After a little pondering it occurs to me that the reference MIGHT be to the
Democritean and later Epicurean word for "ultimately indivisible particle
of matter"--our own word "atom" derives from the Greek adjective used as a
substantive, ATOMOS, which derives from Alpha privative and TEMNW/TAMNW
(same root as in PERI-TOMH, "circumcision", "cut," hence "unable to be
cut/divided."
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University
One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO, USA 63130
(314) 935-4018
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cwc@oui.com
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/