Bayla Kamens and David Driscoll’s edition of the Βατραχομυομαχία, much like the text’s characters, is short and sweet. The Battle of Frogs and Mice is a mock Homeric epic, dating from sometime between the 3rd to the 1st Century BCE, narrating an inter-species war sparked by the accidental drowning of a mouse prince, Ψιχάρπαξ (‘Crumb-Snatcher’), when a frog king, Φυσίγναθος (‘Puff-Cheek’), tries to ferry the mouse on his back and is surprised by a water-snake. This edition of the text is an extremely helpful learning tool, aimed at allowing the intermediate student of Greek – whether familiar or unfamiliar with Homeric dialect – to read this whimsical poem with minimal fuss.
The authors print, without textual criticism or literary analysis, a text of the mock-epic with facing vocabulary and linguistic commentary, and the edition is greatly enhanced by Kamens’ endearing illustrations – of which, particular mention must be made to the illustration of the arming scene of the mice with bean-pod greaves, lamp-lid shields, needle spears and chickpea-shell helmets (p. 16), reproduced above. A brief introduction explains the text’s origins and notes that they print the text of Allen’s (1912) Oxford Classical Text edition. A concise but useful guide to the ways in which Homeric (or, mock Homeric) language diverges from Attic Greek follows, followed by a page on metre. After the text with running vocabulary and comments on language, there is an index of the names of the text’s murine and batrachian warriors, with details on etymology (e.g. ‘Τυρογλύφος ~ Tyroglyphus; Cheese-scooper… from τυρός, cheese, and γλύφω, to carve, scoop’, p. 41). There follows a list of recurring vocabulary, with words that are elsewhere less common marked by asterisks. In sum it is a slim volume, well-written. One notable oversight is the slight to the warrior Seutlaeus, who is given a translated name ‘Beety’, but unlike his comrades his name receives no etymological explanation (from σεῦτλον/τεῦτλον, ‘sea-beet’).
Their project is, in a sense, a modest one, and they explicitly defer questions relating to the origin and interpretation of the text to two recent scholarly editions (Christensen & Robinson, 2018; Hosty, 2020). However, the authors deserve high praise for their goal of increasing the accessibility of a wonderful ancient text. Creating running commentaries in the style of Geoffrey Steadman (https://geoffreysteadman.com/), whose inspiration and assistance they acknowledge in the introduction, their commentary is sure to save the intermediate student of Greek some time and arm-sprain as they find they no longer have to wrangle bulky dictionaries. Some may argue that such editions with running vocabulary and linguistic comment coddle students. However, there will always be some learners who will want to read this lovely text, and read it fast. For them, this edition removes the friction which they would otherwise encounter when approaching the Βατραχομυομαχία. A more meticulous reader may prefer a more scholarly commentary (à la Christensen & Robinson or Hosty), and Kamens and Driscoll accordingly direct them to such editions.
The authors’ commitment to the democratisation of Classics is evident in the fact that they have made their text available to download for free online (https://davidfdriscoll.blogspot.com/), and also in the fact that Driscoll has posted guidance on the same blog to help others create similar Steadman-style editions. Their edition will no doubt bring new readers to appreciate this wonderful text, and for that they must be highly commended.
Works Cited
Allen, Thomas W. Homeri Opera, Vol. 5: Batrachomyomachia. Oxford: Clarendon, 1912.
Christensen, Joel P. and Erik Robinson. The Homeric Battle of the Frogs and the Mice. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2018.
Hosty, Matthew. Batrachomyomachia (Battle of the Frogs and Mice): Introduction, Text, Translation, and Commentary. New York: Oxford University Press, 2020.