On "Triballic" in Aristophanes (Birds 1615)

Author(s): Joshua Whatmough

Source: Classical Philology, Vol. 47, No. 1 (Jan., 1952), p. 26
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/265522
Accessed: 17/05/2010 16:47
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless
you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you
may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.
Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ucpress.
Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed
page of such transmission.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

The University of Chicago Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to
Classical Philology.

http://www.jstor.org

NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS

ON "TRIBALLIC" IN ARISTOPHANES
(Birds 1615)
1677-78; and these (except 1615) are all

Some years ago (HSCP, XXXIX [1929],

1-6) I discussed an inscribed South Italic
vase, showing that it contains a fragment
of Dorian farce. I now learn that Altheim

the commentators; but it is Greek with a

Thracian flavor (cf. P-W, s. v. "Thrake";

(Geschichteder lateinischenSprache [1951],

Sprache 410.40)

p. 427), like Krahe, whom he quotes, thinks

that the plain Greek O6? t-rp> &pov "Pick
up the basket" is "kom6dienmessapisch."
In this he apes A. D. Trendall (Fruhitaliotische Vasen [1938], p. 25). But it is
absurd for Trendall, who knows evidently
no MIessapic, to sit in judgement, even with
Beazley to emulate. The retrograde direction of the writing is paralleled exactly
by Walters (Ancient Pottery, 1I [1905],
262) (also Doric); and if it were not, still
there is nothing in vopcxpetrTrXo which can
be Messapic. The word O6?i?ttnp (i. e., 6XF?ttrp) is justified irn my paper already
cited; cf. o' Awptdq 6Xpoxo
(ibid., p. 4),
i. e., OXFcx.
But Trendall seeks to justify his "comedy
Messapic" (comedy Messapic forsooth) by
an appeal to what he considers Triballic
in Aristophanes - comedy "Triballic"
forsooth! He gives no reference. But the
reference is plain. It is Birds 1615, 1627,

I write this note only because I have

the correct reading at 1615 vmooaotpe5,
(the
oxr3cXope5 of Suidas is merely a
further step in the corruption), which, it
is suggested by Green and other editors,
stands for v' with a divine name, in the
accusative. That name, I now see, is the
Thracian epithet of Zeus BXao5p8oq, see
DAG, 243, which may be a derivative of
the pre-Keltic belsa "campus" of Virg.
Tolos. (ibid., 158). Cf. the local names
Belsa (ibid., 179, modern Beauce, Orleannais), Belsinum (Gers; ibid., 84). Read,
therefore, v' (or vc&?) BXaoi5p8ov. The
meaning is "Campestris," which is used
of a god in CIL, II, 4083 (cf. VIII,10760
with Diz. Epigr. 4.617, and Campesium in
EE, IX, 1005, references which I owe to
A. D. Nock). The alternation rp: 8p between Greek and Thracian is normal.

as much Greek as

?vLTpLt?Y)5

in 1530. So

JOSH UA WHATMOUGH
HARVARD UNIVERSITY

NOTE ON LUCAN 7.257-58.

haec est illa dies mihi quam Rubiconis ad undas
255 promissam memini, cuius spe movimus arma,
in quam distulimus vetitos remeare
triumphos,
[haec eadem est hodie quae pignora
quaeque penates
reddat et emerito faciat vos Marte
colonos]
haec, fato quae teste probet, quis
iustius arma
260 sumpserit; haec acies victum factura
nocentem est.

257 258 om. ZMUV et cum 256 et 259 (ob

csrma bis in fine positum) P, in quo man.2
256 et 259 addidit, non hos duos; habent
GZ2, non interpretantur c a, eiecit Oudendorpius, ex 346-8 et I 340-5 ut videtur
confictos. nec ferri potest haec (dies) quae
hodie reddat et absurde versu 258 eis
praedia quibus 265-7 ius mundi promittit:
accedit ut his interpositis disiungantur
sensus inter se cohaerentes.1
These lines form part of an exhortation
addressed by Caesar to his veterans before
the battle of Pharsalus. Verses 257-58 may
be interpolated and are expelled by Hous26