κροτέω, κροταλίζω
(Phryn. PS 68.13, Antiatt. κ 41)

D. General commentary

Two entries, respectively from Phrynichus’ Praeparatio sophistica (A.1) and the Antiatticist (A.2), allow us to reconstruct an Atticist debate about two verbs: the widespread κροτέω (‘to make to rattle’, ‘to strike’, but also ‘to clap (the hands)’, ‘to applaud’, see LSJ s.v. and below) and the much rarer κροταλίζω (‘to use κρόταλα’ i.e. ‘rattles’, ‘clappers’ or ‘castanets’; see LSJ s.v.). Post-classical attestations show that the latter underwent a semantic shift, leading to its use in the sense of ‘to clap’, ‘to applaud’, in the same way as κροτέω. Phrynichus (A.1) clearly preferred κροτέω in this latter sense, while the Antiatticist (A.2) defended the meaning ‘to clap’, ‘to applaud’ for κροταλίζω, based on a line from a play by the 4th-century BCE comic playwright Anaxilas (C.2).

The verb κροτέω derives from the IE root *kret- (‘to shake’, cf. LIV 370, EDG s.v. κρότος). From this root, with the addition of the formant -αλο- (typical of popular vocabulary, cf. Chantraine 1933, 244–7), we get the noun κρόταλον, i.e. ‘castanet’, ‘clapper’ (for a recent overview of the literary and archaeological evidence for this percussion instrument, see Perrot 2021). The verb κροταλίζω (‘to use κρόταλα’) in turn derives from κρόταλον by means of the denominal verbal suffix -ίζω (cf. Tichy 1983, 206–7; on the verbs in -ίζω in general, see K–B vol. 2, 261–2; Müller 1915; Debrunner 1917, 128–39; Schwyzer 1939, 735–6; Schmoll 1955; Sihler 1995, 516–7; Greppin 1997; Tronci 2010; Tronci 2012; Van Emde Boas et al. 2019, 274–5). From their earliest attestations in Homer, κροτέω and κροταλίζω appear to have been used interchangeably in the sense of ‘to shake (something)’ or ‘to rattle (something)’: indeed, they occur in two very similar lines describing horses dragging around empty carriages (see Il. 11.159–60: πολλοὶ δ᾿ ἐριαύχενες ἵπποι | κείν᾿ ὄχεα κροτάλιζον ἀνὰ πτολέμοιο γεφύρας, ‘and many horses with arched necks rattled empty chariots along the lines of battle’; Il. 15.452–3: ὑπερώησαν δέ οἱ ἵπποι | κείν᾿ ὄχεα κροτέοντες, ‘and the horses swerved aside, rattling the empty chariot’. The same wording is also found in h.Hom. Ap. 234).

Between Homer and the 4th century BCE, κροτέω occurs in both poetry and prose, mostly in the sense of ‘to strike’, with the object or instrument clearly expressed, as in Hippon. fr. 115.10: κροτέοι δ᾿ ὀδόντας (‘may his teeth chatter’); Hdt. 6.58: γυναῖκες περιιοῦσαι λέβητας κροτέουσι (‘the women go around beating on cauldrons’); Ar. Ra. 1305–6 (= C.1): ἡ τοῖς ὀστράκοις αὕτη κροτοῦσα (‘that woman who rattles the potsherds’); D. 54.9: κροτεῖν τοῖς ἀγκῶσιν […] τὰς πλευράς (‘to strike the sides [of the body] with the elbows’); see also the phrase γῆν κροτεῖν, ‘to strike the earth (i.e. with the feet while dancing)’, in Pi. fr. 52f.18, Eur. Ba. 188, and Men. Mis. 151. In some cases (e.g. Hdt. 2.60, X. Cyr. 8.4.12, and Thphr. Char. 19.10) the expressed object of κροτέω is χεῖρας, ‘hands’, but – at least from Xenophon onwards – the meaning ‘to applaud’ can also be conveyed by κροτέω alone (see e.g. X. Smp. 9.4.5; Pl. Euthd. 303b.3; R. 492c.1; D. 21.226; Thphr. Char. 11.3).

In post-classical authors and up to the time of Phrynichus, κροτέω occurs frequently both in connection with expressed objects and instruments (see e.g. D.H. 2.19.5: τύμπανα κροτοῦντες, ‘playing the drums’) – especially with χεῖρ, above all in the Septuagint (11x) – and alone, in the sense of ‘to clap (the hands)’, with particular frequency in Plutarch (see e.g. Rom. 15.2: τοῦτ᾿ οὖν ἀκούσαντας εὐφημεῖν καὶ κροτεῖν ἐπαινοῦντας, ‘upon hearing this, they shouted and clapped their hands in approval’), Lucian (see e.g. Nigr. 10: ἐγὼ καὶ βοᾶν καὶ κροτεῖν ἕτοιμος, ‘I am ready to cheer and clap’), and Philostratus the Elder (see e.g. Philostr. Ep. 1.42: αἰτοῦσι (i.e. οἱ πέλαργοι) μηδὲν ὑπὲρ τοῦ κροτεῖν, ‘(the storks) ask for nothing in return for their clapping’). Furthermore, there are several instances of transitive κροτέω in the sense of ‘to applaud (something/someone)’, ‘to approve of (something/someone)’ (see e.g. Plb. 28.16.5: κροτηθείσης δὲ τῆς ὑποθέσεως κτλ, ‘since the proposal was applauded […]’; cf. also D.S. 23.16.1; Ael. VH 2.13.38; Philostr. 8.16.3).

Compared to κροτέω, the evidence for κροταλίζω is remarkably scanty: after Homer, the verb is found only in Hdt. 2.60 (αἳ μὲν τινὲς τῶν γυναικῶν κρόταλα ἔχουσαι κροταλίζουσι, ‘some of the women, having rattles, rattle [them]’), Anaxilas (A.2, C.2; apparently alone, in the sense of ‘to clap [the hands]’, according to the Antiatticist), and a dubious Euripidean fragment (C.3; see below). After the 4th century BCE, κροταλίζω disappears, only to resurface sporadically in imperial prose (Josephus 1x, Dio Chrysostom 1x, Achilles Tatius 1x, Oenomaus 1x, Athenaeus 5x): with the exception of Ach.Tat. 2.22.6 (οἱ δὲ ὀδόντες κενοὶ τῆς θήρας περὶ ἑαυτοὺς ἐκροτάλιζον, ‘the beast’s teeth clashed idly together’), the verb always means ‘to clap [the hands]’. To sum up, κροτέω is far more widespread than κροταλίζω and can mean both ‘to strike (something with something else)’ and, when used absolutely, ‘to clap [the hands]’ (as well as ‘to applaud/approve of [something]’). On the contrary, κροταλίζω is much less attested and its use in the sense of ‘to clap [the hands]’ is found almost exclusively in authors from the imperial period. This quantitative and semantic distribution was probably noticed by Atticist lexicographers, who were arguably suspicious of κροταλίζω, particularly when used by later authors in the sense of ‘to clap [the hands]’.

Phrynichus’ entry (A.1) is extremely concise, probably due to epitomisationEpitome. Indeed, taken by itself, the phrase ἐκρότησεν· ἀντὶ τοῦ ἐκροτάλισεν can be interpreted in different ways. If ἀντὶ τοῦ is translated ‘in the sense of’, the entry is a simple assertion of the semantic equivalence of κροτέω and κροταλίζω. However, if we interpret ἀντὶ τοῦ as ‘instead of’ (as I have done), the entry can be either a general proscription of κροταλίζω in favour of κροτέω (regardless of its semantic value) or a more specific prescription of κροτέω (and against κροταλίζω) in the sense of ‘to clap [the hands]’. Comparison with Photius (B.3; see below), along with the frequency of attestations of κροταλίζω in the sense of ‘to clap [the hands]’ in the imperial period (see above), suggests that the latter interpretation of Phrynichus’ entry is the most likely. In conclusion, in A.1 Phrynichus’ aim in A.1 is probably to discourage the use of κροταλίζω in the sense of ‘to clap [the hands]’, ‘to applaud’, and to promote the verb κροτέω instead. Considering the wording of the entry, it seems reasonable to suppose that A.1 is based on a literary quotation showing what Phrynichus considered to be the correct (or incorrect) usage of either of the two verbs. Since neither ἐκρότησεν nor ἐκροτάλισεν is attested before Phrynichus, we can assume that either the locus classicus has been lost or that its wording was altered in the lemmatisation process. An example of the 3rd pers. sing. aorist indicative used as a lemmatised form in this lexicon is Phryn. PS 4.6–7Phryn. PS 4.6–7: ἀνεβόησεν οὐράνιον ὅσον (‘(s)he clamoured as high as the sky’) which is based on Ar. Ra. 779–81: ὁ δῆμος ἀνεβόα […] οὐράνιόν γ᾿ ὅσον (‘the public was clamouring […] as high as the sky’. See also e.g. Phryn. PS 26.9–10Phryn. PS 26.9–10: ἀπέσβησε πῦρ, ‘(s)he put out the fire’, which has no exact correspondence in literature, but may well be a lemmatisation in the 3rd pers. sing. aorist of the same expression in Pl. Hp.Ma. 290e.8; Criti. 120c.1). As for κροτέω in the sense of ‘to clap [the hands]’, Phrynichus could have drawn a quotation from more than one classical author (there are occurrences in Xenophon, Plato, and Demosthenes in particular, see above). As regards κροταλίζω, on the other hand, the only attestation in a classical author is the dubious Euripidean fragment preserved in Photius’ entry on κροταλίζειν (B.3, C.3).

B.3 is of particular interest: it has no clear source in previous lexicography, its closest parallel being Hesychius (B.2), only as far as the reference to the hands is concerned. The text of the entry is unsustainable in its extant form and has been variously corrected (see the apparatus of B.3 and F.1). Regardless of the exact wording, it seems reasonable to assume that it included two references: one to a line of Euripides (C.3), containing a form of κροταλίζω, and one to the passage in Aristophanes’ Frogs (C.1) where Aeschylus (in an open attack against the musical innovation introduced by Euripides in the Hypsipyle, cf. C.4 and e.g. Borthwick 1994, Di Marco 2009, Simone 2020) calls on stage a female percussionist saying: ποῦ ’στιν ἡ τοῖς ὀστράκοις | αὕτη κροτοῦσα; δεῦρο, Μοῦσ’ Εὐριπίδου (‘where’s that woman who rattles potsherds? Come out here, Muse of Euripides!’). How this last reference relates to the explanation of the correct use of κροταλίζω is not immediately clear. Indeed, what Photius says at the beginning of the entry is that κροταλίζω means ‘to clap (κροτέω) not the hands, but the castanet’, a statement which he seems to have supported with an occurrence of κροταλίζω in Euripides. The line of Frogs, however, attests to κροτέω with the dative in the sense of ‘to make noise with something’, ‘to play something’, and therefore does not quite fit with Photius’ point about κροταλίζω. On the one hand, one could assume that the reference to Frogs is an addition (perhaps even not by Photius but later than him) and not really functional to the explanation. In this perspective, the easiest way to explain the transmitted text is to assume that the quotation of Ar. Ra. 1305–6 (C.1) was at some point omitted due to a saut du même au même between ὡς Εὐριπίδης and the end of Ra. 1306 Μοῦσ’ Εὐριπίδου (cf. the apparatus of B.3). However, a different, though more speculative, interpretation can be suggested. Given the prescriptive tone of B.3 and the (likely) presence of a Euripidean fragment, one might tentatively assume that Photius’ source for the entry for κροταλίζειν was an entry in Phrynichus’ PS, which the extant epitomised version does not preserve in its original structure (for how the material of the PS might have been organised at different stages of its transmission, and the degree of reorganisation and epitomisation it underwent, see entry Phrynichus Atticista, Σοφιστικὴ προπαρασκευή (Praeparatio sophistica); Cavarzeran (forthcoming); Favi (forthcoming)). This idea could be supported by the fact that in the extant redaction of the lexicon Phrynichus devotes an entire entry to the phrase κροτεῖν ὀστράκοις in Ar. Ra. 1305–6, i.e. PS 79.6–12 (B.1). More specifically, Phrynichus’ PS may have originally included a section discussing both κροταλίζειν and κροτεῖν: the extant epitomisedEpitome version of the PS excerpted only the part devoted to κροτεῖν ὀστράκοις (B.1), while Photius (B.3) preserves both, but in abridged form. Indeed, one may assume that a second lemma κροτεῖν ὀστράκοις was lost due to epitomisation and thus tentatively supply ‘τῆς κροταλισάσης’, ὡς Εὐριπίδης. <κροτεῖν ὀστράκοις> φησίν ὁ κωμικὸς περὶ τῆς Ὑψιπύλης λέγων (‘‘of the woman who uses the rattles’ as Euripides [says]. <‘To rattle potsherds’:> says the comic playwright, speaking of the Hypsipyle’).

While κροτέω is widely attested up to the Byzantine period, late antique literary attestations of κροταλίζω are very limited and are found mainly in Nonnus’ Dionysiaca (9x): here the verb plays an important role in descriptions of cultic music (e.g. Nonn. D. 17.343–6) and dance (e.g. Nonn. D. 9.204–5), and always has the generic meaning of ‘to rattle’ (usually in relation to objects such as cymbals and sandals).

E. Byzantine and Modern Greek commentary

κροτέω remains the predominant form throughout the Byzantine period. As far as κροταλίζω is concerned, apart from the attestations in the erudite texts dealing with its meaning in relation to κροτέω (cf. B.2, B.3, B.4), the early Byzantine occurrences of κροταλίζω are limited to one case in the 7th century CE (Leontius of Neapolis) and one in the 8th–9th century (Theophanes the Confessor): in both passages the verb is used absolutely, in the sense of ‘to clap the hands’. An increase in attestations can be observed, instead, between the 11th and the 13th centuries, but the Atticist prescription which limited the use of κροταλίζω to the sense of ‘to play the castanets, to rattle’ does not appear to have had a particularly strong influence. Indeed, in this period, κροταλίζω is found both absolutely, meaning ‘to clap the hands’ (Theodorus Prodromus 2x, Eustathius Macrembolites 1x, Nicephorus Basilaces 1x, Georgius Tornices 1x, Ioannes Cinnamus 1x), and with the object or instrument expressed, meaning ‘to rattle [something]’ or ‘to make noise with [something]’: see Constantinus Manasses 2x (with χεῖρας, ‘hands’), Nicetas Eugenianus 1x (with dative δονάκεσσι, ‘with reeds’), Timarion 1x (with σιαγόνας, ‘jaw-bones’), Eustathius 1x (with ξύλα, ‘logs’, i.e. ‘wooden semantra’), Neophytus Inclusus 1x (with παλάμας, ‘palms of the hands’), Nicetas Choniates 1x (with ὀδόντας, ‘teeth’). A passage from Michael Psellus is particularly interesting in that it juxtaposes (ἐπι)κροτέω and κροταλίζω, using them in the way recommended by Atticist lexica, i.e. with κροτέω meaning ‘to clap the hands’ and κροταλίζω meaning ‘to play the castanets’ (more specifically, in this case, ‘to make a sound like that of castanets’: see Michael Psellus Orationes hagiographicae 4.247–9: καὶ θάτερον μὲν ἐπεκρότουν μέρος καὶ ἐκροτάλιζον, ὡς ἂν εἴπῃ τις, τὼ χεῖρε καὶ ἀνεκάγχαζον, ‘the other party was applauding, making a sound like castanets with their hands, so to speak, and cackling aloud’).

Medieval texts (in particular the so-called Ptochoprodromica and the anonymous Cretan poem Zenon) attest to the form κουρταλίζω, which presents both the metathesisMetathesis of ρ (a phenomenon also attested in Classical Greek, albeit only in some dialects; cf. above κορτάλων < κροτάλων in C.4; see Schwyzer 1939, 267; Van Beek 2022, 107–10; CGMEMG vol. 1, 216–8) and the raising of the unstressed /o/ to /u/, a phonetic change that must be dated to some point in the early medieval period (cf. CGMEMG vol. 1, 73). There is also a variant κρουταλίζω (see Kriaras, LME s.v. κροταλίζω).

In Modern Greek both κροτώ and κροταλίζω are used to describe objects that produce a clear and intermittent sound, such as the chattering of teeth or the pattering of rain on a roof (see LKN s.v.).

F. Commentary on individual texts and occurrences

(1)    Phot. κ 1111 (B.3)

This problematic entry in Photius’ lexicon is the only evidence for Eur. fr. 769 (the fragment is not included in the edition by Collard, Cropp 2009). Its text has been variously corrected (cf. TrGF vol. 5.2, 797) and, although I have proposed two alternative emendations above (see D.), the main previous emendation attempts are worth discussing here. They can be divided into two categories: on the one hand, those that consider τῆς κροταλισάσης to be an actual poetic fragment, and on the other those that explain it as part of the interpretamentum.

The first group includes Dodds’ exempli gratia proposal (in Bond 1963, 140), which is the one that most closely resembles one of the solutions I have tentatively proposed above (see D.):

[…] ἀλλὰ διὰ κροτάλου· ‘τῆς κροταλισάσης’, ὡς Εὐριπίδης· <διὸ ‘τοῖς ὀστράκοις κροτοῦσά’> φησιν ὁ κωμικὸς περὶ τῆς Ὑψιπύλης λέγων.

[…] but with the castanet: ‘of the woman who plays the castanets’, as Euripides [says]. <Therefore> the comic playwright says <‘the woman who rattles the potsherds’> (Ar. Ra. 1305–6), when speaking of the Hypsipyle.

Another proposal of this kind is Wilamowitz’ expunction of Εὐριπίδης (in TrGF vol. 5.2, 797):

[…] ἀλλὰ διὰ κροτάλου· ‘τῆς κροταλισάσης’, ὡς {Εὐριπίδης} φησὶν ὁ κωμικὸς περὶ τῆς Ὑψιπύλης λέγων.

[…] but with the castanet. ‘of the woman who plays the castanets’, as the comic playwright says, when speaking of the Hypsipyle.

This expunction, however, implies that τῆς κροταλισάσης is a fragment from a lost play by Aristophanes.

The second group includes Dobree’s emendation Eὐριπίδης in Εὐριπίδην (with interpunction by Porson; cf. Porson 1822, 754), resulting in an infinitival clause introduced by φησὶν ὁ κωμικός, with Εὐριπίδην as the subject and an implied κροταλίζειν as the verb (in this case τῆς κροταλισάσης is understood as linked to διὰ κροτάλου):

[…] ἀλλὰ διὰ κροτάλου τῆς κροταλισάσης, ὡς Εὐριπίδην φησῖν ὁ κωμικὸς περὶ τῆς Ὑψιπύλης λέγων.

[…] but with the castanet of the female castanet player, as the comic playwright, speaking of the Hypsipyle, says Euripides [did].

The same group also includes Fritzsche’s interpretation (1845, 396), which is based on the transposition of τῆς κροταλισάσης at the end of the entry:

[…] ἀλλὰ διὰ κροτάλου· <οὕτ>ως Εὐριπίδης φησίν, <ὡς> ὁ κωμικὸς περὶ τῆς Ὑψιπύλης λέγων τῆς κροταλισάσης.

[…] but with the castanet: so says Euripides, as the comic playwright [states], speaking of the Hypsipyle who played the castanets.

Despite the attempts to explain τῆς κροταλισάσης as part of the interpretamentum, the fact that the lemma of Phot. κ 1111 is κροταλίζειν makes it easier to suppose that τῆς κροταλισάσης was the locus classicus aimed at illustrating the use of the verb in the sense of ‘to play the castanet’. All in all, it seems more economical to retain Photius’ text as transmitted and to postulate only the loss of an Aristophanic quotation (be it Ra. 1305–6 or a lemmatised κροτεῖν ὀστράκοις) between Εὐριπίδης and φησίν (cf. D.).