Abstract

Laispodias was general in 414/3 and was evidently from a prominent family. Indeed the latter fact is stressed by the first citation in his entry in PA, from Theognostos' Kanones as in J. A. Cramer, Anecdota graeca e codd. manuscriptis bibliothecarum Oxoniensium II, 9.22 f.: Λαιποδίας Ἀνδρωνύμιος ἑνὸς τῶν Ἀθήνῃσιν ἐπιφανῶν. Kirchner was evidently, and reasonably, puzzled by Ἀνδρωνύμιος. The only other Laispodias in PA is no. 8962, who appears on a dedication, IG i2 616. A. E. Raubitschek included this as no. 87 in Dedications from the Athenian Akropolis ; he restored Laispodias in the genitive as a patronymic and properly supposed that the two men of the name were of the same family. As for the addition ἀνδρονύμιος he asks us to compare ΣAr. Wasps 1239 and the lexicon in order that we should believe that it ‘means only that Laispodias was a proper name’. Indeed, in LSJ we find two references under ἀνδρωνύμιον as a noun meaning ‘proper name’, namely Theognostos and the scholiast.