At Iliad 1.155 Achilles describes his homeland as ἐν Φθίηι ἐριβώλακι βωτιανείρηι “in Phthia of the rich-clodded earth, man-nourishing.’’ This translation ‘man-nourishing’ is traditional but how does the word mean that? Usually compounds with a verbal element put that element second in Ancient Greek and in English, as in the frequent πουλυ-βότειρα ‘much-nourishing’. According to some recent accounts, the first part βωτι- is an ancient noun frozen in the compound, what would be *βῶσις`nourishment’; others take it as a more recent verb-form related to βόσκω `nourishing, feeding’. The morphology of this compound is disputed and weighs on how we interpret the Homeric language: Does the tradition preserve here a pristine archaism passed down through millennia? Or are we witness to the creative potential of the bards working within hexameter constraints? Put differently, is the word very old or relatively new? To answer those questions, we will range from compounding practices in Mycenaean Greek and Sanskrit, through variant readings in our manuscripts and scholia, and end with an examination of metrical lengthening and what makes the language of Achilles unique.
