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ΛΗΚΥΘΙΟΝ and ΑΥΤΟΛΗΚΥΘΟΣ

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2013

Graham Anderson
Affiliation:
University of Kentat Canterbury

Extract

In recent years there have been several attempts to find support for a sexual interpretation of ληκύθιον ἀπώλεσεν at Aristophanes Frogs 1198–1248. It would add real point to the discomfiture of Euripides and his predictable prologues if his heroes were to lose their virility every time they lost their lekythia. But the matter has been hotly contested, and the linking of this problem with the mysterious αὐτολήκυθοι of Demosthenes liv 14–17 has compounded confusion in both passages. I shall discuss them separately in the first instance.

I

Two main objections are advanced by Jeffrey Henderson2 to a phallic lekythion in the Frogs: apart from the absence of unequivocal literary parallels, the context does not call for it, and the standard shapes of lekythia do not resemble male genitals anyway.

Information

Type
Notes
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1981

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