The Lexicon of Photius, patriarch of Constantinople (858–867 and 877–886), is a Byzantine dictionary of the words needed to read classical Greek literature, probably compiled before his first patriarchate. It glosses the vocabulary of the Attic orators, Old, Middle and New Comedy, Plato, tragedy and Homer, and draws on earlier lexica such as those of Harpocration, Aelius Dionysius and Pausanias the Atticist. Most entries give a word and its synonyms; others run to short essays on Athenian magistrates, festivals, lawsuits and proverbs, often quoting comedies and speeches that are otherwise lost.
This second part begins partway through epsilon, at the entry on the eponymous heroes, and runs to the beginning of omega; it is served here letter by letter. Phi breaks off at Phorētōs, there is no section for chi, the psi section begins only at psileus, and the omega section is only a few lines long. The work was known for centuries chiefly from one manuscript at Trinity College, Cambridge, from which Richard Porson's transcript was published after his death, in 1822. A fuller manuscript found at the monastery of Zavorda in 1959 recovered much of the opening of the alphabet; alpha to delta are published separately as the first part, and the stretch of epsilon before the eponymous heroes is in neither.
Photius of Constantinople Lexicon, Part 2 (Epsilon–Omega): summary and contents (PDF)
Photius of Constantinople Lexicon, Part 2 (Epsilon–Omega): summary and contents (Markdown)
Contents
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Ε Letter Epsilon
Starting partway through epsilon, the text opens with the eponymous heroes, both the ten who named the Athenian tribes and those who named the age classes, by whose statues new laws were posted before they took effect. Entries follow on the Eleusinian initiates, contribution clubs and Athena Ergane, and on Attic forms such as heōs, set against Xenophon's poetic ēōs. The section closes with a note on the Eleven, the Athenian magistrates in charge of the prison.
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Ζ Letter Zeta
Zeta is short, but several of its entries are full notes. Zagreus is explained as the Dionysus born to Zeus and Persephone, and Zalmoxis is traced through Herodotus, Mnaseas and Hellanicus to his underground dwelling among the Getai. Plato's uses of zalē and Clement's definition of it are set out, along with the Athenian investigating officials, and the closing pages tell how Zopyrus mutilated himself to win Babylon for Darius, citing Cratinus and Theopompus.
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Η Letter Eta
Eta begins with the short words hē, ē and ē, the last glossed as 'I was', and with forms of the verb 'to go', checked against Thucydides and Aristophanes. A long entry on Aeschines' Against Ctesiphon sorts Athenian lawsuits by the magistrate who brought each to court. Later come proverbs such as the sitting dove, Didymus and Theodorus on a sacred dyed wool, Hēphaistia on Lemnos, Eion as a colony of Mende, and Homeric uses of Dawn.
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Θ Letter Theta
Athenian festivals and public money stand out among the theta entries. The Thargelia, the month Thargelion and a Milesian Thargelia said to have ruled Thessaly open the section; its middle sets out several accounts of the theoric fund, the payment that covered citizens' seats at the Dionysia, with Philinus and Eubulus. The last entries treat words for armour and flattery, and the thōes said to be bred from hyena and wolf.
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Ι Letter Iota
The iota entries move from the lament ialemos, Iakchos and the triangular harp iambykē to the difference between a private guest-friend and a city's proxenos. A cluster on horsemen covers the Spartan hippagretai, the Athenian hipparchs and Solon's property classes, quoting Aristotle's Constitution of the Athenians, and distinguishes several men named Hipparchus. The section ends with the love charm iynx, the tragic poet Ion of Chios and the deme of the Iōnidai.
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Κ Letter Kappa
Kappa's early entries treat the Kabeiroi brought from Lemnos, the voting urn of the Athenian courts with a line from Phrynichus' Muses, the proverbial Cadmean victory explained three ways, and the piglets with which officials purified the assembly. Words in kēd- for kinship and burial fill the middle. The close quotes Ephorus on the Kōrykaioi, who spied on merchants for the raiders of Myonēsos, and explains Torone's 'deaf harbour'.
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Λ Letter Lambda
The letter the Spartans painted on their shields heads lambda, with Eupolis and Theopompus as witnesses, followed by Aristarchus on the accent of labe. A courtesan named by Lysias and proverbs about hares, one aimed at the people of Rhēgion, come next; at its centre, the proverbial 'Lemnian evil' is told in both forms, the murder of the Athenian women and the women's killing of their husbands, beside the Lēnaion where contests were held before Athens had a theatre.
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Μ Letter Mu
Opening with the oath particle ma and Homer's uses of it, mu ranges over instruments, magic and barley cakes. Its institutional notes include the metic tax, with Isaeus on what a man, a woman and freed slaves paid, and, near the end, the Spartan army divisions as described by Aristotle and Xenophon. There is also the proverb about Morychos, the Dionysus whose statue stood outside his temple, before a last entry on mō, Democritus' name for the letter mu.
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Ν Letter Nu
Nu brings together nymphs of springs, oath formulas such as nai ma Dia, and courtesans named in comedy and oratory, among them Nannion, nicknamed 'the goat' and 'the stage front'. In the middle, an entry on the yolk of an egg tells, after Chrysippus, of a dream about eggs that led to buried silver and gold, and another separates Athens' shipyards from the ship sheds. The section ends among words in nō-, quoting Araros, Antiphanes and Pherecrates.
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Ξ Letter Xi
Words for carding wool and for guests and hosts open xi, one of the short sections of this part, with the Spartan expulsion of foreigners and the mercenary force at Corinth founded by Conon and later led by Iphicrates and Chabrias. Later entries concern the Attic spellings in xyn- that Thucydides uses, Xenophon's Laconian blade, and the robes, spears and running tracks called by words in xyst-.
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Ο Letter Omicron
Sheepskin and the long loaves carried at the Dionysia come first in omicron; then the section explains the obol and its divisions and converts the talent into Byzantine pounds and coins. Moneylenders appear in a quotation from Lysias and in Hyperides and comedy. The middle treats the opisthodomos where Athena's treasure was kept, citing Demosthenes, and the Opikoi of Italy; the close runs through words in ops-, with the proverb sending latecomers to Colonus.
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Π Letter Pi
Pagasai, the two demes of Paiania and the uses of paidika stand at the start of pi. Its middle is thick with Demosthenes: the hunting-net metaphor in the Philippics and the variants of the copies, and, after Didymus, olive trees planted in rows and the 'shadow at Delphi'. At the close the compiler disputes Didymus on women who sell openly in the market in Against Neaera. Pi is the longest letter of this part.
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Ρ Letter Rho
Among the first rho entries, after words for strutting and scattering, is the oath of Rhadamanthys by goose, dog or plane tree, which Socrates also swore. Its middle turns to public speech: the indictment called rhetorical, what a rhētōr was at Athens, and the Spartan rhētra of Lycurgus as law or covenant. The closing entries deal with reins, the patches menders sewed into torn cloaks, after Menander, and the cheap mixed wares called rhōpos.
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Σ Letter Sigma
A contracted form, sa, set against Thucydides' sōoi, opens sigma, followed by a line of Pindar with its paraphrase and the Sabazian initiates mentioned in Demosthenes' On the Crown. Its middle runs through words in sp-, from spathan in Menander to the use of speirai for military units. Towards the end it defines scholia, distinguishes Homer's word for the living body from sōma, and describes the officers who supervised the ephebes.
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Τ Letter Tau
Proverbs set the tone of tau: 'this from the tripod', said of what is wholly true and traced to Pythagoras of Delphi, who marked the inspired oracles of the Pythia Aristokleia; 'the Mede shall not keep these', from Xerxes' invasion; and the abuse shouted from wagons at the Choes. In the middle, Tithonus becomes a cicada and the envoy Timagoras is put to death for the Persian king's gifts; near its end comes Theramenes' 'one of three evils'.
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Υ Letter Upsilon
In upsilon the Hyades, the Attic spelling of the word for glass and the deme Hybadai come first. Lysias is quoted on the difference between outrage and mere assault, Athena is named as Health, and the Hydra proverb is told of Heracles and Iolaus. Later come wind eggs, cited from Aristophanes, Plato's Theaetetus and Menander, and the rowers' cushion and pay; the close is a run of poetic compounds in hypsi-.
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Φ Letter Phi
Phi opens among poetic words of light and brightness, with a long entry listing the many senses of phalanx, from battle line to spider. Its middle covers dowry words in Aeschines and Menander, the Attic demes of Phēgaia and Phēgous, and deception in Menander and Antiphon. The section stops among words in phor-, after Hyperides on the Phorbanteion, named for Phorbas, king of the Curetes, whom Erechtheus killed.
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Ψ Letter Psi
Psi begins at psileus, the dancer at the end of a chorus, after Alcman. The entries gloss baldness, bare ground and vines that drop their fruit, the compiler's note that he found psoa in no Attic author, the Psylloi of Libya in Herodotus, and the proverb of Psyra, a deserted islet near Chios, from Cratinus. Comic words run through it: the boast in Aristophanes' Knights and the plague in Eupolis' Marikas.
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Ω Letter Omega
Only the start of omega survives in this section, the shortest of this part. It glosses the fleece and hem of a garment, the 'Ogygian ills' and the uses of hōde for 'here' as well as 'thus', quoting Cratinus, Aristophanes and Eupolis, and citing Plato. The Ōdeion is described as the hall Pericles built for musical performances, also used for the archon's court, and the section ends with the exclamation 'O Heracles' and its vocative.