The Lexicon of Names of Pollux of Naucratis is a word-book in ten books, arranged by subject rather than by alphabet. For each thing it gathers the words by which it may be named and those that may stand for one another, with citations from classical authors such as Plato, Thucydides, Demosthenes and the comic poets. Pollux addressed it to the young Commodus in letters that preface the books, so it belongs to the later second century CE; Philostratus reports that Commodus later gave him the chair of rhetoric at Athens.
Book I covers the gods and their worship, seasons, war, ships, horses and farming; Book II the human body; Book III kinship, friendship, slaves and citizens, travel, trade and the gymnasium; Book IV grammar, rhetoric, music, dance and the theatre, astronomy and medicine; Book V hunting and animals; Book VI the symposium and words for good and bad conduct; Book VII the crafts and trades; Book VIII law, the courts and Athenian government; Book IX the city, coinage and children's games; Book X household gear. In the letters Pollux also explains his method: some words he records because he approves them, others only so as not to leave them out, naming the authors who used the doubtful ones.
The text survives in an abridged and interpolated form.
Pollux of Naucratis Lexicon of Names: summary and contents (PDF)
Pollux of Naucratis Lexicon of Names: summary and contents (Markdown)
Contents
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Αʹ Book I
Pollux dedicates the collection to the young Commodus, son of a good father, explaining that it gathers words that can stand for one another and the terms by which each thing is named. This first book collects the vocabulary of the gods and their worship, of seasons and times, of war and the arrangement of troops, of ships and seafaring, of horses and of farming. It ends with bees and their keeping, deferring the words of hunting.
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Βʹ Book II
The human body is the subject of this book, for which Pollux says he drew on the Peripatetics and the physicians. After words for man himself, it runs through the ages of life and then the parts of the body from the head downwards, with the citations from Thucydides, Plato, Aristophanes and others that attest each term. The middle gathers compounds for speech and reasoning, and the book closes with the five senses.
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Γʹ Book III
Kinship opens the book: the words for family, relatives and marriage, which lead on to friendship, master and slave, and citizen and foreigner. Pollux then gathers terms for travel, wealth, buying and selling, and lending, including the boundary stones that marked a mortgaged field. The book closes in the gymnasium, with athletes' gear and the names of wrestling holds, ending on a Homeric phrase for the breaking up of the games.
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Δʹ Book IV
Learning and the arts fill this book: grammar, rhetoric and philosophy, then music and its instruments, dance, and the theatre, where Pollux explains the chorus's entrance and exit, its division into half-choruses and the masks of tragedy and comedy. He moves on to astronomy and medicine, and ends with childbirth and midwifery, citing Plato on midwives' drugs. The prefatory letter tells Commodus not to be surprised by an omitted word.
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Εʹ Book V
Hunting, which Pollux commends to Commodus as both heroic and kingly training, is the subject of the first half: nets and snares, hounds and their breeds, and the epithets and capture of wild beasts from the lion to the wild ass run down on horseback. The rest of the book turns to other animals and then to long runs of adjectives, ending with terms that set the stable against the changeable.
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Ϛʹ Book VI
Pollux begins by explaining his method: some words he records because he approves them, others only so as not to leave them out, and for doubtful ones he adds the authors who used them. The book proper is on the symposium: the dining room, the drinking, the perfumes, from Megallus's to Babylonian nard, the dishes, cooks and their gear. Its later sections collect words for good and bad character and conduct, ending with terms for what is hidden.
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Ζʹ Book VII
The crafts and trades are treated here, from the labels for manual work to commerce and the market, clothing and footwear, and the work of smiths, sculptors and seal engravers. Pollux follows the woodcutters and carpenters, the potters and other workmen, and ends with writing and books, citing comic poets for booksellers and copyists and Herodotus on the Ionian word for a book. The preface claims he had no collaborator he could trust.
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Ηʹ Book VIII
Pollux composed this book in haste, he says, while still delivering two declamations a day. It is the vocabulary of law and government: lawsuits, judges and courts, the procedures of Athenian litigation, and the magistrates, council and assembly, with long lists of words built on rule and office from orators such as Isaeus, Lysias and Demosthenes. It ends with the privileges and burdens of residents: tax exemptions, contributions and liturgies.
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Θʹ Book IX
Pollux sets his work beside a word-book of the sophist Gorgias, which he finds of little worth when put to use, and then turns to the city and its parts: its founders, buildings, streets and public places. The middle discusses coins and weights, from the Sicilian litra to Persian money, and whether Pheidon of Argos struck the first coinage. Children's games and pastimes follow, and the book closes with lists of compounds in eu-.
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Ιʹ Book X
Household gear makes up the last book, which Pollux says he wrote after finding that Eratosthenes' treatise on equipment did not hold the words he sought. It names the furniture, vessels and tools of the house, kitchen, bath, farm and journey, bringing in more witnesses than usual, he says, from Menander, Hipponax, Hesiod and the comic poets. It ends with sacred vessels and the robe of the priestess of Pandrosus, and a list of utensils from Eupolis.