Thoughts on Phryne’s name
p. 243-254
Résumés
Neither the name of the toad nor a colour adjective offer a satisfactory explanation for names in Φρυν-. A little-known folk figure called Φρύνη, mentioned sporadically in our texts, may be the source of the personal names and the name of the toad itself.
Ni le nom du crapaud ni un adjectif de couleur n’offrent d’explication satisfaisante pour les noms en Φρυν‑. Une figure folklorique peu connue appelée Φρύνη mentionnée sporadiquement dans nos textes peut être la source des noms de personne et du nom du crapaud lui‑même.
Texte intégral
1The Proto-Indo-European stem *bhruHn‑, an expanded form of *bher‑, is a colour adjective present in Sanskrit babhrúḥ (‘red‑brown’), in Mitanni paprunnu, a colour for horses, and in the Germanic names for the bear and the beaver.1 The Germanic adjective *brūnos was itself adopted in Baltic, Slavic and Romance languages, originally, it seems, as a colour for horses. Medieval Latin Brunellus was the quintessential horse name. French brune and Italian bruna are formed on the same adjective, but their use for ‘night’ seems to be a Romance innovation.2 In Greek the stem is represented by φρύνη/φρῦνος, ‘toad’ (with a few derivatives: φρυνοειδής, φρυνίτης, etc.) and by a plethora of personal names, the sense of which is not completely clear, but hitherto by no colour adjective. This anomaly may not seem much of a mystery, but it is surely worth examining if this is just a coincidence or there is more to it. The available evidence does not allow any certainty about the matter, but we can get a reasonable picture of the problem, introduce a further element in the discussion and suggest a new explanation.
1. Personal names
2There are no examples of names in Φρυν‑ in Mycenaean or in Homer and they are rare or unknown in Ionia, the Peloponnese and the Aegean Islands. From the 6th to 3rd c. BC though they sprang up in Central and Northern Greece (Boeotia, Euboea, Thessaly, Epiros) and Attica. The LGPN lists more that 250 individuals bearing a Φρυν‑ name. The most frequently used are Φρύνιχος, Φρῦνις, Φρύνων, Φρυνίων and Φρῦνος. The best‑known bearer is doubtless the hetaira Φρύνη from Thespiae, mistress and muse of Praxiteles, famously defended by Hyperides ca 350 BC,3 but this was by no means an “Hetärenname”. Other known people are Φρῦνος, the 6th c. Athenian potter, and Φρύνιχος, a 6th‑5th c. tragedian and a 5th c. comedian from Athens.
3What is the sense of these names? In principle, they can be formed on the noun meaning ‘toad’ (French crapaud or Italian ranocchino are used to address children),4 but also on the colour term behind the name of the toad, viz. an adjective *φρυνός corresponding to Proto-Indo-European *bhruHn‑ which may have been integrated in the series of ἐρεμνός, κελαινός, ὀρφνός, πελιτνός, περκνός.5 In 1898, F. Bechtel pointed out two cases in which Φρυν‑ names are associated with names designating a dark hue (Κόρωνος, ‘crow’, grandfather of a Φρῦνος; Ἀτταγῖνος, ‘francolin’, son of a Φρύνων) and he consequently deemed personal names in Φρυν‑ to refer to dark colour. Yet in 1917 he came back to the old idea that names in Φρυν‑ allude to the toad, a view that is now widely accepted.6 One may wonder if this change was caused by F. Sommer’s idea that φρύνη was related to Proto-Indo-European *preu‑, ‘to jump’, like German Frosch (*fruska), which no one accepts today.7 Among the ancient authors only Plutarch (Moralia, p. 401A) says something about the origin of these names: the hetaira Phryne, he tells us, got her name διὰ τὴν ὠχρότητα, “because of the pallor”. This definitely points to a chromatic motivation, yet, since the body of a frog can be said to be ὠχρός,8 it is also possible that Plutarch understood Φρύνη as ‘toad-coloured’ (see infra § 4).
4The names themselves offer a clearer clue: their frequency and the variety of forms (Φρυναῖος, Φρυνίδας, Φρῦνις, Φρυνίσκος, Φρύνιχος, Φρυνοκλῆς, Φρύνων, Φρυνώνδας, Φρυνιχίδης, Φρυνώ, etc.) have parallels in names formed on onomastically productive words, such as colour adjectives (e.g. Πυρραῖος, Πυρρίδας, Πυρρίχος, Πυρροκλῆς, Πύρρων, Πυρρωνίδας), “noble” animals (Λέοντις, Λεοντίδας, Λεόντιχος, Λεοντίσκος, Λεοντίων) or even gods (Ἑρμαῖος, Ἑρμαΐδας, Ἑρμάιχος, Ἑρμαΐων, Ἑρμοκλῆς), but not on names of reptiles or amphibians (Βάτραχος and Βατραχίων, Κωλώτης and Κωλωτίων, Φύσαλος and Φυσαλίων). The mosquito comes closer in variety of forms (Κώνωψ, Κωνώπα, Κωνωπᾶς, Κωνωπιάδας, Κωνωπίων) but not in frequency (11 individuals listed in the LGPN). At some point people may have maliciously related them with toads, but Φρυν‑ names do not look as if they originated from φρύνη = ‘toad’. The name of the hetaira Phryne could thus mean ‘The Dark’ and not ‘The Toad’ – descriptive nicknames such as Brunette, Mourette, La Blonde have been usual among prostitutes throughout the ages.9 Unfortunately, the colour interpretation, though likelier in terms of form, is not unproblematic.
2. A colour adjective?
5That the adjective *φρυνός is missing from place names, from texts (literary or technical), from glosses and from inscriptions10 arouses suspicion, but it does not necessarily mean that it was not known in Greek. In 1923, S. Xanthoudidis published a long list of Modern Cretan family names (originally nicknames) based on words (often colour adjectives) used by shepherds to describe their animals. Unsurprisingly, many of them are missing from contemporary texts and their meaning is unknown to average Modern Greek speakers: Γριβάκις (γρίβας), Δαγάλης (δαγάλος), Καραμπάτος (καραμπάτος), Καρνομούρης (καρνομούρης), Καψάλης (καψάλης), Κουβίδης (κουβιός), Μούντης (μούντος), Μουργινάκις (μούργινος), Περπυρῆς (πέρπυρος), Πιτούλης (πιτουλός), Φρογάκις (φρογός), Χοχλίδης (χοχλιός) and others.11 This is partly because colour vocabulary includes termini technici (of shepherds, horse breeders, dyers, doctors) and usages which are locally restricted and seldomly find their way into everyday language, let alone literature. Colour terms, on the other hand, tend to get typecast as nouns, take on affective connotations (cf. Latin ater and candidus) and lose their original meaning. No wonder that they are continuously renewed and replaced with new, more “chromatic”, ones (often loanwords),12 whereas the old ones live on as nouns or as old‑fashioned personal names. So far so good. The trouble with the *φρυνός‑hypothesis is the frequency, distribution and time span of the personal names, which refute the notion that they are based on a local, technical or archaic adjective. We know of more than 250 individuals with a Φρυν‑ name and yet we still have no hint of a colour adjective *φρυνός; we know of twelve people called after the rare colour adjective μόρυχος and yet this is documented (Aristotle, Metaphysica, p. 987a10).13 One way to bridge the gap between Φρυν‑ names and the known vocabulary is to assume that they are based on some kind of domestic or familiar word, a category that is often shunned in texts (adults use them reluctantly) but freely used in personal names. There are endearing or “domestic” colour terms, yet these are normally emotive uses of common adjectives (Latin albulus, candidulus, etc.), which is definitely not the case with Φρυν‑ names. One could think of a case similar to Latin rufus, a dialectal adjective which is missing from Latin classical prose and is well documented in onomastics, but even rufus was freely used by lowbrow and technical writers (Plautus, Terentius, Celsius, Plinius).14 It seems a reasonable hypothesis that the word behind our names was a domestic word, for example one belonging to the language of the nursery (Kinderstube), but not one meaning ‘toad’ or ‘tawny’.
3. Hekate Phryne
6Aristophanes, Ecclesiasouzai, 1101, famously describes an ugly old prostitute as a Φρύνην ἔχουσαν λήκυθον πρὸς ταῖς γνάθοις. The interpretation of the last words (“with a flask on her cheeks”) is doubtful.15 Nor are the reasons for using Φρύνη here obvious. Scholars have naturally seen the word as meaning toad or a personal name typical of prostitutes. The scholia mention none of these ideas and gloss Φρύνη as ἀρχαία γυνή, which suggests a fairy tale figure (Hsch., λ 249 calls Λάμια γυνή τις ἀρχαία). A little earlier in Aristophanes’ play (1056) the same person is called Ἔμπουσα, a hideous hobgoblin, which supports the idea that in 1101 the prostitute was in fact compared to an old woman – but to one who scares children, like Ἀκκώ and Ἀλφιτώ or, in Modern Greece, η Γριά, ‘The Old Woman’. This may seem an unnecessary suggestion, were it not for one of the hymns to Hekate in the Paris Magical Papyrus (4th c. AD), where the goddess is addressed, among many other epithets and titles, as Βαυβώ and Φρούνη.16 Here too the use of Φρούνη has caused difficulty. Some scholars have suggested a corruption (of ἐριούνιος or <Λευκο>φρύνη), others a relationship with the Egyptian fertility goddess Heket (Ḥḳ3t), usually represented with a frog’s head. The most accepted view is that the use of Φρούνη here is based on the popular image of toads as related to witches and chthonic deities,17 an idea supported by epithets for the same goddess, such as κύων, ἵππος, δράκαινα, or λύκαινα. However, there is an as yet unexplored solution: Φρούνη in the papyrus may be the same as the φόβητρον used by Aristophanes to describe an old woman and the ἀρχαία γυνή of the Scholia, viz. a frightening figure which ended up in the orbit of Hekate. After all, Aristophanes identified Hekate with Ἔμπουσα (frg. 515 K.‑A.), and we know that Hekate was invoked under the names of Μορμώ and Γοργώ, two further figures used to terrify children.18 Also the preceding Βαυβώ in the papyrus was a folk figure that originated in the realm of nannies and children, though later incorporated in more serious myths. At this point it should not be suprising to find Λάμια, the old woman who ate children, invoked together with Hekate, Pluto and Persephone in Attic curse tablets (IG II/III3, 8, no. 463‑465). It is rather disconcerting, but the dividing line between children’s φόβητρα and gods of the Underworld was not a sharp one. Thus, Aristophanes’ hideous Phryne and the papyrus’ Hekate Phryne complement each other and suggest that Greeks knew a folk figure called Φρύνη, similar to Ἀκκώ, Ἀλφιτώ, Γοργώ, Καρκώ, Λάμια and Μορμώ. Little more is known about this figure. The etymology (*bhrūn‑) hints at something dark, whereas Aristophanes’ text points to an ugly old woman. But it is possible that people thought of this figure in different ways and that it was its vagueness, more than gore or other elements, that made it frightening. The personal names may support (and at the same time be explained by) this figure.
4. Nursery talk
7One could still think that both Aristophanes and the Magical Papyrus use Φρύνη in the sense of ‘toad’, yet Φρυν‑ names favour the idea that Φρύνη was the name of a malign crone. For one thing, φόβητρα and μορμολύκεια παίδων are a rich source of personal names: “les mots qui servent à désigner des fantômes, des spectres et d’autres conceptions de la superstition populaire, s’appliquent aussi comme injures ou comme noms de tendresse aux petits et deviennent peu à peu des vraies dénominations d’enfants” (Pauli 1919, pp. 194‑196). Most of these originated as an “injure moqueuse” that progressively became a way to address children, but also as exclamations uttered to scare them (Theoc., XV, 40: Μόρμω, δάκνει ἵππος), which were typically repeated by children and in this way became their sobriquets. In modern times, these endearing insults are found as vocabulary words or as nicknames. Pauli mentions cases such as Italian lucifero and French môme (mômon, mômesse, mômard, etc.) dialectally used in the sense of ‘petit garçon’ but originally meaning ‘mask’, ‘scarecrow’, ‘disguised person’ and ‘ghost’. On the island of Kythnos a γοργόνι was a naughty child tormenting his mother (Schmidt 1871, pp. 141‑142). In Tunisia, ghuwîla (: ghûla, ghûl), ‘petite ogresse’, is an appellative applied to girls (Sebag 2002, p. 77). The practice was known in ancient Greece too, and is reflected in a number of proper names (originally appellatives used to address children) formed on child-eating or child-stealing monsters: Λάμια (Λάμια, Λάμις, Λάμιος, Λαμίδιον, Λαμίσκος, Λάμιχος, Λαμιχίδης, Λαμιάδας), Γελλώ (Γελλίας), Μορμώ (Μορμίας, Μορμῖνος, Μόρμις, Μορμύλος), Γοργώ (Γοργιλώ, Γοργονίσκα, Γοργόνη, Γοργύλος, etc.) or Ἀκκώ (Ἄκκης, Ἀκκίς, Ἀκκώ, Ἄκκος, etc.). Each of these names had a different nuance. Λάμια was famously voracious, Γοργώ (: γοργός) suggests a restless brat, Μορμώ (: μορμύρω) a noisy one. Taken together, Aristophanes, the Magical Papyrus and Φρυν‑ names indicate that in mainland Greece and Attica parents used to scare their children with a further φόβητρον (the ugly Φρύνη) and to address them as Φρύνη, Φρῦνος, Φρυνίσκα, Φρύνιχος, etc. In this hypothesis, Phryne’s name did not mean Toad nor Brunette and is best compared with Λάμια (Λάμιος, Λαμίσκα, Λάμιχος, etc.), a name that originated in the nannies’ vocabulary and that, much like Φρύνη, was rare in Ionia and the islands, but frequent in Central Greece. That Λάμια and Φρύνη were names of several known hetairai fits with the tendency for prostitutes to use endearing names (Μαμμάριον, Πλαγγών, Cocotte, etc.). Needless to say, not all these names were directly inspired by the φόβητρα. Some were passed down without a clear idea of their original meaning and were expanded in various ways: Γοργιάδας, Λαμιχίδης, Φρυνιάδας, etc. Γοργοκλῆς and Φρυνοκλῆς may be parodistic coinages combining a domestic word with a noble ending – if not compounds where the first element is a personal name.
8Like other names of these kind, those in Φρυν‑ were hardly used by Roman times, partly because the original meaning was lost and the stem was commonly equated with the name of the toad.19 Plutarch was not clear about their meaning. We have mentioned (see supra § 1) his attempt to explain Phryne’s name διὰ τὴν ὠχρότητα, “because of the pallor”, which can be interpreted in more than one way. One is that he was thinking of ‘frog-colour’, as in the Batrachomachia (v. 80). Another is that he knew of the frightening Phryne, who in fact could be ὠχρός, as when Homer says χλωρὸν δέος (Od., XI, 43, etc.) or Virgil writes Tisiphone pallida (Georgica, III, 552; Aeneis, X, 761). Of course, neither the Fury Tisiphone nor Phryne were pale – they rendered people pale –, but the connection with the colour existed and offered Plutarch a way to explain the hetaira’s name (or nickname, if her official name was in fact Μνασαρέτα: Athenaeus, Deipnosphistae, XIII, p. 591E). A different question is whether the name should be accented Φρύνη or Φρυνή, as seems to have been the case until at least the 6th c. AD.20
5. Phrynondas
9This is the name of a villain first mentioned in 5th c. BC Attic texts, and later as a proverbial πονηρός, κακοῦργος and even μάγος καὶ γόης.21 Aristophanes uses it as an insult (frg. 26 K.‑A.: ὦ μιαρὲ καὶ Φρυνῶνδα καὶ πονηρὲ σύ; cf. Hsch., φ 938: Φρυνώνδας· πονηρούς). An ostrakon from the Athenian Agora with the text ΦΡΥΝΟΝΔ[- -] | ΚΡΑΤΕΣ | ΑΘΜΟ[ΝΕΥΣ] may contain a further case of this appellative use, but also a personal name, perhaps one inspired by the villain, just like Σίνις (: σίνομαι), both a personal name and name of a legendary robber.22 Ancient scholars took Phrynondas to be a real person who (because he is first mentioned by Eupolis and Aristophanes) lived during the Peloponnesian War (Suda, φ 770), and he is accepted as a real Athenian in Kirchner’s Prosopographia Attica. Φρυνώνδας may have been a famous robber, but also a character in 5th c. Athenian festive parades, which would explain his popularity among comic writers – if not a φόβητρον to frighten children. We are in a realm where the lines between reality and legend are blurred: “For the bandit myth, the reality of their existence may be secondary. Few, even among archive-rats, really care about identifying the original Robin Hood, if there was such a one” (Hobsbawn 1969, p. 10). But no matter his real identity, the stem of the name (that of the scary Φρύνη) undoubtedly contributed to his ill repute – as did the ending. Probably because ‑ώνδας is not Attic,23 Suda, φ 770 considered Φρυνώνδας to be a ξένος, whereas the Etymologicum Magnum, p. 801, l. 34, calls him Ἀθηναῖος. In fact, this ending is an appropriate feature for such a figure and, paradoxically, an indication that this was an Attic character. “With bothersome impostors, the situation is the same as with vermine and plagues: each nation is inclined to lay them at the doors of its neighbours” (Malkiel 1949, p. 319). One can compare the case of Attic κόβᾱλος, a dialectal word (with ᾱ instead of η) meaning πανοῦργος and ἀπατεών (Photius, κ 850; Suda, κ 1897; etc.). The overall effect of Φρυνώνδας was gloomy and outlandish.
6. The name of the toad
10The use of φρύνη ‘toad’ is first documented by Aristotle (Historia Animalium, pp. 506A, 19, 609A, 24, etc.), some two centuries after the first personal names in Φρυν‑, and it is still used today in Modern Greek. The words for the ‘toad’ and for the fearsome figure are clearly related, but how? A simple answer is that they are parallel formations and that both had the original meaning of ‘The Brown’, even if the basic adjective is not documented. Alternatively, one might think that the frightening Φρύνη was represented as a toad, a figure similar to the modern Batrakoúkos (on which see Moser-Karagiannis 2003, p. 317), and that only the toad’s name was based on a colour adjective. But there is a more intriguing possibility. Darkness or tawniness (τῇ χρόᾳ καστορίζων)24 are not characteristic of toads, even if some can be said to be dark. It is true that φρύνη ‘toad’ is often related to the Latin rana rubeta, as if this were derived from ruber, but already Plinius (Naturalis Historia, XXXII, 50) doubted this etymology and thought of a derivation from rubus ‘blackberry’, whereas modern etymologists see a relationship with Gothic raupjan and Lithuanian rùpas ‘rough’ (cf. rupūze ‘toad’). Instead, a dark colour as expressed by *bhrūn‑ better suits supernatural or terrifying figures. We have already mentioned the case of Φρυνώνδας. French bruniquet is documented in the sense of ‘devil’ in 15th c. texts (Sainéan 1925, pp. 291‑292). The Scottish brownies or broonies were said to be ugly, brown-skinned and covered with hair.25 In Wallonia Brûno was the “nom d’un voleur que les gens de la campagne prétendent être dans la lune”.26 The modern Ἀράπης and Καλλικάντζαρος are black demons invoked to terrorize bad children. One may wonder, therefore, if the name of the toad was originally that of the folk figure that appears in the magical papyri as a by‑name of Hekate. Names of monsters and hobgoblins can in fact be used for ugly, frightening or dangerous animals. The two meanings, which are separated in our dictionaries, are inextricably linked. Λάμια is not only a child-eating monster, but also the name for a fierce shark. Σκύλλα is the name of another monster (daughter of Lamia according to Stesichorus, frg. 220) and a fish (Nicander, frg. 137). This category also includes γραῦς, ‘old woman’, the name of a large crab (Artem., II, 14, and others). The toad species κέρβερος (scholion at Nicander, Alexipharmaka, 578; Hsch., λ 228) may owe its name to its fearsome aspect.27 In modern times the name of the Devil is used as a name for fish in many languages.28 Modern Greek Καλλικάντζαρος is the name for a malevolent goblin (occasionally also for the ‘enfants turbulents’: Moser-Karagiannis 2003, p. 345), but in some parts of the country for an insect. English bug designated originally an object of terror (lemures nocturni, terriculamentum) but in the 17th c. was adopted as name of an insect (beetles, grubs, etc.: Sylvester 2000). Crucially, words meaning ‘witch’ or ‘old woman’ are used in the sense of ‘toad’ – North Italian fada, dialectal German Hex (= Hexin), Muhme and Großmudder, Ukranian bosorka.29 This may have been the original sense of Greek φρύνη ‘toad’ too, in which case only the name of the frightening Φρύνη was a based on a colour adjective.
7. Βρυναῖος
11Encyclopedias and dictionaries report the ethnics Φρῦναι and Φρῦνοι for an East Asian people as mentioned by Strabo (XI, p. 516 = III, p. 536 in Radt 2002-2011) and Dionysios Periegeta, v. 762 (Müller, Geographi Graeci Minores II, p. 151: Τοχαροὶ Φροῦνοί τε καὶ ἔθνεα βάρβαρα Σηρῶν). Φρῦναι and Φρῦνοι are of little interest for the study of Greek vocabulary. Some ethnics are in fact formed on animal and colour terms,30 but many are simply mangled or adapted foreign words. In addition, Strabo’s Φρῦναι is only a conjecture for the transmitted Φαυνῶν and Dionysios’ Φρῦνοι is not certain either (transmitted also as Φουροί, Φρούριοι and Thunni).31 A more certain case is found in an inscription from Eordaia (Upper Macedonia), dated στρατηγοῦντος Λ. Καλπουρνίου Πείσωνος (57‑55 BC), which has preserved the name of an Εὔδικος Ταυρίωνος Βρυναῖος.32 There is an agreement that Βρυναῖος is an ethnic, although it is not documented elsewhere. To solve this problem, F. Papazoglou first suggested reading Γρυναῖος, but, as the reading is clear beyond any doubt, she later saw “une commune dont la forme précise du nom, la position et le statut demeurent inconnus”.33 In fact, Βρυναῖος is probably the “Macedonian” ethnic of a place called Φρύνη or Βρύνη (cf. Λαμία in Thessaly) or of a κώμη Φρυναία / Βρυναία (‘Toadsville’? ‘Phryne’s ville’?). Yet, until we have definitive proof, we should also consider the possibility that, given that Φρυναῖος is documented as a name (five Attic examples in the LGPN), Βρυναῖος is a Northern Greek variant of it and what we have in Eordaia is a second name introduced without ὁ καί. L. Robert has collected examples from Asia Minor (Ὀλυμπιανὸς Ποπλίου Ἱερώνυμος, Μήνης Ἀριστέου Τυρταῖος, etc.); O. Masson has added some cases from Delos (Ἀπολλόδωρος Γοργίου Κρατῖνος, Νικόμαχος Ἀρτεμιδώρου Ἐχέας)34 and the list can be expanded with examples from other regions, like Sicily (Ἀριστόδαμoς Νεμηνίδα Πέρσιoς, Διoγένης Διoγένεoς Λαπίρων). Interestingly, all the cases belong to the early Roman period, which suggests that this formula is a Greek interpretation of (or an attempt to imitate) the Roman tria nomina, with the patronymic in the place of the nomen gentile and the second name in the place of the cognomen. According to this interpretation, Βρυναῖος would be a second name of Εὔδικος.
8. Conclusions
12Neither the name of the toad nor a colour adjective offer a satisfactory explanation for the names in Φρυν‑. The key may be in a little-known folkloric figure called Φρύνη, fleetingly mentioned in our texts, which can be the source of the personal names and the name of the toad itself – the personal names are based on an endearing comparison (“injure moqueuse”), whereas φρύνη ‘toad’ reflects more faithfully the proverbial ugliness of this figure. A similar set of meanings is documented for the hideous Λάμια, which is behind a group of personal names and the name of a voracious fish.35 The colour adjective *φρυνός may have been known in Greek, but it was short-lived, after it got typecast as the name of a character in children’s fables.36 All this leads to more general observations, for example that Greek simple names, because of their down‑to‑earth character, are a direct echo of usages and ways of speaking which have been all too often lost from dictionaries and glossaries – but also that they can be sparing with clues about their interpretation. More importantly, an etymology which involves only diachronic derivation from Indo-European can only be a partial one; a proper etymology should attempt to place a word’s stem synchronically within the system.
Bibliographie
Abbreviations
Abbreviations of editions and of works of reference for alphabetic Greek epigraphy are those of the list of the AIEGL published online: GrEpiAbbr, version January 2022, https://www.aiegl.org/grepiabbr.html (accessed 06/07/2023) and abbreviations of ancient authors of the Diccionario griego-español, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/lst/lst4.htm (accessed 06/07/2023).
GGM: K. Müller, Geographi Graeci minores, t. I‑III, Paris, Firmin-Didot, 1851‑1866.
PGM: K. Preisendanz, Papyri Graecae Magicae, Leipzig, Teubner, 1928‑1941.
References
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del Barrio Vega 2017: M.L. del Barrio Vega, “Remarques sur le suffixe ‑ώνδας”, in A. Alonso Déniz, L. Dubois, C. Le Feuvre, S. Minon (dir.), La suffixation des anthroponymes grecs antiques. Actes du colloque international de Lyon, 17‑19 septembre 2015, Université Jean Moulin-Lyon 3, Geneva, Droz, 2017, pp. 579‑590.
Battaglia 1966‑2000: S. Battaglia, Grande dizionario della lingua Italiana, vol. I‑XII, Turin, UTET, 1966‑2000.
Bechtel 1898: F. Bechtel, Die einstämmigen männlichen Personennamen des Griechischen die aus Spitznamen hervorgegangen sind, Berlin, Abhandlungen kön. Geseschaft der Wiss. zu Göttingen, 1898.
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Notes de bas de page
1 This article was written as part of the project “Onomastics and Linguistic Contact in Ancient Greek” (PID2020-114162GB-I00, MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033). My thanks to Alcorac Alonso Déniz and Enrique Nieto Izquierdo for their comments and corrections.
2 Mallory, Adams 1997, p. 85, s.v. braun (*bher); Giacalone Ramat 1967, pp. 105‑211; Jones 2013, pp. 308‑310. The relation of Greek φρύνη with Proto-Indo-European *bhruHn‑ was first proposed by Kuhn 1852, p. 200, and is accepted today. Due to the variation φρυν‑ and φρουν‑ (as in PGM IV, 2715), Beekes 2010, s.v., considers that φρύνη could be a pre‑Greek word.
3 See Raubitschek 1941; Corso 2013, pp. 172‑185; Kapparis 2018, pp. 439‑441.
4 See the collection of examples in Pauli 1919, pp. 343‑348.
5 Chantraine 1933, p. 194 (suffix ‑νός: “un groupe particulier et assez obscur est constitué par les adjectifs de couleur, désignant une couleur obscure”).
6 For the toad interpretation, see Fick, Bechtel 1894, pp. 322 and 324; O. Crusius, apud Borinski 1918, p. 10; Bechtel, Personennamen, pp. 587 and 591; Fraenkel 1936, pp. 1644 and 1648; García Ramón 2007, pp. 31, 56, etc. For the colour interpretation, see Curtius 1879, pp. 304‑305; Bechtel 1898, p. 43; Schultz 1904, p. 23; Borinski 1918, p. 10.
7 Sommer 1905, pp. 69‑71. He was followed by Brugmann 1906, p. 255, but opposed by Schulze 1910, p. 807. The idea is no longer mentioned in etymological dictionaries.
8 Batrach., 80 βάτραχος ὑψώσας ὠχρὸν δέμας. The adjective ὠχρός, usually translated as ‘pale’, is in fact applied to a wider range of colours, from greenish yellow to yellow‑red (Schultz 1904, p. 23).
9 Parent-Duchatelet 1857, p. 134 (Brunette, Mourette and La Blonde), classified among the names of the classe inférieure of prostitutes.
10 For example, the Athenian cavalry tablets, which record the horse colours πυρρός, μέλας, λευκός, ποικίλος, ψαρός, παρῴας and μαλοπαρῴας (Kroll 1977, p. 86), or the inventories from the sanctuary of Artemis Brauronia on the Acropolis (IG II/III2, no. 1514‑1525 and 1528‑1530), with garments described as περιποίκιλος, ποικίλος, καταστικτός, ἀμόργινος, λευκός, ἀλουργής, παραλουργής, βατραχίς, etc.
11 Xanthoudidis 1923, pp. 326‑350. For these kinds of names see also Triandafyllidis 1982, p. 54.
12 The list of eleven colours for horses in the Corpus hippiatricorum Graecorum (vol. III, p. 312: βάδεος, μαυροβάδεος, σοῦρτος, γρίβας, σιδηρέας, βλάγκας, δάγαλις, ἀρτοκοῦρος, βάλας, βόρχας, φάλβας) contains only one Greek term (σιδηρέας). See Schwyzer 1929, pp. 93‑100.
13 Diels 1905, pp. 301‑306; Praechter 1907.
14 André 1949, pp. 257‑258 and (for rufus) 260.
15 See Ussher 1973, pp. 225‑226, ad loc.; Sommerstein 1998, p. 231, ad loc. (“the use of this particular word [lekuthos], even in a different sense, still serves to evoke yet again the aura of death that pervaded this scene”).
16 PGM IV, 2714‑2783, esp. 2715 (pp. 158‑161); cf. Bortolani 2016, pp. 309‑321. An unpublished curse tablet from Corinth (Jordan 2023, p. 728 [B 52] and 736) invokes Hekate as νερτερίη ΦΥΝΙ[1‑2] ξανθή: is ΦΥΝΙ[1‑2] a misspelling of ΦΡΥΝΗ? For late examples of the spelling ΟΥ = Υ, see Dieterich 1898, pp. 23‑24 and 29.
17 Höfer 1897‑1909; Olender 1895, p. 46; Bortolani 2016, p. 309.
18 Γοργὼ καὶ Μορμὼ καὶ Μήνη καὶ Πολύμορφε: [Hippolytos], Refutatio, IV, 35, 5. See Patera 2005, pp. 381‑384; and, in general, Patera 2015.
19 The case of the sophist Φρύνιχος is exceptional, both for his origin (Bithynia, Suda, φ 764) and his date (2nd c. AD.). One may wonder if this was a learned name inspired by that of some famous Phrynichos of the past.
20 In Choricius’ Spartiates (written ca 530 AD), where word accents are carefully arranged at the end of clauses, the accent is assumed to be Φρυνή 22 times and never Φρύνη, as seen by Maas 1931. Is this a case of displaced accent, as in σκύμνος / Σκυμνός? Was Φρυνή the original accent of the crone’s name? When used as nicknames, substantives retain their lexical nature and accent, as in Θεόδωρος ὁ Θεός (D.L., II, 86), Ἀρίστων ἐπικαλούμενος Σειρήν (VII, 160), etc.
21 Eupolis, frg. 45 and 139 K.‑A.; Aristophanes, Thesmophoriazousai, 861 and frg. 26 K.‑A.; Suda, φ 770; Paroemiographi Graeci, I, 376 and II, 716.
22 Phillips 1990, pp. 129‑133; Schröder 1991, pp. 45‑46; Schröder 1993, pp. 37‑45. Masson 1992 follows Lang, apud Agora XXV, no. 660 and sees the name of a Φρυνώνδας son of Κρατησ‑. For Σίνις see Curbera 2016, pp. 258‑259.
23 For the suffix and its distribution (Phocis, Boeotia, Euboea) see now del Barrio Vega 2017.
24 Vettius Valens, IX, 2, 23 (of Saturn).
25 See Alexander 2002, pp. 26‑27 (Brownies and Brown Man of the Moors); Schnewe 1927. According to the Danish folklorist Feilberg 1910‑1914, p. 66, brun is a “colour of supernatural beings in Iceland”. Cf. also Battaglia 1966‑2000, s.v. bruno (“5. Fig.: funebre, funesto, infernale – Gli angeli bruni: i diavoli”). R.L. Stevenson (A Chapter on Dreams) tells of being haunted in his dreams “by nothing more definite than a hue of brown”.
26 Grandgagnage 1845‑1880, p. 86 (bruno); von Wartburg 1969, pp. 306‑310. On the man in the moon (often a nocturnal thief) see Sébillot 1904, pp. 36‑41; Stegemann 1934‑1935, pp. 510‑514.
27 Unless κέρβερος was an old adjective meaning ‘spotted’ (it is also the name of a bird and may be related to Sanskrit śarbála, ‘spotted’).
28 Barbier 1915, pp. 301‑302: “ce nom [scil. diable] leur vient, soit de leur couleur noir, noirâtre ou foncée […], soit de leur laideur ou du moins de leur caractère anormal au point de vue des pêcheurs, soit enfin de ce qu’ils sont considérés comme dangereux”. For animals (insects, amphibians, birds) called after names of masks, see Meuli 1933, pp. 1806‑1807.
29 Havers 1946, p. 50; Riegler 1936‑1937, pp. 896‑897 (“Benennungen nach der Hexe”). Cf. also Rohlfs 1939, pp. 74‑75 (Italian vecchia and Normandy grand-mère = spider).
30 Colours: Schulze 1910, pp. 803‑804 (Φοίνικες, Φαίακες, Τέμμικες); Ludat 1953. Animals: Sergent 1991.
31 See Hermann 1941; Radt 2002-2011 on Strabo, XI, p. 516C (vol. VII, p. 295).
32 Rizakis, Touratsoglou, apud I.Ano Maked., no. 115; Martín González, Paschidis 2020, pp. 82‑83.
33 Papazoglou 1988, p. 162, s.v. “Bryne?”.
34 Robert, Noms indigènes, p. 154; Masson 1997, p. 66.
35 Also as a term for caves or χάσματα, Hsch., λ 250, where Latte changed χάσματα in φάσματα, unnecessarily, as Modern Greek place names show (Georgakas 1960, pp. 510‑511). This is the sense of Latin vorago (: voro).
36 Two similar figures, Γελλώ and Λάμια, are exports from the East (West 1991), but a foreign origin is less likely for Φρύνη.
Auteur
Inscriptiones Graecae, Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften
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