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Cecropids in Eubulus (fr. 10) and Satyrus (A.P. 10.6)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Rory B. Egan
Rory B. Egan
Affiliation:
University of Manitoba
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Extract

Cecropids, grammatically masculine in one case and feminine in the other, occur in each of these pieces of poetry. I believe that the second passage can shed some light on the meaning of the term as it is used in the fragment from the Antiope of Eubulus. The question of the significance of the Cecropids in Eubulus has previously been discussed by E. K. Borthwick. A. B. Cook, noting the similarity of κερκώπη (a term designating a type of cicada) to the name of Cecrops and seeing their associations with dew as a link between the insects and the names (Herse, Pandrosus) of Cecrops' daughters, had posited a connection between the autochthonous Athenian family of Cecrops and the earth-born cicadas, those symbols of Athenian autochthony. Borthwick applied Cook's theory to the passage from Eubulus and concluded that when the poet mentions the Cecropids that feed on the breezes he is alluding to the musical cicadas, who were believed to subsist on dew and/or air. It was this latter feature of their diet, Borthwick proposed, that inspired the last line of the fragment.

Type
Shorter Notes
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 35 , Issue 2 , December 1985 , pp. 523 - 525
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1985

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References

1 ‘A Grasshopper's Diet — Notes on an Epigram of Meleager and a Fragment of Eubulus’, CQ 60 (1966), 107–12Google Scholar.

2 Cook, A. B., Zeus (Cambridge, 1940), iii. 246–61Google Scholar.

3 For reasons other than mine Hunter, R. L., ed., Eubulus: The Fragments (Cambridge, 1983), p. 98Google Scholar expresses reservations about Borthwick's identification.

4 Cf. the comments of Page, D., ed., Further Greek Epigrams (Cambridge, 1981), pp. 89fGoogle Scholar.

5 Page, , Further Greek Epigrams, p. 90Google Scholar.

6 For swallows constructing the embankment see Pliny, , HN 10.94Google Scholar. Cf. Thompson, D'A. W., A Glossary of Greek Birds (London, 1936), p. 323Google Scholar.

7 In a comment relayed by CQ a referee correctly observes in reference to line 3 of Satyrus that ἠχέω is commonly used of cicadas but rarely of birds. This observation implies the possibility that κεκροπίς = τέττιξ in Satyrus. Although this suggestion has not, I think, been aired before, it was my own initial reaction to reading the epigram while having in mind the fragment of Eubulus and being at the time persuaded by the arguments of Borthwick thereon. The consistency of motifs among the set of epigrams to which Satyrus' belongs, the fact that the swallow and not the cicada, who arrives later in the year, is so proverbially associated with the main theme of the poem, the return of spring (see Thompson, , Glossary, p. 319Google Scholar), and the lexical evidence from Latin poetry now compel me to reject that possibility. In any case ἠχέω is used not only of cicada sounds but of a wide variety of inarticulate sounds. Also, the vocabulary associated with cicadas and swallows frequently overlaps, as it does, for example, in Evenus, , A.P. 9.122Google Scholar.

8 On the difficulties in dating Satyrus see Page, , Further Greek Epigrams, p. 89Google Scholar.

9 Even so it compares well with any lexical evidence equating κεκροπίδης with τέττιξ. Such evidence amounts to Cook's speculations on κερκώπη and the Cecropiae (or Cecropis)…cicadae adduced by Borthwick, , ‘A Grasshopper's Diet’, p. 109, from Ciris 128Google Scholar. This Latin evidence is both considerably later than Eubulus and based on a textual conjecture.

10 See Thompson, Glossary, pp. 320fGoogle Scholar.

11 κάπτω is actually used of birds eating insects at Aristophanes, , Birds 245Google Scholar.