INNSBRUCKER BEITRÄGE ZUR SPRACHWISSENSCHAFT

J.T. HOOKER

THE LANGUAGE
AND TEXT
OF THE
LESBIAN POETS

INNSBRUCK 1977
INNSBRUCKER BEITRÄGE
ZUR
SPRACHWISSENSCHAFT

Herausgegeben von
WOLFGANG MEID

Band 26
 J.T. HOOKER

THE LANGUAGE
AND TEXT
OF THE
LESBIAN POETS

INNSBRUCK 1977
Die INNSBRUCKER BEITRÄGE ZUR S P R A CHWISSE NSCHAF T werden g e f ö r ­
dert v om Bunde smi n i s t e r i u m für W isse nschaft und Forschung,
vom Amt der Tir oler L a ndesreg ierung und vom U n i v e r s ität sbund
Innsbruck

J . T . H O O K E R is Lecturer in the Department of Greek, University

College London

ISBN 3-85 124-543-1

1977

INNSBRUCKER BEITRÄGE ZUR SPRACHWISSENSCHAFT

Herausgeber: Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Meid

I n s t i t u t für S p r a c h w i s s e n s c h a f t
der U n i v e r s i t ä t In n s b r u c k

A 6020 INNSBRUCK • Innrain 30

Druck: H. K o w a t s c h , Innsbruck
Preface

This study represents an expanded version of a paper I

delivered some years ago at a seminar in the Institute
of Classical Studies, London. I am very grateful to
Professor Meid for agreeing to publish it in the Inns-
brucker Beitrage zur Sprachwissenschaft.

University College, London

June, 1977
Bibliographical Note 9
I The Presentation of the Text 11
II The 'normal' and 'abnormal' Poems ofSappho 39
III Aeolic and Ionic Poetry 56
Appendix 1: ΟΡΑΝΟΣ and ΩΡΑΝΟΣ 84
Appendix 2: ΑΡΓΥΡΑ and the Authenticity ofSappho 44 87
Notes 89
Index Locorum 101
Bibliographical Note

The remains of the Lesbian poets are quoted from the edi­
tion of Eva-Maria Voigt (1971), but without breathings or
accents. Other lyric poets are quoted from D.L. Page's
Poetae Melici Graeci (1962) or Supplementum Lyricis Graecis
(19 74) .

Titles of journals are abbreviated as follows:

AIV Atti dell1Istituto Veneto
AJP American Journal of Philology
APF Archiv fur Papyrusforschung
AT Annali Triestini
BB Bezzenberger1s Beitrage zur Kunde der Indogermani-
schen Sprachen
CJ The Classical Journal
CP Classical Philology
CQ The Classical Quarterly
CR The Classical Review
GB Grazer Beitrage
GGA Gottingische Gelehrte Anzeigen
GRBS Greek Roman and Byzantine Studies
HTR Harvard Theological Review
IF Indogermanische Forschungen
JHS The Journal of Hellenic Studies
MH Museum Helveticum
MPL Museum Philologum Londiniense
MSL M£moires de la Soci£t£ de Linguistique de Paris
MSS Munchener Studien zur Sprachwissenschaft
PCPS Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society
PW Philologische Wochenschrift
QU Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica
REG Revue des Etudes Grecques
RF Rivista di Filologia e di Istruzione Classica
RIL Rendiconti dell'Istituto Lombardo
RM Rheinisches Museum fur Philologie
SCO Studi Classici e Orientali
SIFC Studi Italiani di Filologia Classica
SMEA Studi Micenei ed Egeo-anatolici
WS Wiener Studien
ZPE Zeitschrift fur Papyrologie und Epigraphik
ZVS Zeitschrift fur Vergleichende Sprachwissenschaft
I The Presentation of the Text

Editorial practice

Before discussing the Lesbian literary dialect, I consider

briefly the form in which the Lesbian poets have been pre­
sented by editors to their public.

There was undoubtedly more than one Alexandrian recension

of Sappho and Alcaeus. Hephaestion implies that by his
time Aristophanes' edition had been superseded by that of
Aristarchus:
και μάλιστα εΐωθεν ό αστερίσκος τίθεσθαι έάν έτερόμετ-
ρον ί τό <$σμα τό έ£ης· δ και μάλλον έπι των ποιημάτων
<τών κατά περικοπήν ή> των μονοστροφικών γίνεται <τών>
Σαπφοϋς τε και Άνακρέοντος και ‘Αλκαίου· έπι δε των
’Αλκαίου ίδίως κατά μεν την *Αριστοφάνειον έκδοσιν άσ-
τερίσκος έπι έτερομετρίας έτίθετο μόνης, κατά δε την
νϋν Άριστάρχειον και έπι ποιημάτων μεταβολής.1
It is, presumably, from the latter edition that the gram­
marians and others take their quotations. Long before
the Alexandrian editions, however, Aristotle had access
to a text of the two Lesbians, both of whom he quotes at
Rhetoric 1367a, even though the quotations cannot be en­
tirely correct in their transmitted form.2 He makes a
further apt quotation from Alcaeus at Politics 1285a when
he is discussing the αίρετή τυραννίς (Alcaeus 348).

It is an impossible task to reconstruct from our sparse

fragments the text which Aristotle used and which affor­
ded Theocritus the models for his Aeolic poems. It is
fruitless also to try to arrive at the text composed by
the Lesbian poets themselves. With them, aswith Homer,
there can be little hope of establishing the text as it
existed before the great Alexandrian editors. As with
Homer, therefore, the aim must be more modest: the ten­
tative reconstruction of the Aristarchan vulgate. No
doubt that vulgate already presented a normalized text;
but, if we may judge from the ancient quotations, it was
not normalized to such an extent as in recent editions.

The text of the Lesbian poets has to be constituted from

two kinds of evidence: quotations by ancient writers
(especially Dionysius of Halicarnassus and the author of
the treatise περί ύψους) and fragments preserved on pa­
pyri. Modern editors, whether they admit to doing so or
not, in fact adopt the procedure advocated by Lobel as the
only correct one: 'to approach the quotations by way of
the book texts'.3 Despite the apparent soundness of this
policy, it ought not to be followed universally. It rests
on an unspoken assumption which is not always justified:
namely that writers of papyri had access to a purer doc­
trine about the dialect of Alcaeus and Sappho than was a-
vailable to Dionysius and the other excerptors. Now it
goes without saying that the text of Dionysius was liable
to corruption in the course of its transmission; but it
is equally true that the chances of recovering his actual
words seem no less good than with other ancient writers.

When Ahrens established the first critical text of Sappho

and Alcaeus in 1839, he had at his disposal only the an­
cient excerpts and quotations. Except in one important
respect, to be mentioned presently, he imposed no spurious
uniformity on the text but left orthographical variations
as they stood. Far from insisting upon a completely psi-
lotic text, he printed for example οΐδε but όττινες, ορημι
but ύστερον, ελκην but ίμέροεν. He did not arbitrarily
change every -ζ- into -σδ- but often kept the reading of
the quotation, e.g. ύπαζεύξαισα (Sappho 1.9). Initial di-
gamma was retained when the metre called for it (hence Al­
caeus' ύπά ρέ ργον beside Sappho's κάλον έργον), but also
sometimes when it was not necessary (πετάλων ράδεα τέττιξ
and /τέσπερε πάντα φόρεις). Only in respect of barytonesis
did Ahrens allow external criteria to influence the con­
struction of his text. Accepting as entirely trustworthy
the statements of ancient grammarians about the 'Aeolic'
dialect, he imposed a recessive accentuation on all words
except conjunctions and prepositions. He made few other
alterations to the text of the poems as quoted, except to
restore forms demanded by metre or dialect.

Subsequent editors have gone much farther than Ahrens in

the presentation of a uniform text. The changes they make
receive little or no sanction from the quotations, but some
from the papyri and from ancient grammarians. The whole
corpus is printed with psilosis and recessive accent. -σδ-,
not -ζ-, is given in the text. The υπό of the manuscripts
is replaced by ύπά. Forms like "Ερμαις appear instead of
‘Ερμας. ρόδον and its compounds, and also other words ori­
ginally spelt with initial pp - , are shown with initial βρ-.
Initial digamma is allowed in some words (for instance
p εθεν), but not in others (for instance εαγε). An examina­
tion of these practices in turn will show whether they are
necessary or desirable.

Psilosis

The editors of to-day, like most of their predecessors, print

the entire text of the Lesbian poets with smooth breathings;
but, unlike them, they do not try to justify the practice.
Ahrens, Hoffmann, and Bergk all gave the rationale of psilo-
sis: Hoffmann and Bergk with confidence, Ahrens more he­
sitantly and with the proviso that the principle should
not be extended beyond the limits set by the ancient gram­
marians :
Exempla psilosis praeterea pauca apud grammaticos diser-
tis testimoniis traduntur: άμμες, omnes, quae ϋ in
fronte habent voces, ut ύμμες, ΰρχας, "Υ(5(5ας, denique
ίπέρ, ΐψος pro υπέρ, Οψος. Omnia haec grammaticorum
testimonia ita inter se conspirant, ut vix ullus dubi-
tationi locus relinqui videatur. Nihilominus ne temere
grammaticis credamus, nullum asperi usum Aeolicae dialec-
to concedentibus, alia monent, quae semper fieri cum sum-
ma confidentia pronuntiant, quanquam ea raro fieri cer-
tissimum est. Tale est, quod Priscianus et Melampus
semper apud Aeoles asperum in digamma mutari tradunt, id-
que, hoc quidem teste, ψιλοΰντας πάσαν λέξιν. Deinde
unum certe grammatici testimonium extat, unde colligere
licet, fuisse qui psilosin Aeolicam finibus quibusdam
circumscriberent, quum Aeoles asperum ignorare dicuntur
έν ταις ίδίαις λέξεσιν.1*

The justification for assuming the presence of psilosis in

the Lesbian poets is found partly in the statements of
Apollonius Dyscolus and Herodian and their successors. But
when Apollonius says οί μέν άλλοι “Ελληνες δασύνουσι τά έν
τη λέξει φωνήεντα, Αίολε ις δέ μόνον ψιλοϋσι (de syntaxi 38.
27) and again άλλοι μέν “Ελληνες δασύνουσι τά φωνήεντα, Αί­
ολεΐς δέ ούδαμώς (39.17), it is inconceivable that he is re­
ferring, or is even professing to refer, to the great Les­
bians. By Αίολεΐς he means not 1Aeolians' as that term
would be understood by a modern student of the Greek dia­
lects, but 'the Lesbian poets as displayed in the Alexan­
drian vulgate1. Only in some such way can sense be made
of Apollonius' observations, for if we insist on the literal
meaning of Αίολεΐς or of μόνον his statements are so inac-
curate as to be worthless. The Aeolians were not the only
Greeks who practised psilosis, for the phenomenon is attes­
ted in Ionic as well; nor did the 'Aeolians' as a whole
practise it, since both in Boeotian and in Thessalian the
inscriptions mark aspiration at the beginning of words. We
accordingly have to ask the question already posed by Kehr-
hahn, but only partially answered by him:5 why was psilo­
sis so widely considered a peculiarity of the Lesbian dia­
lect? Kehrhahn thought that this fact could be explained
in the following way: psilosis, shown graphically by the
failure to change smooth to rough breathings, was imported
into the standard editions of the Lesbian poets from the
texts of the grammarians. This explanation, in my belief,
is correct so far as it goes, but it cannot be accepted as
the final solution of the problem since it raises a further
question in its turn: from what source did the grammarians
themselves derive their teaching about psilosis? As Gal-
lavotti has said, we cannot believe that psilosis was sim­
ply an invention of the grammarians.6 Indeed, the pre­
sence in the vulgate of Homer of forms like άμμες, ήέλιος,
and ήμαρ suggests that some unaspirated 'Aeolic' words had
come into the Homeric text long before the Alexandrian pe­
riod. 7

To find an answer to the problem, we must take account of

the Lesbian inscriptions. It has long been recognized0
that the inscriptions of Lesbos (or at least those of them
which can be dated earlier than the time of Alexander) pre­
sent an unaspirated stop in circumstances where Attic would
have the aspirated form: ΚΑΤΕΙΡΩΣΙΟΣ (Attic καθιερώσεως) ,
ΚΑΤΕΣTAKONTON (Attic καθεστηκόντων) , ΚΑΤΙΔΡΥΣΕΙ (Attic
καθίδρυσεi), ΜΕΤΗΡΑΚΛΕΙΤΩ (Attic μεθ' ‘Ηρακλείτου). With
this situation the quotations and papyrus-fragments of the
Lesbian poets are in almost complete agreement. Thus,
although at Sappho 105a. 1 the excerptors read έτι* όσδω (έπ *
ΰσδωι editors) and at 105a.3 έφικέσθαι (έπί,κεσθαι editors),
κάτέρωτα (Sappho 1.5) and έτ' είκει (Sappho 31.8) accord
with the epigraphic practice. Fuller evidence is furni­
shed by the papyri. For Sappho we have ουκ ουτω, τουτ’ α,
επ' αλμυραν, τ' αμα, υπ' αρ[ματα, τ' ύπνος, επ' αλικιας;
for Alcaeus, επ' ίππων, τώστι,ω, γεννατ' αιμυθεων, ]π* αμερα,
]οτ* υβριν.

Since the earliest known Lesbian inscriptions have unaspi­

rated stops in words which in Attic begin with an aspirate,
it is reasonable to conclude that where later inscriptions
have aspirated stops in this position they have come under
the influence of the κοινή. The fact that our texts of
Alcaeus and Sappho reflect the earlier practice indicates
that they, no less than the text of Homer, drew on gramma­
tical, or at least orthographical, teaching which was for­
mulated before the time of Alexander. A form like έφι,κέσ-
θαι would then arise from oversight or ignorance on the part
of the scribe.9

So far, the course of events seems fairly clear. But we

are still very far from having proved that psilosis can be
traced back to the Lesbian poets themselves. The gap re­
maining is too wide to be bridged by any information which
is available to us. We have no direct contemporary evi­
dence for the usage of Alcaeus and Sappho, since the ear­
liest scanty texts from the island of Lesbos are some three
generations later than the lifetime of the great poets. Nor
does the apparent absence of aspiration in ουκ ουτω and the
rest determine the question. In his discussion of the as­
pirate, Karl Meister went so far as to deny that Aeolic and
Ionic were ever psilotic dialects. For Meister, the dif­
ference between ουκ ουτω and ουχ ουτω did not arise from
living speech but was simply a graphic convention.10 In
the same way, he thought that when Ionic scribes wrote
smooth instead of rough breathings in elision and crasis
they were merely conforming to an orthographic habit,
which was occasionally broken only in compounds: for exam­
ple κάθημαι, κάθοδον, and μεθελεϊν.11 Few scholars have
been wholly persuaded by Meister's reasoning; but the long
review of his book by Eduard Hermann, though reaching con­
clusions different from Meister's, offers some important
observations on the aspirate.12 According to Hermann, the
spelling ούχ ουτω, though so familiar in Attic, in fact in­
volves a double writing of the aspirate. If the rough
breathing is written in ουτω, k + h amount to nothing other
than kh. It therefore becomes extremely dubious whether
the existence of psilosis can ever be deduced from the sole
fact that spellings like ουκ ουτω are found.13

I can only suppose that the whole theory of Lesbian psilo­

sis was, nevertheless, based on just such a false deduction.
Grammarians unacquainted with the living dialect observed
the spelling-convention and, because they looked at the phe­
nomenon from the stand-point of the Attic κοινή, thought
that Lesbian scribes had written ουκ ουτω for the same rea­
son that Attic scribes wrote ούκ ούν and so forth. It is
very hard to see why, because of this faulty reasoning, we
should still be printing smooth breathings everywhere in
our texts of the Lesbian poets. It would be preferable
to print no breathing at all; better still to adopt the
custom of editors of Herodotus, who commonly print άτι* οΰ,
etc.1**

σδ and ζ

In medial position, but not at the beginning of words, edi­

tors print σδ instead of ζ. Johannes Grammaticus, indeed,
taught that σδ-, and not ζ-, was found even at the begin­
ning of 'Aeolic' words: Σδεύς for Ζεύς and σδυγόν for
ζυγόν.15 Modern editors have not gone so far as that but,
apparently under the influence of papyrus readings like
επισδανον (Alcaeus 75.8), παννυχισδο[ (Sappho 30.3), and
πεσδων (Sappho 16.1), they print -σδ- in the interior of
a word even if the manuscripts of the excerptors give -ζ-:
so at Sappho 1.9 they write ύπασδεύξαισα for ύποζεύξασα
(POxy 2288 has -σδ-). This in spite of the teaching of
generations of scholars who have clearly explained the na­
ture and origin of late Lesbian -σδ-.16 The spelling σδ
does not imply that there had been a metathesis from ζ (i.e.
δσ): it represents the simple sibilant /z/ in contrast to
/dz/. The reason for the change is one of orthographic
convenience, for in time the symbol ζ was needed for the
sound which in Aeolic resulted from ante-vocalic 6t- (ζά <
διά, etc.) .

It is significant that Lesbian inscriptions have neither

-σδ- for -ζ- nor ζ- for δι- before the Roman period; and
there seems to be no good reason for importing these late
spellings into the text of the Lesbian poets.17

Accent

Apart from psilosis, recessive accent, or barytonesis, is

the most characteristic feature of literary Lesbian, as
printed in modern texts.18 The principal facts about the
pitch-accent of Common Greek, in comparison with that of
other Indo-European languages (especially Sanskrit) have
been elucidated by Wackernagel and Kuryłowicz.19 It was
thought by the ancients (and modern scholars have, for the
most part, followed them) that in one area and only one the
speakers of Greek made a striking change in the inherited
system. According to the clearest statement, that of
Herodian περί παθών 2.825, the 'Aeolians' used a recessive
accent on all words except conjunctions and prepositions:
o ι Αΐολεις βαρυντικοί είσι...πάσαν λέξιν ύπέρ μίαν συλλα­
βήν παρ* ήμΐν όξύτονον βαρύνουσι, χωρίς των προθέσεων και
συνδέσμων οϋον Άχιλλεύς σοφος Άχίλλευς σόφος. The
principle is very clearly stated, but it is one which
could lead to absurdity when applied unintelligently: thus,
Herodian himself thought not only that the 'Aeolians' used
the recessive accent on all words (with the exceptions sta­
ted) but also that all words with recessive accent, such as
οιδα and σύνοιδα, were 'Aeolic' (περι παθών 1.468).20

Herodian and the other grammarians quote a number of indi­

vidual words (and on what principle they quote them we are
not able to judge) to exemplify their statements about the
'Aeolic' accent, for instance άσπι,ς αΰτον βάρυς βασιλεύς
βράδυς έγων έμοι. Ζεϋς θϋμος κάλος λεϋκος δξυς πτώ£ σόφος
φρόνεις.

Enough has been said in the preceding paragraphs to indi­

cate how carefully we must scrutinize the unsupported tes­
timony of the grammarians. The almost universal accep­
tance in modern times of their rules about accent must not
inhibit us from making a like scrutiny here. More than
once, Wilamowitz inveighed against the facile application
and extension of the grammarians' rule. He exposed the
incompetence or even stupidity of some of the grammarians,
whose reliability had been greatly over-estimated.21 Even
if they correctly observed recessive accent among contem­
porary speakers or writers, that observation could tell us
nothing for certain about the usage of the Lesbian poets
centuries earlier.22 Elsewhere, Wilamowitz points to the
folly of foisting recessive accents upon the Aeolic poems
of Theocritus, who of course knew nothing of Lesbian pitch.23
It is surprising that these strictures have had no percep­
tible influence upon the modern presentation of the text of
Sappho and Alcaeus. They seem, nevertheless, to provide
the ground-work for an informed critique. It is open to
us to ask two questions about the grammarians' treatment of
barytonesis, just as it was about their work on psilosis:
first, whether any corroboration of their doctrine can be
found; second, on what sources they drew in making their
statements.

Two features found in the poems of Alcaeus and Sappho have

been thought to provide independent evidence for the pre­
sence of recessive accent. H. Jacobsohn observed that,
whereas -at and -ol are never elided when they bear the
accent, both poets elide the -ol of εμοι before αυται or
αυτωι. Hence he concludes that εμ* αυται, and εμ* αυτωι
in the text of the Lesbian poets prove the presence of ba­
rytonesis.21* Arguing along similar lines, A. Fick thought
that there must be a link between barytonesis and the ex­
tension of sonant-gemination in Lesbian.25 Neither of
these arguments is cogent. They would be more convincing
if the Greek accent indicated stress instead of pitch.26
There might well have been an aversion from eliding a
stressed final syllable, but it is hard to see what con­
nexion there could be between the pitch of a syllable and
its susceptibility to elision. In any event, Jacobsohn
was not able to cite enough cases from the texts to estab­
lish the existence of a coherent pattern over the whole
area. The same may be said of Fick's argument, which
faces the further objection that he has overlooked the
widespread gemination exhibited by Thessalian:27 a dia­
lect in which no one has ever suspected the presence of
barytonesis.
Support for the practice of writing recessive accents in
the text of the Lesbian poets has been claimed by M.L.
West. He points to the fact that writers of papyri place
a paroxytone accent on the imperatives ζαλλευοντον and
αγοντον in Alcaeus, even though the last syllable is short;
from this observation West concludes that the scribes did
not write recessive accents mechanically and that, since
the short ending -ov is guaranteed by the metre in Alcaeus,
barytonesis must have become operative before his time —
in consequence, West believes, modern editors are justified
in writing recessive accents everywhere in the text of the
Lesbian poets.28 Now the origin of the Lesbian imperative
ending -οντον is not known for certain, but Wackernagel1s
suggestion ought at least to be considered: he thought
that, if a long-vowel form like έγνω were seen as the model
for the third person singular imperative in -τω, a plural
imperative in -τον might have been constructed after a
short-vowel form such as έγνον.29 But, whatever the ori­
gin of the Lesbian ending might have been,30 we do not have
to look very far to see why scribes gave it a paroxytone
accentuation: they knew it to be a peculiarity of the Les­
bian dialect that this form had to be spelt with a short
vowel (a spelling which is attested in Lesbian inscriptions
as well), but the habit of writing the Attic and κοινή form
with a long vowel was so deeply ingrained that they un­
thinkingly wrote the accent appropriate to that form. Thus,
even if it were proper to make such a large inference from
two examples (of which one, αγοντον, arises solely from re­
storation by editors), nothing emerges from the discussion
which suggests that the writers of papyri had any direct
knowledge of the early Lesbian accent.

Wackernagel found in the Homeric vulgate confirmation of

the theory of Lesbian barytonesis. He followed the pre­
cepts of Herodian, who had noted the presence of baryto-
nesis in many Homeric words, especially those which were
already shown to be Aeolic by their phonology or morpho­
logy.31 Wackernagel's discussion is undoubtedly of great
importance for the Homeric student, but it provides cor­
roboration of the ancient teaching about accent only to
this extent: it pushes back the beginning of the doctrine
to a time considerably earlier than that of Herodian. When
we ask how much earlier, we have to confront the second
question: from what sources is the grammarians' teaching
derived? It is hardly conceivable that Herodian and his
contemporaries had direct access to the living Lesbian
dialect, which survived in inscriptions of the Empire only
in a learned and literary form.32 The large number of
disconnected words quoted by the grammarians shows that
they knew of lists compiled by predecessors who had been
able to listen to speakers of Lesbian and who had thought
it worth-while to record the pitch by means of lectional
signs. The most probable time for the compilation of such
a list is the second century B.C., the floruit of Aristo­
phanes of Byzantium. Farther back it cannot very well go
for, as Laum has shown, it is most unlikely that Zenodotus
used accents. The first scholar known to have done so is
Aristophanes himself, whom Laum regards as the actual in­
ventor of the earliest system of Greek accentuation.33

As with psilosis, so with barytonesis an unbridgeable gap

remains. The statements of the grammarians cannot be ac­
cepted as authoritative for any period earlier than the
Alexandrian — certainly not for the time of Alcaeus and
Sappho. Of course, they claimed no such authority and no
such knowledge; they have worked harm unwittingly, because
their teaching has influenced the papyri which, though they
contain few accents, conform for the most part to the gram­
marians' precepts. For example they give άυτοισιν έμας
ενιαυτόν έονχες Ζευς θέον θϋμον χάλα. The two documents
of literary Lesbian which possibly ante-date Aristophanes,
namely Sappho 2 (ostracon) and Sappho 98a (papyrus), are
innocent of accents and other signs.

For some impenetrable reason, the observations of the gram­

marians (not without interest in themselves) have been made
the basis of a phonological or prosodic rule, to the effect
that the principle of recessive accent operates throughout
the Lesbian dialect from the moment that we first have
knowledge of it. There is a danger of reading back into
the works of Greek grammarians the kind of general lingu­
istic law which was not formulated in Europe until the rise
of comparative philology. It is asking altogether too much
of the grammarians when we expect from them a coherent,
rational statement about the manner in which Greek words
had been pronounced in Lesbos centuries earlier. The means
of transmitting such information had not been discovered
and was not needed προς διαστολήν τής Αμφιβόλου λέξεως. We
must, accordingly, be content to remain in ignorance about
the accent, as about many other features of the Lesbian
dialect as it was used at the time of the poets.

Digamma

What procedure should be adopted by editors when an original

pre-vocalic digamma occurred at the beginning of a word?
Lobel considered that only in one series did the Lesbian
poets use a digamma before a vowel: ρε /τεθεν ροι ροισι /rov.
In other cases, where an initial digamma is guaranteed by
the metre, the passage must simply be emended.31* Lobel's
rule is followed closely by Gallavotti and Hamm,35 the
latter of whom goes so far as to assert: 'even at the be­
ginning (of a word) ante-vocalic digamma seems to have
disappeared without trace'. That is greatly to over­
simplify the situation. In the first place, it is hard
to understand why initial digamma was preserved in one
class of words and in no other. It is true that in the
corpus of Lesbian poetry a disproportionately large number
of words with initial digamma do belong to the series spe­
cified by Lobel; but that is an accident, arising from
the fact that many of the pronouns are cited by Apollonius
Dyscolus in his treatise de pronominibus.36

Initial digaituna is, admittedly, only seldom effective in

the remains of the Lesbian poets; but Lobel is incorrect
in saying that it is never effective (with the exceptions
already mentioned). As Lobel states, three passages in
the Lesbians are sometimes thought to confirm the existence
of effective digamma in initial position.

The first and most difficult of these passages is read as

follows by modern editors: τεγγε πλευμονας οινωι (Alcaeus
347.1). The sources (Proclus, Athenaeus, Eustathius, Plu­
tarch, and Aulus Gellius) do not agree about the order of
words or about the number or spelling of the second word:
this is quoted variously as τιλεύμονα, τχλεύμονας, πνεύμονα,
and πνεύμονας. In the midst of such confusion, no great
confidence can be reposed in any reading which eventually
seems to an editor to be the best one. Lobel is right to
claim that -ας is better attested than -a, if by 'better'
he means 'in a preponderant number of sources'. The fact
remains that -a is really the lectio difficilior; for, as
Milman Parry wrote, 'one can understand how πλεύμονα
(/Οοΐνωι, became plural but not how the plural could ever
become the singular'.37 Non liquet.

Second is Alcaeus 140.15, where Athenaeus preserves the

reading πρώτισθ* υπό δργον. Upon this reading Lobel re-
marks: 'a form ^έργον is quite discredited by άμύστιδος
έργον [Alcaeus 58.20] quoted above, and ύτιό έργον may be
emended in several simple ways (ύτχά τώργον, τδ πρώτον ύπ*
έργον and so on)1.38 Now it is certainly possible to
emend the passage; but it is not necessary to do so, un­
less an editor believes that he knows enough about Lesbian
usage at the time of Alcaeus to alter the transmitted text
in conformity with his knowledge. The fact that Alcaeus
in one place uses the phrase αμυστιδος εργον, in which the
digamma is neglected, does not, of course, preclude him
from using pepyov elsewhere. The erratic use of the di­
gamma by the Lesbian poets shows that it was no more a
living sound for them than it had been for Homer. We may
infer that initial digamma was used only for metrical con­
venience and might be observed or neglected at will, exactly
as in Homer. Homer does not follow the usage of any parti­
cular dialect in his treatment of the digamma. In the case
of έργον, he more often observes the digamma than neglects
it, but his practice is quite arbitrary; thus he neglects
the digamma at λ 550 (περί δ* έργα τέτυκτο), but neverthe­
less observes it later in the same phrase in the same book:
Ενα θέσκελα έργα τέτυκτο (λ 610). That is just the sort
of fluctuation to be expected in a poetical language, whe­
ther such language was used in Lesbos or in Ionia.39

(One of Lobel's suggested emendations, ύπά τώργον, is open

to another objection as well. There is no good reason to
suppose that the preposition υπα was known to Alcaeus and
Sappho. It is a grammarians' form, constructed from ύτιό
by analogy with κατά and helped, no doubt, by the existence
of ύπά in West Greek dialects and of Homeric ύπαί.1*0 υπα
is found in the following papyri of the Lesbian poets:
Sappho 1.9 (in a compound), Alcaeus 6.14, 38a.7, and 117b.8
(in a compound); also in the quotation of Sappho 31.10 in
the Codex Parisinus of the περι ύφους (in a compound) .111
That it is not the form used by Lesbian, at least in the
classical period, is shown by the presence of ΥΠΟΔΙΚΟΝ in
the monetary agreement between Mytilene and Phocaea —
first half of the fourth century B.C.).

Third is Sappho 31.9: αλλα καμ μεν γλωσσά εαγε. Lobel

thought that the words γλωσσά εαγε must be corrupt: 'it
is almost impossible to admit that a p should have been
nowhere preserved but in this isolated instance'. **2 He
is followed by most other editors, who either assume that
the passage is corrupt or read πεπαγε1*3 or introduce μ*
before εαγε.1*1* But, in view of what has already been said
about the digamma, there is no need to assume corruption
or to insert anything between γλωσσά and εαγε. Quite
apart from the general probability that the Lesbian lite­
rary language, like the language of Homer, will permit the
insertion of digamma on purely metrical grounds, two spe­
cific reasons may be given in favour of retaining γλωσσά
εαγε. If we look backwards and enquire if the reading has
any model or parallel in early Greek poetry, we light upon
Hesiod's line: **5
οΰ τ* έπι. νώτα £αγε, κάρη δ* είς ούδας δραται (Erga 534).
If we look forwards, we find that in a passage of his third
book Lucretius imitates the imagery and vocabulary of Sap­
pho's poem; and the imitation is so close as to make it
probable that Lucretius read γλωσσά εαγε in his text of
Sappho:146
Sappho 31.7-16: Lucretius 3.155-158:
ως με φωνησ* ουδεν ετ*
vocemque aboriri
ε ικε ι
αλλα καμ μεν γλωσσά εαγε et infringi linguam
οππατεσσι. δ* ουδεν ορημμ' caligare oculos
επιβρομεισι δ' ακουαι sonere auris
μ' ιδρως κακχεεται sudoresque ita exsistere
τρομος δε παισαν αγρει succidere artus
χλωρότερα δε ποιας εμμι palloremque exsistere
τεθνακην δ' ολιγω πιδευης ^ ^concidere...videmus
φαινομ' saepe homines
It has been urged, with considerable, force, that, if the
phrase καμ μεν γλωσσά εαγε is unobjectionable on linguis­
tic grounds, it is equally so on grounds of meaning. **7

Words beginning with βρ-

Sometimes, but not always, words which are spelt elsewhere

in Greek with initial £>- (< pp~) appear in the quotations
and papyri of the Lesbian poets with initial βρ-. This
spelling is sometimes thought to represent an actual la­
bialization peculiar to Lesbian. Ahrens, for his part,
doubted whether this βρ- recorded a feature of the living
Lesbian dialect. From Tryphon's remark, προστίθεται το
δίγαμμα παρά τε "Ιωσι και Αί,ολεϋσι.. ,προστ ίθεται δε τοϊς
άπο φωνηέντων άρχομένοις* άπαξ δέ παρ' ΆλκαΙψ τό φηξις
οΟρηΕις ειρηται (πάθη λέξεων 11), Ahrens deduced that the
poets themselves said /τρδίξίις and that the spelling βρ-
was only a graphic representation of this fp-.1*8

The ancient grammarians, according to their habit, attemp­

ted to justify the spelling βρ- as a genuine feature of
the 'Aeolic' dialect. Either they regarded the β- as
simply pleonastic:
βρα· άπό τοϋ ρςιδιον γίνεται κατά πλεονασμόν του β Αίο-
λικώς βράδιον, και κατά συγκοπήν βρά. ούτως ‘Ηρωδιανός
και Χοιροβοσκός (Etymologicum magnum 210.42).
Or they associated the β- with the presence of another
sound in the same word:
ή Αίολις .τό β τφ ρ προσνέμει, δταν τφ ρ έπιφέρηται κ ή
τ η 5. otov ίρυτήρ άντ'ι τοϋ £υτήρ, βράκος άντ'ι τοϋ
 £>άκος, 0(b06ov ό,ντΧ τοϋ φόδον (Johannes Grammaticus Com­
pendium II) .

The grammarians' rules receive no support from the Lesbian

inscriptions: these never show 3P~ (< FP~) corresponding
to Common Greek

The usage of the poets themselves, so far as it can be de­

duced from the transmitted texts, was not constant. Words
which originally began with pp- are spelt sometimes with
initial βρ-, sometimes with simple p-. This alternation
does not seem to be arbitrary. Three times in Sappho a
syllable which would otherwise be short is lengthened by
initial β-: τα βρακε(α) (57.3); δε βροδα (96.13); ορτιακι
βράδινωι (115.2) ,1*9 The spelling with βρ- at Sappho
44Ab.7 and 10 2.2 is presumably by analogy with that in
115.2. At Sappho 2.6 editors read μαλινων βροδοισι, where
again the β- is not needed to lengthen the previous syl­
lable; but the text of the ostracon is so uncertain that
this reading cannot be regarded as the final one.50

In Sappho 53 and 55.2, editors read respectively βροδο-

παχεες and βροδων: in spite of the fact that the manu­
scripts spell both words with initial £>-.

It may be suggested that at some point in the written tra­

dition of Lesbian poetry (certainly not later than the
third century B.C.) the word for 'rose' was spelt βροδον
if the preceding syllable was to be scanned long. This
actually happens at Sappho 96.13, where the spelling δε
βροδα is adequate justification for ά βροδοδακτυλος in the
same poem (96.8), even though in the latter case β- is not
needed to lengthen the previous syllable. So also in an­
other poem of Sappho's, 94.13, where however the reading
και βροδων rests upon conjecture.51
The extant papyri of Alcaeus contain only two words in βρ-
corresponding to Common Greek βροδ[ (115a.22) and
βραϊδι,ως (129.22). It is noteworthy that the papyrus with
βραϊδιως elsewhere exhibits ρυεσθαι, not βρυεσθαι (129.20).
So at Alcaeus 34.7 ρηα and ρυεσθε are given by the papyri,
while at 141.4 the ancient quotation has ροπας.

What is the cause of this variation between p- and βρ-?

At first sight, the situation seems to resemble that of the
Boeotian inscriptions, which show ΒΡΑΜΙΣ beside ΡΕΞΙΑΣ (both
BP- and P- reflecting original FP-).52 On a closer exami­
nation, however, the usage of the Lesbians is seen to be
more regular that this. The texts of Alcaeus do not, in
general, spell with βρ- words which originally began with
pp- unless it is necessary to lengthen the preceding syl­
lable. The evidence from Sappho is less decisive; but
the three examples mentioned above (57.3, 96.13, and 115.2)
suggest that β- was written, in the first place, merely to
indicate that the preceding syllable was to be lengthened.
Subsequently, by analogy with this 'prosodic' βροδον etc.,
the β- was written also in contexts where metrical leng­
thening was not called for.

Very often in Homer a short syllable is scanned long before

initial £>-: originally, no doubt, because £>- arose from
pp- or op-; in time, however, initial £>-, whatever its ori­
gin, acquired the property of lengthening the previous syl­
lable. It is purely according to the poet's choice whe­
ther initial £>- causes the previous syllable to be leng­
thened or not. In χερσιν έχε Ραδινήν (Ψ 58 3), the leng­
thening of the short syllable before £>αδινήν recalls the
similar lengthening before βραδινωι at Sappho 115.2. It
may be worth adding that the grammarians record an 'Aeolic'
βρίσδα for Common Greek £>(.ζα;53 if this were, in fact, a
reference to one of the Lesbian poets, it would be apt to
point to another Homeric passage for comparison: έτιυ δε
£ίζαν (Λ 846) .5“

It thus seems probable that the scribes attached β- to cer­

tain words, not because they were aware that initial p- had
been labialized in the Lesbian dialect, but in order to
mark metrical lengthening of the preceding vowel. In time,
their practice was extended to other words as well. Other
evidence suggests that -β- could function as a kind of
glide-sound, for example Homeric άβροτάξομεν (K 65) and
Common Greek βροτός. There is, in any event, no reason
to admit scribal forms with βρ- into the text of the Les­
bian poets.

-at- and -ex­

it is a well-known feature of Greek phonology that the

sound-group /ns/ or /nts/ develops in Lesbian in a manner
not regularly attested in other dialects. The -n- dis­
appears and the preceding vowel is diphthongized. The
Lesbian inscriptions provide the following examples among
many others:
accusative plural of feminine a-stem:
ΤΑΙΣ ΓΡΑΦΑΙΣ (< τάνς γραφάνς);
feminine of the word meaning 'all':
ΠΑΙΣΑ (< πάνσα);
participle of the sigmatic aorist:
ΑΚΟΥΣΑΙΣ (< άκούσαντς);
third person plural present indicative:
ΕΧΟΙΣI (< δχονσι).
As might be expected, the manuscripts of the excerptors
sometimes give the correct Lesbian form, sometimes that
of the κοινή, for instance:
πληθοισα, Sappho 34.3, but: λιπουσα, Sappho 114.1;
μοιοαι, Sappho 127, but: μουσοπολων, Sappho 150.1;
φαισι, Alcaeus 349d, but: φασι(ν), Alcaeus 360.2.
The unequivocal testimony of the Lesbian inscriptions shows
that editors are right to follow the papyri and restore
- C U - / - O L - everywhere in such cases, for it is inconceivable

that the spellings -αι-/-οι- and -α-/-ου- were used indif­

ferently by the Lesbian poets.

In addition to the Lesbian forms in which -αι- or -ot- is

justified on phonological grounds, I mention two groups of
words containing -αι- or -oi- which passed for 'Aeolic' in
late antiquity but for which no phonological justification
can be found:
(i) Balbilla, who wrote pastiches of Lesbian poetry in the
second century A.D., uses ΚΑΜΒΥΣΑΙΣ and ΓΕΝΕΤΑΙΣ.55
(ii) Some of the grammarians recognized the fact that verbs
which appear in the κοινή in a contracted form are athema-
tic (with lengthened stem) in 'Aeolic1. But, whereas they
correctly quote -ωμι as the 'Aeolic' ending which corres­
ponds to -ώ (< -όω) in the κοινή, they give the monstrous
form -αιμι as the equivalent of -ώ (< -άω) — for example,
Herodian teaches: Αίολεΐς τιάλαιμι και γέλαιμί φασι και
τιλαύαιμι (περί. μονήρους λέξεως 2.930.4).

It is reasonable to surmise that, on such slight grounds

as these, no one would ever have thought it right to ex­
tend the equation 'κοινή -ά- = Lesbian -αι-' to classes
of words other than those epigraphically attested. But
the publication of papyri containing fragments of Lesbian
poetry has disclosed that some scribes wrote -αι-, not
-a-, in masculine a-stem nouns (as did Balbilla) and also
in the aorist indicative. Following is the evidence from
papyri:
Αιακιδαις (probably)(Alcaeus 42.5); Αιολιδαις (Alcaeus
38a.5); Βοριαις (Alcaeus 38a.13 and 38b.1); επεραισε
(Alcaeus 38a.8); επτοαισ(ε) (Sappho 22.14); Κρονιδαις
(Alcaeus 38a.9).

The situation is complicated by the fact that at two pla­

ces the manuscripts present, or are thought to present,
traces of masculine a-stems which end in -αις:
(i) At Sappho 141.3 the nominative singular of the god's
name is spelt ‘Ερμαϊς in Codex A of Athenaeus 10.4 25c;
other codices here and at Athenaeus 2.39a give either ‘Ep-
μας or ‘Ερμης.
(ii) The quotation of Alcaeus 317a appears in the de pro­
nominibus of Apollonius Dyscolus, 1.80, as follows: συ
δε σαυτψ 1"Γομαισεση1·. From the last word Ahrens (and,
after him, Meister and Bergk) extracted a form τομιας,
corresponding to Attic ταμίας.56 Perhaps they were right
to do so; in any event, more recent editors have gone so
far as to see in ίτομαισεσηΙ a form τομίαις.

The 'Aeolic' spelling -αι- for -a- in certain classes of

words, notably sigmatic aorists and masculine a-stems, is
referred to by the grammarians. For example, Herodian
writes:
ot Αίολεϊς τό τάλας τάλαις λέγουσι κα\ τό μέλας μέλαις
και τό θόας θόαις προστιθέντες τό ι, τό δε Αίας Αίαις
ού λέγουσι, δια την έπαλληλίαν τής αι διφθόγγου· ηύ-
ρίσκετο γάρ Αλλεπάλληλος ή αι δίφθογγος και έκ τούτου
κακόφωνος ή λέξις (περι παθών 2.266).
If Herodian's observation is correct, the 'Aeolians' spell
-αι- not only in words where it is phonologically justi­
fied, as in τάλαις from τάλαντς and μέλαις from μέλανς,
but also in Θόαις, where it has no such justification: so
far as Herodian is concerned, it is simply a matter of the
mechanical insertion of -i- after -α-, except where such
insertion would produce cacophony.
A more complex situation is disclosed in Column I of the
treatise περί αίολίδος in Papyrus Bouriant 8.57 The de­
fective state of the papyrus permits only the following
statements, relevant to our enquiry, to be read with much
confidence:
(i) πάσης.,.είς τό ας τεταμένον ληγούσης παρα Δωρι,ευσι μετά
τοΟ L έκφερομένης παρ' Αΐ,ολεΟσι. κάπΐ μετοχών καί, όνομάτων.
(ii) Πέρσης Πέρσας παρά. Δωριεϋσι. λεγόμενος Πέρσας όνομάζε-
ται παρ' ΑίολεΟοι.
(iii) Πηλείδας Πηλείδας παρ' ΑίολεΟσι,, δ ‘Ερμ&ς ‘Ερμαις δ
π&ς παΕς ή λέ£ας μετοχή λέξαις <ή> γράφας γράψαι,ς ή ποιήσας
τκηήσαις· τά. μέντοι εις συνεοταλμένον το ά λήγοντα...παρ*
ΑίολεΟσι.. ·&τε δή τεταμένον έχουσαν τδ α μετά τοΟ Τ ψαοΐν
...ταμίας ταμίαις.
To some extent, then, the writer of this papyrus only re­
peats the doctrine taught by Herodian and others: by the
simple insertion of a letter, the 'Aeolians' write -αι-
where other Greeks write -ex-. But some additional infor­
mation is given, namely that Doric Πέρσας corresponds to
Πέρσης of the κοινή and that only some and not all words
in -δ- are spelt -au- by the Aeolians. The last-named is
the clear implication of the statements Πέρσας όνομάζεται
παρ* ΑίολεΟσι and Πηλείδας Πηλείδας παρ* Αίολεϋσι. It is
absolutely inadmissible to 'emend' these statements (as
Lobel does) , so as to make them refer to an Aeolic Πέρσαυς
and Πηλείδαις respectively. Although the author's argu­
ment is not distinguished for stylishness or lucidity, one
point seems to be reasonably certain, and that point must
not be sacrificed for the sake of achieving uniformity:
he does not consider the Aeolic spelling with -αι-, and
the explanation of such spelling, until after he has dealt
with Πέρσας and Πηλείδας. Objectionable as his procedure
may be from a methodological point of view, he states ex­
ceptions to the rule before formulating the rule itself;
the only sound inference from this is that the author is
aware of the 'Aeolic' spellings Πέρσας and ΠηλεΙδας, even
though they are in conflict with the general rule and even
though they cannot be explained by any such principle as
Herodian invoked for the Aeolic spelling Αίας. The tes­
timony of the papyrus therefore speaks against, not in fa­
vour of, the assumption that the 'Aeolians' universally
represented the -S- of the κοινή by -αι-; and it must go
to strengthen the suspicion that, because the spelling
-αι- was widespread in the Lesbian dialect (a fact confir­
med by the inscriptions), a school of grammarians was at
some point able to draw up a whole list of Aeolic forms in
-ai- corresponding to κοινή forms in -a- and to deduce from
the existence of such a list that the Aeolians always (or
nearly always) inserted -i- after -a-. But this faulty
reasoning on the part of scholars who were ignorant of the
linguistic origin of the spelling -αι- does not justify
modern editors in putting into their texts forms such as
Ερμαις, which are not warranted by the sound-changes of the
Greek language and which find no parallel in the Lesbian
inscriptions. It seems necessary to concur completely
with the judgment of Alfonsina Braun, to whom we are in­
debted for the most searching extant discussion of the prob­
lem: 'The presence of nominatives in -ais is definitely
to be excluded, not only in the original redaction of the
two poets but in the Lesbian of every epoch: therefore
they arose from a redaction based upon the work of local
grammarians'.58

The reconstruction of the text

If the aim of an editor of the Lesbians ought to be the re­

construction of the text as it existed in the second cen­
tury B.C., it is impossible to believe that this purpose is
fulfilled by modern texts (especially those produced since
the time of Bergk). In their editions of the Lesbian
poets, post-Bergkian scholars have done something which,
by all accounts, no editor and no grammarian ventured to
do in ancient times; that is to say, they have presented
a completely normalized text of their authors. Many
fluctuations in spelling can be seen in the fragments, whe­
ther preserved on papyrus or in quotations by grammarians;
and there is no reason to suppose that either poet prac­
tised a life-long uniformity in orthography.59 Perhaps
the foregoing pages have given some hint of the dangers in­
volved in an uncritical acceptance of the dogmas of the
grammarians; and grammarians of the calibre of Herodian,
not those of the calibre of Aristarchus. In addition,
completely mistaken inferences have been drawn from the
papyrus-fragments of Lesbian poetry. These are widely
thought to provide access to the usage of the poets them­
selves. They do not: they give access merely to teaching
about the 'Aeolic' dialect which was current at the time
they were written. It follows that the principles which
underlie the editions of Ahrens and Bergk are sounder than
those adopted by their successors; although it must be al­
lowed that Ahrens and Bergk themselves were too ready to
follow the grammarians' teaching in one important respect,
that of barytonesis.

Spuria

When an editor is compiling the definitive corpus of the

works of an ancient author, he sometimes faces the problem
raised by doubtful or spurious pieces. Two such pieces
are thought to have intruded upon the collection of Les­
bian poetry; and an examination of them prompts linguistic
questions of considerable interest. One of these, Sappho
44, is discussed below; but the other is relevant to the
matters of orthography and presentation which have just
been pondered. It is the well-known poem quoted by He-
phaestion in his treatment of the ionic metre: Bergk 52
= Diehl 94 = Lobel, ΣΑΠΦΟΥΣ ΜΕΛΗ, incerti auctoris 6 =
Gallavotti, fragmentum dubium 3 = Voigt 168B; omitted by
Lobel-Page. Hephaestion arranges it as follows:
δέδυκε μεν ά σελάν(ν)α και Πληιάδες, μέσαι δε
νύκτες, παρά δ' έρχεθ* ώρα, έγώ δε μόνα καθεύδω.
Those editors who admit the poem commonly re-arrange it in
four lines and give it a 'Lesbian' dress:
δέδυκε μεν ά σελάννα
καί Πληΐαδες, μέσαι δε
νύκτες, παρά δ* έρχετ' ώρα,
έγω δε μόνα κατεύδω.
Hephaestion does not say explicitly that the poem is by
Sappho; but Arsenius' addition of the word ΣαπφοΟς to his
quotation of the lines (Leutsch-Schneidewin II, p. 363) in­
dicates that they passed for Sappho's in antiquity.

Modern scholars have been suspicious of the piece for two

reasons: (i) they have thought that its tone is at vari­
ance with that of Sappho's extant poetry and have regarded
it as an example of 'folk-verse';60 (ii) they have raised
linguistic objections.

The first objection is baseless. Correct method calls for

examination of the disputed piece in the light of external
criteria; then, if a title to authorship is prima facie
made out and if no objective reason can be urged against
the attribution, the range of the author's work must simply
be extended so as to accommodate the piece. As a matter
of fact, our poem is quite similar in tone to two lines
which are universally acknowledged to be the work of Sappho:
 γλυκηα ματερ, ου του δύναμαι κρεκην τον ιστόν
ποθωι δαμεισα παιδος βραδιναν δι* Αφροδιταν (102).
The 'folk' content of this latter poem has justly been em­
phasized by Lesky.61

Now for the linguistic objections. These are stated by

Page in the following terms: 'the lines...are not Lesbian,
let alone Sappho's: Lesbian would say σελάννα here, not
d σελάννα; μέσαι would have been μέσσαι; παρά would have
been πάρ'.62 These remarks display little of the judg­
ment needed in dealing with the language and textual trans­
mission of the Lesbian poets. The poem in issue and the
objections to its authenticity are discussed at great length
by B. Marzullo,63 more succinctly by G. Jachmann and P.
Berrettoni.6** They have little difficulty in disposing
of the points raised by Page, although their approach dif­
fers in detail. To put it briefly. No responsible edi­
tor would dare to affirm in what circumstances the article
is used in Lesbian poetry: the evidence is too slight, and
Lobel's treatment too arbitrary.65 Curiously enough, Lobel
and Page include in their edition a fragment of Sappho's
beginning
πληρης μεν εφαινετ* α σελαννα (154.1),
which is also quoted by Hephaestion. Why Sappho could use
the article when she wanted to say 'the moon appeared at
the full' but not if she said 'the moon has set' involves
a nicety of expression which completely eludes me and which
is not clarified by Lobel's exposition; there are so many
'rules' and so many exceptions to them that, it seems, an
exception can nearly always be made in order to accommodate
a given reading. But not, apparently, in respect of our
poem. Page's objections to μέσαι and παρά are equally
without foundation. They would matter only if grammarians
always quoted from the Lesbian poets in correct Lesbian;
but, of course, they often do not do so unless a dialectal
point is the reason for the citation. Thus, Jachmann is
right to recall that at Alcaeus 208.3 all three excerptors
give μέσον, whereas μέσσον must be the correct reading to
satisfy the metre. As for παρά, one might have hoped
that παρα μοίραν (Alcaeus 39a.10) would have furnished a
sufficiently good parallel; but perhaps we are by now
well enough acquainted with the procedure of these editors
not to be surprised by Lobel's comment: 'it is on the
whole reasonable to believe that Alcaeus' παρά is an alien
form'.66
II The 1normal' and 'abnormal' Poems of Sappho

Any discussion of Sappho's language entails more than a

passing glance at that of Alcaeus as well. The obvious
starting-point is a consideration of the apparently sim­
ple question: to what extent is the language of Sappho
and Alcaeus 'pure' Lesbian? Many different answers have
been returned to this question since Ahrens first pondered
it in 1839. Ahrens himself left the reader in no doubt
of his own position. He held that the language of both
poets was purely Lesbian, without any admixture of epic
or other alien elements. The 'doublets' found here and
there in the text of the two poets, for instance πιέζω
beside πιάζω, genitive singular of o-stems in - 0 1 0 as well
as in -ω, dative plural of consonant-stems in -εσσι as
well as in -εσι, and accusative singular of diphthong-sterns
ending now in -ηα, now in -εα, Ahrens ascribed not to the
intrusion of an alien dialect but to the survival of ar­
chaic Lesbian features, which were used by the poets along­
side those current in their contemporary language.67 A
similar view was expressed by linguists later in the nine­
teenth century: by Meister (1882), by Fick (1891), and by
Hoffmann (1893). The decisive reaction against this opi­
nion was initiated by Wilhelm Schulze in the course of his
bitterly hostile review of the second volume of Hoffmann's
Die qriechischen Dialekte. Schulze set out to controvert
the dogma stated by Ahrens and uncritically accepted by
the scholars just named: 'instead of repeating the asser­
tion [that the text of the Lesbians contains no epic ele­
ments] without evidence, we would do better to investigate
more closely the poetry of Alcaeus and Sappho in the light
of its actual relationship to epic diction'.68 Schulze
himself laid the foundation for this research in the suc­
ceeding pages of his review. He pointed out that in fact
a large number of the expressions used by both poets find
their prototypes in the epic — a termwhich, in Schulze's
usage, includes Hesiod and the Homeric Hymns as well as
the Iliad and the Odyssey. Epic phrases discovered by
Schulze in the text of the Lesbian poets include these
notable examples:
Sappho:
33.1 χρυσοστεφαν* Αφροδιτα (χρυσοστέφανον...ΆφροδΙτην,
h .Horn. 6.1);
55.4 αμαυρών νεκυων (είδωλον άμαυρόν, δ 824);
94.16 απαλαι δεραι (απαλήν δειρήν, Τ 285);
130.1 Ερος..,λυσιμελης (Έ ρ ο ς . ..λυσιμελής, Hes. Theog.
12 0 - 1 2 1 ).
Alcaeus:
50.1 ...πολλά παθοισας κεφαλας κακχεε... (πολλά παθών, Φ82);
.2 και κατ τω πολιω στηθεος (χεύατο κάκ κεφαλής πολιής,
ω 317) ;
141.3 το μεγα κρετος (μέγα κράτος» Λ 753);
208a.2 κυμα κυλινδεται (κΟμα κυλίνδεται, Λ 307);
.4 ναϊ.,.συν μελαιναι (νηϊ μελαίνηι, A 300);
307a παι μεγαλω Διος (παις τε Διός μεγάλου, Hes. Asp. 371);
336 εκ ρ ’ ελετο φρενας (φρένας έ^έλετο, Ζ 234);
343 Διος εξ αιγιοχω (Διός αίγιόχοιο, Ζ 420);
345.1-2 όρνιθες...τανυσιπτεροι (δρνιθες τανυσίπτεροι, ε 65);
386 κολπωι σ' εδεξαντ' (δέκατο κόλπψ, Ζ 483).
Inc. auct.:
10.2 εξαπινας φανεντα (έξαπίνης προφανέντ*, ω 160);
16.1-2 ποδεσσιν. ..απαλόισ* (πόσσ* άπαλοϋσιν, Hes. Theog. S').

In addition to the foregoing phrases, which were evidently

taken over as they stood, Schulze pointed to a series of
epithets which were also borrowed but were used by the Les­
bian poets in rather different ways from those recorded in
the extant remains of the epic:
 Sappho:
53 βροδοτιαχεες αγναι Χαριτες (Εύνίκη όοδόπηχυς, Hes. Theog.
246) ;
123 χρυσοπεδιλος Αυως (”Ηρης χρυσοπεδίλου, λ 604);
128 καλλικομοι τε Μοισαι (Μνημοσύνης...καλλικόμοto, έξ ής
οί, ΜοΟσαι, Hes. Theog. 915-916).
Alcaeus:
345.2 πανελοπ,ες ποικιλοδειροι (άηδόνα τχοικιλόδειρον, Hes.
Erga 203).

In this century, the discovery of papyri and the closer

study of the texts have only confirmed the correctness of
Schulze's deductions. It has become clear that the re­
lationship between the Lesbian poets and the epic is far
more complex than a simple borrowing of ready-made phrases
and epithets by the former from the latter.69 For Sappho
and Alcaeus, the epic language was not merely a quarry
from which to dig stock phrases but something still alive
and capable of being re-fashioned in new ways so as to
lend point to what the lyric poets wished to express. The
truth of this statement may be illustrated by some exam­
ples chosen from three poems of diverse kinds: Alcaeus
130b, Alcaeus 140, and Sappho 1.

Alcaeus 130b expresses the poet's feelings in his exile.

It is not surprising that the greatest sense of desolation
was aroused in a Greek by being cut off from political ac­
tivity; so Alcaeus complains, in the first five lines of
his poem:
.............. ο ταλαις εγω
ζωω μοίραν εχων αγροϊωτικαν
ιμερρων αγορας ακόυσαι
καρυζομενας ω Αγεσιλαϊδα
και βολλας.............
What the man compelled to live the rustic life misses above
all is participation in assembly and council. Now it was
observed by Mastrelli in a penetrating paragraph that when
Homer uses expressions like
κήρυσσειν άγορήνδε κάρη κομόωντας 'Αχαιούς (β 7)
and
οΰτε ποτ' είν άγορ^ δίχα βάζομεν οΰτ' ένι βουλή (γ 127),
he is calling up 'a crystallized and stationary image'; Al­
caeus re-creates it so that, in its pathetic context, it
becomes 'alive and spontaneous'.70 It may be added that,
later in the same poem, at line 18, Alcaeus borrows the
Homeric word έλκεσίπεπλος (which functions in the epic as
little more than an ornamental epithet, e.g. Z 442) and
uses it, with vivid effect, to describe the Lesbian women
who take part in the καλλιστεία.

Alcaeus 140 describes a great house ablaze with weapons of

different kinds. For ease of reference, I divide the body
of the poem into eight constituent parts:
(a)μαρμαίρει δε μεγας δομος
χαλκωι, (b)Tiaioa δ' Αρηι κεκοσμηται στεγα
λαμπραισιν κυνιαισι, (σ)κατ
ταν λευκοί κατεπερθεν ιππιοι λοφοι
νευοισιν, κεφαλαισιν αν-
δρων αγαλματα· (d)χαλκιαι δε πασσαλοις
κρυπτοισιν περικειμεναι
λαμπραι κναμιδες, ερκος ισχυρω βελεος
(θ)θορρακες τε νεω λινω
(ί)κοιλαι τε κατ ασπίδες βεβλημεναι·
^)παρ δε Χαλκιδικαι σπαθαι,
(h)nap δε ζωματα πολλά και κυπασσιδες.

In (a), Alcaeus has conflated two Homeric expressions,

χαλκφ μαρμαΐροντες (N 801) and κλυτά δώματα..,χρύσεα μαρ-
μαί,ροντα (Ν 20-21) . (b) Homer does not use κοσμέω with
the meaning 'adorn', but compare χρυσψ κοσμηθεϊσα (h.Hom.
5.65); nor is στέγη an epic word. The helmets are al­
together Homeric in conception, for whereas Homer never
describes a κυνέη as λαμπρή he does apply the epithet λαμ­
πρή to the virtually synonymous word κόρυς, e.g. λαμπρζσιν
κορύθεσσι (P 269) . (c) So far as the crests of horse­
hair are concerned, these are modelled directly on the
arming passages of the Iliad,71 e.g. Γ 336-337, while the
words κεφαλαισιν ανδρων αγαλματα, 'adornments for the heads
of warriors', are similar to Homer's βασιλήϊ...Αγάλματα
(Δ 144) . (d) The greaves are described as 'made of
bronze' (χαλκιαι) and 'gleaming' (λαμπραι): compare χαλ-
κοκνήμιδες Αχαιοί (Η 41); but the curious expression
'hiding the pegs' is not Homeric. The phrase which is
put in apposition to the greaves, ερκος ισχυρω βελεος is,
apparently, fashioned after the Homeric έρκος βελέων (E 316),
although Homer would have said κρατερου, not ΙσχυροΟ. (e)
The description θορρακες νεω λινω recalls the epic epithet
λινοθώρηξ (e.g. B 529) . (f) Although άσπίς is a common
word for 'shield' in the Homeric epic, shields are never
called 'hollow' by Homer. (g-h) Χαλκιδικαι σπαθαι and
κυπασσιδες are unknown to Homer, although his heroes some­
times wear a ζώμα (Δ 187).

Alcaeus 140 illustrates as well as any other Lesbian poem

both the pervasiveness of the epic influence and the ex­
tent to which the Lesbians felt themselves free to mani­
pulate their epic models and to juxtapose Homeric elements
with those taken from contemporary life.72

On turning from this description by Alcaeus to Sappho's

great poem, we find that her indebtedness to Homer may be
considered on two levels. At the more superficial level,
she (like Alcaeus) boldly adapts a large number of epic
phrases to new surroundings; at a deeper level, she makes
extensive use of themes borrowed from the Homeric epic.

To begin with the epic phrases in Sappho 1:73

3-4 μη μ'.,.δαμνα, ποτνια, θυμόν (ού γάρ πώ ποτέ μ' ώδε...
έρος...θυμόν...έδάμασσεν, Ξ 315-316);
9 αρμ* υπασδευξαισα (έζευ^αν ύφ* άρμασιν, γ 478);
10 περι γας μελαινας (γαΐα μέλαινα, Β 699);
11-12 πυκνά διννεντες πτερ' (έπιδινηθέντε τιναξάσθην πτερά
πυκνά, β 151);
απ' ωρανω αιθερος (ούρανόν Εκε δι* αίθέρος, Ρ 425);
13 αιψα δ' εξικοντο (αϋψα δ' ϋκοντο, τ 458);
14 μειδιασαισ' (sc. Αφροδιτα) (φιλομμειδης 'Αφροδίτη, Γ 424) ;
17 κωττι μοι μαλιστα θελω (δττι μάλιστ' έθέλεις, £ 54);
34 κωυκ εθελοισα (και ούκ έθέλουσ', β 110).

Now for the deeper (and perhaps unconscious) level at which

Sappho bases her poem upon epic prototypes. At Ξ 194-196,
we read Aphrodite's answer to Hera, who has come to ask for
her help in the seduction of Zeus:
"Ηρη, πρέσβα θεά, θύγατερ μεγάλοιο Κρόνοιο,
αΰδα & τι φρονέεις· τελέσαι δέ με θυμός άνωγεν,
εί δύναμαι τελέσαι γε και εΐ τετελεσμένον έστίν.
Sappho transforms these words of Aphrodite to Hera into
words spoken by herself to Aphrodite:
......... οσσα δε μοι τελεσσαι
θυμός ιμερρει, τελεσον....... (1 .26-27).
When, in the concluding address, Sappho calls upon Aphro­
dite to be her 'ally' (σύμμαχος), this invocation is exactly
parallel to Hera's request to the same goddess: a request
that was made with the same desire for sexual conquest
which is in Sappho's mind.71* The implication is clear
(as it could never have been if we were ignorant of the
epic model) : it is that Sappho hopes and expects that Aphro­
dite will give her the same favourable response that she
once gave Hera in legendary times.
A slightly different, but wholly convincing, approach to
Homeric reminiscences in Sappho 1 is that of T. Krischer;75
He identifies a number of typical scenes which are closely
modelled on epic prototypes: in each case, it seems that
the reminiscence has been provoked by the use of a speci­
fic word. So in line 7 the word εκλυες, addressed by a
suppliant to her patron deity, recalls Homeric prayers
like that of Chryses to his patron god, a prayer which
Apollo heard and acted upon: τοϋ δ' δκλυε Φοίβος 'Απόλλων
(Α 43). In the same line of Sappho's poem, we read of
Aphrodite's hoped-for epiphany, πατρος δε δομον λιποισα,
a phrase similar to epic passages in which a goddess leaves
her father's house, on her way to help a suppliant: in
particular, Thetis leaves her father's cave in preparation
for the journey she undertakes at Achilles' request, ώς
άρα φωνήσασα λί,πε σπέος (Σ 65). Again, in Sappho 1.9,
the theme of a goddess harnessing her chariot is parallel
to E 720-732, where Hera is the deity involved.

The relationship between E and Sappho 1 is investigated

more deeply by J. Svenbro.76 He remarks that the thema­
tic correspondance between Sappho's poem and E 720-772 is
too close to be due to coincidence. In the Iliad, Hera
and Athena arm themselves and harness a chariot in order
to go and fight for Diomedes when he is hard pressed: Sap­
pho hopes that Aphrodite will respond to her prayer by the
same series of actions, becoming her σύμμαχος, just as the
two goddesses fought by the side of Diomedes. The details
fit exactly, save that Sappho has Aphrodite's chariot drawn
by sparrows, whereas of course in the Iliad the goddesses
harness a team of horses. Even this alteration is a con­
scious one, according to Svenbro: it is symptomatic of
the movement away from heroic epic towards a more personal
kind of poetry. The analysis is acute, even though it
does not lead irresistibly to the conclusions about social
and political conditions which Svenbro draws in the final
part of his paper.77

Not only is epic colouring vividly present in some of the

poems of Sappho and Alcaeus (sometimes, as in Sappho 1,
pervading the whole). The most superficial reading of
these poets reveals, further, that they use different
forms of the same word in different metrical situations.
This practice constitutes one of the typical marks of a
Greek literary dialect. The text of both Lesbians con­
firms the statement of Herodian that they used two forms
of the genitive singular of the word for 'sky' or 'hea­
ven', ορανω and ωρανω. The occurrence of ορανω beside
ωρανω so strongly resembles a common phenomenon of the
literary dialects that we may well be disappointed when
Lobel rejects the simple and obvious explanation of the
presence of variant forms.78

Anyone who, like Lobel, seeks to set aside the fluctuation

between ορανω and ωρανω has to face a disturbing fact,
namely that this fluctuation is only one of a whole series
of variant forms to be found in the Lesbian poets. It is
easy to construct a list, showing the most securely attes­
ted of these 'metrical' doublets:
αμμι, (Sappho 5.7 etc., \
Alcaeus 48.17 etc.)> αμμεσιν (Alcaeus 315)79
αμμιν (Alcaeus 314.1) J
δεραυσι (Alcaeus 362.2) τιουκιλοδε upoi (Alcaeus 345.2)
'ι.σος (Sappho 31.1) Τσος (?) (Sappho 111.5) 80
κορυφαν (gen. plur.)(Al- μοισαων (Sappho, PColon 5680,
caeus 115a.7) fr. 2, line ll)81
μεσαι (Sappho 16 8B.2) μεσσω (Sappho 1.12)
μέσοι. (Alcaeus 355) μεσσον (Alcaeus 208a. 3)
Νηρεϊδων (Alcaeus 42.11) Νηρηϊδες (Sappho 5.1)
ορανω (Sappho 52 etc., ωρανω (Sappho 1.11,
Alcaeus 338.1) Alcaeus 355)
ορεων (Sappho 44Aa.6) ωρεος (Alcaeus 181.3)
οσα (Sappho 104a.l etc.) οσσος (Alcaeus 119.10)
παΐς (Sappho 27.4 etc., παϊδα (Sappho 103.3 etc.)
Alcaeus 75.7 etc.)
πατρος (Sappho 1.7) πατερος (Alcaeus 130b.5)
περατων (Alcaeus 350.1) πειρατών (Alcaeus 345.1)
Περαμοιο (Sappho 44.16) Περραμωι (Alcaeus 42.2)82
πολυανθεμοiς (Sappho 96.11) Πωλυανακτιδα (Sappho 155)
τελεσαι (?)(Alcaeus 350.3) τελεσσαι (Sappho 1.26)

With the reasons for such variations I am not immediately

concerned. Some of the alternative forms (μεσσος, οσσος,
τελεσσαι, ωρεος) perhaps come directly from the epic;83
others, like Πωλυανακτιδα, seem to be formed by analogy
from epic words (Πουλυδάμας, etc.);81* ωρανω may represent
an intrusion from an alien dialect;85 παΐς and παΐς both,
apparently, belong to Lesbian, only at different stages of
its development86 — and the same holds good for the geni­
tive plural endings -αων and -αν. For the present pur­
pose, it is sufficient to state that the words in the list
are of such kind and number as to suggest only one conclu­
sion: whether or not the Lesbian poets used for the most
part their own native dialect, they felt free to manipu­
late their language in ways typical of a literary m£lange
and not of living speech.

The argument so far has been conducted on the assumption

that the poetry of Alcaeus and Sappho constitutes a lin­
guistically homogeneous corpus. But Lobel deduced from
his study of these poets that such an assumption was false.
He considered that the work of the Lesbians fell into
three distinct classes:
1. The poems of Alcaeus, which, while composed mostly in
the native Lesbian dialect, admit fairly consistently fea­
tures from other dialects, notably the Homeric.
2. Sappho's 'normal' poems, comprising by far the greater
part of her extant work, which are written in the Lesbian
vernacular.
3. A small number of 'abnormal' fragments, into which Sap­
pho admits Homeric forms and prosodic features not found
in her 'normal' poems.87

A number of hexameters by Sappho have long been known which

correspond closely in all respects to Homeric practice: the
epic caesura is observed, the final metron is dissyllabic,
spondees are everywhere admissible, and epic correption is
allowed: these are 105a, 142, and 143. In addition, Lo­
bel and Page point to a number of linguistic features which
they say are not at home in Lesbos but are imported, pro­
bably, from the Homeric epic: for instance the form οσα
in Sappho 104a.1 (vs. Lesbian οσσα); the use of the ar­
ticle in 105a.1 and 105b.1; τιοσσι in 105b.2 (vs. Lesbian
ποδεσσι); χρυσειοι in 143 (vs. Lesbian χρυσι,οι); the
epic collocation of particles δε τε in 105b.2; and κατα-
in 105b.2 (vs. Lesbian κατ-).

Lobel's proposal to distinguish Sappho's 'normal' from her

'abnormal' poems, because of the congregation in the latter
of certain arbitrarily chosen features, marks a fresh ap­
proach. Although the proposal gave rise to some misgiv­
ing shortly after Lobel wrote,88 it has been accepted with
little question by later writers on the subject, except
Gomme and Marzullo.89 At first sight, indeed, it may be
wondered if such a distinction is necessary in Sappho's
case. We seem to have nothing more out of the way here
than a situation commonly met in Greek archaic poetry: the
fact that poems written in the epic metre, or in metres
apparently allied to it, are more likely to attract epic
forms and practices than poems in other metres. Archilo­
chus, for example, allows more elements of epic phrasing
and prosody in his elegiacs than in his iambic and trocha­
ic pieces;90 a natural state of affairs, from which no
one would ever have deduced a difference between the 'nor­
mal' and the 'abnormal'. Even as applied to Sappho, the
terms are ill chosen. When Lobel and his followers assert
that Sappho's 'normal' poems are composed, not in an arti­
ficial or literary dialect, but in the Lesbian 'vernacu­
lar', they are making a very large assumption, which can
easily be shown to be untenable. They suppose that, if
we set aside those poems of Sappho which demonstrably con­
tain alien elements or features proper to an artificial
language, whatever remains is written in the Lesbian ver­
nacular. In consequence, many pages of the introduction
to Lobel's ΑΛΚΑΙΟΥ ΜΕΛΗ are taken up with the 'segregation
of some apparent doublets'. This section certainly con­
stitutes an interesting and useful study of the vocabulary
of the Lesbian poets; but, if it purports to establish
their use of a 'vernacular', it is very wide of the mark.
What reader fresh from a perusal of Homer and acquainted
with the habits of early Greek poets would expect, for in­
stance, αιον, ακουην, and εκλυον to be synonyms or could
fail to comprehend the difference in meaning between χθων
and γα or that between παις and κορα?

None of this allows us to describe the language even of

Sappho's 'normal' poems as a vernacular. To do so would
imply the possession of two vital sets of facts, which are
completely lacking: first, a direct knowledge of the Les­
bian vernacular at the time of Sappho; second, access to
all the sources from which she might have borrowed. When
Page maintains that 'the Aeolic of Sappho and Alcaeus is
not a literary dialect; it reflects normal Lesbian usage
of the time',91 one would hardly infer from his expression
either that the works of these poets are interpenetrated
by epic diction or that we are wholly ignorant of the
'normal Lesbian usage of the time'. The earliest scanty
inscriptions from the island of Lesbos itself are more
than a century younger than the life-time of the great
poets, while the first Lesbian inscriptions of any length
are already infected by the κοινή. On the other hand,
much of the poetry known to Sappho (including nearly all
the poetic monuments of her predecessors in Lesbos) has
perished. Even if, in a given poem, Sappho is not ob­
viously indebted to a literary tradition known to us, she
could still be borrowing from something which no longer
survives. This point I shall return to later. For the
moment, it is sufficient to mention that the extent of
her borrowing, already discussed, from traditions that we
are aware of ought to make us expect a highly developed
literary language rather than a vernacular. It would be
a remarkable circumstance if Sappho, alone among the ar­
chaic poets of Greece, used for her highly-charged and in­
tensely personal lyrics the language she heard in the
street.92 Post-Homeric poets, no less than Homer him­
self, always composed their works in an artificial lite­
rary dialect.93 It is not only that they used more than
one word to express the same idea but that they took over
peculiarities of epic usage and borrowed words and forms
from other dialects, no doubt within the limits established
by the predecessors in the respective genres. The reason
for their employment of a number of well-marked literary
dialects is easy to ascertain. The observation made by
R. Stark about Hellenistic literature applies with equal
force to poetry of the archaic period. He points out that
the poets bestow a dialectal colouring on their works not
only to remove poetry from everyday speech but also to
place their poems in a specific literary genre, which is
recognizable because of the particular dialect used.9^
I admit that these statements are general ones; and it
might be objected that, despite all probability and the
demonstrable analogies, they do not necessarily hold good
for the Lesbian poets. In the absence of contemporary
inscriptions, it is difficult to apply any external test
to the language of these poets, unless obviously Homeric
words are in question. Yet writers of papyri, grammar­
ians, and excerptors are united in presenting one feature
which, on examination, will go to confirm our deduction on
a priori grounds that Sappho and Alcaeus employed an arti­
ficial literary dialect and not a vernacular. It has long
been known that in certain classes of words the Lesbian
poets used η, whereas in other dialects (including Boeo­
tian) Ei was written. Meister was able to point to a
number of words where this correspondence obtained: Κυ-
θερη(α) (Sappho 140.1) (vs. Homeric Κυθέρεια) and Κυπρο-
γενηας (Alcaeus 380) (vs. ΚυτιρογενεΙας in other dialects).
The fact that Lesbian inscriptions of the fourth century
B.C. and later present ει, not η, in similar contexts sug­
gested to Meister that it was only in early Lesbian that
the development took place.95 Now the phenomenon has been
studied afresh by B. Forssman, and his results may be sta­
ted briefly as follows.96 In the Lesbian poets, η regu­
larly continues the pre-vocalic group *ewy in feminine
words of the type noted by Meister and in feminine adjec­
tives such as ευρηαν (Alcaeus 34.5) (vs. Attic εύρεΐαν).
Forssman suggests that the -ει- found in optatives (for
instance ειη, Alcaeus 58.20) has been restored by analogy
with other optative formations containing -i-. Like
Meister before him, Forssman finds -ει- everywhere in ear­
lier Lesbian inscriptions in contexts where the poets
would have had -η-. It is only later that -η- is attes­
ted epigraphically, and then it arises from a development
of the κοινή and has nothing to do with the language of
Alcaeus and Sappho. A further item can now be brought
into the discussion, namely the fact that in Mycenaean, as
well as in the historical dialects of Greek, the normal re­
flex of pre-vocalic *ewy was ei, not e. The latter is an
important point, since it enables us to discern even more
clearly than before that the -η- in the types of words men­
tioned represents a phonological development which is com­
pletely anomalous in the history of the Greek dialects,
finding no epigraphic parallels in earlier or in later
times. This feature may, in consequence, fairly be termed
(if anything may) an element of a literary language, which
is set apart from the 'norms' of Greek, in so far as these
are revealed by the inscriptions.

It is the failure of Lobel and Page to admit the possibi­

lity that the language of Sappho and Alcaeus is a lite­
rary dialect which makes for so much rigour and exclusive­
ness in their treatment of the subject. They believe
that the 'normal' can be separated from the 'abnormal' by
the application of a few mechanical tests, such as the
following: presence of epic correption, a syllable re­
maining short before a combination of stop and liquid, uses
of the article which deviate from the standard which Lobel
has purported to define for Lesbian poetry, and 'Homeric'
inflexions such as the genitive singular in -o l o .

Lobel writes as follows with regard to correption.

Outside hexameter and elegiac verse this practice is
comparatively rare. In Sappho it is unquestionably
inadmissible in the normal poems. φαίνομαι άλλά [31.
16] must simply be emended, though we cannot at present
say how. In [147] και ϋστερον is a scansion intro­
duced by conjecture and, though there is a single ap­
parently genuine instance of the correption of καί, in
Alcaeus, there is no reason, the metre and the form of
the expression being alike completely uncertain, why it
 should be introduced in this place, δρχεται Ισος and
εΙσέρχεται Ισος are both unacceptable readings, and
must in any case be emended at [111.5], though we do
not know for certain whether this particular poem might
not have been one in which such a shortening was al­
lowed .9 7

Lobel is actually more persuasive in his individual exam­

ples than in his general rule. It is, of course, true
that correption is pervasive in the Homeric hexameter; and
it comes as no surprise that, in her hexameters, Sappho
follows Homer's practice in this as in other respects. But,
despite Lobel's formulation, correption is common enough
in kinds of poetry quite different from the hexameter, for
example in the choral lyrics of Pindar and Bacchylides and
in those of Attic tragedy and comedy.98 There is thus
no a priori reason to suppose that correption will be ab­
sent from the lyric monody of the Lesbians.

It has to be admitted that in Sappho 147 καί ύστερον is

only a conjecture for Dio Chrysostom's και έτερον, although
to the open-minded critic the correpted και in Alcaeus 366,
οίνος ω φιλε παι και αλαθεα,
might raise the presumption that in this type of verse a
correption of the vowel in και, if nowhere else, was tole­
rated.99 If so, Sappho 147 would read something like
this:
μνάσάσθαϊ τΐνα φαΐμί και ύστερον άμμεων.100

While so much is doubtful, Lobel may perhaps be allowed

his objection that correpted και ought not to be intro­
duced by conjecture. But to exclude also the correption
in φαίνομαι αλλα is to go too far, for this is a trans­
mitted reading (for instance in the περί ύψους), and not
a modern conjecture. It is true that the words immedia-
tely following do not scan and are corrupt; but, even if
these cannot be mended, it seems presumptuous to tamper
with what does scan, merely on the basis of a dogma.101
So with Sappho 111.5. It is, indeed, difficult to accept
the variant εισερχεταυ; but the other manuscript reading,
ερχεται, is quite unexceptionable. If this shorter form
is read, it takes its natural place in the metrical con­
text of the poem, which cannot be forced into the frame­
work of two responding strophes:
1 ΐψδΤ δη το μέλαθρον
3 αερρετε τεκτονες άνδρες
5 γαμβρός ερχεται ίσος Αρεΰΐ
6 ανδρος μεγαλω πδλΰ μεζων.102

Very often in Homer, though by no means always, a syllable

which contains a vowel short by nature is counted long for
metrical purposes if it is closed by stop+liquid. Lobel
clearly shows that this is true in the Lesbian poets as
well.103 The only exceptions admitted by him all occur
in 'abnormal' poems of Sappho: ελι,γματα χρυσία (44.8), δχ-
λος (44.14), and μαλδδροτχηες (105.2). Hence it is claimed
that only in those poems which are alleged to betray fea­
tures of the epic language does Sappho admit a metrical
peculiarity not typical of the epic I Nor does the epic
itself provide a convincing model for any of these shorten­
ings. μαλοδροτιηες, of course, is not found there at all.
The word οχλος itself is not present either; but verbal
forms of the same stem always show a long syllable before
the -χλ-.101* On the other hand, χρυσός and words formed
from it are very common in Homer. On no fewer than 7 7
occasions do they follow a vowel short by nature, and only
once (at Ω 795) is that vowel left short.

A final consideration may persuade us that Lobel's criteria

for distinguishing the 'normal' from the 'abnormal' are too
narrowly drawn. In classifying a poem as one or the
Other, why should matters of prosody and inflexion alone
be taken into account? Reasons have been given above for
believing that both Lesbian poets, like Homer, used vari­
ant forms of words for purely metrical reasons; and that
practice is by no means confined to the so-called 'abnor­
mal' fragments. Nor do Homeric phraseology and reminis­
cence prevail to a notable greater extent in the 'abnormal'
than in the 'normal' poems. It is worth remembering that,
according to Lobel's principles of classification, a poem
80 suffused with Homerisms as Sappho 1 would still count
as a 'normal' piece!
Ill Aeolic and Ionic Poetry

The facts adduced in Parts I and II allow us to see Sappho

and Alcaeus as poets who often recall and adapt Homeric
phrases, even in lyrics which are utterly different in con­
ception from the epic. We can say, further, that when
Sappho writes in the dactylic hexameter she often admits
prosodic and linguistic features which are familiar in the
epic but are found rarely, if at all, in the remainder of
her poetry. This phenomenon is not, in itself, so start­
ling or so unparalleled as to warrant the assumption of
two discrete bodies of poetry. But that is not the whole
story. The discovery of Sappho 44 (first published as
POxy 123 2) revealed the existence of a species of Aeolic
poetry not previously attested. Unlike most of the other
extant poems of Sappho, it has a narrative content, de­
scribing Hector's arrival at Troy with his bride Andromache
and the celebrations attendant on that event. But, although
its theme belongs within the ambit of Homeric poetry (Hec­
tor's wooing of Andromache being mentioned at X 471-472),
it is written not in the dactylic hexameter but in what
the ancient metricians erroneously called the 'aeolic pen­
tameter' : oo—vu —vo-gu—ux. Despite the superficial re­
semblance this line has, in some of its manifestations, to
an acatalectic dactylic pentameter, three specifically
'aeolic' features firmly distinguish it from Homeric poetry
and the descendants of Homeric poetry: (i) each line is
isochronous, aeolic metres (those aeolic metres, at least,
which are used by Sappho and Alcaeus) not permitting the
substitution of two short syllables by one long or vice
versa; (ii) the first two syllables of the line are anci-
pitia and form the so-called 'aeolic base';105 (iii) the
end of the line is constructed on quite different princi­
ples from that of the dactylic hexameter.106 This type
of line, therefore, may turn out to have a very un-Homeric
appearance, both beginning and ending with the sequence
short+long (as, for example, in 44.15).

From the time of its first publication, Sappho 44 has at­

tracted opinions so diverse that it is hard to believe that
they are all uttered in respect of the same piece.107 Its
theme has suggested that it is a wedding-song, though, to
be sure, a wedding-song of very different type from the
rather crude and naif epithalamia to be found elsewhere in
Sappho^.108 This interpretation is possible, but not cer­
tain; for the time being, I shall treat the poem simply
as the creation, or re-creation, on Sappho's part, of a
series of legendary incidents.

Very early in the controversy, H. Jurenka held that the

poem reflects the genuine Homeric manner in all respects
and that the imitation of Homer is carried out in such a
masterly manner as to give the impression of Homeric
work.109 Contrast with this the assessment of Gallavotti,
who stigmatizes as 'puerile' the technique of stitching
together a succession of Homeric phrases.110 The extent
of Sappho's dependence on the Homeric style has been dis­
cussed by Hermann Frankel. He points to the profound
difference in manner between Sappho 44 and epic poetry,
showing how the broad sweep of Homeric description has
been replaced by a rapid series of simple statements.111
I believe that the meagre fragments which constitute Sap­
pho 44, and which represent an incalculable proportion of
the whole poem, do not permit any worth-while aesthetic
judgment to be passed; but it does seem profitable to en­
quire more closely into the nature of the narrative poetry
in Sappho 44, compared with Homeric epic.

I begin by considering a remark made by J.T. Kakridis in

his discussion of Sappho 44. Kakridis contrasts in the
following way the relationship which obtained between the
epic poet and his audience on the one hand and that be­
tween the lyric poet and his audience on the other. The
audience who listened to the Iliad would (according to
Kakridis) have had to rid their minds of all variants of
the matter of Troy previously known to them, so as to be­
come receptive to the new treatment now being presented.
By contrast, those who listened.to (or read) the narrative
productions of lyric poets were obliged to remember the
outline of the epic stories, which served as an indispen­
sable background for the treatment in lyric form.112 For
Kakridis, then, a poem such as we can conceive Sappho 44
to have been results from a lyric re-shaping of epic ma­
terial. Page and Bowra hold an opinion about the genesis
of 44 which is not radically different from that of Kakri­
dis. For these scholars, the poem is the product of a
fusion between traditional epic elements and features taken
from the contemporary life of Lesbos.113 'Which would be
more surprising here' (asks Page) 'an epic theme bringing
with it a few epic words and forms, or an epic theme com­
posed wholly in the local vernacular? It seems to me
that the first is obviously natural, and that the second
would be far less natural, not to say almost grotesque'.111*

The preference thus expressed by Page seems, at first

sight, to be utterly unexceptionable. But, as a little
consideration reveals, it is vitiated by a fatal defect,
which indeed mars the presentation of Lesbian poetry by
many modern critics. They expound the character, emo­
tions, and way of life of Sappho and her relations with
contemporaries; they reconstruct the political career of
Alcaeus; they discuss the nature of these poets' works
and the manner in which they treat epic themes and heroes.
What we miss is a hint that, besides the epics of Homer
and the works of Sappho and Alcaeus, there might have exis­
ted a third body of poetry, namely lyrics composed in Les­
bos prior to the time of Alcaeus and Sappho. Quite apart
from the inherent likelihood that they did have predeces­
sors in Lesbos (for we are surely not required to believe
that these two poets invented the whole array of aeolic
metres and the form of the lyric monody itself), there are
good reasons for thinking that predecessors existed and
were poetically active. In the first place, we are con­
fronted by the ancient traditions concerning Terpander; in
the second, it is necessary to find some explanation for
the presence in such poets as Eumelus and Aleman of forms
which, at least at first sight, appear to be Aeolic.

The Greeks of later antiquity preserved four principal

facts about Terpander:115 (i) he was the inventor of the
βάρβιτος, a kind of seven-stringed lyre (Pindar fr. 125
Snell; Strabo 13.618); (ii) he imposed a definitive pat­
tern upon the nome, dividing it into seven parts (Pollux
4.66), and bestowed names on the different types of nome
([Plutarch] Moralia 1132c-d); (iii) he set hexameter com­
positions to music; (iv) he was a Lesbian by birth, but
later settled in Sparta. The last fact is of particular
relevance to us here, and it is worthy of closer inspection .

The sources are unanimous in placing the birth of Terpander

in Aeolis, and most of them place it in Lesbos itself: Pin­
dar, in the fragment mentioned in the previous paragraph,
already speaks of Terpander as ό Λέσβι,ος. Writing two or
three generations after Pindar, Timotheus speaks of him as
follows:
Τέρπανδρος δ' έτιυ τψ δέκα
ζεΰξε μούσαν έν φδαϊς·
Λέσβος δ' Αίολία ν<ιν> Ά ν -
τίσσςι γείνατο κλεινόν (Persians 225-228).
And the Suda describes Terpander as 'ΑρναΕος, ή Λέσβιος
άπό Άντίσσης, ή Κυμαιος. According to pseudo-Plutarch,
the tradition of Lesbian song established by Terpander was
carried on in unbroken succession by Lesbian citharodes
until the time of Periclitus. This Periclitus, we are
told/was (like Terpander before him) a Lesbian who had won
prizes at Sparta. The later Greeks gave no less credence
to the report that Terpander had composed poetry at Sparta
than to his Aeolian birth. Thus, Aelian states that the
Spartans were in the habit of summoning poets to heal them
in time of sickness, and that among the poets so summoned
was Terpander (vera historia 12.50). The power of Les­
bian song and its high repute at Sparta led to the rise of
the proverb μετά Λέσβιον φδόν, upon which the Suda makes
these interesting remarks:
παροιμία λεγομένη έπι των τα δεύτερα φερομένων. οΐ γάρ
Λακεδαιμόνιοι τούς Λεσβίους κιθαρψδούς πρώτους προσε-
καλοϋντο. άκαταστατούσης γάρ τής πόλεως αύτών χρησμός
έγένετο τον Λέσβιον φδόν μεταπέμπεσθαι· οΐ δ' έ£ Άν-
τίσσης Τέρπανδρον έφ* αιματι φεύγοντα μεταπεμψάμενοι
ήκουον αύτοϋ έν τοϊς συσσιτίοις και κατεστάλησαν* ότι
οι Λακεδαιμόνιοι στασιάζοντες μετεπέμψαντο έκ Λέσβου
τον μουσικόν Τέρπανδρον, δς ήρμοσεν αύτών τάς Φυχάς και
την στάσιν έπαυσεν. ειποτε οΰν μετά ταΟτα μουσικοΟ
τίνος ήκουον οι Λακεδαιμόνιοι έλεγον· Μετά Λέσβιον (φδο'ν.

The Greeks therefore painted a picture which is very clear

in its broad outlines: there was a long-standing tradition
of lyric poetry in Lesbos, which goes back at least to the
early part of the seventh century B.C. The earliest great
name in the succession of Lesbian poets known to antiquity
is that of Terpander; and all authorities are agreed that
(for whatever reasons) Terpander came to Sparta, where he
enhanced his already high reputation. Besides this ex­
plicitly attested connexion between Lesbian poetry and
Sparta at a time before that of Alcaeus and Sappho, our
sources indicate that Aeolic poetry was known at Corinth
as well. Pausanias 4.33.2 quotes the following verses
from the Corinthian poet Eumelus, who is said to have
flourished before the end of the eighth century B.C.:
τψ γάρ *Ιθωμάτςι καταθύμιος έπλετο Μούσα
ά καθαρά και έλεύθερα σάμβαλ* έχουσα.
The occurrence of Μοισα and σάμβαλ(α), both of which could
be Aeolic forms,116 suggests the possibility 'that even in
the eighth century Lesbos had already begun to practise
lyric song and to win a name for it':117 this possibility
must be held in mind while the rest of the evidence is
examined. Later, at a period closer to Sappho and Al­
caeus, the Lesbian poet Arion came to Corinth, where he
became the first known composer of dithyrambs (Herodotus
1.23) .

The language of Aleman will repay scrutiny at this point,

since at first sight it seems to contain some Lesbian fea­
tures. If the presence of such features were confirmed,
it would lead unquestionably to the conclusion that Les­
bian poetry was sufficiently well known and of sufficient
prestige for its forms to be borrowed at Sparta, just as
epic forms were borrowed there; and, furthermore, that
this knowledge was diffused in the Peloponnese somewhat
earlier than the time of Sappho and Alcaeus, for, although
there was some slight disagreement about absolute dates,
all the ancient authorities placed Aleman in an earlier
generation than the great Lesbians.118 Like the other
early poets of Greece, Aleman uses an artificial literary
language. His is basically Doric: so we find West Greek
features like the personal pronoun άμές, the infinitive
ήμεν, the indefinite temporal adverb πόκα, the verbal end­
ing -μες in the first plural present and -ντι in the third
plural, and the genitive singular ending -ω in the o-stem.
Alongside these Doric elements, Aleman uses Homeric forms.
When, therefore, we find in Aleman Aeolisms like άλκυόνεσ-
σι, δδμεναι, or κλεννά, we need not, and probably ought
not, to regard these as direct borrowings from a Lesbian
source: similar forms are attested in Homer, and so it is
unnecessary to look beyond the Homeric epic if we wish to
establish their origin. But, as well as elements which
are clearly Doric or Homeric, Aleman has one type of word
in which the sequence nasal+sibilant has developed in the
way typical of Aeolic but not generally associated with
the West Greek dialects. The texts present, for example,
έχοι,σα, λιποϊσα, and φεροΐσαις. It is remarkable that
the word for 'muse' nevertheless appears only in its Doric
form μωσα, not (as in Aeolic) μοΐσα.

How is Aleman's use of these forms in -o l o - to be ex­

plained? Before the discovery, earlier in the present
century, of new epigraphic evidence from Cyrene, such forms
were simply attributed to the influence of Lesbian litera­
ture. But the inscriptions from Cyrene were found to con­
tain the following participial forms: ΑΝΗΚΟΙΣΑΝ, ΑΠΟ-
ΣΤΕΛΛΟΙΣΑΣ, ΕΚΟΙΣΑ, ΙΑΡΙΤΕΥΟΙΣΑ, ΚΑΘΑΡΑΙΣΑ, ΠΡΟΓΕΓΟΙΣΑΣ.
The presence of these words obviously contributed an im­
portant new factor to the discussion about Aleman's langu­
age, since in other respects the Cyrenaean inscriptions
presented the features one would have expected to find in
a Doric dialect. Various explanations have been advanced
for the similarity between the language of Aleman and the
inscriptions from Cyrene. Thus, the resemblance might be
completely coincidental; or it might be accounted for by
supposing that the Cyrenaean forms were written under the
influence of a powerful literary exemplar, in the same way
that Homeric features are sometimes reproduced in inscrip­
tions.119 But most scholars have preferred to postulate a
direct relationship between Laconian, as it existed at the
time of Aleman, and the Cyrenaean dialect represented in
the inscriptions: a relationship which would render it
unnecessary to attribute the presence of Aleman's forms in
-o l o - to influence from Lesbian poetry.120

E. Risch has subjected the language of Aleman to a more

searching examination than it had previously received.121
Despite the manifest resemblances between Aleman's langu­
age and that of the Cyrenaean inscriptions (extending be­
yond the forms in -o l o - to such features as short-vowel
thematic infinitives, short-vowel endings of thematic nouns
in the accusative plural, and the occurrence of v instead
of λ before dental stops), Risch pointed out that these
features of Cyrenaean cannot belong to an early stage in
the history of that dialect. For example: whether άγεν
or Αγην (άγειν?) is the earlier form, a short vowel in
the infinitive of a contracted verb, such as Cyrenaean
τιλέν, must have arisen late, since in the 'early Laconian'
period *ηλέρεν could have produced only τιλ?ίν (πλευν); in
the same manner, the ending of the accusative plural,
which at one time had exhibited the two forms -ανς/-ονς
and -ας/-ος, was regularized in favour of the short vowel;
lastly, the change from λ to v before a dental was a second­
ary development, having taken place after the formation of
such words as ήλθον, *τέλχαυ, and Φίλτων.

From these facts Risch deduced that there could have been
no direct connexion between the dialect of Cyrene and old
Laconian as it existed at the time of Aleman; and it seems
to me that he was undoubtedly right in making this infer­
ence. He saw only one possible explanation of the lingu­
istic data: namely that the text of Aleman which has come
down to us is not an authentic representation of what the
poet wrote but has been altered in various ways so as to
bring it into conformity with the dialect of Cyrene.122
This process is explained by Risch on the grounds that
Cyrene was the nearest Dorian city to Alexandria and that
the great literary prestige conferred by Callimachus on
his native place would the more easily have led to such a
standardization. C. Pavese argued along similar lines,
but thought it simpler to imagine that the text of Aleman
used by the Alexandrians was in origin a Spartan exemplar,
in which the original orthography had been modernized in
conformity with contemporary usage.123 That such modern­
ization occurred in respect of some features (for example
the writing of σ for earlier θ and of σδ for earlier ζ)
will be conceded by everyone; but the retention of some
old forms, such as the -ην ending of the thematic infini­
tive, shows that the change (if it took place at all, in
the sense understood by Pavese) did not affect the whole
of Aleman's text.

Risch's explanation, however, deserves closer scrutiny.

Ingenious though it is, it cannot be said to have great
inherent plausibility; it does not seem to arise natur­
ally from the facts adduced but has the appearance of an
expedient devised for the sole purpose of explaining the
resemblances between the language of Aleman and that of
the Cyrenaean inscriptions. The theory, further, in­
volves the assumption that all our knowledge of Aleman's
language is derived from Risch's (purely hypothetical)
'Cyrenaeanizing' archetype, since the forms in -oio- (for
instance) are preserved not only in papyri but also in
quotations: δχοισα (56.3), λιποισα (55), φέρουσα (60.1).
While it is not absolutely impossible that all extant
fragments descend from a common archetype, the very exist­
ence of an archetype of the kind postulated by Risch is
rendered unlikely by a significant feature of Aleman's
language which I have already mentioned: the fluctuation
between one form and another, sometimes but not always
brought about by metrical necessity. Now Aleman displays
a fluctuation not only between Doric and non-Doric forms
but also between one Doric form and another. If, whenever
the Common Doric forms differed from those of the Cyre-
naean dialect, the Alexandrians had replaced the former by
the latter in the mechanical way suggested by Risch, why
did they carry out this replacement in such a partial way?
Why did they change έχωσα to έχουσα but leave μωσα as it
was?121* Why, in the papyrus of the Partheneion, do we
find both the long and the short form of the thematic in­
finitive, when the long form would always have yielded the
correct scansion? Questions like these, to which no ready
answer is forthcoming on Risch's hypothesis, cast doubt on
the correctness of his explanation, even though it is acute
and represents an honest attempt to meet the difficulties.
Yet, of course, his objection to the postulate of a direct
relationship between Cyrenaean and the language of Aleman
has lost none of its force and must still be taken into
account.

The linguistic situation illustrated by Aleman's text can­

not be explained satisfactorily so long as the discussion
is confined to Laconian and Cyrenaean. A wider view must
be taken, especially if it is desired to arrive at the
reasons for the appearance of the -οισ- forms in Aleman.
Although Aleman is the earliest poet who uses -οι,σ- with
any regularity, in apparent contradiction to the norms of
his own dialect, he is far from being the only one. Stesi-
chorus, whom the Suda calls a contemporary of Alcaeus and
Sappho, uses for the most part the Doris mitior. This
mildly Doric colouring is exemplified by the retention of
a in contrast to the Ionic innovation η (“Ηρα 178.2 and
κορώνα 209.9) and by the third person plural ending -ντι
(δχοντι S 8.4). Side by side with these Dorisms, there
appears the epic genitive singular: ώκεανοΐο (185.2) and
θανάτοιο (S 11.4). In addition, the following forms in
-oio- are found: βαλουσαν, Ιδοΐοα, καταισχύνοισ*, and
παθοΐσα (all in papyri). In the sixth century,Ibycus
displays a similar mixture of dialects to that affected by
Stesichorus.125 In 282.1, a Doric genitive rubs shoulders
with an epic genitive: ΔαρδανΙδά Πριάμοιο; and forms from
Homer and from Doric of the 'mild' type recur throughout
the extant fragments of this poem. Yet forms in -oio-
are found as well: μοΐσαι at 282.23126 and θαλέθοισιν at
286.6. Little can be said for certain about the language
of Simonides, whose career likewise belongs to the sixth
century B.C. But here too we have a mixture of epic and
Doric elements: Κρόνοιο at 511 (la).1, but φιλάν at 555.3.
No forms in -oio- are preserved in the remains of Simoni­
des, but when Plato quotes the word έτιαίνημι (542.27), that
is clearly an athematic formation (of distinctively Le±»ian
type) of a verb which in Ionic would be έπαινέω; and it
is a remarkable illustration of the artificial nature of
Simonides' dialect-mixture that the very same line in
which he uses έτχαί,νημι also contains a verb of 'Ionic'
type, namely φιλέω. Far more can be observed of the lin­
guistic complexion of Pindar's works: observed, if not
explained. It was apparent to the ancients that the basic
dialect of Pindaric poetry is a 'mild' Doric, exemplified
by the pervasive long a, in the personal endings -μες and
-v t l , and in the short-vowel ending of the thematic infini­
tive. As would be expected, Homeric forms also are found,
especially the genitive singular in -ouo. Apparently
Lesbian features, which could not have come from Homer,
are the following: the word μοισα, the feminine present
participle in -οισα, the masculine aorist participle in
-αις, and the third person plural in -oioi.127 As is
known, the language of Bacchylides is similar in many re­
spects to Pindar's, except that he much more often writes
η where Doric would require ά; but he too uses the short-
vowel infinitive (both of thematic and of athematic verbs);
like Pindar, again, he frequently has the epic genitive in
-oto; apparently Lesbian information are the words λαχοι-
σαν (19.13) and μο υσ&ν (5.4).

It has seemed worth while to draw attention to the fore­

going facts, familiar though they are, because they enable
the question of possible borrowings from Lesbian poetry to
be seen in a sufficiently wide context. When we see a
whole succession of poets from diverse linguistic areas,
Aleman at Sparta, Stesichorus and Ibycus in the far west
of the Greek world, Simonides and Bacchylides in the Ionic­
speaking island of Ceos, and Pindar in Boeotia, all making
use of what is basically the same dialect-mixture (though
differing among themselves in the proportion of the respec­
tive ingredients), we have no right to doubt that this was
the language considered, by all the masters of the art, to
be appropriate to the composition of choral lyric.128 The
language is suited to the genre, just as a different lan­
guage was suited to the elegy, and yet another to the songs
of Attic drama. Where, how, and why this particular mix­
ture of dialects became the accepted vehicle for choral
lyric we can only guess; but certain probabilities present
themselves. The strong Doric component points to an origin
in Dorian Greece, probably in Aleman's city itself. No
explanation is needed for the use of epic features. If the
forms in -οισ- are of Lesbian origin, their presence may be
accounted for on the supposition that a need was felt (even
if unconsciously) to differentiate the language of choral
lyric from that of the epic, on the one hand, and from that
of the Doric drama, on the other. I have said: '_if these
forms are of Lesbian origin'. But can they, in truth, have
had any other origin? For no one has ventured to suggest
that when Pindar writes μοισα and many other words with the
-OLO- element these forms can have anything to do with the
dialect of Cyrene. So far as Aleman is concerned, it is
necessary to choose one of three hypotheses: (i) he uses
the -o l o - forms with the same motive and on the same prin­
ciple that they are used by his successors in different
parts of Greece; (ii) he takes them from his own dialect
(which, however, there is no reason to believe ever pos­
sessed such forms); (iii) they have replaced the early
Laconian forms under Cyrenaean influence. The first of
these hypotheses, being the most economical, is also the
most tenable; for, unless there are compelling reasons
for doing so, we should beware of attributing the appear­
ance of exactly the same phenomenon to the operation of
quite different causes. Why the Cyrenaean inscriptions
contain forms in -o l o - I do not know; but, whatever the
reason for their appearance may be, they can shed no light
on the constitution of Aleman's language. The powerful
prima facie assumption that Aleman's forms in -o l o -, like
those used by other composers of choral lyric, are taken
from Lesbian poetry is corroborated by another piece of
evidence. As we have already seen (pp. 51-52), it is a
peculiarity of the Lesbian dialect — and, it must be em­
phasized, specifically of the Lesbian literary dialect —
that in certain well-defined circumstances the phoneme
which elsewhere is written ει appears in the form η. But
that is so in Aleman as well, for he uses γλύκηα, λ(,γηα,
Λύκηος, and Πασοχάρηα; and, in default of any other satis­
factory explanation, the occurrence of these forms can be
accounted for only on the supposition that they, like
έχοισα and so on, are borrowed from Lesbian literature.129

If, then, we set together the Greek traditions concerning

the career of Terpander, the high probability that the ma­
ture products of literary genius furnished by Sappho and
Alcaeus must have had precursors in Lesbos, the very slight
evidence of the couplet quoted from Eumelus, and the very
strong evidence presented by the language of Aleman and
his successors, we can be in no doubt that a body of Les­
bian poetry was in existence, and was known in the main­
land of Greece, well before the end of the seventh century
B.C. Wilamowitz must accordingly have been correct in
his assertion that Alcaeus and Sappho represent the last,
not the first, stage in the development of Lesbian lyric.130

Although it may seem impossible to arrive at knowledge, or

even to make an intelligent guess, about the nature of the
poetry inherited by Sappho and Alcaeus from their Lesbian
predecessors, one way does lie open. It was indicated by
Fick in the article referred to before.131 Although it
is not necessary or practicable to accept Fick's theory in
all its details, it forms the basis on which a more satis­
factory one can be built, especially if account is taken
of evidence from papyri which was unknown to Fick. In
brief, Fick considers that the apparently alien elements
in the Lesbian poets are derived not from Homer but from
earlier styles of epic and melic poetry which had previ­
ously flourished in Lesbos. Thus, according to Fick, a
genitive such as ερχομενοιο (Alcaeus 367.1) could have come
as easily from early Aeolic as from Homeric poetry, since
the Thessalian genitive in -ol shows that the most ancient
Aeolic possessed a genitive form ending in -0 1 0 . The same
applies to μοίσαων, which Sappho uses as well as μοισαν.
Fick argues that Αρηι is not (as Meister held) derived
from the Homeric dialect but must count as a remnant 'of
an old η-declension'. Alcaeus' Αχυλλεα cannot come from
the epic, since Homer uses only Άχιλλτϊα. Curiously
enough, Fick will not allow the possibility of a poetical
form Αχιλλεα by analogy with Homeric Τυδέα, etc.: the as­
sumption of such a borrowing would debase the noblemen to
the level of a mere imitator!
Subsequent research and discoveries have made Fick's view
untenable, at least in the simple form stated by him. As
we have seen, it can now be shown conclusively that both
the Lesbian poets came very strongly under the influence
of Homer. Nevertheless, it seems possible to construct
a more reasonable theory: a task which will entail an
examination of the process by which the Homeric poems at­
tained the linguistic form in which they were transmitted.

Although the Iliad and Odyssey are composed for the most
part in what is recognizably an Ionic dialect, there exist
side by side with the Ionic features many non-ionic ele­
ments which for convenience' sake, both in ancient and in
modern times, have been called 'Aeolic'.132 The co­
existence in the epic of these dialects has been explained
in two different ways:

(1) It has sometimes been thought that Homer's language

reflects an actual mixed dialect, such as is attested in
inscriptions from Chios. By meticulously sifting the tra­
ditions concerning the life of Homer, Wilamowitz concluded
that the poet of the Iliad was born in Smyrna but lived and
worked in Chios.133 So he may well have done. But the
peculiar dialect-mixture he employs in his verse cannot
have resulted from the vernacular of that, or indeed of
any other, area. A living language which contains ele­
ments of more than one dialect is a commonplace; but the
presence in Homer's poems of so many variant forms of the
same word — a variation which usually arises from metrical
needs — marks his artificial poetic creation, not a means
of everyday communication.13** The view of Homer's langu­
age as a reflexion of actual speech-habits is thus unten­
able; and yet, as will be shown below, it may provide the
means of establishing an important truth about the dialect-
mixture in Homer which is sometimes lost sight of.
(2) The second theory formulated to explain the presence
of more than one dialect in Homer's language became quite
deeply entrenched during the nineteenth century and is
still very much alive.135 On this view, the diverse lin­
guistic elements did not all enter the epic language at
the same time, as the result of their co-existence in
everyday speech, but at different periods within the de­
velopment of the epic. The hexameter epic would then
have originated with the Aeolians. The originally Aeo­
lian epos was gradually transformed by generations of Io­
nian minstrels, who replaced many Aeolic features with
those of their own dialect and added others, which were,
of course, Ionic from the beginning. Often, however,
for reasons of prestige or of metrical convenience, the
Ionians preserved in their poetry many of the archaic,
Aeolic features which they did not always themselves un­
derstand. 136

Theory (1), as we have seen, is manifestly erroneous. (2)

also, despite its superficial attractiveness, is beset by
fatal difficulties. It has been assailed by T.B.L.
Webster on the ground that the Ionian migration seems to
have occurred too early to permit the significant develop­
ment of an Aeolian epic before the arrival of the Ionians
in Asia Minor.137 Nor does the internal evidence of the
Homeric poems encourage belief in such an explanation.
The language of Homer is not, as a matter of observation,
Aeolic overlaid by Ionic. If it were, the two dialectal
strands could be disentangled without committing undue
violence to the structure of the whole. As was shown
once for all by the attempts of Fick himself to recover a
pristine Aeolic epic, such a clean separation is, in fact,
impossible to achieve. Homer's language does not consist
simply of a late Ionic 'matrix' in which older, unassimi-
lable Aeolisms are embedded. Aeolic and Ionic are often
intermingled in a way which effectively disposes of such
a straightforward explanation.138

Further linguistic facts may be added to complicate the

picture. Suspicion has been deepening in recent years
that important items of the Homeric vocabulary are con­
nected not with Ionic or with Aeolic but with Arcado-
Cypriot.139 The purported identification of 'Achaean'
elements in Homer's language has been accompanied by at­
tempts to reduce the number and significance of the Aeolic
features. And it is true that there is nothing specifi­
cally Aeolic about features like the genitive endings -άο
and -αων.11*0 Even those words in Homer which have long
been held to display the typically 'Aeolic' development of
the labio-velar (πέλομαι, πίσυρες, Φήρες, etc.) are now
explained in other ways.11,1 Holding the extreme position,
K. Strunk has completely denied an Aeolic origin to any of
the Homeric features and has ascribed them all to Arcado-
Cypriot and to other sources not easy to identify.11*2 But
some forms cannot be dislodged from the Aeolic sphere.
When, for example, Strunk rejects an Aeolic origin for the
Homeric geminated forms such as άμμες and άργεννός, he does
not assist his case by citing one or two isolated instances
from non-Aeolic dialects or the fact that the text of Homer
contains some words with anomalous gemination.143 Both
literary and epigraphic sources make it clear that this
type of gemination is a typical mark of the Aeolic dialect-
group as it is of no other. The same may be said of the
dative plural in -εσσι. The fact that Corinthian and
Phocian show the same fluctuation between -εσσι and -εσι
that is seen in Aeolic1411 does nothing to reduce the over­
whelming probability that Homeric datives in -εσσι are of
Aeolic origin. But the greatest embarrassment to Strunk
is presented by the Homeric infinitives in -μεναι: καλή-
μεναι, φιλήμεναι, and φορήμεναι. Not only is this type
of infinitive not found outside Aeolic; it is not found
outside Lesbian. How, then, can it be denied that it has
come into the epic language from the speech of Asia Minor?
Strunk rightly states that the infinitive in -μεναι cannot
be claimed, with complete certainty, as an original Greek
inheritance.11*5 But doubts about the origin of Lesbian
-μεναι,, however justified they may be, cannot affect the
status of this form as a securely attested Aeolic element
in the Homeric language.

Perhaps by way of reaction against the exaggerated claims

made in the last century, some recent studies have tended
to minimize the part played by Aeolic in the creation of
the epic and to place greater emphasis upon the role of
the Greek mainland. This tendency is consistent with the
recognition, by some writers, of Achaean forms in Homer's
vocabulary. Accordingly we read in Thumb's Handbuch as
revised by Scherer:
The Aeolis of Asia Minor can scarcely be considered the
place of origin of the non-ionic elements in the epic
language, since none of these (except perhaps -μεναι)
points specifically to that area. One of the most re­
markable characteristics of Asiatic Aeolic, the i-
diphthong before original νσ (accusative plural -οις,
-αυς, feminine participle -οιοα, -αισα, third person
plural -οισι), is completely lacking in Homer. On the
other hand, the Homeric language shares a striking in­
novation with Boeotian and Thessalian (Pelasgiotis):
the extension of the infinitive ending -μεν to thematic
verbs, for instance άγέμεν, φερέμεν, είπέμεν. The
old genitive form in - 0 1 0 also is preserved in Thes­
salian (elsewhere in Mycenaean) ; ττολί,αρχοι points to
an old πτόλις; and the Homeric word κασίγνητος has its
analogue inter alia in Thessalian κατΙγν[ειτος. 1“*6
These are serious arguments; but, as will be seen pre­
sently, they suggest to me rather different conclusions
from those drawn in the Handbuch. For I would explain
parallels between Homer's language and Boeotian by a the­
ory of interaction between two bodies of poetry: a pro­
cess which would account for the Homeric colouring of
Hesiod's language and also the elements of mainland Aeo­
lic which are present in Homer. Nevertheless, I feel
that Scherer gives too little weight to the influence exer­
ted by Asiatic Aeolic. The Homeric infinitives i n -μεναι,
few though they may be, are after all Lesbian and cannot
be associated plausibly with any other linguistic area. If,
then, we have an Aeolic form which must be Lesbian and,
beside it, a set of forms which could be Lesbian, is it
not more likely that the 'Common Aeolic' forms are Lesbian
than that they are all non-Lesbian and no feature save the
comparatively rare infinitive in -μεναι was ever borrowed
from Lesbian? If the Lesbian dialect influenced Homer's
language to this extent, it can, I presume, have done so
in other ways as well; and when we actually encounter in
Homer forms which may be Lesbian, it seems wrong in prin­
ciple to deny the probability that these also originated
in the Lesbian-speaking areas of Aeolis. The absence
from Homer of forms in -οισα and -αισα does not really
constitute a serious objection. These are undoubtedly (as
we have seen) the prominent Lesbian features which appear
in later poets, and so it is easy to think of them as in­
dispensable marks of Lesbian influence. But we have to
reckon with the fact that we first see the Lesbian dia­
lect in its fully developed state, in the poems of Sappho
and Alcaeus, and with the consequent possibility that, at
the time when Lesbian elements were absorbed into the epic
tradition, they had not all assumed the form in which they
appeared at the end of the seventh century B.C. If, for
example, it was Lesbian πάνσα, not παΐσα, that was absorbed
into the Ionian epic tradition, this would have gone to
πασα by normal sound-change, thereby obliterating clear
evidence of its origin.1117

The approach exemplified by the above quotation from

Thumb-Scherer's Handbuch makes no allowance at all for the
continuous development of the epic: it entails the assum­
ption that the whole linguistic apparatus was associated
with the epic from the very beginning. If there is one
fact which has been established by the scholarship of our
century, it is that we must not take so limited a view of
the Homeric question. The shape of the epic was not pre­
determined; it developed gradually during the course of
several centuries. Given such a long and complex history,
we cannot believe that at the outset of the epic tradition
all its linguistic components occupied the same relative
position in which they are disposed at a mature stage of
its development. It does not seem possible to avoid the
conclusion that Aeolic forms, words, and phrases were from
time to time picked up and absorbed into the stream of
Ionic verse. Nor would there have been any occasion for
such extensive borrowing unless the Aeolians had had a
tradition of epic poetry of their own.11*8

To summarize the argument so far: I do not recognize two

successive stages in the evolution of the epic, an Aeolic
followed by an Ionic; I think, rather, of a long period
of growth in which two bodies of narrative verse, an Ionic
and an Aeolic, co-existed in neighbouring areas of Asia
Minor and influenced each other linguistically and in other
ways.

Aeolic poetry was almost certainly transmitted in two sepa­

rate, but inter-communicating, branches: the Lesbian in
Asia Minor and the islands and, parallel with that, another
tradition in Boeotia and Thessaly. I suppose that the
Aeolian bards, in common with their Ionian counterparts,
celebrated the exploits of heroes; but we would judge
from what has come down under Hesiod's name that they in­
cluded in their repertory theogonies, pastoral didactic
verse, and catalogue-poetry. Close contact between the
Hesiodic and the Homeric traditions, such as is postula­
ted here, would account for the use by Hesiod of a dia­
lect closely akin to the Homeric: it is hard to explain
this on any other hypothesis .1**9

Given this indispensable historical background, we may

now attempt an explanation of those Sapphic poems which
Lobel classed as 'abnormal'. It is easy to believe that
Sappho,like Alcaeus, drew on two different poetic tradi­
tions. In her 'abnormal'poems, except 44, Sappho has
simply borrowed Homeric prosody and language along with
Homeric metre; and, as Page implies, that is something
which all Greek poets felt themselves entitled to do. Al­
though she stands so much closer both in place and in time
to the Ionian narrative tradition than, say, Theocritus,
Sappho is no more part of that tradition than he is. Her
poem 44, however, still seems to stand by itself. It de­
scribes an episode which is not related in our Iliad but
which lies within the ambit of Homeric poetry. It is
written in a metre which, like all other aeolic metres,
is not derived from Homer and must therefore be associa­
ted with a poetic tradition different from his. There
is some reason to suggest even that aeolic metres in gene­
ral have an earlier origin than that of the Homeric hexa­
meter. A theory sketched by A. Meillet150 still has a
good deal to be said in its favour, even though it has not
been embraced wholeheartedly by Meillet^s successors. He
pointed to certain fundamental traits which aeolic verse
shares both with the Vedas and with the Gathas: above all
the principle of isochrony and the strong tendency to ar­
range lines in regular strophes. Meillet deduced from
these facts that aeolic metres are the direct descendants
of an Indo-European type of verse. If he is correct,
Ionic poetry has either borrowed its metrical system from
an extraneous source or innovated to the extent that it
permits the replacement of two short syllables by one long
and knows nothing of the 'aeolic base' at the beginning of
the line. Even if he is wrong, he does a valuable ser­
vice in emphasizing the profound difference between aeolic
metres and the Homeric hexameter and the probability that
their origins also were different. Nevertheless (and
this is a point of special significance for the present
study), both the Aeolian and the Ionian traditions show
signs of having influenced each other. This was not
wholly a one-way process, although (so far as we can tell)
Homeric influence on Aeolic poetry was greater than in the
reverse direction, since it extended even to mechanical
matters of prosody. One curious feature of Homeric verse
is explained most satisfactorily by assuming Aeolic influ­
ence. Even in antiquity the interest of metricians was
aroused by those Homeric verses they called στίχοι ακέφα­
λοι, namely lines which appeared to begin with a short
syllable, for example:
έπε'ι δή τόνδ' άνδρα θεοί δαμάσασθαι έδωκαν (X 37 9).
Despite W.F. Wyatt's interesting, and in some ways persua­
sive, discussion of the so-called στίχοι ακέφαλοι,151 I
find it difficult to explain their presence solely accord­
ing to the convetions of the Homeric hexameter. As soon
as we recall the close contact which must have subsisted
between Ionians and Aeolians (and the obstinate presence
of Aeolic traits in Homer admits of no other state of af­
fairs) , an explanation of the στίχος Ακέφαλος can at once
be put forward. It arises under the influence of occa­
sional lines such as:
 κ£λ8μαι. τΐν& τδν χαρΐεντα Μόνωνα καλεσσαι (Alcaeus
368.1) ,
where the presence of two short syllables in the aeolic
base has the appearance (not, of course, the reality) of
a dactylic hexameter lacking its initial syllable.152

From a linguistic point of view, Sappho 44 is the exact

converse of the Homeric poems. Whereas Homer's langu­
age turns out to be basically Ionic with a strong admix­
ture of Aeolic, that of Sappho is basically Aeolic which
has taken over some Ionic features. If the postulates
put forward above find favour (namely that the Homeric
language acquired Aeolic elements from the neighbouring
Aeolian poets, that a body of Aeolian poetry existed con­
temporaneously with the Ionian, and that these two bodies
were interdependent), then we must reckon with the virtual
certainty that the Aeolic tradition was still alive in
Lesbos in the seventh and sixth centuries B.C. I suggest
that Sappho was acquainted with both traditions and drew
on both. From the Ionic she borrowed; but the Aeolic
she inherited. Her poem 44 may actually be composed in
one of the aeolic metres used for narrative; and it may
be no less representative of Aeolic narrative poetry than
the parting of Andromache and Hector would be of Ionic, if
that were the only surviving episode of the Iliad.

There is reason to believe that the mature products of the

Ionic tradition were very different from those of the Aeo­
lic — not only in style but also in compass and, to a
certain extent, in intention. Nothing in the extant re­
mains of the Lesbian poets or their commentators suggests
that they composed epics on the scale of the Iliad or the
Odyssey. They seem, rather, to have chosen short episodes
from the Trojan cycle and narrated them in such a way as
to mark a contemporary event or to draw a moral. I have
already referred (p. 57) to the suggestion that Sappho
composed her poem 44 to celebrate an actual wedding: a
suggestion quite consistent with her practice on other
occasions.153 It has been observed that Alcaeus too uses
legendary examples to illustrate real events or to lend
point to his convictions.15** His narrative technique is
illustrated in two poems in sapphic stanzas, 42 and 283,
and again in the long fragment 298. 4 2 and 283 are con­
cerned with Helen, 298 with Ajax and Cassandra. True to
his belief that in this type of verse the Lesbians were
little more than excerptors from the Homeric epic, Page
writes of the three poems that they exemplify 'a practice
seldom observable in the remains of Sappho and Alcaeus,
the adaptation of Homeric themes to Lesbian dialect and
metre... It is noticeable here, and may have been charac­
teristic of this type of poetry, that Epic theme and Epic
style go hand in hand'.155 No one who takes such a view
can account very easily for the origin of the genre; for,
as Page goes on, 'There is no means of answering the ques­
tions, for what sort of occasion and for what sort of au­
dience this poem [4 2] was designed. It is evidently not
a cult-song, and it does not appear particularly suitable
to the symposium'.156 Such difficulties flow inevitably
from the view of Alcaeus as a mere versifier who, for some
incalculable reason, borrowed from Homer and the cyclic
epics scraps of Trojan saga and rendered them (but only
partially) in his own dialect. The problem disappears
once it is realized that Alcaeus was drawing on a native
tradition of narrative verse, sharing some features with
the Homeric but in respect of many others preserving its
independence.

The shortcomings of the method adopted by Page and others

are seen even more vividly when we turn from Homer to
Hesiod. If the theory of the two bodies of poetry, the
Ionic and the Aeolic, is in any way acceptable, we should
have to say that Hesiod stood somewhere between them. Now
when Lobel compared Alcaeus' corrupt remnant συ δε σαυτωι
τομιαις εση, 317a, with a fragment of Hesiod tv δ* αύτψ
θανάτου ταμίης (245 Merkelbach-West), he drew no conclu­
sions about the nature of the relationship between the two
poets.157 Little doubt is expressed by modern scholars
as to the origin of a longer fragment, the opening words
of which have been discussed (p. 24) in a different con­
nexion:
τεγγε πλευμονας οινωι, το γαρ αστρον περιτελλεται,
α δ* ωρα χαλεπα, παντα δε διψαισ* υπα καύματος,
αχευ δ' εκ πέταλων αδεα τεττιξ...
ανθεί δε σκολυμος, νυν δε γυναίκες μιαρωταται
λεπτοί δ* ανδρες, επει < > κεφαλαν και γονα Σείριος
ασδει...(Alcaeus 347).
It is very unlikely that the correct order of words has
been recovered; but it is beyond dispute that there must
be some connexion between this fragment and a passage in
the Erga, 582-588:
?ίμος δέ σκόλυμός τ' άνθεΐ και ήχέτα τέττιξ
δενδρέψ έφεζόμενος λιγυρήν καταχεύετ' άοιδην
πυκνόν υπό πτερύγων, θέρεος καματώδεος ώρη,
τήμος πιόταταί τ' αϋγες, και οϋνος άριστος,
μαχλόταται δέ γυναίκες, άφαυρότατοι δέ τοι άνδρες
είσίν, έπεΊ κεφαλήν και γούνατα Σείριος άζει,
αύαλέος δέ τε χρως υπό καύματος...
Page makes the following comment on the relationship be­
tween these two poems (and I doubt if most students of
Lesbian poetry would seriously disagree with him):
Alcaeus announces his theme in the first two lines, and
proceeds to render Hesiod as faithfully as possible into
Lesbian dialect and metre. His model is not apparent
until the end of the second line, υπα καύματος; but
thereafter he repeats as much of Hesiod as convenience
 permits Nowhere else in Greek poetry, except in de­
liberate parodies, is so extensive and close a copy of
one poet by another to be found. There is neither oc­
casion to seek, nor opportunity to find, any ulterior
purpose in Alcaeus' poem; it pleased him to repeat to
his convivial companions a passage of Hesiod transla­
ted into the native dialect and metre. The experiment
cannot have taken much time or trouble; the copy seems
neither better nor worse than the original.158

I confess to a feeling of bewilderment in the face of such

comments as these. They pay little regard to the proba­
bility of the case. Without wishing to adopt the atti­
tude of Fick, who would not allow that Alcaeus, being an
aristocrat, could be merely an imitator, I am nevertheless
reluctant to credit Alcaeus with such a sterile exercise
in verse composition if his procedure can be explained in
a more plausible way. Rather than suppose that Alcaeus
is here playing with dialects and literary forms in a way
which it would be hard to parallel before the Hellenistic
age, I suggest that he is not an imitator at all. It is
much more likely that both he and Hesiod had access to a
common body of poetic material dealing with the seasons;159
and, when we bea'r in mind Hesiod's parentage,160 we have
to acknowledge the possibility that in this poetry the
Lesbian dialect had once predominated. On this reading
of the evidence, the innovator in the present case is not
Alcaeus but Hesiod.

A final example may be added to the list of contacts be­

tween Hesiod and the Lesbian poets. As was noticed ear­
lier (pp. 26-27) , the hiatus in γλωσσά εαγε (< /:ε/ταγε) at
Sappho 31.9 finds a parallel in Erga 534. If Hesiod's
έαγε is an Aeolic form, it might stem from an Aeolic tra­
dition distinct from the Homeric. This argument seems
to carry with it the implication that Hesiod, Sappho, and
Alcaeus were all the beneficiaries of a body of verse that
had grown up in Aeolis during the preceding generations.

But the results of our investigation permit even more far-

reaching conclusions to be drawn. It turns out that
throughout the early history of Greek poetry, beginning
with the eighth century and going down to the third cen­
tury B.C., if not later, two contrasting trends can be dis­
cerned. The first of these isolates and sets apart: in
each genre of poetry there takes place a selection of dia­
lectal elements, with the consequence that the linguistic
complexion of that genre differs from that of all the rest.
Nobody, I think, would dispute the operation or importance
of this movement. But the existence of the second trend
seems not to have been sufficiently recognized. This
trend, whose effect is to unite the diverse schools of
Greek poetry, involves the constant interchange of ele­
ments between one school and another. It is far too simple
to see this movement in terms of the influence exercised
by one monolithic body of verse, the Homeric, upon all the
other schools of poetry. Since the language of Homer is
itself very far from being homogeneous and since the dif­
ferent linguistic elements must have entered the Homeric
tradition at widely different times,161 we should ask
what might have been the relationship between these ele­
ments, considered individually, and other genres of poetry.
The presence of Aeolic forms in Homer, above all, strongly
suggests that, as well as a direct borrowing by Alcaeus
and Sappho from the Homeric poems once these had achieved
something like their final form, there was also inheri­
tance (especially on the part of Sappho) of poetic themes
and language which, by another channel, went into the main­
stream of Homeric verse. The second, or 'uniting', trend
has been seen powerfully at work also in the widespread
dissemination of Lesbian forms in many parts of the Greek
world and in several different genres of poetry. This
dissemination reflects a process similar to the one which
led to the absorption of Homeric motifs into Lesbian poe­
try: just as Sappho drew on a body of Aeolic poetry dif­
ferent from Homer, so the schools of choral lyric in main­
land Greece and elsewhere made use of linguistic material
which had originated in Aeolis before the time of the
great Lesbians.
Herodian stated that the Lesbian poets had used two forms
of the word for 'sky' or 'heaven', namely ορανος and ωρα-
νος: Αλκαίος δε εις ω άποφαίνεται τό όνομα καί ώρανός
λέγων κατά τροπήν της ου διφθόγγου είς την ω και άνευ του
υ ουρανός...και Σαπφώ.162 The correctness of his state­
ment is confirmed by the evidence of the ancient quota­
tions, which give ορανω as the genitive singular at Sappho
52 and 54 and Alcaeus 338.1 but ωρανω at Sappho 1.11 and
Alcaeus 355. It is plain that both poets employ the two
forms purely for metrical convenience. But what is the
origin of the short-vowel form and the long-vowel form re­
spectively? The following remarks of Lobel form a con­
venient starting-point for a discussion of the problem:
There can be no doubt about the character of όράνω;
that must be Lesbian. Either, then, the dialect pos­
sessed the two forms όράνω and ώράνω, which differed in
nothing but metrical value, or both Alcaeus and Sappho
borrowed an alien form and used it concurrently with
the form proper to the dialect. Each of these solu­
tions is difficult of acceptance. But the existence
of ουρανός in Attic has also hitherto found no convin­
cing explanation. We must for the moment treat the
appearance in the two Lesbian poets of ώράνω as well
as όράνω as a singular phenomenon of which no account
must be taken in attempting to grasp the truth about the
general character of the dialect which seems to emerge
in the course of our comparison of their usages.163

This treatment of the matter is disappointing since, in

fact, one or other of the two solutions which Lobel pro­
nounced 'difficult of acceptance' is likely to be the cor­
rect one. Let us examine each in turn.
The co-existence in the same dialect of ορανος and ωρανος
could be explained if both forms had arisen from an ori­
ginal */τορσανος. This would have produced */τορρανος in
Lesbian by the regular sound-change. Of this *^ορρανος,
ορανος would have been a simplification and ωρανος an er­
roneous writing on the part of scribes who wished to re­
present the lengthened first syllable. Such, in sub­
stance, in the explanation advanced by Wackernagel, who,
with good reason, rejected the derivation of ωρανος from
ο/τορανος and of ορανος from ^ορανος.161*

On the other hand, I think that a case could be made out

for the supposition that ωρανος is, in origin, a form
foreign to the Lesbian dialect. Wackernagel undoubtedly
built an impressive case and suggested an etymology which
is very likely to be correct, at least so far as Attic
ουρανός is concerned; and yet his argument fails to carry
complete conviction at the very point where he suggests
that Lesbian ωρανος results from an erroneous attempt to
represent ορρανος. Geminated liquids and nasals were al­
ways regarded as so distinctively 'Aeolic' that false
hyper-Aeolisms containing such geminates were introduced
by scribes and even by stone-cutters.165 In the light
of this pronounced tendency to write geminates even where
they were not linguistically justified, we ought to feel
some surprise that, if the scribes had really started with
a geminated form, they felt the urge to spell it by means
of a long vowel followed by a single liquid; but, to our
knowledge, ορρανος (if that was indeed the correct Les­
bian form) is never so written, but only ωρανος or ορανος.
That being the case, it becomes imperative to leave open
the possibility discounted by Lobel, namely that ωρανος
is an alien form introduced from another dialect. And
the dialect from which it might well have been borrowed
is Boeotian. According to the Berlin papyrus, Corinna
actually wrote ώρανόν, the form to be expected in her na­
tive dialect: fr. 645a, line 10 of column iii. This
would, naturally, count as another example of the inter­
change between different poetic schools I discussed above
(p. 82) .
In common with many other writers, Lobel denied that 44
could be the work of Sappho. The crucial reason which
led Lobel to reject the piece is not the congregation of
a large number of 'abnormalities' (as that term is used
by him) but the presence of two contracted neuter plural
adjectives, πορφυρά in line 9 and αργυρα in line 10.
These differ from the forms which prevail elsewhere in
the Lesbian dialect, namely πορφυρια and αργύρια. Lobel
declared πορφυρά and αργυρα in 44 to be Attic forms and
to have been written here by false analogy: πορφυρά κατα-
ϋτμενα being modelled on πορφυραι καταϋτμενα (Sappho 101.
2). But πορφυραι in that place is the dative of a noun,
and πορφυρά in 44.9, 'as a neuter plural of the adjective
derived from that noun, depends upon a pure misunder­
standing' .166

When Page re-examined the question of the authenticity of

Sappho 44, he made two important points about the two forms
in question: first, that even if they are Attic, they
constitute no valid reason for excluding the poem from the
corpus of Sappho's work, since there might conceivably
have been contact between Attic and Lesbian poetry by her
time; but, secondly, it is not necessary to regard the
forms as Attic — there is no reason why they could not
have arisen from shortening of Ionic type, πορφυρά and
αργυρα being contracted from πορφύρεα and άργύρεα respec­
tively. 16 7

Page's auggestions might be attractive, especially in view

of the Ionic (or at least Homeric) features to be observed
elsewhere in Sappho 44, if the evidence did not point
firmly in a different direction. For in truth πορφυρά and
αργυρα are neither Attic nor Ionic but Lesbian; and, so
far from presenting any obstacle to the assumption of Sap­
pho's authorship, they positively tell in favour of that
attribution. Two Lesbian inscriptions from Myrina show
a contraction of -ιος to -ος, since their ΔΙΟΝΥΣΟΣ must
arise from Διονύσιος.168 Closer still to our poem is an
inscription from Aegae, which reads ΑΡΓΥΡΑ: a word which
must be in the neuter plural since it qualifies ΠΡΟΣΩΠΑ.169
It has to be admitted that all three inscriptions come
from Asiatic Aeolis, not from Lesbos itself; but the last-
mentioned text, which is also the longest, shows little in­
fluence from the κοινή and on the contrary contains a num­
ber of native forms, such as ΛΥΚΩ, ΣΥΝΝΑΥΩΝ, and KAT OTTI.

The epigraphic evidence leaves no room for reasonable doubt

that the Lesbian dialect occasionally admitted contracted
adjectives beside the usual forms in -ιος. Far from feel­
ing any surprise that Sappho makes use of this alternative
form, already present in her own dialect, we should recog­
nize here yet another variation typical of an artificial
poetic language.
Notes

1 περί σημεύων 138. On the Alexandrian editions, see R. Pfeiffer

History o f classical scholarship (1968) 185.

2 It is hard to understand why modern editors give the whole quo­

tation to Sappho (137 Voigt), when Aristotle explicitly presents
a dialogue between her and Alcaeus. On the problems raised by
the quotation, cf. Wilamowitz Die Textgeschichte der griechi-
schen Lyri k e r (1900) 52 and C. Gallavotti La lingua dei poeti
eolici (1948) 11-16.

3 ΣΑΠΦΟΥΣ ΜΕΛΗ (1925) x.

** De dialectis graecis I (1839) 21-22.

5 Z VS 46 (1914) 303-304.

6 Op. cit. (n.2) 46.

7 J. Wackernagel S praohliche Untersuohungen zu Homer (1916) 40-52.

8 For instance by R. Meister Die griechischen Dialekte I(1882)

102 .

9 0. Hoffmann Die griechischen Dialekte II (1893) 463.

10 Die homerische Kunstsprache (1921) 220.

11 Op. cit. (n.10) 219.

12 GGA (1922) 140.

13 F. Bechtel rightly observes that, whatever Lesbian ΕΡΜΙΑΣ (fifth

century B.C.) etc. prove for the contemporary dialect, they prove
nothing for Alcaeus and Sappho: Die griechischen Dialekte I
(1921) 11. The absence of a sign for /h/ does not, in itself,
establish the absence of aspiration from a given dialect; cf.
A. Thumb and A. Scherer Handbuch der griechischen Dialekte II
(19 592 ) 164 and 319 on Cypriot and Mycenaean respectively.

14 Though there are fluctuations in the transmitted text, and these

ought to be kept; cf. W. Aly Glotta 15 (1927) 90-91 and H.B.
Rosen Eine Laut- und Formenlehre dev herodotischen Sprachform
(1962) 38.

15 Compendium III: Hoffmann op. cit. (n.9) 216.

E.g. R. Meister op. cit. (n.8) 127-131; Bechtel op. cit. (n.13)
34-35; Thumb-Scherer op. cit. (n.13) 96-97.
17 A. Fick BB 7 (1891) 181. Similarly, the occasional spelling
-σδ- in the text of Aleman is not confirmed by Laconian inscrip­
tions: E. Risch MH 11 (1954) 28 n.39.

18 Eva-Maria Hamm Grammatik zu Sappho und Alkaios (19582 ) 42-44.

19 Respectively Kleine Schriften II (1956) 1058-1198 and L ’accen-

tuation des langues indo-europSennes (19582 ).

20 It is hardly necessary to add that here again we must read 'Les­

bian' for 'Aeolic'. The Boeotian accent was certainly not r e ­
cessive: A. Meillet MSL 16 (1910-1911) 51-52 and G. Bonfante RF
12 (1934) 535-546 on the text of Corinna.

21 I do not know why Ahrens was far less sceptical of the grammar­
ians 1 teaching about accent than of their treatment of psilosis.
He wrote:
His omnibus (sc. grammaticorum praeceptis) comparatis, nisi
inanes suspiciones disertissimis antiquorum testimoniis
praeferre velimus, nulla fere dubitatio relinquitur, prae-
ter particulas, quarum exceptio ipsa ceterorum regulam con-
firmat, ubique Aeoles accentum r e t r a x i s s e ...non dubitavimus
igitur in fragmentis Lesbiorum poetarum ubique genuinum
accentum Aeolicum revocare. Op. cit. (n.4) 18-19.
Consequently, in his text of Sappho and Alcaeus, Ahrens prints
recessive accent universally, whether there is ancient authority
for it or not; whereas, as we have seen already, he prints
smooth breathings only when they are warranted by grammarians or
by the manuscripts of the excerptors, or by analogy with their
rea d i n g s .

22 Sappho und Simonides (1913) 98-100.

23 Die Textgesohichte der gviechischen Bukoliker (1906) 88; but see

also Wackernagel op. cit. (n.19) 1175.

24 ZVS 52 (1924) 304-310.

25 BB 7 (1891) 180.

26 There is no evidence that (at least inarchaic and classical

Greek) the incidence of stress was ever marked by any lectional
signs; nor does there appear to be any inherent correlation
between stress and p i t c h - a c c e n t : W.S. Allen Accent and rhythm
(1973) 260-264.

27 Thumb-Scherer op. cit. (n.13) 61-62.

28 Glotta 48 (1970) 195.

29 Kleine Schriften 1 812.

30 And an explanation of the Rhodian form also is called for,
since there can be no guarantee that the same process gave rise
to -οντον both in Lesbos and in Rhodes.

31 Op. cit. (n.19) 1154-1187.

32 Thumb-Scherer op. cit. (n.13) 78.

33 Das alexandrinisehe Akzentuationssystem (1928) 114-118. See

also M. Scheller Die Oxytonierung der grieahisohen Substantiva
auf — uci (1951) 8-9. Aristotle's interesting remark έν μεν τοΰς
γεγραμμένους ταύτδν όνομα, όταν έχ των αΰτων στοιχείων γεγραμ-
μένον ξ xat ωσαύτως, κάκεΰ δ ’ ήδη παράσημα ποιούνται,, τ<5 δέ
φθεγγόμενα ού ταύτά (Soph. Elench. 177b) does not invalidate
Laum's conclusion, for Aristotle is plainly speaking not of the
construction of a system but of the occasional use of signs to
distinguish homonyms (e.g. όρος and opos, which he mentions just
before).

34 Op. cit. (n.3) xxviii and xxx.

35 Respectively: op. cit. (n.2) 46-48 and op. cit. (n.18) 23.

36 Cf. Wilamowitz op. cit. (n.22) 93. Gallavotti discusses the

quotation of pronouns from Sappho at RF 20 (1942) 103-113.

37 The making of Homeric verse (1971) 403 n.l.

38 Op. cit. (n.3) xxxi.

39 We may (but need not) explain the hiatus in υπο εργον as a

Homeric reminiscence. H. Frankel suggests that by εργον Alcaeus
means εργον "Αρηος, as that phrase is used by Homer: Diahtung
und Philosophie des fruhen Grieohentums (19622 ) 214 n.l. If
that is so, it may be significant that Homer has hiatus before
εργον 'Αρηος in Λ 734.

40 Cf. Hoffmann op. cit. (n.9) 270-271.

41 A. Piccolomini Hermes 27 (1892) 4 n.2. It is interesting to

notice that in Theocritus' Aeolic poem 29.23 both papyri and
codices read ΰποδάμναταυ (ύπαδάμναται Hoffmann).

42 Op. cit. (n.3) xxxii.

43 E.g. C.G. Cobet Mnemosyne 1 (1873) 361-362.

44 E.g. J. Sitzler PW 47 (1927) 995; P. Friedlander Hermes 64

(1929) 379-380; Gallavotti op. cit. (n.2) 47-48; M.L. West
Maia 22 (1970) 311.

45 Cf. E. Heitsch RM 105 (1962) 285 and R. Hiersehe Glotta 4 4

(1966) 1-5.
46 The analysis is that of W. Ferrari SIFC 14 (1937) 14-1.

47 S.L. Radt Mnemosyne 23 (1970) 344-345; B.B. Ford and E.C.

Kopff Glotta 54 (1976) 5 2-56.

48 Op. cit. (n.4) 33-35.

49 Op. cit. (n.3) xliii-xlv.

50 Cf. W. Schubart Hermes 73 (1938) 300 and Giuliana Lanata SIFC 32

(1960) 72.

51 G. Zuntz Mnemosyne 7 (1939) 91.

52 Cf. F. Solmsen R M 53 (1898) 150-151.

53 Apollonius Dyscolus De adv. 157.20; Etym. m ag . 214.32.

54
For the Homeric practice, see P. Chantraine Grammaire homSrique
I (19583 ) 177-178 and M. Lejeune PhonStique historique du myaS-
n-ien et du grec anoien (1972) 157. Some modern investigators
of the Lesbian literary dialect observe the phenomenon of m e t ­
rical lengthening before βρ-, e.g. Hamm op. cit. (n.18) and C.A.
Mastrelli La lingua di Aloeo (1954) XV, but they do not point to
the epic parallels.

55 Epigraphically attested: Hoffmann op. cit. (n.9) 126.

56 The o-quality in Aeolic words arises not only from the special
treatment of syllabic liquids and nasals but also from unknown
causes; thus, the existence of a Lesbian form xoyCas cannot be
ruled out, although it must be observed that the Lesbian in­
scriptions have only ΤΑΜΙΑΣ.

57 Re-edited by Lobel APF 10 (1932) 1-4.

58 AT 20 (1950) 288. The counter-arguments adduced by R. Arena at

RIL 86 (1953) 383-412 do not suffice to undermine Braun's posi­
tion.

59 Wilamowitz op. cit. (n.22) 92. It has sometimes been urged

that S a p p h o ’s poems were oral in character: notably by B. Gen-
tili QU 8 (1969) 7-21, who relies on the extreme simplicity of
her lyrics. But the fact that Lesbian features are found in
the poems of Aleman (above, pp. 61-68) suggests that written
texts of Lesbian poetry were in circulation at least as early
as his time.

60 An opinion vigorously expressed by Wilamowitz at Isyllos von

Epidauros (1886) 129 n.7 and reiterated in his later works on
Greek lyric; but neither the vigour nor the reiteration can
disguise the extremely subjective nature of the opinion.
61 A history of Greek literature (trans. Willis and de Heer)(1966)
143. I may add that, if any speculation about the style of the
poem is worth-while, the elusive phrase παρα δ ’ ε ρ χ ε τ ’ ωρα seems
to be an archaic expression of the same order as Hesiod's η δ ’
ωρη παραμεύβηταυ (Erga 409): cf. H. Hoffmann-Loss Mnemosyne 21
(1968) 354-355.

62 Sappho and Alcaeus (1955) 128 n.4.

63 Studi di poesia eolioa (1958) 1-60.

st* Respectively at R M 107 (1964) 12-33 and SCO 19-20 (1970-1971)

254-169.

65 ΑΛΚΑΙΟΥ ΜΕΛΗ (1927) lxxiv-xciv.

66 Op. cit. (n.65) xxxvii.

67 Op. cit. (n.4) 7.

68 GGA (1897) 887.

69 See especially A. Turyn Studia Sapphica (1929) 11-20 and Irena

Kazik-Zawadzka De Sapphioae Alaaique elooutionis colore epico
(1958).

70 Op. cit. (n.54) XXXIII.

71 For these, see the analysis by J.I. Armstrong AJP 79 (1958) 341-
354.

72 On the Homeric colouring of Alcaeus 140, see further Page op.

cit. (n.62) 211-222 and G. Maurach Hermes 96 (1968) 15-20. On
the form χατεπερθεν read at Alcaeus 140.5 by POxy 2295, cf.C.A.
Mastrelli Slb'C 28-29 (1956) 272-281.

73 Cf. A. Cameron HTR 32 (1939) 4-6 and 0. Longo AIV 122 (1963-
1964) 343-366.

74 For this line of interpretation, c f .: G. Puccioni Antiquitas 3

(1948) 97; M.C.J. Putnam CJ 56 (1960) 81; H. Saake Zur Kunst
Sapphos (1971) 62.

75 Hermes 96 (1968) 11-14.

76 MPL 1 (1975) 37-49.

77 Op. cit. (n.76) 46-49.

78 Op. cit. (n.65) xxxii. On the variation between ορανος and

ωρανος, see Appendix 1.
 This is actually quoted by Apollonius in the form ήμέσυν.

80 Cf. Wilamowitz op. cit. (n.22) 88 with n.l.

81 Page's S 261 A, fr. 2, col. i, line 10. For the form, see M.
Gronewald ZPE 14 (1974) 116.

82 At Alcaeus 298.8 yet another variant, Πρυαμω, is probably to

be read.

83 Cf. W. Schulze Kleine Sahriften (1933) 349-356.

84 Hamm op. cit. (n.18) 41.

85 See Appendix 1.

86 Cf. Fick op. cit. (n.17) 177.

87 Op. cit. (n.3) xxv-xxvii.

88 For example by R. Pfeiffer Gnomon 2 (1926) 319-320.

89 Respectively: JHS 77 (1957) 261-266; op. cit. (n.63).

90 Cf. A. Scherer Entretiens Hardt 10 (1964) 89-107 and E. Risch

GB 4 (1975) 219-229.

91 Op. cit. (n.62) 327. As E. Hermann remarks, the relationship

between the spoken language and the language of inscriptions
and literature constitutes a problem which has not yet been
solved: Die NebensStze in den griechisahen Dialektinsohriften
(1912) 180. Considerations of this sort should make writers
more cautious in using the term 'vernacular': cf. Marzullo op.
cit. (n.63) 201.

92 The term ’vernacular' would, perhaps, be applied more approp­

riately (if anywhere) to pieces like Sappho 110 and 111, on the
first of which Demetrius observes: ευτελέστατα και, έν πεζούς
όυόμασυ μάλλον η ε\> πουητυκοΰς (περ'υ έρμηνεύας 167). These
fragments are, however, too short to throw much light on the
nature of Sappho's language.

93 The eccentric but interesting pages of G.H. Mahlow Neue Wege

duroh die gvieohisahe Spraohe und Dichtung (1927) 39-53 are
still worth reading in this connexion. See also the concise
account by Wilamowitz Gvieahisahe Verskunst (1921) 36-42.

94 Μαία 15 (196 3) 374.

95 Op. cit. (n.8) 92-93.

96 MSS 33 (1975) 15-37.

98 Examples are to be found in Kuhner-Blass Ausfiihrliche Grammatik
der griechisohen Sprache I (18903 ) 197-198, P. Maas Die neuen
Responsionsfreiheiten bei Bakahylides und Pindar (1914) 16 n.l,
and R. Sjolund Metrische Kiirzung im Gvieahisahen (1938) 44-46.
Compare also Marzullo op. cit. (n.63) 69-70.

99 The correpted xaC is tolerated by Theocritus, who reproduces the

line in his Aeolic poem 29.1.

100 Cf. Wilamowitz op. cit. (n.22) 88 n.2. P a g e ’s reconstruction

of the line at POPS 7 (1961) 68, whereby he reads
μνάσασθαό tlvci φ α υ μ ’ ετι χατερον (or καψερόν) άμμέων,
is unnecessary.

101 According to Page op. cit. (n.61) 26, φ α υ ν ο μ Λ is 'excluded by

S a p p h o ’s dialect' — as if correption were a dialectal pheno­
menon! Similarly at p. 124 he describes εισερχεταυ l o o s (Sap­
pho 111.5) as 'n o n - v e r n a c u l a r ’.

102 So, for example, Bergk and Diehl in their editions. For the
metre, see Gallavotti R F 28 (1950) 113-115. Wilamowitz reads
ερχεταυ, op. cit. (n.2) 72; but he unnecessarily regards the
words υ ψ ο υ . ..ανδρες as forming a dactylic hexameter.

103 Op. cit. (n.3) xliii-xlv.

104 Namely at M 448, Φ 261, Ω 567, l 242, and ψ 188. I note that
within the same anapaestic passage Aeschylus treats the first
syllable of δχλος as short or long, at his convenience: Pers.
42 and 53. I believe that it is only the fragmentary charac­
ter of Sappho's remains which prevents us from discerning a
similar freedom in her treatment of the short vowel in front
of χλ- etc. See further Marzullo op. cit. (n.63) 87-88 and
196.

105 First identified by G. Hermann De metris poetarum graecorum et

romanorum (1796) 21-23.

106 Cf. A. Marjorie Dale Collected papers (1969) 193.

107 On the authenticity of this poem, see further Appendix 2.

108 B. Snell Hermes 66 (1931) 73 and W. Rosier Hermes 103 (1975)

283-285.

109 WS 36 (1914) 220.

110 Op. cit. (n.2) 85.

111 Op. cit. (n.39) 197-198. Further detail is added, in the
course of a useful discussion, by G. Nagy Comparative studies
in Greek and India meter (1974) 118-139.

112 WS 79 (1966) 25.

113 Respectively: op. cit. (n.62) 71; Greek lyric poetry (19642 )
231.

114 CQ 30 (1936) 15.

115 For the details, see the commentary of Wilamowitz on Timotheus'

Persians (1903) 86-89 and B.A. van Groningen Mnemosyne 18 (1955)
177-191.

116 I do not think it right to change εχουσα to εχουσα on the

strength of Motoa, since (in our desperate ignorance about Eu-
melus and his poetry) we ought to leave open the possibility
that he employed an artificial mixture of dialectal forms. So
far as the form σάμ3αλα is concerned, that is, of course, used
by Sappho (110.2), but there is no positive evidence that it is
exclusively Aeolic: cf. E.J. Furnee Die wichtigsten konsonan-
tischen Erscheinungen des Vorgriechischen (1972) 153. Thus,
Μοΰσα has to bear the whole burden of proof.

117 C.M. Bowra On Greek margins (1970) 52.

118 Thus the Suda says that Aleman flourished in the 37th Olympiad,
Sappho in the 42nd.

119 See especially M. Leumann Homerische WSrter (1950) 274-297.

120 So, for example, Alfonsina Braun RF 60 (1932) 181-193 and 309-
331; E. Schwyzer Griechische Grammatik I (1939) 110; C.D. Buck
CP 41 (1946) 132; D.L. Page in his edition of A l e m a n ’s Parthen-
eion (1951) 133-134; W. Porzig IF 61 (1954) 159; C. Gallavotti
ΚΩΚΑΛ0Σ 10-11 (1964-1965) 455. Of course, the exact nature of
the relationship is disputed, some of these writers ascribing
Aleman's -ouo- to an Aeolic substrate in the Peloponnese, others
to a genuinely 'Doric' sound-change, the result of which was
preserved only in such a peripheral part of the Doric-speaking
world as Cyrene, while the rest of the Doric dialects general­
ized -ωσ- etc. Since the kind of connexion involved is not
directly relevant here, I say no more about it, except to ob­
serve that the whole concept of an Aeolic substrate in the Pelo­
ponnese is unsafe and ought to be abandoned: see W.F. Wyatt AJP
94 (1973) 37-46.

12 1 MH 11 (1954) 20-37.

122 Op. cit. (n.121) 25.

124 See, on this point, Braun op. cit. (n.120) 189.

125 Cf. D.L. Page Aegyptus 31 (1951) 162-164.

126 The papyrus actually gives this word a 'Doric' accent: μούσαυ.

127 On these, see especially C. Verdier Les iolismes non-Spiques de

la langue de Pindare (1972).

128 On this language and the problems of its transmission, see Wila­
mowitz Pindaros (1922) 97-103.

129 So, rightly, Forssman op. cit. (n.96) 31-32.

1 30 Op. cit. (n.22) 86.

131 BB 7 (1891) 177-213.

132 The facts are set out by P. Cauer Grundfragen dev Homerkritik
(19233 ) 148-179 and P. Chantraine op. cit. (n.54) 495-513. See
also R. Hiersche Die Sprache Homers im Liohte neuerer Forschung-
en (1972).

1 33 Die Ilias und Homer (1916) 371-373. So also T.W. Allen Homer:
the origins and the transmission (1924) 103-109.

134 K. Meister op. cit. (n.10) 235-240.

1 35 See, for example, M. Durante's contribution to Studia alassica

et orientalia Antonino Pagliaro oblata II (1969) 85-129 and P.
Wathelet Les traits ioliens de I'ipopie grecque (1970).

1 36 So far as I know, the concept of Aeolisms as ossified parts of

the Homeric language, which were not assimilated into the struc­
ture of the whole, can be traced back to the dissertation of G.
Hinrichs entitled De Homeriaae eloautionis vestigiis aeoliois
(1875), but not earlier.

137 From Myoenae to Homer (1958) 160.

138 Cf. P. Chantraine REG 49 (1936) 399-406 and the same scholar's
entry in the Bude Introduction ά I'lliade (1959) 105-11.

1 39 Cf. C.J. Ruijgh L'SlSment acheen dans la langue ipique (1957)

111-117; A. Barton£k in Minoica und Homer (ed. Georgiev and
Irmscher)(1961) 1-9; Irena Zawadzka Eos 55 (1965) 29-37.

140 For the probable date of the sound-change α > η in Ionic, the
following accounts may be compared: A. Barton£k Development
of the long-vowel system in ancient Greek dialects (1966);
 O.J.L. Szemerenyi in Studien zur Sprachuissenschaft und Kultur-
kunde: Gedenkschrift fur W. Brandenstein (1968) 145; E. Laroche
in Milanges de linguistique et de phonologie grecques offerts ά
P. Chantraine (1972) 83-91; H.P. Gates Glotta 54 (1976) 44-52;
R. Gusmani in Studies in Greeks Italic3 and Indo-European lin­
guistics offered to I.E. Palmer (1976) 77-82.

141 For example by O.J.L. Szemerenyi SMEA 1 (1966) 29-52 and W.F.
Wyatt GRBS 16 (1975) 251-262. But account has to be taken of
the objections raised by R. Arena SMEA 8 (1969) 7-27.

142 Die sogenannten 'Aolismen der homerischen Sprache (1957) 126.

143 Op. cit. (n.142) 56-60.

144 Op. cit. (n.142) 77.

145 Op. cit. (n.142) 101-103. It is possible, but not certain,

that the form in - μ ε ν α ι results from a contamination of Aeolic
-μεν and Ionic -vat: see W. Porzig op. cit. (n.120) 153 and H.
Rix Eistorische Grammatik des Grieahischen (1976) 238.

146 Op. cit. (n.13) 211.

147 Cf. G.S. Kirk The songs of Homer (1962) 145-146.

148 It is principally for this reason that I find implausible G.

Bjorck's hypothesis that the Homeric language borrowed from
the everyday speech of Aeolis: Das Alpha impurum und die tra-
gieche Kunstspraahe (1950) 220.

149 On this problem, the following accounts should be compared: H.

Troxler Sprache und Wortschatz Hesiods (1964) 238-239 and G.P.
Edwards The language of Hesiod in its traditional context (1971)
201-203. On Homer's use of the short-vowel ending, see G.
Giangrande Hermes 9 8 (1970) 257-260.

150 Les origines indo-europiennes des mitres grecs (1923). See

further M.L. West Glotta 51 (1973) 165-170.

151 Metrical lengthening in Homer (1969) 201-222.

152 K. Witte R M 70 (1915) 507. Wyatt would, of course, be justified

in excluding such Aeolic forms from the discussion if there were
no other reasons for suspecting connexions between Aeolic and
Homeric poetry. It may be observed here that editors have given
themselves much needless trouble over Sappho 104a:
εσπερε παντα φερηυς οσα φαυνολυς ε σ χ ε δ α σ ’ Αυως,
φερηΐ/S ο uν, φερηυς αυγα, φερηυς απυ ματερο παυδα,
the second line of which Lobel and Page think is incurably cor­
rupt in its first part. The reason is that they expect the se­
cond line to conform to Homeric canons as closely as the first
 one d o e s ; but this assumption is unsafe in view of the fact
that most of the dactylic hexameters of the Lesbian poets are
quoted in single lines only, with the result that their prac­
tice in a continuous passage cannot be followed with certainty.
Now V. Pisani in ΜΝΗΜΗΣ XAPIN Gedenkschrift P. Kretschmer II
(1957) 78-82 has suggested the following reading for the se­
cond line:
φερες ουν, φερες αυγα, φερευς απυ ματερυ παυδα.
He rightly observes that φερες at the beginning of the line is
justified not only by the parallel of Homer's στύχου ακέφαλου
but also by the fact that the first two syllables are anc ipitia
in aeolic metres. See further P. Thieme ZVS 78 (1963) 224 n.l.
I cannot believe in the reconstruction of the second line of ­
fered by E.D. Floyd CR 18 (1968) 266-267. It remains possible,
as Wilamowitz suggested, op. cit. (n.2) 72, that the lines real­
ly exhibit a mixture of dactylic and iambic metra and should be
arranged in the following manner:
εσπερε παντα φερευς οσα φαινολυς ε σ χ ε δ α σ ’ Αυως,
φερευς ουυ
φερευς αυγα φερει,ς απο ματερυ παυδα.

153 Cf. Page op. cit. (η.62) 129.

154 Cf. Page op. cit. (n.62) 278 and H. Lloyd-Jones GRBS 9 (1968)
128-129.

155 Op. cit. (n.62) 278.

156 Op. cit. (n.62) 280.

157 Op. cit. (n.65) 45-46.

158 Op. cit. (n.62) 306.

159 Another fragment of this poetry is perhaps seen in Alcaeus 286a.

160 Evga 6 35-640.

161 Following are some recent discussions of this process: E. Heitsch

Episahe Runstspraohe und homerisahe Chronologie (1968); A. Dihle
Glotta 48 (1970) 1-8; K. Forstel Glotta 48 (1970) 163-180; A.
Heubeck Glotta 50 (1972) 129-143.

162 Περυ μονήρους λέζεως 2.912.16.

163 Op. cit. (n.65) xxxii.

164 Op. cit. (n.7) 136 n.l. See further Kathleen Forbes Glotta 36
(1958) 238-239.

165 cf. Meister op. cit. (n.8) 146-148.

166 Op. cit. (n.3) lxv.

167 CQ 30 (1936) 10-15.

168 F. Bechtel Aeolica: Bemerkungen zur Kritik und Sprache der aeo-
lischen Insahriften (1909) 51.

169 Hoffmann op. cit. (n.9) 107-108 no. 153.

Index Locorum

AELIAN
Vera historia 12.50 60

AESCHYLUS
Persians 42 95
53 95

ALCAEUS
6.14 25
8 32
9 32
34.5 51
.7 29
38a.5,13 32
.7 25
38b.1 32
39a.10 38
42 79
.2 47
.5 31
.11 46
48.17 46
50.1-2 40
58.20 25,51
75.7 47
.8 18
115a.7 46
.22 29
117b.8 25
119.10 47
129.20 29
.22 29
130b 41-42
.5 47
140 42-43
.15 24
141.3 40
.4 29
181.3 47
208.3 38
208a.2 40
.3 46
.4 40
283 79
286a 99
298 79
.8 94
 307a HO
314.1 46
315 46
317a 32,80
336 40
338.1 47,84
343 40
345.1-2 40
347 80
.1 24
348 11
349d 31
350.1 47
.3 47
355 46-47,84
360.2 31
362.2 46
366 53
367.1 69
368.1 78
380 51
386 40

ALCMAN
55 64
56.3 64
60.1 64

APOLLONIUS DYSCOLUS
De adverbiis 157.20 92
De pronominibus 1.80 32
De syntaxi 38.27 14
39.17 14

ARISTOTLE
De sophisticis elenahis 177b 91
Politics 1285a 11
Rhetoric 1367a 11

ATHENAEUS
2.39a 32
10.425c 32

BACCHYLIDES
5.4 67
19.13 67

CORINNA
654a.iii.10 86

DEMETRIUS
Περυ έρμενεύας 167 94
 210.42 27
214.32 92

EUMELUS
696 61

HEPHAESTION
Περί. σημείων 138 11

HERODIAN
Περυ μονήρους λέξεως 2.912.16 84
2.930.4 31
Περί, παθών 1.468 19
2.266 32
2.825 19

HERODOTUS
1.23 61

HESIOD
Aepie 371 40

Erga 203 41
534 26,81
582-588 80
635-640 99

Theogonia 3 40
120-121 40
246 41
915-916 41

fr. 245 80

HOMER
A 43 44
300 40
B 529 43
699 44
Γ 336-337 43
424 44
Δ 144 43
187 43
E 316 43
720-772 44
Z 234 40
420 40
442 42
483 40
H 41 43
K 65 30
 Λ 307 40
734 91
753 40
846 30
Μ 448 95
Ν 20-21 42
801 42
Ξ 194-196 44
315-316 44
Ρ 269 43
425 44
Σ 65 44
Τ 285 40
Φ 82 40
261 95
X 379 77
471-472 56
Ψ 583 29
Ω 567 95
795 54

β 7 42
110 44
151 44
γ 127 42
478 44
δ 8 24 40
ε 65 40
υ 242 95
λ 550 25
604 41
610 25
ξ 54 44
τ 458 44
ψ 188 95
ω 160 40
317 40

Hymns 5.6 5 43
6.1 40

IBYCUS
282.1 66
.23 66
286.6 66

INCERTI AUCTORIS (VOIGT)

10.2 40
16.1-2 40

JOHANNES GRAMMATICUS
Compendium II 28
III 89
LUCRETIUS
3.155-158 26-27

PAUSANIAS
4.33.2 61

PINDAR
fr. 125 59

[PLUTARCH]
Movdlia 1132c-d 59

SAPPHO
1 43-46
.5 16
.7 47
.9 13,18,25
.11 47,84
.12 46
.26 47
2 23
.6 28
5.1 46
.7 46
16.1 18
22.14 32
27.4 47
30.3 18
31.1 46
.7-14 26
.8 16
.9 26,81
.10 25
.14-16 27
.16 52
33.1 40
34.3 31
44 56-58,78-79
.8 54
.9 87-88
.11 87-88
.14 54
.16 47
44Aa.6 47
44Ab.7 28
52 47 ,84
53 28,41
54 84
55.2 28
.4 40
57.3 28-29
94.13 28
 94.16 40
96.8 28
.11 47
.13 28-29
98a 23
101.2 87
102.2 28
103.3 47
104a 98-99
.1 47
105.2 54
105a 48
.1 15
.3 16
105b 48
110 94
.2 96
111 54,94
.5 46,53
114.1 31
115.2 28-29
123 41
127 31
128 41
130.1 40
137 11
140.1 51
141.3 32
142 48
143 48
147 52-53
150.1 31
154.1 37
155 47
168B 36-38
.2 46

S 261A,2,i.l0 46

SIMONIDES
5 11(la).1 66
542.27 66
555.3 66

STESICHORUS
178.2 65
185.2 65
209.9 65

S 8.4 65
S 11.4 66
STRABO
13.618

THEOCRITUS
29.1
.23

TIMOTHEUS
Persians 225-228

TRYPHON
Πάθη λέξεων 11
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