Book IV: Royalty and its Privileges Chapter 1. Rex Abstract Rex, which is attested only in Italic, Celtic, and Indic—that is, at the western and eastern extremities of the Indo-European world—belongs to a very ancient group of terms relating to religion and law. The connection of Lat. rego with Gr. orégō ‘extend in a straight line’ (the o– being phonologically explicable), the examination of the old uses of reg– in… Read more
Chapter 2. xšay– and Iranian Kingship Abstract Iran is an empire and the notion of the sovereign has nothing in common with that of rex. It is expressed by the Persian title xšāyaθiya xšāyaθiyānam (Gr. basileús basiléōn, Pers. šāhān šāh), the King of Kings; this title designates the sovereign as he who is invested with the royal power, the xšāy-. Now an epithet of the Achaemenid king, vazraka, which may… Read more
Chapter 3. Hellenic Kingship Abstract As compared with the Indo-Iranian and the Italic concept of the king the Greek names basileús and wánaks suggest a more evolved and differentiated notion close in several respects to the Germanic conception. Of unknown etymology, but both attested in the Mycenaean texts, these terms are in distinctive opposition, in that only the second designates the holder of power. As for basileús, although he is… Read more
ΕΠΙΛΟΓΟΣ Μετὰ τὰς Ἀραβικὰς κατακτήσεις ἡ ὀρθόδοξος Χριστιανικὴ μοναστικὴ ζωὴ ἐξηκολούθησε νὰ ὑπάρχῃ ἰδίως εἰς τὴν Ἰουδαϊκὴν ἔρημον [1] καὶ κατὰ τὴν ὑπὸ ἐξέτασιν κρίσιμον περίοδον τὰ μοναστήρια ἐξηκολούθησαν νὰ ὑπάρχουν καὶ νὰ ἀναπτύσσωνται παρὰ τὰς προσκαίρους ὀπισθοδρομήσεις τὰς ὁποίας μερικὰ ἐξ αὐτῶν ἐγνώρισαν λόγῳ τῶν Ἀραβικῶν κατακτήσεων. Ἐπὶ τοῦ Ἰσλάμ, τὰ μοναστήρια ἤνθεσαν καὶ ἀπετέλεσαν φύλακας τόσον τοῦ Χριστιανισμοῦ ὅσον τοῦ… Read more
ΒΙΒΛΙΟΓΡΑΦΙΑ Α. ΑΙ ΠΗΓΑΙ 1. ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑΙ Ἀγαθίου. Ἰστορίαι. Ἐκδ. R. Keydell. [CFHB 2. Series Berolinensis. Berlin 1967]. Ἀθανασίου Ἀλεξανδρείας. Βίος καὶ πολιτεία τοῦ ὁσίου πατρὸς ἡμῶν Ἀντωνίου. PG 26:835-976b. ———. Λόγος περὶ τῆς ἐνανθρωπήσεως τοῦ Λόγου. Ἐκδ. C. Kannengiesser. [Sources Chrétiennes 199. Paris 1973]. Ἀπολλωνίου Ῥοδίου. Ἀργοναυτικά. Ἐκδ. H. Fraenkel. Oxford 1961. Read more
Chapter 2. A Lexical Opposition in Need of Revision: sūs and porcus Abstract It is usually held that: 1) IE *porko– (Latin porcus) denotes the domestic pig as opposed to the wild animal, *sū– (Lat. sūs); 2) The dialect distribution of *porko– leads to the conclusion that only the European tribes practiced pig-breeding. However, a careful examination shows 1) that in all languages, and particularly in Latin, where the opposition… Read more
Chapter 3. Próbaton and the Homeric Economy Abstract It has been maintained that the term próbaton, created by the Greeks, meant small animals, especially the “sheep,” since in a mixed flock the sheep tend to walk in front (pro-baínein). It will be shown that this thesis is untenable; 1) próbaton, to begin with, designated the large as well as the small animals. 2) the Greeks had no mixed flocks. 3)… Read more
Chapter 4. Livestock and Money: pecu and pecunia Abstract For all comparative philologists, Indo-European *peku means “live-stock” or, in a narrow sense, “sheep.” The meaning of “wealth” (e.g. Lat. pecūnia) is consequently regarded as secondary and this is explained as the result of a semantic extension of the term which originally referred to the main type of wealth, i.e. live-stock. A study of *peku and its derivatives in the three… Read more
Section 2: Giving and Taking Chapter 5. Gift and Exchange Abstract Greek has five words that are commonly translated uniformly by “gift.” A careful examination of their use shows that they do in fact correspond to as many different ways of envisaging a gift—from the purely verbal notion of “giving” to “a contractual prestation imposed by the terms of a pact, an alliance, a friendship, or a ‘guest-host’ relationship.” The… Read more
