Thomas Magister Ecloga nominum et verborum Atticorum Letter Pi 302.11-14

Greek Learning Greek
1

Could some kind soul have a look here. I think I have the essentials. TM is discussing the usage of a word in the plural form when describing the beginning or end of a river, and he uses the Acheloios and Nile as examples.

Thomas Magister, Ecloga nominum et verborum Atticorum Letter Pi 302.11-14

Πηγαί λέγονται πληθυντικῶς ἐπὶ τῆς ἀρχῆς τῶν ποταμῶν, οὐ
πηγή, οἷον αἱ πηγαὶ τοῦ Ἀχελῴου καὶ αἱ πηγαὶ τοῦ
Νείλου· καὶ ἐκβολαί αἱ εἰσελεύσεις αὐτῶν εἰς τὴν θά-
λασσαν.

Running waters, they say in the plural, of the beginning of rivers, not running water, such as the running waters of the Acheloios and the running waters of the Nile. The same is likewise true concerning the mouth of the river flowing out to the sea.

That last clause I’m really uncertain about but I think I’ve captured its essence.

2

I read it, in loose translation, as: “[Waters] at the beginning of rivers are called πηγαι [spring, source] in the plural, not [singular] πηγη, as, for example, the πηγαι of the Achelous and the πηγαι of the Nile. And εκβολαι is [the word for] the mouths of rivers entering into the sea.”

He seems to be saying prescriptively that proper Attic requires plural πηγαι, not singular πηγη. This is a manual of pure Attic usage for diglossic writers in the Byzantine era.

LSJ more or less seems to confirm this.

3

Thanks, Bill, this is helpful. For each entry in the Greek I add a synopsis, which for this will be something like : “Acheloios is used as an example of a major river, along with the Nile, in a discussion of grammar.”