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TepΘpeia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

L. J. D. Richardson
L. J. D. Richardson
Affiliation:
Uniyersity College, Cardiff
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The word τερθρεία, which L. and S.8 derived (following Moeris) from τερατεία and translated ‘the use of claptraps’, is perhaps best known from its occurrence in Isocrates (Helen, § 4), but the new edition has spread the net more widely, citing Philo, Philodemus, Proclus, Galen, Dion. Hal., and giving its meaning as ‘the use of extreme subtlety, hair-splitting, formal pedantry’. This agrees better with the gloss / κενοσπονδία attributed to Orus of Miletus in Et. Mag. 753. 4. Aristotle, Demosthenes, and Plutarch each use τερθρεύομαι once. In the Helen Isocrates, condemning the futile ingenuity of the Sophists in writing encomia on such unworthy objects as salt and humble-bees, holds that such tours de force are immoral, as (i) tending to deceive, (ii) representing a literary form of the vice περιεργία.Τερθρεία, then, should take its place, as a recognized term for the idle over-elaboration of a banausic theme, in the vocabulary of Greek literary criticism. It does not, however, appear in Rhys Roberts's ‘Glossary of Greek Rhetoric’ appended to his edition of D.H.'s On Literary Composition. No doubt this is because τερθρεία does not occur in this or any other of D.H.'s Scripta Rhetorica. But D.H. himself uses the word in Antiq. Rom. (ii. 19). Similarly J. F. Lockwood does not discuss the term in his lists in C.Q. xxxi and xxxii, where he collects words which are used metaphorically by D.H. in literary criticism. The metaphor in τερθρεία is certainly not obvious; but the literary sense must have involved some transference of meaning, for it is not to be expected that the word τερθρεία sprang, in full panoply of critical significance, from the brain of the Muse of Rhetoric; and it is part of the purpose of this paper to point the way to an explanation, or at least to set forth some known facts about the word and its possible congeners.

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Type
Research Article
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The Classical Quarterly , Volume 39 , Issue 1-2 , January 1945 , pp. 59 - 62
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1945

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References

page 59 note 1 The Romans (he says), whenever they adopted a foreign cult, nevertheless ‘Romanized’ the ritual and soberly avoided all barbaric excess in ceremony. Such exotic elaborations of liturgy are described in detail (one word used is τερτενμα, which may have lent some countenance to L. and S.'s etymology) and summed up the phrase repSpeta τερθρεα μνθικ.

page 59 note 1 I do not know to what μρεσι refers, Suidas' naïve suggestion cannot be right, viz ν μρεσι τοῖς κινδνοις τς μχης. Aeschines would not refer proudly to a promotion Kromayersheltered post but rather to something involving what we describe by the cliche ‘baptism of fire’, cf. Virgil, , Aen. xi. 156–7Google Scholar , bellique propinqui | dura rudimenta and my note in C.R. xlvii. 6.

I am grateful to Dr. H. W. Parke for the following note: ‘ ν τοῖς μρεσι στρατεα, to which τερθρεα is equated, occurs only in Aeschines, ii. 168. It appears there to be used in contrast to ν τοῖς πωνμοις, i.e. a calling up by year classes. Hence it must be taken that τερθρεα in a military sense meant some mobilization by selected units, and may imply some special qualification in those who served thus. This emphasis would suit the context in Aeschines. Cf. Kromayer-Veith, , Heerwesen, p. 47Google Scholar .’

page 60 note 1 These points in naval architecture are fully discussed and illustrated in Torr's, Ancient Ships, pp. 56–60Google Scholar .

page 60 note 2 This is always the duty mentioned, e.g. Theodoret, , De Prov. viiGoogle Scholar (Migne, lxxxiii. 676 B), τν δ πρωρα κοπλονς κα σπιλδας περισκοποντα κα τῷ κνβερντ;ῷμηνοντα, cf. Xen. Oec. viii. 14; Plut, . Agis, iGoogle Scholar .

page 60 note 3 See the plates at the end of Torr's book and my note on cumba adunca and ‘hooked beaks’ in Hermathena, lv, pp. 90–3. Incidentally, the name πρῳρες for for the ‘look-out’ proves that the ancient ship was not equipped with any observation post similar to our ‘crow's-nest’ high up the mast or in the rigging. But sailors did climb aloft (to attend to the sails), e.g. Aristotle, Eud. Eth. iii. 1230*28, οί πί τούς ίστοùς να-βαίνειν πιοτáμενοι Cicero, , de Senect. vi. 17, alii malos scandantGoogle Scholar; Ovid, , Met. iii. 615–16Google Scholar, quo non alius conscendere summas ∣ ocior antennas.

page 60 note 4 In the inventories of the Athenian dock-yards these (κáλω appearing as κáλώδια) are frequently named, together with ίμáντες, ằνκοινα, χαλινóς, i.e. ‘halyards’, ‘the ? fore-stay’, ‘the ? back-stay’, as the six sorts of rope in-cluded in the general term τοπεῖα (Torr, , op. cit., P. 82)Google Scholar.

page 61 note 1 See also Neil, R. A. on Aristophanes, Knights, vv. 542–4Google Scholar; and cf. Plaut, . Rud. 1014Google Scholar.

page 61 note 2 In the naval reforms of Themistocles the 170 oarsmen of a trireme were composed partly of hired foreigners and slaves and partly of citizens (Bury, , Hist, of Gce., p. 332)Google Scholar. Cf. [Xen.], ‘Αθ. πολ, 1. 2, ó δμóς στιν λαύνων τàς νας.

page 61 note 3 No one would question the right of the word πρῳρατεία to existence yet chance has not vouchsafed an occurrence of it for our lexicons to list. So, too, I suggest, with τερθρεία, in its original sense.

page 61 note 4 See Richardson, L. J. D. on ύπηρÉτης, C.Q. xxxvii. 55–61Google Scholar.

page 61 note 5 Cf. ‘crew’, originally = ‘military reinforcements’ (cresco), then extended to mean ‘any company of men’, now most often nautical.

page 62 note 1 Cf. the application to speech of the nautical (ύποστλλεσθαι: το ποδòς παριναι, συστλλειν, etc.

page 62 note 2 Yet further confirmation may be found in the accentuation of τερθρεία. Τερθρείᾱ, with verb τερθρεύω, shows that the word does not stand for *τερθρεσία, with adjective *τερθρής. In other words, it does not belong to an s-stem series of the type εύσβειᾰ—εύσεβής—εύσεβω, but rather to the type ίατρείᾱ—ίατρεύω, from an o-stem noun ίατρóς. Τερθρειᾱ, then, looks like being a derivative noun implying a simpler o-stem base, viz. *τρθρον (or, as we find it, τρθρον neuter).