What is the ‘sheep-escaper’?
It is one of the small plants that grow close to the
[p. 185]
ground, whose shoots the grazing animals attack,
cutting off the tops and injuring them and so spoiling
the growth. But when these plants grow up and
gain some size and escape injury from the flocks
which graze upon them, then they are called ‘sheep-escapers.’ The evidence for this is Aeschylus.1
1 Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag. p. 123, Aeschylus, Frag. 447.