AKS SOPHOCLIS INTERPRETANDI. 531 



Compare TroXtfiog a-oAc/u)^-, a war that is no war, a hopeless 

 struggle. Aischulos Prometheus 904 : a-oXe/wo? oSe y' o -oXinnij ; 

 Eur. H. F. II33 : «-oAfji(f>v, <t> ;r«», -oAe/joi' ((rmiKTag reKvin<:. 

 And rr<)A<s o-oAk, a city that is no city, a ruined city. Aischulos 

 Eum. 457 : i»)i' (o (tv TpoKtv d-oAn' lAfoi* -oAfi' 'f6'>j;cfl<. 



Instead of having -fa^r/t; icraitar — i.e., slaves that are no 

 slaves, wretched, miserable slaves — we have the bold periphrasis : 

 K(ti Tdc ((~atna<; fs^ To Ao<-oi' ovaiac : KUi t((<; (or tiiV<:) zaica<; 

 iij To Aojr.oi' inrai^(t(j ovfjdc yivrac). The word ()V(Ti<((j may 

 have been chosen on metrical grounds, but its meaning in the 

 sense of pieces of propertv, i.e. chattels, may have prompted the 

 dramatist to use it here. The plural .aia'iai for individuals we find 

 in Aristotle. 



In Sophokles Philoktetes 93f)-7 we haA-e the periphrasis (o 

 iuvowaiot Qi]pMV o/j6fwr = oj ^vvovth: Hijptf; where we may note 

 that t,vvov(jiai too like ovaidi; in our passage stands at the end 

 of the verse. We may therefore infer that the nouns ovcria'^ and 

 3,vvov(Tiai were selected on metrical grounds as the quantities of 

 the participles i;iM'ovrfs, oi-ra^: and nva-a^ offered difficulties in 

 iambic verse, especially in the last foot, where a short and long are 

 required. It is remarkable the number of passages we find where 

 oiV/a and the compounds a-ou(r/a, iuvoucr/a, -apoixria are placed 

 at the end of iambic verses. Compare Aischulos Eum. 285 otrot^ 

 -prj<Ti}Xll.v o/3/\a/3er ^vvima-ia ; Soph. O.C. 647 ; Philoktetes 520 ; 

 Aristophanes Xub. 649 ; Thesmoph. 21 ; Ekkl. 729 -po^eipiov/nai 

 KCt^eracrw ti)v nvatav ', Eur. H. F. ^^/ ; Hecuba 962 : fri'i 8' t'l rt 

 fx^jj-fpy Ti]<: f /UJ9 fWoucrtoc ; Aisch. Ag. 1259 ; Eiu-ipides Alkestis 

 606 : avdpMV ^epaiu)v ei»/ifvJK- -apovcria which is a periphrasis for 

 uv^pi<: 01 7Tap6v7e<; ', Aisch. Pers. 169; Soph. Elektra 1104 ; 1251 ; 

 Arist. Thesm. 1049. 



These passages show that the iambic ending of oixria and its 

 compounds appealed strongly to the dramatists to use these words 

 at the end of verses, especially in cases of periphrasis when the 

 untractable endings of the participles were to be avoided metri 

 causa. The best examples are Sopn. Phil. 936-7 and Eur. Alk. 606. 



The feminine noun uvnia^ leaves the question open as to the 

 gender. It may be common gender or it may refer specially to 

 the female slaves of Deianeira. 



To sum up : i<o.l ra<; UTraiSa^ l<; 7o XolTtov ovcriw^ is a bold 

 periphrasis for koi rii^ (~r>^>^) ~inBa^ (dovXov^, Sov\a<:) k- ro 

 y\o«-ov o'»at8a9 oucrcK (ovra^). " And the slaves that are for the 

 future slaves no more, miserable, wretched slaves." And this is 

 exactly the sense required by the context. The difficulty of 



