¹ Cf. Dover, K. J., ‘Portrait-masks in Aristophanes’, in Newiger, H. J., ed., Aristophanes und die alte Komödie (Darmstadt, 1975), pp. 155–69Google Scholar (originally published in Studia Aristophanea … W. J. W. Koster in honorem, Amsterdam, 1967).Google Scholar In addition to the possibilities there mentioned, it might sometimes be possible to use a man's carriage and gait as aids to his identification (Nikias' walk, it seems, was thought to betray a lack of self-confidence: Phyrnichos fr. 59 – contrast Socrates, Clouds 362 and Pl. Symp. 221 b); cf. Woodcock, John, The Times, 23 June 1978,Google Scholar on helmets in cricket: ‘Twice yesterday it was necessary to know a batsman by his walk, or some other mannerism, to distinguish him from an equally faceless partner.’ See further Stone, L. M., Costume in Aristopbanic Comedy (Diss. N. Carolina: Ann Arbor, 1977), pp. 40–1.Google Scholar

² This assumes that the speaker of 85–6 is the same as the speaker of 47–72 and 74–9, as is probable. I think it certain that 80^a and 80^b–81 belong to different speakers (otherwise there is no justifica– tion for ); if so, the speaker of 80^b–81 must be the speaker of 74–9. Lines 82–4 can and probably should all be given to one speaker (’Nikias’): he racks his brains for an answer and eventually comes up with one, like Strepsiades in Clouds 79–80 and Philokleon in Wasps 166–7 (both with repeated as here).

³ Gomme, A. W., A Historical Commentary on Thucydides iii. 732.Google Scholar He refers to Diels, but the only pronouncement by Diels that I can find (Fragmente der Vorsokratiker 39 A 4), while rejecting (without giving any reason) the identification of the Hippodamos of Knights 327 with the Milesian town-planner, says nothing about Archeptolemos.

⁴ IG ii ². 1700. 203; AE 1914, 10Google Scholar = REG 32 (1919), 190;CrossRefGoogle ScholarAthenian Agora XV. 61. 94Google Scholar (= SEG xxiii 86. 220)Google Scholar and 72. 194. The name was also restored by Lewis, (ABSA 49 (1954), 38Google Scholar in the prescript of IG ii ². 190.Google Scholar

⁵ Probably fixing on the words in Thuc. 4. 116. 2, and not remembering that the truce, recorded in the next sentence, must therefore belong to the ninth year of the war.

⁶ I do not know why Gomme (on Thuc. 4. 41.4) thinks must mean Archeptolemos had been to Sparta; it need mean no more than that he came before the people with peace metaphorically in his hands, perhaps after private discussions with Spartan ambassadors. Both here and in the afterthought cited in n. 3 Gomme seems unduly under the influence of his notion that ‘Aristophanes was not particularly pacific when he wrote The Knights’ – a claim hard to square with 792–809 and above all 1388–95 where Demos is given a peace-treaty (very attractively personified) as the supreme blessing.

⁷ Origins of the Peloponnesian War (London, 1972), pp. 361–2, 367.Google Scholar It does not appear that the same could be said of the other Old Comedians, though two of them make friendly references to Nikias (Telekleides fr. 41, Eupolis fr. 181); for we also find Hermippos (fr. 46) calling Kleon ‘a blazing spirit’ in contrast with the allegedly cowardly Perikles, and later Eupolis (fr. 98 Kock =114 Edmonds) giving his hero a complimentary remark about Perikles the younger. I can find no other favourable reference to a living politician in the Old Comic fragments, unless we count Phormion in Eupolis’ Taxiarchs (if he was alive when it was produced).

⁸ See Thuc. 3. 94.3; 95.1; 107–8; 4. 3.3; 76; 7. 31.2.

⁹ It has not been unknown since for political groups to exploit the popularity of celebrated generals without much regard for the political views, if any, of those generals themselves.

¹⁰ Ekkl. 202 f. is correctly interpreted by Seager, R., JHS 87 (1967), 107:CrossRefGoogle Scholar ‘there had been a glimpse of safety, but… Thrasybulus had in some way opposed it or brought it to nothing.’ Discussing the corrupt text of the passage in a footnote, Seager, rightly seeking ‘some explanation of why was not achieved’, rejects Hermann's easy conjecture cett.) as not providing this; but surely it does. Peace had been in prospect, but Thrasyboulos was annoyed at being in political eclipse; therefore, seeing ‘the chance to recover the ascendancy,… he intervened decisively in favour of continuing the war’ (Seager, loc. cit)

¹¹ His death is now generally placed in 389; Cawkwell, G. L., CQ N.S. 26 (1976), 271Google Scholar– has argued for a date a year earlier. At any rate to place his death in 388, and hence his last expedition in 389 (Beloch, G., Griechische Geschichte iii ⁵. 2. 224),Google Scholar leaves far too long a period of Athenian inactivity after the failure of the attempts at peace in 392/1. On Wealth 550 see Seager, , op. cit. 109Google Scholar n. 127: the line implies that in 388 some Athenians still believed that Dionysios of Syracuse could be detached from the Spartan side (as Konon had tried to do a few years before: Lys. 19. 19–20) and equated him in some way with Thrasyboulos (perhaps by calling both ‘liberators’, Dionysios having freed the Sicilian Greeks from Carthage).

¹²

¹³ K 912 and 917 Latte.

¹⁴ See Raubitschek, A. E., RE 18 (1942), col. 1999;Google ScholarDavies, J. K., Athenian Propertied Families 600–300 BC. (Oxford, 1971), pp. 306–7.Google Scholar But it remains theoretically possible that is right, referring to the son of an unknown for which name cf. IG ii ². 1602. 17Google Scholar and Athenian Agora XV. 49. 7.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Lys. 22. 16, confirmed by Arist, . Ath. Pol. 51.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Lys. 22. 16.

¹⁷ There does not seem to have been any single ‘ideal’ hair-colour for see Dover, K. J., Greek Homosexuality (London, 1978), p. 79.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Cf. Frogs 730 and the New Comedy slave-name Pyrrhias.

¹⁹ So rightly Casaubon (cf. D. M. Jones's note in his edition of the scholia, ad loc).

²⁰ are both very rare words. The former is cited by the scholia on our passage as used by Kratinos (fr. 340) in reference to the same man – presumably therefore in the same year, and probably at the same festival in his Satyrs; this suggests that the word was not a new coinage by either poet but a current popular name for a sitophylax. The only attestation of is at Ath. 13. 563 e, where it directly follows a quotation from the choliambic poet Hermeias and may itself be derived from the unquoted part of his poem against the Stoics.

²¹ See Davies, , Athenian Propertied Families, pp. 320, 472 ff.Google Scholar

²² Cf. perhaps Wasps 1224–6.

²³ This is the view of Van Leeuwen in his edition (but, following Willems, he gives a wrong meaning) and of Keil, B. (Hermes 50 (1916), 314 f.) who regards lines 814–16 as essentially three ways of saying the same thing – that Athens was already prosperous and Themistokles made her even more so.Google Scholar

¹⁴ It is of interest that when the scholiast is describing medical throat-probing in his note on this line, is the word that he uses for ‘throat’.

²⁵ This was seen by Müller, K. O. (RhM 3 (1829), 488–90),Google Scholar who however took the play in question to be the satyr-play The Helots on Tainaron supposed to be vouched for by Herodian (1. 244. 21 Lentz); he does mention the Helots ascribed to Eupolis, but does not pretend to understand how, if at all, it was related to the satyr-play. Actually there never was any such satyr-play; Herodian is simply making a statement about the chorus of Sophocles’ play Satyrs at Tainaron. On this see Radt, S. L., Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta iv. 186–7, 231.Google Scholar

²⁶ I take it as certain that there was only one comedy called Helots that survived into Hellenistic times; nowhere is there any sign that anyone knew of two, and fragments (e.g. Eupolis fr. 139) are cited simply as by ‘the author of Helots’, which would be ambiguous if there were two plays.

²⁷ Athen. 4. 138 e; 9. 400 c; 14. 638 e.

²⁸ Pohlenz, M., Hermes 47 (1912), 314–17Google Scholar and NGG 1952, 5. 120–1;Google ScholarColonna, A., Dioniso 15 (1952), 32–7.Google Scholar

²⁹ ∑^Eclouds 554 (which is also our source for Eupolis fr. 78) and ap. Knights 1291.

³⁰ Hermann: E: Koster.

³¹ suppl. Hermann, Koster.

³² Eupolis in Baptai quite possibly wrote the semi-Doric form as in the other two places: note that this form nearly vanished from the manuscript tradition of Knights, being preserved (or more probably restored) only in M.

³³ Professor G. Mastromarco very kindly communicated to me before publication his paper ‘L'esordio “segreto” di Aristofane’ (Quaderni di Storia 10 (1979), 153–196)Google Scholar in which he points out that Eupolis' verb ought strictly to mean more than this. One must expect, however, that the accusations made by comic poets (especially against each other) will be wildly exaggerated.

³⁴ It is significant that except for the eleven Aristophanic comedies that survived into the Middle Ages, Demes is the only Old Comedy of which we know that copies continued to be made after A.D. 300.

³⁵ Cf. Van Leeuwen's note: ‘Verbo iocose nobis in mentem revocatur tragicorum recens inventum Much less plausible is the view that was what Euripides wrote (Merry, Rogers) or that the use of the word has no special point at all (Neil).

³⁶ The Stage of Aristophanes (London, 1976), pp. 70–1.Google Scholar

³⁷ Ach. 479, Thesm. 265; I would add Ach. 1096 (see CQ N.S. 28 (1978), 385–90).Google Scholar Later, Men, . Dysk. 758.Google Scholar

³⁸ A difference, of course, is that in Alkestis the event is merely reported, while in Knights it takes place on stage.

³⁹ If – as I think likely – the ekkyklema was already in use in Aeschylus' last years, we should add Eum. 235 where its appearance bearing the of Athena would be a useful visual signal of the change of scene.

⁴⁰ Rogers pictures the unrolling of ‘a representation of the Athenian Acropolis’ by means of revolving pillars at the sides of the stage; Pohlen^z (NGG 1952. 5. 122Google Scholar n. 56) thinks of an ‘Aufrollung der Fassade’. Most other commentators do not even discuss the problem, though the scene is perhaps the most impressive in a play relatively poor in spectacle and variety.

⁴¹ Cf. Dearden, , The Stage of Aristophanes, pp. 65–7.Google Scholar This and the following examples were used to make a different point at CQ N.S. 28 (1978) 386.Google Scholar

⁴² Cf. Dearden, , The Stage of Aristophanes, p. 65.Google Scholar

⁴³ Probable instances of this in comedy occur after Clouds 509 and Peace 728 (see Dearden, , The Stage of Aristophanes, pp. 62–4, 66,Google Scholar though I would disagree with him on some details); in tragedy, after Eur, . Hipp. 1101 (Phaidra's body and the accompanying message, certainly visible at 1057 and probably at 1077, are never spoken of as visible thereafter).Google Scholar