Αστράτευτοι ή Άνδρόγυνοι (fr. 35)

157

X. Smp. 2.14 and is accused of trying to avoid military service at Ar. Pax 395
(421 BCE).
Πακτωλός is the name of a Lydian river that ran through the city of
Sardis (Hdt. 5.101.2) and was famous for the gold it brought down from Mount
Tmolos (Bacch. 3.44-5; S. Ph. 394; Antim. SH 79 = fr. 93 Matthews = Call. fr.
dub. 814; Lyc. 1352; Str. 13.591; cf. E. Ba. 154). Sardis was deep in Persian
territory, and the Athenians had not been involved in fighting there since the
Ionian Revolt in the mid-490s BCE, when they burnt the city and its temples,
sparking the Persian invasions of the Greek mainland that followed a few
years later. Assuming that the word is sound (see Text), this must accordingly
be a joke involving Peisander’s greed or cowardice (Schiassi compared Ar. Pax
1175-8, where a cowardly taxiarch has his robe dyed yellow, sc. when he shits
himself in terror before battle begins), or the geography must be fantastic in
some other way.
Kaibel suggested that the verses came from the prologue, but they might
in fact be from anywhere in the play.
1 έστρατεύετο LSJ s.v. στρατεύω 1.1 (“advance with an army or fleet,
wage war, of rulers, officers, or men ... so in Med.”) is misleading, in that the
middle voice of the verb is used routinely in comedy and oratory (and thus
presumably in ordinary speech) in the sense “serve as a soldier” (= LSJ s. v.
1.2, with a handful of late references) rather than “serve as a leader/general”
(e.g. fr. 384.8; Ar. Ach. 1052; Nu. 692; Av. 1367; Th. 232; Lys. 9.4; Is. 2.6; 4.27).80
2 τής στρατιάς κάκιστος ήν άνήρ alludes to and plays upon what
appear to have been occasional spontaneous decisions by field commanders
and other public authorities to award an άριστεΐον (“prize for excellence”,
with “excellence” normally meaning “valor in combat”, although at Hdt. 8.124
the Spartans honor Themistocles with a similar prize for his wisdom and
cleverness81) to the outstanding man or unit in a battle or campaign (e. g.
Hdt. 8.11.2, 123-4; X. HG 1.2.10; Isoc. 16.29-30; Pl. Smp. 220d; IG Π2 456b.6);
for such awards, see in general Pritchett 1974. 276-90. Peisandros similarly
distinguished himself—but as the worst man in the expedition.

80 The verb is handled more effectively at Montanari s. v.
81 See [fr. *126] with n.; Jordan 1988. 547-51, although his insistence on the restricted,
formal nature of the criteria for the award arguably makes the story more compli-
cated than it needs to be.