μαθητρίς, μαθήτρια, ὀρχηστρίς, ὀρχήστρια
(Moer. μ 21, Moer. ο 12, Poll. 4.95)

D. General commentary

Moeris (A.1, A.2) prescribes the agent nouns μαθητρίς and ὀρχηστρίς (the latter also recommended by Pollux: see A.3 and Poll. 7.180Poll. 7.180) while condemning the corresponding forms μαθήτρια and ὀρχήστρια. While at first glance it may appear as though Moeris simply rejects forms in -τρια, the picture is more complex than this, given that the suffix -τρια is well attested in canonical authors (see below; I leave aside Moer. α 101Moer. α 101, in which ἀκέστριαἀκέστρια [‘seamstress’] is prescribed as the Attic form rather than the ‘Greek’ ἠπήτρια: indeed, ἀκέστρια has no attested alternative in -τρίς; moreover, the entry is part of a wider discussion on ἀκέομαι and its derivatives, see e.g. Phryn. Ecl. 64Phryn. Ecl. 64). To better understand the point that underlies Moeris’ entries, we must begin by investigating the distribution of the nominal suffixes -τρια and -τρίς before scrutinising the occurrences of μαθητρίς, ὀρχηστρίς, μαθήτρια, and ὀρχήστρια.

Both -τρια and -τρίς form feminine agent nouns corresponding to the masculine -τήρ, -τωρ, -της (for a diachronic appraisal of these two sets of suffixes and the complex interactions between them, see Fraenkel 1910 and Fraenkel 1912, passim; Fraenkel 1913; Chantraine 1933, 104–7, 340–1; Lejeune 1950, 13–5, 27–8; Risch 1974, 135, 142; Cartlidge 2014, 81, 89–90; as for the suffix -τειρα, mostly limited to poetry and perhaps derived from Aeolic -τερρα < -τρια, rather than from -τερ- + -i̯a, according to Wackernagel 1926, see Fraenkel 1913, 395–8; Chantraine 1933, 104–5; Lejeune 1950, 13–4). The data collected by Lejeune (1950) and Silk (1985) indicate that -τρια is well attested in tragic and comic dialogues and in Attic prose from the 4th century BCE onwards. Meanwhile, -τρίς occurs prominently in Ionic epic and prose (while it is only sporadically attested in Attic tragedy and comedy, see Silk 1985, 240 n. 10 and below). On the basis of such data and extending the view to the documentary evidence from the Mycenaean era up to the Hellenistic age, Silk (1985, 244) concludes that -τρια ‘was likely an inherited feature from proto-Greek’ that survived in Attic and probably in West Greek but was lost in IonicIonic, which favoured -τρίς (on former dialect-based assessments of the matter overall, see Fraenkel 1913, with further bibliography; on the Mycenaean evidence for -τρια, see e.g. Bartoněk 2003, 176).

Nonetheless, -τρια gains traction from the 5th century BCE onwards. It is widespread in 5th-century Attic and is attached to nouns without any particular connotation as well as to comic and ad hoc formations (see Peppler 1918, 173–83; Chantraine 1933, 106; Bagordo 2018, 17). By contrast, -τρίς is increasingly limited to objects, instruments, and abstract nouns (see Fraenkel 1913, 406–9, according to whom -τρίς referring to persons is attested almost exclusively in Ionic in the 5th and 4th centuries BCE; see also Chantraine 1933, 340–1).

From about the 3rd century BCE onwards, -τρια becomes the most widespread suffix for the formation of feminine agent nouns, a fact that explains the Atticist preference for -τρίς (data in Lejeune 1950, 11, according to whom formations in -τρια number approximately 200 during the imperial age; Hellenistic epigraphic evidence is collected by Silk 1985, 245; see also E.). Regarding the overwhelming diffusion of -τρια, it is worth noting that the suffix also occurs in LatinLatin. To begin, several words, including citharistria, psaltria, sambucistria, poetria, crotalistria, cymbalistria (not attested in Greek, but see κυμβαλιστής), are borrowings from Greek (see André 1971, 103–4). Moreover, the problematic Petr. Sat. 37.6 lupatria may be a hybrid formation built on lupa (‘prostitute’) + -tria (however, Neumann 1980 is sceptical and proposes instead the reading lupatrix, see also Adams 1983, 335; Lutterotti 2012, 443 n. 10). Also of interest here is the word spintria (Tac. An. 6.1.4 etc.), which is supposedly built on the unattested *σφίγκτρια, feminine of σφίγκτης, a name used to indicate a ‘perverted and effeminate man’ in Cratinus (fr. 495; see André 1971, 104–5; Biville 1990, 153). On the basis of these words, Adams 2003, 420 argues that -tria may have had a special semantic association with ‘female purveyors of sex’ that was perhaps favoured by Greek antecedents, such as λαικάστρια ‘strumpet’ (Ar. Ach. 529 etc.), ἀνδρεράστρια ‘woman that is fond of men’ (Ar. Th. 387), and πορνεύτρια ‘prostitute’ (Ar. fr. 124). In sum, it is likely that the widespread diffusion (together with some special uses) of -τρια/-tria in both Greek and Latin triggered the Atticists’ rejection of it.

Regarding the forms treated in the Atticist sources in particular, μαθήτρια is attested from the 2nd/1st century BCE, while μαθητρίς occurs only in Ph. Quod deus sit immutabilis 5 (notably, ‘Philo’s grammar and word choice are consistent with a mildly atticizing type of literary Greek’, as Leopold 1983, 138 puts it; cf. also Cohn 1889, XLI–LV): Moeris likely found it in a now lost locus classicus, but even if this were the case, μαθητρίς was surely an isolated form during his lifetime. We may suppose that Moeris approved μαθητρίς on the basis of ὀρχηστρίς, which occurs in Aristophanes (6x, see for example C.1) and other poets of Old Comedy and is further attested in Xenophon (7x) and Plato (2x), while also occurring in the learned prose of the imperial era (Lucian, Athenaeus, Aelius Aristides, Philostratus), whereas ὀρχήστρια lacks any certain literary occurrence before the 4th–5th century CE. Indeed, ὀρχηστρίς is habitual in Attic, as is αὐλητρίς (‘flute-girl’), in apparent contradiction to the fact that Attic normally has -τρια (as noted above): Menge (1905, 83–4) argued that αὐλητρίς and ὀρχηστρίς in Attic are best explained as borrowings on the basis of the prestigious status of Ionic music (Fraenkel 1913, 410–2 conversely notes that the Ionic word used to refer to such musicians was likely μουσοεργός, while αὐλητρίς and ὀρχηστρίς were archaisms that simply survived in Attic as termini technici alongside other musical terms in -τρια, such as ψάλτρια etc. However, it should be noted that μουσοεργός is first attested in the Corpus Hippocraticum).

In conclusion, it is possible that Moeris’ also based his prescription of μαθητρίς on the well-attested ὀρχηστρίς. However, we should not exclude the possiblity that the other forms in -τρίς sporadically found in tragedy and in comedy may also have played a role: see Soph. fr. 878 (metre uncertain) ζευγηλατρίς, indicating a female ‘driver of a yoke (of oxen?)’ (see Pearson 1917 vol. 3, 75, rejecting Blaydes’ conjecture ζευγελάτις); Ar. Lys. 643 (lyr.) ἀλετρίς, ‘one of the noble maidens who prepared meal for offering-cakes’ (LSJ s.v.); Ar. fr. 849 (metre uncertain) λουτρίς (or πλυντρίς? The matter is not easily settled, see Bagordo 2018, 40) likely referred to the maidens employed to wash the statue of Athena Polias (cf. e.g. Jim 2014, 173 n. 130; Bagordo 2018, 41; note that both λουτρίς and πλυντρίς later occur in Attic comedy as names of material objects and not of human beings; moreover, a ‘washerwoman’ is normally referred to in Attic as πλύντρια, a name that is already attested in IG 1³.794 [Athens; 490–480 BCE?], cf. Poll. 7.37Poll. 7.37 and the play-title Πλύντριαι, on which, see Orth 2015, 178–9). All these forms suggest that in Attic, the suffix -τρίς, aside from its use for objects, may have specialised in the creation of names referring to sacred offices held by women as opposed to everyday occupations (normally indicated by -τρια). To judge from the aforementioned Soph. fr. 878 and Ar. Lys. 643, it is also conceivable that -τρίς was synchronically perceived as a high-registerRegister feature when used in reference to women. In this light, it is tempting to conclude that Moeris, who elsewhere appears to favour rarer, high-register alternatives over standard forms (see Monaco 2024, 60–4; cf. entry οἶσε), here too prescribes the forms that he deems more precious.

In any case, Moeris’ proscription of both μαθήτρια and ὀρχήστρια must have been influenced by the growing diffusion of -τρια in Hellenistic and imperial times. We may not exclude the possibility that several of the scopticScoptic language terms in -τρια that are attested in comedy in relation to female purveyors of sex (see the above-mentioned λαικάστρια, ἀνδρεράστρια, and πορνεύτρια) as well as the numerous Latin borrowings and new formations in -tria may have been instrumental in discrediting μαθήτρια and ὀρχήστρια in Moeris’ eyes.

E. Byzantine and Modern Greek commentary

The suffix -τρια survives in Medieval Greek (alongside -τρα, which originally formed inanimate instrument nouns: cf. CGMEMG vol. 1, 22) and remains productive in Modern Greek, forming feminine nouns relating to professions, activities, etc. beginning with masculine nouns in -τής, -ιστής, -ίστας: see e.g. διευθυντής / διευθύντρια (‘manager’), φεμινιστής / φεμινίστρια (‘feminist’), πιανίστας / πιανίστρια (‘pianist’). On occasion, it also represents the learned, viz. the formal alternative to feminine nouns in -τρα and -ισσα (e.g. υφάντρια / υφάντρα [‘weaver’], μεσίτρια / μεσίτισσα [‘broker’]): see ILNE s.v. -τρια.

F. Commentary on individual texts and occurrences

N/A