ΑΠΟΔΊΔΩΜΙ

Abstract

The verb  ποδίδωμι has a basic meaning ‘give back’.1 Greek lexica also list a host of other uses such as ‘assign’, ‘render’, ‘concede’, ‘deliver’, ‘define’ and ‘return’,2 but none of these matches the way this word is used in the school scenes of the Colloquia of the Hermeneumata Pseudodositheana, a bilingually-composed text originally designed as an easy reader to help Roman schoolchildren learn Greek.3 In these texts  ποδίδωμι, consistently paired with reddo in the Latin, usually refers to recitation from memory,