76 Chapter 2 period differed substantially from the attic Greek from the fifth and fourth century BCE and from that used by authors of the Second Sophistic. However, this by then archaic Greek language was what many authors from the middle-Byzantine period would strive for in their writings.250 The lexicon would have served as a vocabulary aid for individuals while reading ancient and late-antique authors as well as a resource to help writing in the high register, by giving in each lemma the more common Greek words to explain the rarer ancient words.251 What furthermore complicates the use of the Lexicon for uncovering a ninth-century understanding of hesychia is that Photius drew substantially from earlier lexica.252 Moreover, words may be used differently in different contexts and acquire different meanings for different groups of language users – so that the meanings derived from Photius’ Lexicon may differ from the way hesychia is used in hagiography. It should be stressed, therefore, that the following analysis merely serves as a starting point for uncovering ninth-century associations with the term. The Lexicon does not have a lemma for hesychia. This is not a real problem, for the lemmata represent words from ancient texts that need clarification. In the explanation of five other lemmata we do encounter hesychia. Hesychia thus functions as a more familiar word for a ninth-century audience that is employed to explain the ‘difficult’ archaic word of the lemma. By looking at which words hesychia is paired or used as a synonym, we might ‘map’ the semantic field to which hesychia belongs and tentatively construct the semantic network of the term.253 Hesychia is used in the entries for the lemmata ἀγλωττία, ἀκή, ἀτρεμία, ἠρέμα and πραϋπάθεια: ἀγλωττία· ἡσυχία, σιωπή.254 ἀκή· ἀκμὴ σιδήρου. καὶ ἡ ἡσυχία.255 250 Scholars of Byzantine Greek often speak of a distinction between a ‘high register’ and a ‘low register’ Greek: the high register would be as close as possible to the vocabulary, grammar and style of the ancient ‘classical’ orators, whereas the low register would be written in a simpler style closer (though not identical) to the spoken language at the time. Although the distinction between high and low register is often referred to, it is also generally acknowledged and understood that these are two extremes on a broad scale, with many texts in between – either closer to the higher or the lower end. Moreover, it is also acknowledged that individual authors could change registers according to the genre in which they wrote and according to their intended audience. For a recent discussion on aspects of medieval Greek language (including a general discussion on how to label the different ‘registers’ of literary language and aspects of syntax and vocabulary in high and low registers), see Hinterberger (2021). On aspects of high- and low-register style in hagiography, see Efthymiadis and Kalogeras (2014). 251 Wilson (1996), pp. 90–93. 252 Photius himself recognises that he used the second-century grammarian Diogenianus, but various other sources have been identified. See Ibid., p. 91; Tinnefeld and Vassis (2006). 253 One of the ideas in maximalist linguistic theory is that words are stored in the minds of language users in a ‘structured manner, as a semantic network containing both protypical and more marginal senses of the lexeme […]’. Peels (2015), p.20. 254 Photius, Lexicon (Α—Δ) 202. Edition: Theodoridis (1982). There is also an identical entry for ἀγλωττία in the tenthcentury Suda (perhaps based on Photius’ Lexicon): Suda alpha: 271. Edition: Adler (1928). 255 Photius, Lexicon (Α—Δ) 739. The entry in the Suda is very similar. Suda alpha: 857.
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