aergoí and energoí: idle land, idle money, idle tools

Before enérgeia became Aristotle's word for a thing being at work, what was its family already doing in Greek, and who was already using it?

Open any English Aristotle and enérgeia arrives already dressed as philosophy, half of a pair with dýnamis, glossed by abstractions that exist in English mostly to translate it. Searched across the corpus before Aristotle, the family turns up somewhere else entirely: in leases, audits, curses, dockyard returns, and prescriptions.

The pair idle and at-work is not a philosopher's coinage. It is trade vocabulary. Epic uses the privative of a man who will not work; Attic law and finance put both halves on land, silver mines, ships, and money, where being at work is a status a thing is in; medicine turns the epic word on instruments waiting for a fire. The abstract noun is built last, out of that, and Aristotle is the first to make it carry weight.

The idle man

For three centuries the word means one thing: a man who will not work. It is a reproach, and it is never said of a field or a tool.

Achilles, refusing Agamemnon's embassy, reaches for the oldest word in this family. It is a word about a man.

Homer, Iliad, Eulogikon: abe-ac, ref. book 9.320

κάτθαν’ ὁμῶς ὅ τ’ ἀεργὸς ἀνὴρ ὅ τε πολλὰ ἐοργώς.

kátthan᾽ homôs hó t᾽ aergòs anḕr hó te pollà eorgṓs.

Alike he dies, the man who does nothing and the man who has done much.

The privative aergós is built straight off érgon, work, and here it stands against a perfect participle of the same root: the not-working man against the man of many deeds. Death flattens the difference, which is Achilles' point, and the line takes for granted that the difference is otherwise the most important thing about a person. Nothing in the word yet touches an object, a field, or a tool.

Telemachus will not tolerate an idle man in the house (Homer, Odyssey, Eulogikon: abe-ab, ref. book 19.27).

Odysseus tells Laertes that it is not for idleness that his master leaves him unkempt (Homer, Odyssey, Eulogikon: abe-ab, ref. book 24.251).

Hesiod, instructing his brother Perses, gives the family its abstract noun and its most quoted line.

Hesiod, Works and Days, Eulogikon: aau-ac, ref. 309

ἔργον δ’ οὐδὲν ὄνειδος, ἀεργίη δέ τ’ ὄνειδος.

érgon d᾽ oudèn óneidos, aergíē dé t᾽ óneidos.

Work is no reproach; not-working is the reproach.

Greek gets an abstract noun for not-working centuries before anyone abstracts the positive side of the family, and it arrives as a term of reproach. The line is a chiasmus with one word doing the work: whatever shame attaches to labour is transferred wholesale onto its absence. Greek will keep this sentence in circulation for a thousand years, and it turns up again in this piece inside an Athenian courtroom.

Hesiod gives the idle their emblem: drones wearing down the labour of bees (Hesiod, Works and Days, Eulogikon: aau-ac, ref. 303).

Hunger, he says, is the constant companion of the idle man (Hesiod, Works and Days, Eulogikon: aau-ac, ref. 300).

Gods and men alike are set against him (Hesiod, Works and Days, Eulogikon: aau-ac, ref. 301).

The idle man, the poem predicts, will soon envy the man who works (Hesiod, Works and Days, Eulogikon: aau-ac, ref. 310).

The idle man is left waiting on empty hope (Hesiod, Works and Days, Eulogikon: aau-ac, ref. 496).

One year's work would have fed you even were you idle, had the gods not hidden livelihood (Hesiod, Works and Days, Eulogikon: aau-ac, ref. 44).

Theognis, addressing Kyrnos, turns the reproach inside out.

Theognis of Megara, Elegies, Eulogikon: bbs-ad, ref. Eleg.1.(1150)

Εἴ κ’ εἴης ἔργων αἰσχρῶν ἀπαθὴς καὶ ἀεργός, Κύρνε, μεγίστην κεν πεῖραν ἔχοις ἀρετῆς.

Ei k᾽ eíēs érgōn aischrôn apathḕs kaì aergós, Kýrne, megístēn ken peîran échois aretês.

If you were untouched by shameful deeds and did none of them, Kyrnos, you would hold the greatest proof of excellence.

Here being idle is the achievement. The adjective takes a genitive that limits it, deeds that are shameful, and the reproach evaporates: what matters is not whether you work but what you work at. That qualification is the hinge on which the whole family will later swing, because once idleness is a state relative to some particular work, it can be predicated of anything at all.

Theognis uses the same adjective of deeds themselves, which once done cannot be made undone (Theognis of Megara, Elegies, Eulogikon: bbs-ad, ref. Eleg.1.(550)).

Idle land, idle money

Then Athens starts saying it of things. Land, silver mines, ships, and money are all either at work or idle, and the difference has a price.

Three centuries later the Hesiodic line is still live enough to be used as evidence in a capital case. Xenophon is reporting the charge against Socrates.

Xenophon of Athens, Memorabilia, Eulogikon: ezq-af, ref. Mem.1.2.55

Ἔφη δ’ αὐτὸν ὁ κατήγορος καὶ τῶν ἐνδοξοτάτων ποιητῶν ἐκλεγόμενον τὰ πονηρότατα καὶ τούτοις μαρτυρίοις χρώμενον διδάσκειν τοὺς συνόντας κακούργους τε εἶναι καὶ τυραννικούς, Ἡσιόδου μὲν τὸ Ἔργον δ’ οὐδὲν ὄνειδος, ἀεργίη δέ τ’ ὄνειδος·

Éphē d᾽ autòn ho katḗgoros kaì tôn endoxotátōn poiētôn eklegómenon tà ponērótata kaì toútois martyríois chrṓmenon didáskein toùs synóntas kakoúrgous te eînai kaì tyrannikoús, Hēsiódou mèn tò Érgon d᾽ oudèn óneidos, aergíē dé t᾽ óneidos;

The accuser said that he picked out the worst lines of the most celebrated poets and, using them as testimony, taught his companions to be criminals and tyrannical: from Hesiod, the line Work is no reproach, not-working is the reproach.

The word has not changed sense in three hundred years, and the quarrel is over what counts as work, exactly the qualification Theognis had already made. Two lines further on Xenophon has Socrates calling gamblers argoí, using the contracted Attic form of the same adjective. Epic aergós and Attic argós are one word, and from here the Attic form does most of the running.

Xenophon answers the charge, and two lines on has Socrates calling gamblers idle in the contracted Attic form (Xenophon of Athens, Memorabilia, Eulogikon: ezq-af, ref. Mem.1.2.57).

Aeschines reads out to the Athenian assembly the terms of the Amphictyonic curse on the plain of Cirrha.

Aeschines of Athens, Against Ctesiphon, Eulogikon: hbm-aa, ref. Ctes 107

καὶ τὴν χώραν αὐτῶν καὶ τὴν πόλιν ἐκπορθήσαντας καὶ αὐτοὺς ἀνδραποδισαμένους ἀναθεῖναι τῷ Ἀπόλλωνι τῷ Πυθίῳ καὶ τῇ Ἀρτέμιδι καὶ Λητοῖ καὶ Ἀθηνᾷ Προνοίᾳ ἐπὶ πάσῃ ἀεργίᾳ, καὶ ταύτην τὴν χώραν μήτ’ αὐτοὺς ἐργάζεσθαι μήτ’ ἄλλον ἐᾶν.

kaì tḕn chṓran autôn kaì tḕn pólin ekporthḗsantas kaì autoùs andrapodisaménous anatheînai tô(i) Apóllōni tô(i) Pythíō(i) kaì tê(i) Artémidi kaì Lētoî kaì Athēnâ(i) Pronoía(i) epì pásē(i) aergía(i), kaì taútēn tḕn chṓran mḗt᾽ autoùs ergázesthai mḗt᾽ állon eân.

and that having sacked their land and their city and enslaved the people, they dedicate it to Pythian Apollo and to Artemis and Leto and Athena Pronaia on terms of complete non-working, and neither work this land themselves nor allow anyone else to.

Hesiod's abstract noun for a personal failing has become a legal status attaching to ground. The clause that follows defines it: not to work it and not to let another work it. Aergía is now something a field can be under, permanently, by decree, and the step from a lazy man to an idle acre has been taken without anyone marking it.

Aeschines coins a compound for taking profit on the job, in a joke about what Pheidias made his Athena for (Aeschines of Athens, Against Ctesiphon, Eulogikon: hbm-aa, ref. Ctes 148).

Xenophon describes how the Persian king inspects his provinces. The pair has become an instrument of government.

Xenophon of Athens, Economics, Eulogikon: ezq-aj, ref. Oec.4.8

καὶ οὓς μὲν ἂν αἰσθάνηται τῶν ἀρχόντων συνοικουμένην τε τὴν χώραν παρεχομένους καὶ ἐνεργὸν οὖσαν τὴν γῆν ... τούτοις μὲν χώραν τε ἄλλην προστίθησι καὶ δώροις κοσμεῖ ... οἷς δ’ ἂν ὁρᾷ ἀργόν τε τὴν χώραν οὖσαν καὶ ὀλιγάνθρωπον ... τούτους δὲ κολάζων καὶ παύων τῆς ἀρχῆς ἄρχοντας ἄλλους καθίστησι.

kaì hoùs mèn àn aisthánētai tôn archóntōn synoikouménēn te tḕn chṓran parechoménous kaì energòn oûsan tḕn gên ... toútois mèn chṓran te állēn prostíthēsi kaì dṓrois kosmeî ... hoîs d᾽ àn horâ(i) argón te tḕn chṓran oûsan kaì oligánthrōpon ... toútous dè kolázōn kaì paúōn tês archês árchontas állous kathístēsi.

and those governors he finds keeping the country well settled and the land at work ... to these he adds further territory and honours them with gifts ... but those whose country he sees lying idle and thinly peopled ... these he punishes, removes from office, and appoints others in their place.

Both halves of the pair are in one sentence, and each carries a consequence: worked land wins promotion, idle land costs a man his post. This is the plainest evidence that energós and argós are by now an administrative category and not a figure of speech. The word describes a condition that can be inspected, recorded, and rewarded.

The same passage keeps a governor's two duties side by side, working the land and guarding it (Xenophon of Athens, Economics, Eulogikon: ezq-aj, ref. Oec.4.9).

The king rewards those who make territories productive second only to those who fight (Xenophon of Athens, Economics, Eulogikon: ezq-aj, ref. Oec.4.15).

Cyrus took as much pride in that, Xenophon adds, as in soldiering (Xenophon of Athens, Economics, Eulogikon: ezq-aj, ref. Oec.4.17).

Cyrus is negotiating with the defeated Armenian king, and puts the two adjectives in a single question with a price attached.

Xenophon of Athens, Cyropaedia, Eulogikon: ezq-ag, ref. Cyr.3.2.19

Τί δέ, σύ, ἔφη, ὦ Ἀρμένιε, βούλοιο ἄν σοι τὴν νῦν ἀργὸν οὖσαν γῆν ἐνεργὸν γενέσθαι, εἰ μέλλοιεν τὰ νομιζόμενα παρὰ σοὶ ἀποτελεῖν οἱ ἐργαζόμενοι;

Tí dé, sý, éphē, ô Arménie, boúloio án soi tḕn nŷn argòn oûsan gên energòn genésthai, ei mélloien tà nomizómena parà soì apoteleîn hoi ergazómenoi;

And you, Armenian, he said, would you want the land you now have lying idle to become worked, if those working it were going to pay you the customary dues?

The Armenian answers that he would pay a great deal for it, because the revenue would rise. That answer is the measure of the shift: the difference between argós and energós is now a sum of money. Hesiod's reproach has become an asset class.

Cyrus offers worked land as a bargaining chip between enemies (Xenophon of Athens, Cyropaedia, Eulogikon: ezq-ag, ref. Cyr.5.4.25).

Demosthenes, suing his guardians at about twenty, asks the jury to hear his father's estate itemised.

Demosthenes of Athens, Against Aphobus for Guardianship, Part 1, Eulogikon: fsm-ae, ref. Or27 7

δεῖ δὲ καὶ καθ’ ἕκαστον ὑμᾶς ἀκοῦσαι τά τ’ ἐνεργὰ αὐτῶν καὶ ὅς’ ἦν ἀργὰ καὶ ὅσου ἦν ἄξι’ ἕκαστα.

deî dè kaì kath᾽ hékaston hymâs akoûsai tá t᾽ energà autôn kaì hós᾽ ên argà kaì hósou ên áxi᾽ hékasta.

and you must hear item by item which of them were working and which were idle and what each was worth.

This is the pair at its sharpest and its most ordinary: two adjectives dividing an inheritance, in a courtroom, in front of jurors who need no explanation of either. What is at work is capital in employment, the knife-hands and couch-makers and the money out on loan; what is idle is the house, the furniture, the cash in the strongbox. The word that Achilles used of a man is now a line in an audit.

Demosthenes records which assets his father left working (Demosthenes of Athens, Against Aphobus for Guardianship, Part 1, Eulogikon: fsm-ae, ref. Or27 10).

He says what honest guardians would have done: put the rest of the estate to work (Demosthenes of Athens, Against Aphobus for Guardianship, Part 1, Eulogikon: fsm-ae, ref. Or27 59).

Eleven talents stand at work among the deposits of a bank (Demosthenes of Athens, Counterplea for Phormion, Eulogikon: fsm-bf, ref. Or36 5).

Men borrow for a voyage to the Black Sea so as to be in business (Demosthenes of Athens, To Lacritus-Counterplea, Eulogikon: fsm-bc, ref. Or35 6).

A creditor weighs putting a loan back to work at Rhodes rather than sailing home (Demosthenes of Athens, Against Dionysodorus-Damage, Eulogikon: fsm-am, ref. Or56 29).

Isocrates praises an older Athens where men benefited the city and kept their own holdings productive at the same time (Isocrates of Athens, Areopagiticus, Eulogikon: ffu-ah, ref. Areop 35).

In a pamphlet on Athenian revenues Xenophon turns to the silver at Laurium.

Xenophon of Athens, Ways and Means, Eulogikon: ezq-ae, ref. Vect.4.2

οὐκοῦν ὅτι μὲν πάνυ πάλαι ἐνεργά ἐστι, πᾶσι σαφές· οὐδεὶς γοῦν οὐδὲ πειρᾶται λέγειν ἀπὸ ποίου χρόνου ἐπεχειρήθη·

oukoûn hóti mèn pány pálai energá esti, pâsi saphés; oudeìs goûn oudè peirâtai légein apò poíou chrónou epecheirḗthē;

That they have been at work a very long time is clear to everyone; at any rate nobody even tries to say from what date they were first worked.

The subject is mines, and energá is the technical word for a shaft in production as against one lying abandoned. The tense matters: being at work is a durable condition a thing is in, stretching back beyond memory, not an act performed at a moment. That is a considerable amount of the eventual philosophical sense, already carried by a mining term.

Thucydides pauses his narrative to count what the war was costing Athens.

Thucydides, Histories, Eulogikon: dny-aa, ref. 3.17

καὶ κατὰ τὸν χρόνον τοῦτον ὃν αἱ νῆες ἔπλεον ἐν τοῖς πλεῖσται δὴ νῆες ἅμ’ αὐτοῖς ἐνεργοὶ κάλλει ἐγένοντο,

kaì katà tòn chrónon toûton hòn hai nêes épleon en toîs pleîstai dḕ nêes hám᾽ autoîs energoì kállei egénonto,

and during this period, while those ships were at sea, they had the greatest number of ships at once in service and in fine condition,

Ships are energoí when they are manned, at sea, and drawing pay; the sentences that follow do the arithmetic. The same adjective has now been applied to a field, a mine, a bank deposit, and a fleet, always with the same content: this thing is currently doing what it exists to do, rather than sitting.

Xenophon wants infantry serving with the cavalry to be at their most effective (Xenophon of Athens, On the Cavalry Commander, Eulogikon: ezq-ad, ref. Hipp.9.6).

Cyrus wants an army effective and obedient, so weeds out the men who will not be led (Xenophon of Athens, Cyropaedia, Eulogikon: ezq-ag, ref. Cyr.2.2.23).

He wants a phalanx whose whole depth is in action rather than standing idle behind (Xenophon of Athens, Cyropaedia, Eulogikon: ezq-ag, ref. Cyr.6.3.23).

Rejected slingers and archers are put to work with axe and mattock on the road gangs (Xenophon of Athens, Cyropaedia, Eulogikon: ezq-ag, ref. Cyr.6.2.36).

Hunting is the training that renders men effective from horseback (Xenophon of Athens, Cyropaedia, Eulogikon: ezq-ag, ref. Cyr.8.1.34).

The annual review of men, arms, horses, and chariots keeps the same vocabulary (Xenophon of Athens, Cyropaedia, Eulogikon: ezq-ag, ref. Cyr.8.6.15).

Agesilaus buys zeal by letting a man send a horse, arms, and an approved substitute in his place (Xenophon of Athens, Agesilaus, Eulogikon: ezq-ai, ref. Ages.1.24).

Corinthian land under ravage is set against allies whose own territories stayed at work (Xenophon of Athens, Hellenica, Eulogikon: ezq-ak, ref. Hell.4.4.1).

The adverb turns up once: the good estate manager fights vigorously when he sees his preparation is winning (Xenophon of Athens, Memorabilia, Eulogikon: ezq-af, ref. Mem.3.4.11).

Socrates advises a man burdened by dependent kinswomen to set them to work, and watch the resentment turn to affection (Xenophon of Athens, Memorabilia, Eulogikon: ezq-af, ref. Mem.2.7.9).

Simonides asks a tyrant which yields more revenue, his own holdings at work or every citizen's (Xenophon of Athens, Hiero, Eulogikon: ezq-ao, ref. Hier.11.4).

Wrongdoing, he observes, takes root less readily in the employed (Xenophon of Athens, Hiero, Eulogikon: ezq-ao, ref. Hier.9.8).

Arcadian deserters come to Xerxes wanting a livelihood and wanting to be employed (Herodotus of Halicarnassus, Histories, Eulogikon: elu-aa, ref. Hist 8 25).

A Doric sophistic text reports that Lydians think it fine for girls to work up money before marrying (Dialexeis, On Good and Evil, Eulogikon: cje-aa, ref. 2 (tit)).

Working something in

The compound verb keeps a habit the simple verb never had. It does not mean to act; it means to work something into something, and it wants an interior to work into.

Herodotus measures the tomb of Alyattes outside Sardis and records who built it.

Herodotus of Halicarnassus, Histories, Eulogikon: elu-aa, ref. Hist 1 93

Ἐξεργάσαντο δέ μιν οἱ ἀγοραῖοι ἄνθρωποι καὶ οἱ χειρώνακτες καὶ αἱ ἐνεργαζόμεναι παιδίσκαι. ... καὶ ἐφαίνετο μετρεόμενον τὸ τῶν παιδισκέων ἔργον ἐὸν μέγιστον.

Exergásanto dé min hoi agoraîoi ánthrōpoi kaì hoi cheirṓnaktes kaì hai energazómenai paidískai. ... kaì ephaíneto metreómenon tò tôn paidiskéōn érgon eòn mégiston.

The market men and the handworkers and the working girls built it. ... and on measurement the girls' portion turned out to be the largest.

The compound verb is doing a job the simple verb could not: these girls are not merely working, they are working at a trade, in it, for a living, and Herodotus goes on to explain that they are earning their own dowries. That en- is the whole difference, and it is the prefix the philosophical noun will inherit.

Gorgias, defending Helen, turns to what speech can do to a hearer.

Gorgias of Leontini, On Nature and Non-Being, Eulogikon: eme-ab, ref. 11 (50)

λόγος δυνάστης μέγας ἐστίν, ὃς σμικροτάτωι σώματι καὶ ἀφανεστάτωι θειότατα ἔργα ἀποτελεῖ· δύναται γὰρ καὶ φόβον παῦσαι καὶ λύπην ἀφελεῖν καὶ χαρὰν ἐνεργάσασθαι καὶ ἔλεον ἐπαυξῆσαι.

lógos dynástēs mégas estín, hòs smikrotátō(i) sṓmati kaì aphanestátō(i) theiótata érga apoteleî; dýnatai gàr kaì phóbon paûsai kaì lýpēn apheleîn kaì charàn energásasthai kaì éleon epauxêsai.

Speech is a great power, which with the smallest and least visible body accomplishes the most divine works: for it can stop fear and take away grief and work joy in and increase pity.

Four verbs in a row, and only one of them is this family: stop, take away, increase are what you do to something already there, while energásasthai is what you do when you put something inside somebody that was not there before. The verb wants an interior. That requirement, not any general sense of activity, is what the family contributes to Greek.

Gorgias extends the same verb to sight, which works desire and longing for things and bodies into a man (Gorgias of Leontini, On Nature and Non-Being, Eulogikon: eme-ab, ref. 11 (100)).

Isocrates, defending his teaching against the charge that rhetoric corrupts, concedes the largest thing the verb could claim.

Isocrates of Athens, On Exchange, Eulogikon: ffu-ao, ref. Antid 274

Ἡγοῦμαι δὲ τοιαύτην μὲν τέχνην, ἥτις τοῖς κακῶς πεφυκόσιν πρὸς ἀρετὴν σωφροσύνην ἐνεργάσαιτ’ ἂν καὶ δικαιοσύνην, οὔτε πρότερον οὔτε νῦν οὐδεμίαν εἶναι,

Hēgoûmai dè toiaútēn mèn téchnēn, hḗtis toîs kakôs pephykósin pròs aretḕn sōphrosýnēn energásait᾽ àn kaì dikaiosýnēn, oúte próteron oúte nŷn oudemían eînai,

I hold that no such craft has ever existed or exists now, one that could work self-control and justice into people ill-grown toward excellence,

The denial is the evidence. To say that no craft can do this is to concede that this, and nothing weaker, is what the verb would mean if anything could: to put a settled disposition inside a person who lacked it. Isocrates uses the same verb five more times across his speeches, always of something implanted in someone, never of unspecified activity.

Isocrates argues that the same cause works the same effect in every case (Isocrates of Athens, On Exchange, Eulogikon: ffu-ao, ref. Antid 229).

He asks why those who work excellence and self-control into others should not be trusted by their own pupils (Isocrates of Athens, Against The Sophists, Eulogikon: ffu-ad, ref. In Soph 6).

A speech works knowledge into those who lacked it, and thereby loses the credit (Isocrates of Athens, Panathenaicus, Eulogikon: ffu-ax, ref. Panath 244).

Those who first worked fear into us are credited with keeping human dealings from being wholly beastly (Isocrates of Athens, Busiris, Eulogikon: ffu-bb, ref. Busir 24).

Socrates drops in on the sculptor Cleiton and asks him a workshop question.

Xenophon of Athens, Memorabilia, Eulogikon: ezq-af, ref. Mem.3.10.5

ὃ δὲ μάλιστα ψυχαγωγεῖ διὰ τῆς ὄψεως τοὺς ἀνθρώπους, τὸ ζωτικὸν φαίνεσθαι, πῶς τοῦτο ἐνεργάζῃ τοῖς ἀνδριᾶσιν;

hò dè málista psychagōgeî dià tês ópseōs toùs anthrṓpous, tò zōtikòn phaínesthai, pôs toûto energázē(i) toîs andriâsin;

But the thing that most draws people through the eye, the look of being alive: how do you work that into your statues?

The dative toîs andriâsin is the point. Cleiton is not being asked how he is active, he is being asked how he gets one particular thing into one particular block of stone. This is the same construction as the winds inside a body two chapters below, and the same as joy inside a hearer above: the verb always names a transfer into something.

Socrates sets makers of senseless motionless images against makers of living things that think and are at work (Xenophon of Athens, Memorabilia, Eulogikon: ezq-af, ref. Mem.1.4.3).

Easy pleasures, the trainers say, cannot work good condition into a body (Xenophon of Athens, Memorabilia, Eulogikon: ezq-af, ref. Mem.2.1.20).

Plato, in the Philebus, is describing what happens when pleasure and pain are mixed.

Plato of Athens, Philebus, Eulogikon: ffk-ay, ref. Phileb.47.b

καὶ παντοῖα μὲν χρώματα, παντοῖα δὲ σχήματα, παντοῖα δὲ πνεύματα ἀπεργαζόμενον πᾶσαν ἔκπληξιν καὶ βοὰς μετὰ ἀφροσύνης ἐνεργάζεται;

kaì pantoîa mèn chrṓmata, pantoîa dè schḗmata, pantoîa dè pneúmata apergazómenon pâsan ékplēxin kaì boàs metà aphrosýnēs energázetai;

and, producing colours of every kind and postures of every kind and breathings of every kind, does it not work in every sort of astonishment and shouting without sense?

Plato has the family, and he uses it exactly as Xenophon and Gorgias and the Hippocratic writer use it: something worked into a body from a cause outside it. He also has the adjective, of magistrates on duty, further down this page. What he does not have anywhere is the noun. That absence is worth holding onto, because antiquity will later fill it in for him.

Demosthenes says oligarchies work fear into citizens but do not instil shame (Demosthenes of Athens, Epitaph, Eulogikon: fsm-ck, ref. Epit 25).

A mortal beauty works undying longing into those who see it (Demosthenes of Athens, Erotic, Eulogikon: fsm-cl, ref. Erot 11).

Bad company works bad habits into others (Demosthenes of Athens, Erotic, Eulogikon: fsm-cl, ref. Erot 2).

Opponents are accused of working an estate and rearing children on it while keeping a line of retreat to their own (Demosthenes of Athens, To Leocares-Archias' Estate, Eulogikon: fsm-aq, ref. Or44 23).

Idle tools, working remedies

In the clinic the two strands meet. The epic word for a lazy man is turned on a craft waiting for its fire, and the verb becomes what a drug does, what a physician does, and what a failing organ stops doing.

The Hippocratic On Art defends medicine against the charge that it fails when it cannot see the disease. The author answers with an analogy from the workshop.

Hippocrates and the Hippocratic Corpus, On Art, Eulogikon: bww-ce, ref. 11

ἀλλ’ αὐτέων ὅσαι πυρὶ δημιουργεῦνται, τούτου μὴ παρεόντος, ἀεργοί εἰσι, μετὰ δὲ τοῦ τοῦτο ἁφθῆναι ἐνεργοί.

all᾽ autéōn hósai pyrì dēmiourgeûntai, toútou mḕ pareóntos, aergoí eisi, metà dè toû toûto haphthênai energoí.

but those of them that are practised with fire, when it is not present, are idle, and once it has been kindled, at work.

Here at last both members of the pair land on the crafts themselves, and in the archaic form: not the Attic argós of the courtrooms but aergós, Homer's and Hesiod's word for a lazy man, applied to a trade waiting for its fire. The state is now entirely non-moral and entirely conditional. A craft is idle or at work depending on whether one thing it needs is there. Read against Achilles, the distance the word has travelled is the whole distance this piece is about.

On Ancient Medicine, arguing that shapes inside the body explain what humours do, reaches for the compound verb.

Hippocrates and the Hippocratic Corpus, On Ancient Medicine, Eulogikon: bww-at, ref. 22

Ὅσα δὲ φῦσάν τε καὶ ἀνειλήματα ἐνεργάζονται ἐν τῷ σώματι, προσήκει ἐν μὲν τοῖσι κοίλοισί τε καὶ εὐρυχώροισιν, οἷον κοιλίῃ τε καὶ θώρηκι, ψόφον τε καὶ πάταγον ἐμποιέειν.

Hósa dè phŷsán te kaì aneilḗmata energázontai en tô(i) sṓmati, prosḗkei en mèn toîsi koíloisí te kaì eurychṓroisin, hoîon koilíē(i) te kaì thṓrēki, psóphon te kaì pátagon empoiéein.

Whatever things work wind and griping into the body, it stands to reason that in the hollow and roomy parts, such as the belly and the chest, they make noise and rumbling.

The prepositional phrase is spelled out in full here, in the body, in case the prefix left any doubt. Medicine did not borrow this construction from philosophy or invent it: it is the same one Herodotus, Gorgias, Isocrates, Xenophon and Plato are using in the same century, and the body is simply the most literal thing you can work something into.

The gynaecological collection On Women is a recipe book. The adjective appears in it as a plain label.

Hippocrates and the Hippocratic Corpus, On Women, Eulogikon: bww-cb, ref. 74 (50)

Προσθετὸν ἐνεργόν· ὀπὸν μανδραγόρου καὶ κολοκύντης ἀγρίης ξὺν γάλακτι γυναικείῳ πρόσθες.

Prosthetòn energón; opòn mandragórou kaì kolokýntēs agríēs xỳn gálakti gynaikeíō(i) prósthes.

An effective pessary: juice of mandrake and of wild gourd with woman's milk; apply.

This is the adjective's other career. Applied to a mine or a field it meant in production; applied to a drug it means it does the job. Both senses are the same sense, and the recipe headings are where the word sits closest to the English word efficacy, which is what later medicine will make of the noun.

One preparation is timed: it works over a longer stretch (Hippocrates and the Hippocratic Corpus, On Women, Eulogikon: bww-cb, ref. 175).

A clove of garlic works too (Hippocrates and the Hippocratic Corpus, On Women, Eulogikon: bww-cb, ref. 205).

The comparative turns up: if the first fails, use a stronger one (Hippocrates and the Hippocratic Corpus, On Women, Eulogikon: bww-cb, ref. 179).

Mixed-in myrrh is called effective, and the passage says what it stops (Hippocrates and the Hippocratic Corpus, On Women, Eulogikon: bww-cb, ref. 114).

The same treatise, describing a woman whose womb has gone septic after childbirth, turns the verb on an organ.

Hippocrates and the Hippocratic Corpus, On Women, Eulogikon: bww-cb, ref. 170

καὶ κῶμα ἔχει ἄλλοτε καὶ ἄλλοτε, καὶ ἐσακούειν οὐκ ἐθέλει· οὐδὲ ἡ ὑστέρη ἐνεργεῖ·

kaì kôma échei állote kaì állote, kaì esakoúein ouk ethélei; oudè hē hystérē energeî;

and she falls into a stupor now and again, and will not listen; nor does the womb work;

In a list of failing signs, between unconsciousness and refusal of food, is an organ that has stopped working. The verb is not describing what the womb does when healthy but registering that it has ceased. That is the closest any of these passages comes to the later technical sense of a thing exercising the function it exists for, and it is reached from the bedside rather than from an argument.

The physician wants the sneeze itself to work as hard as possible (Hippocrates and the Hippocratic Corpus, On Women, Eulogikon: bww-cb, ref. 67).

The verb covers the procedure being carried out on the succussion frame (Hippocrates and the Hippocratic Corpus, On Women, Eulogikon: bww-cb, ref. 68).

Here the physician, not the drug, does the working (Hippocrates and the Hippocratic Corpus, On Women, Eulogikon: bww-cb, ref. 78 (200)).

Three days of it are prescribed (Hippocrates and the Hippocratic Corpus, On Women, Eulogikon: bww-cb, ref. 134).

Plato's Athenian Stranger, legislating on wine, exempts a list of people from ever tasting it.

Plato of Athens, Laws, Eulogikon: ffk-bm, ref. Leg.674.c

μηδὲ ἄρχοντας τοῦτον τὸν ἐνιαυτὸν ὃν ἂν ἄρχωσιν, μηδ’ αὖ κυβερνήτας μηδὲ δικαστὰς ἐνεργοὺς ὄντας οἴνου γεύεσθαι τὸ παράπαν,

mēdè árchontas toûton tòn eniautòn hòn àn árchōsin, mēd᾽ aû kybernḗtas mēdè dikastàs energoùs óntas oínou geúesthai tò parápan,

nor magistrates during the year in which they hold office, nor again helmsmen or judges while they are on duty, to taste wine at all,

The adjective in Plato's own hand, and in the plainest possible sense: a judge is energós while sitting and not otherwise, exactly as a mine is energá while being worked. Plato uses this family twice in the corpus, here and in the Philebus, both times in the ordinary way. He never uses the noun. Both facts will matter in a moment.

The noun, and the cliff

The noun appears in a rhetorician's hands before it is technical at all. Aristotle then marks it off against what is able, and antiquity afterwards misremembers who got there first.

Alcidamas, arguing that improvised speaking beats written composition, needs a word for what the written text lacks.

Alcidamas of Elaea, Odysseus, Eulogikon: dkm-aa, ref. 15 28

ὁ δὲ γεγραμμένος εἰκόνι λόγου τὴν φύσιν ὁμοίαν ἔχων ἁπάσης ἐνεργείας ἄμοιρος καθέστηκεν.

ho dè gegramménos eikóni lógou tḕn phýsin homoían échōn hapásēs energeías ámoiros kathéstēken.

But the written speech, having a physis like an image of speech, stands with no share in any activity at all.

This is the noun, in a classical author, and it is the trade word abstracted rather than a philosopher's term. A written speech is like a statue: shaped, accurate, and out of service. What it lacks is what the mine and the fleet and the pessary have, and the contrast a few lines earlier is with a spoken word that is alive. The pairing here is with images and bodies, not with dynamis.

Alcidamas keeps the adjective in the same work, of practice held continuously at work (Alcidamas of Elaea, Odysseus, Eulogikon: dkm-aa, ref. 15 33).

Aristotle, in Metaphysics Theta, sets up the distinction that the word will carry for the next two thousand years.

Aristotle, Metaphysics, Eulogikon: hgw-bj, ref. Metaph.1048b

ταύτης δὲ τῆς διαφορᾶς θατέρῳ μορίῳ ἔστω ἡ ἐνέργεια ἀφωρισμένη θατέρῳ δὲ τὸ δυνατόν.

taútēs dè tês diaphorâs thatérō(i) moríō(i) éstō hē enérgeia aphōrisménē thatérō(i) dè tò dynatón.

Of this difference let enérgeia be marked off on the one side, and on the other what is able.

The participle rendered marked off is a technical verb: Aristotle is assigning a word to a side of a distinction, which is what you do with vocabulary you are taking over rather than coining. What he takes over is a word that already meant a thing being in operation rather than lying by. He sets against it not idleness but tò dynatón, what is able, and that substitution is the whole invention.

Three books later, arguing that motion must be eternal, Aristotle names his predecessors.

Aristotle, Metaphysics, Eulogikon: hgw-bj, ref. Metaph.1071b

διὸ ἔνιοι ποιοῦσιν ἀεὶ ἐνέργειαν, οἷον Λεύκιππος καὶ Πλάτων· ἀεὶ γὰρ εἶναί φασι κίνησιν. ἀλλὰ διὰ τί καὶ τίνα οὐ λέγουσιν,

diò énioi poioûsin aeì enérgeian, hoîon Leúkippos kaì Plátōn; aeì gàr eînaí phasi kínēsin. allà dià tí kaì tína ou légousin,

For which reason some make enérgeia always be, as Leucippus and Plato do; for they say motion always is. But why, and what motion, they do not say.

Aristotle is reporting a doctrine, not quoting a phrase, and the distinction is easy to lose. Plato does say that motion always is. Plato does not say enérgeia, here or anywhere: the word in this sentence is Aristotle's own, supplied to describe a position. Read quickly, the sentence puts his term in Plato's mouth, and later readers did read it quickly.

A late commentary on the Physics, reporting what Aristotle's own associate Eudemus had said, awards the distinction outright.

Eudemus of Rhodes I, Fragments on Aristotelian Logic, Eulogikon: fuk-aa, ref. 37b

καὶ τὸ δυνάμει δὲ καὶ ἐνεργείᾳ καὶ τὸ καθ’ αὑτὸ καὶ κατὰ συμβεβηκὸς πρῶτος φαίνεται διορίσας ὁ Πλάτων

kaì tò dynámei dè kaì energeía(i) kaì tò kath᾽ hautò kaì katà symbebēkòs prôtos phaínetai diorísas ho Plátōn

and Plato appears to have been the first to distinguish the dynámei and the energeía(i), and what holds of itself from what holds incidentally

The corpus answer is short. Searched across every work under Plato's name, the noun returns nothing: not enérgeia, not energeía(i), not one inflected form. What Plato has is a verb about mixed pleasures and an adjective about judges on duty, both of them the same ordinary Greek that the mine leases and the recipe books use. The distinction is Aristotle's, and the attribution is what happens when a term becomes so standard that it is read backwards into the people its inventor was arguing with.

The checkable landscape

Twenty-four passages read closely, from fifteen authors, with fifty-five more cited in passing: sixteen authors and thirty-seven works in all, from Homer to Aristotle. A search of the whole corpus finds 12,493 passages carrying some member of the family. Eighty-nine of them fall inside the span this piece covers completely: every passage in an archaic or classical author writing before Aristotle, leaving aside later commentary and the fragment and testimonia collections, where the Greek belongs to the reporter and not to the reported. All eighty-nine were read, and every one of them is either quoted above, cited in passing, or accounted for by the paragraph on dating below.

What the corpus holds. The privative is Homeric and Hesiodic and is used only of persons and their deeds. Both halves of the pair are applied to things first in fourth-century Athenian prose, and the earliest of those are agricultural, extractive, naval, and financial rather than philosophical: an estate itemised into working and idle assets, a plain that a Delphic curse forbids anyone to work, silver mines long in production, ships in commission. The compound verb, wherever it occurs, takes something worked into something else. The Hippocratic corpus has the adjective and both verbs, twelve passages of them, and does not have the noun at all. Plato has the family twice, both times in the ordinary sense, and has the noun nowhere.

One thing the arrangement makes visible. Aristotle did not need a new word for a thing being at work, because Greek already had one and used it of mines. What he needed was a new opposite. Every witness before him sets being at work against lying idle; he sets it against being able, and the pair stops being a description of what a thing is doing and starts being a claim about what a thing is.

Four limits are worth naming. The word for idle in most of the Attic prose here is the contracted form, which is a separate lemma with more than four thousand occurrences and a homonym meaning swift; it appears throughout these excerpts but was not itself surveyed exhaustively, and neither was the near-identical stem meaning vivid, which the manuscript tradition sometimes confuses with this one. Author floruit is not composition date: a set of letters under a tyrant's name, a treatise under an archaic Pythagorean's, a rhetorical handbook under a fifth-century name, and the Aesopic recensions all carry early floruits and much later Greek, and were set aside rather than counted as early attestations. The date attached to the Greek Anthology is the collection's, not its epigrams'. And Aristotle is the cliff here, not the subject: what he builds on the distinction after marking it off, along with the later medical sense of a drug's efficacy and the diffusion of the noun through the schools, is afterlife and is not developed.

Note on Eulogikon references. Every citation takes one form: Author, Title (linked to the full text), Eulogikon: wid, ref. A work is keyed by its wid; the ref locates the passage within it.