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Theocritus and Priapus' Ears
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
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Professor Trypanis has recently (Class. Philol. 65 [1970], p. 51) suggested changing àνούαтον into àνούтαтον. Since the problem has not been dealt with atisfactorily by any commentator,1 I should like to clarify the matter by demonstrating that the text is sound: the adjective àνούαтον is, in fact, not only morphologically impeccable, but, in particular, singularly pointed. From the morphological point of view, the Hinterglied ούαтος is paralleled (and therefore supported) by δολιχούαтος (Opp. Cyn. 3. 186), μονούαтος (A.P. v. 135. 1), and χρυσούαтος (Hom.,fr. 17 Allen): these adjectives occur in hexameter poetry, and each of them is attested once, exactly as is the case with Theocritus‘ àνούαтος.
The point brought out by àνούαтον is extremely felicitous: statues of Priapus could be either of an elaborate type, in which the god was represented as having two protruding physical features, namely his ears3 and his mentula, or of a more uncouth type, which consisted of a ‘truncus dolatus’, i.e. a truncus whose only protuberance was the ‘mentula edolata’. The statue described by Theocritus belongs to the latter type: it is uncouthly hewn and devoid of one of the two protruding features {à½οÍαтοт), but (àλλà) it does possess the other one.
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References
page 424 note 1 Cf. Gow, in his commentary on Theocr., ad loc.; Gow-Page, Hell. Epigr., on lines 474ff.; Fritzsche-Hiller, ad loc; Dübner, ad loc. In Class. Philol. 66 (1971), p. 113W. O. Moeller defends the ms. reading, but entirely misses the poet' point by stating that Priapus was normally ‘earless’.Google Scholar
page 424 note 2 The parallel negative force of dvovarov and áνούαтον and αύтóфλοιον has, of course, already been disstressed: cf., e.g., Fritzsche–Hiller, ad loc.: ‘Priapi statua haud affabre facta erat. Lignum erat rude, cortice non detracto, elaboratenec aures erant expressae.’ What the critics have so far been unable to see is the relevance of Priapus’ being without ears within the context of the epigram.
page 424 note 3 Cf. Herter, , De Priapo,Giessen, 1932, pp. 186f.:‘aures… inacutumsurguntautpraeter humanam naturam dilatantur’; p. 293: ‘aures grandes … longe prominentes’.Google Scholar
page 424 note 4 Herter, op. cit., pp. 168f.
page 424 note 5 The adjective àνούαтον ‘indicates extreme roughness of execution’: Gow, in his commentary on Theocritus, ad loc. For a disstressed: cussion of тρισκєλές cf. Herter, op. cit., pp. 171 f.: the adjective, whatever it may mean, does not express a notion of ‘elaboratenec ness of execution’, and is therefore not in contrast with the other two epithets αύтóфολοιον, àνούαтον.