previous next

[133] This passage cannot be reconciled with geographical facts. Φειά is no doubt the same as “Φεαί” (Od. 15.297) in Elis; but that was a maritime town, not near Arkadia; there is nothing known of a Keladon or Iardanos anywhere near it, nor, it would seem, are there any rivers that could correspond. Strabo (viii. 348) says that some would write “Χάας” for “Φειᾶς”, taking “κελάδοντι” as adj.: while Did. is said in Schol. A (v. Ludwich) to have read “Φήρης” for “Φειᾶς”, after Pherekydes. Pausanias v. 5. 9 identifies the Iardanos with the Akidas, on the authority of ‘a certain Ephesian.’ Ar. took “κελάδοντι” as an attribute of the Iardanos. In fact the name ‘Jordan’ (Yardēn from yārad, to flow) is not far from the equivalent of “κελάδων”. The name recurs in Od. 3.292 applied to a river in Crete, where a Semitic name is natural; in Elis it is certainly surprising. The authorities and their various elucidations will be found in Ebeling's Lexicon, s.v. “Κελάδων”: it is clear that nothing short of the excision of 135 as copied from Od. 3.292 with a reminiscence of Od. 15.297 (von Christ', or a general assertion of an interpolator's incapacity, extended to the whole of Nestor's speech (Köchly), will obviate the inconsistency. The cicerones of Olympia identified one of the scenes on the chest of Kypselos with this battle (Paus.v. 18. 6).

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

hide References (3 total)
  • Commentary references from this page (3):
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: