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When is a piglet not a piglet?1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2013

David Schaps
David Schaps
Affiliation:
Bar Ilan University Ramat Gan, Israel
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Extract

When it is a full-grown pig. Specifically we have to do with the word δελφάκιον, defined by LSJ as a ‘sucking pig’. Now, it is true that the word itself is a diminutive of δέλφαξ, and that a δέλφαξ is a fullgrown pig; but not every diminutive indicates something small or immature. A diminutive may be disparaging (‘kinglet’), friendly (‘Joey’), pleonastic (‘Katyushka’), ironic (Robin Hood's Little John), or simply a regular part of a word (‘Mädchen’) or a name (Theodor Herzl). A diminutive may refer to a difference of importance (‘baronet’) or sex (‘majorette’) rather than size, and may even refer to something larger that of the simple form: it is by a quirk of historical linguistics that a hamlet is larger than a home, but it is a fact of the synchronic language. The -ιον ending in and of itself cannot establish that a δελφάκιον is immature.

Type
Notes
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 111 , November 1991 , pp. 208 - 209
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1991

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References

2 Prof. Sommerstein points out a Greek example, μειράκιον, where the diminutive (at least in the classical and Hellenistic periods) denotes a male, the simple form (μεῖραξ) a female.

3 Ar. Lys. 1061. Although Jeffrey Henderson includes this passage in his exhaustive list of obscenities (The maculate muse, 132) he makes no suggestion as to what the point of a double-entendre would be here. It seems to me that the passage is to be taken at face value except, of course, in so far as Aristophanes always considered it funny to have women use any word connected with pigs.

4 It may, for example, be a mature pig of small size; or it may even be quite a large pig whose owner is disappointed because it is not an ox.

5 For whose point see below, n.15.

6 The reference to ‘hams of tender δελφάκια’ in Ar. fr. 236 K-A does not, on the face of it, require the translation ‘piglet’, though I am happy to have no expertise in the taste of ham.

7 The immature equivalent being χοῖρος or χοιρίδιον: Henderson, ibid.

8 Athenaeus xiv 656f; Athenaeus quotes nothing but the expression ὥοπερ αἰ καπηλίδες τὰ δελφάκια τρέφουσιν.

9 ὸπτὰ δελφάκια άλίιταστα τρία, Eubulus fr. 6 K-A.

10 The inscriptions of the hieropoioi were published in IG ii 1633–1653, IG xi 2, 142–289, and Inscriptions de Délos. 290–498.

11 IG xi 145.4, 148.62 (where it is not mentioned that the sow is pregnant, and she costs a very cheap 6½ drachmas), 204.48, 287A.69, Ins. Dél. 290.88, 372A.104, 440A.36, 442A.200, 444A.31, 460t.66. In this and in the next note I list only those places where a reasonably certain price is preserved.

12 IG xi 278A.69, Ins. Dél 291b.24, 290.88, 316.122, 338Aa.59, 372A.104, 440A.36, 61, 442A.200, 220, 444A.31, 445.3, 447–16.

13 IG xi 199A.71, Ins. Dél. 440A.61, 445.3, 461Bb.50.

14 Περὶ τῶν ἐν ταῖς τροφαῖς δυνάμεων iii 6 (Περὶ ὄρχεων).

15 For a parallel suggestion and a discussion of the difficulties involved, see Folkert van Straten, ‘Greek sacrificial representations: livestock prices and religious mentality’, in binders, T. and Nordquist, G., edd., Gifts to the gods: proceedings of the Uppsala symposium, 1985 (Uppsala 1987) 168–70Google Scholar. The suggestion gains plausibility from Ar. Thesm. 237, where Mnesilochus cries as Euripides prepares to singe him, οἴμοι κακοδαίμων δελφάκιον γενήσομαι.

16 Herodian, περὶ ὀρθογραφίας, in Grammatici Graeci, ed. Lentz, (Leipzig 1868/1876) iii 2, p. 457Google Scholar. Herodian, in any event, was interested only in its correct accentuation.

17 Cf. id., Περὶ καθολικῆς προσῳδίας 13 (ibid, iii i, p. 362), Ναρύκιον πόλις Λοκρίδος, ἥ καὶ Νᾶρυξ λέγεται.

18 Moralia 497d (De amore prolis).

19 Stromateis 7.4. Clement is repeating a story of Antiphon (a τερατοσκόπος of unknown date), but need not be using Antiphon's original words. The τερατοσκόπος reassured the owner that the omen was good—since the hungry sow had not eaten the children of its stingy owner.

20 So Libanius, Deci, xxxii 1.23, so Joannes Philoponus (sixth century) in his commentary on Aristotle's De generatione animalium xiv 3.46.32 and ibid 214.15, and so the δελφάκιον … γαλαθηνόν in the ninth century Hippiatrica. Lucian Sat. 23 also distinguishes an ὖς from δελφάκια.

21 Line r 13.

22 Published in Rupprecht, H.-A. ed. Sammelbuch griechischer Urkunden aus Aegypten xiv (Wiesbaden 1981Google Scholar) no. 11983, 8.

23 Presisgke's, Wörterbuch der griechischen Papyrusurkunden (Berlin 1925Google Scholar), in the spirit of Liddell and Scott, translated δελφάκιον as Ferkelchen; and A. C. Johnson, in the second volume of Frank's, TenneyEconomic survey of ancient Rome (Baltimore 1936) 232Google Scholar, spoke of a ‘sucking-pig’ in PRossGeorg. ii 41, where the papyrus mentioned a δελφάκιν (presumably, as in the case mentioned above, a δελφάκιον). Perhaps more strikingly, he saw in PLond 928 a ‘pig’ for 1 dr. 4 ch. and a ‘suckingpig’ for 2 dr. 3 ob., where in fact the cheaper item is a χοῖρος, the more expensive a δέλφαξ.