ἐργολάβος, ἐργολαβέω
(Antiatt. ε 45, Moer. π 72, Poll. 7.182, Poll. 7.200, Poll. 8.30–1)

D. General commentary

Atticist erudition preserves multiple traces of the discussion of ἐργολάβος and ἐργολαβέω (A.1, A.2, A.3, A.4, A.5): these forms are not dealt with in an overtly prescriptive context and attracted the lexicographers' interest because of their semanticsSemantics, in particular in light of their figurative use in oratory and their later specialisation in juridical jargon.

ἐργολάβος is an agentive verbal compound from ἔργον (‘work’) and λαμβάνω (‘to take, to receive’), denoting a person who undertakes any job commissioned to him, and ἐργολαβέω is its denominative verbDenominative verbs. Within a contract or less formal agreement, ἐργολάβος and ἐργολαβέω thus designate the party opposite to ἐργοδότης and ἐργοδοτέω, which denote the person who commissions a job (and the action of commissioning it) (see entry ἐργοδότης, ἐργοδοτέω). ἐργολάβος and ἐργολαβέω are attested in this sense as early as Plato (C.2) and Xenophon (C.1) respectively, but remain comparatively rare in the classical period. By contrast, the oratory of 4th-century BCE Athens, provides multiple instances in which ἐργολαβέω carries a negative connotation; indeed, the notion of undertaking commissioned work and benefit from it readily accounts for the verb’s development of a range of figurative negative meanings, such as ‘to profit’, ‘to exploit’, or ‘to be someone’s henchman’ (whether in exploitation or in other wrongdoing). Demosthenes’ works – in which occurrences of ἐργολαβέω consistently carry a disparaging nuance – offer a rich body of examples of this use. Besides C.3, ἐργολαβέω denotes the deceitful actions of those who exploit public institutions to their own advantage also at 22.49 (ψηφίσματα δ’ εἶπεν ἐν ὑμῖν δεινὰ καὶ παράνομα, δι’ ὧν ἠργολάβει καὶ πολλὰ τῶν ὑμετέρων κέκλοφεν, ‘He proposed to you arbitrary and unlawful decrees, by way of which he profited and has stolen several of your [prerogatives]’) and 24.161 (where the same phrase occurs). Elsewhere, ἐργολαβέω refers instead to bribery and the acceptance of a dishonest task: see 32.11, concerning an official who had been bribed and entered into an agreement with Zenothemis, whose fraud the oration denounces (οὗτος πεμφθεὶς ὑφ’ ἡμῶν […] ἠργολάβηκεν αὐτὸς καὶ κατεπήγγελται τουτῳί, ‘This [man] who was sent by us […] has joined in the scheme himself and has made engagements with him’; the translation of ἠργολάβηκεν follows MacDowell (2009, 274 n. 58)) and 25.47 (σὺ δ’ εὖ οἶδ’ ὅτι καὶ τὰ ἀντίγραφα αὐτῶν ἔχεις, ἐργολαβῶν αὐτῷ, ‘But you, who were his jackal, must have notes of them (i.e. Aristogeiton’s wrongdoings)’, transl. Vince 1935, 545, adapted). Demosthenes is not the only author to use ἐργολαβέω as a term of accusation: the same charge is in fact levelled against him by Aeschines in C.4, where Demosthenes is accused of attempting to attract new pupils (and revenue) at the jury’s expense. For his part, Aeschines likewise uses ἐργολαβέω consistently with a dishonourable nuance of profit: see 2.33 (καὶ μὴ ἐργολαβεῖν ἐν τοῖς κηρύγμασιν, ‘and not to profit from the honours’) and 3.112 (σοφιστοῦ τὰ τοιαῦτα νομίζων ἐργολαβοῦντος ἐγκώμια εἶναι, ‘for I think such praises are worthy of a hireling sophist’).

ἐργολάβος and ἐργολαβέω become more widespread in Post-classical Greek, in which ἐργολαβέω mostly occurs in its standard meaning (as in C.5), although instances of its figurative use characteristic of Attic oratory are also attested. Important evidence for the semantic development of ἐργολαβέω in Post-classical Greek is provided by papyrologicalPapyri sources. As expected, documentary texts abundantly attest the use of ἐργολάβος and ἐργολαβέω in their standard sense – ‘contractor’ and ‘to contract for a work, to take on a work’, respectively – alongside ἐργολαβίαἐργολαβία, denoting the contract for the execution of such work; see, for instance, the extant fragments of contracts for the undertaking of a work, e.g. P.Mich. 1.62.4 (= TM 1962) [Arsinoites, 247 BCE]). Papyrological sources, however, also attest a more specialised meaning that ἐργολαβέω acquires in legal language, which recalls the verb’s negative acceptation in classical oratory: in these documents, ἐργολαβέω refers to acts of coercion, often committed by an official or prominent individual who exploits his position to impose an unwanted task to a subordinate. This offence is accordingly designated as ἐργολαβία, hence also the hapax ἀνεργολάβητοςἀνεργολάβητος, ‘free from coercion or extortion’ (see WiP s.v.), attested in Pap.Congr.25 S. 381.21 (= TM 111350) [Arsinoites, 2nd–3rd century CE]. An example of this usage is found in C.6, a petition against the misconduct of a village elder, Sophronius, at the expense of his fellow villagers; further instances from imperial papyri (2nd-3rd century CE) are listed by Mascellari (2016, 509 n. 82).

Unlike ἐργοδότης and ἐργοδοτέω – firmly proscribed by Phrynichus (Ecl. 322Phryn. Ecl. 322), who deemed them insufficiently supported by authoritative usage (see entry ἐργοδότης, ἐργοδοτέω) – neither ἐργολάβος nor ἐργολαβέω, as far as can be determined from the extant materials, were made the object of proscription by Atticist erudition, despite their frequency in Post-classical Greek. Indeed, although Phrynichus never explicitly discusses these forms, it may be argued that their use did not trouble him, since he himself employs ἐργολάβος in B.1 – unless we suppose that he deliberately uses an otherwise disapproved form while referring to careless speakers; this possibility, however, does not seem consistent with Phrynichus’ characteristic sarcasm. As far as Moeris is concerned (A.2), even though he assigns to ἐργολάβος the metalinguistic label ἡμεῖςἡμεῖς, which in his lexicon denotes the same category of speakers as Ἕλληνες, i.e. the written koine of his time (see entry Moeris, Ἀττικιστής, and AGP vol. 3, forthcoming, with bibliography), the intention of his entry is not necessarily prescriptive.

The majority of erudite sources (A.3, A.4, B.2, B.4) are concerned rather with the figurative negative meaning attested in Attic oratory and still current in judicial language, but detached from the standard sense (this is indeed the meaning of συνήθειασυνήθεια in B.4; on the markers συνήθεια and συνήθως in the Suda and its sources, cf. AGP vol. 3, forthcoming). As for the Antiatticist (A.1), although the interpretamentum of ἐργολάβος amounts to little more than the citation of the Demosthenic locus (C.3), it is reasonable to assume that the entry originally discussed the word’s figurative meaning rather than its admissibility, which appears never to have been questioned. With regard to the Demosthenes quotation, it should be noted that the form attested in C.3 is actually the indicative ἐργολαβοῦσι (pres. ind. 3rd pers. sing. of ἐργολαβέω) and not the noun ἐργολάβος, as claimed by both A.1 and B.4, the latter quoting the passage in C.3 with the participle (τοῖς ἐργολαβοῦσι). Indeed, unlike ἐργολαβέω, whose negative acceptation is amply attested, we have no extant examples of an analogous disparaging use of ἐργολάβος outside erudite sources until the medieval period (see E.). Although it remains possible that instances of ἐργολάβος in a negative sense once existed but have not come down to us, it seems remarkable that Pollux, in A.3, assigns the figurative negative meaning (on which see F.1.) to ἐργολαβέω – and not to ἐργολάβος, that he mentioned just before – and, in A.5, lists the participle ἐργολαβῶν, not ἐργολάβος, among the nouns corresponding to acts of abuse to be dealt with in court.

The entries in the Antiatticist (A.1) and in the Suda (B.4, on which see also F.2) also offer some insight into the Byzantine transmission of Atticist doctrines. Indeed, the similarities they share, and in particular the citation from Demosthenes (C.3), do not appear to be coincidental. If the points of contact between the Antiatticist and the Lexeis Rhetorikai – a lexicon generally believed to be slightly earlier than, or coeval with, the Synagoge, and which serves as the Suda’s source in B.4 – are explained by Valente (2015, 34–5) as deriving from a common source, perhaps to be identified with Didymus, it should nevertheless be noted that the citation from Demosthenes does not occur in the Lexeis Rhetorikai (nor in the EM) and is peculiar to A.1 and B.4 alone. Of course, material from the Antiatticist entered the Suda through the mediation of the Synagoge and its expansions (Valente 2015, 13–30). In this case, however, such a pattern of transmission is difficult to establish, since the only entry in the Synagoge devoted to these forms (B.2) discusses the same negative meaning but appears not to have been taken up in the later tradition, and Photius’ lexicon contains two unparalleled and rather cryptic entries: beside B.3, whose meaning is ambiguous – προϊστάμενοι could refer either to those who prevail in a tender over their competitors or, perhaps less likely, to those who impose their authority on others – ε 1898 is likewise devoted to ἐργολαβέω, but amounts to little more than ἐργολαβῆσαι λέγουσιν (‘they say ἐργολαβῆσαι’). In light of this, it is perhaps not too far-fetched to suppose that the compilers of the Suda, in expanding their source, had direct access to the Antiatticist – a scenario that Valente (2015, 25) does not consider ‘completely excluded’; on the entries of the Antiatticist arguably transmitted by the Suda alone, see Valente (2015, 29–30).

E. Byzantine and Modern Greek commentary

Both ἐργολάβος and ἐργολαβέω remain in use in late antiquity and the medieval period. Predictably, they are widely attested in legal texts, for instance in the Basilica. Here, ἐργολάβος primarily denotes a contractor responsible for the execution of a work (e.g. 58.11.28: εἰ δέ τις ἐργολάβος ἢ τεχνίτης ἀρξάμενος ἔργου ἀναχωρήσει, πᾶσαν ζημίαν θεραπεύσει, ‘If a contractor or a craftsman withdraws after the beginning of the work, he will pay the whole penalty’; 60.43.7: oὐ δεῖ τοῖς ἐργολάβοις τῶν δημοσίων ἔργων […], ‘Contractors of public works must not […]’), but it is also used in a disparaging sense, denoting in particular legal corruption. Thus, for instance, Synopsis major 5.41 states: ἔστι δὲ ὁ ἐργολάβος ὁ χρήματα διδοὺς ἐπὶ τῷ ἐκχωρηθῆναι ἀγωγήν (‘ἐργολάβος is one who pays money to avoid a [legal] action’).

In Modern Greek, εργολάβος remains in standard use and denotes a contractor, primarily in the building sector (though not exclusively: for instance, εργολάβος κηδειών means ‘funeral director’). Oddly enough, in Athens in the second half of the 20th century, ἐργολάβος acquired the unprecedented – and of uncertain origin – meaning ‘lover, suitor’, dubiously explained in LKN (s.v.) as arising from an analogy between the suitor who hovers around his beloved and the contractor who assiduously inspects a building under construction (see also Koumanoudis s.v). While this meaning is now plainly obsolete, εργολάβος still denotes a type of small pastry, an almond biscuit not unlike the French macaron (see LKN s.v.); in this sense, the noun is feminine. Unlike ἐργολάβος, ἐργολαβέω has fallen out of use and does not survive in Modern Greek; its recorded occurrences up to the 19th century are due to its use by highly classicising writers.

F. Commentary on individual texts and occurrences

(1)    Poll. 7.182 (A.3)

While saying οἱ μέντοι ῥήτορες τὸ ἐργολαβεῖν ἐπὶ τοῦ ἐπηρεάζειν λέγουσιν, Pollux is clearly switching from the verb’s standard meaning, just discussed, to its figurative negative acceptation. Nonetheless, it remains difficult to determine whether Pollux uses ἐπὶ τοῦ ἐπηρεάζειν to mean ‘in a disparaging sense, as a term of abuse’, or whether he is instead positing a kind of synonymity between the two forms, i.e. ‘they say ἐργολαβεῖν of the act of committing an abuse’. The interpretation one adopts for this statement may also affect the understanding of the group of speakers denoted by the label οἱ ῥήτορες. While the latter option (ἐργολαβεῖν = ἐπηρεάζειν = ‘to mistreat’) seems ill-suited to describe the meanings that ἐργολαβέω assumes in classical oratory – where the notion of profit predominates – it appears far less strained if applied to the verb’s specialised legal sense attested in imperial documentary sources (see D.), which in fact always implies an element of abuse. If this is indeed the case, the label οἱ ῥήτορες would refer not to ancient rhetoricians but rather to contemporary legal practitioners; A.5, where ἐργολαβέω and ἐπηρεάζω are listed together among terms pertaining to the court (τῶν δὲ ἐκ δικαστηρίου ὀνομάτων), and thus to juridical jargon, may also point in this direction.

(2)    Su. ε 2907 (B.4)

The Lexeis Rhetorikai contain a very similar entry to that which the Suda devotes to ἐργολάβος. Lexeis Rhetorikai 259.13–6 reads: ἐργολάβος· ὁ φλαύροις πράγμασι χρώμενος παρὰ    τοῖς ῥήτορσι, καὶ οὐχ ὁ ὑπέρ τινων ἔργων μισθὸν λαμβάνων καὶ ἔχων τοὺς συνεργαζομένους, ὡς ἡ συνήθεια (‘ἐργολάβος: In the orators [it denotes] the person who commits base deeds, and not the person who receives a wage for any work and has co-workers, as [is] common usage’). This entry occurs identical in EM 370.12–5 – except for ὡς ἡ συνήθεια in the Lexeis Rhetorikai which becomes ὡς καὶ ἡ συνήθεια in the Etymologicum Magnum. The obvious similarity in wording between Lexeis Rhetorikai 259.13–6 and the Suda (B.4) warrants that the entries are somehow connected, either because Lexeis Rhetorikai 259.13–6 is the source of B.4 – as supposed by Adler (1928–1938 vol. 2, 404) – or because they draw from a common source. Nonetheless, the postulate of the two entries is at least partly different. Indeed, Lexeis Rhetorikai 259.13–6 draws a rather stark distinction between the two meanings: ‘contractor’ – assigned to the συνήθεια – and, in short, ‘profiteer’ – assigned to the ῥήτορες. The structure of the entry in the Suda is instead less straightforward, and B.4 appears to say that the ῥήτορες normally use ἐργολάβος in the sense ‘profiteer’ but also understand the word in its standard acception (οὕτω καὶ οἱ ῥήτορες ἐξεδέξαντο τὸν ἐργολάβον). This discrepancy may originate from the fact that the Suda misunderstood its source – be it the Lexeis Rhetorikai or a source common to both; one may note, in particular, the different meaning of the verb χράομαι in the two entries. Alternatively, it is possible that textual alterations have intervened. Be that as it may, the discrepancy may as well reflect the intention to recall that also the standard meaning of ἐργολάβος ‘contractor’ in the συνήθεια is likewise attested in classical authors (which is true: see D.). To be sure, the label ῥήτορεςοἱ ῥήτορες would point to an (unknown) occurrence in oratory, but one should perhaps not exclude the possibility that the label also includes ancient prose-writers in general; a possible parallel for this broader sense may be Σ^b α 155 (= Phot. α 171, Su. α 229, ex Σʹ), where Agesilaos is said to be dealt with by ‘many ῥήτορες’ (παρὰ πολλοῖς τῶν ῥητόρων), while the author mentioned in the entry’s source (Harp. α 10) is actually Xenophon.