Editing Perseus (section)

==Etymology==
Because of the obscurity of the name "Perseus" and the legendary character of its bearer, most etymologists presume that it might be pre-Greek; however, the name of Perseus's native city was Greek and so were the names of his wife and relatives. There is some idea that it descended into Greek from the [[Proto-Indo-European language]]. In that regard [[Robert Graves|Graves]] proposed the only Greek derivation available: ''Perseus'' might be from the Greek verb ''{{math|πέρθειν}}'' (''pérthein'', "to waste, ravage, sack, destroy") some form of which is familiar in Homeric epithets.<ref name=Graves-1955>{{cite book |last=Graves |first=R. |author-link=Robert Graves |year=1955 |title=The Greek Myths |title-link=The Greek Myths |place=London, UK / Baltimore, MD |publisher=Penguin Classics |isbn=978-014310671-5 |postscript=;}} e‑pub {{ISBN|978-110158050-9}}.</ref> According to [[Carl Darling Buck|Buck]], the ''-eus'' suffix is typically used to form an agent noun, in this case from the [[aorist]] stem, ''pers-''. ''Pers-eus'' therefore is a "sacker [of cities]";<ref>{{cite book |last=Buck |first=C.D. |author-link=Carl Darling Buck |year=1933 |title=Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin |place=Chicago, IL |publisher=University of Chicago Press}}</ref> that is, a soldier by occupation, a fitting name for the first Mycenaean warrior.

The further origin of ''perth-'' is more obscure. Hofmann lists the possible root as ''*bher-'', from which Latin ''ferio'', "strike".<ref>{{cite book |last=Hofmann |first=J.B. |year=1950 |title=Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Griechischen |language=de |location=Munich, DE |publisher=R. Oldenbourg }}</ref> This corresponds to [[Julius Pokorny|Pokorny's]] ''*bher-''(3), "scrape, cut". Ordinarily ''*bh-'' descends to Greek as ''ph-''. This difficulty can be overcome by presuming a [[dissimilation]] from the ''-th-'' in ''pérthein'', which the Greeks would have preferred from a putative ''*phérthein''.<ref>{{cite book |last=Pokorny |first=J. |author-link=Julius Pokorny |year=2005 |orig-year=1957–1969 (1st edn.) |title=Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch |edition=5th |language=de |trans-title=Indo-Germanic etomological dictionary |place=Tübingen / Bern / Munich, DE |publisher=A. Francke |isbn=3772009476}}</ref> Graves carries the meaning still further, to the ''Perse-'' in [[Persephone]], goddess of death.<ref name=Graves-1955/> [[Michael Ventris|Ventris]] & [[John Chadwick|Chadwick]] speculate about a [[Mycenaean Greece|Mycenaean]] goddess ''pe-re-*82'' ([[Linear B]]: {{lang|gmy|𐀟𐀩𐁚}}), attested on {{nobr|tablet [[Pylos|PY]] Tn 316,}} and tentatively reconstructed as ''*Preswa''.<ref>{{cite book |editor1=Ventris, M. |editor1-link=Michael Ventris |editor2=Chadwick, J. |editor2-link=John Chadwick |year=1974 |orig-year=1956 |title=Documents in Mycenaean Greek |edition=2nd |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=0-521-08558-6 |url=https://archive.org/details/documentsinmycen0000vent |url-access=registration |via=Internet Archive}}</ref>

A Greek folk etymology connected ''Perseus'' to the name of the [[Persian people]], whom they called the ''Pérsai'' (from [[Old Persian]] ''Pārsa'' "Persia, a Persian"). However, the native name of the Persians – ''Pārsa'' in [[Persian language|Persian]] – has always been pronounced with an ''-a-''. [[Herodotus]]<ref>{{cite book |author=[[Herodotus]] |title=[[Histories (Herodotus)|Histories]] |at=[https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hdt.+7.61.3&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0126:book=:chapter=&highlight=Perseus 7.61.3] }}</ref> recounts this story, devising a foreign son of Andromeda and Perseus, [[Perses (son of Perseus)|Perses]], from whom the Persians took the name. Apparently the Persians also knew that story, as [[Xerxes I|Xerxes]] tried to use it to suborn the [[Argive]]s during his invasion of Greece,<ref>{{cite book |author=[[Herodotus]] |title=[[Histories (Herodotus)|Histories]] |at=[https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hdt.+7.150.2&fromdoc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0126:book=:chapter=&highlight=Perseus 7.150.2] }}</ref> but ultimately failed to do so.