[Meaning] someone slow; or someone blind. That is what they used to call those draining away (
e)came/lgontas) and stealing common property. Or a pauper, [sc. so called] from being drained (
a)me/lgesqai) and punished.
Aristophanes [writes]: "I will make you [into] an ox-skin!" In the comics
molgos is someone disreputable. The same is also called
amolgos. So an
amolgos is someone draining (
a)me/lgwn) common property.
*molgo/s: o( bradu/s: h)\ o( tuflo/s. ou(/tw de\ e)/legon tou\s e)came/lgontas kai\ kle/ptontas ta\ koina/. h)\ o( pe/nhs, para\ to\ a)me/lgesqai kai\ zhmiou=sqai. *)aristofa/nhs: molgo/n se poih/sw. para\ de\ toi=s kwmikoi=s molgo/s, o( moxqhro/s. le/getai de\ kai\ a)molgo\s o( au)to/s. a)molgo\s gou=n o( a)me/lgwn ta\ koina/.
According to
Pollux 10.187,
molgo/s is an oxskin sack in Tarentine dialect.
Aristophanes uses it in
Knights 963 (web address 1) -- not quoted in the present entry -- and in the passage which
is quoted here (fr. 694a Edmonds, 56 Demianczuk, 933 Kassel-Austin) to parallel sayings of the type "I will skin you alive" (since the skin can then be turned into a sack) (LSJ s.v.)
The lexicographer is unaware of this meaning, and instead makes various tenuous connections between
molgo/s and
a)me/lgw "milk, drain". In this regard,
Hesychius' entry (mu1565) is better informed, if not more conclusive: "
Aristophanes [sc. uses the term]. Perhaps the word in full might be
a)molgo/s. And he who drains money is an
a)molgo/s. But some understand as
molgou/s evil men, to be thieves to those who drain common property; and
a)molgo/s [means the same?]. But others say
molgo/s is an oxskin sack. It is also placed on carts."
On the way, the Suda drags in two other words. One is
mo/lghs, not
molgo/s, glossed as
moxqhro/s "evil" by
Crates, cited in the
scholia to
Knights 963. The second word
a)molgo/s, also invoked by
Hesychius, occurs in
nukto\s a)molgw=|, a phrase used in
Homer for the dead of night, or for twilight. LSJ s.v. plausibly links it to
a)me/lgw, as "milking-time".
The
scholia ad loc. also offer the senses "slow or blind" (with various wordings), as well as the first etymology (
e)came/lgontas). The gloss "blind" is attributed to the grammarian Phaeinos. The Molgi are stated in the
scholia to be referred to in
Herodotus, although this does not hold for our accepted text.
See also
psi 131.
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