306

Incertarum fabularum fragmenta (fr. 68)

Interpretation The list contains a group of lavish items, possibly for use as
carpets or the like (cf. Nonn. D. 16.95-99) or as trophies, but more likely as
clothing marking (mock?) heroic status. The use of skins as clothing is often
indicative of rustic status (cf. West 1978 on Hes. Op. 543-6; Gow 1952 on
Theocr. 3.25; Blaydes 1890b on Ar. Nu. 72; Stone 1984. 181); Braswell 1988 on
Pi. P. 4.81 offers a corrective to this view, rightly noting that such garments
are just as often associated with heroes. The enumeration degenerates from
fearsome and dangerous (and thus difficult to kill) animals at the beginning,
to timid and slavish animals at the end; what starts as praise, presumably of
the hunter’s prowess or the owner’s means of acquiring such exotic pelts,
thus ends with a tone of mockery. For similar lists of animals, cf. Spyropoulos
1974. 68-9.
The form of these words is simply the feminine of a three-termination
adjective in -οϋς, -ή, -οϋν; examples of the other two genders for the words
are not necessarily attested. Terms for the hides of various animals may have
retained the feeling of adjectives (with δορά vel sim. understood); altern-
atively, they may have been thought of as substantives (e. g. κυνή in its normal
sense ‘cap’ or ‘helmet’).
άρκτή The word is attested only here in Greek literature; cf. Hsch. a
7282 άρκτή· ή τής άρκτου δορά, presumably a gloss on this passage (like
the lexicographic entries on λεοντή and παρδαλή; cf. below). Bears are first
mentioned at H. Od. 11.611 (where depicted together with boars and lions on
Herakles’ baldric), but are unlikely to have existed in the historical period
south of the northern mountains of modern Greece, i. e. in Epirus, Macedonia,
and Thrace; like lions and leopards, they were thus outside the experience of
most people and to some degree fantastic.152 Cf. hAphr. 71; X. Cyn. 11.1 λέοντες
δε καί παρδάλεις, λύγκες, πάνθηρες, άρκτοι καί τάλλα όσα έστί τοιαϋτα
θηρία άλίσκεται έν ξέναις χώραις περί τό Πάγγαιον όρος καί τον Κίττον
τον ύπέρ τής Μακεδονίας, τά δ’ έν τω Όλύμπω τω Μυσίω καί έν Πίνδω, κτλ.
(bears are also associated with lions and leopards at e. g. Cyr. 1.4.7); Keller
1909 1.175-81; Wellmann 1896.

152 Paus. 1.32.1, which describes Parnes as παρεχομένη Θήραν συών άγριων καί
άρκτων, is presumably not based on personal experience, since it is unlikely that
Pausanias visited the mountains himself, and may simply be an attempt to char-
acterize the mountains as wild or remote places; thus, there seems little reason to
grant credence to the claim. Although few Athenians would have encountered
bears even occasionally, the animals did form an integral part of the worship of
Artemis Brauronia; cf. Henderson 1987 on Ar. Lys. 645; K-A on fr. 386.