500

Eupolis

Meter x-x-oo— see West 1982. 97.

Hephaestion apparently analyzed x—x—— as-— (“spondees”),
and saw this as balanced by (“iambic syzygies”, i. e. sycopated
iambs of some sort). Both elements of the line are actually aeolic.
Discussion Fritzsche 1835. 145-6 n. 10; Bergk 1838. 361; Meineke 1839
II.535-6; Gilbert 1877. 131-2; Kock 1880 1.337; Hoffmann 1910. 36; Whittaker
1935. 189; Schiassi 1944. 59-60, 62-3; Ruffell 2000. 491; Storey 2003. 269-71,
273; Olson 2007. 212 (E18)

Citation context Hephaestion’s metrical treatise, originally in 48 books, sur-
vives only in a severely epitomized version, the Encheiridion (“Handbook”), on
which the metrical scholion to Pindar appears to be drawing. Priscian prob-
ably had access to a more complete version of Hephaestion, which he here
translates into Latin (thus Meineke), although Keil thought he was drawing
instead on Heliodorus.

Text The scribes who produced our copies of Priscian (and probably the
scribe who produced the common exemplar of these copies as well) had only
a vague understanding of Greek, and most of the variants recorded in the
apparatus are crude majuscule errors and the like.
In 2, Priscian’s τε is an easy error for Hephaestion’s δέ after τ’ a few words
earlier in the line.
For εση (Heph.) vs. ΕΣΕΙ i. e. εσει (Priscian.) at the end of 2, see Arnott
2001; Millis 2015 on Anaxandr. fr. 38.1 (with further references), -p appears to
be the proper 5lh-century form, which is gradually replaced over the course
of the 4th century by -ει. Bergk’s εσει, / εί δει in 2-3 is designed to allow the
two verses to be taken together.
Fritzsche proposed (B.) ούκοΰν πώς in place of the paradosis πώς ούν
ούκ in 4. But the change of speaker is not wanted in the parabasis and the
combination ούκοΰν πώς is not attested elsewhere before the Roman period.
Interpretation Direct address of the city, i. e. of the audience, from the
parabasis proper. See Whittaker 1935. 189. The tone in 1-2, and perhaps
throughout, is sarcastic.
Priscian not only separates 3-5 (for which he is the only witness, and
which he seems to regard as a unit) from 1-2, but attributes the verses only to