The paper deals with the etymology of Gk. ἐπίρροθος (and its variant ἐπιτάρροθος), which characterises Athena and other gods as helpers of mortal heroes within the Homeric poems. Through a rigorous phonetic and semantic analysis, the author proposes to trace back the whole word family of ῥόθος to the Indo-European root *h2redh- (or maybe *(s)h2redh-). By supposing a semantic shift "to appear, to come out" → "to flow, to run", ἐπίρροθος can be interpreted as an agentive compound meaning "who comes / runs (to help)".
Langella, E., Gr. ἐπίρροθος "aiutante": una proposta etimologica, <<QUADERNI URBINATI DI CULTURA CLASSICA>>, 2020; N.S. 124 (2020) (1): 29-64. [doi:10.19272/202006401003] [https://hdl.handle.net/10807/171627]
Gr. ἐπίρροθος "aiutante": una proposta etimologica
Langella, Elena
2020
Abstract
The paper deals with the etymology of Gk. ἐπίρροθος (and its variant ἐπιτάρροθος), which characterises Athena and other gods as helpers of mortal heroes within the Homeric poems. Through a rigorous phonetic and semantic analysis, the author proposes to trace back the whole word family of ῥόθος to the Indo-European root *h2redh- (or maybe *(s)h2redh-). By supposing a semantic shift "to appear, to come out" → "to flow, to run", ἐπίρροθος can be interpreted as an agentive compound meaning "who comes / runs (to help)".
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