Archilochus 222W and 39W Allusion and Re

Philologus 2019; 163(1): 16–46
Shane Hawkins*
Archilochus 222W and 39W: Allusion and
Reception, Hesiod and Catullus
https://doi.org/10.1515/phil-2018-0007
Abstract: This article is a contribution to our understanding of how Archilochean

poetics may be situated in the longer poetic tradition. In examining two fragments
that have received little attention, I hope to illustrate how Archilochus’ poetry
both engaged with its predecessors and was in turn engaged by its successors.
Fragment 222W employs a theme that was perhaps already conventional for
Hesiod, in which the incompatibility of the sexes is implicated in the cycle of
seasons, an idea that also seems relevant to Archilochus’ quarrel with the daugh-
ters of Lycambes. Light is shed on 39W by comparing it to later words for skinning
that serve as metaphors for cheating someone, the best known example of which
is found in Catullus. In the first fragment the text can be elucidated by a look to
Archilochus’ forerunners, and in the second by looking to his heirs.
Keywords: Archilochus, Hesiod, Catullus, allusion, reception
Further adventures in the skin trade

Writing in the tradition of poet and prophet, Hesiod described how the Muses
breathed a divine voice into him so that he might celebrate (κλείοιμι) both things
to come and things aforetime. The modern interpreter of Greek poetry is a
distinctly disadvantaged analog, lacking the divine revelation that endows one
with such all-encompassing knowledge, yet nevertheless attending not only to
the text at hand (τὰ ἐόντα) but also to those that precede (πρὸ ἐόντα) and those
that follow (τὰ ἐσσόμενα), in order to speak meaningfully about a work (Il. 1.70,
Hes. Theog. 32).
This article examines two fragments of Archilochus, one of which is illumi-
nated by its own allusion to a predecessor, the other by its later reception. It
contributes to a broader discussion on Archilochean poetics and the poet’s
engagement with other genres, and in particular with the tropes of wisdom
*Corresponding author: Shane Hawkins, 300 Paterson Hall, 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, ON,
CANADA K1S 5B6, E-Mail: shane_hawkins@carleton.ca
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Archilochus 222W and 39W 17
literature as found in Hesiod’s Works and Days. It also examines how we may
shed light on Archilochus by looking to his reception. While much has been
written on how the iambist can be used to understand Catullus, here I reverse the
direction of inquiry and consider whether we may catch clear reflections of the
former in the latter and thereby come to a better understanding of the lines in
question.
Although these fragments are approached from different directions, the two
lines of text are in other ways alike in that they deal with very similar subject
matter, some of which I have written on elsewhere.1 Both fragments also require
some technical discussion of the text before turning to the broader question of
poetic context.
1 ἶνας δὲ μελέων ⟨τῶν μέσων⟩ ἀπέθρισε

(Archilochus 222W)
This line, translated by Gerber as ‘severed the sinews of (the middle) parts’, is
preserved in the Etymologicum Gudianum, where however the text is corrupt.2 I
argue here that it is preferable to read μεζέων instead of μελέων and that the
supplement is unnecessary. The Gudianum entry is usually only given in part, a
practice which seems to have obscured the problem, so I reproduce the text of the
full entry from Sturz, though the punctuation is my own.3 My translation and a
short apparatus criticus of my own devising follow. I have numbered the lines
simply for ease of reference.4
μήδεα· τὰ αἰδοῖα, παρὰ τὸ μέδειν καὶ ἄρχειν τῆς γε-

νέσεως· καὶ μέζεα, καὶ κατὰ μετάθεσιν τοῦ δ εἰς ζ·
ἢ μέδεα καὶ κατὰ τροπὴν τοῦ ε εἰς η μήδεα τὰ μό-
ρια· ἤτοι μέδεα ὧν δεῖν κρατεῖν· ἢ τὰ ἔχοντα τὸ
μέδειν, ὅ ἐστι τὸ ἄρχειν, ἐπειδὴ τῆς ἀρσενότητος αἰ- 5
1 Hawkins (2014).
2 Translation Gerber (1999) 231 (“Text of source and fragment uncertain. I have followed West,
but with no great confidence”). Unless noted, translations are my own.
3 Sturz (1818) 390; Et. Gud. 390.42.
4 Partial citation in, e.g., West (1998) 84, Bossi (1990) 224–225, Gerber (1999) 231. The fragment is

also preserved in slightly different forms at Herodian 2.372.16, 549.9 and in two codices of the EM
(Codex Bibliothecae Regiae Havniensis 1971 and Bibliothecae Regiae Parisiensis = Sorb(onici)),
which are reproduced in Gaisford (1848) in the notes to EM 583.33. See also Orion 99.24 and EM
575.10.

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18 Shane Hawkins
τία· ἢ καὶ μέσεα τοῦ σώματος, “οὐρὰς δ’ ὑπὸ μέζε’

ἔθεντο”· ὡς καὶ Ἀρχίλοχος, “ἶνας δὲ μεζέων ἀπέ-
θρισε.”
mḗdea: the genitals, from tò médein (‘ruling’) and governing

generation; also mézea, and (this is) by the change of d to z.
Or médea and, by the change of e to ē, mḗdea ‘parts’.
Either médea are things which are necessary for mastery (krateîn), or they are things having
tò médein, which means ‘governing’, since this is the responsibility of manhood.
Or also the middle parts (mésea) of the body, “but they place their tails under
the mézea.” So also Archilochus, “s/he severed the sinews of the mézea.”
2 ἃ καὶ μέζεα Et. Gen., ⟨*μέδεα,⟩ καὶ μέζεα West | 3 ἢ *μέδεα καὶ κατὰ τροπὴν West | 5 μήδειν
cod. | 6 μέσεα ego, μετὰ τοῦ τοῦ cod., μέσα Bloch, ἢ καὶ ⟨μέζεα τὰ⟩ μέσα τοῦ σώματος West;
οὐρὴν Et. Gen., οὐρὰς Hes. Op. 512 | 7–8 μεζέων (om. δέ) Blomfield, μελέων cod., μεδέων v.l.,
ἴνας δὲ μελέων ⟨τῶν μέσων⟩ ἀπέθρισε West
Line 1–3: The first line gives a definition and suggests a derivation of μήδεα from
μέδειν. I take ἄρχειν as ‘govern’, agreeing in sense with μέδειν, because ἄρχειν
τῆς γενέσεως appears to be an attempt to explain the link between genitals
(μήδεα) and ruling (τὸ μέδειν).5 West puts a period after αἰδοῖα and treats the
following derivation as if it explains the word μέδεα, which in turn compels him
to supplement the text by inserting μέδεα after γενέσεως.6 This seems unlikely,
however, since it goes against the practice of a great number of entries in the
Gudianum in which a gloss is followed by a short definition and then a derivation
of the gloss given in the form παρὰ τὸ(ν)/τὴν ... (e.g., λύσσα· ἡ μανία· παρὰ τὴν

λύσιν τῶν κατὰ τὴν ψυχὴν λογισμῶν ...). Lines 1 and 2 explain how we get the two
actually attested forms, μέζεα and μήδεα. The third line introduces a word that is
not found outside of the lexica, μέδεα, and suggests that μήδεα is formed from it.
Lines 4–5: These two lines explain the semantics of a derivative of μέδειν;
viz., μέδεα are things necessary for governing or things that govern. The untrans-
lated τὸ μήδειν should be corrected to τὸ μέδειν, since μήδειν is meaningless and
μέδειν is probably being associated with ἄρχειν as it is in the first line. The notion
that ruling is the prerogative of manhood may be based on the assumption of a
connection between μήδεα ‘genitals’ and τὸ μέδειν ‘ruling’.
Lines 6–8: Something has clearly gone awry with the transmitted ἢ καὶ μετὰ
τοῦ τοῦ σώματος of line 6. The emendation of μετὰ to μέσα, suggested by Bloch
5 I disagree, then, with Gerber (1999) 231, who translates ἄρχειν as ‘to begin’. Both Cod. Havn.
1971 and the Parisiensis use the word κρατεῖν here, which gives some support to my decision.
6 He has also tacitly omitted the καὶ before κατὰ μετάθεσιν.

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and adopted for the Havniensis by Gaisford (1848) is convincing since μέζεα are
described elsewhere as the central parts (μέσα) of the genitals (Herodian
2.372.16 f., 549.9 f.; EM 575.10 μέζεα ... ὅτι μέσα εἰσὶ τῆς οὐρᾶς, μέσσεα ὄντα). I

prefer to read μέσεα, however, since this form is used just a few entries earlier in
the Gudianum, where μέσα is specifically identified as Sicilian (μέζεα· τὰ αἰδοῖα,
ὅτι μέσεά ἐστι τῆς οὐρᾶς· οὐρᾶς δ’ ὑπὸ μέζε’ ἔθεντο· Σικελοὶ δὲ καὶ Ταραντῖνοι
μέσα αὐτα καλοῦσι). West’s solution, to insert μέζεα τὰ and read ἢ καὶ μέζεα τὰ
μέσα τοῦ σώματος, is bolder and, I think, unnecessary. The Havniensis and
Parisiensis codices of the EM both record simply μετὰ τοῦ σώματος.
The phrase οὐρὴν δ’ ὑπὸ μέζε’ ἔθεντο is a (slightly altered or garbled) quota-
tion of Hes. Op. 512, where μέζε(α) has been used as a general word for crotch or
belly: beasts in winter ‘place their tails (Hesiod has οὐρὰς, not οὐρὴν) under their
bellies’. Vergil’s imitation at Aen. 11.812–813 uses uterus. Most editors have
printed the variant μεδέων in the citation of Archilochus, but as West points out,
there is no evidence for this form of the word outside of the lexica, and he is
probably correct that “where it appears earlier in the Etymologicum entry it looks
like a grammarian’s form invented to link μήδεα with μέδειν and with the
Hesiodic μέζεα.”7
West notes that “the Archilochus quotation is apparently being produced for
the purpose of supporting the statement that there is a form μέζεα perhaps
derived from μέσος”, believing “that the verse [of Archilochus] was quoted to
strengthen the etymology, by showing that someone did speak of the genitals as
‘central’.” For this reason Blomfield made the “sensible” conjecture μεζέων.8
West, however, rejects this form, preferring instead the variant μελέων and
supplementing the line to read ἴνας δὲ μελέων ⟨τῶν μέσων⟩ ἀπέθρισε. Against
West’s reading, however, one notes that only the Parisiensis codex of the EM
gives the obviously corrupt reading μελέων ἀπέθροισε, which Gaisford reason-
ably emends to μεζέων ἀπέθρισεν. Furthermore, in the case of the EGud and the
Havniensis and Parisiensis codices of the EM, the explanation μετὰ (i.e., μέσα or
μέσεα) τοῦ σώματος is supported by the form μέζεα from Hesiod, and the immedi-
ately following ὡς καὶ Ἀρχίλοχος leads one to expect that the same supporting
form will follow, not that a previously unmentioned word or phrase is about to be
introduced into the discussion. Finally, West rejects Blomfield’s conjecture as
7 West (1974) 136. The lexicon neither claims that a form μέδεα ever actually existed nor does it
attribute such a form to any author. For μέδεα see also EM 575.10. The form μηδέων is attributed to
Archilochus at EM Cod. Havn. 1971 s.v. μήδεα and in Herodian (cited above). The editions of Bergk
(1882), Lasserre (1950), Adrados (1955), Treu (1959), and Tarditi (1968) print μεδέων (so also
Hoffmann 1898, 610); Bossi (1990) and Gerber (1999) follow West, but with qualifications.
8 Blomfield (1826) 234.

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20 Shane Hawkins
“improbable on dialectal grounds,” but on the contrary it is not easy to say

whether μέζεα in Archilochus is dialectically improbable or not without secure
etymologies for μήδεα or μέζεα. That is a complex problem for another time,9 but
all that is necessary to say here is that even if it were difficult to explain μέζεα in
Archilochus from the point of dialect, it is nonetheless true that Archilochus
frequently uses forms and vocabulary familiar from ‘epic’ poetry, and since we
find μέζεα in Hesiod (however it got there), such a possibility cannot be ruled out
in Archilochus.10 I find it difficult to avoid the conclusion that Blomfield’s correc-
tion should be adopted and fr. 222 should be read thus: ἶνας δὲ μεζέων ἀπέθρισε
‘s/he severed the sinews of (my/his) crotch.’11 Assuming this is the case, I turn
now to the question of the relationship between Hesiod and Archilochus.
The rarity of μέζεα leads one to ask whether there is a connection between
Hesiod’s and Archilochus’ use of the word. There are, in fact, several other verbal
and thematic correspondences between the two poets, which have suggested to
some that Archilochus is reworking material from Hesiod’s Works and Days.
Another possibility, however, is that the two poets are each handling material
they have inherited independently. This has been the opinion of scholars who
argue that the theme of female sexual appetite and the midsummer season, as
portrayed in Hesiod’s description of the winter lull (504–563), was already part of
the repertoire of blame poetry performed at midsummer festivals, or that the
memorable picture of the locus amoenus during the summer lull (582–596) con-
tains elements of popular lore and seasonal folk song that surface independently
9 There already exists a good explanation for μήδεα from *med- (cf. μήδομαι); see Schwyzer
(1953–1966) I 208, Strunk (1961) 168–170, Pisani (1964) 116, Spitzer (1939) 47, Nagy (1974) 265–278
(but fanciful), Perpillou in the supplement to Chantraine (1968–1980) s.v. μήδεα. I will argue
elsewhere that μέζεα can be explained as the outcome of *mesd-es-, which has an exact cognate in
Sanskrit médas (nt.) ‘fat, marrow, lymph’ (specific to the abdomen). If this is correct, there is no
dialectical improbability in the appearance of a form μέζεα in Archilochus. Earlier attempts to
connect μήδεα and μέζεα as a case of inverse spelling or dialect borrowing (Troxler 1964, 49; West
1966, 85–86; see also Bain 2007), are implausible (Hawkins 2004) and, if μέζεα can be explained
from *mesd-es-, unnecessary. Cf. Wackernagel’s idea (1916, 227 n. 1) that μήδεα was “a demure
replacement for the coarser μέζεα” (Hawkins 2004, 67), which left open the possibility that the two
words are not just dialect variants of one another. Beekes (2010) s.v. μήδεα characteristically (and
unconvincingly) asserts μέζεα is a pre-Greek loanword. For a recent study of the language of
Hesiod, see Cassio (2009).
10 For Archilochus’ debt to epic language and oral technique, see especially Scherer (1964), Page
(1964), Notopoulos (1966), Risch (1975), Aloni (1981) 21–64, Fowler (1987) 1–52, with earlier
bibliography on pp. 110–111, Cannatà Fera (1988), Létoublon (2008), and the articles by Nicolosi,
Lulli, and Swift in Swift/Carey (2016).
11 The metre of the fragment is uncertain. West reads it as a trimeter, ἶνας δὲ μελέων ⟨τῶν μέσων⟩
ἀπέθρισε, but ἶνας δὲ μεζέων ἀπέθρισε would also scan at the beginning of a trimeter line.

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in lyric poetry.12 Calvert Watkins has even argued that the former passage, where-
in we find the word μέζεα, shows traces of an old traditional theme or elaborated
metaphor of Indo-European vintage.13
It is not necessary, however, to privilege one of these lines of transmission
over the other; it seems no less likely to me that this material, popular in nature
and of a common theme, came to Archilochus from several sources, one of which
may just as well have been Hesiod.14 It is easy to see how it would be appealing
for a poet like Archilochus, whose subject matter included the bitter dissolution
of a marriage agreement, to situate his poetry in the grander, even cosmic, context
of broken agreements and the fundamental differences between the sexes.15 For
this it would only be natural to look to an epic precedent like Hesiod, who is
concerned with both of these themes. In what follows, I adduce some well-known
and new parallels to Hesiod, in order to illustrate how Archilochus is working in a
tradition in which, I argue, fragment 222 participates.
Works and Days promotes the message that “Dike prospers” and “Hybris is
punished”, and it extols the “advantages of work” over the “disadvantages of
idleness”.16 The relationship between man and woman is situated within the
context of man’s toil. In this chain it is good Eris that impels men to work, and
12 Semonides 6W, 7.83–93W and Alcaeus 347 Voigt, on which see Hooker (1977) 80–81, Nagy
(1990) 462–463, Martin (1992) 223, Petropoulos (1994) 17, 81–82, Bershadsky (2001) 12–13, Van
Noorden (2015) 297, Burnett (1983) 133–134, Bowie (2009) 119. On the problem of “intertextual
borrowings in the early archaic period,” Hunter (2014) 123–125, 157–166 cautiously draws some
conclusion about Hesiodic influence. Thematically related to these passages are Ar. Pax 1159–
1171, Av. 1088–1100, and Pl. Phdr. 258e–259d, 262 d.

13 Watkins (1975) 25–26 = (1994) 534–535, (1978) = (1994) 588–592.

14 Given our inability to date these two poets precisely or to be very confident about how poetry
circulated at this early period, one must of course be very cautious in supposing that Archilochus
is reworking Hesiodic material directly. Jacoby (1941), who places Archilochus’ floruit at 652, is the
fundamental discussion of the poet’s dating; see also Lavelle (2002). For Hesiod see Janko (1982)
94–98 and (2012) and Kõiv (2011), one of whose conclusions is that “the ancients had no clear
understanding about when Hesiod lived” (2011, 374). West (2012) 235–237 now puts Hesiod at ca.
680–660 and Archilochus in the mid 7th century, and both Janko and Kõiv favor the idea that
Hesiod is composing at roughly the same date as Archilochus, but that decision, like any decision
on this matter, relies on a series of assumptions (Kõiv 2011, 375 with notes 113 and 114). Lane Fox
(2008) 384 is probably correct when he says that his eccentric dating of Archilochus (ca. 740–680)
places him in a minority of one.
15 See Breitenstein (1971), especially 37–38, and Steffen (1952–1953) 34–35, who sees the Works
and Days as a model for subsequent poets of public song to exercise against personal injury in
civic disputes: “Sic Hesiodus praeco haberi potest adventantium iam temporum, quibus nonnullis
in civitatibus Graecis contentiones et controversiae civium summa cum vi exardescebant et
magnas rerum commutationes secum ferebant.”
16 West (1966) 47.

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22 Shane Hawkins
they must work because Zeus has punished man for Prometheus’ mischief with
the creation of Pandora, who brought to an end an age of life without toil or
illness. Hesiod’s ainos of the hapless nightingale caught in the talons of the hawk
(Op. 202–212, cf. 276–280) comes amidst his call for justice from venal kings and
from his brother Perses.17 Scholars have long appreciated the affinities between
this short tale and Archilochus’ fable of the eagle and fox (frr. 172–181W).18 In
Archilochus’ ainos the fox and eagle make a friendship (fr. 174), which the hungry
eagle breaks when it eats the fox’s cubs. As the fox cannot get vengeance by
climbing to reach the eagle and its nest, it curses the eagle and invokes the aid of
Zeus (frr. 175–177, 178?). When the eagle later snatches a sacrificial victim from an
altar and with it unwittingly brings an ember to the nest, the aerie catches fire (frr.
179–180) and the nestlings fall to the ground, where the fox eats them in the sight
of the eagle (fr. 181). The ainos is usually connected to the story of Lycambes and
his daughters (frr. 172–173) who, like the eagle, breaks an oath of friendship and
is punished.19
Irwin has argued that the use of the ainos creates a generic link between the
two poets that operates on a thematic level and suggests an “almost polemical”
reformulation of Hesiod in which “the fox’s prayer, in direct contrast to Hesiod,
unquestionably implies that animals do have dike, and that this is a concern to
Zeus.”20 Hesiod Op. 276–280:
17 Most interpretations of the fable attempt to identify the hawk or the nightingale with specific
figures (e.g., the nightingale is Perses, or Hesiod, or the kings), but I think it more likely that the

two are meant to represent a power dynamic and the rule of might (similarly Daly 1961, Griffith
1983, 60). And though it may be that the fable has been clumsily incorporated into the poem (West
1966, 49–50, 204–205), I would prefer to think that, as an αἶνος, the exact application of the fable
is intentionally left open to interpretation, and that Hesiod’s invitation to pay it heed, first to the
kings and then to Perses, suggests it may apply simultaneously to Zeus and the kings, the kings
and Perses, the kings and Hesiod, or Perses and Hesiod. Some important discussions of the fable
are Jensen (1966), Puelma (1972), Pucci (1997) 61–81, Lonsdale (1989), Leclerc (1992), Hubbard
(1995), Nelson (1997), Dijk (1997) 127–134, 138–144, Adrados (2003) 9–11 (with extensive biblio-
graphy and cross-references to his earlier volumes), Mordine (2006), Zanker (2009), Steiner (2007)
and (2012), Hunter (2014) 241–243, and Van Noorden (2015) 59–64.
18 Irwin (1998) 181–182, who points out that the “affinity of Archilochus and Hesiod in their use
of ainoi is implicit in Schol. T. Hom Il. 19.407 in which their fables about the eagle and hawk
respectively are grouped together.” See also frr. 185–187W and Corrêa (2007).
19 Irwin (1998) 181 argues that the destruction of offspring in Archilochus’ case refers to his
potential children, while as applied to the figure of Lycambes it is a metaphorical destruction
accomplished through invective.
20 Irwin (1998).

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τόνδε γὰρ ἀνθρώποισι νόμον διέταξε Κρονίων,

ἰχθύσι μὲν καὶ θηρσὶ καὶ οἰωνοῖς πετεηνοῖς
ἔσθειν ἀλλήλους, ἐπεὶ οὐ δίκη ἐστὶ μετ’ αὐτοῖς·
ἀνθρώποισι δ’ ἔδωκε δίκην, ἣ πολλὸν ἀρίστη
γίνεται·
For the son of Kronos has appointed this law for men,
for fish and beasts and winged birds
to eat one another, because dike is not among them,
but to men he gave dike, which is the best by far.
Archil. fr. 177:
ὦ Ζεῦ, πάτερ Ζεῦ, σὸν μὲν οὐρανοῦ κράτος,

σὺ δ’ ἔργ’ ἐπ’ ἀνθρώπων ὁρᾷς
λεωργὰ καὶ θεμιστά, σοὶ δὲ θηρίων
ὕβρις τε καὶ δίκη μέλει.
O Zeus, father Zeus, the rule of heaven is yours,

and you look upon the works of men,
villainous and lawful, and both the
hybris and dike of beasts is your concern.21
The message of Hesiod’s fable is that one ought not to behave like animals who,
lacking the gift of dike from Zeus, devour one another. Irwin points out that
Archilochus’ implied message is “considerably stronger”: Lycambes has no dike
and therefore is even worse than an animal. I find her suggestion, that Archilo-
chus is “asserting his own poetic superiority in redefining Hesiod’s concept of
dike and its representation through ainoi – a case of poetic one-upmanship,” very
appealing.22
Linked to the topic of dike in Hesiod is the theme of discord between the
sexes, which is portrayed as one of the defining characteristics of man’s Iron Age
existence: “The Iron Age human condition is characterized first and foremost by
the need to work. Men are at odds with the earth: unlike the Golden Race or those
living pre-Pandora, Iron Age men have to work for their livelihood”. In this state
of existence women are at odds with men because they pose a threat to produc-
21 The emendation καὶ θεμιστά is accepted by West (1998), Bossi (1990) (who provides good
philological reasons for accepting it), and Gerber (1999), among others. For a good defense of the
reading κἀθέμιστα, which nevertheless seems to me unpersuasive, see Sampson (2012).
22 The idea that Archilochus may be responding to Hesiod is an old one; see Breitenstein (1971)
29–42, Gagarin (1974). Irwin (1998) is followed by Steiner (2012) 18, Sampson (2012).

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24 Shane Hawkins
tion and even betray a “lack of synchronicity with the very cycle of labour”.23 Most
relevant to the present discussion are two contrasts. The first is a description of a
winter scene, in which the cold wind blasts man and beast alike, when shudder-
ing beasts put their tails under their bellies. It is here (line 512) that we find the
word μέζεα in Hesiod. The wind does not, however, blow through the tender-
skinned maiden, who, sitting at home with her mother, bathes and anoints her
skin (519–523).24
καὶ διὰ παρθɛνικῆς ἁπαλόχροος οὐ διάησιν,

ἥ τɛ δόμων ἔντοσθɛ φίλῃ παρὰ μητέρι μίμνɛι
οὔ πω ἔργ’ ɛἰδυῖα πολυχρύσου Ἀφροδίτης·
ɛὖ τɛ λοɛσσαμένη τέρɛνα χρόα καὶ λίπ᾽ ἐλαίῳ
χρισαμένη μυχίη καταλέξɛται ἔνδοθι οἴκου
But the wind does not blow through the tender-skinned maiden,
who remains inside the house beside her dear mother,
not yet knowing the works of Aphrodite rich in gold;
having washed her tender skin well and anointing herself
richly with oil, innermost inside the house she lies down.
Some find a touch of humor in these lines, and they seem to have attracted
Archilochus, who inverts the image of the maiden and the wind in fr. 188.25
οὐκέ˼θ’ ὁμῶς θάλλεις ἁπαλὸν χρόα· κάρφετα˪ι γὰρ ἤδη

ὄγμο˼ς· κακοῦ δὲ γήραος καθαιρεῖ
.....] ἀ̣ φ’ ἱμερτοῦ δὲ θο̣ ρὼν γλυκὺ̣ ς̣ ἵμερος π̣[ροσώπου
.....]κ̣ εν· ἦ γὰρ πολλὰ δή σ’ ἐ̣ πῆι̣ ξεν
πνεύμ]α̣τα χειμερίων ἀνέμων, μ̣ά̣λ̣ α̣ π̣ο̣ λλακις δ̣ ’ ε[
No longer does your skin have the soft bloom that it once had; for already your furrow is
dried up, the ... of ugly old age is taking its toll, and sweet loveliness (has gone?) with a rush
23 Canevaro (2013) 185, 192. As Clay notes (2009, 86), “nature affects male and female in opposite
ways, so that the sexes are eternally out of sync.”
24 Canevaro notes that while the innocent maiden is not portrayed as a threat to production, in a
poem “so focused on the importance of hard work, a scene of such complete idleness as this
cannot be without pointed negative connotation” (2013, 195). That she stays inside with her
mother is reminiscent of the Silver Race of men who stay with their mothers (130) and never grow
out of their childish ways. The words ἔντοσθɛ μίμνɛι (‘she stays inside’, 520) recall Theog. 598,
ἔντοσθɛ μένοντɛς, “used of the idle drone bees in the simile describing women.” Further connec-
tions to Aphrodite and Pandora point to “an uncomfortable awareness on Hesiod’s part, even
here, of the future potential for sexual allure and the Iron Age problems that it brings” (2013, 195).
25 West (1966) 288, following Nicolai (1964) 112: “There may be conscious humour in the paradox
that he does not penetrate her tender skin.”

Authenticated
from your lovely face. For in truth many a blast of wintry winds has assaulted you, and many
a time ...26
Pointedly, the tender skin (ἁπαλόχροος) of Hesiod’s maiden, protected from the
wind, has lost its bloom in Archilochus (οὐκέθ’ ὁμῶς θάλλεις ἁπαλὸν χρόα) and
has suffered from many wintry blasts. Unlike the maiden richly anointed with oil
(λίπ᾽ ἐλαίῳ χρισαμένη), Archilochus’ woman is dry or withered. The interpretation
of κάρφεται γὰρ ἤδη ὄγμος as an agricultural metaphor for the loss of the
woman’s procreative ability is undoubtedly correct, and Brown may also be
correct in suggesting that this loss is exacerbated by her promiscuity.27 Archilo-
chus’ use of κάρφεται is perhaps meant to recall, from the same passage of
Hesiod, the flesh-withering sun of harvest time (ὅτε τ’ ἠέλιος χρόα κάρφει, 575), a
condition associated with men and thus another way in which Archilochus’
woman differs from Hesiod’s maiden reclining inside the house. But κάρφεται
will also, I suggest, remind the reader of one of the striking images employed by
Hesiod in the proem of Works and Days, which is the claim that Zeus can easily
“whither the proud” (Op. 7, ῥεῖα ... ἀγήνορα κάρφει; note too the ὕβρις of Archil.
fr. 177, given above). All in all, one might think of Archilochus here as re-fashion-
ing the Days of Hesiod in miniature; consider Brown’s suggestion (made without
comparison to Hesiod): “it is tempting to discern a pattern of seasons: θάλλεις
evokes spring, the parched furrow summer ..., the loss of desire may imply
autumn, and then there is a clear reference to the winter in 5.”28
A second contrast, as Canevaro notes, is an imbalance between the sexes that
is “particularly evident in the summer.”29 For men, this is “a complex season with
mixed hard labour under strict time constraints (the harvest, 571–581; threshing
and management, 597–608) and a time of enforced inactivity (582–596).” But not
so for women. At this time women and men are, in other ways, also antipodean:
26 The translation is altered slightly from Gerber (1999) 203; I have substituted ‘for already your
furrow is dried up’ for his ‘now your furrow is withered’.
27 See Brown/Gerber (1993), and Brown (1995) (contra Slings 1987 and 1995). Another contrast
between the two women may lie in Archilochus’ κάρφεται ... ὄγμος if it supposes a sexualized
reading of Hesiod’s lines 522–523, which could also be read “richly anointed inward(ly) with oil,
she lies down inside the house.” Cf. μυχός ‘innermost part, nook’, Ar. Eccl. 12–13 μόνος δὲ μηρῶν
εἰς ἀπορρήτους μυχοὺς / λάμπεις ἀφεύων τὴν ἐπανθοῦσαν τρίχα ‘Lamp, you alone shine into the
ineffable nooks of thighs as you singe away the hair blooming thereon’. Some similar sounding
words are perhaps suggestive; cf. Hesych. μυχλός· σκολιός, ὀχνευτής, λάγνης, μοιχός, ἀκρατής.
Φωκεῖς δὲ καὶ ὄνους τοὺς ἐπὶ ὀχείαν πεμπομένους; Archil. 270 μύκλοι ‘lewd, lustful’; Archil. 309
(from Hesych.) μύσχον· τὸ ἀνδρεῖον καὶ γυναικεῖον μόριον.
28 Brown (1995) 33 n. 19.
29 Canevaro (2013) 192.

Authenticated
26 Shane Hawkins
μαχλόταται δὲ γυναῖκɛς, ἀφαυρότατοι δέ τοι ἄνδρɛς / ɛἰσίν, ἐπɛὶ κɛφαλὴν καὶ

γούνατα Σɛίριος ἄζɛι ‘Women are most lustful, but men weakest, / when Sirius
scorches the head and knees’ (Op. 586–587). Most interesting is Hesiod’s use of
μαχλόταται. We are told by the Suda and Aristonicus (schol. A. vv. 25–30 to Il.
24.30) that μαχλοσύνη was a specifically Hesiodic word. Again, there may be a
connection to Archilochus, since μαχλόταται reminds one of a poem by Dioscor-
ides (AP 7.351), written in the voice of the daughters of Lycambes. Several scholars
have suggested that this poem echoes language used by Archilochus, who
accused the women of indecency in similar terms (lines 7–10):
Ἀρχίλοχον, μὰ θεοὺς καὶ δαίμονας οὔτ’ ἐν ἀγυιαῖς

εἴδομεν οὔθ’ Ἥρης ἐν μεγάλῳ τεμένει.
εἰ δ’ ἦμεν μάχλοι καὶ ἀτάσθαλοι, οὐκ ἂν ἐκεῖνος
ἤθελεν ἐξ ἡμέων γνήσια τέκνα τεκεῖν.
By the gods and daemones, we saw Archilochus neither

in the streets nor in the great precinct of Hera.
But if we had been lewd and reckless, he would not have
wished to get legitimate children from us.
Assuming that Dioscorides’ μάχλοι is taken from or reminiscent of the language of

Archilochus, we may cautiously suggest that its use is another point shared by
Archilochus and Hesiod.30
It has also been inferred from Dioscorides’ poem that the setting of the girls’
meeting with Archilochus is the precinct of Hera, and Merkelbach and West have
30 See Gow/Page (1965) 249 (lines 7 and 9, “and the adjectives in 9, no doubt summarize the
slanders with which Archilochus bespattered the Lycambids”), Kamerbeek (1976) 115, Gentili
(1988) 186–190, Irwin (1998) 180–181, Wray (2001) 184, Gagné (2009) 259–261, Brown (1997) 65–66
and 69 n. 98: “It is clear that Archilochus portrayed the girls as μάχλοι καὶ ἀτάσθαλοι.” AP 7.352 is
another epigram in the voice of the Lykambids that also betrays familiarity with Archilochus
(Gentili 1988, 192; Irwin 1998, 180–181; Latacz 1992; Gagné 1998, 259–261). Dioscorides’ λευκὸν
μένος at AP 5.55.7 may indicate familiarity with the Cologne epode (Degani 1974, 121; Merkelbach-
West 1974, 105, 111; Van Sickle 1975, 149; Slings 1987, 49–50; Swift 2015, 11 n. 25). On μαχλοσύνη
as Hesiodic see Hunter (2009) 260. No form of μάχλος is certainly attested in Archilochus, but at fr.
56.6W, which is too poorly preserved to reconstruct a context, one finds ]μαχλ[; see also Eust. in
Hom. Od. 8.335 (p. 1597.28) at Archil. 43W. Treu (1959) 247–248 and Breitenstein (1971) 54 n. 135
do, indeed, supply μάχλος here. Note also ]ατα[ above it at line 4 (i.e., ]ἀτά[σθαλοι, vel sim?). See

POxy 2312, fr. 27+5(c), ed. Lobel.

Fowler (1987) 37, following Page (1955) 306 n. 2, writes that there is no profound reason for
Alcaeus, in his imitation of Hesiod (347 Voigt), to have substituted μιαρώτατοι and λέπτοι for
Hesiod’s μαχλότατοι and ἀφαυρότατοι, but a possible motivation for the change could be the
avoidance of repeating these latter words after what was, or appeared to be already, an imitation
of Hesiod by Archilochus.

Authenticated
gone so far as to suggest that this is also the setting of the Cologne fragment
(196a).31 West believes that physical elements of the precinct are also mentioned
in frr. 36–37, and even suggests that fr. 47 refers to the virgin priestesses of Hera
driving them from the temple.32 There is, in fact, a difference in opinion about
whether what is being described is a real or an imaginary space, but I think it is
unnecessary to restrict the Greek poetic imagination like this; one may believe
that we have something of both, a poetic description of a real place embellished
with language taken from the topos of the locus amoenus and imbued with
imaginary features such as the erotic associations of the ‘meadow of love’.33
However that may be, a few points deserve better notice.
First, if the poem’s setting has some connection to a real environment, there
would presumably be some added zest to the phrases ‘under the coping and gates’
(θρ]ιγκοῦ δ’ ἔνερθε καὶ πυλέων) of line 21 and the ‘grassy gardens’ (π̣ο̣ η[φόρους /
κ]ή̣πους) of 24–25, since the poet’s double entendres would be playing on or re-
imagining the actual physical surroundings of the poem’s setting: the coping,
gates, and the garden of the temenos.34 A recent treatment of these lines by Swift is
31 Merkelbach/West (1974) 102, West (1974) 123, followed by, e.g., Miralles/Pòrtulas (1983) 135–

137, Gentili (1988) 186–190, Nagy (1999) 399–400, Nicolosi (2007) 168, Bershadsky (2011) 15 n. 50.
For the temenos as a site of seduction and love affairs, see Koenen in Gelzer et al. (1974) 506,
Degani (1977) 36–38, Swift (2015) on “meadow seductions.” This is perhaps not the secular locus
amoenus Thesleff (1981) 42 had in mind.
32 West (1974) 123, 125.
33 For some bibliography on these different approaches to the scene, see Nicolosi (2007) 201–
203, Heirman (2012) 86–113. Heirman is correct that a view like Merkelbach and West’s locates the
scene on Paros (which hardly, however, makes it “biographical”) and assumes that Dioscorides’
setting is the same as that in the epode; I do not see anything “problematic” in either of those
observations.
34 For θριγκοῦ see especially Nicolosi (2007) 199–203. Corso (1984) has squeezed from Dioscor-
ides and Archilochus whatever might be inferred about the architecture of a Heraion here at this
time. He prefers, without good reason, to read ‘coping’, ‘gates’, and ‘gardens’ straight, without
erotic overtones. Contrary to claims that a Heraion can be located on Paros (Rubensohn in RE
XVIII 4, 1842; Gentili 1988, 189–190; Degani 1977, 37 n. 53), there is no archaeological or inscrip-
tional evidence for such a temple on the island. Similarly, it has been claimed that a pair of
dedications from Paros (IG XII 5.227 and 228) name Hera, but in fact the name of the goddess is not
to be read on either inscription; see further Riemann (1877), Rubensohn (1900) 349–364, Ruben-
sohn (1901) 210–212, 217–218, IG XII Supplement p. 311, and Berranger (1992) 32–36. Attempts to
locate the Heraion on or near Μικρὸ Βουνό (e.g., Corso 1984) stumble on the fact that no remains

of any such structure have been found there and that, given the nature of the terrain, Rubensohn
(1901) 212 went so far as to say that there never were any ancient buildings on its summit. More
recent surveys of the peak and surrounding slopes have yielded no structure (Gruben 1982, 686–
687; Berranger 1992, 85, 89). Clay (2004) makes no mention of a possible Heraion on Paros. The
Heraion of Paros thus remains elusive.

Authenticated
28 Shane Hawkins
instructive on the use of veiled metaphor that hints at the sexually explicit as a
way to create suspense and draw in an audience. I am not convinced, however,
that the poet has combined “imagery drawn from the natural world (i.e., κ]ή̣πους,
25) with metaphors of architecture (θρ]ιγκοῦ, πυλέων 21) and seafaring (σχήσω,
23)” in a “strategy designed to confuse” the audience and, perhaps, the girl.35
Merkelbach and West first labeled σχήσω ... ἐς a nautical metaphor, and the claim
is repeated often even though it makes almost no sense – one does not simply
steer a ship into grassy gardens36 – and ἔχω in the sense of ‘keep in a certain
direction’ is much more commonly used of horses in archaic literature, while the
only archaic uses of the nautical metaphor are Od. 3.182 and 11.70.37 If the epode is
connected so closely in theme and language to its epic predecessors, then the
metaphor is more plausibly equestrian than nautical.38 Ultimately, however, this
attention to the kind of metaphor employed distracts from the basically coherent
35 Swift (2016) 267. See especially pages 262–269 and Swift (2015).
36 Merkelbach/West (1974) 106. Upheld by Merkelbach (1975) 220, absurdly: “Der nautische
Ausdruck ἔχειν εἰς ‘landen’ hat seinen Ursprung doch wohl darin, dass ein Landepflock einge-
schlagen und das Schiff daran befestigt wird; an dem Pflock wird das Schiff festgehalten, mit dem
Land verbunden. Mir scheint die metaphorische Anwendung dieses Ausdrucks für den Sexualakt
nicht zu der Hypothese zu passen, dass nur ein coitus interruptus vollzogen worden sei”), Treu
(1976) 112 (who however admits on p. 114, “doch von einem ‘Anbinden des Kielbalkens’ oder gar
von einem eingerammten Pflock ist weit und breit keine Spur zu finden”), Marcovich (1975) 11–12,
Van Sickle (1975) 140, Slings (1975) 170, Henderson (1976) 170, Nicolosi (2001) 204–205, Swift
(2015) 17. One holds a course for a city or an island: Od. 3.182 αὐτάρ ἐγώ γε Πύλονδ᾽ ἔχον; Od. 11.70
νῆσον ἐς Αἰαίην σχήσεις ἐυεργέα νῆα. Note how Van Sickle (1975) 140 evades the difficulty with a
translation that strays from the Greek: “for I will steer to land at grassy gardens.”
37 Used of horses: Il. 3.263; 5.240, 752, 829, 841; 8.139, 254, 396 = 752; 11.127, 513, 760; 12.124;
13.326; 15.354, 448; 16.378; 19.424; 23.398, 422, 423, 516, 325, 401, 466; Hes. Sc. 352. Campbell
(1976) 155, citing Il. 16.378, already mildly objected to the idea of a nautical metaphor the fact that
Homer uses the verb of charioteers guiding their horses. Pace Van Sickle (1975) 140, there is
nothing “especially” nautical about the use of the future or aorist forms of ἔχω. The imperfect is
used at Od. 3.182, the future is used at Od. 11.70, the aorist at Od. 9.279 refers to mooring, not
steering, a ship. For a verbal parallel Merkelbach and West point to nothing earlier than Herodo-
tus 6.92.1, but Herodotus can also use the imperfect (6.95.2). In spite of the impression one might
get from LSJ9 ἔχω (A) A.II.8, the aorist is not used consistently in reference to ships until
Thucydides (1.110; 2.25; 3.29; etc.). For thematic comparanda they cite Meleager AP 5.204 (the
image of a woman as a battered old boat) and the use of ναυσίη at Semonides 7.54, both of which
play on the innuendo-laden image of the κέλης, but neither of which employ ἔχω.
38 See most recently Swift (2015) and (2016). Consider the ‘horse nourishing meadow’ (λείμων
ἰππόβοτος) of Sappho 2 L-P. Treu (1976), who argued for a literal interpretation of the imagery in
the epode and rejected taking it as sexual metaphor, compared the surprising adjective in
ποηφόρους κήπους to Sappho’s ἰππόβοτος. But perhaps we should also understand Sappho here
as employing innuendo (see Heirman 2012, 109–111).

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play on the imagery of the temenos setting. Since one can use ἔχω when intending
to direct a horse, or a boat, or hold in some direction an arrow (Il. 23.871), oneself
(Il. 13.679), or even one’s mind (Hes. Op. 445), the teasing ambiguity at play does
not arise from the confusion of metaphors but from the missing object of the verb –
what exactly the narrator is aiming into the grassy gardens.
A second point is that a setting in the temenos of Hera would seem to resonate
with two mythological stories, although connections between the two seem to
have gone mostly unnoted. Aristonicus claimed that Hesiod was the first to use
the word μαχλοσύνη in his reference to the daughters of Proitos (Hes. fr. 132 M-
W), whose tender bloom was destroyed because of their wretched lust (εἵνεκα
μαχλοσύνης στυγερῆς τέρεν ὤλεσεν ἄνθος).39 There were several explanations in
antiquity for their punishment, but the early version, and that of the Hesiodic
Catalogue, was that they offended Hera either by disparaging her statue and/or
boasting of the wealth of their father’s house in comparison to (or while actually
inside) the goddess’s temple.40 As Seaford draws out, the motivation for the
punishment of the Proitids was their resistance to marriage, which was one
important sphere of Hera’s activity.41 A number of scholars have also pointed out
ways in which Archilochus’ epode appears to be closely modelled on the Dios
Apate, or Hera’s seduction of Zeus in Iliad 14.42 If that is correct, then the role of
39 The word is also used at Il. 24.30 of the lust stirred in Paris by Aphrodite, but the line is thought
spurious by some; West (2011) 412, for example, regards it as a rhapsode’s interpolation.
40 quod Iunonis contempserant numen, Probus in Verg. Ecl. 6.48 = Hes. fr. 131 M-W; disparaging
her statue, Acousilaos FGrH 2F28; boasting in Hera’s temple, Bacch. 11.47–52, Pherecydes FGrH
3F114. A fragment of Philodemus π. εὐσεβ. (Hes. fr. 132 M-W) appears to mention the Proitids, their
wantonness, and Hera (καὶ τα[ῖς / Προιτ]ίσιν Ἥρας πρῶ̣ /το]ν̣ μὲν μαχ̣λα̣[ /). Sources are conveni-
ently assembled and discussed in Gantz (1993) 187–188, 311–313, to which add a fourth cent. BCE
bronze tablet with metrical inscription from an area near Sicyon (Lolos et al. 2011, 26, 403–404).
According to pseudo-Apollodorus, the Hesiodic version was that they did not receive the rites of
Dionysus (τὰς Διονύσου τελετὰς οὐ κατεδέχοντο, fr. 131 M-W), though the Catalogue fragments
themselves indicate Hera was the deity involved. Discussion in Vian (1965), West (1985) 78–79,
and Seaford (1988) 130–131. D’Alessio supposes that the story “was current in many variants
already in the archaic period and two, or possibly three, different tales about their wanderings are
attributed to ‘Hesiod’” (2005, 235–236). He further points out that the Catalogue, Melampodia and
Megalai Ehoiai “may have told the story in different ways” (236 n. 73). The presence of Dionysus is
taken by scholars as a later intrusion in the story (Burkert 1983, 168–179, Costanza 2009). For
Hera’s punishment and the loss of youthful bloom (ἄνθος) described with the verb ἀπερρύηκε and
the use of πέπειρα ‘ripe, mature’ to imply sexual experience in Archilochus 196 a, see Brown’s

study (1984) of Anacreon 44G/432 PMG κνυζή τις ἤδη καὶ πέπειρα γίνομαι / σὴν διὰ μαργοσύνην,
and Nicolosi (2007) 212–213.
41 Seaford (1988).
42 Bossi (1973–1974) 14–17, Treu (1976) 106, Henderson (1976) 163–167, 172, Van Sickle (1975)
126–130, 153–155, Degani (1977) 16, 37, Fowler (1987) 28–29, Swift (2016) 266–267. Swift (2015) 24

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30 Shane Hawkins
Hera is far more important to the story of Archilochus’ betrothal to the Lycambids
and Lycambes’ violation than has been recognized. Not only is it possible that the
poem’s setting is the Heraion, but there are similarities between the epode and
Hera’s seduction of Zeus, and between the depiction of the rejected Neobule and
Hera’s punishment of the Proitids.43
A final resonance: like Hesiod, Archilochus remarks on the deleterious effect
of Sirius on men (fr. 107, ἔλπομαι, πολλοὺς μὲν αὐτῶν Σείριος καθαυανεῖ ὀξὺς
ἐλλάμπων ‘many of them, I expect, will be dried up by the Dog Star’s fierce
rays’).44 Returning again to fr. 222W, we notice another masterful play on the
seasonal language of Hesiod: ἶνας δὲ μεζέων ἀπέθρισε ‘(she) severed the sinews
of (his) groin’.45 The use of θερίζω ‘do summer (θερ-) work; mow (down), reap,
would place the poem in a broader context, suggesting that “Archilochus inherited a series of
conventions for seduction scenes, associated with the high-flown world of epic”; Petropoulos
compares the ριμάδα, a traditional “dialogue in rhyming distichs between a maiden and a man
that culminates in her seduction by guile” (2008, 123), and some more modern coarse wedding
songs from Greece.
43 Although AP 6.133 (536–537 Page, FGE) was ascribed to Archilochus and accepted by Meleager
as authentic, it is now generally taken as a spurious composition of the Hellenistic era: Ἀλκιβίη
πλοκάμων ἱερὴν ἀνέθηκε καλύπτρην Ἥρῃ, κουριδίων εὖτ᾿ ἐκύρησε γάμων ‘Alcibia dedicated to
Hera the sacred veil of her tresses, when she met with a lawful marriage’. Rubensohn (1901) 218 n.
1 suggested that if the epigram was not genuine, it was attributed to Archilochus because it made
reference to Paros.
44 Trans. Gerber (1999). On the dangers of canicular period and its effect on sexual appetite, in
the larger context of Hesiod’s work and the calendar year, see Detienne (1994) 99–122; Vernant
(1989) 66–68. These themes reappear with particular vividness in Horace (Oliensis 1991, Nagy
1994).
45 The translation ‘severed’ I take from Gerber (1999) 231, who follows the standard view (LSJ9,
DELG s.v. θρίσαι) that the verb is a syncopated form (see Hollis 1991) of θερίζω ‘do summer (θερ-)
work; mow (down), reap, harvest, cut (off).’ The syncopated form appears at Aesch. Ag. 536.
Henderson (1991) 21, 118, 119, on the other hand, reading ἀποθρῑάζω, takes it as ‘strip off fig leaves
(θρῖα)’, which he understands as euphemism for retracting the foreskin before sexual activity,
with fig leaves (θρῖα) used of the foreskin (cf. Ar. Eccl. 707 f.; Ar. Ach. 1102 is not a compelling

parallel). He translates more provocatively: “she peeled back the fig-leaves [prepuce] of my
manhood” (21). This is appealing but problematic since Henderson is forced to ignore ἶνας, which
makes little sense as the object of ἀποθρῑάζω (one might also object that neither μελέων ⟨τῶν
μέσων⟩ nor μεζέων is strictly ‘manhood’). Further, Archilochus’ ἀπέθρισεν has a short iota and
cannot be straightforwardly associated with ἀποθρῑάζω unless we assume the two verbs were
confused or Archilochus is employing some word-play. See also ἀποθρῑάζω at Ar. Ach. 158, where
it either means praeputium retrahere (Taillardat 1965, 73) or indicates circumcision (Ussher 1973,
176; Sommerstein 1980, 165; Henderson 1998, 78); the scholiast explains it as a reference to genital
depilation. At Ar. Lys. 663 ἐντεθριῶσθαι means ‘wrapped in a fig leaf’, i.e. ‘with foreskin unre-

tracted’, but pace Henderson I am not convinced it also means ‘hoodwink, deceive’; the word is
not attested in that sense before Men. Sam. 241 (Gomme/Sandbach 1973, 611).

Authenticated
harvest, cut (off)’, which implies seasonal labour, does not seem coincidental. Not
only does the phrase echo Hesiod’s description of the castration of Uranus, when
Cronus ‘mowed’ (ἀμάω) the genitals of his own father (ἀπὸ μήδεα ... ἤμησε, Theog.
181–182), but with μεζέων and ἀπέθρισε Archilochus has combined in a single line
two Hesiodic images: men suffering in the cold of winter like animals tucking
their tails under their marrowy parts (perhaps playing on the notion that οὐρά can
mean ‘penis’), and the deleterious effect of the wanton women of summer.46
I hope to have made a case for the reading μέζεα in Archil. 222W and to have
situated this fragment in a broader context by noting several verbal similarities
between Archilochus and Hesiod, including affinities between their animal fa-
bles, the shared images of the tender-skinned maiden in winter and the lascivious
women of summer. Additional, possible connections could be rehearsed.47
Whether we ought to understand these as examples of allusion or as evidence of
two poets drawing from the same repertoire of inherited material, one clearly
recognizes that themes present in Hesiod were also important for Archilochus, in
particular with reference to Neobule and Lycambes.
2 τὸ πάντ’ ἄνδρ’ ἀποσκολύπτειν (Archilochus 39W)

Archilochus 39W is a short fragment that survives in Athenaeus (3.122b), the
meaning of which is somewhat dark, but which I hope to clarify here. The phrase
in question, τὸ πάντ’ ἄνδρ’ ἀποσκολύπτειν, is usually taken to mean something
like ‘to remove every man’s skin’, which is often, though not universally, under-
46 See footnote 9. In the so-called encephalomyelogenic theory, widespread in pre-modern

thought, the head (brain), spine, marrow, knees, and semen are all intricately connected; marrow
flows from the brain through the spine where it becomes semen and travels to the bones. Much
detail and bibliography can be found in Onians (1951) 108–111, 174–199 and Katz (1998) and
(2006).
47 A list restricted just to Op.: proem and Archil. 130W (Kahn 1973, 738 n. 1, but see Fowler 1987,
23); 145 Ἄρηος ἔργα στονόεντα and Archil. 3W μῶλον Ἄρης συνάγῃ ... ξιφέων δὲ πολύστονον
ἔσσεται ἔργον; Op. 202 ἐρέω ... αἶνον and Archil. 185W; on Op. 587 Σείριος ἄζει and Archil. 107W
Σείριος καθαυανεῖ see Scherer (1964) 96; Op. 612 ἀηκέστιοισι κακοῖσιν and Archil. 13.5W; Op. 701
μὴ γείτοσι χάρματα γήμῃς and Archil. 196 a.34W γεί]τοσι χάρμα ἔσομαι (which Carey 1986, 62 calls

a paraphrase); on the varia lectio ἐξέφυγον θανάτου τέλος at Archil. 5.3W (Op. 166) see Fowler
(1987) 18; Hesiod as cicada (Op. 582–584, 659) and Archilochus as cicada (223W, on which see
especially Petropoulos 1994, 56–64; for a possible parallel in Hipponax, see Miralles/Pòrtulas
1998, 92–93). Note Canevaro (2013) 193 on Hesiod: “As the cicada heralds the ‘festival’ or leisure
season, there may be a suggestion here that summer with its enforced inactivity is the perfect time
for song and poetry: but at this time, women get in the way.” Breitenstein (1971) 29–42 discusses
several other possibilities; see also Nikolaev (2014).

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32 Shane Hawkins
stood as a reference to the retraction of the foreskin.48 I think this interpretation

must be correct, but since it is always asserted, to my knowledge, without
argumentation, I will marshal support for it here. I will also argue that the context
of the passage in Athenaeus suggests that ἀποσκολύπτειν was used not only in a
sexual sense by Archilochus, but also as a metaphor for ‘fleecing’, i.e., defrauding

or swindling someone. The very same metaphor appears in Catullus, and this
possible connection between the two poets bears further exploration.
There has been little comment on how the words of Archilochus fit into the
context of the passage in which it appears, other than to note that they seem out
of place. Ostensibly, Athenaeus produces or reproduces a short list of vulgar
remarks (πονηρῶς εἰρημένα) from poets and philosophers. Each of these seems to
be an example of duplicitousness exercised for the sake of gain. For example,
Theodorus’ advice is to praise equality while acquiring more. Euripides’ line was
a soon-to-be infamous saying ‘my tongue has sworn, but my mind has not’ (Hipp.
612). The lines from Sophocles advise one to praise what is right or to say what
you must, while on the other hand doing what you must to make a profit. Even
the lines from Homer can be understood in this way. Hera plots against Zeus and
misleads him to her own advantage. Something similar would seem to apply to
the love affair of Aphrodite and Ares, since Homer tells us that Ares offered many
gifts to her before shaming the marriage bed of Hephaestus (Od. 8.267–270). It is
difficult to explain the inclusion of the line from Archilochus, which at first glance
has nothing to do with the theme of deception, if it is merely sexually obscene,
but the list of πονηρῶς εἰρημένα is too homogenous (and probably too short) to
be a collection illustrating the varieties of vulgarity.
It is useful to cite the passage from Athenaeus at length. At this point in the
learned conversation, one of the participants, Cynulcus, has been upbraided by
the symposiarch Ulpian for using a barbarism, and in the ensuing discussion on
diction Cynulcus brings up the following points (122b):
οὐδὲ γὰρ ἐπίστασαι ὅτι καὶ παρὰ τοῖς ἀρίστοις τῶν ποιητῶν καὶ συγγραφέων εἴρηταί τινα καὶ
φαῦλα. Κηφισόδωρος γοῦν ὁ Ἰσοκράτους τοῦ ῥήτορος μαθητὴς ἐν τῷ τρίτῳ τῶν Πρὸς
Ἀριστοτέλην λέγει ὅτι εὕροι τις ἂν ὑπὸ τῶν ἄλλων ποιητῶν ἢ καὶ σοφιστῶν ἓν ἢ δύο γοῦν
πονηρῶς εἰρημένα, οἷα παρὰ μὲν Ἀρχιλόχῳ τὸ πάντ’ ἄνδρ’ ἀποσκολύπτειν, Θεοδώρῳ δὲ τὸ
κελεύειν μὲν πλέον ἔχειν, ἐπαινεῖν δὲ τὸ ἴσον, Εὐριπίδῃ τὲ τὸ τὴν γλῶτταν ὀμωμοκέναι
φάναι, καὶ Σοφοκλεῖ τὸ ἐν Αἰθίοψιν εἰρημένον·
τοιαῦτά τοί σοι πρὸς χάριν τε κοὐ βίᾳ
λέγω. σὺ δ’ αὐτός, ὥσπερ οἱ σοφοί, τὰ μὲν
48 So already, e.g., Schweighäuser (1802) 354 “decorticare, pelle detracta nudare”, Adrados

(1955) 44; Gulick (1967) 69, “skin every man” sensu obsceno; Gerber (1999) 111, “pull back the
foreskin”; Henderson (1991) 21, 27, 168 n. 78; Olson (2006) 81, “to remove every man’s skin”.

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δίκαι’ ἐπαίνει, τοῦ δὲ κερδαίνειν ἔχου.

καὶ ἀλλαχοῦ δ’ ὁ αὐτὸς ἔφη μηδὲν εἶναι ῥῆμα σὺν κέρδει κακόν· Ὁμήρῳ δὲ τὸ τὴν Ἥραν
ἐπιβουλεῦσαι τῷ Διὶ καὶ τὸν Ἄρη μοιχεύειν· ἐφ’ οἷς πάντες κατηγοροῦσιν αὐτῶν.
For you do not realize that some unelevated remarks are made by even the best poets and
prose-authors. Cephisodorus the student of the orator Isocrates, for example, says in Book
III of his Reply to Aristotle (fr. 5 Radermacher) that one can find at least one or two vulgar
remarks made by the other poets and philosophers, such as the phrase “to remove every
man’s skin” in Archilochus (fr. 39 West2, unmetrical), and “to encourage the accumulation
of wealth, but praise equality” in Theodorus (SH 754, unmetrical); or having someone say
“my tongue has sworn an oath” in Euripides (Hipp. 612); or what Sophocles says in
Ethiopians (fr. 28):
I am making these remarks to you to please you
and not because I must. But as for you yourself, do
what wise people do,
and praise what is right but cling to making a profit!
And elsewhere (El. 61) the same author said that no speech made with profit in mind is bad.
Likewise Hera’s plotting against Zeus in Homer (Il. 14.159ff) and Ares’ illicit love-affair (Od.
8.266ff). And everyone condemns them for these passages.49
A proper interpretation of the Achilochean line hinges on the verb ἀποσκολύπτω,

which is quite rare and only appears in this fragment and in about a dozen
glosses.50 The glosses record three different meanings of the word. Most often it
49 The text and translation are from Olson (2006) 80–83. Athenaeus has not supplied us with
verbatim quotations in this passage. He reports Archilochus’ phrase as τὸ πάντα ἄνδρα ἀποσκο-
λύπτειν (there is a variant in MS A, ἀποσκολόπτειν, while C and E, the latter post correctionem,
have ἀποσκολύπτειν). This reading can be made metrical with slight emendations, but I am
skeptical of our ability to restore the original phrase simply because there are ways to repair the
meter. The meaning and thus the correct restoration of the Archilochean line will have to be
gauged from other clues. Emendations include: Jacobs (1798) 169 πάντ’ ἄνδρ’ ἀποσκόλυπτειν or
ἀποσκόλυπτει (so Lasserre 1950); Bergk (1882) printed the former but suggested both πάντα δ’
ἄνδρ’ ἀποσκόλυπτειν and πᾶς ἀνὴρ ἀπεσκόλυπτεν; Hoffmann (1898) 116 πάντα [δ’] ἄνδρ’ ἀπεσκό-
λυπτεν; Adrados (1955) 44 πάντ’ ἄνδρ’ ἀπεσκόλυπτεν; Bossi (1990) 125–126 correctly points out
there is no conclusive evidence that the verb was in the third singular imperfect; a third singular
form could be due to “un meccanismo di lemmatizzazione.” Bowie (2000) 128 observes that in
most cases of citation from elegiac and iambic poets Athenaeus does not seem to be much
concerned with a quotation’s context, although, more reassuringly, the “volume of citations from
Archilochus (seventeen) ... might seem to create a prima facie case for Athenaeus’ direct use” of a
text of Archilochus; “so too might the fact that Archilochus’ iambic poetry is also cited by a fair
number of Athenaeus’ rough contemporaries” (2000, 130).
50 Etymologically, ἀποσκολύπτειν is traditionally related to σκύλλω and σκάλλω ‘tear, dishevel,
trouble; shave’ (DELG and GEW s.v. σκολύπτειν). Vine (1999) shows that we can reconstruct a
form *skol(H)-ye/o-, which involves a well-known process called Cowgill’s Law, by which pre-
Greek *o developed by regular sound change to upsilon in the environment before *-ly- (thus

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34 Shane Hawkins
means to uncover the skin, to peel, to strip bare, or to take away the skin or to
strip naked. It may also mean to prune or dock something, and four times we are
told explicitly that the word refers to a circumcised penis. A passive form is
glossed rather vaguely on an Oxyrhynchus papyrus as ‘to be wronged/injured’. A
few forms of σκολύπτω are also attested; Hesychius defines it with words mean-
ing ‘to prune, to dock, to pluck out/strip bare (used of leaves)’, while Eustathius
and a scholiast to Aristophanes use it in the sense ‘circumcise’. Finally, Hesychius
defines ἀνασκολύπτω as ‘strip naked’.51
Deciding which of these is the likeliest sense of the word in Archilochus is not
a difficult task. It is unlikely that Athenaeus would have included the Archilo-
chean line in this passage if ἀποσκολύπτειν was merely a banal ‘harm’. On the
other hand, Wolf, taking his lead from the glosses mentioning circumcision,
σκύλλω ⟨ *skol-yō). This environment was not present in the pre-form of ἀποσκολύπτειν, so the *o
was not raised to upsilon. This is perfectly straightforward, linguistically speaking. A more
idiosyncratic explanation, which unconvincingly appeals to a pre-Greek origin for this word, is
found in Beekes (2010). The salient point, as discussed below, is that ἀποσκολύπτειν is etymologi-
cally connected to σκύλλω; that is, they are built on the same verbal root.
51 ἀποσκολύπτω: 1) Hesych. α 6046: ἀποσκολύπτεν· ἀπεσκέπαζε (ἀπέσκεπτε cod.: corr. Wack-
ernagel, ἀπέσκαπτε? Bossi with ref. to Et. Gen. β 108 Berg) τὸ δέρμα, ὅθεν καὶ σκολοδέψης (Latte,
-της cod., -φης Musurus), aposkolýpten: ‘to uncover the skin’, whence also ‘tanner’. I assume
σκολοδέψης is equivalent to (or should be emended to) σκυλοδέψης. It is probably no coincidence
that both σκυλο- and δέψης have obscene meanings; 2) Hesych. α 6632: ἀποσκολύπτε· ἀπολέπισον
(-ζον cod.: corr. Latte) καὶ ἀποκόλουε (Soph. fr. 423R). φασὶ καὶ τὸν περιτμημένον τὸ αἰδοῖον
ἀπεσκολυμμένον. Σοφοκλῆς Μώμῳ, aposkolýpte: ‘to peel and cut off short’. And they call the
circumcised penis apeskolymménon. Sophocles [used the word] in Momos; 3) Bekker, Anecd. 423:
ἀποσκόλυπτεν· κυρίως τὸ δέρμα ἀφῄρει, ἤδη δὲ καὶ τὸ ἐγύμνου, aposkolýpten: properly ‘to take
away the skin’, and even now ‘to strip naked’; 4) Ael. Dion. α 162 Erbse 1950: ἀποσκολύψαι·
ἀφελεῖν τὸ δέρμα ἢ ἀπογυμνῶσαι· Σοφοκλῆς δὲ ἐν Μώμῳ ⟨ἀποσκόλυπτε⟩ τὸ ἀποκόλουε· φασὶ ⟨δὲ⟩
καὶ τὸν περιτμημένον τὸ αἰδοῖον ἀπεσκολυμμένον, aposkolýpsai: ‘to take away the skin or to strip
bare’. And Sophocles in Momus [used] apokóloue ‘cut short’. And they also call the circumcised
genitals apeskolymménon; 5) Synag. AG I 118.29 Bachm. (423.24 Bekk., cf. Ael. Dion. α 162E.)
ἀποσκολύψαι· ἀφελεῖν τὸ δέρμα, aposkolýpsai: ‘to take away the skin’; 6) EM 120.26 ἀπεσκολυμμέ-
νος· καταχρηστικῶς δὲ καὶ ἐπὶ τοῦ τὸ δέρμα ἀφῃρημένου, apeskolymménos: by extension ‘to take
away the skin’; 7) Eustath. ad Hom. N 640 (p. 952.13) ἀποσκολύπτειν· τὸ ἀφαιρεῖν τὸ δέρμα ὅθεν
καὶ σκυλεύειν μεταφορικῶς, aposkolýptein: ‘to take away the skin’, whence also metaphorically
‘to plunder’; 8) Ad. ia. 45 (POxy 2324, 2325, 2328) τοὺς ἀπεσκολυμμένους· τοὺς κεκακουχημένους,
toùs apeskolymménous: ‘to be wronged/injured’; 9) Pollux 2.176: ὁ δὲ πόσθης ἔρημος [καλεῖται]
ἀπεσκολυμμένος ‘the penis stripped bare(?) [is called] apeskolymménos’.
σκολύπτω: Hesych. σκολύψαι· κολοῦσαι, κολοβῶσαι, ἐκτίλλω(?), skolýpsai: ‘to prune, to dock, to
pluck out/strip bare (of leaves)’. Note also schol. ad Ar. Eq. 964 ἐσκολύφθαι τὸ αἰδοῖον and
Eustath. ad Hom. μ 48 (1710.18) τὸ σκολύπτειν ἐστιν ἐπὶ περιτομῆς. ὅθεν καὶ ἀπεσκολύφθαι
αἰδοῖον λέγεται, καὶ ἀπεσκολυμμένος ὁ τοῦτο παθών.
ἀνασκολύπτω: 1) Hesych. ἀνασκολύψας· γυμνώσας, anaskolýpsas: ‘stripped naked’.

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suggests that the fragment belongs to a war-themed poem depicting the mutila-
tion of genitals (“die Schilderung des Abschneidens der Geschlechtsteile”).52 But
this idea goes far beyond what can be gleaned from the word itself, nor would an
explanation based on that scenario fit easily in the Athenaean context. For
support of his view Wolf compares Archil. 198 (Lasserre = 222W), but the text and
interpretation of this line, which has been discussed in detail above, suggests an
erotic context rather than, as Wolf would have it, a Kampfgedicht.53 For a fragment
of similar content that is certainly not martial in theme, one can compare Archil.
252W ἀλλ’ ἀπερρώγασι μύκεω τένοντες ‘but the sinews of (my?) cock were
ruptured’ (μύκης is literally ‘mushroom’).
Since, as noted above, the examples assembled in Athenaeus are all exam-
ples of profit through deceit, one might consider how ἀποσκολύπτειν as ‘retrac-
tion of the foreskin’ fits thematically into this group. The image of ‘skinning’ for
the retraction of the foreskin is a common metaphor, especially in iambic and
comedy, where the verbs (ἀπο)δέρειν ‘to flay or skin’, πέκ(τ)ειν or πεκτεῖν ‘to
shear’, λέπειν ‘to peel off the rind or husk’, and πτίσσειν ‘to peel or hull’ can also
mean to pull back the foreskin.54 The image is probably common, perhaps cross
linguistically; compare Latin tergum and corium, which mean both ‘hide’ and
‘foreskin’, and words for skinning or shearing like glubit, deglubit, tonstrix, tondet,
and radit, which all mean ‘peel’ or ‘shave’, and which are all used to refer to the
retraction of foreskin.55
Finally, we are at a point where the phrase attributed to Archilochus may be
compared to these other citations if we understand that ‘to skin’ functions, not
only in a sexual sense, but as a metaphor for deception or the stripping of some-
one’s money or property.56 I know of no example showing that this expression
had currency as early as Archilochus, but there is evidence for it being well-
known already in classical Athens. For example, the phrase ‘to shear the spring
wool’ (πεκτεῖν ... προβάτων πόκον ἠρινόν) at Ar. Av. 714 may allude to the spring
collection of tribute from Athenian allies.57 An even closer example comes in the
52 Wolf (1966) 99–100.

53 Bossi (1990) 224–225, Gerber (1999) 231.
54 See further Henderson (1991) 112, 115, 132–133, 167–168, 184–185; Hipponax 12.3West/20.3
Degani. On κῳδάριον ‘little sheepskin’ (Ar. Ran. 1203) = ‘foreskin’, which Hesych. glosses as
σκύλον, see Hawkins (2014) 577 n. 48. The penis can also be referred to as δέμας ‘flesh’, and δέρμα
‘skin’ is used of the foreskin or entire penis.
55 Adams (1982) 73, Hawkins (2014).
56 Somewhat similar is Greek βινεῖν, which, “like English screw, can mean hoodwink or deceive”
(Henderson 1991, 152, 176).
57 See Dunbar (1995) 455, who notes that this interpretation of the passage is suggested by the
entries in Hesychius (s.v. ἠρινοτόκου· ἀπὸ τῶν ποιμνίων τῶν κατ’ ἔτος φόρους τελούντων ἔαρι)

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36 Shane Hawkins
Lysistrata; after Myrrhine employs numerous delaying tactics against her amor-
ous husband, she ultimately frustrates him and leaves before consummation. He
complains that he has been cheated (ψευσθείς, Ar. Lys. 955), saying at lines 952–
953 that ‘the woman’s destroyed me and rubbed me out, she fleeced me in every
way and fled!’ (ἀπολώλεκέν με κἀπιτέτριφεν ἡ γυνὴ / τὰ τ’ ἄλλα πάντα κἀπο-
δείρασ’ οἴχεται), which may be an echo of Archilochus’ τὸ πάντ’ ἄνδρ’ ἀποσκο-
λύπτειν.58
The most interesting use of this imagery appears in Catullus c. 58:
Caeli, Lesbia nostra, Lesbia illa,

illa Lesbia, quam Catullus unam
plus quam se atque suos amauit omnes,
nunc in quadriuiis et angiportis
glubit magnanimos Remi nepotes.
Caelius, our Lesbia, that Lesbia,

The Lesbia, whom alone Catullus
loved more than himself and all his own,
now in crossroads and alleys
peels the great-hearted sons of Remus.59
and Photius (s.v. ἠρινοῦ τόκου· ἐπεὶ ἔαρος οἱ φόροι ἐφέροντο), which do not appear to be based
on Ar. Av. 714.
58 Sommerstein (1990) 115 translates, “the woman’s done for me and murdered me, in every
possible way, and in particular by skinning my cock and scooting!” The word τρίβειν ‘rub, chafe;
excite’ is no doubt used here with sexual overtones (Henderson 1991, 176). Perhaps also related is
the image of someone who is willing to be flayed in return for receiving some privilege (as opposed
to being flayed instead of receiving the privilege). At Ar. Nub. 442 Strepsiades is willing to be
flayed into a wineskin (ἀσκὸν δείρειν) if only the school of Socrates will teach him how to escape
his debts. Solon 33.5W is written in the voice of someone willing to be flayed into a wineskin and
for his family to be crushed if he is allowed to seize the wealth of Athens as tyrant for a day (ἀσκὸς
ὕστερον δεδάρθαι κἀπιτετρίφθαι γένος). The image of being flayed into a wineskin or some such
object is already clichéd (cf. Ar. Eq. 370, 768; Taillardat 1965, 347; Fisher 1984, 137), but the
similarity in phrasing between Ar. Lys. 953 and the line of Solon is curious. At Plato Euthyd. 285 c
Socrates and Ctesippus are willing to be boiled or flayed by Dionysodorus if only he will make
good men of them. Later examples are closer in theme. In Suetonius we are told about Tiberius
that, “To the governors who recommended burdensome taxes for his provinces, he wrote in
answer that it was the part of a good shepherd to shear (tondere) his flock, not skin (deglubere) it”
(text and translation Rolfe 1998). Likewise, in a passage from Cassius Dio (57.10.5), Tiberius
responds to the excessive revenues collected by Aemilius Rectus, his governor in Egypt, thus: “I
wish you to clip my sheep, not shave them clean” (κείρεσθαί μου τὰ πρόβατα, ἀλλ’ οὐκ ἀποξύρ-
εσθαι βούλομαι).
59 For the reading magnanimos instead of magnanimi in line five see Arkins (1977) 237, Skutsch
(1980) 21, Trappes-Lomax (2007) 137. Compare Hipponax 12W.

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The word glubere is much-discussed in scholarship.60 Like the Greek words

σκύλλειν or λέπειν ‘to peel off rind, to husk’ and πτίσσειν ‘to peel or hull’, glubere
is a double entendre and metaphorically implies the retraction of the foreskin. It
has also been supposed that the word suggests some kind of financial or business
transaction in which Lesbia fleeces her back-street clients.61
I have argued elsewhere that in poems 58 and 60 Catullus makes a rather
elaborate accusation against Lesbia that plays on her name and the Greek verb
λεσβιάζειν ‘to perform fellatio’.62 Poem 60 is closely modeled on a portion of
Jason’s final speech in Euripides’ Medea, and the particular lines alluded to by
Catullus were infamous in antiquity because Jason’s bitter farewell to Medea, ἔρρ’
αἰσχροποιέ ‘Away, evil-doer!’, was scandalous already in the Hellenistic period
when αἰσχροποιός had come to be a euphemism for a woman who performed
fellatio.63 I further note that the reference to Scylla in poem 60 is not without point
and that Catullus has been influenced here by Callimachus, who made an ob-
scene pun on this name: Σκύλλα γυνὴ κατακᾶσα καὶ οὐ ψύθος οὔνομ’ ἔχουσα
‘Scylla, a κατακᾶσα woman, having no untrue name’. The word κατακᾶσα is
glossed with αἰσχροποιεῖν and may be defined as a woman who performs fellatio.
In short, the name Scylla in Callimachus puns on the obscene meaning of
σκύλλειν ‘to peel/to pull back the foreskin’, and this is also what Catullus is
alluding to in his poem 60. The fact that Archilochus’ ἀποσκολύπτειν is formed on
this very same root, *skol(H)- (see footnote 50), suggests a long tradition for the
obscene use of this root.64
Certainly some depictions of Lesbia and the tenor of Catullus 58 appear to
recall the language of Archilochus, such as the lines of the Cologne fragment in
60 Brief mentions of Archilochus’ fragment, as a parallel rather than an example of intertext,

have been made in earlier discussion of glubit by Doering (1826) 168, Jacobs (1798) 169, Liebel
(1818) 217–218, Lasserre (1950) 99–104 (with Stoessl’s 1953 review); Jocelyn (1979) 89. Some
important discussions of glubit include Lenz (1963), Penella (1976), Wiseman (1979), Randall
(1980), Arkins (1977), (1979), Jocelyn (1979), Skutsch (1980), Henderson (1991) 167–168, Holzberg
(2000) 41, Holzberg (2002) 97–101, Muse (2009). See also Hawkins (2014).
61 Lenz (1963), Quinn (1970) 260, Arkins (1979) 86, (1982) 100; so Vorberg (1932), s.vv. deglubere,
glubere, Tränkle (1981). Recently, Muse (2009) has highlighted the role of the nepotes, notoriously
decadent spendthrifts in Roman tradition, and Hawkins (2014) argues that the emphasis of the
poem is not that Lesbia fails to deliver her services or that she merely cheats these men, but that
her services leave them utterly bereft.
62 Hawkins (2014).
63 Hawkins (2014); see Page (1938) 176; Gow (1965) 127–128.
64 See Hawkins (2014) for similar Hellenistic and earlier uses of the Scylla figure. Nicolosi (2014)
134–137 and (2016) 185–189 argues that the archetype is Archilochus 331W, but this fragment may
be a Hellenistic composition (so, e.g., West 1974, 139–40; Silk 1985; Gerber 1999, 293; Olson 2011,

3; Nikolaev 2014, 21 n. 44).

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38 Shane Hawkins
which Neobule is depicted as insatiate, and where it is implied she is faithless and
duplicitous, called ‘precipitate’ and said to make many lovers. Elsewhere Archi-
lochus is said to call Neobule δῆμος ‘a public woman’, and ἐργάτις ‘a worker for
hire’ (i.e., prostitute), and perhaps also μυσαχνή ‘polluted’, with the meaning

‘froth-defiled’ (to judge from Eustathius’ μυσάχνην πρὸς ἀναλογίαν τοῦ ἁλὸς
ἄχνη, indicating fellatio).65 Note also Lasserre’s suggestion that Catullus’ in quad-
riuiis et angiportis has a deliberate Archilochean ring, if we agree that AP 7.351
(Dioscorides), discussed above, suggests Archilochus had accused the women of
indecency ἐν ἀγυιαῖς ‘in the streets’ (line 7).66
The question of allusion in Catullus is an extremely complex one, and my
only intention here is to argue that there is some light to shed on Archilochus’
ἀποσκολύπτειν from the reflection of the theme in Catullus. I take it as axiomatic
that although perceived allusions to Archilochus in Catullus, even ones with
strong verbal cues, are mediated by the Hellenistic and early Roman reception of
Archilochus, there is no reason to think that a sophisticated and learned writer
such as Catullus would not be capable and desirous of playing specifically on
Archilochus while simultaneously drawing from diffuse sources making up the
iambic or Archilochean stream.67
65 Henderson (1991) 22, Bossi (2007). See Archil. 206–209W, Eust. ad Λ 307 and Ψ 775. Eckerman
(2011) argues that the sexual act in the Cologne epode is also fellatio, though this can be no more
than a conjecture.
66 Lasserre (1950) 94. Suggestions of additional Archilochean allusion/intertext/resonance (as
one wishes), some compelling, can be found in Lafaye (1894) 1–41, Hendrickson (1925), Hezel
(1932) 39–48, Lasserre (1950), Koster (1980) 282–293, Newman (1990) 43–74, Wray (2001), Hey-
worth (2001), Holzberg (2002) 46–49, Clay (2008), Hutchinson 2012. For Hipponactean intertext
see additionally Koenen (1977), Vine (2009) (with much bibliography), who finds a connection
between the grauedo frigida of the choliambic c. 44 and the recurring theme of “the discomforts of
cold” in Hipponax (compare also Hes. Op. 496–499), Hawkins (2012) 346 with n. 53 on Catullus
53.5 salaputium and Calvus as an embodiment of iambic, and Lavigne (2010). Wray (2001) 186
notes that “Catullus offers no poetic reference to Archilochus so explicit as to exclude all doubt,”
though he argues we may speak of Catullus writing in an Archilochean mode or of using
Archilochus as a code model, and of character or persona-intertexts (pp. 166–167). He suggests (p.
184) three relevant factors in Catullus’ reception of Archilochus: the Archilochean text as Catullus
“read it and construed an Archilochian persona from it,” the Hellenistic and earlier Roman critical
and literary reception of Archilochus, and “the extent to which Catullus’s performance of selfhood
would have been Archilochian” even if he had never heard the name of Archilochus (with a
valuable chapter on the Mediterranean poetics of aggression). “These three strains make for the
possibility of a rich ‘mapping’ of Archilochean significance onto Catullus’ poetry, and onto his
poetic persona. It is precisely its richness that makes it difficult to explicate with precision.”
67 Heyworth (2001) 121, Watson (1990) 27 n. 19, Lavigne (2010) 72; Hezel (1932) 39–48; “Was
Catull von den Griechen bewusst für seine Jambik übernommen hat, stammt aus dem Hellenismus
und damit aus der Epigrammatik” (p. 48). Compare Fraenkel’s observation (1957, 32) that Horace

Authenticated
Two widely recognized examples of Archilochean intertext illustrate this

point. One of these appears in poem 40, quaenam te mala mens ... / agit ... in meos
iambos? / ... an ut peruenias in ora uulgi? ‘What drives you headlong into my
iambics ... or do you do this to live on in the mouths of the crowd?’, which bears
comparison to Archilochus’ address to Lycambes (172W), τίς σὰς παρήιρε φρένας
... / ...; νῦν δὲ δὴ πολύς / ἀστοῖσι φαίνέαι γέλως ‘Who unhinged your wits ...? Now
you seem to the townspeople a source of much laughter’.68 Another is poem 56, O
rem ridiculam, Cato, et iocosam / dignamque auribus et tuo cachinno / ride,
quidquid amas, Cato, Catullum ‘A funny thing, Cato, quite absurd, worth your
hearing and chuckling over. Laugh as you love Catullus, Cato’ (cf. also 53.1 risi
nescio quem modo ...). This has long been compared to Archil. fr. 168W, Χαρίλαε, /
χρῆμά τοι γελοῖον / ἐρέω, πολὺ φίλταθ’ ἑταίρων ‘Charilaus, by far the dearest of
my companions, I shall tell you something funny and you will be delighted to
hear it’.69 Even these seemingly clear verbal echoes of Archilochus were senti-
ments already well-known by Catullus’ time. Note the words of Fordyce on the
former: “these phrases belong to the stock-in-trade of invective.”70 On the latter
Quinn compares Cic. QFr. 2.13: Risi ‘niuem atra’, teque hilari animo esse ... me
iuuat. Such observations, however, only suggest that Catullus probably knew he
was mining a long tradition that stretched back to Archilochus.71 So, in the case of
c. 56, Cowan has persuasively argued that the poem forms a polemical response
to M. Porcius Cato’s (now lost) iamboi, in which Catullus asserts the importance
of τὸ ἀκόλαστον, here ‘obscene language’, and τὸ παιδαριῶδες ‘childishness’ as
two elements of Archilochean iambic that Cato appears to have intentionally
suppressed in his own iambic poetry.72
Be that as it may, Archilochus is called to mind several times at the end of
Catullus’ polymetria: in addition to the examples from poems 40, 53 and 56 just
given above, and poem 58’s in quadriuiis et angiportis/Archilochean ἐν ἀγυιαῖς,
we find the images of peeling and fleecing in the word glubit and c. 60’s pun on
Skylla/σκύλλειν, which recall and illuminate the Archilochean ἀποσκολύπτειν. It
explicitly claimed to model his Epodes on Archilochus, though in their reworking “they show a
definitely Hellenistic character.” He notes that Horace’s “general practice seems to have been first
to follow (for the purpose of free adaptation) one favorite poet, the classic of a particular genre,
and later, when the need of variation made itself felt, to widen his compass.”
68 Translation Gerber (1999). Wray (2001) 178–179 is good on the similarities.
69 Translation Gerber (1999).
70 Fordyce (1961) 190–191. Ellis (1889) 144 gives examples.
71 Quinn (1970) 248.
72 Cowan (2015). Note also Cowan’s remarks (2015, 40) on a similar reaction to Callimachus’
more “sophisticated, feminized, ‘water-drinking’” Hipponactean iambos in Catullus’ “aggressive,
‘wine-drinking’, hypermasculine voice” that resurrects the spirit of Ionian iambus.

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40 Shane Hawkins
is even possible that the sound of glubit is an intentional sonic imitation of

Archilochus’ aposkoluptein (glub-t and -k-lupt-).
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Philologus 2019; 163(1): 16–46

Abstract: This article is a contribution to our understanding of how Archilochean

Keywords: Archilochus, Hesiod, Catullus, allusion, reception

Further adventures in the skin trade

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1 ἶνας δὲ μελέων ⟨τῶν μέσων⟩ ἀπέθρισε

μήδεα· τὰ αἰδοῖα, παρὰ τὸ μέδειν καὶ ἄρχειν τῆς γε-

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τία· ἢ καὶ μέσεα τοῦ σώματος, “οὐρὰς δ’ ὑπὸ μέζε’

mḗdea: the genitals, from tò médein (‘ruling’) and governing

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“improbable on dialectal grounds,” but on the contrary it is not easy to say

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13 Watkins (1975) 25–26 = (1994) 534–535, (1978) = (1994) 588–592.

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τόνδε γὰρ ἀνθρώποισι νόμον διέταξε Κρονίων,

Archil. fr. 177:

ὦ Ζεῦ, πάτερ Ζεῦ, σὸν μὲν οὐρανοῦ κράτος,

O Zeus, father Zeus, the rule of heaven is yours,

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καὶ διὰ παρθɛνικῆς ἁπαλόχροος οὐ διάησιν,

οὐκέ˼θ’ ὁμῶς θάλλεις ἁπαλὸν χρόα· κάρφετα˪ι γὰρ ἤδη

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μαχλόταται δὲ γυναῖκɛς, ἀφαυρότατοι δέ τοι ἄνδρɛς / ɛἰσίν, ἐπɛὶ κɛφαλὴν καὶ

Ἀρχίλοχον, μὰ θεοὺς καὶ δαίμονας οὔτ’ ἐν ἀγυιαῖς

By the gods and daemones, we saw Archilochus neither

Assuming that Dioscorides’ μάχλοι is taken from or reminiscent of the language of

POxy 2312, fr. 27+5(c), ed. Lobel.

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2 τὸ πάντ’ ἄνδρ’ ἀποσκολύπτειν (Archilochus 39W)

46 See footnote 9. In the so-called encephalomyelogenic theory, widespread in pre-modern

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stood as a reference to the retraction of the foreskin.48 I think this interpretation

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δίκαι’ ἐπαίνει, τοῦ δὲ κερδαίνειν ἔχου.

A proper interpretation of the Achilochean line hinges on the verb ἀποσκολύπτω,

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52 Wolf (1966) 99–100.

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Caeli, Lesbia nostra, Lesbia illa,

Caelius, our Lesbia, that Lesbia,

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The word glubere is much-discussed in scholarship.60 Like the Greek words

60 Brief mentions of Archilochus’ fragment, as a parallel rather than an example of intertext,

3; Nikolaev 2014, 21 n. 44).

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Two widely recognized examples of Archilochean intertext illustrate this

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is even possible that the sound of glubit is an intentional sonic imitation of

J. N. Adams, The Latin Sexual Vocabulary, London 1982.

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M. Gagarin, “Dikē in Archaic Greek Thought”, CPh 69, 1974, 186–197.

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