*tarsoi\ kala/mwn. oi( de\ *lazoi\ bo/qrous o)ru/cantes kai\ do/rata toi=s bo/qrois e)gkataph/cantes tarsoi=s kala/mwn kai\ u(/lh| mh\ bebai/an e)xou/sh| ba/sin, a)lla\ pro\s to\ e)pifero/menon a)/xqos o)lisqainou/sh|, ta\ sto/mata tw=n o)rugma/twn e)ka/luyan: kai\ xou=n e)pibalo/ntes ta/ te par' e(ka/tera xwri/a gewrgh/santes kai\ purou\s spei/rantes e)tropw/santo tou\s *(rwmai/ous. *tarsoi\ kala/mwn par' *(hrodo/tw| h( prasia/, ou(= e)ch/rainon th\n pli/nqon.
The headword phrase lacks a gloss. (For
tarso/s cf.
tau 130,
tau 132, and plural at
tau 133.
tau 132 is the city of that name.) In addition to the quotation provided here, the phrase
tarsoi\ kala/mwn or
tarsoi\ kala/mou is attested, with somewhat different meanings, in three ancient authors:
Herodotus 1.179.2 (reed matting used to strengthen brickwork),
Thucydides 2.76.1 (baskets filled with clay used in the construction of a siege mound) and Aeneas Tacticus 32.2 (wicker screens against missiles). The passage of
Thucydides is cited at
epsilon 1282,
epsiloniota 109,
tau 130. Compare also
Hesychius tau210 (Cunningham/Latte), where the accusative plural lemma
tarsou\s kala/mwn is clearly cited from
Herodotus.
[1] An extract from a late antique classicizing historian, derived from the
Excerpta Constantiniana. Bernhardy (1853) first assigned the extract to
Priscus, and it was thereafter included in collected fragments of
Priscus by Dindorf (1870) and Bornmann (1979), but omitted without argumentation by Blockley (1981-3), who is followed by Carolla (2008). Rance (2015) presents textual, historical and linguistic evidence in favour of
Priscus' authorship. For the Lazi of the southern
Caucasus see also
epsilon 2315. Only two Roman-Lazi conflicts are known, the first in the mid 450s (reported in fragments of
Priscus), the second in 541-8 (described by
Procopius, who offers no parallel to the extract).
[2] This alternative meaning derives from a glossary of Herodotean usages. See
Glossae in Herodotum (
Ἡροδότου λέξεις) 1.48 in H. Stein (ed.),
Herodoti Historiae (Berlin 1869-71), II 441-82 at 452, 470; repr. in K. Latte and H. Erbse (edd.),
Lexica Graeca minora (Hildesheim 1965), 191-231 at 200, 218. The glossarist seems to have misconstrued
Herodotus' technical description of the construction of the walls of Babylon at 1.179.2 (see n.1 above), where the phrase
tarsoi\ kala/mwn in fact refers not to a place for drying bricks but to reed matting inserted at regular intervals to bind the brickwork.
The reading
prasia/, 'allotment' or 'garden-plot', is transmitted in all the Suda mss, and accepted by Adler, but the original gloss reads more plausibly
trasia/, a wicker frame or crate used to dry bricks or foodstuffs (see LSJ 1811, s.v.
trasia/). See likewise Gregory of Corinth,
De dialectis 4.643 (Schäfer), which derives from an older copy of the Suda or a common source. The close palaeographical resemblance leaves little doubt that the
prasia/ of the Suda mss arose from a misreading of
trasia/.
P. Rance, 'A Roman-Lazi War in the Suda: a fragment of Priscus?', Classical Quarterly 65 (2015)
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