*katatila=|: h)\ katatila=| tw=n *(ekatai/wn kukli/ois xoroi=sin u(pa/|dwn. kateti/lhse ga\r tw=n th=s *(eka/ths musthri/wn. tou=to de\ ei)s *kinhsi/an to\n diqurambopoio\n a)poskw/ptei: ou(=tos ga\r a)/|dwn kateti/lhse th=s *(eka/ths: h)\ o(/ti ei)sh/negke dra=ma kai\ kateti/lhsen au)th/n: h)\ e)peidh\ h)rufi/ase poi/hma gra/yas ei)s *(eka/thn. h)\ tou\s misqou\s tw=n poihtw=n r(h/twr w)\n ei)=t' a)potrw/gei. katatila= tw=n th=s *(eka/ths musthri/wn.
This verb comes from the root of
ti=los, for the loose, yellowish stool associated with diarrhoea; it is also used for bird droppings falling from above.
Aristophanes mentions this event anonymously in the passage quoted here (
Frogs 366: web address 1), where the Chorus lists those who should "stand aside from our sacred dances." In
Gerytades (fr. 156 PCG vol.3.2) and
Ecclesiazusae 329-30 (
tau 693, cf.
pi 3225) he names Cinesias the dithyramb poet (
kappa 1639, cf.
delta 1029,
pi 3225, etc.), compared to a bird, as the culprit. By this time the comic playwrights were infuriated with Cinesias, who had persuaded (by sophistic rhetoric, it is suggested in this entry) the Athenian Council, shortly after 405 BCE, to cancel the privilege enjoyed by them of
choregia, namely "public" expenditure (provided by well-to-do individual liturgists) on the members of the chorus and all aspects of the production of comedies. This is referred to in this entry as "the pay of the poets".
The entry derives from the
scholia on
Frogs. The various other explanations of the verb in this entry are hardly plausible. It omits the observation there that the verb that (in
Aristophanes) means "to excrete diarrhoea stool" (
to\ ko/pron dia/rruton e)kkri/nein) "now means to shed semen" (
a)pospermai/nein, LSJ). This semantic equation suggests a devastatingly vulgar point to the "jest" about the color of Cinesias' stool. See also
beta 487 and
beta 488 for "jesting at the altar".
[1] These are the offerings laid at the foot of a statue of Hecate, perhaps principally during a ritual of this name. The line may imply that dithyrambic choruses were danced around the statues of Hecate; this would shake our normal assertion that the dithyramb was particular to the god Dionysus or Bacchus.
[2]
kappa 2647.
[3] The phrase here is highly uncertain. The intention is probably to use an aorist verb of similar appearance,
kate/tilen from
katati/llw 'I tear to pieces, rip into'.
[4] The text incorrectly reads
h)rufi/ase of unknown meaning because unknown in Greek, except for
Hesychius' attempt to give it the meanings 'trampled under foot, shot (let fly)'. The scholion from which the sentence derives reads
h)ruqri/ase from the adjective
e)ruqros 'red'; perhaps this would refer to decorative coloring, for otherwise it is no explanation.
[5] The phrase implies here that to be a rhetor is to use sophistic arguments to deceive people. In classical Greek it means little more than a public speaker or teacher of public speaking (web address 2).
[6] This startling imperative of the verb 'to shit' is probably a mere error for the present indicative active with the iota-subscript (the headword), and the last sentence no more than a repetition of what went before. Let us dream for a moment, all the same, that Suda expresses for a moment some person's true feelings!
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