αὐθέντης
(Phryn. PS 24.5–9, Phryn. Ecl. 89, Moer. α 121)

D. General commentary

Three entries in Atticist lexica (A.1, A.2, A.3) are devoted to the compound αὐθέντης, glossed as ‘a murderer who kills with his own hand’. The etymology of αὐθέντης and its meaning in Attic – as opposed to later Greek – are the focus of several entries in ancient lexicography. Modern discussions of the word and related bibliography are summarised in Fraenkel (1910, 237–41) and DELG s.v. The clearest treatment is found in the concise article by Chantraine (1960). For the word’s survival in Byzantine, Medieval, and Modern Greek, see E.

In the Praeparatio sophistica (A.1), Phrynichus first offers a fancy etymologyEtymology of the word, which connects the second constituent to ἀφίημι. In Phrynichus’ reasoning, this verb describes the action of someone who kills with his own hand by drawing a sword or sending forth some another weapon (it is worth noting, however, that ἀφίημι is hardly ever employed with ξίφος, while it is found with, e.g., βέλος; similarly fanciful etymologies are frequent in ancient sources: see B.5 and B.6, with commentary below). Modern etymologies instead connect the second constituent of αὐθέντης to the root found in the Greek -νυ-infix present ἄνυμι/ἀνύω ‘to accomplish’ (< *senH-), whose etymological aspiration was later lost in Greek (see EDG s.vv. ἄνυμι and αὐθέντης; Fraenkel 1910, 237; Zucker 1962, 12). The aspirationAspiration of the second constituent prevents the elision of the first element αὐτο- in the analytic form of the compound, αὐτοέντης, which is used by Sophocles (C.2, C.3). Ancient sources partly recognise this phenomenon when discussing the initial aspiration of the second constituent (see B.6, with Su. α 4226 quoted therein); Phrynichus himself interprets the analytic form αὐτοέντης as a ‘loosening’ of the constituents of αὐθέντης (see the participle λύσας). Modern etymologies that connect αὐθέντης with θείνω ‘to kill’ should be rejected (see Kretschmer 1912, 291, who supposed a dissimilation from *ἀυτοθέντης < θείνω, and the criticism in Chantraine 1960, 89).

Etymologically, αὐθέντης thus denotes someone who does things by themselves, on their own initiative: someone who is responsible for an action. Leaving Attic sources aside, where αὐθέντης identifies a murderer (see below), the original meaning of the word is represented consistently in Post-classical Greek, where it means ‘perpetrator’ or ‘responsible’ for something (see αὐθέντης πράξεως ‘author of the deed’ in C.8). From this, we can derive the further meaning of ‘in one’s power’ > ‘independent, free’ > ‘master of oneself’ (i.e., a synonym of κύριος, δεσπότης: see A.2). This last meaning is standard meaning from the late Hellenistic period onwards. However, it almost certainly already appears in Eur. Supp. 442Eur. Supp. 442, where the paradosis reads δῆμος αὐθέντης χθονός, i.e. ‘the people, master of the land’. Markland corrected the transmitted αὐθέντης to εὐθυντής ‘judge’, because the allegedly ‘correct’ meaning of αὐθέντης in Classical Greek was ‘murderer’. The correction – endorsed, among others, by Zucker (1962, 10–1) and accepted by Diggle in his OCT edition of Euripides – is unnecessary and rightly rejected in the editions by Murray and Parmentier, as well as by Psichari (1909, 418), Kretschmer (1912, 290), Chantraine (1960), DELG s.v., and Tsantsanoglou (1984, 62). In the rest of Attic sources – both tragic (C.1, C.2, C.3) and prose texts (C.4, C.5) – αὐθέντης/αὐτοέντης instead denotes a murderer; it sometimes seems to carry the additional nuance of ‘murderer of his kin’ (as in C.1, Aesch. Ag. 1573, and Eur. Andr. 172: see discussion in Gernet 1909, 16–9; Zucker 1962, 4–5, who considers this the original meaning of the word; Medda 2017 vol. 3, 407, with further parallels).

In the sense of ‘perpetrator’, ‘responsible party’, αὐθέντης provides the basis for derivations attested from Post-classical Greek onwards (see the discussion in Zucker 1962, 18–22): αὐθεντία ‘authority’ (LXX+), αὐθεντέω ‘to have independent jurisdiction’ (BGU 4.1208.38 = TM 18658 [Bousiris, 27–26 BCE]), NT 1 Ep.Ti. 2.12 (a much-discussed occurrence: see Hübner 2015), and αὐθεντικός ‘warranted’ (P.Oxy. 2.260.20 = TM 20530 [59 CE]). These meanings persist in Modern Greek (see Psichari 1909, 411–3) and in borrowings in other languages (through the mediation of Latin authenticus), such as authentic (i.e. ‘legitimate by authority’ and hence ‘veritable’ ‘true’: see Zucker 1962, 20–1). The post-classical history of αὐθέντης and its lexical family are discussed by Psichari (1909), Fraenkel (1910, 237–8), Zucker (1962, 16–22), and DELG s.v. (see also E.).

As we have seen, with the exception of the controversial Eur. Supp. 442, in all other Attic occurrences αὐθέντης means ‘murderer’ or, more specifically, ‘someone who is responsible for another person’s death’ (a point clearly demonstrated by Chantraine 1960). Thus, Attic sources, both poetry and prose, reflect a divergence between the word’s general meaning and its technical use in legal languageLegal language (see Thumb 1901, 221, who speaks of a ‘Zwiespalt’). The technical Attic meaning understandably attracted the lexicographers’ interest, especially since it had fallen out of common use by the Hellenistic age, surviving primarily as a learned form in imperial prose (e.g. D.C. 37.13.4, Clem.Al. Str. 3.18.106.2; see further Zucker 1962, 16). Several sources focus on the correct (Attic) definition of αὐθέντης as one who kills by his own hand (see below), with Harpocration (B.1) emphasising that Lysias uses it specifically in reference to the Thirty Tyrants, who instead hired others to commit murders (on the Lysias fragments, see C.6 and C.7, with Carey 2007 ad locc. for a brief discussion).

In the Praeparatio sophistica (A.1), Phrynichus characterises αὐθέντης as being more πολιτικόςπολιτικός (πολιτικώτερον) than αὐτοέντης. Considering the distribution of these two variants of the word, the description of αὐθέντης as πολιτικός seems to rest on an implicit contrast between Sophocles’ special αὐτοέντης (which Phrynichus may have described as ποιητικός or σεμνός) and the predominant usage, which includes not only prose authors (Thuc. 3.58.5 = C.4; Hdt. 1.117; Antipho 2.3.4 = C.5, and others), but also metrically guaranteed attestations of αὐθέντης (C.1; Eur. Andr. 614; Eur. HF 839, and others). Apart from this likely opposition of registers, it is possible that, in the specific case of αὐθέντης, the label πολιτικός derives from the term’s occurrence in Attic judiciary oratory. Thus, πολιτικός would serve as a signal to the aspiring Atticising rhetor that it is acceptable to use αὐθέντης in refined conversation as long as one employs it in its proper Attic meaning (‘murderer’) rather than its more common post-classical sense (which Phrynichus openly condemns in the Eclogue, A.2). For the contrast between πολιτικός and other evaluative labels such as ποιητικός and σεμνός in the Praeparatio sophistica, see the entries αἰκάλλοντες; ἁμαξιαῖα ῥήματα; ἄπαρνος, ἔξαρνος; ἄψοφον ἔχειν στόμα, and Tribulato (2025).

The stylistic judgment offered in the Praeparatio sophistica is unique in Greek erudition. The many other lexica which deal with αὐθέντης focus solely on its meaning. Two distinct issues are discussed. A first group of sources contrasts the ‘correct’ (i.e., Attic) meaning of αὐθέντης, ‘murderer’, with the ‘incorrect’ or post-classical sense of ‘master’ (δεσπότης). The earliest source to critique this semantic shiftSemantic shift is Phrynichus’ Eclogue (A.2), but a similarly prescriptive explanation appears in the scholia to Thucydides 3.58.5 Kleinlogel (αὐθένται κυρίως οἱ αὐτόχειρες †καὶ οἱ πολέμιοι†· οἱ δὲ νῦν αὐθέντας τοὺς κυρίους καὶ δεσπότας (Θ), ‘αὐθένται are properly those who kill with their own hand; but contemporary speakers [call] lords and masters αὐθένται’). In Phrynichus, we also find the further specification that such usage belonged to the ‘orators in courts’. Clearly, he is referring to orators of his time who were insufficiently trained in Atticising Greek. Three occurrences of αὐθέντης qualifying individuals as ‘responsible’ in a late 1st-century CE Tebtunis papyrus containing a trial report (C.9) suggests that by Phrynichus’ time, the word was standard in administration and legal language.

The second source that equates αὐθέντης with δεσπότης (in fact, αὐτοδεσπότης) is Cyril’s lexicon (B.2). The lemma, preserved in both the v and g redactions, discusses the analytic variant αὐτοέντης, attributing it to Isocrates and Thucydides, and glossing it with αὐτοδεσπότης, αὐτεξούσιος, ἐπιστάτης (Hesychius, B.3, has a different text). This information is doubly incorrect: Isocrates’ text contains no occurrence of αὐθέντης (see below for a proposal regarding how this mistaken attribution may have arisen). In Thucydides (C.4), the meaning is unequivocally ‘murderer’, though it is impossible to verify whether the original reading might have been αὐτοέντης. Σ^b α 2398 (B.4, along with the later lexica depending on it) also proscribes the equation of αὐθέντης with δεσπότης, mentioning the analytic variant αὐτοέντης: the entry belongs to the layer of the Σʹʹʹ expansion that integrates Atticist material into the original content of the Synagoge. The closest comparandum is the entry of the Eclogue (A.2), rather than the Praeparatio (A.1), which does not discuss the synonymity with δεσπότης. On B.1, see above.

Within this first group of sources, we must also consider Moeris’ entry (A.3), where αὐθέντης is seemingly proscribed as a koine form and αὐτοδίκης is attributed to Attic speakers. Although the compound αὐτοδίκης is never attested in our texts, the existence of αὐτοδικέω and αὐτόδικος suggests that the morphological variant αὐτοδίκης likely existed (the morphological system linking bahuvrihis in -ος with ‘verbal’ compounds in -ης is studied by Rüedi 1969; on compounds in -δίκης, see specifically Rüedi 1969, 96–110). αὐτόδικος ‘with independent jurisdiction’ occurs in Thuc. 5.18.2 before being used again by Josephus: the meaning of the word makes it likely that, in judging αὐθέντης as a koine form, Moeris is referring here to the post-classical usage of the word as ‘independent, free; master of himself’. This interpretation is further confirmed by Hsch. α 8409 (a lemma already present in Cyril’s lexicon), which equates αὐτοδικέω (with the meaning ‘to judge by oneself’) with αὐθεντέω (the same equation appears in some manuscripts of Moeris’ lexicon: see the apparatus to A.3 and the parallel with Thomas Magister’s lexicon therein). From this perspective, it makes sense that Moeris promotes αὐτοδίκης/αὐτόδικος as the ‘more Attic’ variant: both αὐτόδικος and αὐτοδικέω (the latter attested only in a fragment of Dinarchus quoted by Harp. α 266) are very rare words, with almost no usage beyond Attic literature.

Another group of sources offers a more restricted meaning of αὐθέντης as ‘suicide’. The earliest trace of this understanding appears in Cyril’s lexicon (B.2, repeated in the Synagoge), where it is glossed as ὁ ἑαυτὸν ἀναιρῶν ‘he who takes his own life’ (i.e. seemingly interpreting the first constituent as the reflexive αὑτο-). Here we find Isocrates as a locus classicus again. Apart from the possibility that Isocrates’ text differed in antiquity, we could consider the hypothesis that the name ‘Isocrates’ erroneously stands for that of another Attic orator here. One possibility is Antiphon. In his second Tetralogy, Antiphon uses αὐθέντης five times. The work is a fictitious oration concerning the case of a boy who, while practising with the javelin in the gym, inadvertently kills another boy who ran in front of the target. In the subtle rhetoric of the piece, the defence seeks to demonstrate the killer’s innocence, arguing that the boy who was killed bears responsibility for his own death. It is at this point that Antiphon uses αὐθέντης for the first time in the oration (C.5), having the father of the deceased express his fear that his dead son will be condemned as a murderer (αὐθέντην προσκαταγνωσθέντα ὑφ’ ὑμῶν ἐπίδω αὐτόν, ‘[I fear] that I must see him condemned by you as a murderer’). Since the entire oration pivots on notions of responsibility and error, here αὐθέντης unequivocally means ‘murderer’. However, in a broader sense, it may be seen to indicate someone who, by causing the circumstances of their own death, (inadvertently) kills themselves. It is in this passage, therefore, that we find a possible source for the later misinterpretation of αὐθέντης as meaning ‘suicide’. Nevertheless, the term never had this restricted meaning in Greek (as already recognised by Gernet 1909 and Chantraine 1960): interpretations along these lines lack factual support (see the initial endorsement in Psichari 1909, 419–22, later retracted in his addendum [Psichari 1909, 425–7]; Kretschmer 1912, 289; LSJ s.v.).

The mistaken interpretation of αὐθέντης as ‘suicide’ persists in the Byzantine etymologica (see B.5), which distinguish between the meaning that – one must infer – αὐθέντης had in ancient sources, namely ‘suicide’, and its meaning in contemporary usage (‘master’). These etymologica offer fanciful etymologies, connecting the first meaning to the noun ἔντεα (‘weapons’) and the second to the nomen agentis **ἔντης (in fact, a back-formation from the compound). A derivation from **ἔντης is also proposed in the Epimerismi Homerici (B.6), which align with these sources in glossing αὐθέντης as ‘suicide’.

E. Byzantine and Modern Greek commentary

αὐθέντης continues to be used throughout the Byzantine period in texts of all registers with the meaning ‘master’, extending also into the military and administrative sphere (see LBG s.v. for references). Its pronunciation likely passed through the stage [afˈθendis]; however, in Medieval Greek the cluster [fθ] was subsequently disallowed and usually subjected to the so-called ‘manner dissimilation’ process (e.g. φθάνω > φτάνω: see CGMEMG vol. 1, 185–92). This change first produced αὐτέντης, attested in the Greek dialects of southern Italy and in Cappadocian, two of the most conservative varieties of Modern Greek. As Ioanna Manolessou informs me, the change αυτέντης > αφέντης, the common Medieval Greek form, likely occurred around the end of the 12th century (the time when these two varieties diverged from the main body of Greek). The form ἀφέντης, still in use in Modern Greek (Psichari 1909, 401), is attested from the 14th century onwards (in Kriaras, LME s.v. αὐθέντης, the variant is attributed to two 12th-century poems, Σπανέας and Πτοχοπρόδομος, but the manuscripts in which it is attested are all from the 14th century). The outcome ἀφέντης (not ἀφτέντης) is not phonetically regular. It has been explained as being analogically based on the loss of /t/ in alternating pairs such as πεντήντα-πενήντα (see ILNE s.v. ἀφέντης; the idea of an influence from Latin defendere, initially proposed by Hatzidakis 1892, 287, who later withdrew it, and accepted by Psichari 1909, 410, is untenable. Ioanna Manolessou has kindly informed me that the compound verb διαφεντεύω ‘to defend’, from defendere, developed a second meaning ‘to rule’ through folk etymological association with αφέντης (see ILNE s.v. διαφεντεύω). However, it remains unclear whether the loss of the occlusive in πενήντα is itself a case of dissimilation (see CGMEMG vol. 2, 1253, quoting Hatzidakis 1892, 287, who attributes the explanation to Albert Thumb; cf. Psichari 1909, 411). Ioanna Manolessou has pointed out to me that some Cappadocian sub-varieties exhibit the reverse dissimilatory development αὐτένης (see again ILNE s.v. ἀφέντης and IΛIK s.v. ἀφέντης), which would support this interpretation. In Medieval and Early Modern Greek, the noun has different by-forms, including ἀφφέντης, ἀφές, and the feminine forms ἀφέντρα, ἀφέντρια, and ἀφέδρα, some of which have persisted in modern Greek dialects (see ILNE s.v. ἀφέντης; Psichari 1909, 411–4). From Greek, the word was borrowed into Turkish as efendi, which then spread to many other languages (see Psichari 1909 for a comparative study). A comprehensive account of the morpho-phonetic and semantic development of the noun in Modern Greek is provided by the ILNE entry ἀφέντης.

F. Commentary on individual texts and occurrences

N/A