Horses for courses: Plato’s vocabulary and authority in the Onomasticon^*

Abstract

1. INTRODUCTION

The Onomasticon by Julius Polydeuces, Latine Pollux, is typically left out of studies of Middle Platonism and the broader response to the Platonist tradition in antiquity.¹ This is understandable, because Pollux’s work is a thesaurus—even though there are nuggets of anecdotal narrative and/or discursive statements (e.g., 1.30–31, 1.45–47, 2.94–95, 2.226, 4.87–90, 5.22–26, 9.73), the bulk of the text amounts to a concatenation of lists of synonyms and assorted terminology. One does not expect insights into philosophical problems from this kind of Fachliteratur. Having said that, recent scholarship increasingly tends to view Pollux’s word-hoard as an ambitious and savvily designed product of the Second Sophistic;² in an environment preoccupied with the quality of its verbal resources, lexicography proves to be a powerful interface for values, agendas, and far-reaching cultural negotiation.³ Given that the reception of Plato was such a major strand of Greco-Roman intellectualism and literary activity during the Imperial era, the treatment of Platonic references in the Onomasticon is more layered and consequential than it may seem at first.

2. READING PLATO, WORD BY WORD

There can be no doubt that Pollux’s target audience⁴ are the well-educated and discursively energetic insiders of Hellenic paideia, whose lifelong project is to earn and legitimize their status by demonstrating intellectual-cum-textual competence vis-à-vis the legacies, benchmarks, and priorities contained within the available cultural curriculum. It is also safe to assume that these paideutic operators, while not necessarily identifying themselves as philosophoi,⁵ would be nevertheless actively aware of philosophical textuality. I use the term ‘textuality’ on purpose: ‘textuality’ allows for flexible, on-demand accentuation (as well as blurring) of the dichotomy between content and style and, therefore, comes in handy when dealing with an author recognized both for stylistic merits and for unmissably important, intellectually prestigious content—such as Plato.⁶

The Imperial readers of Plato are repeatedly challenged to find the right balance between the philosopher’s message and its beautiful literary packaging. Thus, a professional Platonist Taurus (in Aulus Gellius’ Attic Nights) declares that Plato’s Symposium is superior to rhetorical texts stylistically (Gell. 17.20.5), but also stresses that we ought to look beyond Plato’s glamorous wordage: ‘for one must penetrate to the inmost depths of Plato’s mind and feel the weight and dignity of his subject matter, not be diverted to the loveliness of his phrases or the grace of his vocabulary’ (ad ipsa enim Platonis penetralia ipsarumque rerum pondera et dignitates pergendum est, non ad vocularum eius amoenitatem nec ad verborum venustates deversitandum, Gell. 17.20.6; trans. Rolfe 1927, modified). In the eyes of Taurus, to study Plato’s text for the sake of sprucing up one’s own style rather than improving one’s life (non vitae ornandae, sed linguae orationisque comendae gratia) is blatant folly (Gell. 1.9.10).⁷ Plutarch in De prof. virt. 79d is similarly critical of people who ‘utilize’ Plato and Xenophon only for the language (χρωμένους διὰ τὴν λέξιν), which is of course exemplarily pure Attic, yet thereby miss out on wholesome advice.⁸

Plutarch and Taurus’ attitude does feel moralistic and sectarian. In the longue durée, however, it dovetails with the fact that immersive and conscientious engagement with Plato’s language was facili­­tated for philosophical and non-philosophical readers alike by specialized glossaries and lexica. Several such lexica are attested;⁹ of the two extant works the epitomized Platonic Lexicon attributed to ‘Timaeus the Sophist’ is particularly noteworthy,¹⁰ bearing in mind its (albeit not definite) chronological proximity to the heyday of Deuterosophistic lexicography.¹¹ To put it bluntly, lexicographic techniques and expertise constitute a sort of bridge or buffer zone between the interests of philosophical ‘muggles’, that is readers whose aim is to appreciate Plato’s prose,¹² and the concerns of the committed Platonists, who promote the idea of the totalized, thought-out cohesion of Plato’s macro-text, down to the vocabulary employed. In the Table Talk by Plutarch, his brother Lamprias argues that although Plato is wont to tease the readers (‘us’) on the verbal level, in the Platonic myths the lexical choices are loaded with genuine meaningfulness:

LAMPRIAS: … Plato often pulls verbal tricks on us (πολλαχοῦ μὲν ἡμῖν τὸν Πλάτωνα προσπαίζειν διὰ τῶν ὀνομάτων), but in those passages where he combines his argument about the soul with myth, he uses significance [sc. of the words] to the maximum (χρῆσθαι μάλιστα τῷ νῷ).^{13 (Plu. QC 740b)}

According to Cassius Longinus (quoted by Proclus), Plato’s ostentatiously beautiful diction should be taken as intentional and, moreover, integral to Plato’s reasoning:

Longinus says that Plato here [Ti. 19d] is putting on a display (ὡραΐζεσθαι), and shows that he is using analogies and elegant words to beautify his argument (διὰ τῶν παραβολῶν καὶ τῆς τῶν ὀνομάτων χάριτος καλλωπίσαντα τὸν λόγον)—against Platonists who claim that this style comes naturally and is not supported by the philosopher through art. He says that the choice of words has been thought through by Plato: none of them has been picked at random by him (εἶναι μὲν γὰρ τὴν ἐκλογὴν τῶν ὀνομάτων πεφροντισμένην τῷ Πλάτωνι, καὶ οὐ κατὰ τὸ ἐπιτυχὸν ἕκαστα λαμβάνειν αὐτόν) … (fr. 49 Männlein-Robert = Procl. in Ti. 1.59.1–16 Kroll; trans. Boys-Stones 2018, modified)

Longinus believes that the Platonic text needs to be approached holistically, on the premise that the lexical artistry and rhetorical flair are neither unbefitting nor adventitious to Plato’s philosophical exposition, but constructively subsumed into it.¹⁴

Attention to words certainly matters for the purposes of exegesis of Plato’s texts as well as for (inter-)textual mobilization of Platonic themes and imagery. But there is more. In Alcinous’ Handbook, the theoretical stakes are raised higher when summarizing the thesis advanced early on in the Cratylus (387d–391b).¹⁵ The notion that the correctness of words derives from the nature of the things which the words designate is hammered home as a fundamental principle applicable to any language-based teaching and, crucially, to philosophical dialectics:

For the name is an instrument corresponding to a thing, not attached to it at random, but appropriate to it by nature (τὸ ὄνομα ὄργανον πράγματος οὐχ ὃ ἔτυχεν, ἀλλὰ τὸ κατάλληλον τῇ φύσει). It is by means of the name that we teach other things and distinguish them, so that the name is an instrument which teaches about and distinguishes the nature of each thing (καὶ διὰ τούτου διδάσκομεν ἀλλήλους τὰ πράγματα καὶ διακρίνομεν αὐτά, ὥστε εἶναι τὸ ὄνομα διδασκαλικόν τι καὶ διακριτικὸν τῆς ἑκάστου οὐσίας ὄργανον), as the shuttle does for the weaving of the cloth. It is dialectic which has the job of using names rightly (τὸ τοῖς ὀνόμασιν ὀρθῶς χρῆσθαι)¹⁶ … the dialectician, once the name-giver has laid down the name, would be the one to use it properly and fittingly (κατὰ τρόπον καὶ προσφόρως). (Alcin. Didask. 6.10–11; trans. Dillon 1993)

Now, Pollux in the Onomasticon does not appear to be keen on deep semantic correctness along those lines; his criteria for including and recommending words are primarily aesthetic (1.2: εἰς κάλλους ἐκλογήν, 3 praef.: τὸν καλλιφωνότατον [sc. author of the source text]).¹⁷ Yet Pollux is obviously conscious of the didactic tenor of his Onomasticon (1.30: τὸ διδασκαλικὸν εἶδος). Conceptually, then, Pollux’s practice as an expert on vocabulary and synonyms and the Middle Platonic rationale for language-based instruction are, perhaps, not altogether unrelated—knowing the lexical ins and outs is what lies at the core of education and epistemic activity across the board.¹⁸ The more serious question is, how favourably—or, conversely, how critically—does Pollux evaluate Platonic textuality per se?

3. POLLUX TAKES ON PLATO

Pollux offers well over 200 Platonic references—Plato, as it happens, is the second most-cited author in the Onomasticon.¹⁹ The range of dialogues drawn upon by Pollux reveals quite high expectations about familiarity with Plato’s corpus among the Kulturträger of the Second Sophistic; even the more ‘hardcore’ philosophical texts (such as Parmenides, Theaetetus, and Philebus) are tapped into as a matter of course.²⁰ Pollux is also fond of injecting Platonic intertextuality into his own pedagogical procedures, notably in several prefatory epistles²¹ or when ending a book: thus, the future infinitive ἀνερευνήσειν, “to search up” in the coda to book 1 (1.255) could be an allusion to the Phaedo (63a2),²² while the last section of book 4 (4.208) rather suggestively focuses on midwifery, with several references to the Theaetetus (149d3, 149c2, 150c4, 149b10).²³

It goes without saying that throughout the Onomasticon Pollux prioritizes Plato’s lexis over Plato’s arguments, yet occasionally Pollux points up Platonic words and expressions which are loaded with bona fide philosophical significance²⁴ or even slips in a bit of doxographical knowledge (2.226 the intellect ‘is located either in the brain, according to Pythagoras and Plato …’). At times Pollux adopts an interpretative viewpoint on the Platonic text, thereby exceeding his own remit qua prescriptive lexicographer. Thus, at the end of book 5 (5.169–70) Pollux unpacks and spells out the notions of ‘the same’ (τὸ ταὐτὸν) and ‘the other’ (τὸ θάτερον), which are at work in Plato’s Timaeus.²⁵ At 9.111 he clarifies, if somewhat parenthetically, an idiom from the Phaedrus (241b4–5).²⁶ In 7.206, the drawn-out taxonomy of crafts in Plato’s Statesman is queried—did Plato really mean (σπουδάζων ἐχρῆτο) all those terms,²⁷ or is it all a hoax?

δύναιτο δ’ ἄν τις, εἰ βούλοιτο, καὶ τὰς ὑπὸ τοῦ Πλάτωνος ὀνομασθείσας τέχνας … ἐπαριθμεῖν, καὶ τὰ σὺν αὐταῖς ὀνόματα, εἴτε σπουδάζων ἐχρῆτο τοῖς ὀνόμασιν εἴτε καὶ μή·

One might add, should one so wish … the crafts denominated by Plato, and the related words—whether he used those words in earnest or not.

Here Pollux mirrors the view that was current in the Platonist circles (Plu. QC 740b), namely, that Plato may behave as a mischievous wordsmith. But whereas the Platonists are programmed to pursue favourable and sympathetic readings of Plato’s text,²⁸ to Pollux the linguistic and, by extension, cultural authority of Plato is anything but absolute.

A great deal of Plato’s lexical usage is endorsed²⁹ by Pollux, yet more than once in the Onomasticon, a word tagged with Plato’s name is brought up only to be repudiated: ‘I do not like (οὔ μοι ἀρέσκει) “non-premeditation” (ἀπροβουλία) from Plato’s Laws’ (6.144, cf. Lg. 867b4), ‘Plato’s “disrelishments” in the Philebus are vile’ (3.133 πονηρὰ δὲ τὰ Πλάτωνος ἐν Φιλήβῳ δυσχεράσματα, cf. Phlb. 44d2). It is not that the Onomasticon is invariably biased against Plato—other classics of Greek literature are treated with similar critical discrimination;³⁰ the prerogative to condemn a word from a mainstream, canonical writer is central to Pollux’s strategy of empowering himself as gatekeeper of Hellenic verbal culture. Controversy over the overwrought (‘poetic’) and otherwise strained features of Plato’s style is well established in ancient criticism.³¹ Still, in the context of the Second Sophistic and Middle Platonism, the posture of resistant reading of Plato cannot help having more special and vibrant rele­vance. Like his elder contemporary Aelius Aristides,³² Pollux (who himself was a practising sophist and a professor of rhetoric) has an axe to grind with Plato, in defence of rhetorical discourse. But while Aristides challenges Plato’s overall stance on rhetoric,³³ Pollux in the Onomasticon exercises his authority as the master vocabularist. He whittles away at Plato’s stylistic judgement by censure of individual words.³⁴ Rejection may be point-blank, as at 3.133, 6.144, or 9.137:

Some think (οἴονται δέ τινες) that τευτάζειν, in Plato [cf. Phlb. 56e5 τευταζόντων, R. 521e4 τετεύτακεν, Ti. 90b2 τετευτακότι] and in other authors (παρά τε Πλάτωνι καὶ ἄλλοις εἰρημένον) means (νοεῖν) the same as ‘to abide’ (διατρίβειν). But I do not accept this word (ἀλλ’ οὐ προσίεμαι τοὔνομα).³⁵

Alternatively, Pollux frames his misgivings as deferential acknowledgement of Plato’s writerly kudos which is, alas, not enough for a word to receive the lexicographer’s full approval: ‘ὀθνεῖος [‘foreign’] is rather too poetic, although Plato has used it’ (ποιητικώτερον, Πλάτων δ’ αὐτῷ κέχρηται, 3.55); ‘“connectivity” (σύνδεσις) is harsh, even if it is by Plato’ (ἡ … σύνδεσις σκληρόν, κἂν Πλάτωνος ᾖ, 8.152, cf. Ti. 43d6).³⁶ In a sense, Plato’s literary reputation is sabotaged from within.

At 2.112, Pollux ostensibly agrees that Plato is an influential stylistic model, yet he strikes a coyly ambivalent tone which, again, undermines Plato’s position:

ὥσπερ καὶ θρασυφωνίαν τὸ μὲν πρᾶγμα εἴποις ἄν, οὐκ ὂν τῆς Πλάτωνος θρασυξενίας ἀηδέστερον, τὸ δὲ ὄνομα θρασύφωνος βίαιον.

You could form the action noun ‘brazen-speak’. This is no more disagreeable than Plato’s ‘brazenness of foreigner’ [Lg. 879e4]. The adjective ‘brazen-spoken’ is violent.

From this passage,³⁷ Plato emerges as an imitable yet hardly unproblematic author. The term βίαιον merits attention, because it is one of Pollux’s regular evaluative labels for lexemes which he does not find suitable.³⁸ Saliently, on several occasions across the Onomasticon Pollux brackets Plato with the idea of lexical ‘violence’. The doubts about the taxonomy of crafts, at 7.206, derive from Pollux’s unease about Plato’s over-bold experimentation with vocabulary: ‘I am saying this because some of the words are rather violent’ (λέγω δὲ διὰ τὸ ἐν ἐνίοις τῶν ὀνομάτων βιαιότερον).³⁹ Plato is a great writer, but to Pollux his greatness involves exploiting diction in a cavalier and transgressive manner.⁴⁰ Yet Pollux’s policy is not to shield his readership from the Platonic textual hooliganism—quite on the contrary, he urges the reader to give in to Plato’s overbearing example:

καὶ ὕφανσιν δ’ ἂν εἴποις βιαζόμενος, ἐπεὶ Πλάτων εἴρηκε [Plt. 310e8] ‘βασιλικῆς ξυνυφάνσεως’.

You might also, per force, say ‘weavingship’, since Plato has ‘kingly coweavingship’. (7.33)⁴¹

A modicum of lexical audacity and aggressiveness is allowable and even welcome in Pollux’s trainee,⁴² which is why Plato may be so strangely good to think with. In the discursive climate of the Second Sophistic, the Platonic corpus is not merely a cache of prestigious or flawed textualities—it is a live, dynamically responsive template for the literary imagination and creative mimesis.⁴³ At 3.56, Pollux himself cannot resist fantasizing a quotation from Plato: ‘Such men might be perhaps called “neo­­citizens” by Plato’ (τάχα δ’ ἂν οἱ τοιοῦτοι ὀνομάζοιντο νεοπολῖται ὑπὸ τοῦ Πλάτωνος). Evidently, the lexicographer is entitled to enfranchise a word that was never used by Plato as operably Platonic. And this is, to all intents and purposes, a feat of intertextual brinkmanship.

4. THE GOOD HORSE, THE BAD HORSE

As a maestro of verbal aesthetics, Pollux maintains a fraught relationship with the Platonic text; Plato’s literary authority is both celebrated and selectively discredited in the Onomasticon. But is Pollux’s quarrel with Plato limited to single words? What are the chances of piecing together from the Onomasticon a more sustained response to Plato? A case study is called for, clearly. I propose to examine Pollux’s familiarity with and built-in appraisal of a particularly famous passage from one of the most popular and influential Platonic works in antiquity—the description of the Good and Bad Horses of the Soul’s Chariot in the Phaedrus (253d1–e5), where each horse is characterized via a series of epithets:⁴⁴

One of the horses, we said, is good (ἀγαθός), the other not; but we did not go into the details of the goodness of the good horse or the badness of the bad. Let us do that now. The horse on the right, or nobler, side is upright in frame and well jointed (ὀρθὸς καὶ διηρθρωμένος), with a high neck (ὑψαύχην) and a regal nose (ἐπίγρυπος). His coat is white (λευκὸς ἰδεῖν), his eyes are black (μελανόμματος), and he is a lover of honour with modesty and self-control (τιμῆς ἐραστὴς μετὰ σωφροσύνης τε καὶ αἰδοῦς). Companion to true glory (ἀληθινῆς δόξης ἑταῖρος), he needs no whip (ἄπληκτος), and is guided by verbal commands alone (κελεύσματι μόνον καὶ λόγῳ ἡνιοχεῖται). The other horse is a crooked great jumble of limbs (σκολιός, πολύς, εἰκῇ συμπεφορημένος), with a short bull-neck (κρατεραύχην, βραχυτράχηλος), a pug nose (σιμοπρόσωπος), black skin (μελάγχρως), and grey bloodshot eyes (γλαυκόμματος, ὕφαιμος). Companion to insolence and wild boasts (ὕβρεως καὶ ἀλαζονείας ἑταῖρος), he is shaggy around the ears (περὶ ὦτα λάσιος), deaf (κωφός), and just barely yields to horsewhip and goad combined (μάστιγι μετὰ κέντρων μόγις ὑπείκων). (trans. Nehamas and Woodruff 1995, modified)

In book 1 of the Onomasticon a large section (1.181–220) is dedicated to horsemanship. Pollux predictably lists the epithets suitable for praising a horse and for disparaging a horse. Throughout the Onomasticon, material for enkomion and for psogos would be routinely arranged back to back, but here this method is applied somewhat more elaborately. Pollux organizes the epithets into two double clusters—first, the good and, respectively, the bad aspects of the horse’s physique (ἀπὸ σώματος, 1.188) and gaze are itemized (1.188–92), then the focus shifts on to the good and bad traits of the horse’s behaviour and attitude (ἔργων καὶ γνώμης, 1.194–98). The horses of the Phaedrus could have been brought into play, for sure, yet Pollux does not seem to be going down that path:⁴⁵ only a few words correspond with the Platonic passage, and those that do come well short of indicating intertextual acknowledgement or allusive feedback. The praise of the horse’s character includes εὐπειθής (1.195), which is used about the Good Horse by Plato (Phdr. 254a1), but in the Greek equestrian discourse εὐπειθής is quite a run-of-the-mill epithet (cf. X. Mem. 4.2.25, Smp. 2.10). Equally if not more unremarkable are the references to the horse’s ‘tall neck’ (ὑψηλὸν τὸν αὐχένα, cf. Phdr. 253d5 ὑψαύχην) at 1.218⁴⁶ and to ‘charioteering’ (ἡνιόχησιν, cf. Phdr. 246b4) at 1.209. Signally, the phrase ‘fiery eyes, bloodshot gaze’ (ὀφθαλμοὶ πυρώδεις, ὕφαιμον βλέποντες) in the Onomasticon 1.189 belongs in the epainos of equine physique, whereas in Plato the adjective ‘blood-shot’ (ὕφαιμος, Phdr. 253e3) describes the eyes of the Bad Horse.

Such lack of meaningful contact with the very famous Platonic passage in a thematically opportune section of the Onomasticon is curious in itself. Can it be that Pollux deliberately eschews intertextuality with the Phaedrus, while expecting the reader to notice and ponder on the reasons for this non-engagement? The situation would then be analogous to the phenomenon which Eran Almagor has aptly labelled ‘the absent lions’,⁴⁷ that is, calculated conspicuous absence of trigger-words, imagery, or, in our case, overt intertextual markers. If this is so, what is Pollux trying to achieve by giving Plato’s arguably best-known horses a cold shoulder in the catalogue of words associated with horsemanship? It is not, I think, that the Phaedrus simply loses out to more hands-on coverage of the topic (by Xenophon and Simon of Athens: see n. 45) in terms of technical accuracy and reliability—after all, the Onomasticon is interested in lexical and stylistic highlights from the cultural angle. Tellingly, the section on horses includes some Homer (1.183, 1.196) and, at 1.182, a quotation about colts from Plato’s Laws (834c1–2). Why not the Phaedrus, then?

All things considered, it seems that Pollux is latently subverting the Phaedrus passage on the grounds of both reliability and structure. This may explain the reassignment of ‘blood-shot’ eyes from negative (as in Plato) to positive descriptors at 1.189. Furthermore, the emphatic division between praise and blame of the horse’s physical properties (1.188–92) and of the horse’s temper (1.194–98) could be a subtle tactic of one-upping, again, none other than Plato. The clue is provided by the fifth-century Neoplatonist commentator Hermias,⁴⁸ who makes a note that in Plato’s description of the two horses physical and ethical characteristics are mixed together:

λαμβάνει τὰ μορφώματα ποτὲ μὲν ἀπὸ σώματος, ποτὲ δὲ ἀπὸ ἠθῶν καὶ ψυχῆς

he takes the features now from the body, and now from the temperament and soul (in Phdr. p. 194.18–19 Couvreur = p. 203.11–12 Lucarini-Moreschini)

οὐκέτι γὰρ πρῶτα λέγει τὰ τοῦ σώματος, εἶθ’ οὕτως τὰ τῆς ψυχῆς, ἀλλὰ συγχέει τὴν τάξιν.

For he no longer describes first the bodily aspects [of the Bad Horse], then those of the soul, but confounds the arrangement. (in Phdr. p. 195.14–15 Couvreur = p. 204.7–8 Lucarini-Moreschini)

It is not unthinkable that Hermias’ remark reflects the earlier exegetical tradition, with which Pollux was familiar and which he might be hinting at here, in order to score a point. The implicit claim would be that the Onomasticon delivers a more structured presentation of those equine epithets, compared to the desultory rush of the Phaedrus,⁴⁹ and so does a neater job both rhetorically and epistemically. As it turns out, Pollux has a warhorse in mind (1.195). Perhaps the lexicographer’s pedantry at the level of structure could be taken also as a riposte to the example of nonsensically manipulative (if well-meant) rhetorical exhortation which Socrates comes up with later in the Phaedrus (260b1–c2):

SOCRATES: Suppose I were trying to convince you that you should get a horse to fight the enemies, and neither one of us knew what a horse is, but I happened to know this much about you, that Phaedrus believes a horse is the tame animal with the longest ears—

PHAEDRUS: But that would be ridiculous, Socrates.

SOCRATES: Not quite yet, actually. But if I were seriously trying to convince you, having composed a speech in praise (λόγον ἔπαινον) of the donkey in which I called it a horse and claimed that having such an animal is of immense value both at home and in military service, that it is good for fighting, and for carrying your baggage and that it is useful for much else besides—

PHAEDRUS: Well, that would be totally ridiculous. (trans. Nehamas and Woodruff 1995, modified)

For the purposes of talking about horses, the Phaedrus presumably did not satisfy Pollux—to the lexicographer’s taste, Plato’s treatment of the subject was too shambolic and irresponsible. Pollux in book 1 tacitly sidelines one of antiquity’s favourite Platonic texts, so as make his own point heard.

A proper intertextual encounter between the Onomasticon and the horses of the Phaedrus takes place in 2.73, when Pollux is busy mustering vocabulary of noses:

ῥινὸς δὲ σχήματα γρυπός, ἐπίγρυπος, ὃν βασιλικὸν οἴονται, σιμός, ὃν εὔχαριν νομίζουσιν· Πλάτων δὲ καὶ σιμοπρόσωπον εἴρηκεν ἐφ’ ἵππου.

Shapes of the nose: aquiline, aquilinish (which is regarded as regal), pug (which is believed to be charming). Plato also used ‘snub-faced’, about a horse.

Two epithets from the Phaedrus (ἐπίγρυπος, cf. 253d5; σιμοπρόσωπος, cf. 253e2) are cited and authenticated by way of nominatim reference to Plato. In fact, there is another layer of Platonic intertextuality here. Pollux’s entry draws on the memorable passage from the Republic on the partisan language lovers use about the looks of their beloved youths:

ὁ μέν, ὅτι σιμός, ἐπίχαρις κληθεὶς ἐπαινεθήσεται ὑφ’ ὑμῶν, τοῦ δὲ τὸ γρυπὸν βασιλικόν φατε εἶναι …

The one who is snub-nosed will be called ‘charming’ and will be praised by you, another’s aquiline nose you say is ‘regal’ … (Pl. R. 474d7–9)

Hermias’ commentary falls back on the same passage to explain ἐπίγρυπος in Phdr. 253d5:

<ἐπίγρυπος> ἀντὶ τοῦ βασιλικός· τὸ γὰρ γρυπὸν ἀεὶ τῷ βασιλικῷ καὶ εὐγενεῖ προσάπτει, καὶ τὸ γρυπὸν τοῦ σιμοῦ εὐμορφότερόν ἐστι.

‘Aquiline’: equivalent to ‘regal’, since [Plato] always associates ‘aquiline’ with the regal and noble, and an aquiline nose is more handsome than a snub nose. (p. 194.24–26 Couvreur = p. 203.18–20 Lucarini-Moreschini)⁵⁰

Once again, for a brief second the Onomasticon and Hermias come near each other. It is tempting but difficult to speculate about the sources⁵¹ and intellectual tradition(s) they share—the appraisal of noses could feasibly cut across philological lexicography, Platonist lexica and exegesis, and physiognomic literature.⁵²

What is more, Pollux in 2.73 underlines that Plato turned ‘snub-faced’ (σιμοπρόσωπος) into an epithet about a horse (ἐφ’ ἵππου).⁵³ Pollux’s short, deadpan phrase could be hiding a reproachful smirk. Slightly earlier in the Onomasticon (2.47) he asserts that the word πρόσωπον should be ring-fenced exclusively for humans: ‘under the forehead, the face—which we use to refer only to humans’ (τὸ δὲ ὑπὸ τῷ μετώπῳ πρόσωπον, ὃ μόνον ἐπὶ τῶν ἀνθρώπων οὕτω καλοῦμεν).⁵⁴ For animal faces there are other terms, which Pollux duly lists. I contend that the peremptory remark on πρόσωπον in 2.47 gives Pollux a vantage point for sniping at Plato’s abuse of language and, worse, at the ontological categories that Hellenism and humanity (no less!) depend on. The implicit charge against Plato in 2.73 could be that by applying σιμοπρόσωπος to a horse, he effectively commits a violation of the semantic boundary between humankind and non-human animals.⁵⁵ Indeed it may not be accidental that in book 2 of the Onomasticon a whole handful of adjectives which feature in the Platonic description of the two horses are affixed to the human body;⁵⁶ it takes a lexicographer to clean up, without too much fuss, the mess left behind by the philosopher …

The critique of Plato’s hippotextuality in the Onomasticon 2.73 is of course muted and probably facetious (a college don in the ironic mood, as it were), yet potentially devastating too, should the reader recall that in Plato’s Cratylus, 385a6–10, ‘man’ and ‘horse’ are the examples illustrating the crazy randomness of nomenclature based on convention alone:⁵⁷

SOCRATES: What about this? Suppose I call one of the things that are (καλῶ ὁτιοῦν τῶν ὄντων)—for instance, the one we now call ‘man’—suppose I give that the name ‘horse’ and give the one we now call ‘horse’ the name ‘man’ (ὃ νῦν καλοῦμεν ἄνθρωπον, ἐὰν ἐγὼ τοῦτο ἵππον προσαγορεύω, ὃ δὲ νῦν ἵππον, ἄνθρωπον). Will the same thing have the public name (δημοσίᾳ μὲν ὄνομα) ‘man’ but the private (ἰδίᾳ δὲ) name ‘horse’? And in the other case, the private name ‘man’ but the public name ‘horse’? (trans. Reeve 1998, modified)

Conceivably, Pollux counts on his readers’ erudition⁵⁸ in a bid to expose a fault line in the Platonic macro-text. Having used an a priori ‘human’ epithet in the Phaedrus about a horse, Plato sleepwalks into literally the same absurdity which is outlined in the Cratylus.⁵⁹ Just as it does not make sense to simply swap ‘man’ and ‘horse’ on a whim, we should be careful with the descriptors attached to these categorical nouns, too. If my hunch is correct, Pollux is playing a sophisticated game with the Phaedrus’ horses.⁶⁰ Socrates in the Phaedrus declines to waste interpretative effort on the Hippocentaurs and other mythological monsters (229d–e); Pollux may be implying, in a tongue-in-cheek way, that the Platonic epithet σιμοπρόσωπος is tantamount to a Centaur-like hybridity⁶¹ and hybris, in terms of language and, at the end of the day, of cultural axioms. An apparently innocuous lexicographic remark at Onomasticon 2.73 thus unlocks a high-stakes clash over intellectual authoritativeness.

5. CONCLUSION

Pollux’s engagement with Plato across the Onomasticon is geared towards displaying cultural competence on several levels. The traditional prestige of the Platonic text required any Imperial pepaideumenos worth their salt to be well versed in Plato’s diction; the Onomasticon manifestly ticks this box. At the same time, Pollux does not worship Platonic textuality. By pointing out Plato’s problematic and outright faulty word choices, Pollux sustains and bolsters his own educational and intellectual sovereignty and superiority as grandmaster of the Greek language. It would not be surprising if Pollux also wished to be part of the Deuterosophistic ‘resistance’ to Plato⁶²—there may be some shrewd taunting of the philosopher between the lines of the Onomasticon. Lexicography and philosophical reception proper during the Imperial era are thus not incompatible but mutually imbricated within an intertextual and conceptual continuum. The Platonic idiolect becomes a litmus test of the relationship between word and thought: while the (Middle) Platonists seek to explain and reclaim Plato’s lexical behaviour as a philosophical asset, Pollux encourages his readers to reserve their right to remain quizzical and open-minded.

Footnotes