ABSTRACT
The Athenian view of the normal appearance and life-style of Spartans is given in Birds 1282: long hair, scanty food, dirtiness, scanty clothing. All the same features are mentioned in Lysistrate 277-80, which actually uses two of the same verbs: besides the reference to the short cloak the authors have πεινῶν referring to the meagre diet, ῥυπῶν and ἕξ ἐτῶν ἄλουτος to the dirtiness. The remaining feature of Spartans mentioned in Birds 1282, long hair, appears to be represented in Lys. 279 by ἀπαράτιλτος. Emendation of line 279 has been suggested on metrical grounds. The latest discussion is by Jeffrey Henderson in CQ N.S. 29 (1979), 53-5. It is true that a lyric passage may contain both iambic and trochaic metra, but when that happens there is usually a considerable number of each, and in comedy they are usually separated from each other fairly clearly.
