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Δίπαλτος

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2013

Extract

―ἀμφοτέραις ταῖς χερσὶν οῖον περιδεξίως με φονεύοι παντὶ σθένει ὡς occurs in Attic tragedy in these three passages, and apparently nowhere else in Classical literature.

On the passage in the Ajax, the earliest of the three, the Scholiast comments:―ἀμφοτέραις ταῖς χερσὶν οῖον περιδεξίως με φονεύοι παντὶ σθένει ὡςΔίδυμος ἤ ὁ στρατός με φονεύοι φονεύοι λαβὼν τὰ δίπαλτα δόρατα, ὡς Πῖός φησιν information which Suidas repeats in a slightly abbreviated form without reference to authorities. That is, there were two lines of interpretation, one literal, ‘with a spear in each hand’, as is plainly shewn by the reference to Φ 162–3 implied by περιδεξίως (περιδέξιος there can only be the equivalent of the metrically impossible ἀμφιδέξιος, a meaning recognised in AP xii. 247, an epigram with a Homeric flavouring) and one figurative ‘with might and main’ (διπλῇ χειρὶ καὶ πάσῃ δυνἁμει as Schol. Tricl. puts it). The meaning attached by Pius to δίπαλτος escapes us, since he may equally well have meant ‘spears brandished in each hand’ and ‘spears brandished mightily’, (i.e. ἀμφοτέραις ταῖς χερσίν without the defining περιδεξίως) but his comment implies that the weapon was assumed to be the spear. This is what the verb πάλλειν would in the first instance suggest to a Greek, since where weapons are concerned Homer uses it exclusively of brandishing a spear or stone.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1937

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References

page 172 note 1 It is used in the active sense in 1, in the passive in 2 and 3. The text in 3 is open to doubt, but the questions raised have nothing to do with the meaning of

page 173 note 1 Occasionally the number is three, e.g. on a large amphora in the British Museum. No. 1927, 4–11, 1.

page 173 note 2 Jahresheften des Oesterr. Institutes XII (1909) pp. 1 ff.

page 173 note 3 E 495, Z 104, ∧ 212. In each case there is a variant which would cover the occasional use of three spears. Γ 18–19 together with 20 were atheticised by Zenodotus, doubtless as conflicting with 338.

page 173 note 4 Also the classical; the hoplite in the field could carry only a single spear (cf. Plat. Euthyd. 299 C).

page 174 note 1 To the classical examples of may be added one from Theophylactus Bulgarus (Ep. 74, Migne, Patr. Gr. 126, p. 500) adduced by Blomfield on S.c.Th. 985. The learned archbishop in a letter to a friend expresses the hope that his correspondent's affairs are in better shape than his own; The allusion to the passage in the Ajax is clear, and so is the general sense duplice armatus. Probably Theophylactus meant ‘with a weapon in each hand’.

page 174 note 2 Macaulay fell into it (more excusably) when, casting his ancient authorities aside and involving Horatius in a hand-to-hand encounter, he made Astur whirl up his broadsword with both hands to the height. In his case one is inclined to suspect unconscious derivation from the famous 27th chapter of the Talisman.

page 175 note 1 In vol. III of his Euripides, published in 1860. In his note on the passage in the Troades (vol. I, 1857) he does not comment on having probably been unable to make up his mind. For Weil's note see his Sept Tragédies d'Euripide, ad loc.

page 175 note 2 The few Greek thunder-bolts which consist of a single section are recorded by Jacobsthal, , Der Blitz in der orientalischen und griechischen Kunst (1906), pp. 13 ff.Google Scholar They also are held by one hand only.

page 175 note 3 Based on Barnes and Musgrave and produced, the earlier part in conjunction with Morus, 1778–88.

page 175 note 4 P. 1080. I have not succeeded in identifying either Prévost or the engraved stone, presumably Oriental, which does not figure in the catalogue of the Orleans collection.

page 176 note 1 To these may be added a cylinder seal in the British Museum (89521) and a fine stele found by Thureau-Dangin in the recent excavations at Arslan Tash, v. infr. figs. 4 and 8.

page 176 note 2 Paus. V. 24.9, VIII. 19.1, cited by Jacobsthal, l.c.

page 177 note 1 The other examples of in Euripides (Hipp. 559, Hec. 473) are unrevealing, and the more obvious meaning preferable. Soph. Aj. 1405 affords the only other example of the adjective in tragedy; its meaning there is unmistakably ‘with fire blazing all round’.

page 177 note 2 Though Pindar is generally regarded as the first to include the patient in the judgment, the logical necessity of providing for his case must have been apparent from the first. The commentators go too far when they say that Pindar departed from an older tradition vouched for by a Hesiodic fragment (Rzach3 125,3) which mentions only Asklepios. The passage is quoted by Athenagoras ( 29) as giving an example of an unsatis factory character whom the pagans credited with divinity, and naturally breaks off as soon as Asklepios is disposed of. Zeus may belong to the original tradition.

page 178 note 1 See Hesych., Suid., Et. Mag. s.v.

page 178 note 2 Vit. Lys. xii; cf. Usener, Götternamen, p. 287.

page 178 note 3 AM XXI (1896) p. 230, fig. 1 (= P.V.C. Baur, Centaurs in Ancient Art, p. 85, fig. 17 and Cook, A. B., Zeus II, 615, fig. 513).Google Scholar Salzmann, Nécropole de Camiros, pl. XXVIa (= Cook op. cit. p. 614, fig. 512.)

page 178 note 4 AM l.c. pl. VI (= Baur, op. cit. pl. XI and Cook op. cit. p. 616, fig. 514).

page 179 note 1 Plutarch, Qu. Gr. 45, pp. 301–2.

page 179 note 2 Aelian, de An. Nat. XII, 30.

page 179 note 3 Now in the British Museum.

page 179 note 4 JHS XXXVI (1916) p. 65, figs. 1 and 2, Cook, op. cit. pp. 592 ff. and 705.

page 179 note 5 Johansen, Vases Sicyoniens, pl. xxii, 2 a–d and p. 146, fig. 109; Payne, Protokorinthuche Vasenmalerei, pl. xi; Buschor, , AJA 1934, p. 128, fig. 1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 181 note 1 (a). Wiss. Veröff. D.O.G.I. pl. 1; E. Meyer, Reich u. Kultur der Chetiter, p. 57, fig. 56; A. Götze, Hethiter, Churriter u. Assyrer, pl. 34. Found in Babylon, but certainly brought there from a Syro-Hittite site, (b). Ausgrabungen in Sendschirli pl. XLI; Meyer, op. cit. p. 57, fig. 57. From Sinjerli. (c). Meyer op. cit. p. 103, fig. 80. From Malatia; in this case the axe is replaced by a bow. These monuments are not precisely datable, but cannot well be earlier than the 9th and are certainly not later than the 7th century.

page 181 note 2 Removed by Esar-haddon to the S.W. palace at Nimrud. Layard, , Mon. of Nineveh, I. pl. 65Google Scholar; Nineveh and its Remains II, pp. 34 and 451; Assyrian Sculpture in the British Museum II, pl. X.

page 182 note 1 Ward, Cylinder Seals of Western Asia, p. 49, fig. 127; Contenau, La Glyptique Syro-Hittite, pl. I. 3. She holds the lines by the middle, so that they have the appearance of a double thunder-bolt, a form which we shall meet again on Babylonian and Assyrian monuments. The Syro-Hittite god holds his lightning by one end, as in archaic Greek art Zeus sometimes holds the thunder-bolt.

page 182 note 2 In the British Museum; the date is probably c 1800. Ward, op. cit. p. 171, fig. 456; cf. H. Frankfort, Cylinder Seals, pp. 162–3.

page 182 note 3 In the British Museum. Ward, op. cit. p. 201, fig. 579.

page 183 note 1 Layard, , Mon. of Nineveh II. pl. 5Google Scholar, Contenau, Civilisation d'Assur et de Babylone, p. 105, fig. 19. Owing to the damaged surface the design does not shew up well in the collotype of Assyrian Sculptures in the British Museum; Reign of Assur-nasir-pal, pl. XXXVII.

page 183 note 2 Weissbach, Babylonische Miscellen, frontispiece. The king's reign cannot be precisely dated, but apparently falls somewhere between 900 and 600.

page 183 note 3 Weissbach, op. cit. p. 17, fig. 2; Contenau, Manuel d'Archéologie Orientale, p. 228, fig. 139.

page 183 note 4 Jacobsthal, op. cit. p. 5, n. 2.

page 184 note 1 Thureau-Dangin, Arslan Tash, pl. II. 1, p. 65.

page 184 note 2 The following are examples of the winged horse in Assyrian art:—Layard, , Mon. of Nineveh I, pl. 44, 1Google Scholar; beardless winged figure wearing horned cap holds by their manes two winged and rearing horses; pl. 50, winged horses rearing on either side of a sacred tree. Both occur on reliefs from the N.W. palace of Assur-nasir-pal II at Nimrud and form part of the embroideries of robes, royal and divine. Textiles with woven or embroidered designs probably played a large part in bringing Oriental motives to Greece. The winged horse is a fairly common motive on seals; see, e.g., Ward, op. cit., p. 201, fig. 580, Weber, Altorientalische Siegelbilder, pp. 24 and 93, figs. 48 and 343 (= Malten, , Bellerophontes, Jb. XL (1925), p. 148Google Scholar, figs. 54 and 55). The centaur, winged and bending a bow, appears on seals from the Kassite period onwards; see Ward, op. cit., p. 4, fig. 21 (on which the wing is small and rudimentary) p. 209, fig. 629, p. 210, figs. 631 and 632, and cf. H. Frankfort, Cylinder Seals, p. 156. Neither motive belongs to Phoenician or Syro-Hittite art, though Malten is able to adduce a single example of a winged horse from a Hittite seal op. cit. p. 143, fig. 40; Delaporte, Catalogue des Cylindres Orientaux dans la Bibliothèque Nationale, pl. XXXVIII, nr. 650.

In Greek art a pair of winged, horse-bodied, horse-legged monsters with human head, bust and arms appears on a Late Geometric bowl AM XVIII (Attic), p. 113, fig. 10 (= Perrot et Chipiez VII p. 222, fig. 96, and Kunst in Bildern, p. 112, 9). Centaurs of normal archaic form appear on a Late Geometric vase (Attic) in Copenhagen (CVA Danemark, Fase. 2, pl. 73, 3; cf. Johansen, Vases Sicyoniens, p. 146, fig. 110), and a winged Centaur, much like the Demons of the Attic bowl, follows a normal one on a Rhodian sherd of the 7th century; (Salzmann, Nécropole de Cameiros, pl. XXXIX). The New York bronze representing a man and a centaur belongs to the Geometric Age (Richter The Sculpture and Sculptors of the Greeks, p. 337, AM 1930 Beil. 38. 1). The winged horse appears on a couple of Phaleron jugs dating to c 700; one, unpublished, is in the British Museum, the other is reproduced Jb. II (1887) p. 46, fig. 4 (= Malten, op. cit., p. 146, Fig. 47).

page 186 note 1 This was the brilliant discovery of the late Humfry Payne, Necrocorinthia, pp. 67 ff.

page 186 note 2 E. Kunze, Kretische Bronzereliefs, pp. 236 ff.

page 186 note 3 JHS LIII (1933) p. 122.