tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6588247216777605704.post4494388388640172489..comments2023-04-05T08:04:07.514-04:00Comments on Bryn Mawr Classical Review: 2017.06.26Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6588247216777605704.post-69165986821132402532018-04-02T23:53:28.657-04:002018-04-02T23:53:28.657-04:00With regard to the reasons why Crates put an Athen...With regard to the reasons why Crates put an Athenian crash on stage, the attack against Pericles and the Athenian imperialism could be a sufficient one for alluding to these dramatic events (see Philologia Antiqua 5, 2012, p. 46): it might have been the intention of the poet to blame the decision of accepting Inaros’ request for assistance in order to support the Egyptians during the rebellion against Persia and of beginning a military expedition in a far land. I am aware of what happened to Phrynicus when he put the dramatic events of Miletus on stage (see Sfingi e Sirene, p. 6): however, it should be remembered that during the conquest of Myletus unarmed women and children were reduced in slavery by the Persians, while at Prosopitis the bloody fight involved only soldiers and most of the survivors were perhaps allowed to leave the besieged Prosopitis and return home safely; moreover, Aeschylus himself seems to have referred to the Athenian expedition in Egypt without fear of offending the sensibility of his fellow citizens (see Philologia Antiqua 5, 2012, p. 46 note 2; E. Luppino, L’intervento ateniese in Egitto nelle tragedie eschilee, Aegyptus 47, 1967, 196-212). <br /><br />Contrary to what Nesselrath claims, a place called Δουλόπολις was located in Egypt by Olympianus of Byzantium (or perhaps Ulpianus of Emesa?), FGrH 676 F 3, apud Steph. Byz., s.v. Δούλων πόλις p. 237.5 Meineke (= δ 117 Billerbeck). I cited this source in the commentary to Cratinus fr. 5 (= 223 PCG), but by a mere slip at the ending of line 8 of p. 81 I transcribed erroneously some words of the text.<br /><br />The beginning of the fragment a of ‘Papyrus Cumont’ is seriously damaged. I do not see a convincing alternative for restoring the text. With regard to the φώσων, a reference to this Egyptian garment is attested without any doubt in Cratinus, fr. 8 (=269 PCG), v. 1. Concerning the presence of some parody of religious practices beneath the lines 49f. of the same fragment, Nesselrath observes that this hypothesis of mine is too much hazardous: however, a comparison between the lines above mentioned and Aristophanes Av. 716 might take us in this direction. The parody of the Egyptian cult towards the sacred animals will be attested very well in some fragments of Attic Middle Comedy (e.g. Antiphanes fr. 145 PCG, Timocles fr. 1 PCG, Anaxandrides fr. 40 PCG: see A. Sofia, La religione egizia nei frammenti dell’archaia e della mese, Aegyptus 85, 2005, 297-324, at 311ff.).<br /><br />With regard to the radishes in Cratinus fr. 9 (350 PCG), I believe that a more plausible fate for them was that of being put in a pot, without having any possibility of thinking something, as it happens also to the ράφανοι both in Alcaeus Com. fr. 24 PCG and in Crates fr. 19 PCG, v. 1. <br /><br />Anna SOFIA, PhD<br />Anna Sofianoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6588247216777605704.post-76447466633892800692018-04-02T23:53:02.932-04:002018-04-02T23:53:02.932-04:00In referring to the interpretation I suggested for...In referring to the interpretation I suggested for the historical background of Crates fr. 2 (37 PCG), it would be opportune to remind the commonly accepted chronology – based on the course of events given by Thucydides, while the reliability of the dates provided in Diodorus’ account is much controversial and some Aramaic and Demotic documents from southern Egypt cannot be considered decisive on this point – of the Athenian expedition in Egypt, which culminated in the destruction of the Athenian naval forces in the Nile Delta. Around 460 BC, there was probably not the siege of Prosopitis (which ended with the defeat of the Athenian soldiers), but the battle of Papremis (see Herodotus 3.12.4; Aigyptiazein, p. 67). According to most of the scholars, it is to be assumed that the final disaster on the Prosopitis’ island took place only around 454 BC, after the Egyptians and allied Athenians were locked up by Megabyzus and the Persian army in the siege of Prosopitis for a period of eighteen months. According to Thucydides’ account (1.110.1), in fact, the final Athenian catastrophe in Egypt occurred six years after the Athenians, who were campaigning at Cyprus with their ships, had accepted to help the Egyptians against the Persians and had sailed to the Nile Delta. After an initial victorious campaign in the Delta, the Athenians joined Inaros in besieging the Persians in the citadel of Memphis known as the ‘White Wall’ (Λευκòν τει̃χος). But in 456 a Persian army led by Megabyzus invaded Egypt and broke the siege of Memphis, droving the Greeks into the Prosopitis’ island, which was formed by two branches of the Nile joined together by a canal. Finally, the Persians succeeded by using a stratagem: they diverted the course of the river and connected the island to the mainland, being at this point able to invade the island. In my view (see Aigyptiazein, p. 66; Philologia Antiqua 5, 2012, p. 46ff.), the events that Crates alluded to are those which took place at the final stages of the siege of Prosopitis, when some contrast probably arose about a truce with the Persians. According to Diodorus (11.77.3-5), the Athenians burnt their ships in order to avoid their falling into the hands of the enemy and demonstrated a great courage: the Persian commanders, feeling thereupon a strong admiration for them, concluded a truce with the Athenians, whereby the soldiers were allowed to depart in peace. At this point, the accounts of Thucydides and Diodorus seem to diverge rather: according to Diodorus, the Athenians returned via Libya and Cyrene to their homeland in safety, while, according to Thucydides, most of them perished. According to Ctesias (FGrH 688 F 14 § 38), then, Megabyzus took Inarus and the Greek soldiers to Artaxerxes on condition that they should suffer no harm from the King and that the Greeks should be allowed to return home whenever they pleased. At any rate, it must be remembered that the survivors of the siege of Prosopitis probably reached Athens, after a long march across the Libyan desert to Cyrene, only a year later, around 453/2 BC. Thus, the chronological gap Nesselrath supposes between the Athenian defeat in Egypt and the beginning of the Crates’ career (around 450 BC) must to be widely reduced. Moreover, according Thucydides 1.112.3, at the time of the campaign in Cyprus sixty ships were sent to Egypt again, as reinforcements to Amyrtaeus, who was continuing the resistance against the Persians in the northern part of the Delta after the capture of Inaros. Thus, around 450 BC, the Athenians soldiers were still familiar with Egyptian landscapes. Anna Sofianoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6588247216777605704.post-87214201688157917042018-04-02T23:49:29.513-04:002018-04-02T23:49:29.513-04:00In the following lines I will go to present some r...In the following lines I will go to present some remarks on Nesselrath’s review of my book.<br /><br />With regard to Nesselrath’s statement that ‘quite a few of Egyptians were present at Athens (mainly in the Piraeus) as merchants and craftsmen’, I would like to add some further observations. <br />Although we can be sure that metics of Egyptian origin were living in Athens throughout the classical period, at no time can the amount of them be precisely estimated: the racial composition of the metoikia being not a great preoccupation for the Athenians, the ethnic origin of individual metics is given by the literary and epigraphic sources not always. Yet, at some time they obtained even the grant of enktesis for building a temple to Isis (we can learn it from IG II², 337): this fact (which perhaps occurred in the late fifth century BC, if the statesman decisive in securing the grant for the first Egyptian shrine on Attic soil was the same Lycurgus who was laughed at by Aristophanes, Cratinus and Pherecrates for his Egyptian leanings) would seem to indicate actually the presence of a substantial and influent community of Egyptians at Athens. <br /><br />Nesselrath points out a ‘certain contradiction’ in the last section of the introduction, in which I suggest that the comic poets did not use the verb αι̉γυπτιάζειν with a negative sense (well attested in later lexicographical sources), while I cite ‘several comic fragments in which individual Egyptians are presented in an unequivocally negative way’. <br />Nesselrath’s objection is very interesting, because it concerns the correct evaluation of the attitude of the Athenians towards the Egyptians in the fifth century BC and beyond; but can we surely affirm that the inhabitants of the country of the Nile were actually represented in a negative light by the poets of Attic Old Comedy? <br />Among the fragments in which Egyptians are treated negatively, one could include e.g. Archippus, fr. 1 (= 23 PCG). An Egyptian fishmonger called ‛Ερμαι̃ος is depicted here without any doubt as a despicable man. But was he regarded as a despicable man because he was an Egyptian metic or because he was a fish seller? If one read the commentary to the first verse of the fragment, my answer to this crucial question will be clear enough (see p. 13: «C’è da dire però che la qualifica negativa di μιαρώτατος è attribuita ad Ermeo non a causa della identità etnica, ma per l’attività che svolge […]. La professione di pescivendolo infatti risulta costituire uno dei bersagli preferiti dello scherno dei comici, […]»). Obviously the element of caricature in the fragment is very strong, but it is indissolubly linked with the profession of fish vendor rather than with the ethnic origin. <br />Similar problem arises in interpreting the treatment of Δεινίας by Strattis, fr. 1 (34 PCG): not very gratifying notes about this Egyptian perfumer seem to be imputable to Heraclides Ponticus, but there is no reason to believe that the Egyptian perfumer was already slandered by Strattis. <br />Anna Sofianoreply@blogger.com