Πόλεις (fr. 258)

313

- Hsch. κ 2710 κινάβρα· δυσωδία των τράγων (“kinabra: a foul smell pro-
duced by billy-goats”)
- Phot, γ 201 γράσον· την δυσωδίαν των μασχαλών (“grason: the foul smell
of armpits”)
- Suda γ 426 γράσος· ή δυσοσμία των τράγων, καί γράσων άνθρωπος ό
δύσοσμος (“grasos: the stench of billy-goats. And a person who stinks is
a grason”)
and the passages from Phrynichus and the Antiatticist discussed in Inter-
pretation.
Interpretation Pollux or his source takes a permissive attitude toward
κινάβρα, allowing the word to be used of both the stink of male goats and hu-
man body odor. Phryn. PSp. 60.11-13 is stricter: γρασός· διαφέρει κινάβρας.
γρασός μέν γάρ έστιν ή των άνθρώπων δυσωδία, κίναβρα δέ ή των αιγών καί
τράγων (“grasos is different from kinabra·, for grasos is the foul smell of human
beings, whereas kinabra is that of sheep and billy-goats”).151
κινάβρα (etymology uncertain) is attested in the classical period only
at Ar. Pl. 294 αίγών τε κιναβρώντων (“and of stinking goats”; glossed at Suda
κ 1627 κιναβρώντων αίγών· τών δυσοσμίαν ποιούντων έκ τών μασχαλών,
“kinabrdton aigdn: those that produce a stench from their armpits”). But the
word is used repeatedly by Lucian of both human beings and goats (Bis Acc. 10;
DMar. 1.5; DMeretr. 7.3), suggesting that he thought it had a good Attic pedi-
gree. For γράσος (etymology again uncertain), cf. [Arist.] Pr. 879a23; Plu. Mor.
180c; and the cognate γράσων (someone with an overpowering body odor;
Ath. 13.585d-e). For the idea, cf. Ar. Ach. 852-3 δζων κακόν τών μασχαλών /
πατρός Τραγασαίου (“whose armpits have the nasty smell of his father from
Billy-goatville”) with Olson 2002 ad loc.; Pax 813 τραγομάσχαλοι (“whose
armpits smell like billy-goats”).

151 Cf. Antiatt. p. 87.20-1, although the concern there appears to be that γράσος (sic)
is sometimes wrongly used in place of τράγος (γράσος ού φασι δεΐν λέγειν· ούδ’
άπόζειν γράσου άλλά τράγου, “they say one ought not to say grasos, and also not
‘to smell of a grasos’ but ‘of a tragos”).