The
Suda states: Phrynichus of Bithynia, sophist. He wrote •
Atticist, or
On Attic Words () in two books; •
Collection of Usages () •
Sophistic Preparations ( (47 books, but some say 74) (Of the
Sophistic Preparations only some fragments and
Photius' summary survive.) The work was learned, but prolix and garrulous. A fragment contained in a Paris MS. was published by
B. de Montfaucon, and by
I. Bekker. Another work of Phrynichus, not mentioned by
Photius, but perhaps identical with the Atticist mentioned by Suidas, the
Selection () of Attic Words and Phrases, is extant. It is dedicated to Cornelianus, a man of literary tastes, and one of the imperial secretaries, who had invited the author to undertake the work; it is a collection of current words and forms which deviated from the Old Attic standard, the true Attic equivalents being given side by side. The work is thus a prescriptive and reforming
lexicon antibarbarum, and is interesting as illustrating the changes through which the Greek language had passed between the 4th century B.C. and the 2nd century A.D. As models of Attic style Phrynichus assigns the highest place to
Plato,
Demosthenes, and
Aeschines the Socratic, and also uses the other
Attic orators,
Thucydides,
Sophocles,
Aeschylus, and
Euripides, though he does not accept their usage uncritically: in the letter to Cornelianus which forms the introduction to the
Eclogē, he criticizes some words used by classical Attic authors as un-Attic "mistakes" (). Editions of the
Eklogê, with valuable notes, have been published by
C. A. Lobeck (1820) and W. G. Rutherford (1881); Lobeck devotes his attention chiefly to the later, Rutherford to the earlier usages noticed by Phrynichus. See also J. Brenous,
De Phrynicho Atticista (1895). ==Notes==