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Polycrates and Delos1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

H. W. Parke
Affiliation:
Trinity College, Dublin

Extract

There is preserved in Suidas' Lexicon a story about Polycrates of Samos and the island of Delos. It is offered by the lexicographer as an explanation of the phrase τα⋯τ⋯ σοι κα⋯ πύθια κα⋯ δ⋯λια (s.v. and sub nom. πύθια κα⋯ δ⋯λια), when used in a colloquial sense to mean ‘it's all the same to you’. Polycrates had instituted a festival on Delos and asked the Pythia whether to call it by the one name or the other. The phrase, which was supposed to have been the Pythia's reply, was taken to mean that it was all the same to Polycrates whatever he called it, and the death of Polycrates, coming soon after, was interpreted as the fulfilment of the prophecy. Suidas cites Epicurus and Menander for the phrase itself, which was therefore in familiar use by the end of the fourth century B.C. As for the story about Polycrates, it is quite likely that Suidas' ultimate source was some writer of about that period, such as Demon, περ⋯ παροιμι⋯ν. It is very much in the manner of his fragments.

Information

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1946

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