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

THE ATTIC STELAI 231
as Kpa'f33w3aoa, from which the modern Greek word for ' bed ' (KpE/3/3dTt) is derived."32
In the entry above, the diminutive form is defined as a ' cheap klinidion for one sleeper.'
The scholiast on Aristophanes, Nubes, 254 gives- skimpous as the Attic word for
Kpal/3/a3ros. Pollux speaks of it as nothing more than a pallet.133 Eustathius (ad
Homer, Iliad, XVI, 608) likewise states that it is an Attic word and defines it as a
cheap and low bed which is near the ground.
In NAbes, 254, in the caricature of the initiation of a neophyte into the secret
mysteries, a ' sacred skimpous ' takes the place of the thronos. At the beginning of
Plato's Protagoras (310 c) Sokrates is represented as seated on a skimpous. In
Xenophon (Anab. VI, 1, 4) the soldiers dined reclining upon them.134 The picture
which emerges is that of a low, humble bed, of light weight, which could be used by
soldiers as a field-bed.'35
Price. The price paid for our skimpous in Stele III, line 8, was two obols.136
5. XdEvva 1TapaKOXXoS (I, 231). 13 Veneered, low couch. Hesychius and the
scholiast to Aristophanes, Aves, 816, define the chacmeun as raTEtrEW KXWVS, which by
the etymology (Xa4at', 'on the ground') must refer to the low position of the bed
and not to lowness in the sense of cheapness. Fraenkel (ad Aeschylus, Agacmemnon,
1540) defines it as a ' poor and mean couch.' 1"8 He believes that the body of Agamemnon
was exposed in a low and narrow bath-tub.139 Pickard-Cambridge, on the other
hand, believes that the conditions of the text are satisfied by the display of the body
at the doorway on a very simple and unobtrusive vehicle.140 All that is necessary to
infer in the Agamemnon, 1540 passage is that the body of the king is in a low position.
The price paid for our chameuna is exactly twice the average price for a Milesian
bed. Clearly, the chameuna was not poor and mean."4'
132
Cf. Buck, Dictionary, p. 480. Krabbatos is frequent in later Greek, but was condemned as
un-Attic by Phrynichos, 44.
133 X, 35.
134 Inferior manuscripts here read un/la3'w, ' bed of straw or leaves.'
135 Mrs. Karouzou (A.J.A., L, 1946, p. 135) associates the skimpous with the festival of the
Anthesteria, but her representations seem to be rather footstools.
136 By the Roman period, skimpous or skimpodium had come to mean a single bed for a rich
person. Thus Dio Cassius, LVII, 15, 4, refers to a " covered skimpodium such as the wives of the
senators use." See Gellius, N.A., XIX, 10, 1, and other references in Saglio. Cf. B. B. Rogers'
note ad Nubes, 254. In Galen, the word is used for a sort of litter.
137
For the accent of chatmeuna, see Schwyzer, Gr. Gram., I, p. 476, and Buck and Petersen,
Reverse Index, p. 294. In epigraphical publications, the word has usually been accented as a
properispomenon. Liddell-Scott-Jones straddles the issue by using both accents (pp. 1313 and 1976).
138 Similarly, Mau in R.E., s.v. Betten, 371. Mau refers to an article in the R.E., s.v. xaoE4v'7)
which I have been unable to locate. Hesychius' gloss of chatmeune as a stibas (= ' a bed of straw,
rushes, or leaves,' Liddell-Scott-Jones) may derive from Euripides, Rhesus, 9, where the chameuna
is modified by 0vkXourTpWro0.
139 Op. cit., I, p. 175. 140 The Theatre of Dionysus in Athens, Oxford, 1946, pp. 106-107.
141
The chamneuna, of course, might be a simple inexpensive one (AXt ), as in Nikainetos, 6, 3.