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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
A. C. Cassio has recently pointed out that Μαρικ⋯ς, the name which Eupolis applied to the demagogue Hyperbolus, is a transliteration of the Old Persian word 
. In fact, a Persian origin μαρικ⋯ς was suspected long ago. The seventeenth-century English scholar Edward Bernard, whose notes were used by J. Alberti in his edition of Hesychius, connected μαρικ⋯ς with the Modern Persian mardekeh, which literally means ‘a little man’ and has the connotation ‘a vile person’, ‘a scoundrel’. A. Meineke followed Bernard's derivation of μαρικ⋯ς from Persian, as did K. Latte in his recent edition of Hesychius. These references should be added to Cassio's citation of E. Maass' quotation of K. F. Geldner's opinion.
1 CQ 35 (1985), 38–42Google Scholar.
2 Hesychii Lexicon (Leiden, 1766), ii. col. 541Google Scholar.
3 Cf. Haïm, S., New Persian-English Dictionary (Tehran, 1936), ii.864Google Scholar. In Modern Persian mard means ‘man’, and -ak and -ekeh are diminutive suffixes.
4 Fragmenta Comicorum Graecorum (Berlin, 1839), i. 137Google Scholar.
5 Hesychii Alexandrini Lexicon (Copenhagen, 1966), ii. 629Google Scholar.
6 Festgabe Hugo Blümner (Zürich, 1914), pp. 267–71Google Scholar.
7 Cf. Kent, R. G., Old Persian, Grammar, Texts, Lexicon 2 (New Haven, 1953), p. 202Google Scholar.
8 Cassio, op. cit., 38, translates ὑποκόρισμα as ‘term of endearment’, but there is no evidence that the abusive and contemptuous μαρικ⋯ς was ever used this way. Surely in this context ὑποκόρισμα means simply ‘diminutive’.
9 Cassio, op. cit., 38, notes that βάταλoς, which Demosthenes' nurse bestowed on him as a nickname, also meant κ⋯ναιδον, but the circumstances regarding the multiple meanings of βάταλoς, which were extensively reviewed by Meineke, op. cit., pp. 333–6, are quite different from those involving μαρικ⋯ς and no more provide an analogy for a word literally meaning ‘little man’ acquiring the sense κ⋯ναιδος than does either of the Americanisms cited by Cassio in n. 6.
To my mind the least improbable way by which μαρικ⋯ς might have acquired the meaning κ⋯ναιδος would be by assimilation with the cognate Greek μεῖραξ, which can have this meaning (Lucian, , Soloec. 5Google Scholar, [Stratonicensis, Draco], Περ⋯ μ⋯τρων ποιητικ⋯ν, p. 18.21–2Google Scholar Hermann). However, there would be no direct evidence to support this hypothesis.
10 Bernard apud Alberti, op. cit., claimed that Modern Persian mardekeh could mean ‘cinaedus, catamitus’. However, I am specifically assured by experts at the University of Chicago that this is not so, and Bernard does not inspire confidence in his claim when he maintains that this is also the meaning of φθονερ⋯ν…⋯νδρίον at Theocritus 5.40.
11 Cassio, op. cit., p. 40, observes that ‘in many languages the same term is used for “boy, young man” and “attendant, servant”’ and cites the examples of Greek παῖς, Latin puer, Elamite puhu, Aramaic 'lym, French garçon, and Italian garzone.
12 Kent, op. cit. (n. 7), 109, 138–40; marῑkā is preserved in lines 50 and 55 of the inscription and restored in line 59. The inscription is quadrilingual, with its Old Persian text translated into Elamite, Aramaic, and Akkadian; Kent, p. 202, in his entry for the stem marīka- records the Akkadian equivalent LUgal-la, of which a more modern transcription would be LÚ qal-la. The symbol LÚ means ‘man’ and qal-la means ‘slave’; cf. The Assyrian Dictionary xiii (Chicago, 1982)Google Scholar, s.v. qallu.
13 These definitions are from the Oxford English Dictionary v (Oxford, 1960)Google Scholar, s.v. knave.
14 Eupolis would hardly have given the principal character of his prize-winning play a name which his audience could not understand. Graef, B. and Langlotz, E., Die antiken Vasen von der Akropolis zu Athen ii.3 (Berlin, 1933), p. 127, no. 1512Google Scholar, have published the base of a skyphos bearing the possessor's inscription Μαρικ⋯δος. Was this Μαρικ⋯ς an Asiatic slave whose master gave him this name under the influence of Eupolis' comedy?
It is a pleasure to thank Prof. H. Moayyad and Dr Paul Sprachman for their help with Modern Persian, Lisa Jacobson for her help with Akkadian, Dr Alice Donohue and Dr Edward Goldberg for providing copies of inaccessible works, and Prof. N. G. L. Hammond, Dr C. B. R. Pelling, and the editors of CQ for helpful comments.
