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Wednesday, June 25, 2025

By Zeus

By my count, Aristophanes in his Lysistrata used the expression "by Zeus" (μὰ Δία, νὴ Δία, vel sim.) 44 times, at lines:
12, 24, 34, 55, 56, 67, 74, 87, 91, 95,
130, 194, 237, 360, 486, 521, 524, 559, 561, 582,
594, 609, 752, 777, 836, 837, 862, 873, 897, 900,
908, 927, 934, 970, 986, 990, 1022, 1029, 1033, 1090,
1095, 1147, 1181, 1243
Jeffrey Henderson in his Loeb Classical Library edition usually translates the phrase by "for sure," "certainly," "indeed," or something equally colorless. Only once in Lysistrata does he translate it as "by Zeus" (at line 130). But if once, why not 44 times?