The ancients [sc. used this verb to mean] to reply.[1] And hence [comes the noun] actor (u(pokrith\s), he who is replying to the chorus. Thucydides [in book] 7 [writes]: “if they did not answer, they were killed”.[2] Also the Ionian [writers]; thus Herodotus [writes]: “after they answered [with] these things, they departed from the Athenians”.[3]
Polybius [writes]: “some of the young men went to meet the people around Gaius, joking with one another, as if they were answering those returning from a carouse; being even more changed by their drunkenness [...]”.[4]