¹ In two honore (Garzya, loc. cit. infra, 201). Doubtless he is right in taking the dative of the person for whom the δυσέρωτες are pining, and for whose favours they are competing. For a discussion of the word δύσερως see Ogilvie, R. M., JHS lxxxii (1962) 107–8Google Scholar, who, however, (like LSJ) does not refer to this passage, which vies with Eur. Hipp. 193 as the earliest citation. I suggest that the notion of obsessive, but frustrated, love (the prevalent usage in the Anthology) is the basic meaning of the word.

² The reading of VL κατακλινῆ is not, I suppose, impossible—‘the downward-sloping air’, almost as vivid an expression as the ὀρθὸν αἰθέρα of Eur. Bacch. 1073—since the wine-drops had to be projected with such skill as to fall in rapid descent from a point above the plastinx, like a howitzer shot. The height attained—reaching the αἰθήρ—is humorously exaggerated, as in Antiphanes, fr. 55, 18–20.

³ On cottabus in general I have found most useful Jahn, O., Philol. xxvi (1867), 201 ff.Google Scholar; K. Sartori, Das Kottabosspiel der alten Griechen; de Fouquières, L. Becq, Les Jeux des Anciens 212 ff.Google Scholar; Higgins, A., Archaeologia li (1888) 383 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sparkes, B. A., Archaeology xiii (1960) 202 ff.Google Scholar; on the Dionysius elegiac fragment also Buecheler, F., Neue Jahrb. f. Phil. cxi (1875) 125Google Scholar; Garzya, A., RFIC xxx (1952) 193 ff.Google Scholar I am also grateful to Mr. D. A. West of Edinburgh University for his comments in the preparation of this article.

⁴ So too the wine-drops in the game are called (Eur. fr. 562), (Critias fr. 8. 10). Cf. Anth. Pal. xi 59. 1 (Macedonius)

⁵ I do not understand why Garzya (loc. cit., 203), referring to Jahn, is under the impression that it is the form of game δι' ὀξυβάφων which Dionysius is describing here. Aiming at a target is common to both the main types of cottabus, but only the familiar κατακτὸς κότταβος with its rod, plastinx and lekane bears the appropriate visual resemblance to the korukos of the gymnasium. The verb ἑστάναι also suggests the setting up of this apparatus (cf. Ar. fr. 209 ). The comparison with a punch-ball here may explain a statement of Pollux (vi 109–10), repeated in schol. Ar. Pax 1242, but not, so far as I know, confirmed by vase-paintings nor at all probable in itself, that the cottabus-stand was suspended from the ceiling (see however, p. 51, n. 17). For his wording cf. this description of the korukos in Antyllus ap. Orib. vi 33.3. Curiously Pollux goes on to mention a as part of the impedimenta of the cottabus δι' ὀξνβάφων, and it is tempting to ascribe this error (?) also to some the confusion arising from the present obscure elegiacs. (For another explanation, see Becq de Fouquières, op. cit., 229.)

⁶ ‘The cups you use as balls’, Guliek—referring in his note to the used for ball-playing (so too Buecheler, loc. cit.). He seems to me incorrect also in taking κότταβον as the prize in the game, a wine-sack, which is compared to the punch-ball.

⁷ For a description of how the ἱμάντες were worn, cf. Philostr. Gym. 10 Eust. 1324. 19 See further Gardiner, Athletics of the Ancient World 197 ff. (Incidentally Theoc. 22.80 calls them σπεῖραι!)

⁸ Cf. Plato, Leg. 830b On this passage, which mentions both the σφαιπομαχία and the use of an εἴδωλον ἄψυχον suspended as a punch-ball, see especially Frère, H. in Mélanges Ernout 141 ff.Google Scholar, who clears up convincingly the difficulties in the relationship of the σφαῖραι (also called ἐπίσφαιρα in Plut. Mor. 825e) to the earlier and later forms of is attested as a boxing term at least as early as 394 in the Dionysus Asketes of Aristomenes (fr. 13 ap. Poll. iii 150)—if indeed this is the play mentioned in IG xiv 1097. 10 (see Dittmer, , Fragments of Athenian Comic Didascaliae 46Google Scholar): otherwise the play could be much earlier in the long career of Aristomenes, who began exhibiting about 431 (Suidas). The theme of the play—‘Dionysus in training’ (in the palaestra)—suggests a humorous situation similar to that described by Dionysius Chalcus.

⁹ One might expect a preposition with ὁρᾶν in this sense; but cf. the charioteer in Hom. Il. xxiii 323

¹⁰ And contrast the unsuccessful javelin throw in Ach. Tat. ii 34

¹¹ There seems to be no literary evidence for how throws were measured. Vase-paintings sometimes show rods being used apparently for this purpose (cf. κανών in Poll. iii 151), but Gardiner, (Greek Athletic Sports and Festivals 475Google Scholar), referring to a r.f. vase in the Canino collection (fig. 173) suggests that the boy holding a javelin pictured in the interior of the cup ‘seems to be measuring the ground with his feet, perhaps measuring the throw’.

¹² For τέρματα of discus throws, cf. Hom. Od. viii 193.

¹³ Although the scholiast is wrong about τέρμα here—see Gardiner, , JHS xxvii (1907) 268.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Athen. 479d (=schol. Luc. Lex. 3) Cf. id. 668d, 782 f.

¹⁵ Non iaculati sunt sed iaculaturi (Buecheler).

¹⁶ In addition to the passages to be discussed, ἀκοντίζειν occurs in Nonnus 33.65 and 93, schol. Ar. Pax 1244. Cf. also Ach. Tat. iv 18

¹⁷ Headlam, (CR xix [1905]) 397Google Scholar) talks of ‘a loose wave of the elbow’! Vase-paintings generally (but not invariably) show the arm bent. A quite different explanation of the term is given by Minto, A., Studi Etruschi xviii (1944) 83 ff.Google Scholar, viz. that the Sicilian form of throw (now represented by a scene incised on a pebble found at Castiglione del Lago, which shows some features untypical of Athenian vase-paintings, including apparently a hanging target) was known as ἀπ' ἀγκύλης from the position of the kylix poised sul dorso del polso della mano. (Incidentally the target—if it is one—does not look remotely like a lamp, as he suggests.) W. Deonna, Un divertissement de table ‘à cloche pied’ (Coll. Latomus xl (1959) 20–1) offers some criticisms of Minto's interpretation of the scene.

¹⁸ There is much to be said for the variant ἐντείνουσα, the reading of CE in the citation in Athen. 782e (ἀντείνοσα is the reading of A at 667c): ἐντείνουσα πῆχυν would have a subsidiary meaning from archery, and combine with ἀπ' ἀγκύλης with precisely the same mixture of imagery as in Soph. OT 204–5 quoted above and Nonnus 33.92–3 τανύσσας. … ἠκόντιζεν (referring to a cottabus throw).

¹⁹ For ἀγκύλῃ δαΐζων I had thought of διαγκνλίζων, but the parallel use of ἐνδατεῖσθαι in Sophocles suggests the text is sound. Minto (loc. cit.) accepts Bergk's παΐζων: Page, who takes δαΐζων to be corrupt, mentions —ηι<σι> παίζων in his note ad loc.

²⁰ Cf. LSJ svv.

²¹ An interesting subsidiary use of ἀγκύλη (Poll. iv 196) is as a medical term for a callous hardening Cf. Ar. HA 556b 17 ‘to bend the finger to an angle’, precisely the characteristic finger-position in the thong of a javelin or the handle of a kylix in cottabus. It may have been a common ailment on both accounts!

²² The use of συνεστραμμένον of cottabus and javelin throws alike is further evidence of the simi larity of throwing action: Athen. 666c Hesych. s.v. Plato, Prot. 342e Cf. also Eust. 203.22 (explaining ) and (with reference to in previous note), Hesych. s.v. schol. Ar. Pax 904

²³ CR xix (1905) 397–8) where he seeks to justify this meaning of ἐκτομή on the analogy of Cf. also his article in CR xiv (1900) 8.

²⁴ In view of which, it is difficult not to regard the reference to Acontius in the Callimachus cottabus fragment (69 Pf.) as a sort of pun.

²⁵ σφαῖρα is not attested of the amentum, though used of other looped thongs; ἀκόντια ἐσφαιρωμἐνα or σφαιρωτά are of course javelins tipped with foils for safety in non-military use, the terminology being comparable in this sense to the padded σφαῖραι of boxers in training, as Frère (op. cit., 151) suggests.

²⁶ Cf. Pind. Ol. x 72.

²⁷ Although ἐκτατέαι may be explained as above, I might add that ἐντατέαι ‘the latages are to be shot’ would fit the passage extremely well. Cf. n. 18.

²⁸ Javelin throwing, it might be noted, was the third item in the classical pentathlon, according to Schol. Pind. Isth. i 26, schol. Soph. El. 691, Eust. 1320. 19, Philostr. Gym. 3 (possibly). For discussion of their testimony, see Gardner, P., JHS i (1880) 216.Google Scholar

²⁹ When this article was already in proof, Mr. West drew my attention to a close parallel in Plautus, , Bacch. 66 ff.Google Scholar, where the speaker contrasts the activities and equipment of the athlete in the palaestra with those of the man of pleasure. (The same theme is resumed in 428–30.) Cf. especially 69 ubique imponat in manum alius mihi pro cestu cantharum, and 71 pro hasta talos, where the throwing of dice and spear is contrasted.