss of quantity distinctions and the merger between acute and circumflex accentuations, which eliminated any phonetic difference between, for example, the nom.-acc. neut. plur. -ᾶ and -ᾰ́, or the acc. masc. plur. -οῦς and -ούς. This process was completed in Modern Greek, in which neither the contracted nor the uncontracted forms have survived, with the consequence that the adjective for ‘golden’, χρυσός, is now identical with the noun ‘gold’ in the masculine singular, while αργυρός ‘of silver’ is still accentually distinct from άργυρος ‘silver’. Note that the final accentuation still demonstrates that these forms originated in the Attic(ist) χρυσοῦς, ἀργυροῦς.

F. Commentary on individual texts and occurrences

(1)    Philemo (Vindob.) 396.28 (A.3)

In striking contrast to the doctrine of other Atticist sources, Philemon (A.9) is alone in recommending the uncontracted form of the adjective φοινίκεος against the contracted form (see Brown 2008, 207), for reasons that remain unclear. The uncontracted form is used by Xenophanes (C.1), Simonides (C.2), Pindar (C.3), and Bacchylides (C.5) and is common in Herodotus (4x), while the contracted form is found in a fragment dubiously attributed to Aeschylus (C.4, transmitted by Su. κ 2733) and is used in prose by Xenophon (e.g., C.11), Aristotle, and Theophrastus; both forms may be found in Hippocratic writings. This distribution, which is not unlike that of, for example, χρύσεος, confirms that φοινίκεος – like other uncontracted forms – was essentially non-Attic and should consequently have been rejected by the purists. It is true that φοινικοῦς appears relatively late in Attic literature, as this word ‒ in either contracted or uncontracted form ‒ is absent from earlier canonical authors, such as Aristophanes (who uses φοινικιοῦς, see F.2) or Plato; the adjective is also notably absent from the Homeric poems, in which φοινικόεις is found. At any rate, this is not the only entry in Philemon’s lexicon that prescribes an uncontracted form (cf. Philemo (Laur.) 356Philemo (Laur.) 356: ἄθροος· ὡς ἄγριος, discussed under entry ἄθρους); elsewhere, both contracted and uncontracted variants are approved (Philemo (Laur.) 356Philemo (Laur.) 356: καὶ βόες καὶ βοῦς ἑκατέρως: contrast Moer. β 13Moer. β 13, who only admits βοῦς as the nom. plur.; Philemo (Laur.) 356Philemo (Laur.) 356: καὶ βορᾶς καὶ βορέας ἑκάτερα). Cf. also Philemo (Vindob.) 396{wk. Philemo (Vindob.) 396}: σῶ, οὐχὶ σῶον· τὰ σῶα δὲ δεῖ λέγειν, in which the uncontracted form is preferred in the direct cases of the neuter plural (contrast Moer. σ 19Moer. σ 19: σᾶ περισπωμένως Ἀττικοί τὰ σῶα). In sum, it appears that Philemon was more tolerant of uncontracted nominal forms than the stricter Atticists, such as Phrynichus and, particularly, Moeris, in spite of the many similarities between the latter and Philemon (on which see Hansen 1998, 40).

(2)    Phryn. PS fr. *367 (B.1)

This lemma is shared by Σ^b, Photius, and the Suda and goes back to the first expansion of the Synagoge (Σ´). De Borries identified it as a fragment of Phrynichus’ Praeparatio sophistica based on the coincidence with the epitome (PS 43.17–9Phryn. PS 43.17–9: see entry ἁπλᾶ, διπλᾶ, τριπλᾶ) and comparison with a similar entry in the Eclogue (A.1). The text of this entry is repeated in other lemmas of the Suda (δ 1258, π 1871, χ 553). As Vessella (2018, 256‒7) remarks, this gloss ‘includes heterogeneous Atticistic material […] and touches on two different problems’: the accent type and position in the nom.-acc. neuter plural of material adjectives and the accent type in the multiplicative adjectives. Indeed, the composite nature of this gloss induced Vessella (2018, 257) to suggest that it ‘results from the conflation of originally independent material’. Additionally, the entry prescribes the correct nom.-acc. neut. plur. of two forms, κεραμεᾶ and φοινικιᾶ, which, in Attic, exhibit an apparently double suffixation (see K‒B vol. 1, 402). κεραμεοῦς ‘earthen’, inflected as though contracted from *κεραμέεος, is in fact the normal Attic form of the adjective derived from κέραμοςκέραμος ‘clay’: it is attested in literature since Xenophon (An. 3.4.7) and is also commonly found in inscriptions (Threatte 1996, 286). κεραμεοῦς and its synonym χυτρεοῦςχυτρεοῦς (Ar. Nu. 1474) are believed to be analogically modelled on ἐρεοῦςἐρεοῦς < ἐρέεος ‘woollen’ (cf. Myc. neut. plur. we-we-e-a /werweʰeʰa/), which regularly added the suffix -εος to the s-stem *ϝερϝεσ- (Hom. εἶρος) (Ruijgh 1967, 237). φοινικιοῦςφοινικιοῦς has a metrically guaranteed attestation in Aristophanes (C.7) and is also found in the texts of Aristotle (16x), Polybius (6.41.7), and Pausanias (1.28.8). This form had already attracted scholarly interest in antiquity: the scholium to Ar. Av. 272 (B.6) derives it, by way of metathesis and contraction, from the Homeric synonym φοινικόεις. LSJ s.v. explains it as a contamination between φοινικοῦς and φοινίκιος, two adjectives that must have coexisted for a long time, given that both are already attested in Mycenaean po-ni-ke-a and po-ni-ki-ja (see Ruijgh 1967, 238). Only some of the various sources transmitting this entry have the readings φοινικιᾶ, φοινικιοῦν, while the others have φοινικᾶ, φοινικοῦν. It appears more likely that the former reading was the original: not only it is the lectio difficilior, but it makes sense that κεραμεᾶ was followed by the mention of another form that presented an additional morphological peculiarity compared to the already-mentioned adjectives of the kind χρυσᾶ, ἀργυρᾶ, and the attestation of φοινικιοῦς in Aristophanes rendered it of special interest to Atticists.