ΔΡΟΜΟΣ (Dromos), ΚΩΜΑ (Κōma), ΠΕΖΟΣ (Pezos)
Three more ancient words, and we should be able to jump to the final section, the incredible taxonomy of highways, roads, trails, tracks, and paths that any decent Greek hiking map will distinguish!
Ancient Greek δρόμος (dromos) is a “running place”, from the aorist stem of τρέχω, (δραμ-) (trechō, dram-).
In Odyssey, Book 4, Telemachus very wisely and politely declines Menelaus’ offer of a gift of horses, because ἐν δʼ Ἰθάκῃ οὔτʼ ἂρ δρόμοι εὐρέες οὔτε τι λειμών, “in Ithaca there are neither wide places for horses to run, nor any meadows.” (Odyssey, 4.605).
The most famous use of this word dromos is in the compound ἱππόδρομος (hippodromos), the “hippodrome” or track for chariot-racing, the most famous of which was in Constantinople.
This “-drome” ending comes into English (and Modern Greek) in lots of forms—“velodrome”, “aerodrome”, and as we saw here in the very touristy part of Rhodes, ΚΑΡΤΑΔΡΟΜΟΣ (kartodromos), “go-cart track”, next to the mini-golf and the waterpark.
And let’s throw in κῶμα, kōma (kōma), an earth-work, dirt-mound, or dyke. In Book 1 of Herodotus, we read that Hypargus, one of the Persian King Cyrus’s generals, capturing the Asian Greek cities “by means of earthworks” (αἵρεε τὰς πόλιας χώμασι) (Herodotus, 1.162).
In Modern Greek, it has come to mean just “dirt”, generally, as in ΚΩΜΑ ΓΙΑ ΚΗΠΟ, garden soil, advertised in garden-centers along any road leading into the countryside.
And one more, πέζος, pezos (pezos). This meant “on foot”, as in Iliad 8.59, which lumps the whole Trojan army, as it comes out of the gates to fight, into πεζοί θʼ ἱππῆές τε, “those on foot and the horses”.