Ταξίαρχοι (fr. 280)

423

begin the Choes drinking contest at Ar. Ach. 1000-1; to convene the Areopagus
court at A. Eu. 567-9; to start a chariot race at S. El. 711), but especially as a
summons to soldiers to begin hoplite battle (e. g. Ar. Ra. 1042; II. 18.219; A.
Pers. 395 with Garvie 2009 ad loc.\ E. Heracl. 831; Th. 6.69.2; Achae. TrGF 20
F 37.3; X. An. 3.4.4; Demad. fr. 87.12 de Falco πολέμιας σάλπιγγος; and see
Krentz 1990. 115-16).

fr. 280 K.-A. (251 K.)
άντί ποικίλου
πιναρόν εχοντ’ άλουσία
κάρα τε καί τρίβωνα
2 άλουσία Poll.AF: άλουσία λουτίαν245 Poll? : άλουτία Stephanas
in place of an embroidered robe
having a head filthy from lack of
washing and a peasant’s robe as well246
Poll. 7.168
άλουσίαν δέ Εϋπολις έν Ταξιάρχοις--
And Eupolis uses alousia (“failure to bathe”) in Taxiarchoi:-

Meter Herwerden, followed by Kassel-Austin, took this to be iambic dimeter
(as in fr. 386), with a bacchiac in the final foot of the third line.
<x—>- ——
Alternatively, these might be the remains of three iambic trimeters (thus
Meineke and Kaibel), the second lacking a normal penthemimeral or hepthe-
mimeral caesura (undesirable but far from impossible).247

245 I take this to be the significance of Bethe’s enigmatic ά. λουτίαν (unhelpfully
reprinted by Kassel-Austin).
246 Rusten 2011. 267 “it used to be so beautiful, but now it’s filthy—he hasn’t bathed,
both head and cloak” bears only a tangential relationship to the Greek.
247 Meineke went further, welding fr. 280 onto the beginning of fr. 270 (with elided
τρίβων’ in place of the paradosis τρίβωνα). Among other difficulties, this requires