οὐλαί + βίος
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English translation (etymon)
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Quotation
Ὄλβιος δέ ἐστιν ὁ τὸν ὅλον βίον, ἤτοι τὸν τῆς ζωῆς πάντα χρόνον, ἐν εὐδαιμονίᾳ διάγων. τινὲς δὲ ὄλβιόν φασι κυρίως τὸν ἀπὸ γεωργίας πλούσιον, οὗ ἐν ὀλαῖς ἤτοι κριθαῖς ὁ βίος, ἃς καὶ οὐλὰς ἡ ποίησις λέγει, ἐξ ὧν ὡς ἀπὸ μέρους τὰ ἐκ γῆς δηλοῦται ἀγαθά.
Translation (En)
Is prosperous (olbios) the man who lives his entire life (ton holon bion), that is, all the time of his life, in happiness. But some say olbqios properly refers to the the man who is rich from his harvest, whose riches (bios) consists in olais, that is, barley, which poetry also calls oulai, from which the good things of the earth are referred to through a part of them.
Parallels
ibid., 3, 155 (Πυρῶν δὲ καὶ κριθῶν ἡ παραβολὴ ἐμνήσθη οὐ μόνον διὰ τὸ τῶν σπερμάτων τούτων εὔχρηστον καὶ πολύχρηστον, ἀλλὰ καὶ ὅτι τοιούτοις ἐνευθηνοῦνται οἱ μάκαρες, οἳ καὶ ὄλβιοι, ὡς καὶ ἐν ἄλλοις δηλοῦται, λέγονται, ὡς ἐν ὀλαῖς, ὅ ἐστι κριθαῖς, τοῦ βίου ὄντος αὐτοῖς)
Comment
Compositional etymology parsing the second member of the compound as βἰος in the meaning "means of living" rather than "life", and the first member as an old name of barley, used in religious ceremonies. Therefore the prosperous man is the one who "has his living from barley". The morphological segmentation is identical with the usual interpretation of ὄλβιος as "(happy) through one's entire life" (διὰ τὸν ὅλον βίον), mentioned first but the identification of the first member is different.