Author’s Preface

This essay is an attempt at an analysis both of documentary evidence for Greek ethnic terminology, based on a combination of documentary and general literary evidence, and the evidence of Stephanus of Byzantium’s epitomised Ethnika. The topic may not appear likely to be rewarding in itself, and, in any case, it may seem presumptuous or premature to undertake a partial analysis of the surviving Epitome of Stephanus, as a more general part of the study of ethnic and associated grammatical forms, when it has been known for at least three generations that a new edition of the text, to replace that published in 1849 as the first of two volumes by August Meineke, was in preparation. The need for a new edition had already been emphasised more than a century ago: in the introduction to his inaugural dissertation on Stephanus (1886), Johannes Geffcken wrote: ‘Neque equidem dubitaverim, si novus post Meinekii editionem prodibit quando Stephanus—id quod mox fortasse fiet—quin his ipsis quas dixi opibus auctus futurus sit’ (i.e. by the use of the Etymologica). Meineke’s edition of 1849, based on the Aldina of 1502, contains a remarkably full apparatus, replete with acute observations, but his collation of manuscripts was not complete (see ibid.), and he had only a limited knowledge of the associated Etymologica; and the commentary he had hoped to publish never appeared (though he announced it as forthcoming in the Preface to volume i, and did not die until 1870). Death has also claimed several of those successively designated as editors of the new edition, which was itself publicly announced as in preparation in 1938: Grumach, and then Keydell, to name but two, were named as the future editors.¹ The work is now (2006) continuing under a new editor, Professor Margarete Billerbeck (Fribourg in Schweiz and the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton).² It is admittedly a pernicious and perilous practice to make use of, let alone analyse, an antiquated edition of an author, when a new edition is known to be in preparation. My excuse must be that long familiarity with Meineke’s text (I observe that I bought my own copy in May 1950) has taught me to respect his editorial skill in this, as indeed in every field in which he worked, and our understanding of Stephanus is (i believe) based to a large degree on Meineke’s acumen. At the same time, publication, or republication, of many of the associated texts, particularly parts of various Etymologica, and of other texts that are relevant to the study of the Epitome, has helped our evaluation of Stephanus in ways which were not available to Meineke. To give but three examples out of many: Reitzenstein’s outstanding Geschichte der griechischen Etymologika, published in 1897, marks an epoch in the understanding of lexicographical texts in general, and of the role of oros (below, p. 298) in particular. On the epigraphical side i have been able to use the third edition of IG I, for the texts of Athenian Tribute, and other relevant texts for which Meineke could use only what might be found in CIG or had been communicated to him personally by Augustus Boeckh. For the large number of historians and pseudo-historians Felix Jacoby’s Fragmente have been available, while Meineke could only use C. Müller’s Fragmenta, and finally, for the Suda A. Adler’s edition has greatly simplified the use of that text. Thus much (and much more) of the ancillary material necessary for the new commentary on Stephanus lies ready to hand in published form. For research in all this material much credit must go to my friend, the late Aubrey Diller.