Xenophon "Anabasis" 1.10.

12: The Shield That Became a Lance

Author(s): Günther Martin
Source: Mnemosyne, Fourth Series, Vol. 60, Fasc. 1 (2007), pp. 112-116
Published by: Brill
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112 Miscellanea/G. Martin/Mnemosyne 60 (2007) 112-116

Xenophon Anabasis 1.10.12:

The Shield That Became a Lance

After the battle of Cunaxa, Artaxerxes* cavalry withdraws to a hill. The Greeks
pursuing them realise that the standard of the Great King (and thus Artaxerxes
himself) is in the midst of these troops. In modern editions, the description of
the standard is given as follows {An. 1.10.12):

?a? t? ?as??e??? s? ?e??? ???? ?'fasa?, ?et?? t??a ???s??? ?p? p??t?? [?p?
?????] ??ateta?????.
?p? ????? ?7 ?p? ????? Vollbrecht, del. DOrville

DOrville1} was followed in athetising ?p? ????? by Masqueray and Hude in

their more recent editions. Marchant in his OCT preferred daggers. One reason
why scholars were dissatisfied with the text is a scholion on the passage that men-
tions that doubts about the genuineness were raised already in antiquity: ????
?a? ta?ta e? t??? pa?a?f ????e? ?et? aste??s???.2) These doubts seem to be
confirmed by the explanation (in another scholion and in Hesychius)3) that
the word p??t? means 'lance'. Finally, in a passage of the Cyropaedia (7.1.4)
the s? ?e??? of Cyrus is described as a golden eagle ?p? d??at?? ?a????
??ateta?????.4) For these reasons the modern editors assumed that ?p? ?????
was a gloss that was supposed to make clear that in this case p??t? did not have
the usual meaning of light shield*.
In contrast to this explanation, Robert Dunbabin argued in a review o? LSJ
that the meaning lance* is not applicable here, as it would be the only instance of

J) DOrville 1783,690.
2) Aj? asterisk is not normally a sign of athetesis. However, the scholiast goes on, antici-
pating an explanation to the one I support in this paper: d???? dt? ? ??? ?et?? ?p?
p??t? (p??t??? ?.) ?p. (sic, perhaps epest?) ?st??, ? p??t? d? ???f t??? (????t? ?.)
?p??e?? (mss ?.?.; the text is taken from Dindorf 1855). So he interpreted the asterisk
as doubt of authenticity. A similar meaning of the asterisk may also be found in Schol.
Nie. Ther. 564bis. For the awareness of the possibility of glosses entering the main body
of the text cf. Galen 17/1.634, Hieron. Ep. 106.46.3-5.
3) Schol. X. An. 6.1.9, Suda s.v. p??ta?, Hesych. s.w. p??t?1 und p??t?2.
4) Schneider 1828, 71: "Est igitur p??t? h.l. quod d??? in Cyropaedia; et Suidas cum
Hesychio p??t?? interpretatur etiam ?????? et ????t???. Quare verba ?p? ????? tan-
quam scholion delenda esse recte censuerunt Dorville [...]."

? Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2007 DOI: 10.1163/156852507X165874

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 Miscellanea /G. Martin /Mnemosyne 60 (2007) 112-116 113

that meaning in Xenophon and not identifiable as something different from

p??t? in the regular use.5) I agree with this view and would like to affirm it with
reference to some archaeological evidence and the later reception of Xenophon's
text. Furthermore, I would suggest that the meaning lance* does not actually
exist in classical Greek. Instead, it came up later, triggered by the misinterpreta-
tion of exactly this passage in the Anabasis. The juxtaposition of ?p? p??t?? and
?p? ????? led to the assumption that the two nouns must be identical in mean-
ing, the latter having been added to clarify the meaning of the former.
On the Alexander sarcophagus from the fourth century BC one of the Per-
sian Immortals is holding his shield so that the beholder can see the outside. The
blazon shows traces of a falcon,6) the heraldic animal of the Great King, which
was possibly depicted on the shields of all Immortals. Xenophons eagle, which
may thus have actually been a falcon,7) is therefore probably painted on a p??t?,
a shield. The preposition ?p? is regularly used in this sense. A suitable parallel can
be found in Euripides: ?e?a??? d? ???s??? a?et?? p??t?? ep? p??????a
?????.8) Persian military standards are equally well attested. Consequently,
archaeologists do not seem to find a problem in Xenophons text as transmit-
ted.9) The phrase ?p? ????? does not pose any problems either: the shield was
fixed on top of an upright pole (or a lance). Moreover, Xenophons narrative
makes it very clear that the standard has to stick out so that his own men can
actually recognise it.10) If p??t? denotes a shield, it is only sensible that another
expression referring to the pole follows. By contrast, there is no clear evidence for
p??t? with the meaning lance* anywhere in Xenophon nor in earlier texts.1 ^

V Dunbabin 1946,10.
6) See the photograph in Sekunda & Chew 1992, 45 and comparable pictures on the
following pages.
7) Cf. e.g. Istituto italiano 1956, nr. 213 table 28 (= Teheran, Archaeological Museum
inv. 2436) and Dalton 1964, nr. 25 table 11; however, the eagle too can be used as a sym-
bol of the Persian king: Shahbazi 1980,137-9. Other interpretations in Nylander 1983,
23-4 n. 25.
8) Fr. 530 Nauck; cf. Theopompus FGrH 115 F 247. Philostr. Im. 2.31.1 mentions a
???s??? ?p? t?? p??t?? aet??. The meaning of p??t?, however, cannot be determined
in this case.

9) On the Alexander mosaic in Naples a standard with a bird on it is preserved fragmen-

tarily, cf. Nylander 1983,32. On a cup from the Louvre (G 117) there is a standard (with-
out bird) the upper part of which seems to be made not of cloth but a solid material. For
a shield, however, it may be too small. Nylander (1983) as well as Sekunda & Chew
(1992) accept the text as transmitted.
10) Cf. Dunbabin s (1946,10-1) explanation of the word ??ateta?????.
n) Schol. X. An. 6.1.9 glosses p??t? as ?????: a dancer makes a performance with two

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114 Miscellanea/G. Martin/Mnemosyne 60 (2007) 112-116

One might feel compelled to ask why p??t? was not just interpreted in the
way it is suggested here. The scholion quoted above shows that suspicions (i.e.
that the second phrase with ?p? and genitive was a grammarian's explanation of
the first) arose fairly early: the scholiast has to explain that the text is unobjec-
tionable.1^ The ancient commentators were probably misled in that they thought
?p? ????? was an epexegetic insertion. At least it is not clear where the scholion
takes the meaning lance' from unless ?p? ????? was regarded as a gloss (perhaps
seemingly confirmed by the aquila of the Roman army or the eagle of the Cyro-
paedia, which were indeed little sculptures fixed on a pole): in turn, when this
meaning had been established* for An. 1.10.12 it was transferred to An. 6.1.9
(before commentators went the other way to apply the scholion of the latter pas-
sage to the former).
The first time p??t? is certainly used in the meaning lance' is in the fifth-cen-
tury Historia Ecclesiastica of Theodoretus and thus around the same time as
Hesychius: ?f?e????? ?a? ????? ?a? pe?t?? ?a? d???t??.13) This usage is fur-
ther attested in the late and post-Byzantine Era.14)
Thus the text in the manuscripts does make sense, and there is an easy expla-
nation of how it came to be misinterpreted in the scholion. ep? ????? should not
be seen as a later addition, but was written by Xenophon himself. Th. Hutchinson
understood it thus, but still suggested ep? ??st??.l5) Modern editions do not
even mention this emendation, although Hutchinson produces a parallel from
the Suda quoting Arrian :16)

p??ta? and mocks a fight. In the following paragraph he clashes (??????) them together.
The verb can be used for the clash of shields or for lances being struck on shields (Th.
3.22.2, X. An. 4.5.18). In these cases the emphasis is on the sound produced. The verb is
not attested for two lances clashing and may not be suitable, p??ta? are originally from
wicker, but in the time of Xenophon the word is used to denote any kind of small shield
(An. 5.2.29), so that it is possible to produce that particular sound. In HG 2.4.12 the
p??t? could be either shield or lance. Inscriptions do not attest the meaning lance*
either; nor do instances of pe?t?f???? or pe?t?st??.
12) The sequence of two phrases introduced by the same preposition is not that uncom-
mon, cf. (with ??) X. HG 6.5.27 znd An. 1.5.6; with ?p?: HG 1.1.16.
13) 179.10 Parmentier/Scheidweiler. In the same authors commentary on Ezekiel
(PG 81.1201) the juxtaposition of asp?de? and p??ta? seems to indicate that the latter
are not a type of shield. However, in PG 81.1080 a p??t? is described as ????? asp??.
14) Georgios Pachymeres (13th/l4th century) Andr.Pal. 6.30 (544.7 Bekker) und
Pseudo-Sphrantzes (15th/16th century) Chron. 3.8.8 (p. 418.12 G re?u).
15) Hutchinson 1735, 108.
16) Suda s.v. ??st?? (= Arrian FGrH 156 F 156). Hutchinson thought this ascription
was wrong and the Suda actually quoted Dexippus FGrH 100 F 6.2. This view is now

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 Miscellanea / G Martin /Mnemosyne 60 (2007) 112-116 115

t? s??e?a t?? ep??e?t?? st?at??? aet??, e????e? ?as??e???, st???ata, p??ta

???s?, ??ateta???a ?p? ??st?? ???????????.

Arrian clearly imitates Xenophon for his description of the standard of the
Roman or Parthian elite troops borrowing several terms.17) So the new question
is whether the similarity of ?p? ????? and ep? ??st?? is coincidence, whether
Arrian altered Xenophons text or whether ?p? ??st?? should indeed be restored
for the Anabasis. Given the many correspondences, the first possibility seems
unlikely. The choice between one of the other options is harder: ep? ??st??
might be tempting as lectio difficilior, but Arrian may as well have attempted to
exceed his model in exquisiteness of vocabulary. It may be preferable to follow
the uniform transmission of the ???-stem in the manuscripts. In any case, Arri-
an s ?p? ??st?? is clear evidence for the fact that he already found something like
?p? ????? in his copy of Xenophon.18)

Institut fur Klassische Philologie, Universit?t Bern G?nther Martin

L?nggassstrasse 49
3012 Bern, Switzerland
martin @kps.unibe.ch

Bibliography
deBoor, C. 1912. Suidas und die Konstantinische Exzerptsammlung, ByzZ 21,381-424
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DOrville, I.P. 1783. Charitonis Aphrodisiensis De Chaerea et Callirrhoe amatoriarum
narrationum libri VIII (Leipzig)
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Hutchinson, Th. 1735. Xenophontis De Cyri expeditione libri septem (Oxford)
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14, 19-37

commonly rejected, cf. deBoor 1912,419. Jacoby and Roos attribute it more specifically
to his Parthica.

17) Arrian himself professes to be an emulator of Xenophon, cf. e.g. Renz 1879 and
St?dter 1967. On the imitation of individual passages in later historiography cf. in gen-
eral Strebel 1935,77-85 and Stein 1957,48-50 and 65.
18) I am indebted to Martin Korenjak for his suggestions and encouragement.

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116 Miscellanea / G. Martin /Mnemosyne 60 (2007) 112-116

Renz, C. 1879. Arrianus quatenus Xenophontis imitator sit (PhD thesis, Rostock)
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(PhD thesis, Bonn)
Strebel, H.G. 1935. Wertung und Wirkung des Thukydideischen Geschichtswerkes in der
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