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ARISTOPHANES, PEACE 246

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 September 2026

Giacomo Mancuso
Giacomo Mancuso*
Affiliation:
Liceo Ginnasio Statale ‘B. Secusio’, Caltagirone/University of Catania
*
platocomicus@yahoo.it
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Abstract

A conjecture in Aristophanes, Peace 246.

Keywords

AristophanesPeacetextual criticismemendationcorruptionGreek metreGreek comedytense

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Type
Shorter Notes
Information
The Classical Quarterly , First View , pp. 1 - 2
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2026. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association

The earliest MSS (R, V) transmit 246 with faulty metre:Footnote 1

ὦ Μέγαρα Μέγαρ᾽, ὡς ἐπιτρίψεσθ᾽ αὐτίκα

In place of ὦ the recentiores (PCH, LB, Ald) give ἰώ.Footnote 2 The resulting sequence—tribrach in the second ‘foot’, anapaest in the third—is uncommon, but there are several uncontestable instances (Ach. 47, 928, Nub. 663, Av. 108, Eccl. 315).Footnote 3

Some recent editors, however, restore ἐπιτετρίψεσθ᾽Footnote 4 from the lemma of ΣR 246b, objecting that: (i) in Attic, while the future middle of τρίψομαι is attested in a passive sense (Thuc. 6.18.6, 7.42.5), compounds attest only τριβήσομαι (see LSJ s.v. τρίβω);Footnote 5 (ii) the future ἐπιτρίψεσθ᾽ does not suit the perfect participle καταμεμυττωτευμένα at 247—as ‘a simple future would imply, nonsensically, that Megara will undergo “crushing” after it has already been “made mincemeat of”, whereas in fact the two verbs refer to the same operation’.Footnote 6 Metre forbids ἐπιτετρίψεσθ᾽ with ἰώ, but allows it with ὦ.Footnote 7 Yet ἰώ, not ὦ, is the appropriate word. The speaker (Polemos) delivers a sequence of four interjections, the first, second and fourth introduced by ἰώ (236, 242, 250); to introduce the third with ὦ would interrupt this pattern.Footnote 8 Moreover, the future perfect (-)τετρίψομαι does not appear to be attested with certainty in Classical Greek. Μέγαρα Μέγαρ᾽ has been judged dittographic; Elmsley (n. 4) proposed ἰὼ Μεγαρῆς, ὡς ἐπιτετρίψεσθ᾽ αὐτίκα with ἁπαξάπαντες καταμεμυττωτευμένοι at 247,Footnote 9 Sommerstein (n. 3), 358 ἰὼ Μέγαρ᾽, ὡς <ξυν>επιτετρίψεσθ᾽ αὐτίκα,Footnote 10 adopted by Henderson 456.

I suggest a different approach, replacing the future or future perfect with a perfect:

ἰὼ Μέγαρα Μέγαρ᾽, ὡς ἐπιτέτριψ᾽Footnote 11 αὐτίκα

‘Now you are done for’. For this idiomatic perfect (KG 1.150) in combination with αὐτίκα compare 366–7 ΕΡ. ἀπόλωλας, ἐξόλωλας. ΤΡ. εἰς τίν᾽ ἡμέραν; | ΕΡ. εἰς αὐτίκα μαλ᾽ … The perfect verb ties in nicely with the perfect participle which follows. Restoration of a second-person singular, in place of a second-person plural, is commended by the fact that Μέγαρα is found elsewhere only with a singular verb (Thuc. 1.114.1, 4.70.1; Dem. 4.9; Strab. 8.1.2). Corruption to a second-person plural future will have been aided by the use of the second-person plural future in the first and second in this sequence of interjections (236–7 ἰὼ βροτοὶ … ὡς αὐτίκα μάλα … ἀλγήσετε, 242–3 ἰὼ Πρασιαὶ … ὡς ἀπολεῖσθε τήμερον). The switch to a perfect, in the third, is followed by a further switch, to a present, in the fourth (250 ἰὼ Σικελία, καὶ σὺ δ᾽ ὡς ἀπόλλυσαι). The same form appears at 369 καὶ μὴν ἐπιτέτριψαί γε.

Footnotes

*

I am grateful to Professor James Diggle for invaluable advice.

References

1 I refer to modern editions by the name of their editors: Blaydes = F.H.M. Blaydes, Aristophanis Comoediae, V: Pax (Halle, 1883); van Leeuwen = J. van Leeuwen, Aristophanis Pax (Leiden, 1906); Rogers = B.B. Rogers, The Peace of Aristophanes (London, 19132); Coulon = V. Coulon, Aristophane, II: Les Guêpes – La Paix (Paris, 1924); Platnauer = M. Platnauer, Aristophanes. Peace (Oxford, 1964); Sommerstein = A.H. Sommerstein, Aristophanes. Peace (Warminster, 19902); Olson = S.D. Olson, Aristophanes. Peace (Oxford, 1998); Henderson = J. Henderson, Aristophanes, II: Clouds, Wasps, Peace (Cambridge, MA, 1998); Wilson = N.G. Wilson, Aristophanis Fabulae, I–II (Oxford, 2007).

2 For the Aristophanic usage of this interjection, common in tragic laments, see J.M. Labiano Ilundain, Estudio de las interjecciones en las comedias de Aristófanes (Amsterdam, 2000), 231–41. The text of the recentiores is accepted by K. Reisig, Coniectaneorum in Aristophanem libri duo, I (Leipzig, 1816), 13–14; G. Hermann, Elementa doctrinae metricae (Leipzig, 1816), 137; R. Hanow, Exercitationum criticarum in comicos Graecos libri tres, I (Halle, 1830), 97–8; Coulon 109 (see also V. Coulon, ‘Observations critiques et exégétiques sur l’argument II des “Oiseaux” et sur le texte d’Aristophane’, REG 38 [1925], 73–98, at 82); Platnauer 16; N. Dunbar, Aristophanes. Birds (Oxford, 1995), 168.

3 See A.H. Sommerstein, ‘Notes on the text of Aristophanes’ Peace’, CQ 36 (1986), 353–62, at 354, who argues that in all of them the sequence of tribrach + anapaest would be ‘cushioned by a pause’ after the tribrach. These verses exhibit word-end after the first metron. The presence of a syntactic pause is accessory, not mandatory (see M.L. West, Greek Metre [Oxford, 1982], 89: ‘usually’, not always).

4 Already [P. Elmsley], rev. of R. Porson, Euripidis Hecuba (London, 18083), Edinburgh Review 19, no. 37 (1811), 64–95, at 68 n. *.

5 In Luc. Icar. 33 ἐπιτρίψονται αὐτῇ διαλεκτικῇ is unanimously attested, while ἐπιτετρίψονται is offered by Σ in recentiores (N, φA, Urb. 121). Editors print ἐπιτρίψονται in a passive sense: M.D. Macleod, Luciani Opera, I (Oxford, 1972), 309; J. Bompaire, Lucien. Œuvres, III (Paris, 2003), 250.

6 Sommerstein (n. 3); the first objection had already been raised by Elmsley (n. 4).

7 So Blaydes 29; van Leeuwen 45; Rogers 32; Olson 16 and 119; Wilson I, 293; ὦ had already been conjectured by Bentley (see G. Burges, ‘Bentleii emendationes ineditae in Aristophanem V: in Vespas, in Pacem’, The Classical Journal 13, no. 25 [1816], 132–44, at 139), who corrected ἐπιτρίψεσθ᾽ to ἐπιτριβήσεσθ᾽.

8 Sommerstein (n. 3), 358 acknowledges this point (see also Reisig [n. 2], 14). The claim (Sommerstein, ibid.) that ὦ may have been altered to ἰώ through assimilation to 236, 242 and 250 is less convincing than the reverse. It is more likely that ὦ was introduced to accommodate the metrically longer ἐπιτετρίψεσθ᾽. Reasons of concinnitas also caution against Porson’s deletion of ὡς (see J.H. Monk and C.J. Blomfield, Ricardi Porsoni Adversaria [Cambridge, 1812], 242) or Μέγαρ᾽, ὦ Μεγαρ᾽ proposed by K.G.A. Erfurdt, ‘Observationes criticae maxime in Athenaei Deipnosophistas’, Königsberger Archiv für Philosophie, Theologie, Sprachkunde und Geschichte 1 (1812), 424–72, at 434.

9 Sommerstein (n. 3), 358 and Olson 119 misleadingly credit Elmsley with ὦ … ἐπιτετρίψεσθ᾽. For previous editors’ conduct see Rogers 189.

10 But Sommerstein 26 prints ὦ … ἐπιτετρίψεσθ᾽, in line with most (see n. 7).

11 The elision of -αι in middle and passive endings is common in comedy: M. Hose, ‘Zur Elision des αι im Tragödienvers’, Hermes 122 (1994), 32–43, at 35 n. 15.