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Aristophanes, Lysistrata, 641–6471

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Christiane Sourvinou
Christiane Sourvinou
Affiliation:
St. Hilda's College, Oxford
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Extract

This passage has been used—and abused—for the study of Athenian female initiations, or, more cautiously, of the practice of the arkteia at Brauron. As it is, it poses more problems that it solves. Most of all, it complicates the question of the age of the arktoi. In fact the scholium seems prima facie to contradict the text, when on v. 645 it says that the ‘bears’ were not more than ten years and not less than five years old, while the accepted text of Aristophanes decisively implies an age greater than ten years. The situation is even more obscured by another indication pointing towards an association of the arkteia with the age of ten, the equation of the verb dekateusai with arkteusai.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 21 , Issue 2 , December 1971 , pp. 339 - 342
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1971

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References

page 339 note 2 See for discussion Deubner, L., Attische Feste (Berlin, 1932), 207Google Scholar and n. 4; Ghali-Kahil, L. in Antike Kunst, viii (1965), 25Google Scholar, and most recently Brelich, A., Paides e Parthenoi (Rome, 1969), 266 fGoogle Scholar.

page 339 note 3 Harpocration s.v. dekateuein mentions the equivalence of the two terms as occurring in Lysias, and derives its origin from the fact that it was the ten–year–olds who became ‘bears’. The incorrectness of his speculation must not affect the validity of this last observation. As Brelich writes (op. cit. 266): ‘Non bisogna tuttavia trascurare che l‘affermazione secondo cui "le decenni compivano Varkteia" non appare come una deduzione fondata sul terminer anzi, l‘interpretazione erronea del termine non sarebbe stata possibile, se non fosse stata suggerita dal fatto che ragazze decenni realmente facevano le arktoi.’

page 339 note 4 Cf. Schol. Ar. Lys. 645.

page 339 note 5 Op. cit. 273.

page 340 note 1 Γ = Laurentianus plut. 31. 15 and Leidensis Voss. Gr. F. 52; B = Parisinus inter Regios 2715; C = Parisinus inter Regios 2717.

page 340 note 2 Bekker, I., Aristophanis Comoediae cum Scholiis et varietate lectionis, vol. iv (London, 1829), 388Google Scholar; cf. also Dindorf, G., Aristophanis Comoediae, vol. iii, Annotations (Oxford, 1837) 789fGoogle Scholar.,

page 340 note 3 CR N.S. ii (1952), 135.

page 340 note 4 Cf. Brelich, op. cit. 242–6.

page 340 note 5 Schol. Ar. Lys. 645.

page 340 note 6 Most recently by Brelich, op. cit. 262 f.; cf. Clement, P. in Ant. Class, iii (1934), 407 fGoogle Scholar.

page 340 note 7 Op. cit. 393–409.

page 341 note 1 See p. 340 n. 6 above.

page 341 note 2 Antike Kunst, viii (1965), 20–33Google Scholar.

page 341 note 3 This was the text adopted by Bekker (op. cit., vol. i), but it earned an early unpopularity. (: Hermann, G., Sophoclis Tragoediae Septem, vol. i (London, 1827)Google Scholar, preface at Oed. R., p. cxlvii.)

page 341 note 4 Schol. Ar. Lys. 644 .

page 342 note 1 For arguments against Brelich, ' contrary opinion (op. cit. passim) see my forthcoming review of Paides e Parthenoi in JHS xci (1971), 172–7Google Scholar.

page 342 note 2 Cf. Brelich, op. cit. 241.

page 342 note 3 Cf. Schol. Ar. Lys. 645 (2):παρθένον

page 342 note 4 Brelich, op. cit. 241, 259, andn. 52 with bibliography.