4303. NEW COMEDY, ?MENANDER

tall (deep) upright on edge oi? ., speck level with foot of i? (the lower part of this letter must be narrow, to fit into the lacuna); then probably s?, but there may be enough damage to the right to allow a mutilated o? ] . . ., point on edge at line-level; foot of upright and then horizontal at two-thirds height (two letters? or combine as e? with extended cross-bar?) 5 d? . . . , e? or s?; then part of oblique descending from left to right; then elements of e?, th?? n? . . ., parts of two uprights 7 ll?, suprascript above the second lambda, a circlet (damaged at the centre, so that th? would be possible) au? . [, left-hand end of high horizontal 8 ]s?, only the tips 9 ] . ., short horizontal from left, nearly at line-level 10 ] . [, tiny horizontal trace, then rising oblique like acute accent ] . [, lower arc of circle, very high in line (what?)

1 ]thst? . . [ . . . . ] . si? ’ anētō?[
2 ]yne? . [ . . ] . . . . . geis? [
3 ]nou? . . . . is? sy? thatton? th? [
4 ] . oi? . . [ . . . ] . . kai? badiz?’ o? [
5 ]ōd?’ . . . . n? . ros? agora? [
6 ]tēn? id? . n? proeipen? [
7 ]ell?th? . . . . i? pros? ymas? au? . [
8 kai? gar? pro?]siontas? athroous? horō? tin?[as?
9 ois? mē? ’nochlein? eukairon? einai? moi?[ dokei?.
10 ] . [ ] . [

8–9 show that we are dealing with iambic trimeters, and that c. 8 letters or 3 syllables are lost at the line-beginning.

1 ]thst? . [, the first trace looks like the foot of an upright hooked to the right at line-level, the second extends well below the line; they are spaced close together. Perhaps e? or o? followed by iry? (or presumably ph? ps?)?
] . s?i? ’ , the second trace gamma or possibly tau (the surface is damaged where the left-hand end of the cross-bar would be expected). It looks as if either s?i? or au? must be a short syllable; but we see no obvious articulation. an? as particle or for ean? if? anē?, cf. CGFPR 260.32? (We have not enough text to decide whether the scribe wrote iota adscript consistently; probably he did so in 7.) Hardly a? nē? tō? theō? by the gods; or a form of anēton? (this spelling unlikely in Attic?). Before that, s?ig?’ (but not attested in New Comedy)? -s?i? g?’? s?it?’ (i.e. sita? grain/food: but we have not found this plural in Comedy).
2 end ageis? . [ likely (rather than lg?).
3 ]nou? . . . . is?. After u?, traces of a slightly inclined upright and another sloping more sharply down from left to right (l?, n??); then a horizontal at mid-height, its left-hand end perhaps joining an upright; then part of an upright. i? is an upright, joined from the left by a horizontal at half-height: ei? very likely. We have considered various supplements on the lines of to? prachth?]en? ouk? ereis? sy? thatton? th? [ (at the end a dative, e.g. Th?[aid? Thais? or a vocative, e.g. th?[ērion? beast/creature?). (i) ouk? ereis? will you not say suits a familiar pattern of indignant question (cf. Perik. 526, Sam. 678–9, 719–20). But the trace tells against k?: the descending oblique is too long and steep. (ii) oun? ereis?: n? looks possible, if a little cramped. (iii) ou? legeis? do you not say fits best palaeographically (there seem even to be traces of the apex of l?, hooked to the left).
With suitable supplements in 4–7, we could reconstruct the action thus: a slave instructs another character to report to a third; he himself will go to the agora market-place (5) to warn his master (6), and will then (who