The Mention of a Cypriote Hero by Nonnus, Dion. 13.432

Abstract

In his recent book, the well-known Cypriote scholar K. Hadjioannou comes back to a disputed verse of Nonnus, Dionysiaca 13.432. For a long time the usual text (for instance in the edition of R. Keydell, 1959) has mentioned two obscure Cypriote heroes, Litros and Lapethos: Κνπριδας δ φλαγγας κσμεε Λτρος γνωρ | εὐχατης τε Λπηθος. Obviously the second is the legendary eponym of the town of Lapethus (north coast of Cyprus). But what are we to say of the first one, Litros? Hitherto the name is unknown, either for a figure or for a city. Nevertheless we know something which is not very different, in the ancient name of Λδρα, Λδρα, previous designation of the modern city of Nicosia, which was for a few centuries the capital of a small kingdom in central Cyprus. Thus, independently, Pierre Chuvin in his study of the geography of Nonnus and the present writer in a detailed discussion of the name of Ledra, etc., both put forward the hypothesis that ‘Λτρος’ is nothing but a light distortion of Λδρος, which could simply be the eponymous hero of the city (nowhere else mentioned, as is the case with Lapethos). As P. Chuvin observes: ‘Les deux formes sont pratiquement homophones: Lapéthos et Lèdros auraient été fabriqués de la même façon’. We thus think that the easy correction here is not misplaced. But now K. Hadjioannou objects that the poet did not allude to the town of Ledra and that the singular κσμεε cannot support two subjects. On the first point I would answer that the poet is not obliged to afford symmetrical allusions, on the second that the verb is here correctly in agreement with the nearest subject (and preceding it). And what does our Cypriote colleague propose? Another kind of correction by which the first hero completely disappears in favour of a new epithet of Lapethos, the text being; κσμεε λνγρς, γνωρ/εὐχατης τε Λπηθος. The idea is indeed ingenious, but does not convince: the rather negative adjective λνγρς