Abstract

Professor Trypanis has recently suggested changing àνούαтον into àνούтαтον. Since the problem has not been dealt with atisfactorily by any commentator,1 I should like to clarify the matter by demonstrating that the text is sound: the adjective àνούαтον is, in fact, not only morphologically impeccable, but, in particular, singularly pointed. From the morphological point of view, the Hinterglied ούαтος is paralleled by δολιχούαтος , μονούαтος , and χρυσούαтος : these adjectives occur in hexameter poetry, and each of them is attested once, exactly as is the case with Theocritus‘ àνούαтος. The point brought out by àνούαтον is extremely felicitous: statues of Priapus could be either of an elaborate type, in which the god was represented as having two protruding physical features, namely his ears3 and his mentula, or of a more uncouth type, which consisted of a ‘truncus dolatus’, i.e. a truncus whose only protuberance was the ‘mentula edolata’. The statue described by Theocritus belongs to the latter type: it is uncouthly hewn and devoid of one of the two protruding features {à½οÍαтοт), but it does possess the other one