Δεκατεύειν
to pay a tithe
Translated by Oliver Phillips ✝22 Dec 2001Vetting: high6 revisions
Translation
[Meaning] to give a tenth.1
"As to these2 the Greeks swore that, if they should conquer [the Persians], they would campaign [against the collaborators] and impose a tithe to the Pythian3 on all."4
"When I was invited to the tenth-day ceremony of the child I drank in town."5 For they used to celebrate the ceremony for the new-born and on that day they gave the children names. Euripides in Aigeus [writes]: "what mother on the tenth day after your birth named you?"6 Aristotle says that on the seventh day [after birth] they give the names. He writes as follows: "most babies are ‘taken up’7 on the seventh day, on which account they also give the names then."8
"As to these2 the Greeks swore that, if they should conquer [the Persians], they would campaign [against the collaborators] and impose a tithe to the Pythian3 on all."4
"When I was invited to the tenth-day ceremony of the child I drank in town."5 For they used to celebrate the ceremony for the new-born and on that day they gave the children names. Euripides in Aigeus [writes]: "what mother on the tenth day after your birth named you?"6 Aristotle says that on the seventh day [after birth] they give the names. He writes as follows: "most babies are ‘taken up’7 on the seventh day, on which account they also give the names then."8
Greek original · Adler’s text
Δεκατεύειν· δεκάτην δοῦναι. ἐφ' οἷς οἱ Ἕλληνες ὤμοσαν, εἰ νικήσειαν, στρατεύσειν καὶ δεκατεύσειν ἅπαντας τῷ Πυθίῳ. ἐς δεκάτην παιδαρίου κληθεὶς ὑπέπινον ἐν ἄστει. τὴν δεκάτην γὰρ εἱστίων ἐπὶ τοῖς τικτομένοις, καὶ ἐν αὐτῇ τὰ ὀνόματα ἐτίθεντο τοῖς παισίν. Εὐριπίδης Αἰγεῖ· τίς σε μᾶτερ ἐν δεκάτᾳ τόκου ὠνόμαζεν; ὁ δὲ Ἀριστοτέλης ἐν ταῖς ζʹ φησὶν ἐπιτίθεσθαι τὰ ὀνόματα, γράφων οὕτως· πλεῖστα δὲ ἀναιρεῖται πρὸς τὴν ζʹ, διὸ καὶ τὰ ὀνόματα τότε τίθενται.
Betacode
*dekateu/ein: deka/thn dou=nai. e)f' oi(=s oi( *(/ellhnes w)/mosan, ei) nikh/seian, strateu/sein kai\ dekateu/sein a(/pantas tw=| *puqi/w|. e)s deka/thn paidari/ou klhqei\s u(pe/pinon e)n a)/stei. th\n deka/thn ga\r ei(sti/wn e)pi\ toi=s tiktome/nois, kai\ e)n au)th=| ta\ o)no/mata e)ti/qento toi=s paisi/n. *eu)ripi/dhs *ai)gei=: ti/s se ma=ter e)n deka/ta| to/kou w)no/mazen; o( de\ *)aristote/lhs e)n tai=s z# fhsi\n e)piti/qesqai ta\ o)no/mata, gra/fwn ou(/tws: plei=sta de\ a)nairei=tai pro\s th\n z#, dio\ kai\ ta\ o)no/mata to/te ti/qentai.
Notes (7)
- [1] Despite this initial gloss (similarly in ps.-Zonaras), the verb↩
dekateu/ein , as the entry goes on to show, properly means to impose a tithe (on someone else). See also delta 182 (and delta 186).- 2The states that sided with the Persians against their fellow Greeks during the Persian invasion of 481-479 BCE. ↩
- 3Delphian Apollo. ↩
- 4A loose approximation of Diodorus Siculus 11.3.3. ↩
- 5At this point the Suda switches from the verb to the ordinal adjective "tenth." The quotation is Aristophanes, Birds 494 (and refers to the naming ceremony of a baby ten days after birth; see alpha 1722 and generally OCD(4) p.995, under 'Names, personal, Greek'). This and all the subsequent quotations are taken from the scholia there. It would seem that the Suda ought to have a separate entry for
deka/th . ↩- 6Euripides fr.5 Jouan and van Looy. ↩
- 7That is, both literally picked up by the father and thereby symbolically acknowledged by him. ↩
- 8Aristotle, History of Animals 7.12 (web address 1), adding "on the grounds that they are more confident in its survival then." Aristotle refers not to the tenth day naming ceremony but to a seventh day ceremony called the Amphidromia, the “Running-Around,” in which the father took up the child and ran around the hearth, thus acknowledging and accepting it. See alpha 1722; Flacelière (below); and OCD(above).
References
Euripides, Fragments, 1r partie, ed. & tr. François Jouan and Herman van Looy. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1998, vol. 7, pp. 9 and 10
Robert Flacelière, Daily Life in Greece in the Time of Pericles, tr. Peter Green. New York: Macmillan, 1965. (p. 79 and note p. 283)
Robert Flacelière, Daily Life in Greece in the Time of Pericles, tr. Peter Green. New York: Macmillan, 1965. (p. 79 and note p. 283)
External resources
- Web address 1 classics.mit.edu
Linked from5 entries
- α437Ἀδεκατεύτουςnot having tithedAristophanes [sc. says this for those who are in the position of] not having paid taxes; for they dedicated in the Prytaneion tithes of the bellies of the sacrificial animals as their tenth share.
- δ182Δεκατεύεινto titheMeaning to exact a tithe and to plunder. Property taken from enemies used to be tithed to the gods; hence, technically speaking, tithing is consecration, but as a metaphor a "tithe" [can be] anything taken and demanded.
- δ183Δεκατευτάςtithe-men[Meaning] tax-men, [the ones] exacting and collecting the tithe. So Antiphon [sc. uses the word]. Also [sc. attested is] dekatelogoi, [meaning] the same [men]. They say dekatelogos in the feminine also.
- δ186Δεκάτην ἑστιάσαιto feast the tenthWhen children had been born to the citizens of Athens, it was customary on the 10th night after the birth to call together the paternal and maternal relatives and the closest friends, and when they were present to give…
- ε857ἘλλιμενίζωI exact harbor tax[no gloss]
Neighbouring entries
Revision history6 revisions · last 8 Oct 2015
- Revised — David Whitehead
- updated some refs — David Whitehead
- tweaked note, deleted a link — Catharine Roth
- augmented notes and keywords; tweaks and cosmetics — David Whitehead
- another keyword — David Whitehead
- augmented keywords; cosmetics — David Whitehead
- Translated — Oliver Phillips ✝