270

Άμφις (Amphis)

“overheating”and “soothing”seem to have been confused); succendo signifies ex-
actly the opposite of the notion presently needed in the text; i. e. Boreas’ sons
did not exacerbate (succendebantur) the Dog-Star’s desire, but they soothed it
instead (e. g. the verb “placo” or a synonym is needed in the text).
Interpretation These lengthy testimonies confirm one solid piece of infor-
mation: that Amphis mentioned the constellation myth of the Dog-Star in his
work. What these testimonies fail to tell us is in which play this happened and
to what extent. Therefore, as I explain in full under Amphis’ [Opora] (ubi vide),
we cannot unadvisedly assume that Amphis wrote an entire play dedicated
to this myth, as Meineke first suggested (3,321: “ac fortasse etiam fabulae, ex
qua ilia derivata sunt, Oporam titulum fecerat poeta”), when there is not a
single reference to such a play anywhere in our sources. Instead, we need to
focus on and limit ourselves to the fact that Amphis dealt with this branch of
the mythical tradition, a piece of information that agrees with Amphis’ pro-
nounced penchant for mythological themes (cf. Intro. 4 “Themes and Motifs”).
Fr. 47 resembles the case of fr. 46; both fragments consist of fragmentary
testimonies confirming that Amphis dealt in each case with an individual
constellation myth (that of the Dog-Star and the Great Bear respectively);
in addition, each case prompted Meineke to suggest that there must have
been an entire play that accommodated each individual myth, i. e. Opora and
Callisto respectively. Both Meineke’s suggestions influenced the hermeneutic
approach of later scholarship, to the extent that both [Callisto] and [Opora]
are now regularly listed among Amphis’ proper plays. See Pfeiffer (1922) 111;
Wilamowitz (1937) 105.

fr. 48 (49 K.)
Poll. 3.36 (codd. FS, A, C)
καί διαπαρθένια δέ δώρα τά ύπέρ τοΰ τήν παρθενίαν άφελέσθαι ώνόμασεν
Άμφις (-ίας FSC, αγίας A, corr. Jungermann) ό κωμικός
and Amphis the comic poet called “ d i a p a r t h e n i a” (i. e. “deflowering”) the gifts
offered upon the occasion of taking away a maiden’s virginity

Metre lambic trimeter

Discussion Meineke 1,404; Bothe 488; Kock 2,250; PCG 2,235; Llopis -
Gomez - Asensio 308