From ejt1@columbia.edu Sat Feb 16 18:36:58 2002 Received: from mailscan4.cac.washington.edu (mailscan4.cac.washington.edu [140.142.33.15]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.12.1+UW01.12/8.12.1+UW02.01) with SMTP id g1H2av5S067176 for ; Sat, 16 Feb 2002 18:36:57 -0800 Received: FROM mxu4.u.washington.edu BY mailscan4.cac.washington.edu ; Sat Feb 16 18:36:56 2002 -0800 Received: from merhaba.cc.columbia.edu (merhaba.cc.columbia.edu [128.59.59.130]) by mxu4.u.washington.edu (8.12.1+UW01.12/8.12.1+UW02.01) with ESMTP id g1H2atAV014969 for ; Sat, 16 Feb 2002 18:36:56 -0800 Received: from localhost by merhaba.cc.columbia.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id VAA02570 for ; Sat, 16 Feb 2002 21:36:55 -0500 (EST) Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2002 21:36:55 -0500 (EST) From: Elias J Theodoracopoulos Sender: ejt1@columbia.edu To: classics@u.washington.edu Subject: Re: Seth Bernadete -- from today's NYTimes In-Reply-To: <001801c1b754$4f6c0660$3904a5d8@computer> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII The one specifically mentioning "the assorted legs" is quoted in Athenaeus 10. 456B, who makes reference to Asclepiades' "Trago:idoumena". The latter was a student of Isocrates and was active in the mid-fourth century. The riddle in this form goes back to at least the early fourth century (Jebb). The riddle as a generic riddle "presumably" (Gantz) goes back to Aeschylus' "Sphinx". EJTh On Sat, 16 Feb 2002, Diana Wright wrote: > As a tangent to this theme, when do we first know of the riddle of the > sphinx, any riddle, and the one about the assorted legs? > > DW > .