EIKASMOS XXVIII (2017)

Pherecr. frr. 41s. K.-A.

Only six fragments of Pherecrates Graes (Old women) survive. Frr. 37

(from Athenaeus), 38 (also from Athenaeus), 39 (from material shared by Pho-
tius and the Suda) and 40 (from the Synagoge) preserve a total of six iambic
trimeter lines, one of them incomplete. In addition, two isolated words are cited
by lexicographic sources: fr. 41 ap. Poll. X 162
(Pollux in Graes refers to a belt as an
aortr) and fr. 42 K.-A. ap. Syn. 2168 C. = Phot. 2891 Th. = Suda 4032
A. . (artr: a type of sandal/
shoe 1; Pherecrates in Graes).
The word (< ), as in Pherecr. fr. 41 K.-A., is used in the Ho-
meric poems to mean that which holds something up, i.e. belt, carrying-strap,
girdle (Il. XI 31, Od. XI 609, XIII 348, XVII 198, XVIII 109). The word may
have been picked up by Menander in fr. 242 K.-. (, , / ,
, ), although Pollux the source of the fragment twice offers
(printed by Meineke, Kock and Kassel-Austin), which he tentatively de-
fines at VII 79 as an object in which to store clothes2, while reporting the variant
reading (printed in the elided form by Krte-Thierfelder) at X
139, where he also cites Posidipp. fr. 11 K.-A. for (in this case metrically
guaranteed)3.
Pollux refers again to Men. fr. 242,1 K.-. at X 162 4, which is the source of
Pherecr. fr. 41 K.-A., and the obvious conclusion is that all this material is drawn
from a single source or set of closely related sources in which ,
and were defined and their senses distinguished on the basis of quotations
drawn mostly from the Athenian comic poets. Already at this point (the 2nd cen-
tury C.E.), however, there seems to have been occasional confusion about which

1
LSJ9 248 s.v. I (a kind of felt shoe) is overly precise and seemingly based on no ancient
evidence.
2
Cf. Diph. fr. 39 K.-A., where one character expresses puzzlement about the meaning
of and a second responds by glossing the word as , Men. Sik. 388f.
, [ ] / , [].
3
, , / , , , , (obscure, although storage
box once again seems a reasonable sense for ).
4
.
116 OLSON

word was to be written where, as the case of Men. fr. 242 K.-. makes clear5.
The word , as in Pherecr. fr. 42 K.-A., appears to be secure elsewhere in
classical sources only at LXX Ne. 4,17
(the men who were raising the walls in their artres under arms; obscure, but
drawing a contrast with other individuals who were fully armed and were posted
to work exclusively as guards) and Hesych. 7495 L., where the word is glossed
, . Hesychius first definition is patently an abbreviated
version of Syn. 2168 C. = Phot. 2891 Th. = Suda 4032 A. (the source of
Pherecr. fr. 42 K.-A. ), while his second definition taken by LSJ9 248 s.v.
to refer to the Septuagint passage is strikingly close to at Poll.
X 162 (the source of Pherecr. fr. 41 K.-A. )6.
Frr. 37-40 of Graes likely represent a total of about one-half of one percent
of the original text of Pherecrates comedy. It is thus all the more striking that
the only two additional words from the play preserved for us are not only very
similar, but were treated together as problematic rarities by the lexicographers7. I
suggest that Pherecr. frr. 41f. K.-A. are better regarded as two different versions
of a single fragment, which is to say that the poet did not use both and
in Graes but only one of the words. Given that in the unexpected
sense shoe/sandal is assigned only to Pherecrates in our sources, this may be what
he wrote, while other comic poets were cited for in the sense storage box
and both words were distinguished from exclusively Homeric .
Alternatively, may simply be an error for , and Pherecrates
may have used the Homeric word for strap in an extended sense to mean that
which is secured with a strap, i.e. a sandal/shoe. In any case, ancient discus-
sion of the matter eventually became confused, as older material was excerpted,
combined and reworked a process whose problematic results are variously
preserved in Pollux, Hesychius and the lost lexicographic source that lies behind
Syn. 2168 C. = Phot. 2891 Th. = Suda 4032 A. as a consequence of
which we are unlikely ever to know for certain which word originally stood in
the text of Pherecrates.
Put another way, the contradictory references to the word or
in Graes are perhaps best treated as in the first instance evidence of the fragility

5
Cf. Hist. Alex. II 21,17
(a catalogue of expensive prizes), which is corrupt, but in which the
paradosis presumably represents a form of .
6
For the tendency of the surviving version of Hesychius work to reduce more com-
plex lexicographic structures to often misleadingly simple sets of synonyms, see R. Tosi,
Esichio e la semplificazione di strutture complesse nella trasmissione dei lessici, in Maria
Tziatzi-Margarethe Billerbeck-F. Montanari-K. Tsantsanoglou (edd.), Lemmata, Berlin-New
York 2015, 411-417.
7
Note also Et. Gen. 954 L.-L. = Et. M. 116,34
. , .
Pherecr. frr. 41s. K.-A. 117

of the information regarding ancient authors and texts preserved by our lexico-
graphic sources8.

Univ. of Minnesota S. Douglas Olson

Dept. of Classical and Near Eastern Studies sdouglasolson@gmail.com
245 Nicholson Hall, 216 Pillsbury Drive
USA Minneapolis, MN 55455

Abstract

Pherecr. frr. 41f. K.-A. appear to be drawn from different versions of a single lexicographic
tradition and are better regarded as separate versions of the same fragment. The poet thus did
not use both and in Graes but only one of the words.

8
Thanks are due Benjamin W. Millis and the anonymous referees for this journal for their
insightful comments on earlier drafts of this note.