'Our fathers' in Alcaeus

The gen.pl. πατέρων 6.7, 339, 371, 394 and nom.sg. (2x) and gen.sg.in 130.20.
339 ὠς λόγος ἐκ πατέρων ὄρωρε is of particular interest (cf. 42.1-4: ὠς λόγος κάκων ἀ[ | Περράμωι καὶ παῖσ[ι | ἐκ σέθεν πίκρον, π[ |⸏Ἴλιον ἴραν.

Alcaeus, the unjustly neglected Lesbian

The Lobel-Page edition of Alcaeus consists of 4,888 words, while that of Sappho consists of 3,459 words (these figures are from the TLG). That's the fact, give or take; the interpretation is less straightforward,* if any can or, indeed, should be made. It depends both on chance survival of what happened to be in circulation in small set of locations and on deliberate, but selective, preservation.

So, more of Alcaeus has come down to us from Antiquity, whether on papyrus or as extracts and fragments, even of only a single word, that suited the needs of grammarians and literary critics.

Yet, editions of the two 'Great Lesbians' usually put Sappho before her (allegedly older) contemporary and add 'et SAPPHUS vel ALCAEI FRAGMENTA' 'et SAPPHO et ALCAEUS'. There is, as far as I know, no translation of Alcaeus alone, while there are several of Sappho alone.

* What, for example, counts as a word? A fully preserved lexical item, for sure, but what about partially preserved words that can be reasonably supplemented and what about a single letter or letter trace as the sole residue of a word?

Both are mentioned by Herodotus (Alcaeus, briefly, at 5.95.1-2 and Sappho, and her family, at greater length).

(-)θηκ- and fēc-

There are places in which τίθημι (better ἔ-θηκ-α) has the sense of its Latin cognate faciō (better fēcῑ). As LSJ s.v. B puts it 'put in a certain state or condition, much the same as ποιεῖν, ποιεῖσθαι, and so often to be rendered by our make:'.

Or, as Geoff Horrocks put it in his discussion of ἤθηκη in SEG XLVI 1313, the verb can mean 'make someone happy', but it cannot mean 'make a crown out of a lump of gold' (as facio can). The latter, as he notes, seems to be required in that inscription.

The point is underlined by a 'quotation' from Isaiah 5:20 in Mark the Deacon's Life of Porphyrius, 90:
Οὐαὶ τοῖς ποιοῦσι τὸ γλυκὺ πικρὸν καὶ τὸ πικρὸν γλυκύ,
τοῖς τιθεῖσι τὸ σκότος φῶς καὶ τὸ φῶς σκότος.

Ralhfs' edn. has the nominative masculine plural participle τίθεντες in both places and after οὐαί has οἱ λέγοντες τὸ πονηρὸν καλὸν καὶ τὸ καλὸν πονηρόν, κτλ.

Derivation in the wild, or 'because that's the name of the place!'

Sometimes, authors explain after whom or what a place or people was named and thus illustrate derivation to form an adjective, with various suffixes, from an noun. More examples to follow... ?

Herodotus, I 7.3
Οἱ δὲ πρότερον Ἄγρωνος βασιλεύσαντες ταύτης τῆς χώρης ἦσαν ἀπόγονοι Λυδοῦ τοῦ Ἄτυος, ἀπ’ ὅτεο ὁ δῆμος Λύδιος ἐκλήθη ὁ πᾶς οὗτος, πρότερον Μηίων καλεόμενος.
 
Mark the Deacon, Life of Porphyrius, 64:
Ἦσαν δὲ ἐν τῇ πόλει ναοὶ εἰδώλων δημόσιοι ὀκτώ, τοῦ τε Ἡλίου καὶ τῆς Ἀφροδίτης καὶ τοῦ Ἀπόλλωνος καὶ τῆς Κόρης καὶ τῆς Ἑκάτης καὶ τὸ λεγόμενον Ἡρωεῖον καὶ τῆς Τύχης τῆς πόλεως, ὃ ἐκάλουν Τυχαῖον, καὶ τὸ Μαρνεῖον, ὃ ἔλεγον εἶναι τοῦ Κρηταγενοῦς Διός, ὃ ἐνόμιζον εἶναι ἐνδοξότερον πάντων τῶν ἱερῶν τῶν ἁπανταχοῦ.

ibid., 91:
Ὁ δὲ μακάριος ἐποίησεν πάντας ἀναθεματίσαι τὸν Μάνην τὸν ἀρχηγὸν τῆς αὐτῶν αἱρέσεως, ἐξ οὗ καὶ Μανιχαῖοι ἐκλήθησαν, καὶ κατηχήσας αὐτοὺς δεόντως ἐπὶ πλείστας ἡμέρας προσήγαγεν τῇ ἁγίᾳ καθολικῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ.

ibid., 92:
Μετὰ δὲ πενταετῆ χρόνον ἐτελειώθη τὸ ἔργον τῆς ἁγίας ἐκκλησίας τῆς μεγάλης, ἐκλήθη δὲ Εὐδοξιανὴ ἐκ τοῦ ὀνόματος τῆς θεοφιλεστάτης Εὐδοξίας τῆς βασιλίδος.

L. Palmer on the impact of Linear B and the need for further research therein

"Its [that is, The Greek Language's] completion was put off for over twenty years by the decipherment of the Linear B script, which gave us direct knowledge of Greek some five centuries earlier than Homer. Michael Ventris's brilliant discovery provided for two decades the material for a new and highly productive academic industry. Now that there are signs that the seam has been worked out and that, in default of new and rich finds, Linear B studies have virtually reached the end of the road, the time is ripe to incorporate the results into a general work on the Greek language [that is, the 1980 volume of that title]."
The Greek Language. Faber and Faber. London and Boston, 1980: Preface, xi

Discuss.

Herodotus and Muhammad Ali Jinnah on the ingredients of (an) ethnic identity

Herodotus, famously, says (that the Athenians said...):

Πολλά τε γὰρ καὶ μεγάλα ἐστὶ τὰ διακωλύοντα ταῦτα μὴ ποιέειν μηδ’ ἢν ἐθέλωμεν· πρῶτα μὲν καὶ μέγιστα τῶν θεῶν τὰ ἀγάλματα καὶ τὰ οἰκήματα ἐμπεπρησμένα τε
καὶ συγκεχωσμένα, τοῖσι ἡμέας ἀναγκαίως ἔχει τιμωρέειν ἐς τὰ μέγιστα μᾶλλον ἤ περ ὁμολογέειν τῷ ταῦτα ἐργασαμένῳ· αὖτις δὲ τὸ Ἑλληνικόν, ἐὸν ὅμαιμόν τε καὶ ὁμόγλωσσον, καὶ θεῶν ἱδρύματά τε κοινὰ καὶ θυσίαι ἤθεά τε ὁμότροπα, τῶν προδότας γενέσθαι Ἀθηναίους οὐκ ἂν εὖ ἔχοι.

8.144.2

Muhammad Ali Jinnah's reply (17 September 1944) to Gandhi’s contention (15 September 1944); “I find no parallel in history for a body of converts and their descendants claiming to be a nation apart from the parent stock":

"We maintain and hold that Muslims and Hindus are two major nations by any definition or test of a nation. We are a nation of a hundred million people, and, what is more, we are a nation with our own distinctive culture and civilization, language and literature, art and architecture, names and nomenclature, sense of value and proportion, legal laws and moral codes, customs and calendar, history and traditions, aptitudes and ambitions – in short, we have our own distinctive outlook on life and of life. By all canons of international law we are a nation."

Architecture gets another mention in this speech of December 1946.

Homeric, Pasthun, and Balochi values: honour, hospitality, revenge

Such were the values of Anwar Kamal, the leader of a tribal army in Khyber-Pakhtunkwa. Note inter alia the displays of historic weaponry.

Akbar Bugti, a Baloch(i) ἀρχιλῃστής,* said: “It is better to die quickly in the mountain than slowly in bed”. He delighted in punctiliously-pronounced discourses on the love-life of camels and wreaking horrible revenge on his foes. “What is better than seeing your enemies driven before you and then taking their women to bed?”.

* '-insurrectionist' is better than '-robber, -bandit, or -brigand'.

Notes on papyri: P.Oxy. III 531

Grenfell & Hunt introduced this item as 'A letter from a father to his son, giving him good advice, and announcing the dispatch of clothes and money'.

The good advice in question is in lines 9-12:
ὅρα μηδε|νὶ ἀνθρώπων ἐν τῇ οἰκίᾳ προσκρο[ύ]σῃς, ἀλλὰ τοῖς | βιβλίοις σου αὐτὸ μόνον πρόσεχ[ε] φιλολογῶν | καὶ ἀπʼ αὐτῶν ὄνησιν ἕξεις.
"Take care not to offend any of the persons at home, and give your undivided attention to your books, devoting yourself to learning, and then they will bring you profit."

An enlarged image can be obtained online.

Lifestyles of Lexicographers: McDougall

Iain McDougall introduces his two volume Lexicon to Diodorus Siculus as follows:

'The decision to undertake the compilation of a lexicon to an ancient author needs little apology. When the author is Diodorus and the lexicon is the first, none whatsoever is needed and it is my modest hope that the present work will prove to be a useful instrument for both students of Diodorus' work as a whole, historians and linguists concerned with a particular facet of his sources, methods, and style, and those investigating Hellenistic prose style in general.'

He continues, 'Since this study was begun in 1964 and both method and matter have been revised on several occasions during the subsequent years, it has been difficult to maintain a uniform approach to each word. However, in that each word has its own individual character, some flexibility in treatment may appear, I hope, not only to be forgiven but even perversely to have some merit.'

Further, 'The work attempts, as far as is possible, to combine the advantages of both lexicon and index: each word is analyzed grammatically and semantically and each occurrence of almost every word is duly recorded.'

He concludes, 'Special and loving acknowledgement is due to my parents, who provided me with the opportunity to continue my studies, to my wife, Val, who gently encouraged me when spirits flagged and read out endless pages of references during the tedium of checking the typescript, and lastly to my children, who had a lexicographer for a father, whispered, and survived.'

Lobel on A.Supp.

H. Lloyd-Jones' review of M.L. West Aeschyli Tragoediae in Gnomon 65.1 (1993) 1-11 contains the following anecdote, at p. 5:

"Lobel once said to me <Supplices
would be to put down just what is in that Medicean manuscript without word divisions and enclose it all by two cruces>>; he was joking, but the joke was not a bad one; the editor can never take it for granted that what is in the manuscript is sufficient to enable him to arrive by conjecture at the truth."
Truly a locus desperatus.

The Bacchylides papyrus

A telling of the acquisition of this treasure can be found in:
A. P. Burnett, The Art of Bacchylides (Martin Classical Lectures: vol. 29). Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press, 1985), pp. 1-2, where division into some 200 pieces is mentioned.

Marius' attitude to Greek

Plutarch, Marius 2.1-3:
(1) As for the personal appearance of Marius, we have seen a marble statue of him at Ravenna in Gaul, and it very well portrays the harshness and bitterness of character which were ascribed to him. For since he was naturally virile and fond of war, and since he received a training in military rather than in civil life, his temper was fierce when he came to exercise authority.
(2) Moreover, we are told that he never studied Greek literature, and never used the Greek language for any matter of real importance, thinking it ridiculous to study a literature the teachers of which were the subject of another people; and when, after his second triumph and at the consecration of some temple, he furnished the public with Greek spectacles, though he came into the theatre, he merely sat down, and at once went away.
(3) Accordingly, just as Plato was wont to say often to Xenocrates the philosopher, who had the reputation of being rather morose in his disposition, "My good Xenocrates, sacrifice to the Graces," so if Marius could have been persuaded to sacrifice to the Greek Muses and Graces, he would not have put the ugliest possible crown upon a most illustrious career in field and forum, nor have been driven by the blasts of passion, ill-timed ambition, and insatiable greed upon the shore of a most cruel and savage old age. However, his actual career shall at once bring this into clear view.

Ouch!

Hermippos Comikos and catalogues of flowers

Fragment 82 Kock concerns various wines:

Μενδαῖον, τοῦ μὲν καὶ ἐνουροῦσιν θεοὶ αὐτοὶ
στρώμασιν ἐν μαλακοῖς. Μάγνητα δὲ μειλιχόδωρον
καὶ Θάσιον, τῷ δὴ μήλων ἐπιδέδρομεν ὀδμή,
ταῦτον ἐγὼ κρίνω πολὺ πάντων εἶναι ἄριστον
τῶν ἄλλων οἴνων, μετ’ ἀμύμονα Χῖον ἄλυπον.   
ἔστι δέ τις οἶνος, τὸν δὴ σαπρίαν καλέουσιν,
οὗ καὶ ἀπὸ στόματος στάμνων ὑπανοιγομενάων
ὄζει ἴων, ὄζει δὲ ῥόδων, ὄζει δ’ ὑακίνθου.
ὀσμὴ θεσπεσίη κατὰ πᾶν δ’ ἔχει ὑψερεφὲς δῶ.
ἀμβροσία καὶ νέκταρ ὁμοῦ τοῦτ’ ἐστὶ τὸ νέκταρ.
τούτου χρὴ παρέχειν πίνειν ἐν δαιτὶ θαλείῃ
τοῖσιν ἐμοῖσι φίλοις, τοῖς δ’ ἐχθροῖς ἐκ Πεπαρήθου.

For other flower catalogues, see: GVI 1409, IG XIV 607 e.1-10 (Hadrianic(?), a multipart bilingual), Il.14.346-351, Cypria fr. 4, Sapph.94.12-17, 96.12-14, hHom.2.6-8, 2.425-8, 19.23-26, Theoc.1.132-4, and Mosch.2.64-66.

su-ove-taur-ilia

Quintilian, I.5.67:
nam "Solitaurilia" iam persuasum est esse "Suovetaurilia", et sane ita se habet sacrum, quale apud Homerum quoque est. Sed haec non tam ex tribus quam ex particulis trium coeunt. Ceterum etiam ex praepositione et duobus vocabulis dure videtur struxisse Pacuvius: "Nerei repandirostrum incurvicervicum pecus."

As for Solitaurilia it is by now universally believed to stand for Suovetaurilia, a derivation which corresponds to the actual sacrifice, which has its counterpart in Homer as well. But these compounds are formed not so much from three words as from the fragments of three. On the other hand Pacuvius seems to have formed compounds of a preposition and two vocables (i.e. nouns) as in "The flock of Nereus snout-uplifted, neck-inarched": the effect is unpleasing.
The Homeric passage is Od.11.130-1:
ἕρξας ἱερὰ καλὰ Ποσειδάωνι ἄνακτι, | ἀρνειὸν ταῦρόν τε συῶν τ’ ἐπιβήτορα κάπρον,

The Little Anabasis

Xenophon, Hellenica III 1.1-2:
Ἡ μὲν δὴ Ἀθήνησι στάσις οὕτως ἐτελεύτησεν. ἐκ δὲ τούτου πέμψας Κῦρος ἀγγέλους εἰς Λακεδαίμονα ἠξίου, οἷόσπερ αὐτὸς Λακεδαιμονίοις ἦν ἐν τῷ πρὸς Ἀθηναίους πολέμῳ, τοιούτους καὶ Λακεδαιμονίους αὐτῷ γίγνεσθαι. οἱ δ’ ἔφοροι δίκαια νομίσαντες λέγειν αὐτόν, Σαμίῳ τῷ τότε ναυάρχῳ ἐπέστειλαν ὑπηρετεῖν Κύρῳ, εἴ τι δέοιτο. κἀκεῖνος μέντοι προθύμως ὅπερ ἐδεήθη ὁ Κῦρος ἔπραξεν· ἔχων γὰρ τὸ ἑαυτοῦ ναυτικὸν σὺν τῷ Κύρου περιέπλευσεν εἰς Κιλικίαν, καὶ ἐποίησε τὸν τῆς Κιλικίας ἄρχοντα Συέννεσιν μὴ δύνασθαι κατὰ γῆν ἐναντιοῦσθαι Κύρῳ πορευομένῳ ἐπὶ βασιλέα.

ὡς μὲν οὖν Κῦρος στράτευμά τε συνέλεξε καὶ τοῦτ’ ἔχων ἀνέβη ἐπὶ τὸν ἀδελφόν, καὶ ὡς ἡ μάχη ἐγένετο, καὶ ὡς ἀπέθανε, καὶ ὡς ἐκ τούτου ἀπεσώθησαν οἱ Ἕλληνες ἐπὶ θάλατταν, Θεμιστογένει τῷ Συρακοσίῳ γέγραπται.

Vitruvius on his own Latin (de Architectura I.1.18)

Cum ergo talia ingenia ab naturali sollertia non passim cunctis gentibus sed paucis viris habere concedatur, officium vero architecti omnibus eruditionibus debeat esse exercitatum, et ratio propter amplitudinem rei permittat non iuxta necessitatem summas sed etiam mediocris scientias habere disciplinarum, peto, Caesar, et a te et ab is, qui ea volumina sunt lecturi, ut, si quid parum ad regulam artis grammaticae fuerit explicatum, ignoscatur. Namque non uti summus philisophus nec rhetor disertus nec grammaticus summis rationibus artis exercitatus, sed ut architectus his litteris inbutus haec nisus sum scribere. De artis vero potestate quaeque insunt in ea ratiocinationes polliceor uti spero, his voluminibus non modo aedificantibus sed etiam omnibus sapientibus cum maxima auctoritate me sine dubio praestaturum.

A leontonym

Cassius Dio, 78[79].7.2-3
καὶ οἱ μάντεις εἶπον αὐτῷ τὴν ἡμέραν ἐκείνην φυλάσσεσθαι, τούτῳ τῷ ῥήματι ἄντικρυς χρησάμενοι, ὅτι αἱ τοῦ ἥπατος τοῦ ἱερείου πύλαι κέκλεινται. ἀφ’ οὗ δὴ καὶ διὰ θύρας τινὸς ἐξῆλθε, μηδὲν μηδὲ τοῦ λέοντος, ὃν καὶ Ἀκινάκην ὠνόμαζε καὶ ὁμοτράπεζον ὁμόκλινόν τε ἐποιεῖτο, φροντίσας, ὅτι καὶ ἐκράτησεν αὐτὸν ἐξιόντα καὶ τὴν ἐσθῆτα αὐτοῦ προσκατέρρηξεν· ἔτρεφε μὲν γὰρ καὶ ἄλλους λέοντας πολλούς, καὶ ἀεί τινας περὶ αὑτὸν εἶχεν, ἐκεῖνον δὲ καὶ δημοσίᾳ πολλάκις κατεφίλει.

"The soothsayers warned him [=Antoninus] to beware of that day, bluntly telling him in so many words that the gates of the victim's liver were shut. After this he went out through a certain door, paying no heed to the fact that the lion which he was wont to call "Rapier" and had for a table-companion and bedfellow seized him as he went out and even tore his clothing. For he used to keep many lions and always had some of them around him, but this one he would often caress even in public." 

With thanks to: Kitchell, Kenneth F., Jr., Animals in the ancient world from A to Z. London: Routledge, 2014, pp. 132-4, at 134.

Greek words in Latin texts: Quintilian

A list of Greek words (and uses) known primarily from Quintilian's Institutio Oratoria can be automatically generated, but needs refinement in person.

Of immediate interest is σαρδισμός, in VIII 3, 59: a mixture of dialects ... (from the mixed population of Sardis):

"There is also a fault known as Σαρδισμὸς, which consists in the indiscriminate use of several dialects, as, for instance, would result from mixing Doric, Ionic, and even Aeolic words with Attic. [60] A similar fault is found amongst ourselves, consisting in the indiscriminate mixture of grand words with mean, old with new, and poetic with colloquial, the result being a monstrous medley like that described by Horace in the opening portion of his Ars poetica,

"If a painter choose To place a man's head on a horse's neck,"

and, he proceeds to say, should add other limbs from different animals" (Loeb).

A hot-water bottle at Oxyrhynchus

LSJ s.v. φακός II. 
'anything shaped like lentils: 1. hot-water bottle, POxy.1088.46 (i A. D.); φ. ὀστράκινος Hp.Nat.Mul.34; πυρίη φακῶν τῶν κεραμήων Aret.CA2.5; φ. τοῦ ἐλαίου oil-flask, LXX 1 Ki.10.1; τοῦ ὕδατος ib.26.11.'

Sure enough, such a hot-water bottle does feature in P.Oxy. VIII 1088, which describes various remedies. The translation of the ed.pr. of the relevant section (col. ii, lines 38-47) is as follows:

'For quartan fever : juice of silphium 1 ob., myrrh. 1 ob.,
Another dose: hemlock 3 dr., henbane 3 dr. (ὑοσκυάμο(υ) (δραχμαὶ) γ), opium 2dr. (ὀπίου (δραχμαὶ) β), castor 1 dr. (καστορήου (δραχμὴ) α), black hellebore 1 dr.; 
pound and work them up separately with water and pastilles the size of an Egyptian bean, then dry in the shade and give them to the patient to drink fasting (νήστηι), rubbing them in half a cotyle of raisin wine, having previously given him a bath two hours before taking; apply a warm bottle to the feet, and cover him with blankets (προλούσας πρὸ τῆς λήμψεω(ς) ὁρῶν (= ὡρῶν) β καὶ φακὸν πρὸς τοὺς πόδας προτιθείς, καὶ σκεπάζειν ἱματίοις).'

43 'The Egyptian bean was a common measure of magnitude;...'.
44 'νήστηι : cf. Moeris... νῆστις Ἀττικοί, νήστης Ἕλληνες....'
46 φακόν : Hp. Περὶ γυν. φύσ. is cited, as in LSJ,... καὶ τοῖς ὀστρακίνοις τὸ ὕδωρ ἐγχέων ξεστόν. 'They were so called on account of their shape.'

The lifespan of a papyrus roll

A few weeks ago, I wanted to explore a passage in Galen about the lifespan of papyri, as three hundred years.

I recalled this being in L. Reynolds and N.G. Wilson, Scribes and Scholars (3rd edn., Oxford: 1990), but could not find the reference. The Galen passage - 18(2), 630 - is mentioned on page 34, which is not listed s.v. Galen in the Index.

I was pleased to find that Roger Pearse had posted a text and translation of this passage with some discussion and a full translation of the Preface of the Galenic work in question, a commentary on Hippocrates on the workshop of a doctor.