epos

Forms

epos n sg (indeclinable, no genitive)^[1] It occurs only in the nominative and accusative singular.^[2][3][4] A plural epē is a conjecture of Lucian Müller in Propertius.^[5]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek ἔπος (épos, “word, speech, tale”),^[6][2][7] which goes back to Proto-Indo-European *wékʷos, from *wekʷ- (“to speak”).^[1][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its first author is Horace,^[8] who writes in the Satires that Varius composes vigorous epic (forte epos acer … Varius ducit).^[4][2]

Semantic evolution

It always kept the sense of epic poetry or an epic poem.^[6][2] Ovid's line that noble epic owes as much to Virgil as elegy owes to him has epos only by a conjecture of Muretus, for the manuscripts' opus.^[4] Martial says he was writing an epic,^[4][2] and Suetonius, defining the word, says that Ennius was the first to write a worthy epic in Latin.^[4]

The grammarians also used it for the hexameter, the verse of epic.^[4] Late poets such as Ausonius and Sidonius Apollinaris still use it.^[2][4]

Timeline

• 65–8 BC – Horace uses it of the epic of Varius.^[4][2][8]
• 40–102/103 AD – Martial writes scribebamus epos (“I was writing an epic”).^[4][2]
• c. 75–c. 150 AD – Suetonius defines the word and names Ennius as the first Latin epic poet.^[4]
• c. 310–394 AD – Ausonius uses it in his poems on the professors.^[2][5]
• c. 431–486 AD – Sidonius Apollinaris uses it in his letters and poems.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. Epic poetry; an epic, a heroic poem.^[6][2][4]
2. (grammar) The hexameter, the heroic verse.^[4]

Related words

• epicus
• English epic

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
3. ^ Gaffiot, Félix (2016), Dictionnaire latin-français, new ed. by Gérard Gréco et al. (Gaffiot 2016), online ed.
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
5. ^ a b Georges, Karl Ernst (1913–1918), Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th ed., ed. Heinrich Georges, Hannover; Leipzig: Hahn
6. ^ a b c Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Saalfeld, Günther Alexander (1874), Index Graecorum vocabulorum in linguam latinam translatorum, Berlin: Weidmann
8. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de