Excerpt from Herodian's Hypomnemata on Didymus' On Pathē

Aelius Herodianus, Ἐκ τῶν Ἡρωδιανοῦ ὑπομνημάτων τῶν περὶ παθῶν Διδύμου, Grammatici Graeci 3.2, Lentz, Teubner, 1868

Open Greek and Latin · CC BY-SA 4.0

Cloned and adapted by Humanitext, with ongoing edits.

This work is an excerpt from the commentary by the ancient Greek grammarian Herodian on the treatise "On Pathē" (on sound changes and inflections) by his predecessor Didymus. It is a technical grammatical text that meticulously examines specific word forms, phonological changes, and accentuation rules, particularly within the context of Homeric poetry. The discussion begins with the rules governing the movement of accents on oxytone words when elision occurs. It then investigates the correct accentuation of a specific phrase found in the Homeric text. Finally, the text traces the complex process of phonological transformation from a base verb to its pluperfect form. Through these analyses, the work illustrates the rigorous approach of ancient scholarship toward understanding the precise phonetic rules of the Greek language.