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ΙYΓΣ, ΡΟΜΒΟΣRhombus, Turbo

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

A. S. F. Gow
A. S. F. Gow
Affiliation:
Trinity College, Cambridge
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Extract

The student of Theocritus who wishes to know what is the ῥόμβος plied by Simaetha at l. 30 of the second Idyll will find it identified in the scholia with the ἲυγξ of the refrain; and of all the modern commentators who express an opinion, Legrand is alone in questioning the identification. And yet to the attentive reader it should seem more than questionable. It will be well to begin with an examination of the passage.

The incantation of Simaetha, who might say, with Tibullus (1. 5. 16), uota nouem Triuiae nocte silente dedi, consists of nine terms, each of four verses, framed and articulated by the intercalary verse, ῖυγξ ἔλκε τύ τῆνον ἐμόν ποτὶ δῶμα τόν ἄνδρα of which there are therefore ten occurrences. The type to which the terms of the incantation in the main conform is given in the first two quatrains—(1) Strew barley-groats on the fire and say, ‘I strew the bones of Delphis.’ (2) I burn bay-leaves: so may Delphis burn. It consists, that is, of a magic act, accompanied by a prayer or by a statement equivalent to a prayer.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 54 , Issue 1 , 1934 , pp. 1 - 13
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1934

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References

1 For the analysis of the incantation see Sutphen, M. C., Magic in T. and Vergil (Studies in Honor of B. L. Gildersleeve, p. 315)Google Scholar.

2 The χαλκέον of this quatrain is rightly understood by the scholiasts: it is not part of the incantation but what the magic papyri call a ϕυλακτήριον. The magician who has raised an evil power is in danger unless he averts it from himself. Simaetha, warned of Hekate's approach by the barking of dogs, takes personal precautions. So in similar circumstances says Jason, (Orph. Arg. 965). Alex. [Aphr.] prob. 2. 46 (Ideler, , Phys. Gr. Min. 1. 65)Google Scholar and the clashing of metal for apotropaic purposes at eclipses is familiar: cf. n. 26. Similarly at 62 Thestylis is to spit as a ϕυλακτήριον.

3 Cf. CR. 39, 18.

4 ll. 28–31 are so placed both in K, the best MS., and in the Antinoe papyrus. The analysis seems to me to make it certain that this is their true position.

5 On ἴυγξ and ῥόμβος see Daremberg and Saglio s.v. Rhombus, Pauly-Wissowa and Roscher s.v. Ἲυγξ, Smith, Dict. Ant. s.v. Turbo, Abt, A., Die Apologie d. Apuleius, p. 104Google Scholar, Dedo, R., de ant. superstitione amatoria, p. 17Google Scholar, Eitrem, S., Opferritus, p. 55Google Scholar, Thompson, , Glossary of Greek Birds, p. 71Google Scholar, Ber. K. Sächs. Ges. d. Wiss. 6, 256Google Scholar, JHS. 7, 157Google Scholar, Voss on Virg. B. 8. 68. I have not thought it necessary to discuss the very varied opinions expressed in these places and in the commentaries on Theocritus. The origin of the Ἲυγξ-wheel is discussed in Cook, A. B., Zeus, i, p. 253Google Scholar.

6 Phot., Hesych., Suid., s.v., Schol. Pind. Nem. 4. 35 (56), Pyth. 4. 214 (381), Theocr. 2. 17. The small birds not infrequently depicted in domestic scenes (e.g. in fig. 2) have been called wrynecks, but on quite inadequate grounds. Even the bird which brings an Ἲυγξ to Aphrodite (Minervini, , Mon. Ined. T. 18)Google Scholar is rather a dove than the instrument's eponym.

7 BM. Jewellery 2067; cf. Furtwaengler-Reichhold 3, p. 333.

8 Ib. 1670–3, 1946. A similar earring in Berlin, Hadaczek, , Gr. Ohrschmuck, Abb. 53Google Scholar, Zahn, R., Ausstellung von Schmuckarbeiten aus d. St. Museen, p. 58Google Scholar.

9 From Herrmann, , Denkm. Taf. 2Google Scholar; cf. Curtius, L., Wandmal. Pomp. p. 249Google Scholar.

10 From Milani, , Mon. Scelti, T. 4Google Scholar: near the end the fifth century.

11 Pyxis, London E 744, by the Eretria painter, about 430 B.C. (Furtwaengler-Reichhold, 1, T. 57). The main scene on this pyxis—a woman dressing—is shewn by the marriage-vases to be the preparation for a wedding, and the Nereid names of the ladies place it in the house of Nereus, though it is treated otherwise as an Athenian domestic scene. Cf. AM. 32, p. 92. In fig. 3 the strings are looped round the left thumb and right index finger: on a fourth-century Apulian situla in the Villa Giulia (CV. Villa Giulia, IVDr, pl. 1 and 2. 2) Eros uses both thumbs: in fig. 2 Himeros holds the strings in his hands, as does Eros in the fresco.

12 From London F 373, F 409, F 458.

13 They are made of three-ply wood. The extra holes were to ascertain the best position for the strings, and shewed that unless the holes are quite close together the instrument is difficult to spin. If the wheel has a smooth edge, the instrument makes no more than a faint whir: with a serrated edge an agreeable windy whistle may be produced. A similar sound may be made by spinning a diamondshaped instrument in the same way—a fact which may seem to some, though it does not to me, to provide a solution of a difficulty to which we are coming.

It may be mentioned that where the Ἲυγξ is represented in use, it usually looks more like a ring than a wheel: that is because the rapidly rotating spokes are not drawn: cf. fig. 6.

14 The Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology has examples from Portuguese E. Africa and from Greenland.

14a Cf. however Hesych.: Ἰυγγηςί ὁ Διόνυσος, Cook, , Zeus, 1, p. 258Google Scholar.

15 ῥομβεῖν σϕενδονᾶν Suid.

16 On the bull-roarer see Lang, Andrew, Custom and Myth (ed. 1904), p.29Google Scholar. Lang first drew attention to Schol. Clem. Al. in this connexion. The name bull-roarer, which is now familiar, seems to rest on his authority. Seeing that ῥόμβοι are more than once mentioned together with τύπανα (n. 18 below), it is quite likely that the ταυρὁϕθογοι μῖμοι, which appear in the same company in Aesch. fr. 57, are, or include, ῥόμβοι.

17 The passages known to me are: Prop. 2. 28. 35 magico torti sub carmine rhombi, Ov. Am. l. 8. 7 torto concita rhombo licia, Fast. 2. 575 cantata ligat cum fusco licia rhombo (v. ll. tenet, fuso, plumbo) Mart. 9. 29. 9 Thessalico lunam deducere rhombo, 12. 57. 17 secta Colcho luna uapulat rhombo, to which may be added Lucan 6. 460 torti magica uertigine fili.

18 The gloss perhaps arises from Pindar, p. Ox. 1604 (Schr. 1930, p. 346): —the thunder of drums leadeth off the service (Farnell l. 328), les timbales rondes ouvrent le ban (Puech 4. 148). Pindar uses the word ῥόμβος oddly at Ol. 13. 94 and Is. 4. 47: seeing, however, that ῥόμβος and τύπανον are elsewhere mentioned as independent instruments in this cult (Ap. Rh. l. 1139, Ath. 14. 636 A; cf. A.P. 6. 165), and that Pindar goes on with κρόταλα and other noises, I suspect that the oddity here resides rather in κατάρχει, and that he means the bull-roarers lead the timbrels.

19 The word ῥόμβος occurs in the list of Dionysus's toys in the Orphic lines on which the scholiast to Clement is commenting: (cf. Orph. Fr. 31. 29 K.), and, together with ball, knuckle-bones and castanets, as a human child's toy at A.P. 6. 309. Κῶνος, which is ambiguously glossed στρόβιλος by Hesychius and schol. Clem., seems to mean top. Schol. Clem., as we have seen, goes on to equate κῶνος and ῥόμβος. Hesychius has see Lobeck, , Aglaophamus, p. 699Google Scholar. Possibly, therefore, the word really has this meaning and the reference to whipping belongs to that sense rather than to a mere misunderstanding. In case it may save somebody trouble, I will add that a geometrical cone, if swung by its apex, does not, and cannot, produce the sound of a bullroarer.

20 Theon, to whose commentary some at any rate of our scholia go back, must have been a near contemporary. His father Artemidorus died, of nervous breakdown after meeting a crocodile, apparently in the first half of the first century B.C. (Hermes 35. p. 543).

21 At Val. Fl. 5. 414, Sen. H.F. 182, rota is the circular course of the moon and the year respectively.

22 Wendel, , Ueberlieferung u. Entstehung d. Theokritscholien, p. 68Google Scholar.

23 Elsewhere turbo means spindle and top, and as both these have also cropped up in connexion with ῥόμβος (p. 8 and n. 19), it is natural to inquire whether either meaning will serve here. Spindles were the object of superstition in Italy (Pliny N.H. 28. 28), but I know of no evidence that either they or tops were used in magic. The magic papyri mention στρόβιλοι several times, but in all cases the context seems to preclude the meaning top. The adjective δεξιός twice attached to them (Pap. Gr. Mag. 2. 25, 13. 9) suggests perhaps shells or pinecones with a right-handed spiral.

24 de Dom. 13

25 It should perhaps be mentioned here that two Italic pastes of the 2nd-1st century B.C. (Furtwaengler, Beschr. d. geschn. Steine im Antiqu. 956, T. 12, Ant. Gemm. T. 24. 55, my fig. 11: King, , Antique Gems and Rings, 1. p. 376Google Scholar) shew a wheel, which has been taken for an ἴυγξ, on a column: over the wheel passes a cord, of which one end is held by Eros, the other by a winged female figure whom Furtwaengler calls Nemesis-Psyche. I do not understand this representation, but, as the cord passes round the circumference and not through the hub of the wheel, it is unlikely that the wheel is an ἴυγξ: cf. Hor. C. 3. 10. 10.

26 The ῥόμβος is not common there but it occurs at least twice—once as an attribute of Hekate {Pap. Gr. Mag. 4. 2336) and once in ritual (ib. 2296): ῥόμβος στρέϕω σοι κυβάλων οὐχ ἅπτομαι—that is, ‘I am using attractive and abstaining from apotropaic magic’ (n. 2 above).

27 The Berlin example is figured from AA. 1894, p. 119, the Louvre example from Ridder, De, Bronzes ant. du Louvre, pl. 76. 1694Google Scholar. Of the London examples two are BM Bronzes 878, 879: the third came to the Museum from the Preston collection. The London specimens are described as children's toys, and certainly they would trundle better than they would spin. The Louvre specimen measures 1′ 6½″; B.M. 878, 879, 1′ 2¼″ and 9¾″, respectively, The Berlin specimen, when complete, was probably a little shorter than that in the Louvre.

28 My friend Professor G. A. S. Snijder calls my attention to an Italian skyphos in Geneva published by Deonna, (Rev. Arch. 1916, 2. 252Google Scholar) and connected by him with magic wheels. The representation is mysterious, but I see no reason to think that he is right.

29 Wünsch, R., Antikes Zaubergerät aus Pergamon, p. 45, Taf. 2Google Scholar.

30 See on them Cook, , Zeus, 1, p. 258Google Scholar.

31 I am indebted to the Trustees of the British Museum for permission to reproduce objects in the Museum: to Dr. R. Zahn in Berlin for the imprint reproduced in fig. 11 and for various information: to Mr. T. C. M. Winwood for the photograph reproduced in fig. 6. The substance of this paper was read to the Cambridge Philological Society on Oct. 26, 1933.