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Cleon and the Spartiates in Aristophanes' Knights

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

E. K. Borthwigk
E. K. Borthwigk
Affiliation:
University of Edinburgh
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Extract

In 394 most editors of the Knights read , cited uniquely from this passage in the lexica, in the sense ‘dry up, parch’ (the simple is said to mean , Hdn. Gr. 2. 132, although it nowhere occurs in extant literature; but cf. avos, etc.), referring, for the condition and appearance of the prisoners after long captivity and privations, to Nub. 186, where the allusion is to the squalor and emaciation of the Socratics. Now Aristophanes' skill in maintaining allusively an image, once a keyword has been supplied, makes me wonder how line 394 was intended to complete the metaphor of the harvest and the crop in 392–3.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 19 , Issue 2 , December 1969 , pp. 243 - 244
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1969

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References

1 in the Suda's quotation of Thesm. 216 is certainly a corruption of . L.S.J, pass in silence over in Pax 1144, accepting instead . The former should be read, but in the sense ‘scoop, or draw out’—see my article ‘The verb avui and its compounds’ (see below, pp. 306 ff.).

2 ‘Soumet au regime de la faim’ (Van Daele).

3 The simple verb occurs (dubiously) in Ar. fr. 694, in the sense ‘peel’, but Eust. 801. 60, referring to Paus. Gr. (fr. 21), quotes . ‘This unusual form of a rare verb does not occur in Pax as we have it. Again it seems likely that the citer has given a wrong reference’ (Plat-nauer, Peace, Introd. xix). It is conceivable, I suppose, that the source was Eq. 394 itself, the simple verb being quoted instead of the compound.

4 Cf. schol. Thesm. .

1 Cf. schol. Luc. Tim. 30 Similar accusations occur also in Ach. 6 (with schol.), Nub. 591, Vesp. 759.

2 Il. 18. 553.

3 See Holden's note on Xen. Oec. 18. 3. 21. It would be additionally attractive if the fifth-century Athenians used wooden threshing-floors, but I do not find this to be the case.