Declension class for 'ευμμελιης'

Greek Learning Greek
1

I’m just double checking the declension class for ευμμελιης. There’s about 50 nouns, most proper names, whose nominative singular ends in ης and whose genitive singular ends in αο. But what about the contracted form of αο which is ω? Well, I can find very few of those nouns, but I have found one: ευμμελιης. Here’s what my stats show for how ευμμελιης is terminated:

ευμμελιην 18
ευμμελιης 20
ευμμελιω 13
ευμμελιαι 2
ευμμελιηι 2

Although the word ευμμελιω appears 13 times it turns out that it’s the same sentence quoted over and over again by different authors. It’s an epithet of Priam in Homer. I’m almost certain that it’s genitive but I want to double check:

Aelius Herodianus, De prosodia catholica:
ἐὰν γὰρ πάθωσι , πρὸ μιᾶσ τοῦ τέλουσ ἔχουσι τὴν ὀξεῖαν οἷον Ἑρμείου Ἑρμείεω καὶ κατὰ συγκοπὴν Ἑρμείω παροξυτόνωσ « Ἥρησ Ἑρμείω τε » ( Ο 214 ) , Ἀσίασ Ἀσίου καὶ Ἰωνικῶσ Ἀσίεω καὶ Ἀσίω ὡσ εὐμμελίω « Ἀσίω ἐν λειμῶνι »
Translated as:

For if they are affected [i.e. inflected], they have before the final syllable a sharp accent (oxytone), like Ἑρμείου [genitive of Hermes] from Ἑρμείας, and in syncopated form Ἑρμείω, with an oxytone accent: ‘of Hera and of Hermes’ (Iliad 15.214); likewise Ἀσίας [from Ἀσία] becomes Ἀσίου, and in Ionic Ἀσίεω and Ἀσίω, as in εὐμμελίω [‘spear-famed’], ‘Ἀσίω ἐν λειμῶνι’ [‘of Asius in the meadow’].”

And here:

τῆς ποτε χρυσοφόρου δειρῆς , ὡς τὸ ἐυμμελίω Πριάμοιο : Scholia in Euripidem -49 Scholia in Euripidem (scholia vetera)

Translated as:
of the once gold-adorned neck, as in ‘εὐμμελίω Πριάμοιο’

I initially thought that τὸ would make εὐμμελίω nom/acc neuter but it refers to the expression, not the word.

And then the original Homeric context from the Iliad

ἔσσεται ἦμαρ ὅτ᾽ ἄν ποτ᾽ ὀλώλῃ Ἴλιος ἱρὴ καὶ Πρίαμος καὶ λαὸς ἐϋμμελίω Πριάμοιο
6.447

There will be a day when sacred Ilios shall perish, and Priam, and the people of Priam, famed for their good spears.

In conclusion the declension of ἐϋμμελίω is

sn ἐϋμμελίης
sg ἐϋμμελίω
sd ἐϋμμελίῃ
sa ἐϋμμελίην
pn ἐϋμμελίαι
pg ἐϋμμελίων
pd ἐϋμμελίαις
pa ἐϋμμελίας

Let me know if I made any mistakes.

2

It’s an epic word, five syllables; nom. ἐυ(μ)μελίης, acc. ἐυ(μ)μελίην. Papyrus manuscripts double the μ, and the resulting heavy syllable is standard epic prosody. It’s first declension; -ω is the Ionic genitive.

And λαὸς ἐυμμελίω Πριάμοιο doesn’t mean “the people of Priam, famed for their good spears.” ἐυμμελίω applies to Priam (singular).

3

For the -ω genitive ending ἐυμμελίω cf. Homeric βορέω alongside βορέαο. That’s not a problem.

But the Euripides scholium is a puzzle. You report τῆς ποτε χρυσοφόρου δειρῆς, ὡς τὸ ἐυμμελίω Πριάμοιο. But while χρυσοφόρου δειρῆς is from Eur.Hec.152 (anapests), it’s not preceded by τῆς ποτε or anything like it, but by παρθένον ἐκ, the reference being to Hecuba’s daughter Polyxena. Still more problematic, it’s quite unclear why the Homeric phrase is adduced. There’s no evident connection between the two phrases beyond their both being genitive, which is certainly not enough justification.
—Polyxena was sacrificed at Achilles’ tomb, and Priam was slaughtered by Achilles’ son Neoptolemus. But that’s not the sort of implicit mythological connection that scholia make. We expect something linguistic, but what?

4

The scholiast finds it unlikely that Polyxena’s neck is still gold-adorned when she is a captive. He provides his explanation for this oddity. What it ackshually means, he tells us, is “of the at-one-time gold-adorned neck.” Similarly, Priam is an old man in the Iliad and is no longer a fighter. So Euripides is just copying Homer’s, “of the at-one-time stout spear[man], Priam.”

IMO, it’s all a colossal stretch on the scholiast’s part, but his argument is quite clear.

5

That’s what I came up with too, but I think it’s too much of a stretch, and implausibly elliptical. And these scholia just can’t be relied on, however tempting it is to test one’s ingenuity by trying to explain them in their badly reduced state. What we really need is original ancient commentaries that preserve more of the argumentation. Cf. P.Oxy.3710 and 4452, though they present puzzles of their own.