[Chapter 81.] Palamedes was famous for having detected the pretended madness of Ulysses, by which he sought to avoid going upon the expedition to Troy. Ulysses was ploughing and Palamedes placed the infant Telemachus in front of the ploughshare. Ulysses revealed his sanity by stopping the plough.
Sisyphus, King of Corinth, was famous as a master of all manner of deceit, outwitting even the arch-thief Autolycus. He was finally cast into Tartarus for having discovered the amour of Zeus with the nymph Aegina.
Eurybates (or Eurybatus) coupled with Phrynondas by Plato (Protagoras 327). He was an Ephesian sent by Croesus to Greece with a large sum of money to hire mercenaries. He betrayed his trust and went over to Cyrus.
Phrynondas, a stranger (probably a Boeotian) who lived at Athens during the Peloponnesian war and became proverbial as a scoundrel.
clowns and pantaloons. Maccus and Bucco were stock characters in the Atellan farce.
[Chapter 85.] The viper. This superstition arises from the fact that the viper does not lay eggs, but is viviparous.
a well-known line. The author is unknown.
[Chapter 87.] Quite at home in Greek. See [note on chap. 4].
[Chapter 88.] The line so well known in comedy. The reading nearest to the MSS. would be παίδων ἐπ’ ἀπότῳ, γνησίων ἐπί σπορᾷ (Van der Vliet). Unless, however, the phrase παίδων ἐπ’ ἀπότῳ γνησίων is a stock phrase which occurred in more than one comedy, which might perhaps be argued from the plural comoediis, there can be no doubt that the words ἐπί σπορᾷ are interpolated, inasmuch as the line occurs in the fragment of the περικειρομένη of Menander, discovered at Oxyrhynchus by Drs. Greenfell and Hunt (Ox. Pap. ii, No. 211, p. 11 sqq.), and runs as follows
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ταύτην γνησίων παίδων ἐπ’ ἀπότῳ σοι δίδωμι. Πολ. λαμβάνω. |