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The Ball of Eros (Ap. Rhod. III. 135 ff.) Author(s): M. M. Gillies Source: The Classical Review, Vol. 38, No. 3/4 (May - Jun., 1924), pp. 50-51Published by: on behalf of Cambridge University Press The Classical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/698360Accessed: 23-06-2015 09:45 UTC

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50 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW

THE BALL OF EROS (AP. RHOD. III. 135 ff.) oa~pav &'vrp6XaXov . . XpJ ea cLtv0 ot K6KXcL TETE6XcLrc d.-L' p a' CKdorQy &7rX6caL al se 7reptq-Y1es ElXL'OtYMor L* Kp'7r5' & kl datcLc-cL ' ivX rL a' eirtaiaPO~te rfoCLc= Kvavrl.

THIS passage has given a great deal of trouble to commentators, and has been variously misunderstood. Mr. Mooney, following de Mirmont, translates it: 'The circlets of it are wrought of gold (it is made of circlets of gold, de M.), and around each of them wind double curving rings; but the joinings are hidden, for a spiral of blue runs over all of them.' He takes this to mean that the ball was made of a number of separate circlets of gold, which were kept in position by two rings enclosing them on the outside, and that the join- ings of the ';cXa and #Z8,eq were con- cealed by the spiral of blue. Seaton, on the other hand, follows the explanation of the scholiast

a"r8e'. o0 oo-vvaat, and

translates, 'All of gold are its zones ...' Now that is not how an ancient ball

was made; and even if a ball were made of golden circlets stitched to- gether, Hephaestus himself would have his work cut out to make it conform with these translations. An ancient ball was commonly made of a core of hair-stuffing enclosed in a cover, which consisted of several pieces of cloth or skin (bAXXa) sewn together. The seams were often disguised- by designs or colouring; cf. the epigram els oq-bapav (Jacobs, 2, p. 563 ; Anth. Pal. 14, 82):

X17'P vTrPLX6rs EIL" T-r& "aXXCA i /LOU KcvraLp6r-TEL rds 7ptlXaCs ' 7 7 UrpiJ77 qCtVEC o8c~l6Oev. Here the MS. gives 77 'plP Vr; but

Brunck reads 7' 7 7pvyrrW, keeping this form of rpv3^ra on the authority of Herodian (ed. Lentz, p. 443. I). Bethe, however, is probably right in reading 77 86\ jeaf07.

But surely in the passage of Apollo- nius it is a question not so much of construction as of ornament, in ex- planation of the preceding phrase in 132, repetaXX9

WOuvpp~a. Here Pech-

ties (Qu. Phil. et Arch. de Ap. Rh. Arg. 19 2, P. 33) is nearer the mark in suggesting ' KcvXa illa simpliciter circu- los parvos indicare, quorum plures media in pila erant.' But that is little

clearer than the text of Apollonius; and, at any rate, he goes on to make havoc of the sense by following the scholiast, and making of AdE1ec a double row of seams. Is not I/cdXa used in a spatial sense, just as it is applied by Zeno ap. Diog. Laert. 7. 155 to the ' zones ' of heaven and earth ? In that case, it seems nothing more than the space enclosed between two circular (and parallel) lines. aLZ#'Se, pace scholi- astae, has nothing in the world to do with 'seams'; it is a word which im- plies something forming a circle (e.g. the sun, Eur. Ion 88) or a semicircle or arc (e.g. the rainbow, Arist. Meteor. 3. 2. 3; the arch of heaven, Plat. Phaed. 247b). Here it is probably in the sense of a semicircle. 8& is explana- tory, almost the same as ycdp (cp. 139 inf., and Od. I. 433 of Laertes and Eurycleia: EU'v 8' oi' wo''

" "

o '

Xoov 8'

a,Xeve L yvvatKco); the 86 answering

this p~v comes later, /cpv7rraL '8 kafat K.T.X.

rreptd7ee', as elsewhere in the

poem, means 'circular,' here in the sense of 'forming a circle,' and finally twrXdau is not so much in the sense of 'double,' i.e. two, each running the whole way round, as merely meaning 'two' numerically, cp. Soph. O. T. 20, IaXXd8o0 8Lot7rXotS vaot : i.e. two, each in the shape of an arc, together forming a circle.

Finally, and what is most important of all, a 'spiral runs over them all.' To make intelligible the usual interpre- tations of this passage-as far, that is to say, as they can be made intelligible at all-it is necessary to assume that 'each seam is covered by a spiral,' assuming more than one e'Xt in defiance of the singular, or else that the spiral twists and turns in every direction in order to overtake all the seams. The ex- planation here suggested rests on two assumptions: (I) That it is a question of decoration, not construction; and (2) that when Apollonius says gXt? he does not mean

XLK9. Therefore we must imagine a ball

with a number-not exactly stated-of icVKXa, a KcKXov being nothing more than the space occupied by two semi-

circular fr~3e9; being a space, it is

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THE CLASSICAL REVIEW 51 'golden' only in the sense that the circular decoration which occupies it is golden. Having two A*se&, each ,icx- Xov has of course two joins, one on each side of the ball, where the two semicircles meet; these joins are naturally arranged one above the other, so that a single 6Lx-t-that is to say, a line running once round the circum- ference, meander - pattern-is able to conceal them all.

If the semicircular e*&rt seems too bold an assumption, one can equally well imagine that each KcviEXov was

covered by two circular bands of gold -like a fountain pen with two gold bands together; even so, it would be necessary to attach them to the main fabric of the ball, and this was done by stitches arranged as suggested above.

The greatest difficulty of all is the translation; it might run as follows:

'On it golden circles are marked out -golden, because each,is formed by two arcs (of gold) which run round. They are stitched to the ball, but the seams are hidden; for over them all there runs a dark blue spiral.'

M. M. GILLIES.

THE END OF THE SUPPLICES TRILOGY OF AESCHYLUS. IT is now more than a century since

Hermann' put forward the theory that the last play of the Supplices trilogy (assumed to be the Danaides) culminated in the trial of Hypermnestra for dis- obedience to her father, and in her acquittal through the eloquence of Aphrodite; and, widely as critics have differed on other points, the correctness of this conjecture has become almost an axiom. It is stated as a fact in the sixth edition of Christ-Schmid's Geschichte der Griechischen Litteratur (1912),2 and in England it has been assumed with- out argument by writers so various as Tucker,3 Ridgeway,4 Sheppard,5 and Murray.o The object of this note is to point out how slender are the grounds for this confidence, and to invite con- sideration for a different theory.

Hermann based his suggestion, in the main, on two facts: first, that Pau- sanias, in his description of Argos, refers three times7 to a trial and ac- quittal of Hypermnestra; and, secondly, that the principal fragment of the Danaides (fr. 44, Nauck), quoted by Athenaeus, is part of a speech by Aphrodite, which might well be part of a defence of Hypermnestra. This frag- ment fits especially well with the first

and most important of the three Pau- sanias passages (II. 19, 6): r

-

c3 S ava 'A"po89T xcal

'Eppoio, TvO p' v 'E'WetoU

Xeyovo-w pryov elvat, &T Se 'Trepw14- orpag vaWfl/na. '-ab rTv y7ip

c-Ov Ovya- TepOwv Pfov veT 7"rpoo-Taory/a brept$oorav bz7rrgyaryev o Aavabs d9 &KSaorTpovov, 70O Te Avrylic'cog ovic dlv8vrvov abzC- T7-v owTfrpiav 7jyovlzevo9, xal 07- 701 70TX/- /aTo9 o /peTao-Xov oa TaLT teX'baE Kat TV 8ovXea-avrb To V6b 've1?o1 Vi;re. Kpb- Oeo-a 6'd Vo 70 'Apyeiotv aWroOEVel Te cab 'Abpobi-r'q dv 7aSe a7ve'Oi/~ Nitcj- (dpov.

Attractive as this theory is, it pre- sents fundamental difficulties. It can- not be doubted that in the second play of the trilogy (probably the Aegyptii) Hypermnestra's sisters murdered their bridegrooms ; and whatever view earlier poets may have taken of their conduct, it is incredible that the author of the Oresteia, even in his youth, can have assumed that they were obviously guilt- less. Yet he can scarcely have assumed that they were obviously unpardonable, for in the Supplices both they and their father Danaus are entirely sympathetic. The villains of that piece are the sons of Aegyptus, whose brutal violence is typified in the figure of their herald. In this trilogy, as in the Oresteia, the villains of the first play became the victims of the second; and the last play of this trilogy, like the last play of the Oresteia, must surely have raised and solved the question of the guilt or innocence of those who had wiped out their wrongs in blood. The trial of

1 De Aeschyli Danaidibus, 1820 (= Oiuscula II., pp. 319 ff.).

I., p. 290. 3 Sufpilices, 1889, p. xxvi. 4 Cambri4ge Praelections, 1906, p. 164 ; and The Origin of Tragedy, 191o, pp. 188 and 202. 5 Greek Tragedy, 1911, p. 30. 6 In Miss Harrison's Themis, 1912, P. 347. 7 II. 19, 6; 20, 7; 21, x.

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Article Contentsp. 50p. 51

Issue Table of ContentsClassical Review, Vol. 38, No. 3/4 (May - Jun., 1924), pp. 49-96Editorial Notes and News [p. 49]Corrigendum to 'Atakta' (Pearson) [p. 49]Version [p. 49]The Ball of Eros (Ap. Rhod. III. 135 ff.) [pp. 50-51]The End of the Supplices Trilogy of Aeschylus [pp. 51-53]Some Passages of Sophocles and Thucydides [pp. 54-55]An Imperial Estate in Germania Superior [pp. 55-58]The Christian Sacramentum in Pliny and a Pagan Counterpart [pp. 58-59]Is It the Lex Gabinia? [p. 60]An Archaeological Error in the Text of Philo Judaeus [pp. 61-63]Some Traps in Persius' First Satire [pp. 63-64]A Misunderstood Passage in Martial [pp. 64-65]Mycenaean Corinth [pp. 65-68]Note on Horace, Odes III. 26, 11. 6-8 [p. 68]Cicero, De Oratore, I. 225 [p. 68]Euripides, Orestes, 1411-1415 [pp. 68-69]Tertullian de Bapt. 5 [p. 69]ReviewsReview: untitled [pp. 69-72]Review: Two Books on Ancient Warfare [pp. 72-74]Review: Greek Religious Thought [p. 74]Review: Virgil's Literary Biography [pp. 74-75]Review: The Lives of the Sophists [pp. 75-76]Review: Terra-Cotta in Archaic Art [pp. 76-77]Review: A Modified Doctrine of 'Breves Breviantes' [pp. 77-78]Review: untitled [pp. 78-79]Review: untitled [pp. 79-80]Review: Athenian Tragedy [pp. 80-82]Review: Two Books on Roman Britain [pp. 82-83]Review: The Pierpont Morgan Pliny [pp. 83-84]Review: Hadow's Citizenship [pp. 84-85]Review: Some School Books [pp. 85-86]Review: untitled [pp. 86-87]Review: untitled [p. 87]Review: untitled [pp. 87-88]Review: untitled [p. 88]Review: untitled [pp. 88-89]Review: untitled [p. 89]Review: untitled [p. 89]Review: untitled [pp. 89-90]Review: untitled [p. 90]Review: untitled [p. 90]Review: untitled [p. 90]Review: untitled [p. 90]Review: untitled [pp. 90-91]

The 'Sixth Tribrach' in the Iambic Trimeter [p. 91]Oxford Philological Society's Report [p. 92]Summaries of Periodicals [pp. 92-94]Correspondence [p. 94]Books Received [pp. 94-96]