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Hesychius ofAlexandria (Ancient Greek:Ἡσύχιος ὁ Ἀλεξανδρεύς,romanized: Hēsýchios ho Alexandreús,lit. 'Hesychios the Alexandrian') was aGreekgrammarian who, probably in the5th or6th century AD,[1] compiled the richestlexicon of unusual and obscureGreek words that has survived, probably by absorbing the works of earlier lexicographers.
The work, titled "Alphabetical Collection of All Words" (Συναγωγὴ Πασῶν Λέξεων κατὰ Στοιχεῖον,Synagōgē Pasōn Lexeōn kata Stoicheion), includes more than 50,000 entries, a copious list of peculiar words, forms and phrases, with an explanation of their meaning, and often with a reference to the author who used them or to the district ofGreece where they were current. Hence, the book is of great value to the student of theAncient Greek dialects and in the restoration of the text of the classical authors generally – particularly of such writers asAeschylus andTheocritus, who used many unusual words. Hesychius is important, not only for Greek philology, but also for studying lost languages and obscure dialects of the Balkans in antiquity (such asAlbanoid[2] andThracian) and in reconstructingProto-Indo-European. Many of the words that are included in this work are not found in surviving ancient Greek texts.
Hesychius' explanations of many epithets and phrases also reveal many important facts about the religion and social life of the ancients.
In a prefatory letter Hesychius mentions that his lexicon is based on that ofDiogenianus (itself extracted from an earlier work byPamphilus), but that he has also used similar works by the grammarianAristarchus of Samothrace,Apion,Heliodorus,Amerias and others.
Hesychius was probably not aChristian. Explanations of words fromGregory Nazianzus and other Christian writers (glossae sacrae) are later interpolations.
The lexicon survives in one deeply corrupt 15th-century manuscript, which is preserved in theLibrary of Saint Mark at Venice (Marc. Gr. 622, 15th century). It was first printed in 1514 byMarcus Musurus (at the press ofAldus Manutius) in Venice (it was later reprinted in 1520 and 1521 with modest revisions). A modern edition has been published under the auspices of theRoyal Danish Academy of Fine Arts inCopenhagen, begun byKurt Latte (vol. 1 published in 1953, vol. 2 posthumously in 1966) and completed byPeter Allan Hansen and Ian C. Cunningham (vol. 3, 2005, vol. 4, 2009).
GreekWikisource has original text related to this article:Hesychius' lexicon