ζωρότερος, εὔζωρος, εὐζωρότερος
(Phryn. Ecl. 114)

D. General commentary

This entry in the Eclogue discusses which adjective – ζωρός or εὔζωρος – should be used to indicate ‘pure’ (i.e. ‘strong’) wine. Although the noun ‘wine’ is not present in the entry, both the context of usage of these adjectives in Greek and Phrynichus’ imperative κέρασον ‘mix!’ clarify that the discussion concerns wine-drinking. Like the more common ἄκρατος, ζωρός and εὔζωρος were used to designate the consumption both of neat, undiluted wine (a practice which is often stigmatised in ancient Greece: a discussion in Papakonstaninou 2009, 5–6 and Papakonstaninou 2012, 14–23) and of a strong mixture of wine and water (there is a detailed discussion of measures in Wilkins 2000, 216–7). Strong wine was served on special occasions, as in Iliad 9.203 (C.1: the Homeric line implied in Phrynichus’ discussion), where Achilles tells Patroclus to mix a pure wine to honour his guests, and in Ephipp. fr. 3 (C.8), which describes the acceptance of a new baby into the home (for consumption of wine and its rituals in the Homeric epics, see Papakonstantinou 2009, especially 11–3 on mixing).

The etymology of ζωρός and εὔζωρος is obscure (there is a convenient overview in Olson, Seaberg 2018, 286). It is unclear whether these adjectives originally applied to something other than the kind of wine also described as ἄκρατος ‘unmixed’. Ancient erudition was especially worried about the meaning of ζωρός in Homer. As shown by discussions starting with Aristotle (Po. 1461a.14–5Arist. Po. 1461a.14–5) and continuing in Plutarch (Quaestiones convivales 677c–678dPlu. Quaestiones convivales 677c–678d) and Athenaeus (B.1), interpreters felt uneasy about the idea that Homeric heroes drank their wine neat (an overview of these discussions is available in Olson, Seaberg 2018, 286 and Papachrysostomou 2021, 112–3). Ancient scholars therefore explained the use of ζωρότερον in Il. 9.203 as metaphorical or suggested elaborate etymologies which sometimes resurface in lexicography (see below and F.2). Although this concern is absent in Phrynichus’ lemma, consideration of the wider context of ancient discussion of ζωρός is useful to highlight some less obvious nuances in his treatment of these forms.

Phrynichus advises his reader to avoid the Homeric ζωρός/ζωρότερος and to employ the compound εὔζωρος with its comparative εὐζωρότερος instead. These latter two forms are amply attested in Attic comedy (see C.2, C.3, C.4, C.5, C.7, C.8, C.9), where wine-drinking is topical, but are otherwise absent in other Attic texts. The unique tragic occurrence in Euripides’ Alcestis (C.6) is in the slave’s outraged description of Heracles’ dinner in Admetus’ house, a section with clear comic undertones (see Parker 2007, 201–12).

Later erudite sources do not follow Phrynichus in his preference for εὔζωρος and merely provide semantic explanations. It is noteworthy that Pollux, who deals with wine-mixing at 6.23–5, does not mention either ζωρός or εὔζωρος but only ἄκρατος, ἀμιγής and ἄμικτος as suitable terms (on this passage and some of its terms, see αὐτόκερας, αὐτόκρατον, with a discussion on the use of εὐκέραστος for wine that is ready for mixing). The entries on ζωρός in ancient lexica (B.3, B.4, B.5, B.6, B.7, with a portion of the last of these already in Cyril’s lexicon) routinely offer ἄκρατος as a synonym (B.3, B.4, B.5, B.7, B.9). Two entries in Hesychius (B.6, B.7) also advance the seemingly less congruous ταχύς, which originates in some of the erudite discussions of ζωρός (see F.2 for a commentary). The entries on εὔζωρος gloss the adjective with εὔκρατος (B.8, B.9: on the text of B.9, see the apparatus in Adler’s edition ad loc.), with only [Zonaras] (B.10) standing out in its use of καλοκέραστος. In his edition of Hesychius, Latte first identified the locus classicus behind B.8 (a lemma already in Cyril’s lexicon) with Eur. Alc. 757 (C.6), but this is unwarranted. One could assume that – just like Phrynichus – Cyril and Hesychius based their glossing of εὔζωρος with εὐκέραστος on the frequent use of εὔζωρος in comedy.

To prove the Attic pedigree of εὔζωρος, Phrynichus selects the classic Old Comedy triad: Aristophanes, Cratinus, and Eupolis. Aristophanes uses the adjective only twice, in two lines of Assemblywomen (C.2, C.3) which play with the comic topos of the drunkenness of Athenian politicians and women (on both stereotypes, see Bowie 1995, 117–9; on women and wine, which is also the topic of Ath. 10.440d–442a, see Wilkins 2000, 61; Blazeby 2011, 89, 93–4). The original text of the fragments of Cratinus and Eupolis (C.4, C.5) remains unknown, since no other source quotes them. Kassel and Austin ad Cratin. fr. 453 and Eup. fr. 452 repeat Phrynichus’ entry and space out only εὔζωρον, thus implying that only this form can be considered certain in these authors’ texts. In contrast, Olson, Seaberg (2018, 286) and Olson (2014, 219) defend the possibility of accommodating both εὔζωρον κέρασον and εὐζωρότερον κέρασον in an iambic trimeter. It is safer, however, to follow Kassel and Austin in attributing only εὔζωρον to both playwrights. κέρασον may well be Phrynichus’ rendering in current Greek of Homer’s ζωρότερον κέραιε, his first (but implicit) locus classicus, which employs the rare, poetic present κεραίω/κεράω. In a similar fashion, Phrynichus provides the more strictly Attic form of the comparative, εὐζωρότερον, for Homer’s ζωρότερον.

Based on the occurrences of ζωρός and εὔζωρος, it is easy to see why Phrynichus selected only the latter as the admissible form. ζωρός, while it does not appear in 5th-century Attic literature, is found in a variety of authors, both Attic and non-Attic, and in both poetry and prose (Hdt. 6.84.15, Emp. Diels–Kranz 31 B 35.14–5, Hp. Nat.Mul. 69.2, Hp. Mul. 34.15, Antiph. fr. 147.2, Ephipp. fr. 10.2 (C.9), Thphr. Char. 4.9.1, A.R. 1.477, etc.). It is also used later on by Lucian, and it features moderately in medical authors such as Galen, Philumenus, and later epitomisers. εὔζωρος, meanwhile, essentially occurs only in classical Attic comedy, with just one instance in Euripides and a total of five other occurrences between Hippocrates (Morb. 3.14.25, Foet.Exsect. 1.17), Plutarch (Thes. 22.14, but in the text of the popular so-called ‘eireisione song’), Lucian (significantly in Lexiphanes, C.10, where εὔζωρος is used by the hyper-Atticist Eudemus), and Libanius (Decl. 33.1.21.3). εὔζωρος was therefore an Attic rarity, while ζωρός had the double disadvantage of being more common and also evoking Homeric archaism (the latter point may find support in the fragment of Ephippus [C.9] that directly alludes to Il. 9.203). Phrynichus prefers εὔζωρος because of its perceived literary register, not its meaning. Both εὔζωρος and ζωρός seem to have been used to refer to both neat and strongly mixed wine: it is unwarranted, pace Papachrysostomou 2021, 112–3, that ζωρός may have applied only to neat wine and εὔζωρος only to strongly mixed wine and that, consequently, ζωρός may have been felt to be an inappropriate word in a society that stigmatised the drinking of neat wine.

Further information on the erudite discussions that revolved around εὔζωρος and its correct comparative form comes from Athenaeus. Ath 10.423b–424e (B.1), which is part of a larger section on the symposium, Athenaeus deals with wine-mixing and drunkenness before moving on to treat wine-pouring. Ulpianus begins the discussion with a praise of the art of properly mixing water and wine in the best proportion (10.423b). In this context, Ulpianus first asks the slave to fill his cup with ‘rather strong wine’ (ἀκρατέστερον), an order he then repeats with the further command ζωρότερον κέραιρε, a quotation of Il. 9.203 (C.1: κέραιρε features as a variant reading for κέραιε). For, Ulpianus explains, the moment for addressing the correct mixing of wine with water (the alleged topic of the section) has not yet arrived. This gives him the occasion to dwell on the appropriateness of the comparatives ἀκρατέστερος and ζωρότερος. Concerning the latter, Ulpianus quotes two fragments of Antiphanes. In the first (fr. 147)Antiph. fr. 147, the absolute comparative ζωρότερος is applied to a wine-steward who has served a rather pure wine. In the second fragment (fr. 137 = C.7), εὐζωρέστερον is preceded by the imperative κέρασον in an invitation to a character from Iapygia to mix a stronger mixture of wine. Ulpianus’ ensuing discussion focuses precisely on whether ζωρότερος wine is pure, hot, well-mixed, or old. Ulpianus summarises the etymological explanations already provided by Plutarch in Quaestiones convivales 677c–678dPlu. Quaestiones convivales 677c–678d (and repeated in later scholarship: see F.2). He ultimately leaves the question open, moving on to discuss words for ‘ladle’. Before the topic of verbs for mixing is introduced, however, the text digresses at 10.424d (B.2) into a short examination of analogical comparatives in ‑έστερος from adjectives in ‑ος (ἀνιηρέστερος, ἀφθονέστερος, εὐωνέστερος, ῥᾳδιέστερος), starting with ἀκρατέστερον – the appropriateness of which Ulpianus had earlier announced he wished to discuss (the same digression, taken from Athenaeus, appears in Eust. in Il. 2.699.5–8Eust. in Il. 2.699.5–8, in a longer passage which deals with Il. 9.203).

This long section of the Deipnosophists allows us to advance the hypothesis that Phrynichus’ entry is in fact drastically compressing a broader scholarly debate that concerned not only the correct word for strong or unmixed wine in Attic, but also the correct formation of the comparative. The first topic is the only one explicitly articulated in the Eclogue entry and resolved by Phrynichus with the recommendation of εὔζωρος. The second topic is suggested by the fact that Phrynichus quotes the comparative εὐζωρότερος before the positive form εὔζωρος, even though the latter is apparently the main focus of the entry). This could be an implicit criticism of later comic authors such as Antiphanes and Ephippus (and/or Eubulus: see F.3), who, as Athenaeus alone allows us to reconstruct, employed εὐζωρέστερος instead. The promotion of a regular comparative in ‑ότερος against analogical formations in ‑έστερος must have been part of the Atticist agenda. Although neither of Phrynichus’ lexica contains entries devoted to this topic, we know that Phrynichus condemned the so-called ‘double comparatives’ (see entry ἀμεινότερος, ῥᾳότερος), which are similarly analogical formations aimed at creating morphological regularity. The Antiatticist, in contrast, devotes three entries precisely to analogical forms in ‑εσ‑ (α 74: ἀφθονέστερον; α 75: ἀρχαιέστερον; on both, see entry on ἀφθονέστερον, ἀρχαιέστερον; ε 17: ἐλεημονέστατονAntiatt. ε 17). This indirectly proves that there must have been an Atticist discussion concerning the admissibility of these forms, especially since grammatical theory labelled them as Ionic and poetic, as shown in Philox.Gramm. fr. 332 (on this, see ἀφθονέστερον, ἀρχαιέστερον). If the hypothesis presented here is correct, Phrynichus might have disapproved of the analogical comparatives because they tend to appear in tragedy, Middle and New comedy, Hyperides, and Xenophon, i.e. in texts that do not fall within Phrynichus’ ‘truer’ Attic canon.

E. Byzantine and Modern Greek commentary

Although attested occasionally in Greek up to the late antique period (see D.), ζωρός mostly occurs in erudite texts until ca. the 11th century (e.g. B.6, B.7, B.8, B.9). Otherwise, it has one occurrence in Symeon Metaphrastes, Life of Saint Alexius 197.22–3 Massmann, where it is used to refer to ‘pure virtues’, and another in Symeon Neotheologus, Catecheses 4.298, where it applies to wine. In later literature, apart from an epigram of Theodorus Prodromus on Genesis (14b.2: on the iunctura ζωρὸν μέθυ already found in A.R. 1.477), there are noteworthy uses of ζωρός in reference to wine in just two Atticising authors, Anna Comnene (Alexiad 9.3.4) and Nicetas Choniates (259.8 van Dieten, 558.10 van Dieten), where, however, it probably functions as a Homeric allusion. This suggests that ζωρός continued as an erudite term throughout the Byzantine and early modern periods (the latest attestations appear in two letters by Neophytus Ducas, the 17th-century scholar of the Greek Enlightenment: 231.48, 1557.16). In contrast, εὔζωρος – already virtually extinct in Post-classical Greek (see D.) – is never employed in Byzantine literature, its last, isolated attestation occurring in Libanius (Decl. 1.21).

F. Commentary on individual texts and occurrences

(1)    Hsch. ζ 172 (B.4)

This lemma is printed in the form ζορωτέρα· ἀκρατεστέρα in the editions of Schmidt (1858–1868 vol. 2, 258), Latte (1966, 262), and Latte, Cunningham (2020, 332). The form ζορωτέρα is clearly wrong, and it is surprising that three different modern editors have considered it worthy of being introduced into the text, perhaps with the sole aim of preserving the alphabetic sequence of this section of the lexicon. Cod. Marc. gr. 622Marc. gr. 622 has the equally wrong ζωρωτέρα· ἀκρατερεστέρα (not ἀκρoτερεστέρα as reported in Schmidt 1858–1868 vol. 2, 258 and followed by Latte and Cunningham). Musurus corrected the first word to ζωρότερα, changing only the accent in the second (ἀκρατερέστερα). Alberti (1746 vol. 1, 1586) edited the lemma as ζωρότερα· ἀκρατέστερα, which may have been the original form in Hesychius (with the lemma entirely in the adverbial neuter plural rather than in the feminine singular). The absurd ζορωτέρα, chosen by Schmidt, Latte, and Cunningham, was first conjectured by Bergk (1838, 252–3). Bergk suggested emending Aristophanes’ εὔζωρον at Ec. 227 (C.3) – a textually problematic line – into εὔζoρον, a metrically convenient form through which, according to Bergk, Aristophanes ‘dared to introduce an innovation’. Based on this, Bergk went on to correct Hesychius’ text also. The correction is both unnecessary and linguistically incorrect. In B.3, I have kept the feminine accentuation in ζωροτέρα to follow the Marcianus, but, as noted above, the neuter plural is also possible.

(2)    Hsch. ζ 256, Hsch. ζ 257 (B.6, B.7)

Together with the common glossing of ζωρός with ἄκρατος, Hesychius (in fact, already Cyril) also reports another explanation, which equates the adjective with ἐνεργής (B.6) or ταχύς (B.6, B.7). These alternative explanations find some parallels in other sources. The suggestion of ἐνεργής ‘active, effective’ (only in B.6 and EM 414.31) likely reflects an etymological theory that derived ζωρός from ζῆν ‘to live’ and thus glossed it with ζωτικός ‘full of life, giving life’ (cf. Ath. 10.423e = B.1, Su. ζ 162, EM 414.31, schol. Hom. Il. 9.203.a). In EM 414.33–7, ζωρός is also glossed with ζωός ‘lively’ and ἰσχυρός ‘strong’.

ταχύς is equated to ζωρός already in Arist. Po. 1461a.14–5Arist. Po. 1461a.14–5 and Plut. Quaestiones convivales 677ePlu. Quaestiones convivales 677e). Aristotle discusses Homer’s ζωρότερος δὲ κέραιε as an example of interpretative problems (in this case, the fact that Achilles seemingly serves his guests neat wine) that must be solved by looking at the language employed in the text. He explains that in Homer, ζωρότερον does not mean ‘unmixed’ – Homeric heroes are not drunkards – but ‘faster’ (καὶ τὸ ‘ζωρότερον δὲ κέραιε’ οὐ τὸ ἄκρατον ὡς οἰνόφλυξιν ἀλλὰ τὸ θᾶττον). In proposing this evidently specious explanation, Aristotle may be reacting to a criticism of Zoilus (see Mayhew 2019, 108). In his discussion of the etymologies proposed for ζωρός, Plutarch instead mentions the views of those who equate it to θερμός ‘hot’. He rejects a literal interpretation of θερμός and explains it as a metaphorical way to indicate ‘fast’, adding ‘as when we urge our servants to apply themselves ‘more warmly’ (= faster) to their work’ (ἐγὼ δ’ ἀνεμίμνησκον αὐτούς, ὅτι τῷ ζωρότερον τὸ θερμὸν ἔνιοι σημαίνεσθαι λέγουσι τῷ δὲ θερμοτέρῳ τὸ τάχιον· ὥσπερ ἡμεῖς ἐγκελευόμεθα πολλάκις τοῖς διακονοῦσι θερμότερον ἅπτεσθαι τῆς διακονίας).

Both explanations are in turn reflected in Porphyry’s Homeric questions (1.135.13–5 Schrader = 283 MacPhailPorph. ad Il. 1.135.13–5 Schrader (= 283 MacPhail)). Dealing with Il. 9.203, Porphyry deems the image ‘unfitting’ because Achilles orders Patroclus to give his guests unmixed wine (ἀπρεπές· ὡς γὰρ ἐπὶ κῶμον ἥκουσιν ἀκρατότερον διδόναι παρακελεύεται). Among the explanations offered to solve this Homeric problem, he mentions that ‘some scholars’ interpret ζωρότερον as τάχιον (οἱ μὲν γὰρ ἀπὸ τῆς λέξεως λύουσι· τὸ γὰρ ζωρότερον εἶναι τάχιον). The same explanation occurs in schol. (ex.) Hom. Il. 9.203a (bT)Schol. (ex.) Hom. Il. 9.203a (ζωρότερον· ἀκρατότερον, παρὰ τὸ ζῆν. οἱ δὲ ἀντὶ τοῦ ταχύτερον) and Eust. in Il. 2.698.16–8)Eust. in Il. 2.698.16–8.

Finally, it is worth considering the second part of Hsch. ζ 257 (B.7), which provides an unparalleled explanation of ζωρότερον. Here, the usual τάχιον is followed by καὶ ἄμεινον ἐπιστρεφέστερον νοεῖν. The infinitive νοεῖν clearly depends on an implicit verb of saying (‘but others say that it means’ – note that in cod. Marc. gr. 622Marc. gr. 622, f. 185r, Musurus corrects it into νοοῦσι ‘they mean’, no doubt to make the sense plainer). In his edition of Hesychius, Latte (now followed by Alpers and Cunningham in theirs) separates τάχιον and καὶ ἄμεινον with a comma, of which there is no trace in the manuscript. The text as in the manuscript is far preferable: τάχιον καὶ ἄμεινον must be a hendiadys explaining ζωρότερον in its alleged meaning as ‘faster, i.e. in a better way’, the same meaning implied by Plutarch’s passage. The lemma in Hesychius further explains this sense with ἐπιστρεφέστερον ‘more attentively, with care’.

(3)    Ephipp. fr. 3.10–11 = Eub. fr. dub. 148.8–9 (C.8)

Athenaeus 9.370c–d quotes the whole fragment, attributing it to Ephippus, but the epitome at 2.65c–d quotes it with a slightly different text and under the name of Eubulus. While Kassel and Austin (PCG vol. 5, 272) include the latter among Eubulus’ dubia, Hunter (1983, 230–1) defends the possibility that the attribution of the fragment to Eubulus in the epitome is correct or alternatively that both poets used the same passage (a novel discussion of the issue is now provided by Papachrysostomou 2021, 48–50).