θρίδαξ, θριδακίνη
(Phryn. Ecl. 101, Antiatt. θ 9, Poll. 1.247, Poll. 6.76)

D. General commentary

Two entries in Phrynichus’ Eclogue (A.1) and the Antiatticist (A.2) represent two opposite stances within the Atticist debate on the admissibility of the word θρίδαξ (‘lettuce’), particularly in light of its use by Herodotus (C.1), whose status in the Atticist canon is uncertain (see Tribulato 2016, 180–91). As one would expect, Phrynichus – followed centuries later by Thomas Magister (B.9) – expresses the more rigid Atticist stance and recommends using the Attic θριδακίνη in place of θρίδαξ, whereas the Antiatticist appears to allow the latter.

The origin of θρίδαξ is uncertain. One of the etymologies reported in the Byzantine Etymologica (B.4) – which connects the word with the numeral τρίς (‘three’) and the noun θρίον, denoting fig leaves and, by extension, leaves in general – is taken seriously by some modern scholars (see DELG s.v. and EDG s.v., with bibliography), also in light of its variant in τετρα-, the hapax τετρακίνη. This word was explained in antiquity as coming from Phrygian (see B.1), but was arguably created by folk-etymology (see Hawkins 2013, 110–1, 201; Filos 2019, 175). Despite these attempts, the word’s etymology remains uncertain. A properispomenon accentuationAccent, θρῖδαξ, is attested in some sources – cf. Draco 76.10; on the authenticity of this work, which remains uncertain, see Sandri (2025, 236–56), with bibliography – and retained in some texts (e.g. C.6), but it represents a minority view and is not reliable, since the ῐ in θρίδαξ is metrically guaranteed.

θρίδαξ is attested as early as Herodotus (C.1) and Epicharmus (C.2), and is common in medical treatises discussing the properties of lettuce from Hippocrates onwards. Alternative forms are also attested: θίδραξ, with metathesis, besides being reported in B.2, occurs in Arrian (cf. e.g. Epict. 2.10.9; θιδρακίνη, the lemma in Hesychius’ entry, is instead unparalleled), while the itacistic spelling θρύδαξ is first attested in P.Oxy. 9.1212.5 (= TM 28932) [2nd century CE] and later reappears in B.8. The existence of a form θρόδαξ is doubtful, since the entry Hsch. θ 772: †θρόδακα· θρίδακα. †Κύπριοι (‘θρόδαξ: Cyprians [call thus] the lettuce’) is probably corrupt; according to Egetmeyer (2010, 275), the ethnic may have slipped into the entry from a nearby item, Hsch. θ 774. The otherwise unattested form θοδράκιον, which Choeroboschus (B.5) puzzlingly ascribes to common usage (ἐν τῇ συνηθείᾳ), is also questionable.

As far as the Attic θριδακίνη is concerned, it is a derivativeDerivatives from θρίδαξ (with the suffix -ino-, on which see Chantraine 1933, 203–6). Its earliest attestations occur in the Hippocratic treatise Mul. 2.136 (= 8.136.7 Littré) – whose compilation was completed by the end of the 5th century or the beginning of the 4th according to Craik (2015, 206); lettuce is here mentioned as a remedy for pelvic pain – and, arguably, in Cratinus (fr. 370 = C.3; see Olson, Seaberg 2018, 191–2). In the latter text it denotes the bed of lettuce in which Aphrodite hid her lover Phaon. θριδακίνη also occurs in the 4th-century Attic comic poets Amphis (C.5; see Papachrysostomou 2016, 132–8) and Eubulus (fr. 13; see Hunter 1983, 103–4), both of whom mention lettuce as a cause of male impotence. This alludes to the belief – originating precisely from the myth of Aphrodite and Phaon/Adonis – that the vegetable had an anti-aphrodisiac effect (the myth is also recorded in Apollod. 3.14.4; on how this belief is reflected in medical texts see, at least, Papachrysostomou 2016, 134–5). Later on, θριδακίνη is widely attested in medical treatises from the imperial to the Byzantine period that discuss the effects and properties of lettuce (occurring, among others, in Galen, Oribasius, Aethius, and Alexander of Tralles). Notably, it appears in the writings of some Atticising authors, such as Aelius Aristides and Lucian (e.g. Lex. 4.1, with the meaning ‘pie’). Erudite sources also report the variants θριδακινίς in Strattis (fr. 71 = C.4), a hypocoristic (Fiorentini 2017, 249) and poetic (Orth 2009, 272) form, and θριδακίσκα in Alcman (PMGF 94), both hapax legomena.

Some sources suggest a semantic difference between θρίδαξ and θριδακίνη. The information reported by Photius from Helladius’ Chrestomatheiai (B.6), according to which θρίδαξ and θριδακίνη denote two distinct varieties of the vegetable in medical jargon, reflects Galen’s distinction between cultivated lettuce (Lactuca sativa) and wild lettuce (Lactuca virosa) in his De alim. fac. (C.6; on this distinction see also De comp. med. sec. loc. 12.509.10–1 Kühn). Indeed Galen warns his reader that by θριδακίνη he refers to the cultivated variety that is commonly called θρίδαξ in contemporary language (πάντες οἱ νῦν ἄνθρωποι), and then proposes a distinction between cultivated lettuce (θρίδαξ) and wild lettuce (θριδακίνη). Nonetheless, θρίδαξ and θριδακίνη are mostly used as synonymsSynonyms for both varieties, including in medical treatises: in Dioscorides, for instance, wild lettuce is referred to as ἀγρία θρίδαξ (cf. e.g. 2.136.2).

Atticist lexicographers were not the first to address the existence of concurrent synonyms for ‘lettuce’. Indeed, Athenaeus preserves traces that these forms were discussed by earlier grammarians such as Pamphilus (B.1) and Tryphon (fr. 19.3 = Ath. 3.114e: καὶ μάζας δ’ ἔστιν εὑρεῖν ἀναγεγραμμένας παρά τε τῷ Τρύφωνι καὶ παρ’ ἄλλοις πλείοσιν [...] αἱ δὲ παρ’ Ἀλκμᾶνι θριδακίσκαι λεγόμεναι αἱ αὐταί εἰσι ταῖς Ἀττικαῖς θριδακίναις, ‘And one can find pies recorded in Tryphon and in many others [...] those which are called θριδακίσκαι by Alcman are the same as the Attic θριδακίναι’). In particular, Tryphon’s acknowledgment that θριδακίνη is Attic may have set a precedent for Phrynichus’ judgement. The Attic attestations of θριδακίνη, especially that in Cratinus (C.3), easily account for Phrynichus’ preference for this word at the expense of θρίδαξ, which he identifies as an Ionic form on the basis of its occurrence in Herodotus. The latter’s use of θρίδαξ (C.1) is in fact the focus of the extant Atticists’ reflections on the word’s status. This is revealing of different approaches to the canon: if, in Phrynichus’ view, the authority of Herodotus does not suffice to make an Ionic form eligible, the Antiatticist arguably invokes its Herodotean pedigree as evidence for its admissibility (see further Tribulato 2016, 181; 187). In support of this interpretation, it should be noted, with Fiori (2022, 83), that this is not the only entry in which the Antiatticist specifies that a form occurs multiple times in order to support its correctness. Although A.1 and A.2 may appear to indicate interdependence between the Eclogue and the Antiatticist, it is safer to regard them as independent – or at least not necessarily interdependent – traces of a broader debate, since it cannot be proven that Phrynichus already had access to the Antiatticist while working on the first book of the Eclogue (see Latte 1915, 382; Valente 2015, 54 n. 319). While the opinions of Phrynichus and the Antiatticist are quite clearly defined, Pollux’s position is less easy to assess. The issue is never openly discussed in the Onomasticon; nonetheless, the fact that Pollux uses only θριδακίνη (A.3, A.4) may implicitly suggest that he does not consider θρίδαξ appropriate. Returning to Phrynichus’ dislike for the Ionic θρίδαξ, a diastratic difference may also have played a role in his rejection of the word. Indeed, θρίδαξ was commonly used in the koine Greek of laymen in the imperial age, as Galen recalls (C.6: πάντες οἱ νῦν ἄνθρωποι), and was in all likelihood perceived as a less distinguished from than θριδακίνη.

E. Byzantine and Modern Greek commentary

Later sources that inherit the discussion of θρίδαξ and θριδακίνη from Atticist erudition (B.3, B.4, B.6, B.7) introduce a more recent synonym for ‘lettuce’, μαρούλιον/μαϊούλιον (see also [Zonar.] 1053.19), which was destined to prevail in Medieval and Modern Greek. Indeed, μαρούλι is nowadays the standard word for lettuce in Greek.

μαρούλιον is generally interpreted as a loanword from Latin amārus (‘bitter’), perhaps through the mediation of an unattested *amārul(l)a (lactuca) (‘lettuce’, see Dickey 2023, 283–4; Kriaras, LME s.v. μαρούλι(ο)ν). Nonetheless, a different explanation has also been proposed, according to which the word derives by folk etymology from Greek Μάϊος (‘May’, see Kriaras, LME s.v. μαρούλι(ο)ν). According to the scholar Skarlatos Byzantios (1857, 168 s.v. μαροῦλι), it may in fact conflate Μάϊος and Ἰούλιος (‘July’). This folk-etymological explanation, marginal in recent scholarship, would account for the spelling μαϊούλιον in many sources, including B.3 (see apparatus), B.4, and B.7 (cf. also the variant μαϊούνιον; see LBG s.v. μαρούλιν). As for its chronology, it is difficult to determine precisely when μαρούλιον became established in Greek. The word first occurs in works that are not easily datable: the pseudo-Hippocratic treatise Περὶ διαφορᾶς τροφῶν πρὸς Πτολεμαῖον (489.13), whose late vocabulary suggests that it is most likely a Byzantine redaction; the Cyranides (C.7), a collection of non-traditional medical lore (on the properties it assigns to lettuce, see Freni 2023, 323–8) whose date is debated (traditionally considered to date back to the 1st or 2nd century CE, it has recently been reassigned to the 4th century CE: see Bain 1990); and the pseudo-Herodianic Ἐπιμερισμοί (e.g. 58.9), on whose composite and layered nature see Dyck (1981, 229–31); Dickey (2014, 329). Even the word’s presence in the Philogelos (16.2, 16.5) may not provide solid proof for tracing it back to the 4th century CE, as Dickey (2023, 283) suggests, since the work most likely results from a process of layering of materials from different periods. Indeed, the present redaction of the Philogelos is assigned to the very end of Late Antiquity by Braccini (2008, 32) on the basis of linguistic evidence, and in particular the massive presence of late-imperial and proto-Byzantine forms and colloquial Latinisms (including μαρούλιον).

In any case, μαρούλιον was widespread in everyday language, at least from the late-antique period onwards, as is confirmed by the Cyranides (C.7), where its use is ascribed to the multitude (παρὰ τοῖς πολλοῖς), and by Hesychius (B.3) and the Suda (B.7), where it is recognised, together with θρίδαξ, as a feature of the lexicographers’ own sociolect (παρ’ ἡμῖν; on the use of ἡμεῖς as a metalinguistic label in Hesychius’ lexicon and in the Suda, see AGP vol. 3, forthcoming). μαρούλιον – also in the forms μαϊούλιον, μαρούλιν, μαϊούλιν, μαρούλλιν, μαϊούνιον – occurs frequently in Byzantine technical literature and in works closely reflecting Medieval Greek, but it was arguably avoided in high-register Byzantine literature, which continued to prefer the ancient θρίδαξ and θριδακίνη (used, for instance, by Michael Psellus, Nicephorus Basilaces, and Manuel Philes). An anonymous medical lexicon of plant names in MS Holkham gr. 112, f. 166v (B.8, 12th century), apparently displays an otherwise unattested feminine form μαρούλλη, which may nonetheless be an itacistic spelling of the neuter μαρούλ(λ)ι. One may compare, in the same work – which appears to be studded with scribal errors – the entry τρόξιμον· τὸ ἀγριομαρούλλην (‘τρώξιμος (‘vegetable eaten raw’): The wild lettuce’), in which ἀγριομαρούλλη is surely an itacistic spelling of the neuter ἀγριομαρούλ(λ)ι (see LBG s.v. ἀγριομαρούλιον; ILNE s.v. ἀγριομαρούλι). As for the geminate consonant -λλ-, Bouras-Vallianatos (2018) notes that its preservation is consistent with the Griko spoken in southern Italy (although not exclusively so) and may suggest a southern Italian origin for the lexicon. Nonetheless, such a hypothesis should be treated cautiously, since this would be the only piece of evidence in its favour.

F. Commentary on individual texts and occurrences

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