The concluding phrase ἐν τοῖς οἰσύοις (-υίοις, -αίοις) is problematic. Since Phrynichus was murdered in the agora (Thuc. 8.92.2), it follows that the fountain beside which he was murdered was in the agora.Footnote ¹ So the fountain was not ‘unter den Weiden (vgl. “unter den Linden” in Berlin)’,Footnote ² ‘in the osier-beds’,Footnote ³ ‘near the willows’,Footnote ⁴ ‘in the willows’,Footnote ⁵ ‘tra i salici’,Footnote ⁶ nor will it have been known as ‘la fontaine des saules’.Footnote ⁷

LSJ (s.v. οἴσυον) recognized that ἐν τοῖς οἰσύοις is an instance of the common idiom whereby a commodity (always with the article, and only in prepositional phrases) stands for the place where that commodity is sold. The idiom is frequent in comedy: for example Ar. Eq. 1375 ἐν τῷ μύρῳ ‘in the perfume-quarter’, Vesp. 789 ἐν τοῖς ἰχθύσιν ‘in the fish market’, Lys. 557 κἀν ταῖσι χύτραις καὶ τοῖς λαχάνοισιν ‘among the pottery and vegetable stalls’. It is also found in prose: law of 375/4 (SEG XXVI [1976–7] §72.18 and 23) ἐν τῷ σίτῳ ‘in the grain market’, Lys. 23.6 εἰς τὸν χλωρὸν τυρόν ‘to the fresh-cheese market’, Xen. Hell. 3.3.7 εἰς τὸν σίδηρον ‘to the iron market’, Theophr. Char. 11.4 πρὸς τὰ κάρυα ἢ τὰ μύρτα ἢ τὰ ἀκρόδρυα ‘to the shops which sell nuts, myrtleberries or fruit’.Footnote ⁸ LSJ accordingly translated ἐν τοῖς οἰσύοις as ‘in the basket-market’, ascribing to the noun οἴσυον the sense ‘wickerwork’ (that is, product made from osiers).

However, it cannot be established that a noun οἴσυον ever existed. The single further instance cited by LSJ is ‘dub.lect. in Aen.Tact. 29.11’. The passage, transmitted in a single manuscript, runs as follows: δεόμενοί τινες ἀσπίδων ἐπεὶ οὐδενὶ ἄλλῳ τρόπῳ ἐδύναντο ἑτοιμάσασθαι οὐδὲ εἰσαγαγέσθαι, †ὅπλα οισοιων† (with a mark of corruption over the ω) καὶ ἐργάτας ἅμα τούτων (Hertlein: οὕτως cod.) εἰσηγάγοντο. καὶ ἐν μὲν τῷ φανερῷ ἄλλα ἀγγεῖα ἔπλεκον, ἐν δὲ ταῖς νυξὶν ὅπλα, περικεφαλαίας καὶ ἀσπίδας, ἔπλεκον (‘Since certain persons were without shields and they could not provide or import them, they imported … and also people to work them. And in the open light of day they plaited other kinds of containers, but at night they plaited armour—helmets and shields’).Footnote ⁹ Whatever the correct reading (οἴσυον, οἰσύων, οἰσυῶν and οἰσύας have all been suggested in place of οισοιων), LSJ’s translation ‘wickerwork’ is wrong: what they imported was not ‘wickerwork’ but the raw material, ‘osiers’. The conjecture πλῆθος οἰσυῶν ‘a quantity of osiers’ (W.A. Oldfather)Footnote ¹⁰ may well be the right solution.Footnote ¹¹ At all events, a noun οἰσύα ‘osier’ is used by Ps.-Dioscorides and is widely attested by the lexicographers.Footnote ¹²

So we might restore the attested word and write ἐν ταῖς οἰσύαις. But then the meaning would be ‘in the place where osiers are sold’, ‘in the osier market’. While the raw material may have been sold in the market, it is the finished goods that would more naturally give their name to the place of sale. The adjective οἰσύινος ‘made of osiers’, attested from Homer onwards,Footnote ¹³ supplies what we need: ἐν τοῖς οἰσυ<ΐν>οις, ‘among the things made of osiers’, ‘among the wickerwork goods’, ‘in the wicker market’. τὰ οἰσύινα is the same type of neut. pl. as Ar. Ach. 863 τοῖς ὀστίνοις ‘the bone-pipes’ (that is, αὐλοί),Footnote ¹⁴ Au. 1153 τὰ ξύλινα ‘the parts (of a wall) made of wood’, Xen. Lac. 3.5 τῶν λιθίνων ‘figures made of stone’, Eupolis fr. 418 K.–A. σκύτινα ‘leather goods’.