Βάπται (fr. 77)

249

Text Fritzsche 1835 proposed combining this fragment with Ar. fr 470 (quot-
ed in Interpretation) so as to fill out 1. It is easier to assume that both poets
independently used the simple phrase άναρίστητος ών in the same sedes.
Kock proposed dealing with the tautologous άναρίστητος ών / κούδέν
βεβρωκώς by writing πεπωκώς for βεβρωκώς; but see Interpretation.
The Synagoge B has scriptio plena καί ούδέν for κούδέν in 2. Photius offers
the syntactically simpler but metrically impossible καί ού (i. e. κού).
Interpretation A description of an individual man. άλλα γάρ qualifies what
precedes it as irrelevant to the matter at hand (Denniston 1950. 101-2),143 and
the point is thus not that the person in question spent the night at a drinking
party (hence his garland; cf. Olson-Sens 2000 on Archestr. fr. 60.1, 3) and is
only now on his way home, at a time of day when everyone else has already
had lunch.144 Instead, the idea must be that anyone wearing a garland could
be expected to have had lunch and thus to have eaten, sc. because garlands
are worn at such events, whereas this man has not been so lucky. Why he is
wearing a garland nonetheless is obscure; Winckelmann took the reference
to be to the musician Connas (PAA 581457; #1477 Stephanis), whom Cratinus
(fr. 349) and Aristophanes (Eq. 534) both mock for wearing garlands (sc. in
recognition of artistic victories in the past) but nonetheless being hungry
(Cratinus) and thirsty (Aristophanes), sc. in the present. For the phrasing, cf. in
general Ar. fr. 470 διά τής άγοράς τρέχων, άναρίστητος ών (“running (masc.
sing.) through the Agora, despite having had no lunch”).
1-2 βιβρώσκω does not appear to be used alone to mean “eat (dinner)”,
sc. “(in contrast to lunch)”, and άναρίστητος ών / κούδέν βεβρωκώς is ac-
cordingly better understood as a hendiadys, with the first term concentrating
on the social aspect of the situation (the subject has missed a meal), the second
on its practical significance (he has therefore eaten nothing).
1 άναρίστητος is confined to 5th- and early 4th-century comedy (see
Citation context); other authors, including Xenophon (e.g. HG 4.5.8; Smp.
1.11), Hippocrates (e.g. Acut. 9 = 2.290.9 Littre) and Menander (fr. 521) use
άνάριστος. Cf. fr. 347 άδειπνος. For άριστον (literally “early meal” and thus
“lunch” vel siml), see frr. 99.2, 13-14; 269.1-2; 374 n.

143 Delneri 2006. 285 dismisses Denniston’s interpretation of the words as “non del
tutto appropriata nel nostro caso”, but fails to explain why this might be so or to
argue for an alternative interpretation.
144 Cf. Storey: “Fr. 77 might refer to [Alcibiades] rather the worse for wear the morning
after”.