Page:Vocabulary of Menander (1913).djvu/33

Rh.

Words with this suffix are rare in early writers, and become more frequent as the "new culture" of the sophists gained increasing popularity in Athens. Peppler shows clearly that that is the source of this class of words, from their frequency in Xenophon (especially in the Memorabilia), Plato, and Aristotle, as compared with their extreme rarity in earlier writers and from the use made of them by Aristophanes to ridicule the philosophers. Since the educated classes, trained by the new teachers, used them frequently, it began to be the fashion to employ them to give a tone of culture to one's conversation, and the suffix became a favorite. Hence these words are common in later writers, and also in modern Greek.

Menander's position in the use of this suffix is shown in the following table:

The following adjectives in do not appear in the Attic writers with the exceptions noted:  (Plato),  (Plato),  (Plato),. On, read at Epitr. 340 by most editors, see the critical note of Körte ad loc., and the critical appendix in the edition of Professor Capps. Jensen (Rhein. Mus. 65 [1910] p. 546) vouches for the word. Lefebvre, Papyrus de Ménandre, Cairo 1911, is disposed to support the reading of Jensen. If the word is, it is not new.