THE WORD [Greek: SYAGROS .]
impetuously; but men have got a trick of pronouncing the word without the [Greek: s, hys]; and some people believe that it is called [Greek: syn], by being softened from [Greek: thyn], as if it had its name from being a fit animal to sacrifice ([Greek: thyein]). But now, if it seems good to you, answer me who ever uses the compound word like we do, calling the wild boar not [Greek: sys agrios], but [Greek: syagros]? At all events, Sophocles, in his Lovers of Achilles, has applied the word [Greek: syagros] to a dog, as hunting the boar ([Greek: apo tou sys agreuein]), where he says—
And you, Syagre, child of Pelion.
And in Herodotus we find Syagrus used as a proper name of a man who was a Lacedæmonian by birth, and who went on the embassy to Gelon the Syracusan, about forming an alliance against the Medes; which Herodotus mentions in the seventh book of his History. And I am aware, too, that there was a general of the Ætolians named Syagrus, who is mentioned by Phylarchus, in the fourth book of his History. And Democritus said—You always, O Ulpian, have got a habit of never taking anything that is set before you until you know whether the existing name of it was in use among the ancients. Accordingly you are running the risk, on account of all these inquiries of yours, (just like Philetas of Cos, who was always investigating all false arguments and erroneous uses of words,) of being starved to death, as he was. For he became very thin by reason of his devotion to these inquiries, and so died, as the inscription in front of his tomb shows—
Stranger, Philetas is my name, I lie
Slain by fallacious arguments, and cares
Protracted from the evening through the night.
65. And so that you may not waste away by investigating this word [Greek: syagros], learn that Antiphanes gives this name to the wild boar, in his Ravished Woman:—
This very night a wild boar [Greek: syagron]) will I seize,
And drag into this house, and a lion and a wolf.
And Dionysius the tyrant, in his Adonis, says—
Under the arched cavern of the nymphs
I consecrate. . . .
A wild boar ([Greek: syagron]) as the first-fruits to the gods.
And Lynceus the Samian, in his epistle to Apollodorus, writes thus—"That you may have some goat's flesh for your children, and some meat of the wild boar ([Greek: ta syagria]) for your-
