1 [Published in ZPE 205 (2018), 6–12] Notes on Hipponax Fr. 104 W (107 Degani) * P.Oxy. 2175 is from a papyrus roll of the second or third century AD, the fourteen fragments of which preserve traces of 169 lines of verse, none of them complete, which all together comprise fragments 102–114 in West’s edition. Of the fourteen fragments of papyrus, two (P.Oxy. 2175 fr. 3+4) combine to give us Hipponax fr. 104 which, at 51 lines, is the longest of Hipponax’ fragments, though the desultory state of preservation has made interpretation difficult. Any continuous sense in the lines is impossible to establish, and as West 1974:145 has rightly noted, we might have more than one poem. At the same time, in an author such as Hipponax a seeming lack of continuity in a fragmentary text does not exclude the possibility of one continuous narrative with more than one element. The following notes have the modest aim of attempting to open up some lines of inquiry in the fragment, and introduce a few exempli gratia supplements as a means of giving some idea of how the narrative or narratives might have progressed, though any suggestions about, let alone conclusions drawn from, such a fragmentary text can only be conjectural and tentative. I take as my starting point the supposition that in the central portion of the text, from ca. lines 17 to 35, we have evidence for a somewhat graphic description of sexual acts. 1 Beyond this I try to consider how this central narrative can be reconciled with both the beginning of the fragment, and with the final obscure lines. I give West’s text below, and have checked it against a high-resolution digital image of the papyrus, and I note differences in readings only where necessary for the discussion. In the brief apparatus I provide only what I consider to be the more compelling and plausible readings and supplements. ] ̣ ̣ [ ] ̣ ̣[ ̣] ̣ ε̣ ξεν̣ [ ]τ̣έγραψ[ε] ] ̣ρ̣ο̣υ 5 ] ̣ [ ̣] ̣α̣ι̣ · ]η̣ ϲε ]ρ̣ρήϲϲων ήρ]αξε ]ι̣ου 10 δακ]τ̣ύλουϲ µεταϲτρέψαϲ· ]οϲ τε καὶ ῥύδην ] ̣ ων δ̣ ’ αὐτὸν ἀϲκαρίζοντα * The following abbreviations are used: West = M. L. West, Iambi et Elegi Graeci ante Alexandrum Cantati, 2 nd edition, 2 Vols. (Oxford, 1989–91); Degani = E. Degani, Hipponactis Testimonia et Fragmenta, 2 nd edition (Stuttgart and Leipzig, 1991); Bartalucci = A. Bartalucci, ‘Hipponacteae interpretatiunculae’, Maia (n.s.) 16 (1964), 243–58; Masson = O. Masson, Les fragments du poète Hipponax (Paris, 1962); Medeiros = W. de Sousa Medeiros, Hipónax de Éfeso, 1. Fragmentos dos Iambos (Coimbra, 1961); West 1974 = M. L. West, Studies in Early Greek Elegy and Iambus (Berlin and New York, 1974). 1 Already suggested by Medeiros 156 and West 1974:28, 143, 145; see below with n.5.