(from Greek atheteo, "to set aside, deny")Term used in the critical edition and emendation of texts, meaning originally "to omit", in practice "to mark as questionable", certain words, phrases, or lines of text. In current practice, athetizing a text is part of the process of somehow creating an "authentic" critical version, marking, without removing, lines which may be spurious additions on grounds of language, historical grammar, or sense.
The word was first coined by
Zenodotus,
librarian at the
Museum in
Alexandria in the 3rd century B.C. His great scholarly project was to create a single, definitive edition of
Homer. Many of his emendations were made on
subjective, usually
moral grounds;
e.g. violent insults were marked as later additions because of their unseemly nature. Later debates focused on the
ambiguous relationship between
Achilles and
Patroclus, arguing for the removal of lines which suggested
homosexuality.