Phéroikos: un enigma di Cleobulina? (Cratin. fr. 101 K.-A.)

In the Lexicon of Photius (φ 122 Theodoridis) it is reported that the term φέροικος is found in [Cratinus’s] Cleobulinae (fr. 101 K.-A.) and that this word would designate an animal similar to the weasel, white in colour, which makes its lair among the roots of oak trees and feeds on acorns. This description more or less suits the ‘dormouse’. However, the literal sense of the term φέροικος (‘house-carrier’) does not fit this animal, especially since the parallel form φερέοικος occurs in Hesiod (op. 571-572) to designate very likely the ‘snail’ (in addition, the same term is well attested in reference to people who are ‘nomads’ or ‘of no fixed abode’). The key to solve the riddle (is it perhaps a coincidence that Cleobulina was famous for her riddles?) is Ps. Oppian. cyn. 2,586-588 (a passage so far completely ignored by scholars), where the ‘squirrel’ (σκίουρος, ‘shading itself with its tail’) is described while it «erects its tail as a shelter of a self-roofed house». Many examples also show that in Greek (but also in other languages) dormice and squirrels were often confused. This confusion is probably also present in the entry φέροικος relating to Cratinus’s Cleobulinae, and could go back to the comic poet himself or to his source.