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

THE ATTIC STELAI 239
suits the other house-door prices which have been found. It seems likely that the price
of the thyra diapristos was 20 drachmas 4 obols.
2. KVpTaU7a (V, 40). Garden gate. Near the listings of a phatne and a pigpen in
Stele V is the phrase K7-Tqata ETT rctGI3o,3vt. Kepcaia is short for kepcaia thyra (see Pollux
I, 76 and IX, 13), which is usually taken to mean the back door of a house (Olynthus,
VIII, p. 152, note 4). That it was not merely a garden gate is shown by [Demosthenes]
XLVII, Against Euergos and Mnesiboulos, 53, where a violent entry into a
farm house was made through the door which led to the garden (,rqv Ov9pav rq)v E1s r07J
K'TOV bE'pov-cav). A second passage which should be helpful in defining the kepaia is
a fragment from Hermippos: 183 8E, raXatvav -a6a-rtyy' av '8oots sap& rov mrpo4Ea
T2) K7pTratas EV TOUOrt KOp7yLccTav ovi-av. Here the kepaia is the door out of which refuse
was thrown.
The problem to be solved in trying to visualize our kepaia is what the modifying
phrase E'T r4t C,8o6vt means. If the kepaia is always a house door, then here we have a
back door, opening into an attached cow shed, or leading to a detached cow shed. But
the phrase should describe some permanent characteristic of the door-the mere fact
that it once, on a certain house, led out towards a shed need not have been recorded in
this list. Therefore, if these are the only alternatives, the first must be chosen, and the
door thought of as of a special sort which ordinarily separated house from shed.
However, it is possible that this door may have been a cow shed door and not a house
door at all.'84 In either case the kepaia was presumably of much rougher and cheaper
construction than any door which would be placed at the front of a house, but necessarily
strong enough not to be knocked down by the animals.
3. KXtW-ta'SE3 (V, 2, 39). Broad double door. In Stele V there are two entries,
one of klisiades and one of klisiades saprai; in neither case is a price preserved. This
term is derived from KXELtO-tov or KXLcTLOV, which is from KXtV(o, according to Liddell-
Scott-Jones, thus doors belonging to a lean-to or outhouse. However, Pollux derived
it from KXELO) (IX, 50), and he has been followed by Dindorf. The word klisiades is
used sometimes for an outer or street door (Dionysios Halikarnassos V, 39), sometimes
for an inner door which connects the vestibule with the house (Philo Mech., I,
520). Suidas and Hesychius define it simply as a 'double door,' Oipat &7-rvrXot, while
Pollux (IV, 125) uses it as the door of the KXWtLo1V, which is wide enough to allow
chariots to pass. Et. Mag. suggests that the connection with klision, which can mean
stable, shows that such a door was wide enough for a yoked team,'85 and Herodotos
183 Kock, C.A.F., I, p. 238.
184On cow sheds, see H. Kraemer, R.E., Suppl. 7, s.v. Rind, and Alphonse Hauger, Zur
rimischen Lanzdwirtschaft und Haustierzucht, Hanover, 1921, especially p. 16. Doors to sheds were
in demand, just as house doors were, as we know from B.C.H., XXXV, 1911, p. 243, lines 50 ff.,
where there is mention of a 7rpo,8ar3va aOvpa, and a ovorfacrtv still presumably possessing a door.
185
Cf. Photius, s.v., where the door is wide enough for a pair of animals.