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

240 W. KENDRICK PRITCHETT
(IX, 9) uses the term simply to denote a very broad gate in a wall (cf. Plutarch,
Alc., 10).
We have then a broad double door, more expensive than the doors called simply
thyrai, which we have assumed had only a single leaf.
4. bXta' (V, 19). Doorjamb. Six phliai are listed among the furniture items in
Stele V. This term seems to have had two meanings, an older, particular one-
' doorjamb,' and a later, general one-any part of the framework of a door. However,
the second usage does not appear much earlier than Apollonios Rhodios (III, 278),
where the meaning is 'lintel'; it is most frequent among very late writers (Artemidoros,
On., 4, 42: Schol. Gen. H to II. XXIII, 202; Quintus Smyrnaeus, 7, 338;
Palladios, Hist. Laus., XII, 3 and XVIII, 23; Suidas s.v. ovi0s6). As ' jamb' the
word appears in Od., XVII, 221; Theokritos, 23, 18; Bion, 1, 87; Kallimachos, Iamb.,
4, 24 and 91 (Pfeiffer, frag. 194) and Epig., 42, 5-6; Polybios, XII, 11, 2; Josephus,
A.J., V, 305.186 The usual word for doorjamb in inscriptions is parastas (see Pollux,
I, 76, where stathmoi are equated with parastades, but phlicai are not mentioned), but
phlica occurs in I.G., 2, 386, line 6; I.G., XII, 3, 170, line 24; I.G., XII, 7, 237, line
50; in each of these cases the meaning is 'jamb.'
In temples, public buildings and very fine houses the door frames were of stone 187
but the jambs sold among the possessions of the Hermokopidai were surely wooden, of
the sort pictured in Olynthus, VIII, p. 250, fig. 21.
LAMPSTANDS
XvXvELov (II, 199-200). Lampstand.188 There seems to be no reference to the
word lychneion in Toutain's article in Daremberg-Saglio, s.v. Lucerna, or in Hug's in
R.E., s.v. Lucerna.
The most pertinent literary passage for this word occurs in Athenaeus, XV, 700
c-d,189 where the author collects passages to illustrate the use of the word lychneion for
what in his day was called lychnia.90 Rutherford (op. cit., p. 132) states that the
lychneion was used indoors to support or suspend one or more lychnoi.
186 See Gow's discussion, Theocritus, II, pp. 47 and 410.
187
See, for instance, Delos, VIII, 2, figs. 127-131; in I.G., II2, 1672, line 129, a threshold is
listed at AA. ., but since this one was probably of marble it does not help us to conjecture a price
for the phliai in Stele V.
188 For the etymology, see Boisacq, Dictionnaire4, s.v. XEvKo'; and Buck, Dictionary, p. 483.
Liddell-Scott-Jones defines Xvxvo3xos as 'lampstand.' As Rutherford has shown (The New Phrynichus,
London, 1881, p. 131), however, lychnouchos was more correctly a lantern used in the
open air. See also Gulick ad Athenaeus, XV, 699 f in the Loeb Classical Library.
189 For epigraphical references, see, for example, I.G., J2, 313, line 142 (408/7 B.C.); II2, 1425,
line 348; etc.
190 For lychnia, a shortened form, of lychneion, and condemned by Phrynichos, see Rutherford,
op. cit., p. 367. See also Gow ad Theokritos, 21, 36, vol. II, p. 377.