[Meaning] a grinding-implement.
Aristophanes [writes]: "that if this man had not become great in the city, two useful implements would not exist, a pestle and a grinder".[1]
See in the entry
a)letri/banos ['grinder'].[2]
*doi=duc: o( a)letri/banos. *)aristofa/nhs: w(s ei) mh\ ge/noiq' ou(=tos e)n th=| po/lei me/gas, ou)k a)\n h)/sthn skeu/h du/o xrhsi/mw, doi=duc kai\ a)letri/banos. zh/tei e)n tw=| a)letri/banos.
For the headword cf.
delta 1559;
Hesychius delta2099.
[1]
Aristophanes,
Knights 981-984, on Kleon (
kappa 1731). The passage is a variation on the theme of the "confusion" (
tara/ttein) in reference to the activity of demagogues: a pestle and a grinder are implements used to crush and mix things, to create agitation. (For this see also
Peace 259-284, where Kleon and Brasidas are the "pestles" used by the
demon War to destroy Greece.)
Aristophanes, however, did not mention the
a)letri/banos; the second implement in the phrase is a stirring implement,
toru/nh (
tau 799). The error may have been caused by the presence of the word
a)letri/banos in a scholion. For this last see
Peace 265, 269, 282; the
scholia to
Peace 295 derive the word from
a(/las tri/bein "grind salt".
Pollux 1.245 mentions the
a)letri/banos among implements used by peasants.
For 'pestle'
doi/duc see
Peace 288, 295; a scholion ascribes to
Crates of
Mallos the notion that this was an Attic word, and
a)letri/banos an Asian one.
The
scholia refer to proverbial expressions:
scholia to
Knights 984b
paroimi/a, doi/duc au)/cei: e)pi\ tw=n li/an mikrw=n, "there is a proverb, "the grinder causes [things] to augment: [it is said] for the very little things". See also the
scholia to
Knights 984c.
[2]
alpha 1146.
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