Διιτρέφης πυτιναῖα ἔχων πτερά

This man was a busybody, who became rich by manufacturing vessels made of twigs and served as a hipparch and a phylarch.¹ Euphronius [says] that the straps hanging on either side of the neck of a wicker-flask are called 'wings'; and that this man used to weave wicker-flasks. But some [say that the term] was used of a poor man because of its being undramatic. As if [Aristophanes] said: with nothing other than wine-jar feet and earthenware knobs. This man [Dieitrephes] was nouveau riche and grasping and wicked. Plato in Festivals [writes]: "and a foreigner, the madman, the Cretan, the scarcely-Athenian";² a wicker-flask [is] a woven item. [It was Dieitrephes] who "was elected phylarch, [then] hipparch, then from being a nobody has become important and is now a tawny horse-cock". Meaning has now become a bird of importance, not any old one. Or a councillor; for the cock [is] rather prestigious amongst birds.