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

THE ATTIC STELAI 315
rakion " is always a ragged or tattered garment in the Attic." 4 He finds the word a
deteriorative rather than a diminutive in origin.44 Nevertheless, Pollux (X, 149-150)
has listed the word under the general heading of medical equipment and has specifically
noted that rakia was joined with the word for 'salve' or 'cosmetic' in the records
of the sale of confiscated property. The reference seems to be to our line. Rakia, then,
seems here to refer to bandages made of rags.
12. T-Xta (II, 143). A kind of board or tablet. The definition is that of Buck,
Dictionary, p. 601. This item, of which eighteen were sold, occurs just after the
entry for two jars (kadoi) and preceding a list of articles of furniture. The word is
discussed at some length in Boisacq,45 who lists two etymologies of unrelated meanings.
The rare Attic telia means the 'hoop of a sieve.'46 The more common meaning is related
to Sanskrit tala-, 'plane surface,' and Latin tellus, 'board.' Boisacq's first definition
is ' table de boulanger,' which accords with the definitions given by the Scholiast
to Aristophanes, Plutus, 1037, by the Venetus Scholiast to Vespae, 147, and by
Bekker, Anecd., 275, 15. Architecturally, the word has sometimes been defined as
' trap-door.'
" This meaning derives from the description of the house of Philoktemon
in Aristophanes, Vespac, 139-148, where a telia was clapped over the opening of the
flue in the kitchen when the old jurist attempted to escape. It is clear, however, that
this telia was movable, for it required a log to keep it down. All that is meant by
telia in this passage is 'board.' In Aischines, I, Against Timarchos, 53, the reference
is to a gaming board for cock-fighting. As the description in the Scholiast to Aristophanes,
Vespae, 147, states, the telia was a type of thick cavws, or board, but just what
type would have been accumulated to the number of eighteen is problematical.
deinceps non pannum significare sed particulam vestimenti muliebris menstruis imbutam probat Mom.
Inde natam esse vim vocabuli in hoc recensu obviam, ut scilicet usurpetur pro donario a puellis
virginitatem adeptis Dianae oblato."
43Op. Cit., p. 129.
44 Ibid., pp. 95-96. It may be noted that in I.G., XI, 2, 147 B, line 13, where furnishings were
characterized as ' ragged,' the adjective baKim2 was used.
45 Dictionnaire4, pp. 966-967.
46 For objects illustrating this meaning, cf. Bliimner, Technologie, I2, p. 51; and Saglio in
Daremberg-Saglio, Dictionaire, s.v. Cribrum.
47 See, for example, Robinson and Graham, Olynthus, VIII, p. 195; Robinson, Olynthus, XII,
p. 471; and Liddell-Scott-Jones.