Disambiguare ‘Attalo’ (Demetrio di Scepsi FGrH 2013 FF 6 e 31 Biraschi)

Disambiguating ‘Attalos’ (Demetrios of Skepsis FGrH 2013 FF 6 and 31 Biraschi) While mining exploitation projects, launched in 2019 in Kirazlı (northwest Turkey), are threatening the centuries-old forests of Mount Ida, it is perhaps befitting to revise the ancient accounts on Kale Peuke, a monumental Ida fir, mentioned in a lost work by Attalus I. His detailed description of the tree, including measurements (perhaps overestimated), has been downgraded to pure «Attalid fantasy» by recent scholarship. Yet it is quoted, shortly after Attalus’ reign, in an enquiry (zetema) by Demetrius of Scepsis (F 31a Biraschi) dealing with the identification and location of the Troad’s rivers mentioned in Iliad XII 19-22. The passage is worth investigation for a number of reasons: one is the role of the tree as a landmark, which Demetrius locates in relation to the city of Adramyttium and a yet unidentified Asklepieon «founded by Lysimachus». In particular, the present contribution discusses the locution «Attalus who first ruled as king» (Ἄτταλος ὁ πρῶτος βασιλεύσας), employed by Demetrius to disambiguate Attalus, and its significance in comparison to the phrase «the Attalus who first ruled over Pergamon after Philetaerus» (ὁ πρῶτος μετὰ Φιλέταιρον ἄρξας Περγάμου Ἄτταλος) that Demetrius himself uses in a different fragment (F 6) referring to another ruler named Attalus.