Ταξίαρχοι (fr. 271)

403

commodities produced there from similar items imported from elsewhere:
the speaker wants specifically Naxian almonds and wine from Naxian vines.
Naxos (IACP #507), the largest of the Cycladic islands, was the first member
of the Delian League to rebel against Athenian domination, and was besieged
and forcefully subjugated probably in the early 460s BCE; see Th. 1.98.4 with
Hornblower 1997. 151-2, including further bibliography on 149; Rutishauser
2012. 89-91. Naxos is associated with Dionysus already at hBacch. 2 (in a
catalogue of places where the god was supposedly born); cf. Call. fr. 75.41
(ές Διονυσιάδσ. meaning “to Naxos”); D.S. 5.52 (according to a local account,
Dionysus was brought up by nymphs there after Semele’s death); Plin. Nat.
4.67 Dionysiada a vinearum fertilitate (Naxos called “Dionysias, on account
of the fertility of its vineyards”); Plu. Fhes. 20 (identifying Naxos with the
mysterious island referred to as Dia by Homer, where Theseus abandoned
Ariadne and Dionysus took her as his wife);227 Andriscus FGrH 500 F 3 and
Aglaosthenes FGrH499 F *4 (on Naxian cults of “Gentle” Dionysus); Hiller van
Gaertringen 1900. Meineke accordingly took this to be Dionysus asking for
his favorite food and drink, although the words might just as easily belong to
someone else asking the god for local specialty goods to which he might be
expected to have access. The simultaneous mention of nuts and wine, at any
rate, suggests a symposium (or at least plans for a symposium).
1 δίδου is properly “offer!” rather than “give!”228 (δός; e.g. Ar. Ach.
1054 with Olson 2002 ad loc.·, Hermipp. fr. 44 τήνδε νύν μή μοι δίδου, / έκ δέ
τοΰ κέρατος αύ μοι δός πιεϊν, “Don’t offer me this (cup) now, but allow me
to drink again from the horn!”; E. Med. 617, 961; Or. 642-3). The imperative is
therefore better taken as governing the accusatives (as elsewhere in comedy),
with the infinitives understood as epexegetic (“almonds to chew on and wine
to drink”), rather than as governing the infinitives that in turn take accusative
objects (“to chew on almonds and drink wine”).229
μασάσθαι The verb (etymology uncertain) is first attested here; in
Aristophanes (e. g. Eq. 717; V. 780; Pax 1310); and at Hp. Epid. VII11 = 5.386.9,

227 E.g. Od. 11.321-5; Hes. Th. 947-9. The identification of Dia with Naxos also seems
to be the point of a learned allusion at Call. fr. 67.13-14 (cf. Harder 2012 ad loci)
and is generally taken for granted in modern scholarship (e. g. Hedreen 2011. 496).
For the story of Theseus, Ariadne and Dionysus, see Webster 1966.
228 As in Storey 2011. 216 and Rusten 2011. 266.
229 Rusten 2011. 266 mixes the two constructions (“give me some Naxian almonds to
eat and let me drink some wine from Naxian vines”) to no obvious purpose, δός
occasionally takes an infinitive in comedy (Ar. Ach. 882; Pax 709; Ra. 755; Hermipp.
fr. 44.2 (above); Men. Sam. 446; cf. e. g. E. Med. 1402-3; Ph. 615), but δίδου does not.