Notes on Ionic verse inscriptions

BMI 952 (= Schwyzer 430, IG IX,1 649, and CEG I 391: LSAG) features:
(1) a masc. a-stem, without final sigma, of a unique personal name: Ἐξοίδα (IG l.c. has Εὐσ-); (2) the genitive singular Διϝὸς; and, (3) the spelling of the dual ϙόˉροιν.

The Poinikastas description amuses me: 'Bronze disk dedicated to the Kioskouroi by Exoides, probably from Kephallenia'.

Number plates

For some time, on my way to work, I used to see a (non-personalised) number plate that happened to end 'LXX'. I assume that this was not the owner's choice.

This one caught my attention two days ago. One wonders whether there is a companion vehicle with the plate 'agris'. A landrover, maybe.

Did the Greeks eat horses ?

The Loeb of Xenophon's Hellenica II.4.6 reads:
'Then when it was drawing towards day and the enemy were already getting up and going away from their camp whithersoever each one had to go, and the grooms were keeping up a hubbub as they curried their horses, at this moment Thrasybulus and his men picked up their arms and charged on the run. They struck down some of the enemy and turned them all to flight, pursuing them for six or seven stadia; and they killed more than one hundred and twenty of the hoplites, and among the cavalry Nicostratus, nicknamed “the beautiful,” and two more besides, catching them while still in their beds.'

Note also 'Nicostratus, nicknamed "the beautiful"' as on καλός inscriptions.

The Greek reads:
ἐπεὶ δὲ πρὸς ἡμέραν ἐγίγνετο, καὶ ἤδη ἀνίσταντο ὅποι ἐδεῖτο ἕκαστος ἀπὸ τῶν ὅπλων, καὶ οἱ ἱπποκόμοι ψήχοντες τοὺς ἵππους ψόφον ἐποίουν, ἐν τούτῳ ἀναλαβόντες οἱ περὶ Θρασύβουλον τὰ ὅπλα δρόμῳ προσέπιπτον· καὶ ἔστι μὲν οὓς αὐτῶν κατέβαλον, πάντας δὲ τρεψάμενοι ἐδίωξαν ἓξ ἢ ἑπτὰ στάδια, καὶ ἀπέκτειναν τῶν μὲν ὁπλιτῶν πλέον ἢ εἴκοσι καὶ ἑκατόν, τῶν δὲ ἱππέων Νικόστρατόν τε τὸν καλὸν ἐπικαλούμενον, καὶ ἄλλους δὲ δύο, ἔτι καταλαβόντες ἐν ταῖς εὐναῖς.

So, no curries, then.

Some typos

(1) C.D. Buck, The Greek Dialects, University of Chicago Press. 1955: 79.
Page Header: 'PHONOLOFY' for 'PHONOLOGY', as it correctly appears otherwise throughout pages 17-85.

(2) LSJ s.v. στελεός cf. 'Antiph.121 (Rh.Mus.81.381)', in which Rh.Mus. 82.381 should be read. Incidentally, this indicates that material was still being collected in 1933 (see a post from long ago and the quotation below) and that the entry in the Periodicals list on p. xliii 'Rh.Mus. = Rheinisches Museum, Neue Folge, Frankfurt 1842-1920.' was incorrect even in 1925 when the Preface was first published (a later year could have been stated or the date range left open, as with the next item, Rivista di Filologia).

From the Postscript of 1940: 'The period of publication, 1925-40, was actually longer than the period of copy-writing, 1911-24, even although the earlier period was interrupted by the war, and in the later period there were two editors instead of one.'

(3) Xenophon, Hellenica IV 5.14 in the OCT of Marchant (reproduced in the TLG) and Loeb:
'οὖτοι μόνοι τῆς μόρας τῇ ἀληθεία ἐσώθησαν', in which the Teubner and the lemma in the commentary of G.E. Underhill on Marchant's OCT (p. 147) have τῇ ἀληθείᾳ, which makes sense.

(4) Isocrates V 4 in the Teubner of Mandilaras (reproduced in the TLG):
'ἀλλὰ τὴν ἀληθείαν τῶν πραγμάτων θαυμάζειν' (the acc.sg. accented thus here only, but as ἀλήθειαν, correctly, 24x in the same edition). Benseler and Blass give ἀλήθειαν, accented as is to be expected, in their Teubner editions.

(3) and (4) caught my eye because Aelius Herodianus (2.454) reports that ἀληθείᾱ was the form in Attic (Ἀττικῶς) but ἀλήθεια is Koine (κοινῶς). Cf. Ionic ἀληθείη, and ὑγίεια, Ionic ὑγιειή, and ὑγεῖα (e.g. Plu.Lycurg.8.4 and epigraphic instances).

Potentially misleading English in LSJ

LSJ s.v. ἀολλής 2 "βάλλον δ' εἰν ἐλεοῖσιν ἀολλέα they put [the joints] all together on the dressers, Od.14.432" reads as if flat-pack furniture is in view.
       
LSJ uses 'dresser' s.v. ἐλεός I, Standford uses 'table'.

Look-alike: a Republican and a Buddhist King

There has not been a look-alike on this blog for a while and for even longer prior to that. The recent Republican Party Convention provided the occasion.

Republican voter.

Demetrius I of Bactria, first king of the Indo-Greek Kingdom.

Reasons to Study Latin (rather than Greek)

From Intelligent Life:

the editor Tim de Lisle explains why Latin is the best language:
it is not just the abstract nouns that have got themselves borrowed.

Bactrian horsemen and their imitators

From The Economist.

Self-defence against lions

The following relief from Persepolis in Iran teaches the correct technique for fighting a lion hand-to-paw. Note, in particular the lion's (unsuccessful) blocking technique.


For a reconstruction of the context, see below.

Endless Tasks

The Cyclopes knew them only too well:

ἐν μὲν ἔσαν Κύκλωπες ἐπ᾿ ἀφθίτῳ ἥμενοι ἔργῳ,
The Cyclopes were on it (Jason's cloak), seated at their endless task (making a thunderbolt for Zeus).
Apollonios of Rhodes 1.730.

Poem on Emendation

Anonymous poem about emendation (The University College London Union Magazine 1.5 (March 1906) 177):

'I have found it: heureka! heureka!'
  I cried. 'Now the riddle is solved.
When before has so neat, so unique a
  Solution as this been evolved?'
With a hand that still shook with elation,
  The words in the margin I wrote,
Then I gazed at my great emendation,
  My marvellous critical note.

Though it flashed on my mind in a minute,
  No force would suffice to express
All the wealth of Greek learning that's in it—
  I've got the Greek spirit, I guess.
The Greek spirit—Professor G. Murray,
  At least as he seeks to imply,
Thinks he has it; he'll just have to hurry
  To get it as badly as I.

Where were Scaliger, Porson and Bentley?
  And Housman—ah! where wandered he?
(Yet with him I should wish to deal gently,
  That he may deal gently with me.)
Has he e'er in his books or his lectures
  Once chanced on a comment so fine?
(But I'm ready to praise his conjectures,
  If he will do justice to mine.)

When the study of classics is ended
  (And many to end it now seek),
And the line I so grandly emended,
  Has gone the long road of all Greek;
Yet my fame shall abide even then, and
  These words on my tomb you shall see:—
'He inserted a comma at μέν and
  Deleted the colon at δὲ.'

~Typhlos