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It reminds one a little of Charles Kingsley's accomplished pupil-teacher, with his glib derivation of amphibious, 'from two Greek words, amphi, the land, and bios, the water. A detailed history of the root 'Chester' in its various British usages may serve to show how far such a rough-and-ready solution as the pupil-teacher's falls short of complete accuracy and comprehensiveness.
All the other quarters of the capital, and all the provinces of the empire, were embellished by the same liberal spirit of public magnificence, and were filled with amphi theatres, theatres, temples, porticoes, triumphal arches, baths and aqueducts, all variously conducive to the health, the devotion, and the pleasures of the meanest citizen.
Open Homer anywhere, and the casual grandeur of his untranslatable language appears; such lines as: amphi de naees smerdaleon konabaesan ausanton hup' Achaion. That, you might say, is Homer at his ease; when he exerts himself you get a miracle like: su den strophalingi koniaes keiso megas megalosti, lelasmenos hipposunaon.
The horsemen who had received orders to bring him away alive, were now approaching the house. As soon as he heard them coming, he uttered with a trembling voice the following verse, Hippon m' okupodon amphi ktupos ouata ballei; The noise of swift-heel'd steeds assails my ears; he drove a dagger into his throat, being assisted in the act by Epaphroditus, his secretary.
These were the officers charged with his arrest; and if he should fall into their hands alive, he knew that his last chance was over for liberating himself, by a Roman death, from the burthen of ignominious life, and from a lingering torture. He paused from his restless motions, listened attentively, then repeated a line from Homer Ippon m' ochupodon amphi chtupos ouata ballei
You had better, then, ask the nearest Government pupil-teacher, who may possibly answer you smartly enough, thus "Amphibious. Adjective, derived from two Greek words, amphi, a fish, and bios, a beast. An animal supposed by our ignorant ancestors to be compounded of a fish and a beast; which therefore, like the hippopotamus, can't live on the land, and dies in the water."
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