Unapproachable for Goats: Some Notes to Lucilius 113 M

The present study deals with the fragment 110–13 M of Lucilius’ Satires, transmitted by Aulus Gellius, and in particular with the intricate transmission of the last of its four lines. The line opens with an obscure Greek word of Homeric inspiration, which presents a number of textual variants and for which diverse emendations have been proposed from the sixteenth century to our times. After examining the variants and establishing the archetype’s reading, I reassess the different solutions to the edition of the text and offer an interpretation of this Greek term in the context of the whole fragment.