Everything about The Suda totally explained
The
Suda or
Souda (}}, also Σουΐδας,
Suidas) is a massive
10th century Byzantine Greek historical encyclopedia of the ancient Mediterranean world. It is an
encyclopedic lexicon with 30,000 entries, many drawing from ancient sources that have since been lost. The derivation is probably from the Byzantine Greek word
souda, meaning "fortress" or "stronghold," with the alternate name,
Suidas, stemming from an error made by Eustathius, who mistook the title for the proper name of the author.
The Suda is somewhere between a grammatical dictionary and an encyclopedia in the modern sense. It explains the source, derivation, and meaning of words according to the
philology of its period, using such earlier authorities as
Harpocration and
Helladios. There is nothing especially important about this aspect of the work. It is the articles on literary history that are valuable. These entries supply details and quotations from authors whose works are otherwise lost. They use older scholia to the classics (Homer, Thucydides, Sophocles, etc.), and for later writers,
Polybius,
Josephus, the
Chronicon Paschale,
George Syncellus,
George Hamartolus, and so on.
This lexicon represents a convenient work of reference for persons who played a part in political, ecclesiastical, and literary history in the East down to the tenth century. The chief source for this is the encyclopedia of
Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus (912-59), and for Roman history the excerpts of
John of Antioch (seventh century).
Krumbacher (
Byzantinische Literatur, 566) counts two main sources of the work: Constantine VII for ancient history, and Hamartolus (Georgios Monachos) for the Byzantine age.
Background
Little is known of the compilation of this work, except that it must have been before
Eustathius (12th century), who frequently quotes it. Under the heading "
Adam" the author of the lexicon (which a prefatory note states to be "by Suidas") gives a brief
chronology of the world, ending with the death of the emperor
John Zimisces (975), and under
Constantinople his successors
Basil II and
Constantine VIII (accession 1025) are mentioned. It would thus appear that the Suda was compiled in the latter part of the 10th century. Passages referring to
Michael Psellus (end of the
11th century) are considered later interpolations.
It includes numerous quotations from ancient writers; the
scholiasts on
Aristophanes,
Homer,
Sophocles and
Thucydides are also much used. The biographical notices, the author tells us, are condensed from the
Onomatologion or
Pinax of
Hesychius of Miletus; other sources were the excerpts of
Constantine Porphyrogenitus, the chronicle of
Georgius Monachus, the biographies of
Diogenes Laërtius and the works of
Athenaeus and
Philostratus.
The work deals with
biblical as well as
pagan subjects, from which it's inferred that the writer was a
Christian. A prefatory note gives a list of dictionaries from which the lexical portion was compiled, together with the names of their authors. Although the work is uncritical and probably much interpolated, and the value of the articles is very unequal, it contains much information on ancient history and life.
Organization
The lexicon is arranged alphabetically with some slight deviations. According to a system (formerly common in many languages) called
antistoichia; namely the letters follow phonetically, in order of sound (of course in the pronunciation of the tenth century, which is similar to that of Modern Greek). So for instance alpha-iota comes after epsilon; epsilon-iota, eta-iota come together after zeta, omega after omicron, and so on. The system isn't difficult to learn and remember, but in some modern editions (
Immanuel Bekker) the work is rearranged alphabetically.
Further Information
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