EMBAS
EMBAS (
ἐμβάς). This is sometimes
used as a generic term for a closed boot, so called because one's foot
“got into” (
ἐμβαίνειν)
it, and it was not merely fastened to the foot like a sandal. Thus, when
Herodotus (
1.195) says that the Persian
ὑποδήματα were similar to Boeotian
ἐμβάδες, the latter term is as general as the
former. Again, in Lucian (
Rhet. Praec. § 15,
ἡ ἐμβὰς Σικυωνία) the word
ἐμβὰς is quite general; the Latins used
Sicyonia without any substantive to
describe this kind of boot (
Lucr. 4.1125). But
at Athens
ἐμβὰς had a special
signification; it was a cheap sort of boot first manufactured in Thrace, and
in kind (
ἰδέαν) like low
κόθορνοι (Poll. 7.85). (The latter, as we have
seen [
COTHURNUS], were
closed--in boots with rectangular soles, often wooden.) These
ἐμβάδες were worn by men (Suidas, s. v.
ἐμβάς;
Aristoph. Eccl. 47,
314,
633,
848, &c.) and by
the poorer classes (cf.
Aristoph. Wasps
1157): thus, in Isaeus (
de Dicaeog. her. §
11) a man who has impoverished another reproaches him with wearing
ἐμβάδες καὶ τριβώνια. The contradictory
distinctions already alluded to [
COTHURNUS] which have been drawn between
ἐμβάδες and
ἐμβάται, as
applied to the stage boot, are for the most part reconciled by Reimar on
D. C. 63.8, who shows that
ἐμβάται is
universally
applied to the tragic boot, while
ἐμβάδες
is
properly applied to the boot of comedy; but as it
is also sometimes used for boots in general, it can be applied to the tragic
buskin, as it is by Lucian (
Gall. § 26; cf.
Pseudol. § 19).
[
L.C.P]