[1] Likewise in Hesychius and other lexica. (For the difficulty of differentiating in translation between the Greek nouns e(/rsh and dro/sos cf. epsilon 3080, epsilon 3084.)
2Greek Anthology 6.120.4 (Leonidas of Tarentum↗), on a cicada perched on Athena's spear; cf. Gow and Page (vol. I, 136); (vol. II, 389); and further extracts from this epigram at epsilon 3652, zeta 8, kappa 1294, pi 2981, and omega 107. As Gow and Page observe (ibid.), the widespread ancient belief that dewdrops are part of the cicada diet is erroneous; see next note. Gow and Page note (vol. I, 136) that here the Anthologia Palatina (AP) reads geno/menos (coming into being), but they follow the Anthologia Planudea, the AP scribe designated C (the Corrector), and the Suda in reading geuo/menos (tasting).↩
3cf. alpha 368. In fact, cicadas are sucking insects that, as nymphs in the ground, feed on the fluids in tree roots and as adults feed on the sap from the xylem layer in trees; cf. Egan (21-26).
A.S.F. Gow and D.L. Page, eds., The Greek Anthology: Hellenistic Epigrams, vol. I, (Cambridge 1965)
A.S.F. Gow and D.L. Page, eds., The Greek Anthology: Hellenistic Epigrams, vol. II, (Cambridge 1965)
R.B. Egan, 'Cicadas in Ancient Greece: Ventures in Classical Tettigology,' Cultural Entomology Digest, vol. 3, 1995.