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Gleon's Attack Against The Cavalry

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Charles W. Fornara
Charles W. Fornara
Affiliation:
Brown University
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Extract

Aristophanes speaks in Equites 225 f. of the rancour borne Cleon by the cavalry: The scholiast at verse 226 cites Theopompus (F. Gr. Hist. 115 F 93) for the explanation: The curious words were (by implication) explained by Gilbert, Beitrdge, 133, as referring to Cleon's alleged entrance into the Boule of 428/7 so as to prosecute the cavalry en masse for desertion. This explanation was accepted by Jacoby in his commentary. Nevertheless, the best that can be said for it is that it is an apparently necessary means of imparting some sort of meaning to an inconsequential sentence. It makes no sense to say, on the face of it, that because Cleon was angered by the cavalry ‘he attacked the constitution’ or, worse still, ‘applied himself to the politeia’. What is needed is the assertion that Cleon attacked the cavalry in some manner or other.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 23 , Issue 1 , May 1973 , pp. 24
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1973

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References

page 24 note 1 The same view is (again) implied by Van Leeuwen ad loc.: ‘postea autem rerum potitum desertionis eos insimulasse, quo veterem ulcisceretur iniuriam’.

page 24 note 2 His gloss of the words: ‘clurch eintritt in der rat 428/7’.

page 24 note 3 Connor, Theopompus, 50 f.

page 24 note 4 Apart from the reference in Lysias which I quote, two other citations are listed in L.S. J. s.v. I. 2. b.: Eupolis F 268, Plato Comicus F 165.

page 24 note 5 See Pritchett, W. K., Ancient Military Practices, Part I (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London, 1971), p. 3, n. 3.Google Scholar

page 24 note 6 It is worth adding that if this explanation is correct, speculation about any actual ‘desertion’ by the cavalry in summer 427 B.C. is even more hazardous than Gomme, Commentary, ii. 290 supposed.