[Meaning] the excretions of goats and of sheep. Aristophanes [writes]: "homebred quails, knapsack-necked dancers, people of dwarfish stature, titillations of dung-balls, contrivance-inventors."[1] Karkinos was a poet. "Homebred" meaning brought up in a shelter; as you might call birds homebred. And "quails" because of eagerness for conflict: for quails are of such a kind. And "knapsack-necked", that is to say long-throated: for the knapsack is a military plait-work [sc. container], longer than it is wide, ending in a point. So it is probable that their whole body is short and that only the neck is long. Or not having necks, just as the knapsack. Or he is ridiculing them as small and roundish. And these were dancing for their father. And "of dwarfish stature", because people who are short are called dwarves and horses that are short are called hinnies. And "dancers", since the father introduced them dancing in his plays. And "shavings of dung-balls" meaning lowly: for dung-balls are the excretions of goats and of sheep. And a dung-ball has the size of a bean. So he is comparing them to these; or rather, not to these but to shavings and fragments of them. So he is disparaging them because of their shortness; for a part of something small would be a small portion or nothing. And "inventing contrivances" from a particular characteristic. For Xenokles the [son of] Karkinos seems to bring inventions and marvels into his plays.[2] Plato calls him the "twelve-device man":[3] for he used to portray gods either going up or coming down.