[Meaning] not with propriety, or not fruitlessly: from the [adjective]
e)tw/sion ['vain'], which is 'useless'; [thus the phrase means] 'not irrationally'.[1]
Aristophanes [writes]: "not in vain do all the jurors hurry
en masse to be enrolled on many rosters".[2]
*ou)k e)tw=s: ou)k ei)ko/tws, h)\ ou) ma/thn: para\ to\ e)tw/sion, o(/ e)sti ma/taion: ou)k a)lo/gws. *)aristofa/nhs: ou)k e)tw=s a(/pantes oi( dika/zontes qama\ speu/dousin e)pi\ polloi=s gegra/fqai gra/mmasin.
[1] In place of the more common
e)to/s, the headword phrase, and the quotation of
Aristophanes that follows, substitute the rare variant
e)tw=s. The fact that this variant makes the quoted
Aristophanes passage unmetrical suggests that this is a late-Greek homophonic variant based on the epic adjective
e)tw/sios ['vain']. Same material (but with
e)to/s) in
Photius,
Lexicon omicron650 Theodoridis, and similarly in a scholion on
Plato,
Republic 8.568A, where
ou)k e)to/s occurs (web address 1). See also
omicron 889.
[2]
Aristophanes,
Plutus [
Wealth] 1166-1167, with minor variants (including the spelling of the headword) from the most accepted readings (see web address 2); the commentary comes from the
scholia on this passage.
Aristophanes' phrase translated here as 'on many rosters' is in the Greek 'under many letters'; for the system of jury empanelment in this era, involving letters of the alphabet, see D.M. MacDowell,
The Law in Classical Athens (1978) 37-38.
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