κεκραγμός, κραυγασμός, κράζω, κραυγάζω
(Phryn. Ecl. 314, Antiatt. κ 8, Antiatt. κ 9, Antiatt. κ 42, Moer. κ 37, Thom.Mag. 196.7–8)

D. General commentary

Strict Atticists (A.1, A.5, A.6) preferred the noun κεκραγμός (‘shriek’) to its synonymSynonyms κραυγασμός, which was instead accepted by the Antiatticist (A.3) based on an attestation in the New Comedy playwright Diphilus (C.3). The ancient debate concerning these two nouns is closely linked to that regarding the verbs from which they derive – namely, the perfect κέκραγα and the present κραυγάζω, both meaning ‘to shriek’ or ‘to scream’ (see below). Indeed, as may be reconstructed on the basis of another entry in the Antiatticist (A.2), strict Atticists appear to have discouraged the use of the present κράζω (which was scarcely attested in canonical authors, compared to the stative perfect κέκραγα, which is standard in classical Attic) and to have prescribed instead κραυγάζω or βοάω, thus creating a sort of suppletive paradigm with the aoristAorist stem κραγ- and the perfectPerfect stem κεκραγ- (both very well attested in classical literature; see below). The same suppletivismSuppletion may also have been promoted for the prefixed ἀνακραγ- (see entry ἀνέκραγον).

Ancient Greek has an onomatopoeicOnomatopoeia root κρᾰγ-/κρᾱγ- conveying the notion of shouting (see EDG s.v. κράζω; Willi 2018, 345). The verbal paradigm derived from the root κρᾰγ-/κρᾱγ- is originally based on the opposition between the thematic aorist ἔκραγον (‘I shouted’, first attested as prefixed ἀνέκραγον ‘I have spoken out’ in Hom. Od. 14.467) and the stative perfect κέκραγα, which has the present meaning ‘I shout’ or, literally, ‘I am in the state of being a shouter’ (Willi 2018, 249 n. 107; cf. e.g. Soph. Ai. 1236 ποίου κέκραγας ἀνδρὸς ὧδ᾿ ὑπέρφρονα, ‘of what sort of man do you shout in this arrogant manner?’: see also Tichy 1983, 40. On the categories of stativity and resultativity in the ancient Greek perfect, see Bentein 2013 with further bibliography). The present stem κράζω (from κραγ- with the addition of the suffix -i̯e/o-, cf. Tichy 1983, 117) first appears in the 5th century BCE, with only two attestations, respectively in Soph. fr. 208.6 (in which the verb refers to the crow’s caw) and Ar. Eq. 287 (= C.2, in which the participle κράζων occurs right after the perfect future κατακεκράξομαι, to mirror the previous sentence καταβοήσομαι βοῶν σε). All other occurrences in classical authors come from the perfect stem κεκραγ- (26x in Aristophanes alone). Similarly, none of the prefixed forms that are derived from κράζω and attested in 5th–4th-century authors (i.e., ἀνακράζω, ‘to cry out’ – by far the most common –, διακράζω, ‘to have a screaming match’, ἐγκράζω, ‘to cry aloud’, κατακράζω, ‘to outdo in crying’) occur in the present stem (cf. entry ἀνέκραγον). The situation reveals some changes in Post-classical Greek: in the Hellenistic period, the present κράζω and its stem have 19 attestations, 8 of which occur in the Septuagint, while the perfect root κεκραγ- is found more than 100 times (approximately a 1:5 ratio). The ratio shows notable changes in the imperial period, when the perfect stem κεκραγ- is found almost 500 times, while the attestations of the present stem amount to approximately 220 (i.e. a ratio of almost 1:2), most of which occur in the New Testament, Origenes, and hagiographical texts. Epigraphical and papyrological evidence is rather scanty. In terms of inscriptionsInscriptions, only one instance of κέκραγε is attested in a 1st-century BCE inscription from the Black Sea (CIRB 128.12) with three instances of κράζω in epigraphic texts dating to between the 3rd and the 6th centuries CE (two are Christian inscriptions – i.e. ID 2582.1 and 3 [5th century CE] and AS 27 (1977) 92–3 nr. 37.13 [Ankyra, 5th–6th century CE] – and one is a defixio, i.e. SEG 38.1837.69 [Oxyrhynchus, 3rd–5th century CE], in which the participle κράζουσα appears to be a banalisation of ἐκκλάζουσα – that is, the form attested in the so-called Getty hexameters, the oldest text that preserves the same ritual verses found also in the defixio). Regarding papyriPapyri, the perfect stem is found only in literary texts, while the present stem occurs in ten documents dating between the 1st century CE and the 5th century CE: this may indicate that the perfect stem was marked as higher register.

Apart from κεκραγμός (once in Euripides, C.1, later only in Plutarch, 1x, and in grammatical sources, cf. A.1, A.5, A.6, B.1 and below), the only other nouns that mean ‘shriek’ from κρᾰγ-/κρᾱγ- are the masculine κράγοςκράγος (once in Ar. Eq. 487, later only in grammatical sources) and the neuter κέκραγμακέκραγμα (once in Ar. Pax 637, later only in grammatical sources). In fact, the standard noun meaning ‘cry’ is the feminine κραυγήκραυγή, an action noun that derives from an onomatopoeic root close to κρᾰγ-/κρᾱγ-, i.e. κραυγ-, and that has parallels in other IE languages (see EDG s.v. κραυγή). κρᾰγ-/κρᾱγ- also forms the agent nouns (κε)κράκτης (‘shrieker’, 2x in Aristophanes, 1x in Hippocrates, and then occasionally in imperial authors, cf. B.1; for the Byzantine usage, cf. E.) and κραγέτηςκραγέτης (‘chatterer’, Pindar 1x, Philostratus the Younger 1x), along with the comic compound κεκραξιδάμας (‘[he] who conquers all in shouting’) in Ar. V. 596. The competing form for ‘shriek’ – κραυγή – creates the denominative κραυγάζω: this is first attested in Demosthenes, C.4 (it is also found in Pl. R. 607b.8, but the text is suspect: cf. Emlyn-Jones, Preddy 2013, 436–7) and is found with greater frequency from the 1st century BCE onwards, mostly (but not exclusively) in religious texts (e.g., 9x in the New Testament, 18x in Origenes). In turn, κραυγάζω generates the deverbative nounDeverbative nouns κραυγασμός (‘scream’; once in Diphilus, C.3; later only in Ηdn. Περὶ καθολικῆς προσῳδίας GG 3,1.140.6, where it is used to gloss ὁ κράγος, and in other grammatical sources, cf. A.1, A.3, A.5, A.6). The documentary evidence for κραυγάζω is limited to a single occurrence in P.Wash.Univ. 2.72,1.6 (= TM 63716) – a 2nd-century CE translation of an Egyptian collection of temple laws, possibly from Oxyrhynchus (the verb is actually misspelled as κραυγάγει) – and one in a funerary inscription from Crete (I.Cret. 2.3.44.19 [Aptera, 3rd century CE]).

Regarding the Atticists’ stance on κράζω, κραυγάζω, κεκραγμός, and κραυγασμός, an entry from the Antiatticist (A.2) states that some unnamed scholars prohibited the use of the present κράζω, recommending κραυγάζω or βοάω in its place. The strict Atticists’ proscription of κράζω is understandable, given that this present form occurs only twice in canonical authors (once in Sophocles and once in Aristophanes: see above). Similarly, the recommendation of βοάω is justified by the fact that it is extremely common in 5th–4th-century prose and poetry. However, the unnamed scholars mentioned by A.2 also appear to have recommended κραυγάζω alongside βοάω, although the status of κραυγάζω as a reputable Attic form rests on shaky ground (it occurs only once in Demosthenes – notably in the aorist, not in the present – and possibly once in Plato, in the present tense, but the passage is dubious, cf. above). We should not discount the possibility that the text of A.2 is somehow corrupt and that the scholars mentioned by the Antiatticist did not, in fact, recommend κραυγάζω as well as βοάω but rather proscribed both κράζω and κραυγάζω while promoting only βοάω: the entry would thus have originally followed the structure ‘X οὔ φασι δεῖν λέγειν, οὐδέ Y, ἀλλά Z’ (cf. Antiatt. γ 22Antiatt. γ 22: γράσος· οὔ φασι δεῖ<ν> λέγειν, οὐδ’ ‘ἀπόζειν γράσου’, ἀλλὰ τράγου, ‘γράσος (‘smell of goat’): They state that one must not say [thus], nor ‘to smell of γράσος’, but ‘[to smell] of τράγος (‘goat’)’). Nonetheless, in eschewing the present κράζω, the strict Atticists appear to have created a sort of suppletive paradigm in which βοάω and (if we accept the transmitted text of A.2) κραυγάζω supplied the present stem corresponding to the aorist stem κραγ- and the perfect stem κεκραγ- (as already noted, this suppletivism may have applied to the root ἀνακραγ- as well, cf. entry ἀνέκραγον). Interestingly, another entry from the Antiatticist (A.4) reads κραυγὴν ποιῆσαι· ἀντὶ τοῦ κραυγάσαι. It is difficult to state with certainty whether this entry should be interpreted as the recommendation of the phrase κραυγὴν ποιῆσαι (‘to utter a cry’, occurring three times in Xenophon, i.e. HG 6.4.16, An. 2.2.17, Cyr. 3.1.4) against the verb κραυγάζω as a whole (and thus possibly as a response to the Atticist prescription found in A.2?), or, rather (and perhaps more plausibly), as a simple statement concerning the admissibility of the periphrastic κραυγὴν ποιῆσαι as synonymous with κραυγάσαι.

Regarding the nouns κεκραγμός and κραυγασμός, formed on the perfect stem κεκραγ- and the present κραυγάζω (cf. above), respectively, Phrynichus, Moeris, and Thomas Magister (A.1, A.5, A.6) favour κεκραγμός, which – despite its very scanty occurrences in the entire Greek literary corpus (cf. above) – must have appeared reputable on the grounds of its derivation from the perfect root κεκραγ- which is, by contrast, amply attested in canonical Attic authors (see above). Phrynichus (A.1, cf. A.6) also openly condemns κραυγασμός, which the Antiatticist (A.3), instead, defends on the basis of an occurrence in Diphilus (C.3).

E. Byzantine and Modern Greek commentary

The latest extant attestations of the nouns κεκραγμός and κραυγασμός are found in Byzantine lexicography (cf. D.) and the two terms do not survive into Modern Greek, unlike κραυγή and βοή, which remain in use – the former with the meaning ‘scream’ or ‘cry’ and the latter encompassing a wider semantic spectrum (‘constant noise’, ‘buzzing’, ‘undefined sound’, ‘shout’); cf. LKN s.vv.

The Atticists’ proscription of the present stem κράζω in favour of κραυγάζω or βοάω, which may be reconstructed through A.2, did not fully influence these forms’ subsequent development. Indeed, although all three verbs survive into Byzantine and Modern Greek, κραυγάζω remains quantitatively rarer than κράζω and βοάω. In particular, between the 3rd and the 7th centuries CE, the present stem of βοάω is found approximately 7000x, the present stem of κράζω over ca. 1500x, and the present stem of κραυγάζω only 516x. It is also worth noting that in this period, the perfect stem κεκραγ- is found ca. 1300x (i.e., less often than κράζω, unlike in Classical, Hellenistic, and Imperial Greek, see above) and continues to recede in the centuries that follow as a natural consequence of the demise of the perfect in the post-classical verbal system. κράζω and κραυγάζω have notable continuations in Byzantine and Modern Greek. Both verbs (in the sense ‘to cry out (i.e. an invocation)’ or ‘to chant aloud’) occupy central positions in hymnography and liturgy from late antiquity and throughout the Byzantine period (e.g. Romanus Melodus κράζω 176x, κραυγάζω 101x) but are also found in documentary texts from this time: κράζω has one papyrological and one epigraphical attestation: i.e. SB 26.16519.31 (= TM 97131) [Antinoupolis? 6th–7th century CE] and I.Heraclea Pontica 39.1 and 3 [1204–1222 CE]. κραυγάζω, meanwhile, has two epigraphic attestations, i.e. IG 12,6.947.4 [Samos, 821–842 CE] and CIG 8817.3 (cf. Grégoire 1927–1928, 449–53) [Ankyra, 9th–10th century CE]. κράζω is used in Modern Greek both in relation to birds – with the meaning ‘to caw’ – and in relation to people – with the same meaning found in Ancient Greek, i.e. ‘to shout’ (also ‘to shout [at someone]’, e.g. when scolding or calling from afar). Similarly, κραυγάζω is also retained in Modern Greek in the sense ‘to shout’.

The agent noun κράκτης (cf. ancient κεκράκτης above) assumes a specific meaning in the early Byzantine period, denoting the court officials and laymen who sang the ‘acclamations in honour of the Emperor, the Empress, the imperial family, or court dignitaries’ during the ceremonies (Wellesz 1961, 103; cf. Constantinus Porphyrogenitus, De cerimoniis 549x).

F. Commentary on individual texts and occurrences

N/A