Etymologies, 13 



but in no case is it definitely stated that he borrowed his note 

 from this source. It is somewhat surprising to find how few 

 of these appear in the extant works of his predecessors and 

 how many of them recur in Isidore, for whom no etymology 

 was too grotesque. It is hard to imagine that Servius is 

 himself responsible for all these ingenious explanations. 

 Whether Isidore drew directly upon Servius, as Thilo thinks, 

 or upon Servius' sources, as Nettleship maintains, he doubt- 

 less preserves many derivations that were offered by Servius' 

 predecessors. 



Such works as Palmer's Folk Etijmologi), Andresen's 

 Deutsche Volkseiymologie, and Keller's Lateinische Volks- 

 etymolor/ic deal chiefly with Folk Etymology in the narrower 

 sense of the term: where the form of a word is affected by 

 false derivation or mistaken analogy, or where the significa- 

 tion is warped and perverted from a false relationship being 

 assumed. Even in this narrow sense of the term our com- 

 mentary furnishes several examples of Folk Etymology. 

 Thus Servius, on Aen. 1, 172, prefers the derivation ' arena ab 

 ariditate ' to ' harena ab haerendo ', where Varro left an option 

 and an optional spelling. The Sabine ' fasena ' shows that the 

 initial 'h' is etymologically correct*. On G. 1, 57, he says 

 that the old derivation of 'tus' («-<) too Oziou) led to the spell- 

 ing 'thus'. Cases of perverted meaning due to mistaken 

 analogy are more numerous: see especially the notes on gur- 

 gulio, iiidigetes, latrones, orichalcum, and postumus, quoted 

 in the following pages. For the words indigetes and latrones 

 Servius himself distinctly mentions popular etymologies; 

 with these may be compared the comment on Aen 6, 392: 

 sane Alciden volunt quidam «-<) -^9 aX/S,^ dictum, id est a vir- 

 tute: quod non procedit, quia a prima aetate hoc nomen 

 habuit abAlcaeo.patreAmphitryonis. et scimus agnomina ab 

 accidentibus dari. 

 Adorea, Aen. 10, 677, ' Tiirnus adoro ' id est jiixta veteres, 



qui adorare adloqui dicehant: nam ideo et adorea laus 



bellica, quod onines cuin cum gratulatione adloquehantur, 



qui in bellis fortiter fecit. 



•Corssen, Vol. Ip. ia2. 



