ἀβιάτακα <Iranian; Early Byzantine period>
👉 ἀβιάτακα (cj.; ms.: ἀβίλτακα) – a Persian adjective or substantive with the meaning of Greek μνήμων, i.e. ‘remembering; having a good memory’ (Hsch. α 123). The conjecture of ἀβιάτακα (proposed by J. Oppert) gained wide acceptance (a lapsus calami of ΛΤ instead of ΑΤ); the error comes presumably not from the manuscript tradition of the lexicon itself, but already from a source of Hesychius (as the correct word order in the lexicon indicates: α 122: Ἀβίλλιον, α 123: ἀβίλτακα, α 124: Ἀβιλυκή). The Greek translation as μνήμονα suggests that the Persian gloss is an acc. sg. m. (grammatically, acc. sg. f. and nom./acc./voc. pl. n. would be possible, too); however, Hesychius may have relied on a source containing a sentence like: *οἱ Πέρσαι τὸν μνήμονα ἀβιάτακα καλοῦσιν – “the Persians call a person having a good memory abiataka”; cf. Hsch. σ 1385: σπάκα· κύνα (...) – “spaka: dog (...)” vs. Hdt. 1.110: (...) τὴν γὰρ κύνα καλέουσι σπάκα Μῆδοι. – “(...) because the Medes call the dog as spaka”, where σπάκα is a nom. sg. Cf. σπάκα.
⚠ Hsch. α 123: ἀβιάτακα (cj.; ms.: ἀβίλτακα)· μνήμονα. Πέρσαι – “abiataka: remembering/having a good memory. Persians”. This word was probably a byname of the Persian king Artaxerxes II (reigned 404–358 BCE), who, according to the Greek tradition, was called Mnemon (Μνήμων); cf. Plut., Vitae: Artax. 1.1, mentioning that Artaxerxes I was surnamed Μακρόχειρ ‘long-armed’, while Artaxerxes II had the byname Μνήμων.
🅔 A Persian word – cf. Khotanese byāta ‘memory; remembered’, Middle Persian ayyād ‘memory, recollection’ (< *abi-yāta-), Sogdian abyāt ‘reminding’, Modern Persian yād ‘remembrance, recognition, memory’ etc. On the basis of Greek ἀβιάτακα and Iranian words, the Old Persian compound form *abi-yātaka- ‘remembering’ is reconstructed. It might consist of the prefix abi- (cf. Old Persian abi ‘to, towards’, Old Avestan aibi ‘id.’, Young Avestan aiβi ‘id.’) and of the possible root *yā- ‘to remember’ with the suffixes -ta- (generally, a participle suffix like in Old Persian mr̥ta- ‘dead’ from mar- ‘to die’) and -ka- (a nominal and adjectival suffix like in Old Persian kapau̯taka- ‘grey-blue’ from *kapau̯ta-, cf. Middle Persian kabōd ‘grey-blue; pigeon’, Vedic kapóta- ‘pigeon‘).
📖 Data: CPED: 1524; DKhS: 308; DMMPP: 80; EDIV: 175f.; SogdD: 22. Ref.: Brust 2008: 3-5; Hinz 1975: 19.