284

Incertarum fabularum fragmenta (fr. 58)

Citation context At Athenaeus 2.38f-9a, mention of people near Mt. Olym-
pus in Lydia making a drink called nectar prompts a brief collection of ex-
amples to show that the word sometimes referred to the food of the gods,
not their drink. This fragment comes first, followed by Aleman PMG 42 and
Sappho fr. 141.1-3 (the Sappho fragment in fact mentions only drinking am-
brosia, but that is presumably meant to imply eating nectar). The Homeric
usage, in which nectar is drink and ambrosia food, is then noted. The quotation
from Eustathius (lacking 4), making the same point about the use of nectar for
food, is presumably drawn from Athenaeus. The lexicographic note preserved
in Photius and the Suda is slightly more complicated. It cites Anaxandrides as
an authority for two different, and mutually exclusive, uses of the word: one
with the sense ‘drink of the gods’ and by transference ‘wine (for humans)’,
the other with the sense ‘food of the gods’. Only the latter is appropriate
here, and the former must thus in fact be a different, unrecorded fragment of
Anaxandrides (fr. 80a).
Text As transmitted, 1-2 necessitate a line division τό νέκταρ πάνυ μάττων /
έσθίω κτλ., which makes both unmetrical. Casaubon’s transposition of έσθίω
neatly solves this problem, as does Meineke’s of νέκταρ, which rests in part on
his opinion that the article at the beginning of 1 is ‘inutilis’. This assertion is a
trifle bold, given the lack of context (e. g. the article may be adding specificity
to a generalizing statement which preceded; cf. Hermipp. fr. 77.10), and a lack
of parallelism in the use of the article (τό νέκταρ ... αμβροσίαν) is in any case
not necessarily objectionable; cf. 2-4 τω Διί... Ήρα ... Κύπριδι; fr. 57.2-3 ώς
τον πατέρ(α)... παρ’ άνδρός; Gildersleeve 1900-1911 §§603, 605.
Interpretation If the fragment is taken at face-value, the speaker is Gany-
medes, the Trojan prince who was taken by Zeus and became the wine-
server to the gods (cf. Sichtermann in LIMCIV. 1.154-69; Drexler in Roscher
1884-1937 1.1595-1603). Since the speaker seems to be introducing himself
by way of describing his activities, he has presumably just come on stage; the
most plausible context for such an exposition is the prologue.131 In contrast
to Anaxandrides’ Nereus, where Nereus is both the eponym of the play and

131 Given the explicit description of the activities that serve to identify Ganymedes,
it seems likely that his name was also given in close proximity to this fragment.
The identification by name of divine prologue-speakers can be made at the outset
or delayed until the end of the prologue; cf. Gomme-Sandbach 1973 on Men. Asp.
147-8.