Translation of a phrase in Julius Pollux's "Onomasticon"

Question

Could anyone provide a translation of "τὸ δὲ συναμφότερον φάτνας. καὶ σύμπας μὲν ὁ τῶν ὀδόντων στοῖχος φραγμὸς ὀνομάζεταi" from the Onomasticon by Julius Pollux (2.93)? I'm particularly interested in the Greek φάτνας.

Answer 1

This is from the section περί ὀδόντων (on teeth) starting at §2.91. There’s a 1706 parallel Greek–Latin edition, edited by Gottfried Jungermann, which translates this passage as follows:

τὸ δὲ λεαῖνον τὰ σιτία, τραπέζας και τὰς κοιλότητας, όλαίσκους. τὸ συναμφότερον φάτνας, ὴ φάτνίας. καὶ σύμπας μὲν ὁ τῶν ὀδόντων στοῖχος φραγμὸς.

partem autem, quae cibum conterit, mensulas, ipsosque sinus, mortariola, utraque autem simul, phatnas aut phatnias nominant. Totus autem ordo, septum.

And they call the part [of the molars] which grinds food, the tables, and the hollow, the mortars, and both together, phatnas or phatnias, and the whole row, the fence.

_{Julius Pollux (2nd century). Onomasticon 2.93. Latin translation by Gottfried Jungermann (1706), p. 200. Amsterdam: Officina Wetsteniana. Diacritics as printed.}

_{Note that this has slightly different Greek text from that quoted in the question, which comes from the 1824 Dindorf edition, volume 1, p. 98.}

Perhaps this is clearer in tabular form:

English	Latin (Jungermann)	Greek (Pollux)
cusps	mensulas (= tables)	τραπέζας
grooves	mortariola (= mortars)	όλαίσκους
crown?	phatnas/phatnias	φάτνας/φάτνίας
side? arch?	septum (= fence)	φραγμὸς

The fact that Jungermann has had to transliterate and not translate shows that he didn’t know the proper Latin equivalent of φάτνας. Liddell and Scott have this under the headword φάτν-η meaning “manger”:

φάτν-η A. manger, crib […] III. socket of tooth, Poll. 2.93.

_{Henry George Liddell & Robert Scott. A Greek-English Lexicon. Revised by Henry Stuart Jones & Roderick McKenzie (1940). Oxford: Clarendon Press. Via perseus.tufts.edu.}

But even if their etymology is correct, the definition seems wrong, as Pollux clearly says that φάτνας refers to cusps and grooves συναμφότερον (= both together). It’s not clear whether this means pairs of cusps and the corresponding grooves on the other jaw into which they fit; or whether this means adjacent cusps and grooves on the same tooth, but a derivation from “manger” would suggest the latter, so that “crown” would be a more plausible definition than “socket”.