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The Proper Meaning of XΩMA at Aeschylus, Supplices 870
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
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The phrase κατ⋯ Σαρπηδ⋯νιον χ⋯μα πολ⋯ψαμμον at Aeschylus, Supplices 869–702 is explained by a scholiast (Σ Aesch. Supp. 869–70 Smith) as κατ⋯ τ⋯ν Σαρπηδον⋯αν ἂκραν referring to a promontory in Cilicia. All modern commentators on this passage seem to have accepted the scholiast, and in the 1940 edition of LSJ ‘promontory, spit of sand’ are given as translations of χ⋯μα in this passage.
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References
1 
is Burges', G. emendation (‘Emendationes in Æschyli Supplices’, The Classical Journal 3 [1811], 416–17) of the ms.
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2 Line 870 in M.L. West's Teubner edition (Stuttgart, 1990).Google Scholar
3 For which see J. Zwicker,‘Sarpedon’ RE iii.A 45–6; W. Ruge,‘Sarpedon(ion)’ RE iii.A 48
4 E.g. T.G., Tucker (ed.), The‘Supplices’of Aeschylus (London, 1889), p. 167;Google ScholarJohansen, H.F. and E.W., Whittle (edd.), Aeschylus: The Suppliants (Copenhagen, 1980), hi. 202–3 ad loc.Google ScholarThe only partial exception is Sottomayor, A.P.Q.F. in her commentary (Ésquilo: As Suplicantes [Coimbra, 1968], p. 77 n. 476), who owing to Homer acknowledges the possibility that a location in Lycia is meant, though in her translation (p. 77) she maintains the communis opinio.Google Scholar
5 Liddell, H.G. and Scott, R., rev. Jones, H.S., A Greek-English Lexicon 9 (Oxford, 1940), p. 2014 s.v. . They add the note‘(lyr.)’.Google Scholar
6 The only other exceptions to this given by LSJ are the Theophrastus passaged cited in the text and the post-Classical Ex. 8.16, where the translation‘the dust of the earth’is given for 
7 Aesch. Cho. 723; Soph. Ant. 1216; Eur. Ale. 997; Hec. 211, 524; Or. 116; Supp. 53; fr. 617 Nauck; often, as in Eur. Hec. 221 or Supp. 53, the reference is specifically to the mound of earth covering a tomb.
8 Paley, F.A. (tr.), Aeschylus translated into English Prose (Cambridge, 1864), p. 24: ‘sandy headland’;Google ScholarH.W., Smyth(ed.), Aeschylus i. (Harvard, 1922), p. 85: ‘sandy barrow’;Google ScholarVellacott, P. (tr.), Aeschylus: Promethus Bound and Other Plays (Harmondsworth, 1961), p. 80: ‘the sandbanks by Sarpedon's tomb’;Google ScholarLembke, J. (tr.), Aeschylus: Suppliants (Oxford, 1975), p. 98: ‘sandy promontory-bank-tumulus’.Google Scholar
9 It is only fair to note that of the translations mentioned in n. 8, Smyth, Vellacott and Lembke all attempt to incorporate some sense of this meaning; see also the Bude edition (Mazon, P. [tr.], Eschyle i. [Paris, 1946], p. 44)Google Scholar
10 Zwicker, op. cit., 46
11 Tucker, loc. cit., reconciles Homer and the scholiast by saying that Lycia evidently extended a great deal further east in Homeric times; Pomponius Mela (1.77) does say that the Cilician promontory marked the limits of Sarpedon's rule.
12 I have argued in‘Dynastic tombs of Xanthos’ AS 42 (1992), 55–6 that it is possible to identify the monument amongst the archaeology of Xanthos. This argument is further developed in ‘The identification of a hero-cult centre in Lycia’, in M.P.J., Dillon (ed.), Religion in the Ancient World (Amsterdam, 1995), pp. 223–37.Google Scholar
13 Johansen and Whittle, loc. cit
14 S. Radt (ed.), TrGF iii. pp. 217–22.
15 POxy. 2256 fr. 3 (B.Snell [ed.], TrGF i. DID C 6) gives the date, which is usually restored as 463, though this may be an optimistic reading, and going no further than a date wmewhere in the period 467–59 may be safer. SeeGoogle ScholarGarvie, A.F., Aeschylus' Supplices (Cambridge, 1969), pp. 1–28;Google ScholarTaplin, O., The Stagecraft of Aeschylus (Oxford, 1977, corrected idition, 1989), p. 195.Google Scholar
16 Diodorus dates this event to 470/69. The exact date is debatable, but sometime c. 470 is probably correct.
17 Keen, AS 42, 55; ibid.,‘Identification of a hero-cult’ p. 228
18 As suggested by Metzger, H., Fouilles de Xanthos ii. (Paris, 1963), p. 81 and P. Demargne and H. Metzger,‘Xanthos’ RE ix.A 1386–7, but disputed byGoogle ScholarBryce, T.R., The Lycians i.(Copenhagen, 1986), pp. 103–4.Google Scholar
19 R. Travis, Allegorical Fantasy and the Chorus in Sophocles’Oedipus Coloneus (Ph.D. diss., Berkeley, forthcoming). My thanks to Roger Travis for discussing this matter with me and permission to cite this work.
20 My thanks to P. W. G. Glare, Prof. P. J. Rhodes, R. Travis, Prof. D. Whitehead, and the referee of CQ for their comments on the ideas included in this note.