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ARISTOTLE ON HOMER ON EELS AND FISH IN ILIAD BOOK 21

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 December 2020

Robert Mayhew
Robert Mayhew*
Affiliation:
Seton Hall University
*
[email protected]
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Extract

The phrase ἐγχέλυές τε καὶ ἰχθύες (‘eels and fish’) appears twice in Iliad Book 21, in descriptions of actions involving the river Xanthus:

      τὸν μὲν ἄρ’ ἐγχέλυές τε καὶ ἰχθύες ἀμφεπένοντο (203)
      the eels and fish dealt with him [sc. Asteropaeus].
      τείροντ᾽ ἐγχέλυές τε καὶ ἰχθύες οἱ κατὰ δίνας (353)
      distressed were the eels and fish beneath the eddies.
The context in which these verses appear is not that important here, as this combination of words itself raised an interpretative problem in the minds of some ancient Homeric scholars: why did Homer distinguish eels and fish when eels are a kind of fish? For instance, according to Aristonicus, Aristarchus flagged both passages ‘because Homer distinguished the eels from the fish’—and Homer would not have done that, is the implication, or it is puzzling that he did so, as he must have known that eels are a kind of fish.

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Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 70 , Issue 2 , December 2020 , pp. 639 - 649
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Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association

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Footnotes

I would like to thank the journal's referee for enthusiastically supporting my thesis, and especially for an astonishing number of helpful comments. (Such feedback prompted me, for instance, to add notes 8–10.) I am also grateful to Gregory Nagy and his colleagues at the Center for Hellenic Studies for two one-day visits, during which I worked a great deal on this essay.

References

1 Translations from the Greek are my own. Asteropaeus was killed by Achilles and tossed into the river. In the following verse (204), Homer explains how the eels and fish dealt with him: ‘feeding upon and tearing the fat on his kidneys’ (δημὸν ἐρεπτόμενοι ἐπινεφρίδιον κείροντες).

2 The result of Hephaestus’ fiery attack on the river.

3 Schol. AT Il. 21.353a Ariston. (Erbse): «ἐγχέλυές τε καὶ ἰχθύες»: ὅτι διέστειλε τὰς ἐγχέλεις ἀπὸ τῶν ἰχθύων (see Venetus A [fol. 277r] and Burney MS 86 [fol. 235v]). Cf. the first half of schol. A Il. 21.203a Ariston. (Erbse): ὅτι Ὅμηρος διαστέλλει τὰς ἐγχέλυας ἀπὸ τῶν ἰχθύων⋅ καὶ ἑξῆς⋅ «τείροντ’ ἐγχέλυές τε καὶ ἰχθύες» (see Venetus A [fol. 274r]).

4 Richardson, N., The Iliad: A Commentary, vol. 6: Books 21–24 (Cambridge, 1993)Google Scholar twice (at 70 and at 82) passes over these words without comment. Some other examples of modern scholarship on ἐγχέλυές τε καὶ ἰχθύες: C. Hünemörder, ‘Eel’, BNP (online, 2006) offers a wrong-headed explanation: ‘In the Iliad (21, 203; 353) [the eel is] contrasted with fish as an amphibian.’ West, M.L., The Making of the Iliad (Oxford, 2011)Google Scholar, 377 marked Il. 21.202–4 as suspect for different reasons: ‘the fight has taken place not on a sandy shore but on a hard, high bank, a κρημνός (168 ff., cf. 26, 234), and 203 f. show the same taste for the macabre as [126–35]’ (his brackets, indicating what he regards as a likely interpolation). In Homerus Ilias, vol. 2 (Munich and Leipzig, 2000), 249, West merely indicates in his apparatus criticus that Düntzer condemned lines 203–4.

5 The first publication of P.Oxy. 221 was in Grenfell, B. and Hunt, A., The Oxyrhynchus Papyrus Part II (London, 1899)Google Scholar, which contains an introduction (52–8), followed by text (58–75) and commentary (75–85). On the relationship between P.Oxy. 221 and the bT scholia in the present case, see M. van der Valk, Researches on the Text and Scholia of the Iliad, Part One (Leiden, 1963), 439, and Erbse, H., Scholia Graeca in Homeri Iliadem (Scholia Vetera), vol. 5 (Berlin, 1977)Google Scholar, 78.

6 On the nature of this work, see R. Mayhew, Aristotle's Lost Homeric Problems: Textual Studies (Oxford, 2019), ch. 1 and Verhasselt, G., ‘Did Homer nod off? Aristotle and Homeric problem-solving’, in Mesquita, A.P., Noriega-Olmos, S. and Shields, C.J.I. (edd.), Revisiting Aristotle's Fragments: New Essays on the Fragments of Aristotle's Lost Works (Berlin, 2020), 221–62Google Scholar.

7 I consulted a digital photograph of P.Oxy. 221. But as papyri are outside my area of expertise, I for the most part print the edition of F. Montanari, ‘24. Aristoteles 30T’, in F. Adorno et al. (edd.), Corpus dei Papiri Filosofici Greci e Latini. Parte I: Autori noti 1* (Florence, 1989), 319–26, at 320. However, he excluded the last sentence of the comment on ἐγχέλυές τε καὶ ἰχθύες in Il. 21.203, as he is presenting material from Aristotle's Historia animalium, which is not the source of the excluded line. Therefore, I have in this case followed Grenfell and Hunt, and Erbse. The three editions of the relevant sections of P.Oxy. 221 (Grenfell and Hunt, Erbse, and Montanari) are fairly similar (except that Grenfell and Hunt omit accents, breathing marks and punctuation), and their minor differences need not concern me. For commentary, see Grenfell and Hunt (n. 5), 79–80 and Montanari (this note), 322–4.

8 The parallel passage in Arist. Hist. an. 6.16 (discussed below) has οὔτ’ ᾠοτοκοῦσιν (‘nor do they lay eggs’) (570a3–4). The P.Oxy. 221 reading, however, is implied in schol. T Il. 21.203 (Burney MS 86 [fol. 233r]): οὔτε ζωὰ τίκτουσιν (see n. 22 below). (Eust. Il. 21.203–4 [vol. 4, page 485 Van der Valk] has the same.) Athenaeus (in a passage discussed below) was aware of both readings or was relying on a different text, as he writes οὔτε ᾠοτοκούσας οὔτε ζωοτοκούσας (Deipn. 7.298c).

9 Where P.Oxy. 221 has γῆς ἐντέρ⟦ι̣κ̣⟧ων {ης} α[ὐ]τό|μαται συνίστανται, etc., the parallel passage in Arist. Hist. an. 6.16 has γῆς ἐντέρων ἃ αὐτόματα συνίσταται, etc. (570a15–16). The most significant difference is between αὐτόμαται (fem. pl.) and αὐτόματα (neut. pl.): the former is claiming that eels are formed spontaneously, whereas Aristotle is attributing spontaneous generation to the so-called earth-guts. The difference between συνίστανται and συνίσταται is not problematic, as αὐτόματα is neuter plural. (One family of manuscripts of the Historia animalium [γ], however, does have συνίστανται.) This confusion or discrepancy probably explains the corrupt ης in the papyrus (where Aristotle has ἃ).

10 I retain ἐξυσθέν|τ[ο]ς—defended by Erbse (n. 5) and Montanari (n. 7) as an aorist participle with augment—though it may be an error for ἐξοισθέντος (an uncommon form of the passive aorist participle of ἐκφέρω). The manuscripts of the Historia animalium give us variant readings for the parallel text at 6.16.570a9, reported as follows in the apparatus criticus in D. Balme, Aristotle: Historia Animalium, vol. 1: Books I–X: Text (Prepared for publication by A. Gotthelf) (Cambridge, 2002), 298: ξυσθέντος (α), ἐξοισθέντος (β Ea), ἐξοσθέντος (P Kc Mc), ἐξωσθέντος (Lc m n Ald.). Balme adopted ἐξοισθέντος.

11 On the later reference to eels and fish at Il. 21.353, P.Oxy. 221 merely states: [τείρο]ν[τ’ ἐ]γχ[έ]|[λυές τε κ]αὶ ἰχθύες<:> [ὅ]τι κεχωρισ[μένοι ἐγ]χ̣έλυες καὶ ἰχθύες.

12 Regarding the translation of κατ’ ἐξοχήν, note LSJ s.v. ἡ ἐξοχή: ‘II. metaph., pre-eminence … κατ’ ἐξοχήν par excellence …’.

13 Montanari (n. 7), 321 comments: ‘nel senso di “né le colombe né gli altri uccelli”’.

14 The authors I am discussing use three terms to describe the material the eels are found in and in which they are said to generate spontaneously: ἰλύς, πηλός and βόρβορος. They are in some cases synonymous. LSJ has: ἰλύς (mud, slime; dregs, sediment); πηλός (clay, earth; mud, mire); βόρβορος (mire, filth; distd. fr. πηλός, clay, moist earth). These authors are referring to two things: the mud and the decomposing material at the bottom of bodies of water. For consistency's sake, I translate these terms as follows: ἰλύς (‘sediment’), πηλός (‘mud’) and βόρβορος (‘mire’).

15 Or ‘carried away’, if ἐξοισθέντος is correct (see n. 10 above).

16 Presumably stagnant pools from which the water has not been drawn off entirely.

17 On Didymus (first century b.c.), see Van der Valk (n. 5), 536–53 and West, M.L., Studies in the Text and Transmission of the Iliad (Munich and Leipzig, 2001), 46–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 Grenfell and Hunt (n. 5), 80: ‘ἀμαρτύρως = “without quoting him in full”.’ Montanari (n. 7), 321 takes this to refer to Aristotle's claim about eels: ‘Aristotele afferma senza prove …’.

19 One could translate this: ‘In [Book] 7, Didymus claims that he [sc. Aristotle] said’, etc., in which case this is referring to Book 7 of a work of Didymus (his commentary on the Iliad or his Περὶ τῆς Ἀρισταρχείου διορθώσεως). But I agree with Grenfell and Hunt (n. 5), 80 and with Montanari (n. 7), 321, who take the ζʹ to be referring to Hist. an. 7(8). Note that Balme (n. 10) re-established the manuscript order of the books, which had been changed by Theodore of Gaza and had subsequently been accepted by modern editors. Following Balme's notation, ‘7(8)’ means Book 7 in the manuscripts, Book 8 in modern editions.

20 Van der Valk (n. 5), 439 writes that ‘[w]e can take it for granted that the other quotation from Aristotle … likewise goes back to Didymus’. I rather doubt this because of the contrast between the long, near-verbatim quotation and the brief paraphrase, together with the position of the reference to Didymus (directly preceding the latter).

21 A unique kind of animal or a unique kind of fish, though other interpretations are possible. See n. 30 below.

22 The relevant bT scholia present a condensed version of this comment on Il. 21.203, with an additional line (namely the penultimate one). Here is schol. bT Il. 21.203b (Erbse), with the material in the T-scholium but not in the b-scholia italicized in the translation (cf. Eust. Il. 21.203–4 [vol. 4, page 485 Van der Valk]):

«ἐγχέλυες»: χωρίζει αὐτὰς τῶν ἰχθύων, ἐπεὶ οὔτε ἐξ ὀχείας γίνονται οὔτε ζωὰ τίκτουσιν οὔτε σπερματικοὺς οὔθ’ ὑστερικοὺς ἔχουσι πόρους. οὐκ εἰς θῆλυ καὶ ἄρρεν διακρίνονται, ἀλλ’ ἐκ τῶν καλουμένων γῆς ἐντέρων αὐτόματα συνίστανται [see n. 9 above] ἐν τῷ πηλῷ, ζῶσι δὲ ὄμβρῳ καὶ ὕδατι. φασὶ δὲ καὶ ἀλληλοφάγους αὐτὰς εἶναι καὶ ζῆν ἑπτὰ ἢ ὀκτὼ ἔτη. καὶ ἐν τῷ ἀγορανομικῷ δὲ νόμῳ Ἀθηναίων διέσταλται ἰχθύων καὶ ἐγχελύων τέλη. καί φησιν ὡς καὶ οἱ ἐν βάθει ἰχθύες ἀνέβρασσον ἐσθίοντες αὐτόν. ἢ ὅτι μάλιστα τῶν ἄλλων ἰχθύων σαρκοφαγοῦσιν.

‘eels’: [Homer] separates them from the fish, since they neither come to be from copulation nor give birth to live young nor do they have seminal or womb passages. And they are not separated into female and male, rather they are formed out of the so-called earth-guts spontaneously in the mud, and live by the rain water. And [people] also claim that they eat each other and live seven or eight years. And in the market-regulation laws of the Athenians too, taxes on fish have been distinguished from those on eels. And [Homer] states that in fact the fish in the deep eating him [sc. Asteropaeus] were boiling. Or because [the eels] above all of the other fish are meat-eaters.

See Venetus B (fol. 283v) and Burney MS 86 (fol. 233r). The one line that does not overlap with our P.Oxy. 221 passage is the reference to boiling. The scholiast (or his source) must have combined the two scenes that refer to eels and fish, their eating of Asteropaeus (203) and their being boiled by the fires of Hephaestus (353–68). Cf. schol. T Il. 21.353c (Erbse): ὑπερβολὴ τὸ κατὰ βάθη κάεσθαι.

23 For schol. bT Il. 21.203b, see the previous note; for the first half of schol. A Il. 21.203a, see n. 3 above. And see n. 12 above on κατ’ ἐξοχήν.

24 See also Hist. an. 3.10.517b7, 4.11.538a1–13, 6.14.569a6 and 7(8).30.608a5; and Gen. an. 2.5.741a38–b2 and 3.11.762b18–24.

25 Edition used: Balme (n. 10).

26 See n. 8 above.

27 See n. 10 above.

28 D.W. Thompson, The Works of Aristotle Translated into English, vol. 4: Historia Animalium (Oxford, 1910), n. p. ad loc. translates it ‘the river eel’; D. Balme, Aristotle: History of Animals: Books VII–X (Cambridge, MA, 1991), 99 translates it ‘river fishes’. Balme is probably right, though what matters here is what Didymus thinks.

29 Cf. Gen. an. 2.5.741a38–b2: οὔτε δὲ θήλεα οὔτε ἄρρενα καὶ ἐν τῷ τῶν ἰχθύων γένει ἐστίν, οἷον αἵ τ’ ἐγχέλεις καὶ γένος τι κεστρέων περὶ τοὺς τελματιαίους ποταμούς (‘there are also in the genos of fish [some] that are neither female nor male, for instance the eels and one genos of mullet around marshland rivers’).

30 The adjective μονογενές usually means ‘only begotten’ (see e.g. Aesch. Ag. 898) or ‘only kind’. It does not appear in Aristotle's surviving corpus, though it is found three times in the third book of his colleague Theophrastus’ Historia plantarum—to indicate that there is only one kind of beech (3.10.1), one kind of yew (3.10.2) and one kind of alder (3.14.3). Montanari (n. 7), 321 takes μονογενής to mean ‘having only one gender’, and that may well be right.

31 S. von Reden, ‘Agoranomoi’, BNP (online, 2006): ‘Agoranomoi regulated the markets in Greek poleis and are documented in both inscriptions and literature from c.120 cities of the 5th cent. b.c. to the 3rd cent. a.d.’

32 J.J. Keaney, The Composition of Aristotle's Athenaion Politeia: Observation and Explanation (Oxford, 1992) supports the former, while P.J. Rhodes, A Commentary on the Aristotelian Athenaion Politeia (Oxford, 1981) supports the latter. See also M. Chambers, Staat der Athener: Aristoteles Werke, vol. 10.1 (Berlin, 1990), 75–83.

33 Edition used: M. Chambers, Aristoteles. Ἀθηναίων πολιτεία (Stuttgart and Leipzig, 19942). For relevant commentary, see Rhodes (n. 32), 575–6; Chambers (n. 32), 371; and Stanley, P.V., ‘Agoranomoi and metronomoi’, Ancient World 2 (1979), 13–19Google Scholar.

34 I would like to thank Stefan Schorn for this suggestion, and for further assistance with the last line of our P.Oxy. passage. A. Dalby, Food in the Ancient World from A to Z (London, 2003), 125 writes: ‘The eel was one of the most sought-after of ancient delicacies.’ Lytle, E., ‘Fish lists in the wilderness: the social and economic history of a Boiotian price decree’, Hesperia 79 (2010), 253–303CrossRefGoogle Scholar—based on a detailed examination of an ‘enigmatic Hellenistic inscription on two stones from the Boiotian town of Akraiphia (SEG XXXII 450)’, which ‘consists chiefly of a long list of fish accompanied by numbers that are presumed to be prices’ (at 253)—reports that tuna steak and the Boeotian eel are ‘the two most expensive fish listed in the inscription’ (at 291). According to Stanley (n. 33), 16–17, the market-regulators were responsible for checking the quality of fish. See in this connection Ar. Ach. 873–96 and 960–8 (with S.D. Olson, Aristophanes: Acharnians [Oxford, 2002], 257 and 297), where eels are treated as a delicacy, and jokes are made about eels and a market tax (896) and eels and a threat to call the market-regulators (968).

35 P.Oxy. 221, col. XIV 27–34 is almost certainly a fragment from the Homeric Problems, on Il. 21.284–6, involving Achilles’ fight with the river Xanthus. See Mayhew (n. 6), 153–7.

36 See R. Mayhew, ‘Athenaeus’ Deipnosophistae 7 and Aristotle's lost Zoïka or On Fish’, in A.P. Mesquita, S. Noriega-Olmos and C.J.I. Shields (edd.), Revisiting Aristotle's Fragments: New Essays on the Fragments of Aristotle's Lost Works (Berlin, 2020), 109–40.

37 One quotation from the poet Archestratus (fr. 10 Olson–Sens) begins ‘I praise every eel’ (ἔγχελυν αἰνῶ μὲν πᾶσαν) (Ath. Deipn. 7.298e).

38 V. Rose, Aristotelis qui ferebantur librorum fragmenta (Leipzig, 1886) and O. Gigon, Aristotelis opera (ex recensione I. Bekkeri, 2nd ed.), vol. 3: librorum deperditorum fragmenta (Berlin, 1987). Rose includes only the parts of the passage marked 1–3, and he did the same in his two earlier collections of Aristotle's fragments: Aristoteles pseudepigraphus, pars prima: fragmenta Aristotelis philosophica (Leipzig, 1863), 305 (fr. 282), and Aristotelis qui ferebantur librorum fragmenta. Aristotelis opera, vol. 5 (Berlin, 1870), 1529 (fr. 294).

39 Edition used: S.D. Olson, Athenaeus: The Learned Banqueters, Books 6–7 (Cambridge, MA, 2008).

40 Regarding the translation of 4b: this is the only way to understand the accusative (Ὅμηρον) and infinitive (εἰπεῖν). The translation of C.B. Gulick, Athenaeus: The Deipnosophists, vol. III: Books 7–8 (London, 1929), 337 makes this clear: ‘Hence, Aristotle says, Homer distinguished the nature of eels from that of fishes when he uttered the line’, etc. Olson's translation (n. 39), 383 does not: ‘This is the reason Homer distinguishes them from fish when he says the following’, etc.

41 τῶν δ’ ἐγχελέων τρέφονται μέν ὀλίγαι τινες καὶ ἐνιαχοῦ καὶ τῇ ἰλύϊ καὶ σιτίοις ἐάν τις παραβάλλῃ, αἱ μέντοι πλεῖσται τῷ ποτίμῳ ὕδατι⋅ καὶ τοῦτο τηροῦσιν οἱ ἐγχελυοτρόφοι ὅπως ὅτι μάλιστα καθαρὸν ᾖ, ἀπορρέον ἀεὶ καὶ ἐπιρρέον ἐπὶ πλαταμώνων, ἢ κονιῶντες τοὺς ἐγχελεῶνας. ἀποπνίγονται γὰρ ταχὺ ἐὰν μὴ καθαρὸν ᾖ τὸ ὕδωρ⋅ ἔχουσι γὰρ τὰ βράγχια μικρά. διόπερ ὅταν θηρεύωσι, ταράττουσι τὸ ὕδωρ⋅ καὶ ἐν τῷ Στρυμόνι δὲ περὶ Πλειάδα ἁλίσκονται⋅ τότε γὰρ ἀναθολοῦται τὸ ὕδωρ καὶ ὁ πηλὸς ὑπὸ πνευμάτων γινομένων ἐναντίων⋅ εἰ δὲ μή, συμφέρει ἡσυχίαν ἔχειν. (‘Of the eels, whereas some few and in some places feed both on sediment and on food if someone throws it [to them], the majority however [feed] on drinkable water; and eel-breeders watch for this, that [the water] should be as clean as possible, always flowing away and flowing in over flat stones, or [else] they plaster the eel-tanks. For they quickly suffocate if the water is not clean, since their gills are small. This is why whenever they hunt [eels], they disturb the water; and in the [river] Strymon [eels] are caught at the time of the Pleiades; for then the water and the mud are made turbid by winds coming from the opposite direction. But if it is not [like this], it is well to have it quiet.’) I print ἐγχελυοτρόφοι (MSS Ea P)—the variant in Athenaeus—in place of Balme's ἐγχελεοτρόφοι (the reading of family β).

42 ἀλλ’ οὐκ ἐγχελύεσσιν ὁμοίιον οὔτε χελώναις | οὔτ’ οὖν πουλυπόδεσσι γάμου τέλος οὔτε κελαινῇ | μυραίνῃ, λεχέων δὲ παράτροπον αἶσαν ἔχουσιν⋅ | αἱ μὲν γὰρ σπειρηδὸν ἐν ἀλλήλῃσι χυθεῖσαι | ἐγχέλυες δέμας ὑγρὸν ἀναστρωφῶσι θαμειαὶ | πλεγνύμεναι⋅ τάων δὲ κατείβεται εἴκελος ἀφρῷ | ἰχώρ, ἐν ψαμάθοις τε καλύπτεται⋅ ἡ δέ μιν ἰλὺς | δεξαμένη κυέει τε καὶ ἐγχελύων τέκεν ὁλκούς. (Edition used: F. Fajen, Oppianus Halieutica [Stuttgart and Leipzig, 1999].) (‘But in eels and turtles and octopuses the nuptial result is not similar [sc. to the fish just discussed], nor is it in dark lampreys, rather they have been allotted an unusual mode of union: for the eels, throwing themselves in coils around each other, closely entwined they writhe their moist form; and from them flows an ichor like foam, and it is covered in sand; and the sediment receiving this both conceives and begets a stream of eels.’)

43 Rose1 (n. 38), 305 (fr. 282) claims that Oppian was himself following ps.-Aristotle on the generation of eels. (Rose in his first collection held that all the fragments purportedly from the lost works of Aristotle were in fact inauthentic.) Eustathius, however, identifies Oppian in discussing Homer on the eels and fish (ad Il. 21.203–4 [vol. 4, pages 485.13–18 Van der Valk]):

ὅτι ἐν τῷ εἰπεῖν, ὡς «ἐγχέλυες καὶ ἰχθύες ἀμφεπένοντο» τὸν Ἀστεροπαῖον «δημὸν ἐρεπτόμενοι ἐπινεφρίδιον κείροντες» χωρίζει τὰς ἐγχέλυας τῶν ἰχθύων, καθὰ καὶ πρὸ ὀλίγων παρεσημάνθη, ἐπεὶ οὔτε ἐξ ὀχείας γίνονται οὔτε ζῷα τίκτουσιν οὐδὲ σπερματικοὺς οὐδ’ ὑστερικοὺς πόρους ἔχουσιν, οὐδὲ εἰς θῆλυ καὶ ἄρρεν διακρίνονται, ἀλλ’ αὐτόματοι ἐν πηλῷ συνίστανται ἔκ τινος ἀπορρεούσης αὐτῶν ὑγρότητος, ὡς ἱστορεῖ καὶ Ὀππιανός.

Note that in saying ‘the eels and fish dealt with’ Asteropaeus, ‘feeding upon and tearing the fat on his kidneys’, [Homer] separates the eels from the fish, as was also noted a little earlier [ad Il. 21.22 (vol. 4, page 451.9–14 Van der Valk)], since they neither come to be from copulation nor give birth to live young nor do they have seminal or womb passages, nor are they separated into female and male, but they are formed in the mire spontaneously out of a certain moisture flowing off of them, as Oppian reports.

44 On the longevity of the eel, however, cf. Hist. an. 7(8).2.592a23–5 (quoted above).

45 On the nature of the Zoïka, see Mayhew (n. 36).

46 θαυμάσαι δ’ ἄν τις, φησὶν Ἀριστοτέλης, ὅτι οὐδαμοῦ τῆς Ἰλιάδος Ὅμηρος ἐποίησε Μενελάῳ συγκοιμωμένην παλλακίδα, πᾶσι δοὺς γυναῖκας.

47 ὁ δ’ Ἀγαμέμνων ὡς πολυγύναιος ὑπὸ Θερσίτου λοιδορεῖται ….

48 ἔοικεν οὖν ὁ Σπαρτιάτης αἰδεῖσθαι γαμετὴν οὖσαν τὴν Ἑλένην, ὑπὲρ ἧς καὶ τὴν στρατείαν ἤθροισεν⋅ διόπερ φυλάττεται τὴν πρὸς ἄλλην κοινωνίαν.

49 ἀλλ’ οὐκ εἰκός, φησὶν ὁ Ἀριστοτέλης, εἰς χρῆσιν εἶναι τὸ πλῆθος τῶν γυναικῶν, ἀλλ’ εἰς γέρας⋅ ἐπεὶ οὐδὲ τὸν πολὺν οἶνον εἰς τὸ μεθύειν παρεσκευάσατο.

50 E. Heitz, Fragmenta Aristotelis (Paris, 1869), 143–4. In Mayhew (n. 6), ch. 3, I argue that Heitz has been unduly neglected, at least with respect to the Homeric Problems.

51 Both H. Hintenlang, Untersuchungen zu den Homer-Aporien des Aristoteles (Diss., University of Heidelberg, 1961), 128–31 and B. Breitenberger, ‘Aporemata Homerica’, in H. Flashar et al. (edd.), Aristoteles: Fragmente zu Philosophie, Rhetorik, Poetik, Dichtung (Berlin, 2006), 305–21, at 306, and 369–430, at 380–1 treat this as a fragment from the Homeric Problems.

52 ἀπρεπὲς γὰρ ἦν, φησὶν Ἀριστοτέλης, ἥκειν εἰς τὸ συμπόσιον σὺν ἱδρῶτι πολλῷ καὶ κονιορτῷ.

53 Rose1 (n. 38), 177 (fr. 165) and Rose2 (n. 38), 1507 (fr. 175).

54 Neither Hintenlang (n. 51) nor Breitenberger (n. 51) considered this a fragment from the Homeric Problems.

55 On τὸ ἀπρεπές in ancient Homeric criticism, see Arist. Poet. 24.1459b34 and especially fr. 143 Rose3 (schol. B Il. 2.183b Erbse), as well as its use in Porphyry's Homeric Questions on the Iliad: on 1.211 (page 275), 2.12 (page 275), 5.788 (page 281), 9.186 (page 283), 9.203 (page 283), 9.591 (page 284) and 12.25 (page 286). Page numbers refer to J.A. MacPhail, Porphyry's ‘Homeric Questions’ on the ‘Iliad’: Text, Translation, Commentary (Berlin, 2011).

56 Aristotle regarded eels as a rather special kind of fish: in the first reference to eels in the Historia animalium, fish are one kind of footless swimming animal (τῶν δὲ νευστικῶν ὅσα ἄποδα, etc.), and eels are a kind of fish (1.5.489b23–7). Throughout this work, eels are treated as a rather distinct kind of fish: 2.13.504b27–31, 2.13.505a15–16 and 27, 2.15.506b9, 2.17.507a10–11, 3.10.517b7, 4.8.534a20, 6.13.567a21, 6.14.569a5–9, 7(8).2.591b30–592a29. (In 4.11.538a1–13 and 7(8).30.608a3–7, it is implied that there is more than one kind of eel.) They are treated the same way in De partibus animalium (4.13.695b26–696a5, 696b20–3) and in De generatione animalium (2.741a37–b2, 3.11.762b21–4). In De incessu animalium, however, the genos of eels (τὸ τῶν ἐγχελύων γένος) is classified not as fish but more generally as aquatic animals (τῶν δ’ ἐνύδρων αἱ ἐγχέλεις, etc.) (7.707b27–708a7) or as swimming animals (τὰ νέοντα) (9.709b9–13).

57 οὐχ ἡ αὐτὴ ὀρθότης ἐστὶν τῆς πολιτικῆς καὶ τῆς ποιητικῆς οὐδὲ ἄλλης τέχνης καὶ ποιητικῆς. αὐτῆς δὲ τῆς ποιητικῆς διττὴ ἁμαρτία, ἡ μὲν γὰρ καθ’ αὑτήν, ἡ δὲ κατὰ συμβεβηκός. εἰ μὲν γὰρ προείλετο μιμήσασθαι <…> ἀδυναμίαν, αὐτῆς ἡ ἁμαρτία⋅ εἰ δὲ τῷ προελέσθαι μὴ ὀρθῶς, ἀλλὰ τὸν ἵππον ἄμφω τὰ δεξιὰ προβεβληκότα, [ἢ] τὸ καθ’ ἑκάστην τέχνην ἁμάρτημα (οἷον τὸ κατ’ ἰατρικὴν ἢ ἄλλην τέχνην) [ἢ ἀδύνατα πεποίηται] ὁποίαν οὖν, οὐ καθ’ ἑαυτήν. Edition used: L. Tarán and D. Gutas, Aristotle Poetics. Editio Maior of the Greek Text with Historical Introductions and Philological Commentaries (Leiden, 2012)—except that I print ὁποίαν with the manuscripts rather than Bywater's conjecture (ὁποῖ’ ἂν), and I follow R. Janko, Aristotle Poetics with the Tractatus Coislinianus, Reconstruction of Poetics II, and Fragments of the On Poets (Indianapolis, 1987), xxvi in filling in the lacuna and in bracketing parts of 1460b19–21.

58 See Mayhew (n. 6), 49–50.