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Terpsicles(RE 1)*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
Extract
Terpsicles is neglected in all current Histories of Greek Literature and Dictionaries of Antiquity, except for a five-lines-long entry by E. Bux in Real-Encyclopädie V.A. 790. He is the author of a treatise Περί ἀΦροδισίων, which is only known from two references in Athenaeus—7.325d and 9.391e—and seems to have been a collection of sex-related marvels. In the first passage he provides a piece of information on the red mullet:
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References
1 Impurity: R. Parker, Miasma (Oxford, 1983), 362–3; fertility: Aristotle, H.A. 543a5 ⋯ δέ τρίγλη μόνη τρίς (sc τίκτει), Athenaeus 7.324d, Oppian, Hal. 1590.
2 όμοίως δέ ούδέ όρνις, if taken literally, implies the extraordinary drinking of fishy wine by a bird. The circumstances in Euripides, Ion 1202ff., where a dove tastes poisoned wine spilled on the ground after a libation, are exceptional. Still, the proceedings described in this passage look like an experiment and birds may be an alleged part of it. They often make an appearance in paradoxes and their involvement may serve as an extreme, albeit unreal, illustration of the red mullet's latent powers.
3 In Cyranides 4.119, 272, 308 de Mely the fish is said to generate the inverse effect: the whiskers extracted from a triglê which is subsequently thrown into the sea to remain alive, if offered to a woman in a drink, excite irresistible desire for intercourse. A red mullet in wine would also help delivery. This belongs to a different vein; following a conventional pattern, it is a late effort to attribute to the fish's sexuality a sympathetic impact on women. For works containing similar prescriptions in a medico-magical context see C. O. Pharaone, Helios 19 (1992), 92ff, D. Bain, CQ 48 (1998), 262–4.
4 Il.A. 585a32ff. μάλιοτα δ έν κυ⋯οευι τυΰ οΐνου αΐσθάνοεται αί πλεΐσται (sc γυναΐκες) διαλύονταί τε γάρ έάν άδυνατοΰσιν, ibid. 588a5ff., Somn. Vig. 457a14ff.
5 See on him F. Kudlien, RE X.A.1529ff. s.v. Xenokrates (8).
6 Cf. also Pliny, N.H. 32.50. For the expression cf. Herodotus 2.92.5 (papyri) έν κλιβάνω διαΦανέϊ πνί ξαντες οΰτω τρώγουι. On erythrinus as sexually invigorating, see D'Arcy W Thompson, A Lexicon of Greek Fishes (London, 1947), 67.
7 The number is due to a simile in Il. 2.31 Iff.
8 Aristotle pioneered interest in the field and that may have generated the ascription of the third-century-B.c. collection Περί θαυμαστῶν άκουσμάτων to him; see N. J. Richardson in F. Montanari (ed.), La philologie grecque à I'epoque hellenistique et romaine (Entr. Fond. Hardt 40), (Vandœuvres-Genève, 1994), 14–15; P. M. Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria i.770–4 with notes. On the extensive presence of Aristotle's H.A. in Antigonus' Ιστοριών παραδόξων συναγωγ⋯ see A. Giannini, Acme 17 (1964), 114ff. Callimachus in some chapters of his Θαυμάτων τῶν είς άπααν τ⋯ν γ⋯ν τόπους όντων συναγωγ⋯ expressly draws on scientific manuals, such as Theophrastus at fr. 407 ii, xxx Pfeiffer or Aristotle ibid. xl.