SAPPHO— ALC^US-FISHING COMEDIES 117 



or in the articles on them by Mr. J. M. Edmonds in the Classical 

 Review of May 1914 and June 1916, a second fisher epigram 

 or at any rate an aUusion to fishing. Alas ! the Papyri yield 

 some amatory, but no piscatory verses. Apparently neither 

 Sappho nor Alcaeus make any other reference to fishing. 

 The verses of Alcaeus stress poverty even more strongly : 

 " The fisher Diotimus had at sea 



And shore the same abode of poverty 



His trusty boat — and when his days were spent, 

 Therein self-rowed, to ruthless Dis he went : 

 For that which did through life his woes beguile. 

 Supplied the old man with a funeral pile." 1 



"From fragments of Greek Comedy it is evident that 

 fishers were among the famihar characters on the stage and 

 were sometimes the protagonists." Examination of the' Old 

 Middle and New Comedians confirm Dr. Hall. 2 



In Epicharmus (b.c. 540-450) the reputed founder of 

 Comedy m Sicily ; in Sophron's The Fisherman and the Clown 

 where the former naturally outwits the country boor ; in Plato 

 the comedian's Phaon, where he may have ridiculed the legend 

 of Sappho's vain love for the Lesbian fisherman; in The 

 Fishes by Archippus, where people were satirised under the 

 names of fishes spelled in the same way as their own • or (to 

 pass from Old to Middle Comedy) in The Fisher-Woman by 



^ In A nth. Pal., VII. 305, this epigram is headed in the MS 'aSS./„„ 

 Mm>x,.alo.. which is obviously wro^. for either M,..A,.tL should t 

 Ma/«5ovor. or 'ASSalov is a mistake. Bergk assigns it to AlcLs of Messine 

 probably with reason, as it is not unUke his style, and his nfme fs more th^ 

 once confused with Alcaeus of Mitylene. the famous lyric poeT tor Alcsus 



o,,??' ^-^^2 ^-^ Stadtmuller the latest editor of Anth. Pal. confectures as 

 author Alpheus of Mitylene. but unconvincingly to Mackail and ShPr 



rZZTriss''^'''''''^ '" ^' ^- ''^'"-^'^ ^^^'^ 'anapZ^^:UTLTX 

 6 yptiffis Ai6rinos 6 KVfiacriv 6A/ca5a ir«rT^t/ 

 Kr)V x^ovl Tr)v avr^v oIkov excuj/ Trei/iTjs, k.t.X. 

 Cf. Etruscus Messenius, Anth. Pal., VII. 381, 5 f. 



uXfiios b ypiirths iStri ku] ir6vrov fir4v\ti 

 vrii, Koi €| (S/tjs fSpafifv fls 'AiS-nv. 



Hok! f °^r^*^^TT ^"^ °*^^^ passages quoted or incorporated I am ereatlv in 

 10?! L^";J^r^ ??^"°" ^^"'^ ^^y"' 'f Fishermen, New Yor^.^^a^'S 

 1914. and to A. F. Campaux's preface to his De Ecloga Piscatoris axmUm? 

 veteubus adumbratam absolvere szbi proposuit Sannazarius. Paris 1859 



