104

Eupolis

Citation context The interests of Erotian (or Erotian’s source) are ichthy-
ological; the form σελαχίοισι does not appear in the preserved Hippocratic
treatises, but note σελάχια at Int. 12 = 7.198.15 Littre, and ίχθύσι σελάχεσι at
e. g. Morb. 1148 = 7.74.12-13 Littre. The other two citations are drawn from lex-
icographic attempts to catalogue and make sense of forms of the problematic
verb *πρίαμαι, in the first case as an apparent Atticism, in the second as part of
a gloss on Homeric άπριάτην (“without purchase money”; II. 1.99; Od. 14.317).
Text 1 is metrical but nonsensical, the fundamental problem being the loss of
whatever preceded. Austin, incorporating Cobet’s αυτών for Erotian’s αυτόν,
suggested emending to ήν ποτ’ αυτών δή κάμη τις, “if one of them is ever sick”.
But the point of emphasizing αύτών via δή is difficult to see, and Meineke’s
ή προς αυτόν, ήν κάμη τις (“that she [will say] to him, if someone’s sick”),
with πρός from 2 replacing Erotian’s ποτ’ (see below on 2), is closer to the
paradosis.
2 is hypermetrical, and if πρός αυτόν is removed (thus Meineke, taking the
words to be an intrusive variant for ποτ’ αυτόν in 1) and Kock’s σελάχι’· ήν τ’
ϊδη is printed for Erotian’s σελάχιον τί δέ ήν, the line reads “he’ll/she’ll say:
‘Buy me some little rays!’But if he/she sees a wolf”; .
σελάχιον might easily be an error for σελάχι’, the mark of elision having been
mistaken for the standard ligature for -ov, and while considerable emendation
is involved, one might combine all these corrections and print the first two
lines of the fragment as follows:
ώς ή πρός αύτόν, ήν κάμη τις, ευθέως
έρεΐ- “πρίω μοι σελάχι’”· ήν τ’ ϊδη λύκον,
Kassel-Austin opt instead to give 1-2 as Erotian transmits them but placed
within cruces.
In 3, Erotian’s unmetrical φράσεται has been assimilated to the form of
κεκράξεται immediately before it, and Meineke corrected to φράσει τε.
Storey 2001. 55 (although not in the Greek text on 54) divides the lines
between two speakers, with (B.) given 2 f τί δέ ήν λύκον f (translated “What
if <he spots} a wolf?”).
Interpretation Although 1-2 are corrupt, these seem to be two future more
vivid conditions, describing and contrasting dangerous situations that might
occur at some point: if someone is tired or sick, the subject (female) will
request seafood (1-2 σελάχιον), whereas if a wolf is in question, she/it will
shriek and tell the goatherd something presumably specified in the next line
or lines (2 τί—3). Kock argued that the fish requested in 2 was intended to
serve as medicine, and that what is described is the reliance of an individual
goat on her herdsman, to whom she turns in any sort of emergency. The