Kitap 17
3
Then the youth, in great vexation, replied: It was not my book that lacked that line, but you who badly lacked a teacher, if you believe that spa/rta in that verse means what we call spartum, or 'a rope of Spanish broom' They only laughed the louder, and would have continued to do so, had he not produced the twenty-fifth book of Varro's Human Antiquities, in which Varro writes as follows of that Homeric word: Frag. 4, Mirsch. I believe that spa/rta in Homer does not mean sparta, or 'Spanish broom,' but rather spa/rtoi, a kind of broom which is said to grow in the Theban territory. In Greece there has only recently been a supply of spartum, imported from Spain. The Liburnians did not make use of that material either, but as a rule fastened their ships together with thongs, See sutiles naves, Plin. N. H. xxiv. 65. while the Greeks made more use of hemp, tow, and other cultivated plants (sativis), from which ropes got their name of sparta. Since Varro says this, I have grave doubts whether the last syllable in the Homeric word ought not to have an acute accent; unless it be because words of this kind, when they pass from their general meaning to the designation of a particular thing, are distinguished by a difference in accent.
4
What the poet Menander said to Philemon, by whom he was often undeservedly defeated in contests in comedy; and that Euripides was very often vanquished in tragedy by obscure poets.
