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A BIRDIE THAT IS NOT A BIRDIE IN PYTHON'S AGEN (FR. 1 = ATH. 13.595F)*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 November 2013

Richard Janko
Richard Janko*
Affiliation:
University of Michigan
*
[email protected]
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Extract

In Python's comic satyr play Agen (perhaps actually written by Alexander of Macedon) Harpalus, Alexander's errant treasurer, is mocked for erecting costly buildings left and right to honour his dead lover, the notorious prostitute Pythionice:

      ἔστιν δ’ ὅπου μὲν ὁ κάλαμος πέϕυχ’ ὅδε
      †ϕέτωμ’ ἄορνον, οὑξ ἀριστερᾶς δ’ ὅδε
      πόρνης ὁ κλεινὸς ναός, ὃν δὴ Παλλίδης
      τεύξας κατέγνω διὰ τὸ πρᾶγμ’ αὑτοῦ ϕυγήν.
    (TrGF 91 F 1. 1–4)

1–2 πέϕυκε· ὁ δ’ εϕετωμα ορνον Athenaei cod. A: ὅδε scr. Dindorf, ἄορνον Fiorillo †ϕέτωμ’ vox desperata: ϕάτνωμ’ Fiorillo, ἕλωμ’ Meineke, πέτρωμ’ Pezopulus, ϕλέωμ’ A. von Blumenthal, στόμωμ’ Erbse, ϕηγὼν Friebel

Type
Shorter Notes
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 63 , Issue 2 , December 2013 , pp. 892
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2013 

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Footnotes

*

My thanks go to CQ's anonymous reviewer, whose critique helped to improve this note.

References

1 For the sources of previous suggestions see Cipolla, P., Poeti minori del dramma satiresco (Amsterdam, 2003), 336Google Scholar; he misattributes Pezopulus' conjecture, which is reported by Süß, W., ‘Zum Satyrdrama Agen’, Hermes 74 (1939), 210–16, at 211Google Scholar.

2 Cf. ὑπὸ τὸν αὐτὸν ἀετὸν ὑπελθεῖν, ‘come under the same roof’, IG 14.644 (a curse tablet in Doric from somewhere in Bruttium, 3rd c. b.c.).

3 Photius, Lex. α 426, s.v. ἀετός.

4 Av. 1110, with early parallels for the sense in Dunbar's n. ad loc. (cf. LSJ9 s.v.).

5 Poet. 1.21, 1457b30–3.

6 Lejeune, M., Phonétique historique du mycénien et du grec ancien (Paris, 1972), 247Google Scholar.

7 But cf. αιτωμα for ἀέτωμα (i.e. ᾄτωμα from unattested *αἰέτωμα?) in the prose inscription IG 3.162 (Athens, a.d. 127–9, with Threatte, L., The Grammar of Attic Inscriptions 1 [Berlin and New York, 1980], 278Google Scholar).

8 Cf. West, M.L., Greek Metre (Oxford, 1982), 11–13Google Scholar. This combination of vowels is so rare in Greek that there are no parallels closer than disyllabic δᾱερῶν in Homer (Il. 24. 769).