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How Thin was Philitas?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Alan Cameron
Alan Cameron
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Columbia University
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Extract

The poet Philitas was so thin, they say, that he had to wear lead weights on his shoes to avoid being blown away by a gust of wind. We have two versions of the anecdote. First Aelian, Varia Historia 9.14:

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Shorter Notes
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The Classical Quarterly , Volume 41 , Issue 2 , December 1991 , pp. 534 - 538
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1991

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References

1 Reitzenstein, E., Festchrift R. Reitzenstein (Leipzig and Berlin, 1931), pp. 25Google Scholar–39; Puelma Piwonka, M., Lucilius und Kallimachos (1948), pp. 160Google Scholarf.; Wimmel, W., Kallimachos in Rom (Wiesbaden, 1960Google Scholar), Stichwortindex s.v.; J.-M.|Jacques, RÉA 62 (1960), 52Google Scholar–9; E.|Vogt, Antike und Abendland 13 (1967), 84–7Google Scholar; G. Lohse, ibid. 19 (1973), 21–34; Cairns, F., Tibullus: AHellenistic Poet at Rome (Cambridge, 1979), p. 5Google Scholar. I present a new perspective in my forthcoming book Callimachus and his Critics (Princeton, 1992), Ch. VIII.Google Scholar

2 Med. 529; 1082; fr. inc. 924.

3 For a collection of examples, Denniston, J. D., CQ 21 (1927), 119CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dover on Ar. Clouds 153.

4 E.g. Hopkinson, N., A Hellenistic Anthology (Cambridge, 1988), pp. 9, 90.Google Scholar

5 ‘Ateneo y la λεπτòτης de Filetas’, Emerita 58 (1990), 125–9.Google Scholar

6 I.e. dithyrambic poet: for this term, Pickard-Cambridge, A. W., Dithyramb, Tragedy and Comedy2 (Oxford, 1962), p. 32Google Scholar; The Dramatic Festivals of Athens 2 (Oxford, 1968), pp. 74, 239.Google Scholar

7 Fr. 156.8–10 K.-A. (PCG III.2 [1984], 102).

8 It seems wasteful to consume half a page with learned references to successive volumes of Kassel-Austin when every passage can be found in context here; the references to Koch in Kaibel and Gulick will lead the curious to Kassel-Austin.

9 Webster, T. B. L., Studies in Later Greek Comedy (Manchester, 1953), p. 111Google Scholar; cf. his Studies in Menander (Manchester, 1950), pp. 186–8Google Scholar; Gallo, I., ‘Commedia e filosofia in età ellenistica: Batone’, Vichiana n.s. 5 (1976), 206–42Google Scholar; Habicht, C., Hellenistic Athens and her Philosophers (David Magie Lecture, Princeton, 1988), pp. 9–11.Google Scholar

10 On Philitas' position in the history of scholarship, see Pfeiffer, R., History of Classical Scholarship (Oxford, 1968), pp. 88–9.Google Scholar

11 Cf. Suda s.v. Φιλήτας …σχνωθες κ τοû ζητεῖν τòν καλούμενον ψευδóμενον λóγον πθανεν.

12 Further Greek Epigrams (Cambridge, 1981), p. 442Google Scholar; ‘nights' evening-thoughts’ is certainly a ‘very odd expression’ (Page), but for a parallel see Lloyd-Jones, H., CR 32 (1982), 142Google Scholar ( = Greek Comedy …(The Academic Papers of Sir Hugh Lloyd-Jones) [Oxford, 1990], 228)Google Scholar, explaining it as ‘night-worries that begin as early as the evening of the day before’. κανικτν, Kaibel, ingeniously enough, but what a strange way to refer to anxious evenings devoted to riddles.

13 Diogenes Laertius, 2.108; W. and Kneale, M., The Development of Logic (Oxford, 1962), pp. 113Google Scholar–15; for many (often depreciatory) references to the paradox in both Greek and Latin literature, see A. S. Pease's note on Cicero, de div. 2.11 (pp. 364–6). On Eubulides, Schmidt, E. G., KP ii (1967), 400.Google Scholar

14 Adesp. 294 = CAF 3.461–2 Koch.

15 Diog. Laertius 2.111; Sext. Empir. Math. 1.309; cf. David, Sedley, Proc. Camb. Phil. Soc. 203 (1977), 79–80.Google Scholar

16 An seni sit respublica gerenda 79 le.

17 Pfeiffer, R., History of Classical Scholarship, p. 41Google Scholar (cf. 91), cites the text of Plutarch, but does not link its iayyovs with the other texts on Philitas' thinness, nor does he link his thinness with his pedantry.

18 Athen. 382b–383b, with some corrections from P. Cair. 65445; Strato fr. 1.42–4 (PCG viid [1989], 620).

19 Kassel, and Austin, , PCG vii (1989), p. 617Google Scholar.

20 G.|Kuchenmüller, Philetae Coi Reliquiae (Diss. Berlin, 1927), pp. 29–59.Google Scholar

21 Webster, , Studies in Later Greek Comedy, p. 6Google Scholar; Studies in Menander, pp. 163–4Google Scholar; Dohm, H., Die Rolle des Kochs in der griechisch-römischen Komödie (Munich, 1965).Google Scholar

22 Cambridge History of Classical Literature, i (Cambridge, 1985), p. 545.Google Scholar

23 AP'xi. 91–4, 99–103, 106–7, 110–11, 308; Brecht, F. J., Motiv- und Typengeschichte des griechischen Spottepigramms (Philologus Suppbd. xxii. 2) (Leipzig, 1930), pp. 91Google Scholar–3.

24 See my forthcoming book, The Greek Anthology: from Meleager to Planudes (Oxford, 1992)Google Scholar, Ch. I. L. Robert's paper in L'Épigramme grecque (Entretiens Fondation Hardt, xiv), Geneva, 1968, 181–291, brilliantly showed that Lucilius' art derives more from life than literature.

25 ‘Epigramma irrisorium’, Preger, T., Inscriptions graecae metricae ex scriptoribus praeter Anthologiam (Leipzig, 1891), no. 266.Google Scholar

26 It is curious that in neither comedy nor epigram do we find corresponding jokes about fat people, a much richer source of humour in modern times.

27 So Brecht, p. 3: ‘soil damit dem Dichter nicht eine direkte Herübernahme zugesprochen sein; es handelt sich nicht urn subjektives Herübernehmen, sondern um objektiv begründete Motivwanderung.’

28 The source (as is well known) of so many details in the biographies of the Attic tragedians: Lefkowitz, M. R., The Lives of the Greek Poets (London, 1981), passim.Google Scholar

29 I am grateful to Debra Nails and Stephen White for comments.