Also Photius tau.609.18, Anecdota graeca, ed. L. Bachmann 391.20. The entry in Apollonius the Sophist (Lex. Hom. 156.3-5) glosses two Homeric uses: Il. 5.831, where Athena calls Ares a τυκτὸν κακόν , and Od. 17.207, of a spring that is not natural (sch. ad loc.) but handmade (perhaps dug by a pick, cf. tau 1148, or perhaps decorated by worked surfaces, cf. tau 375, tau 428). Apollonius takes Athena’s insult in the simple sense of a “great evil,” but the scholia have the more interesting idea that Athena calls him an evil not (or not only) belonging to nature but created artificially (ἐπιτηδευτόν, κατ’ ἐπιτήδευσιν ), presumably by men to suit their needs. This interpretation appears the correct one.
For the related perfect passive see tau 420, and for the apparently alternative form τευκτόν see tau 428. For the argument that the root verb referred to the accurate strokes of craftsmen hammering or chiseling surfaces such as bronze, gold, stone and ivory in the arts known today as chasing, sphyrelaton, engraving and relief sculpture see tau 375, nu 211 (citing sch. Theocritus 1.28), tau 1148. Berlage takes exactly the opposite position in the article cited below, that τυκτός, τετυγμένος, ποιητός are metrically useful epithets for wonderful creations.