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Alcaeus of Messene, Philip V, and Rome: a Footnote

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

F. W. Walbank
F. W. Walbank
Affiliation:
The University of Liverpool
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Extract

In the above paper I suggested that in Anth. Pal. ix. 519 and xi. 12 Philip V of Macedon was himself the Cyclops and the Centaur, and that these two identifications were not only appropriate to Philip's character (as popularly interpreted), but also historically associated with the Argead dynasty. In my case for the ‘Centaur’ identification, however, I overlooked one of the most important pieces of evidence, though it had been available since 1926; and that is the meaning of the word κέντανυος In an article published that year E. H. Sturtevant showed that κέντανυος is a word of Thraco-Macedonian origin with the same meaning as the Greek ϕίλɩππος. The first part κενττ– is the κενττ– οΤ κενθ which is a constituent of several Thracian personal names, e.g. Aulu-centus, Aulu-centius, Ἐπται-κενθος, Zipa-centhus, etc. (almost a score are quoted by Sturtevant). The second half of the word, avro-, occurs in Ἀβρο-ξελμης, Ἀβρου-πολις Ἀβρο-τονον etc. (with such variants as Αὐλου-ξελμις, Ἀλλου-πορις, which led Tomaschek to suggest that ἀβρο(υ)- and αὐλο(υ)- are alternative forms of the same word). Already Tomaschek had identified κεντ- with the Greek ϕιλ-, and had argued that Thracian avro- ‘was borrowed from Iranian neighbours of the Thracians. Avestan aurva-, aurvañt (“runner, swift”) is strikingly similar in form to Thracian avro-, avrū-, and the Avestan word applies so frequently to the horse that it might easily come to mean ”horse”’. From a combination of the two forms Sturtevant gets the convincing κένταυρος (cf. the reverse form Aulu-centus) = ϕίλιππος.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 38 , Issue 3-4 , October 1944 , pp. 87 - 88
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1944

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References

page 87 note 1 C.Q. xxxvii, 1943, 3–7Google Scholar. I am grateful to Prof. J. F. Mountford for advice on the present note.

page 87 note 2 Sturtevant, E. H., Class. Phil. xxx, 1926, 235–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

page 87 note 3 Tomaschek, W., Sitz.-Ber. Wien, cxxx, 1894, Pt. IIGoogle Scholar; cxxxi, 1895, Pt. I.

page 87 note 4 Sturtevant, , op. cit. 239Google Scholar. The borrowing assumes metathesis of r and υ (*arvo- > avro-).

page 87 note 5 It can hardly be a cognate form to the Avestan aurva-, since the vowel au in this word represents IE. ō, which Greek (like Thracian) keeps.

page 87 note 6 Nazari, O.Riv. Fil. xxxii, 1904, 99Google Scholar. Cf. Boisacq, E., Dict. étym. (1926)Google Scholar, s.v. κένταυρος. Nazari takes κἐνταυρος to be Greek and translates ‘one who spurs horses’.

page 87 note 7 Kretschmer, P., Glotta, xvii, 1929, 249–50Google Scholar.

page 87 note 8 This may also be right; but Sturtevant supports it with some dubious arguments. That Ἀλκέτας, Ἀμύντας, and Ἀλέξανδρος were successive attempts to ‘find satisfactory Greek equivalents’ for an original Thraco-Macedonian Πάρις is hard to believe when, as Sturtevant himself points out, Ἀλέξανδρος already existed as the accepted Greek translation in the Iliad. Nor is Livy 40. 4. 4 evidence for ‘Poris’ as a princely name in second-century Thrace, for the Poris referred to there as longe principi gentis Aenianum had nothing to do with Aenus in Thrace. He ought to come from the tribe of the Aenianes in the Spercheius valley, south of Thessaly (cf. Livy 28. 5. 15); but the references to Aenea in Chalcidice (Livy 40. 4. 9) suggest that he hailed from here, and Weissenborn emended Aenianum, the reading of M, to Aeneatium (cf. L. & S. which gives Aeneates in this passage without comment). The use of gens in connexion with a Greek town can be paralleled from Caesar, , Bell. Civ. 3Google Scholar. 80. I, who speaks thus of the people of Gomphi. But whether it is to Aenea or the Aenianes that Livy (Polybius) here refers, Aenus in Thrace (whose inhabitants are Aenii: Livy 37. 33. 1; 38. 41. 4) cannot enter the picture. These points are of course irrelevant to the validity of Sturtevant's arguments on the etymology of κένταυρος.

page 88 note 1 Theopompus, we should not forget, spent some time at Philip's court (Fr. gr. Hist. 115 T. 7 = Epist. Socrat. 30, 12), where knowledge of the κἐνταυρος equivalent will hardly have been confined to those familiar with the Thraco-Macedonian tongue. Theopompus' popularity in Alcaeus' time may be judged from the detailed criticism in Polyb. vii. 9. I ff.; it represents one aspect of the third- and second-century interest in fourth-century politics (cf. C.Q. xxxvii, 1943, 9Google Scholar).

page 88 note 2 C.Q. xxxvii, 1943, 6, n. 6Google Scholar.

page 88 note 3 Toynbee, A. J., A Study of History, iii (1934), 408Google Scholar.