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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 March 2017
According to the manuscripts of On the Crown (18.260), Demosthenes mockingly claims that, as the youthful Aeschines led processions in his mother's mystery-cult celebrations, he was hailed by various old women as ἔξαρχος καὶ προηγεμὼν καὶ κιττοφόρος καὶ λικνοφόρος καὶ τοιαῦθ’ (‘leader and guide and ivy-bearer and bearer-of-the-winnowing-fan and the like’). Τhese are clearly special titles—Aeschines is not just one celebrant among many but a leading figure in the train of worshippers—and recent editors accordingly note that κιττοφόρος seems weak and follow Albert Rubens (‘Rubenius’) in printing instead κιστοφόρος (‘basket-bearer’), which Harpocration reports was read by some authorities here. κιστοφόρος appears to be supported by ΣF2 18.260 (296 Dilts) ὁ φέρων τὰς κίστας (‘the man who carries the baskets’), which is easily taken to confirm that Demosthenes meant that Aeschines stood out in the crowd of celebrants inter alia because he carried containers within which must have been sacred implements of some sort.
1 Thanks are due Benjamin W. Millis and an anonymous referee for CQ for their comments on earlier drafts of this paper.
2 Thus in particular Wankel, H., Rede für Ktesipho über den Kranz (Wissenschaftliche Kommentare zu griechischen und lateinischen Schriftstellern) (Heidelberg, 1976), 1145–6Google Scholar in his commentary; Yunis, H. (ed.), Demosthenes On the Crown (Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics) (Cambridge, 2001), 256 Google Scholar (mistakenly citing the authority of the scholium ad loc.; see below) and in his text; and M.R. Dilts in the new OCT (2001). κιττοφόρος was retained by a number of early twentieth-century editors, including S.H. Butcher in the old OCT (1903); C. Fuhr in the Teubner (1914); C.A. Vince and J.H. Vince in the Loeb (1926); and G. Mathieu in the Budé (1947).
3 κιττοφόρος· ἔνιοι μετὰ τοῦ σ γράφουσι κιστοφόρος· τὰς γὰρ λεγομένας κίστας ἱερὰς εἶναι ἔλεγον τοῦ Διονύσου καὶ ταῖν θεαῖν (‘kittophoros: some authorities write kistophoros with a sigma; for they used to say that so-called kistai were sacred to Dionysus and the Two Goddesses’, i.e. Demeter and Kore; p. 178.10–11 Dindorf = K 62 Keaney). The note is not specifically connected to Dem. 18.260, but the word in question is so rare, and the set of texts Harpocration is interested in so limited, that it can scarcely refer to anything else. This looks in any case to be a speculative emendation by someone unhappy with the reading κιττοφόρος rather than a simple report of a manuscript variant. Cf. Phot. κ 748 = Suda κ 1681 (from the Epitome of Harpocration, and thus not an independent witness). The error—if that is what it is—must be old and widespread, since κιττοφόρος is also found at [Aristid.] Rh. II.121 Patillon (quoting Demosthenes) and Lib. Vit. 4.3 (reworking Demosthenes; fourth century c.e.).
4 Note also that the lemma <κιστοφόρος> has been supplied by Dilts to match his version of the scholium, and should not be treated as independent evidence for what Demosthenes wrote.
5 LSJ s.v. I.1 (directing the reader to s.v. κοῖτος I ‘resting-place, bed’) is misleading inter alia because the first gloss offered after the citation of Od. 19.341 is ‘bedstead, IG I2 330.16, al.’, a reference to the Attic Stelae, where the word almost certainly means ‘storage container’; cf. below. Montanari s.v. ‘bed, couch’ appears to represent an incautious misunderstanding of the LSJ entry.
6 Cf. German Lager < legen, and contrast English lair (from the same root). For vessels of this sort generally, see Brümmer, E., ‘Griechische Truhenbehälter’, JdI 100 (1985), 16–22 Google Scholar, who does not attempt to discriminate between κίστη and κοίτη.
7 Emended to κίστας by T. Kock.
8 Thus Pritchett in Pritchett, W.K. and Pippin, A., ‘The Attic Stelai: part II’, Hesp. 25 (1956), 178–328 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 225–6. This section of the catalogue appears to be reserved for minor household goods; entries for [κι]βότια (‘chests’) appear in lines 188–9.
9 See Handley, E.W. (ed.), The Dyskolos of Menander (Cambridge, MA, 1965)Google Scholar, ad loc., who suggests as an alternative possibility that κοίτη here might mean ‘bed-frame’, as if the word were roughly equivalent to κλίνη (which it is not; see above). One would not in any case expect beds to be hauled out into the countryside for a rustic sacrifice of this sort, for which temporary στιβάδες (thin branches covered with green stuff or skins) were normally produced on the spot—as the cook at Dys. 420–1 says is going to be done for the party to come in the play.
10 See Furley, W.D., Menander Epitrepontes (BICS Supplement 106) (London, 2009)Google Scholar, ad loc.
11 Note also the κοίτε ℎυπόχσυλος κατάχρυσος (‘gilded koitê with wood beneath’) which appears repeatedly in the Parthenon accounts (e.g. IG I3 343.10) and which again seems more likely to be a container than a bed-frame. No kistai, by contrast, appear to be dedicated to Athenian goddesses.
12 Emended by K. Ziegler in his Teubner edition of the text to τὰς μυστικὰς κίστας, bringing the text into conformity with what is generally read in Demosthenes.
13 A κίστη is used at Ar. Thesm. 284–5 by a worshipper to bring a sacrificial cake to a ceremony in honour of Demeter and Kore, although not as part of a procession, as also at Theoc. Id. 26.7–8 (Dionysiac ritual), and Clement of Alexandria (second/third cent. c.e.) refers explicitly to αἱ κίσται αἱ μυστικαί (Protrept. II.19 P., i.22.18 Dindorf). As Jahn, O., ‘De cista mystica’, Hermes 3 (1869), 317–34, esp. 318–19Google Scholar (followed by Mau, A., ‘Cista’, RE 3 [1899], 2591–3, at 2591Google Scholar) makes clear, however, the now-commonplace association between the κίστη and mystic cult is based primarily on this passage from Demosthenes and then (far more convincingly) on literary and visual evidence from the late Hellenistic and Roman periods.