λάσανα
(Phryn. PS 88.3–4, Antiatt. λ 22, Poll. 10.44–5, Poll. 10.99, Moer. λ 20)

D. General commentary

Four entries in Atticist lexica are devoted to the meaning of the neuter plural noun λάσανα, whose etymology is obscure (see DELG s.v., EDG s.v.). In the Praeparatio sophistica (A.1), Phrynichus states that the λάσανα are objects (i.e. vessels) in which one defecates. His use of the evaluative label ὡς ἡμεῖςἡμεῖς underlines the continuity of the classical meaning with that of Post-classical Greek (on this label, see also entry γῦρος and AGP vol. 3, forthcoming). This semantic continuity is confirmed by the agreement between some Attic comic fragments (C.1, C.2, C.4, C.5 – on the interpretation of the latter see Pirrotta 2009, 256) and the later attestations of λάσανα (C.7, C.12), including the singular λάσανον (C.8, C.9, C.10: see below for all these texts), as well as of derivations such as the compound λασανοφόρος ‘[slave] in charge of the potty’ and the adjective λασανίτης, which qualifies a δίφρος (‘stool’) in a papyrus lease listing the furnishings of a house (BGU 4.1116.25 = TM 18557 [Alexandria, 1st century CE]; the reason that the EDG s.v. λάσανα re. this attestation annotates ‘mg. unclear’ is obscure). Pollux (A.3) identifies λάσανα and ἁμίς as the necessities of the master’s bedroom, as opposed to those found in the servants’ quarters. He also prescribes δίφρος (‘stool’) as a euphemistic synonym for λάσανα. In another passage (5.91)Poll. 5.91, Pollux lists εἰς λάσανα among the expressions meaning ‘to (go) to the toilet’.

The reason for Phrynichus’ (A.1) emphasis on the continuity between the contemporary and ancient meanings of λάσανα is that other Atticist lexica (A.2, A.4, A.5) testify to an alternative meaning of the word as ‘pot stands’. Attic comedy provides the only literary evidence for this alternative meaning: a fragment by Diocles (C.6), cited by Pollux (A.4), and a well-known scene of Aristophanes’ Peace (ll. 868–908, portraying Trygaeus’ return to earth on board the flying scarab, his wedding plans with Theoria, and his visit to the Council. The scene is replete with culinary and sexual metaphors, which culminate at ll. 891–4 (C.3) with the equation of Theoria to a blackened oven in which ‘the pot stands for the Council used to be before the war’ (on the scene as a whole, see Olson 1988, 237–42). The identification of these λάσανα with pot stands is confirmed by the scholium ad loc., which also captures the passage’s double-entendre (schol. Ar. Pac. 893b: οὕτως οἱ χυτρόποδες. ἐπεὶ δὲ εἶπε ‘τὸ ὀπτάνιον’, ἐπήγαγε καὶ ‘τὰ λάσανα’. δηλοῖ δὲ τοὺς δασεῖς αὐτῆς μηρούς, δηλοῖ δὲ καὶ τὰ μαγειρεῖα, ὅπου τῇ βουλῇ σκευάζεται μετὰ τὰς θυσίας κρέα (RVΓ), ‘(λάσανα): Thus the pot stands [are called]. Since he (i.e. Aristophanes) said ‘the oven’, he also added ‘the pot stands’. [The word] denotes her hairy thighs; it also denotes the kitchens, where the Council prepared the meat after the sacrifice’; the folk etymology connecting λάσανα to the adjective λάσιος/λάσειος ‘woolly; hairy’ is also reported in Su. α 3246, B.3, and Et.Gen. AB λ 38, B.5). Theoria is described as being ‘blackened’ or ‘scorched’, either with reference to her bushy genitals, as the scholium ad loc. suggests, or because she has depilated her pubic hair by burning it with the flame of a candle, as was common practice among Athenian women (see Olson 1998, 240–1).

Morris (1985) clarified the exact image suggested by λάσανα in the Peace, definitively identifying the λάσανα with a typology of ceramic objects that had hitherto remained obscure to archaeologists. They are curved supports on which the pot was placed to prevent it from coming into direct contact with the fire, thus allowing safe and slow cooking even at high temperatures (the supports are pierced at both ends so that hot steam can escape without inflicting heat damage on the object: see Morris 1985, 400 and the decoration on a hydria from Caere depicting a large cauldron balanced on curved support, where meat from a sacrifice in Dionysus’ honour is boiling: cf. Morris 1985, 397–8 and pl. 104). As these objects’ alternative name, χυτρόποδες (i.e. literally ‘the pot’s feet’) also demonstrates, the λάσανα resemble curved legs (see Olson 1998, 241), which Theoria would bend in the sexual act (see Olson 2016, 284: ‘the vital point of comparison is that both items use a set of legs to allow a large object to be balanced over a central hole’). Henderson (1991, 143) instead interprets Aristophanes’ λάσανα as a reference to the Councillors’ phalli. While this reading would be more rational, given that l. 891 states that Theoria’s ‘oven’ is the place where the pot stands for the Council used to be before the war, it fails to capture the physical similarity between the λάσανα and human legs that Morris (1985) highlighted. On balance, the sexual allusion may pile up various metaphorsMetaphors without any claim to perfect rationality and real-life credibility.

Thanks to Morris’ (1985) study, it has finally been possible to understand why the term λάσανα is also used to refer to a potty. Originally, the word merely denoted the support on which the potty stood (thus, the evidence does not support the Antiatticist’s claim, A.2, that the use of λάσανα was transferred from the original denotation of potties to that of pot stands: the metonymic process was rather the opposite). λάσανα was then metonymically transferred from the support to the vessel itself: this explains why the word, although grammatically plural, identifies a singular object. It follows that λάσανα did not originally denote the simple vessel in which one defecated (the Greeks called this kind of vessels σκωραμίδες, σκάφια, and ἁμίδες) but more properly a type of potty that was provided with a support. Vases of this nature – that is, consisting of a support and a pot resting thereon – have been found in excavations in archaic Athens, the best known being the children’s potty from the Athenian Agora (inv. no. P 18010, ca. 675–50 BCE; cf. Morris 1985, 126 and pl. 103; Lynch, Papadopoulos 2006 collect other vascular images depicting these objects).

The polysemy of λάσανα in Attic literature accounts for Phrynichus’ (A.1) urge to stress that the meaning ‘potty’ was also the meaning that was still in use during his lifetime (we may conjecture that he overtly proscribed this meaning in the entry’s full version before it underwent epitomisation). After the two attestations in Aristophanes’ Peace (C.3) and Diocles (C.6), the application of λάσανα to pot stands appears to have ceased. Archaeology again furnishes the reason for this obsolescence: as Morris (1985, 402) has demonstrated, at a certain point, the kitchen λάσανα (i.e. the χυτρόποδες) disappeared from common use to be replaced by more sophisticated braziers that incorporated support and pot in one object and, later, by the standard braziers with three supports (see also Papadopoulos 1992, who confirms this interpretation). In all its later attestations, the term thus identifies only a potty. In the Corpus Hippocraticum, λάσανα (only once in the plural, C.7) and λάσανον (twice in On Superfetation: see C.8 and Hp. Superf. 8.2 Bourbon = 8.480.24–482.1 Littré) feature as chamber pots to be used for patients with various medical problems. These Hippocratic occurrences suggest that the plural λάσανα had already been joined by the singular form λάσανον by the mid-4th century BCE (that is, accepting the traditional dating of the treatise On Superfetation, which, however, was certainly reworked in a later age: see Craik 2015, 254). Thus, the term’s metonymic extension from ‘supports’ to the pot itself had been accomplished by this period: given that the term denoted a single object, it could now be used in the singular. The word is also singular in Epictetus/Arrian (C.9) and Artemidorus (C.10); in Plutarch, one finds instead two attestations of the compound λασανοφόρος ‘bearer of the potty’, which may well be an ironic nonce-formation: it is part of a joke attributed to Antigonus in both Apophthegmata 2.182c and De Iside et Osiride 360c. The latest occurrence of λάσανα in Greek literary texts is in the Haereticarum fabularum compendium of Theodoretus of Cyrrhus (5th century CE, C.11), where it is accompanied by δημόσια ‘public’, confirming the information provided by Pollux in 10.44 (A.3) that λάσανα also denoted ‘fixed’ toilets, including public latrines. After Theodoretus, the term disappears from literary usage and is only attested in lexicographical works (see section B.).

The singular λάσανον was borrowed into LatinLatin lasanum (‘potty’). Two uncontroversial usages of the term occur in Petronius (C.12 and 47.2–6 Müller: in both cases, the textual corruptions indicate that Medieval copyists did not understand the word), one in the scholia to Horace (schol. Hor. Sat. 1.6.109 Keller: Lasanum] vas, in quo exoneratur venter, idest quo ventrem purgamus […], ‘Lasanum: The vase in which the belly relieves itself, i.e. in which we free [our] belly […]’), and one in a far later epigram of the Anthologia Latina (205 Riese² = 196 Shackleton Bailey, l. 2, in the masculine lasanus; on the poem, see Wolff 2012). The oldest attestation, in Horace Satire 1.6.109 ([…] pueri, lasanum portantes oenophorumque ‘[…] slaves who bring a lasanum and a wine-vessel’) is debated. Although it is typically translated as ‘potty’ (see e.g. Kiessling, Heinze 1921, 124; Gowers 2012, 244), it has also been taken as indicating a pot of food that the parvenu Tillius, satirised in the piece, brings with him because he is unable to consume a meal at home (see Smart, Buckley 1863, 169; Ullman 1912, 447; cf. Villeneuve 1932, 83 n. 5). For a discussion of the Horace passage, see Tribulato (forthcoming).

Later lexica, which repeat the information provided by previous lexicography, gloss λάσανα with both ‘pot stands’ and ‘potty’ (see B.1, B.2, B.3), with only a few texts glossing it with either ‘pot stands’ (B.4) or ‘potty’ (B.5, B.6) alone. Of particular interest here is the Photius lemma (B.2), which records the entire semantic spectrum of λάσανα, correctly identifying its common denominator in the general sense of ‘support’. As elsewhere in his lexicon, Photius here relies on the Praeparatio sophistica (A.1). We may be relatively certain that Photius is closer to Phrynichus’ original wording than the epitomisedEpitome text of the PS preserved in cod. Par. Coisl. 345: the adverb κυρίωςκυρίως (‘properly’) is typical Phrynichean terminology that is employed elsewhere in the PS in contrast to the idiosyncratic semantic usage of some Attic (usually comic) author (see, for example, PS 23.13–24.2Phryn. PS 23.13–24.2, 31.7–9Phryn. PS 31.7–9, 33.9–11Phryn. PS 33.9–11). In glossing λάσανα with ‘potties’, however, Phrynichus employs a verb in the present tense (ἀποπατοῦμεν, ‘we defecate’), while Photius uses all verbs in the past (ἀπεπάτουν ‘they defecated’, ἔλεγον ‘they said’) and omits Phrynichus’ evaluative terminology ὡς ἡμεῖς, thus implying that in his time potties and latrines were no longer called λάσανα. Indeed, λάσανα is never attested in Byzantine texts, which employ other terms, such as ὑπηρέσιον (see Su. υ 431: τὸ παρ’ ἡμῖν, ᾧ χρώμεθα εἰς ἀπόπατον, ‘in our language, the thing which we use for excrements’), οὐρεῖον, and οὐροδόχον ἀγγεῖον. The polysemy of λάσανα in Classical Greek and the term’s gradual phasing thus justify the considerable attention afforded to it by Greek lexicography of different periods.

E. Byzantine and Modern Greek commentary

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F. Commentary on individual texts and occurrences

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