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Appian, B.C. ii. 74

T. Rice Holmes

The Classical Review / Volume 23 / Issue 08 / December 1909, pp 254 - 255 DOI: 10.1017/S0009840X00004169, Published online: 27 October 2009

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0009840X00004169

How to cite this article: T. Rice Holmes (1909). Appian, B.C. ii. 74. The Classical Review, 23, pp 254-255 doi:10.1017/S0009840X00004169

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Troades, 270. \dx6ai TTOVWV are a gloss ? and that the line ?X« TTOT/WS viv, WOT' air'qWa^Ba.i irovtov. originally ran I\ti TTOT/IO'S VIV airovos. If so, we should have to conjecture the rest Talthybius is telling Hecuba about Poly- of the line. xena: he had said : I should suggest, if such a repetition is tvSai fxovi^t iratSa j^ aA.a!s. possible, cos %x€l Kakws. She eagerly cries: For: (1) This might make Hecuba despair of learning anything definite about Polyxena, Tt T08' eAaices ; apd fioi di\iov ktvcraei; and so account for her passing on to inquire To which the above line is an answer. about Andromache. Hecuba not understanding him (see 11. 624-5) (2) The words would easily fall out through goes on to ask of Andromache. being a repetition. As Prof. Murray has pointed out it is But the essential part of the emendation almost inconceivable that anyone should after is exclusive of this and rests on dramatic Talthybhis' explicit statement have failed to suitability. understand that Polyxena was dead. LEONARD BUTLER. Is it possible that the words <3or' New College, Oxford.

APPIAN, B.C. ii. 74.

APPIAN relates that just before the battle Postgate, in his edition of Lucan's Seventh of Pharsalia Caesar ordered the rampart of Book (p. xxvi, n. 1), remarks that 'Against his camp to be dismantled and the ditch to this view Mr. Perrin's observation (I.e. p. be filled up {KafiiXerk [i.oi Trpoiovres eirl TTJV 326) that "it would have taken more time to fi,a.\rjv TO. T(C\rj TO (T€T€pa avruiv Kal TTJV demolish the walls of a Roman camp than rdpov iy\iixraTt); and Lucan (vii. 326—7) for its occupants to march out of the ordinary puts the same command into Caesar's mouth, gates and form in order of battle outside," but makes him add a reason which in itself has weight.' But Mr. Perrin was replying would have been sound enough, not to Stoffel, but to Merivale {Hist, of the Romans under the Empire, ii. 1850, p. 293), sternite iam uallum fossasque implete ruina, who accepted Appian's statement as literally exeat ut plenis acies non sparsa maniplis. true; and although what he says is undeni- The fable has of course been rejected; able, it would have taken but a very short but while Mr. Perrin {American Journal of time to do what Stoffel suggests was done. Philology, v. 1884, p. 325), who supposes 'But,' continues Professor Postgate, 'it is that Appian copied Lucan, regards it as clear from Caesar's words [B. C. iii. 85, § 4] a mere invention, Stoffel {Guerre civile, ii. "cum iam esset agmen in portis," that the 248) conjectures that it was based upon arrangements for marching out had already fact. 'Ann,' he writes, 'que les troupes been made.' Certainly; but those arrange- pussent sortir plus vite, il fit sans aucun ments were for an ordinary march, not for doute elargir les portes et pratiquer deS a march against an enemy. Has not my coupures dans le parapet. Bien entendu friend overlooked one word in Caesar's que les cohortes laissees a la garde narrative,—expeditas (copias educit) ? The du camp eurent a le remettre en etat de significance of this word is clear. Caesar had defense aussitdt apres le depart de l'armee. determined to quit his camp altogether and Tel est probablement le fait que Lucain aura march from place to place {ib. § 2). The transforme poetiquement en une destruction troops, who had already struck their tents when du camp et qui aura 6te accepte ensuite he learned unexpectedly that Pompey was pre- comme une verite par Appien.' Professor paring to fight, were of course carrying their THE CLASSICAL REVIEW 255 packs (sardnae). With these encumbrances soldiers are full of stomach for a fight, it is they could not go into action. By the single not wise to send them into action with the word expeditas Caesar gives us to understand least possible delay while their blood is up. that the packs were laid aside and collected It is to me inconceivable that either Lucan (cf. B.G. i. 24, § 3). To deposit 22,000 or Appian should have simply invented the packs, besides those of the auxiliaries, in an absurd order which they attributed to Caesar, orderly manner was not the work of a but quite intelligible that they should have moment. While it was going on the avail- misunderstood the rational order which I able hands would have had plenty of time have no doubt that he really gave, and the to enlarge the exits in the manner which object of which Lucan states with perfect Stoffel describes. Mr. Perrin indeed {op. cit. clearness. Indeed it is not incredible that p. 326) argues that 'there was nothing for Lucan understood the nature of the order, Caesar to gain by breaking a passage out of though, as a poet, he expressed it with his camp;' but I would ask whether'there rhetorical exaggeration. was not time to gain, and whether, when T. RICE HOLMES.

PHRIXUS AND DEMODICE.

A NOTE ON PINDAR, Pyth. iv. 162 f.

had in his mind was that given by Apollo- T$ TTOT' IK ITOVTOV ) eK T£ /XTfrpvias aOiiav fiekktov. dorus (1. 80) and followed apparently by Euripides in his Phrixus. It may be as IT appears to me that this passage, so far well briefly to recapitulate the facts. Athamas from having been adequately explained, has had two children by Nephele, Phrixus and not received from editors the attention which Helle. Subsequently he married Ino, who it deserves; the reason is, I suppose, that bore to him Learchus and Melicertes. Ino they have not sufficiently borne in mind the was jealous of the children of Nephele, and details of the story to which it refers. plotted to destroy them. She persuaded the The translation 'whereby of old he was women to roast the wheat,which they contrived delivered from the deep and from the im- to accomplish without the knowledge of their pious weapons of his stepmother' (E. Myers) husbands; and when the roasted seeds did is so simple that it fails to awaken suspicion : not come up in the following season, Athamas •.*! none of the moderns except Dissen, so far sent to Delphi to enquire how the dearth as I know, has thought it worth while to might be stayed. Ino then persuaded the enquire with what weapons Phrixus was messengers to declare that the oracle had attacked by his stepmother. And Dissen's enjoined the sacrifice of Phrixus in order to explanation ('id agenti nouerca ut telis revive the fruitfulness of the soil. Athamas, periret') is entirely unsupported by tradition. yielding to the pressure of his starving people, Mezger thinks it enough to say that Ino was led Phrixus to the altar; but at the critical the name of the stepmother, and Gilder- moment Nephele intervened to rescue her sleeve speaks of the 'common form of the children, having received from Hermes the familiar legend.' Similarly Christ:—' de ram with the golden fleece, which, soaring Phrixo insidias nouercae fugiente et in dorso in the air with Phrixus and Helle on its arietis per mare uehente omnia nota.' back, carried them far away across the sea. Like most of the famous stories of the The summary will serve to show how ill- heroic age, the tale of Athamas and his suited is the language of Pindar to describe children appears in many shapes; but I such a situation. Contrast the allusions of presume that the version which Gildersleeve Apollonius Rhodius to the same incident: