the attic stelai - The American School of Classical Studies at Athens

298 W. KENDRICK PRITCHETT
suggested in Part I that it might be cognate with Latin occa,82 hence derived from IE
*ak (meaning'sharp, pointed ).8" Our word would then mean 'harrow.' It would
also be cognate with oetva, known only from Hesychius,84 which is given by Liddell-
Scott-Jones as being probably a Doric feminine. The description of the process of
harrowing, drawn from Roman sources, is given in Daremberg-Saglio, Dictionnaire
s.v. Rustica res, p. 923 b, and in R. Billiard, L'agriculture dacls l'antiquite d'apres les
Georgiques de Virgile, pp. 69-70. The instrument is discussed, but without illustrations,
in the same dictionary s.vv. Irpex and Crates.
15. o'vos aAsTcov (II, 24, 238, 239; V, 83). Upper millstone.85 The earliest use
of this combination of words occurs in a fragment of the Gortynian laws (ca. 450
B.C.).86 In a literary context, they are first found in Xenophon, Antab., I, 5, 5. The
lexicographers, including Pollux,87 Hesychius,88 and Suidas,89 define the words as
indicating the grinding stone which turned around.
The evolution of the grain mill is given in Bliimner, Technologic, I2 pp. 20-49,9? and
a rough chronology for the Greek mill has been worked out by Robinson and Graham,
Olynthus, VIII, pp. 331-332. The earliest example of the revolving ass-driaven type
cited by Robinson and Graham was found in the ruins of Motya in Sicily, a city
destroyed ca. 397 B.C. Only one example of the revolving type is represented at Olynthos,
although numerous examples of the hand type of grain mill were discovered.
Our inscription would seem to confirm the conjecture of Robinson and Graham that
the ass-driven type was as early as the fifth century. A third-century Megarian bowl
found at Thebes shows the hand type and the ass-driven type side by side.9" For
numerous illustrations of the revolving mill, see W. Deonna, Delos, XVIII, pp. 131-
135 and plates LI-LII.
Strabo has recorded that millstones were made in abundance on the island of
Nisyros in the Sporades.92 Robinson and Graham have reported that stones from
various sites in Greece were made of hard black porous lava, and they conjecture
these were manufactured at Thera and shipped in trade all over Greece.93
82
Hesperia, XXII, 1953, p. 258.
83 See Buck, Dictionary, p. 504.
84
Hesychius' definition is: spyaEtoZv t 7yEpytKOV, atSvpOV y 'Eov 6'EXicOe X
vro Wo6v.
85
For the most complete documentation for this meaning, see Bliumner, Technalogie, I2, p. 30,
note 1. For a recent study, see Robinson, Olynthus, XII, p. 453.
86 M. Guarducci, Inscriptiones Creticae, IV, Rome, 1950, 75 B, line 7.
87 VII, 19.
88 S.VV. IVAX and OVOS
89 S.vv. /AVbX and W3vEvov.
90 Cf. A. Hug, R.E., s.v. Mv'X, cols. 1064-1065.
91 M. Rostovtzeff, A.J.A., XLI, 1937, p. 88, fig. 1. This bowl is also illustrated in Rostovtzeff,
Soc. and Ec. Hist. of Hell. World, I, plate xxv.
92 X, 488.
93 Op. cit., p. 330. Similarly, T. Wiegand and H. Schrader, Priene, p. 394, note 1. Millstones
of granite and other igneous stone existed.