Note 429 — Chapter II · THE HELLENIC PEOPLE GENERALLY, IN THE EARLY HISTORICAL TIMES.
Reading edition
Stephan. Byz. v. Γραικὸς.—Γραῖκες δὲ παρὰ τῷ Ἀλκμᾶνι αἱ τῶν Ἑλλήνων μητέρες, καὶ παρὰ Σοφοκλεῖ ἐν Ποίμεσιν. ἐστὶ δὲ μεταπλασμὸς, ἢ τῆς Γραὶξ εὐθείας κλίσις ἐστίν.
The word Γραῖκες, in Alkman, meaning “the mothers of the Hellenes,” may well be only a dialectic variety of γρᾶες, analogous to κλᾲξ and ὄρνιξ, for κλεὶς, ὄρνις, etc. (Ahrens, De Dialecto Doricâ, sect. 11, p. 91; and sect. 31, p. 242), perhaps declined like γυναῖκες.
The term used by Sophoklês, if we may believe Photius, was not Γραικὸς, but Ῥαικός (Photius, p. 480, 15; Dindorf, Fragment. Soph. 933: compare 455). Eustathius (p. 890) seems undecided between the two.