The lines come from the messenger's speech describing the attack of the Delphians on Neoptolemus, a passage which I have discussed elsewhere in connexion with the tradition of Neoptolemus as inventor of the armed Pyrrhic dance. LSJ seem to be in several minds about the meaning and connexion of some of the words describing the missiles used by the Delphians. S.v. ‘σφαγεύς’, they give ‘sacrificial knife, spit’ uniquely of a word elsewhere meaning ‘slayer, murderer’, etc.. S.v. ‘βουπόρος’, they cite ἀμφωβόλοι (...) σφαγῆς … βουπόροι ‘spitst fit to pierce an ox's throat’—i.e. taking σφαγῆς as gen. sing., rather oddly dependent on βουπόροι. S.v. ‘ἔκλυτος’, they quote this passage, again uniquely, in the sense ‘easy to let go, light, buoyant, of missiles’. This last seems even less likely than Wecklein's ohne Riemen or the Budé's doubles dards sans poignée, which presumably invoke a rather frigid contrast of the true javelins fitted with thongs and the spits, sharp at both ends, which were pressed into service of a similar sort, but of course had to be thrown without this attachment: but these implements could hardly be described as ἔκλυτοι of thongs which they never had at all in the first place!With Murray's punctuation, since a combination of a, b, c τε, d is scarcely credible, σφαγῆς βουπόροι is presumably not to be taken as the description of a separate type of weapon, but as an explanatory appositional phrase with ἀμφώβολοι. This interpretation is found in the schol, ὀβελίσκοι σφάττειν δυνάμενοι and followed by Hermann and Paley. (shrink)

The lack of stage directions in surviving Greek comedy which might give a clue to comic ‘business’ not clearly signalled or confirmed in the text is a considerable disadvantage to us, not least in some of the opening tableaux of Aristophanes. One thinks of restless father and snoring son in bed at the opening ofClouds, the jokes involving the incongruous entry of master, slave, donkey and baggage inFrogs, the preparations for launching the dung-beetle into space inPeace– all scenes which demand (...) visual as well as verbal effects in order to engage immediate attention and get the audience into a lively humour for what is to come. In the opening scene ofWaspsbetween the slaves engaged in their nocturnal vigil over Philocleon, there are a number of points implied by the verbal references which seem to me to depend for clarification on their actions, and perhaps also the stage properties involved. (shrink)

In the second book of the De Musica, Aristides Quintilianus discourses at length on the educational value of music, drawing on many earlier sources, Pythagorean, Damonian, and of course Plato and Aristotle. In ch. 6 Plato's censorious views in the Republic are particularly referred to, but, like Aristotle in the eighth book of his Politics, Aristides takes a less severe attitude towards the pleasure-giving content of melody on appropriate occasions, and points to the natural human taste for such music: τς (...) δ σεως κα τ τοιατα παιτοσης, μποδίζειν μν δνατον , τν δ νσεων τν λιμον προκριτον. (shrink)

There can be few Greek prose authors who outdo Plutarch in fondness for elaborate similes, and a determination to sustain at length vocabulary appropriate to both objects of comparison within the simile, once it is embarked upon. In the essay Quomodo adulescens he uses a favourite image, in which a young man aspiring to be educated in quality literature is recommended to follow the example of the bee, which extracts material for its honey from the most pungent plants: μν ον (...) μλιττα υσικς ν τος δριμνττοις νθεσι κα τας τραχντταις κνθαις ξανενρσκει τ λειτατον μλι κα χρησιμτατον, ο δ παδες, ν ρθς ντρωνται τος ποιμασιν, κα π τν αλονς κα τπους ποψας χντων λκειν τι χρσιμον μωσγπως μαθησναι κα λιμον. In another such essay he elaborates this theme at greater length as follows. (shrink)

In the second book of the De Musica, Aristides Quintilianus discourses at length on the educational value of music, drawing on many earlier sources, Pythagorean, Damonian, and of course Plato and Aristotle. In ch. 6 Plato's censorious views in the Republic are particularly referred to, but, like Aristotle in the eighth book of his Politics, Aristides takes a less severe attitude towards the pleasure-giving content of melody on appropriate occasions, and points to the natural human taste for such music: τ⋯ς (...) δ ϕὺσεως κα τ τοιατα παιτοσης, μποδίζειν μν δνατον, τν δ νσεων τν ὠϕλιμον προκριτον. (shrink)

Bowra , referring to the image of the , and to the striking impression , states ‘Pindar seems to fuse two unusually disparate images into a single result… While the sheddingof leaves implies that he would have grown old without winning any wide renown, the cock means that such renown as he would have got would have beenof little account in the Greek world at large.’ Gildersleeve's comment ad loc, ‘The thus becomes a flower’, implies a similar assumption, that the (...) secondimage is entirely unconnected with the first. (shrink)

Gow and Page are of the opinion that Planudes’ àένναος in the fifth line of this epigram may be not his conjecture but the true reading, and reject Jacobs' commonly received emendation àєί λáνος, with κηρο in the following line. But I have no doubt that for the two words μέν àλανóς we should read μєμαλαγαγμένος for ó μєμαλαγαγμένος κηρóς is the regular gloss1 on the waxy substance called μàλθα or μàλθα which was used in Athens—at the time of Sophocles (...) himself2—particularly for spreading on wooden writing-tablets. It was surmised by Schwabe that μàλθη had been the word glossed in Ael. Dion. Two entries in Pollux are especially important for establishing the use ofmaltha. In 10. 58–9, describing it as ό ένών т πινακίδί κηρϳς, he quotes passages from Herodotus , Cratinus , and Aristophanes referring to the soft wax which could easily be scraped from writing-tablets to erase writing. In 8. 16 he says it is the wax spread on the dicasts’ πινáκιον тιμηтικóν, from scratching on which the ‘long line’ of condemnation it will be remembered that Athenian philheliasts got wax under their finger-nails. (shrink)

In a recent article I drew attention to the fact that the well-known fable of the improvident cicada and the industrious ant has a close resemblance to the story of the twin brothers Amphion and Zethus and their classic debate on the respective merits of the artistic and practical life in Euripides' Antiope, which is reflected not only in the argument of Callicles and Socrates in the Gorgias and Horace, Ep. i. 18.

Bowra, referring to the image of the, and to the striking impression, states ‘Pindar seems to fuse two unusually disparate images into a single result… While the sheddingof leaves implies that he would have grown old without winning any wide renown, the cock means that such renown as he would have got would have beenof little account in the Greek world at large.’ Gildersleeve's comment ad loc, ‘The thus becomes a flower’, implies a similar assumption, that the secondimage is entirely (...) unconnected with the first. (shrink)

‘Quid vero fit, quod poeta hanc plantam, tanquam munus locustae inprimis gratum, commemoret, nemo dixit; nee ego dicere possum’—so Jacobs in his note on the seventh line of this epigram. Among later commentators, Mackail thinks ‘can hardly mean “leek” here’ and he assumes it to be ‘groundsel’; Dain in the Budé edition is satisfied with the rather prosaic explanation that it is an ‘observation très juste … la cigale ne se nourrit que des sues des plantes’. I hope to show (...) that the diet of leeks and dewdrops from the mouth is promised by the love-sick swain of Meleager's poem for the same specific reason—to refresh the grasshopper's ‘voice’ for a new day's beguilement by song and persuasion to the sleep which will again free him from the cares of love. Although the ancients were aware of the means by which such insects produced their incessant sound, they remained faithful to the poetic tradition, which made them drink dew as a prelude to their singing, first found in Hesiod, Scut. 395, and clearly expressed in a couplet of Antipater of Thessalonica. (shrink)

The literary contest of the two tragedians in Frogs is introduced by four stanzas redolent of Homeric combat, with their predominantly dactylic metre and a number of high-flown epic words. I am surprised that several editors prefer the reading ὑψλøωυ at 818, as íππóλοøος surely has a resonance of íπποκορυστς of Iliad 2.1, etc. The readings and sense, however, of both halves of 819 have long been controversial. As Dover suggested in his 1993 edition the MSS ‘linch-pins of splinters’ is (...) less satisfactory than his proposed transposition to ‘splintering of linch-pins' , which suggests a recollection of the dangers of chariot accidents or collisions, as in the funeral games of Il. 23. But the following expression ‘shavings of deeds’ is even more puzzling, and highly improbable, and Heiberg's emendation to σμιλο, agreeing with φωτÓς , is preferred by Stanford among others, though doubted by Dover. (shrink)

The literary contest of the two tragedians in Frogs is introduced by four stanzas redolent of Homeric combat, with their predominantly dactylic metre and a number of high-flown epic words. I am surprised that several editors prefer the reading ὑψὑλøωυ at 818, as íππóλοøος surely has a resonance of íπποκορυστ⋯ς of Iliad 2.1, etc. The readings and sense, however, of both halves of 819 have long been controversial. As Dover suggested in his 1993 edition the MSS ‘linch-pins of splinters’ is (...) less satisfactory than his proposed transposition to ‘splintering of linch-pins', which suggests a recollection of the dangers of chariot accidents or collisions, as in the funeral games of Il. 23. But the following expression ‘shavings of deeds’ is even more puzzling, and highly improbable, and Heiberg's emendation to σμιλο⋯, agreeing with φωτÓς, is preferred by Stanford among others, though doubted by Dover. (shrink)

Gow and Page are of the opinion that Planudes’ àένναος in the fifth line of this epigram may be not his conjecture but the true reading, and reject Jacobs' commonly received emendation àєί λáνος, with κηρο in the following line. But I have no doubt that for the two words μέν àλανóς we should read μєμαλαγαγμένος for ó μєμαλαγαγμένος κηρóς is the regular gloss1 on the waxy substance called μàλθα or μàλθα which was used in Athens—at the time of Sophocles (...) himself2—particularly for spreading on wooden writing-tablets. It was surmised by Schwabe that μàλθη had been the word glossed in Ael. Dion.Two entries in Pollux are especially important for establishing the use ofmaltha. In 10. 58–9, describing it as ό ένών т πινακίδί κηρϳς, he quotes passages from Herodotus, Cratinus, and Aristophanes referring to the soft wax which could easily be scraped from writing-tablets to erase writing. In 8. 16 he says it is the wax spread on the dicasts’ πινáκιον тιμηтικóν, from scratching on which the ‘long line’ of condemnation it will be remembered that Athenian philheliasts got wax under their finger-nails. (shrink)

In addition to the technical writers on music, a number of ancient authors, notably Plutarch and Athenaeus, have recorded several musical terms, either by way of illustrative material—Plutarch is particularly given to musical similes and metaphors—or in the course of anecdotes about music and musicians. As musical terminology in different ages contains words or phrases not only of general acceptance and familiarity, but other more ephemeral expressions which belong to the jargon of a narrower circle of executants and critics, it (...) is possible that the musical significance of such words, when used in an apparently non-musical context, has escaped notice. (shrink)

Every Greek scholar knows the celebrated lapsus linguae committed by the tragic actor Hegelochus at the Great Dionysia of 408 B.C., when he faltered in his enunciation of line 279 of Euripides' Orestes and gave the impression to the mirthful audience of having said I am surprised, however, that the commentators on this line have only partially explained the reason for its having seemed exceptonally funny.