Grammarians and Handwashing

IN MODERN COMMENTARIES one will find little about the rituals of handwashing; the best recent discussion is a footnote in the work of an archaeologist and fifty years prior to that a brief comment by van Leeuwen.' But it was different in antiquity where philology concerned itself intensely with such problems. In what follows I propose to trace the ancient and modern discussions. They provide a good example of the vicissitudes to which learning is exposed in its transmission; they also shed some light on the methods of ancient scholars. Adolf Roemer2 came to the conclusion that Aristophanes of Byzantium had achieved nothing solid and was highly critical of his work, while Rudolf Pfeiffer3 considered Aristophanes to be the vollkommene Philologe. These are both judgements of modern philology, and can of course once fixed be used to praise or blame a priori. It is certainly true that one can find enough fragments to support both points of view; and equally both sides, to be consistent, are obligated to interpret away those fragments that do not suit their general estimate. In view of the epitomization and corruption to which the original has been exposed, this is no difficult task. It will be seen that the interpretation of even one fragment can involve a plethora of errors, ancient and modern.4

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