=
Synagoge epsilon767;
Photius,
Lexicon epsilon1767; and the first part of Apollonius Sophistes,
Homeric Lexicon 74.30 -- evidently in reference to
Homer,
Odyssey 12.423 (web address 1), where the headword occurs (in the metrically unusual position of the beginning of the line). Defined differently in
scholia ad loc.,
Hesychius epsilon5343, and (post-Suda)
Eustathius ad loc.
Modern scholars differ on whether to interpret the term as 'backstay' (e.g. Casson 1986: 260-1), or something else (e.g. Morrison and Williams 1968: 55). Until the publication of the papyri
P. Col. Zen. 100 and
P. Cairo Zen. 59754 (inventories of ships' rigging from the third century BCE), the word was attested only in
Homer and in commentary to
Homer (and commentary to
Aristophanes: see
epsilon 2714). These new documents seem to support the interpretation of the word as 'backstay' (Casson 1986: 261).