1. ἀγωνίζομαι

LSJ ἀγωνίζομαι B cites seven instances of the passive in the sense ‘be decided by contest, brought to issue’. Of these, the three which it cites from Demosthenes are middle.Footnote ¹

(i) 21.7 ἀγωνιεῖται … καὶ κριθήσεται τὸ πρᾶγμα (‘fut. Med. in passive sense … shall be brought to issue and determined’ LSJ). Translators, too, take the verb as passive: ‘be tried’ (Goodwin),Footnote ² ‘be fought out’ (Vince),Footnote ³ ‘be debated’ (Harris,Footnote ⁴ WaterfieldFootnote ⁵ ). MacDowell, translating ‘be contested’, comments: ‘ἀγωνιεῖται: passive. There seem to be no other instances of the future passive of this verb in the Classical period to show whether it was normally ἀγωνιοῦμαι or ἀγωνισθήσομαι.’Footnote ⁶ Since the middle future ἀγωνιοῦμαι is very common (there are six instances in Demosthenes), and an aorist passive ἠγωνίσθην, though not common, is found as early as Lys. 2.34 (cited in (v) below), a passive ἀγωνιοῦμαι is most unexpected, and there can be no reason why Demosthenes, if he had wanted a passive, should not have written ἀγωνισθήσεται.

The verb is middle, and the meaning is ‘The issue will stand trial and will be judged’. In forensic contexts the verb is applied to both defendant and plaintiff. Applied to the defendant, it means ‘plead one’s case’, ‘stand trial’, as e.g. Thuc. 6.29.3 (Alcibiades is summoned home ἀγωνίσασθαι, ‘to stand trial᾽), Andoc. 1.101, 4.8, 36, Lys. 23.12, Isoc. 15.31, 16.48, Eur. Andr. 336–7 (see (v) below) ἀγωνιῆι | φόνον (‘you will stand trial for murder’). Here it is figuratively applied to a legal issue: the issue is personified, it is on trial. For the linking of middle ἀγωνιεῖται with passive κριθήσεται, see Dem. 24.145 ((iii) below).

(ii) Dem. 24.28 ὁ νῦν ἀγωνιζόμενος νόμος (‘the law on trial’ LSJ). This is middle, the same figurative use as (i). A translation such as ‘this law … the subject of the present trial’ (Vince)Footnote ⁷ leaves it unclear whether the verb is being taken as middle or passive. Wayte saw the truth: ‘“which is now upon its trial:” not, of course, to be translated as a passive.’Footnote ⁸

A further passage (not cited by LSJ) belongs here: Dem. 46.7 ἐῶσι … τήν τε μαρτυρίαν καὶ ἐκμαρτυρίαν ἀγωνίζεσθαι ἅμα, ‘they [the laws] allow the testimony (of a witness who is present) and the written deposition (of a witness who is absent) equally ἀγωνίζεσθαι’. Here the verb is less well translated as ‘come before the court’Footnote ⁹ than ‘be liable to action’Footnote ¹⁰ or ‘be subjected to litigation’,Footnote ¹¹ even though the former translation appears to take the verb correctly as middle, while the latter two appear to take it as passive. The verb is again being used figuratively: testimony, whether given in court or by an absent witness, is subject to the process of law, if its veracity is challenged: the law allows the testimony (i.e. the person who gives it) to stand trial.Footnote ¹²

(iii) Dem. 24.145 ἐφ᾽ οἷς κεῖται ὁ νόμος οὗτος, διδάξω ὑμᾶς. οὗτος γάρ, ὦ ἄνδρες δικασταί, οὐκ ἐπὶ τοῖς κεκριμένοις καὶ ἠγωνισμένοις κεῖται, ἀλλ᾽ ἐπὶ τοῖς ἀκρίτοις, ἵνα μὴ τὸ δεδέσθαι χεῖρον ἀναγκάζοιντο ἀγωνίζεσθαι ἢ καὶ παντάπασιν ἀπαράσκευοι εἶεν. LSJ takes τοῖς ἠγωνισμένοις as neuter (‘points at issue’), like Eur. Supp. 465 (see (vi) below). It is masculine (‘those who have stood trial/have argued their case in court’), as is proved by the masculines in the clause which follows. Translators get this right: ‘This statute … is not intended for the protection of people who have stood their trial and argued their case, but for those who …’Footnote ¹³

True passive uses are of a different kind. Here are the examples cited by LSJ:

(iv) Hdt. 9.26.7 πολλοὶ … ἀγῶνες ἀγωνίδαται, ‘many contests have been fought’. This is a passive version of the very common structure ἀγῶνα ἀγωνίζεσθαι, middle with cognate accusative. This same passive use is found again at Plut. Cam. 42.1 τῶν μὲν οὖν στρατιωτικῶν ἀγώνων οὗτος ἠγωνίσθη τῶι Καμίλλωι τελευταῖος, ‘This was the last of the military exploits performed by Camillus’.

(v) Lys. 2.34 μέγας καὶ δεινὸς τῆιδε τῆι πόλει κίνδυνος ὑπὲρ τῆς τῶν Ἑλλήνων ἐλευθερίας ἠγωνίσθη, ‘A great and terrible danger was faced by this city in her struggle for the safety of the Greeks’. This is a passive version of the middle with internal accusative, as in μάχην ἀγωνίζεσθαι (Eur. Supp. 636–7, Pl. Euthyd. 272a, Hyp. Epit. 23, Plut. Per. 10.2, Cor. 5.3, Marc. 25.4, Pyrrh. 4.4, Mar. 25.6, Caes. 20.9, also Eur. Andr. 336–7 ἀγωνιῆι | φόνον (see (i) above)), and the common δίκην ἀγωνίζεσθαι, ‘fight a case’ (Pl. Euthphr. 3e, Lys. 3.20, Is. 3.6, Dem. 21.90, 29.21, 48.2, and later authors). There is a similar passive in Plut. Sull. 23.2 τὸ περὶ Χαιρώνειαν ἔργον… ἀγωνισθέν and Alex. 11.9 ἠγωνίσθη … τὰ παρὰ τῶν Θηβαίων.

(vi) Eur. Supp. 465–6 τῶν μὲν ἠγωνισμένων | σοὶ μὲν δοκείτω ταῦτ᾽, ἐμοὶ δὲ τἀντία, ‘On the issues that have been disputed you may have this opinion, and I the opposite’. This echoes an expression used earlier in the scene, 427 ἐπεὶ δ᾽ ἀγῶνα καὶ σὺ τόνδ᾽ ἠγωνίσω (‘since it is you who started this (verbal) contest’), and is a passive version of the middle with a neuter internal accusative, such as is found in Eur. Heracl. 795 μῶν τι κεδνὸν ἠγωνίζετο; (‘Did he put up a good fight?’), Xen. Cyr. 1.6.9 ἔνιά ἐστιν ἃ οὐ πρὸς ἀνθρώπους ἀγωνιστέον, Dem. 19.250 (of an actor) ἃ … ἠγωνίσω (‘passages which you performed’), 337 τὰ Θυέστου καὶ τῶν ἐπὶ Τροίαι κακὰ ἠγωνίζετο. Similarly Plut. Cat. Mai. 14.3 τῶν ἠγωνισμένων (‘exploits in battle’).

(vii) Plut. Sert. 21.1 ἠγωνίσθη … λαμπρῶς παρ᾽ ἀμφοτέρων. This is an impersonal passive, and (but for the absence of a subject) is like (iv) above.

To return to (i). Could ἀγωνιεῖται … τὸ πρᾶγμα be taken as the passive equivalent of a middle construction found at Ar. Eq. 614 ἄγγειλον ἡμῖν πῶς τὸ πρᾶγμ᾽ ἠγωνίσω (‘tell us how you fought the business’)? Here τὸ πρᾶγμα (referring to a verbal dispute) is an internal accusative modelled on ἀγῶνα, μάχην, δίκην and the like (as illustrated in (iv)–(vi) above). One might argue that this justifies taking ἀγωνιεῖται . . . τὸ πρᾶγμα as the passive version of the middle with internal accusative, by analogy with the passages cited in (v). But (a) this interpretation has no advantage in terms of sense over the interpretation of the verb as middle; (b) the middle interpretation is supported by the parallels in (ii), where one could not argue that νόμος ἀγωνιζόμενος is the passive equivalent of a middle construction νόμον ἀγωνιζόμενος or that μαρτυρίαν ἀγωνίζεσθαι is the passive equivalent of the same phrase in the middle, since neither νόμον nor μαρτυρίαν could be explained as internal; (c) in terms of verbal form ἀγωνιεῖται cries out to be taken as middle.

Rightly, therefore, CGL ἀγωνίζομαι 4 ‘(fig., of a law, an issue) be on trial D.’.

2. ἐξαγγέλλω/ἐξάγγελος

LSJ ἐξαγγέλλω I: ‘tell out, proclaim, make known, freq. with collat. sense of betraying a secret’. There is no warrant for the alleged sense ‘betray a secret’. The verb simply refers to the conveyance of information (‘bring or take a report (fr. a place or source, usu. implied rather than stated)’, CGL 1). There are very few passages in which the information has been obtained secretly or whose conveyance betrays a secret; and in such passages the notion is not inherent in the verb.

LSJ ἐξάγγελος I goes even further astray: ‘messenger who brings out news from within: hence, one who betrays a secret, informer’. The first part (‘messenger who brings out news from within’) belongs only to ἐξάγγελος II, a speaker-designation in the manuscripts of tragedy, but in literary texts not before Philostratus. So ‘hence’ would be illogical, even if the definition which follows were true. But it is not. At all events, it gets no support from the two passages cited (the only ones in Classical Greek).

(i) Thuc. 8.51.1 καὶ ὡς προήισθετο αὐτὸν ὁ Φρύνιχος ἀδικοῦντα καὶ ὅσον οὐ παροῦσαν ἀπὸ τοῦ Ἀλκιβιάδου περὶ τούτων ἐπιστολήν, αὐτὸς προφθάσας τῶι στρατεύματι ἐξάγγελος γίγνεται ὡς οἱ πολέμιοι μέλλουσιν ἀτειχίστου οὔσης τῆς Σάμου καὶ ἅμα τῶν νεῶν οὐ πασῶν ἔνδον ὁρμουσῶν ἐπιθήσεσθαι τῶι στρατοπέδωι, καὶ ταῦτα σαφῶς πεπυσμένος εἴη, ‘And since Phrynichus was aware that he [Astyochus] was playing him false and that a letter from Alcibiades about this was on the point of arriving, anticipating it he informed the army in person that, as Samos was unfortified and at the same time not all the ships were in harbour, the enemy intended to attack the camp, and that he had clear intelligence of this.’ Misled by LSJ, Tucker claims that the word’s ‘ordinary sense’ is ‘of betraying a secret to those not in on it’.Footnote ¹⁴ Hornblower (in his note on διάγγελοι at 7.73.3) endorses this claim and translates ἐξάγγελος as ‘informer’. And Classen and Steup claim that the noun here means ‘nicht sowohl ὁ τὰ ἔσω γεγονότα τοῖς ἔξω (Hesych.)Footnote ¹⁵ als τὰ ἀπόρρητα ἀγγέλλων’.Footnote ¹⁶ Phrynichus is not betraying a secret. He is not an ‘informer’ but an ‘informant’. He is merely delivering a report of something he claims to know, in lieu (or anticipation) of an announcement of the same news by letter from Alcibiades.

(ii) Pl. Leg. 964e. The younger guardians are described as the eyes of the city, φρουροῦντας δὲ παραδιδόναι μὲν τὰς αἰσθήσεις ταῖς μνήμαις, τοῖς πρεσβυτέροις δὲ ἐξαγγέλους γίγνεσθαι πάντων τῶν κατὰ πόλιν, ‘and as they keep watch they pass on their perceptions to their memories, and they report to the older guardians all that goes on in the city’. The younger guardians are merely passing on information to the older ones. There is no notion of betrayal or secrecy.

3. ἐξηγητής/εἰσηγητής

LSJ treats ἐξηγητής under two headings: I ‘one who leads on, adviser’, II ‘expounder, interpreter’. To II belong more than thirty instances (of which LSJ lists eleven) in 5th–4th century authors. Under I, LSJ lists two, Hdt. 5.31.4 and Dem. 35.17. I begin with the latter, where the translation ‘adviser’ is demonstrably wrong.

(i) Dem. 35.17 οὑτοσὶ δὲ Λάκριτος ἁπάντων ἦν τούτων ὁ ἐξηγητής. Lacritus was not ‘adviser in all these matters’. He was ‘author of the whole plot’ (Paley),Footnote ¹⁷ ‘the prime mover’ (Murray),Footnote ¹⁸ ‘ringleader’ (MacDowell).Footnote ¹⁹ The word we need is εἰσηγητής, as Thuc. 8.48.6 ποριστὰς ὄντας καὶ ἐσηγητὰς τῶν κακῶν τῶι δήμωι (‘the providers of ways and means for the people’s crimes, and the authors of them’),Footnote ²⁰ Aeschin. 1.172 τοιούτων εἰσηγητὴς αὐτῶι καὶ διδάσκαλος ἔργων (‘his initiator and instructor in such activities’), Hyp. 6.3 τῆς … προαιρέσεως εἰσηγητὴς τῆι πόλει (‘instigator of the city’s policy’), Lycurg. fr. 63 Conomis ἑτέρων … μοχθηρῶν εἰσηγητὴν (Cobet:Footnote ²¹ ἐξηγητὴν codd.) ἐθῶν (‘promulgator of other bad practices’),Footnote ²² Arist. Ath. 27.4 τῶν πολλῶν εἰσηγητὴς … τῶι Περικλεῖ (‘prompter of most of Pericles’ policies’), and (closest of all in language) Diod. Sic. 13.38.2 τούτων δὲ πάντων ἦν εἰσηγητὴς Θηραμένης.

(ii) Hdt. 5.31.4 Σὺ ἐς οἶκον τὸν βασιλέος ἐξηγητὴς γίνεαι πρηγμάτων ἀγαθῶν, ‘You are the ἐξηγητής of good things for the king’s house’. This is the king’s reply to the man who has outlined a course of action which he believes will benefit the king. Even if we dismiss the translation ‘adviser’ (LSJ I), it remains possible to take ἐξηγητής in its normal sense ‘expounder’ (LSJ II, Powell (Reference Powell1938) 125).Footnote ²³ And yet the man has done more than expound a course of action. He has advocated it. The conjecture ἐσηγητής (Herwerden, Madvig)Footnote ²⁴ captures that sense. It has been accepted by Hude (Reference Hude1927), Powell (Reference Powell1949),Footnote ²⁵ and (without discussion) Hornblower (Reference Hornblower2013).Footnote ²⁶

4. ἐπίκειμαι

This verb has a sense which is not recognised by LSJ (nor by TGL, DGE or BDAG). This sense appears first in Arist. Pol. 1271^b32–5 δοκεῖ δ᾽ ἡ νῆσος καὶ πρὸς τὴν ἀρχὴν τὴν Ἑλληνικὴν πεφυκέναι καὶ κεῖσθαι καλῶς· πάσηι γὰρ ἐπίκειται τῆι θαλάττηι, σχεδὸν τῶν Ἑλλήνων ἱδρυμένων περὶ τὴν θάλατταν πάντων, ‘The island [Crete] appears to be designed by nature for supremacy in the Greek world and to be well situated, as it ἐπίκειται the whole of the sea [the Mediterranean, or possibly the Aegean], around which almost all the Greeks are settled’. LSJ I.3 translates πάσηι … ἐπίκειται τῆι θαλάττηι as ‘lies right across the sea’, and is followed by the majority of translators, including all the most recent.Footnote ²⁷ Crete does not ‘lie across’ the whole sea. It ‘overlooks’ or ‘commands’ the whole sea, by virtue of its location.

A few translators have recognised this sense.Footnote ²⁸ And one commentator has supplied parallels: ‘“lies close to”, perhaps with some notion of commanding or dominating: cp. Polyb. 1. 42. 6, and 5. 44. 4, 5’ (Newman).Footnote ²⁹ Polybius in fact has this sense in no fewer than nine places, none of them mentioned by LSJ.Footnote ³⁰ The Polybios-Lexicon divides them into two groups: I.3 ‘(strategisch) günstig zu etw. hin liegen’ [1.42.6, 3.101.5, 4.61.7, 4.70.4, 5.22.3, 5.99.3] and II.2 ‘(milit.-pol.) bedrohen’ [1.10.6, 4.71.2, 5.34.6].Footnote ³¹

The meaning which is common to these passages is captured by CGL ἐπίκειμαι 4: ‘(of places or natural features) lie in a commanding or threatening position (w. respect to another place); (of a city, hill, country) overlook, command—W.DAT. a region Plb.; (of Crete)—the whole sea (i.e. the Mediterranean) Arist.’

5. ἐπιλαμβάνω

LSJ ἐπιλαμβάνω II.3 ‘seize, stop, esp. by pressure’. This does not properly explain any of the eight passages cited: ‘stop’ is right, but not ‘by pressure’. The sense which is common to all the passages is ‘put a stopper to (an opening, so as to block it)’ (CGL 6).

(i) Hdt. 2.87.2 κατὰ δὲ τὴν ἕδραν ἐσθήσαντες καὶ ἐπιλαβόντες τὸ κλύσμα τῆς ὀπίσω ὁδοῦ. The passage describes embalmers, ‘forcing in the liquid at the fundament and preventing it from flowing back’. This is Powell’s translation,Footnote ³² and it repeats the translation of ἐπιλαμβάνω (‘prevent from’) which he gave in his Lexicon. Footnote ³³ Like other such renderings (‘checking’,Footnote ³⁴ ‘empêchant’,Footnote ³⁵ ‘cohibentes’Footnote ³⁶ ) it is undesirably and unnecessarily imprecise. The way to stop the outflow of fluid through the anus is to put a stopper in it. The sense will be ‘they put a stopper in to prevent the enema from running back out’. Translators have sometimes captured this sense.Footnote ³⁷

(ii) Ar. Plut. 702–3 ἀπεστράφη | τὴν ῥῖν᾽ ἐπιλαβοῦσα, ‘she turned away, holding her nose’ (because someone had farted). This is the usual translation,Footnote ³⁸ and it is acceptable, in so far as it is the normal English way of expressing the idea. But it is misleading, since ‘holding’ implies pressure. The more exact sense is ‘blocking her nose’.Footnote ³⁹ Comparable is Eur. Andr. 250 ἐπιλάζυμαι στόμα, translated by LSJ as ‘hold tight, stop’, and described as ‘Poet. word for ἐπιλαμβάνω’. The description is right, the translation ‘hold tight’ is not. The idea is, again, of stopping an aperture, and the correct translation is ‘shut one’s mouth’.Footnote ⁴⁰

(iii–iv) Lys. 23.4, Is. 3.76 (add Lys. 23.8, 11, 14, 15, Is. 2.34, 3.12) ἐπίλαβε τὸ ὕδωρ, ‘stop the water’ (in the water-clock), also (v) Arist. Ath. 67.3 ὁ δ᾽ ἐφ᾽ [ὕδ]ωρ [εἰληχ]ὼς ἐπιλαμβάνει τὸν α[ὐλίσκον,Footnote ⁴¹ ‘the person assigned by lot to the water stops the pipe’. The water was stopped by plugging the aperture of the outflow pipe.Footnote ⁴²

(vi) Arist. Pr. 866^b11–13 τὸ πνεῦμα κατεχόμενον … κωλύει (sc. τὸν ἱδρῶτα) ἐξιέναι, ὥσπερ τὸ ὕδωρ τὸ ἐκ τῶν κλεψυδρῶν, ὅταν πλήρεις οὔσας ἐπιλάβηι τις, ‘holding one’s breath … prevents sweat from exiting – just like the water from clepsydras, when someone shuts them off when they’re full’.Footnote ⁴³ In this device (different from the water-clock) the water is stopped by blocking a pipe which enters the vessel from above. The blocking is described at 914^b12, 13, 27 (= Anaxagoras A 69 DK) with the phrases ἐπιληφθέντος τοῦ αὐλοῦ (as opposed to 33 ἀνοιχθέντος τοῦ αὐλοῦ) and ἐπιλαβὼν τὸν αὐλόν.

(vii) Polyb. 10.44.12 ἐπιλαβεῖν … τὸν αὐλίσκον, ‘stop the pipe’ (to prevent the outflow of water, from a different kind of apparatus).

(viii) Arist. HA 527^b19–21 (describing how a crab stops the inflow and outflow of water with its ‘lids’) ἐπιλαμβάνων (sc. τὸ ὕδωρ) τοῖς ἐπικαλύμμασιν ἧι εἰσῆλθεν … ἐπιλαμβάνει τὸ στόμα τοῖς ἐπικαλύμμασιν ἀμφοτέροις, ‘it closes the way the water came in by means of the lids … it closes its mouth with the two lids’.Footnote ⁴⁴

Here are three further examples, not recorded by LSJ: Arist. De audib. 804^a15 κἂν δὲ ἐπιλάβηι (sc. τὰς σύριγγας), ‘and if he blocks the holes (of an aulos)’,Footnote ⁴⁵ Pr. 868^b33 ἐπιλαβεῖν τοὺς πόρους, ‘stop the channels’,Footnote ⁴⁶ Theophr. fr. 1.26 Wimmer (= Alcmaeon A 5 DK) ἐπιλαμβάνειν … τοὺς πόρους.

Finally, note the variant at Hes. Op. 98 ἐπέμβαλε (v.l. ἐπέλλαβε) πῶμα πίθοιο. West rightly observes that it would mean ‘blocked (the opening)’.Footnote ⁴⁷

Dedication

In memory of Bruce Fraser (1947–2025), who toiled selflessly and cheerfully in the service of The Cambridge Greek Lexicon for close on twenty years.

Abbreviations

BDAG

The Brill dictionary of Ancient Greek, eds F. Montanari et al. (Leiden and Boston 2015).

CGL

The Cambridge Greek lexicon, eds J. Diggle et al. (Cambridge 2021).

DGE

Diccionario griego-español, eds F. R. Adrados et al. (Madrid 1980–).

LSJ

A Greek–English lexicon, eds H. G. Liddell, R. Scott, H. S. Jones, 9th edn (Oxford 1940).

TGL

Thesaurus Graecae linguae, eds C. B. Hase and G. and L. Dindorf, 3rd edn (Paris 1831–65).