I doni ospitali di Frinico: un’emendazione e nuove proposte attributive per TrGF 3 F 14

Phrynichus’ fragment TrGF 3 F 14, featuring the somewhat loose mention of “hospitable gifts” and beheadings, presents textual and attributive problems. I suggest to amend the δούσας generally printed by editors (itself a correction) into δοῦναι, which seems more compatible with the surrounding text. The markedly ironic nature of the fragment, sometimes hypothesized in the past, is thus fully confirmed: someone’s hospitable gifts consist precisely in the killing and beheading of xenoi. More than from the Phoenicians or the Danaids, which have been considered so far, now it could be assumed that the fragment comes from another tragedy by Phrynichus, the Antaeus. The cruel protagonist is in fact said by Pindarus (Istm. 52-55) to decapitate the unfortunate wayfarers who stumbled upon him. A scholion ad loc., however, seems to imply that this detail was peculiar to the Pindaric treatment; if this statement is to be taken at face value, we can then think of another tragedy, or even better, a satyrical drama, by Phrynichus which was among those (probably numerous) whose title was not handed down, and which could have dealt with the clash of a hero (Heracles?) against a head-cutting xenoktonos, such as Oenomaus, Cycnus, or Lityerses, a plot well attested in the later theatrical tradition.