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Aristophanes and his Rivals1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 September 2009

Malcolm Heath
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Extract

Just as there was a canon of three tragic dramatists, so the ancient world recognized a canon of three dramatists of Athenian Old Comedy: Aristophanes, of course, but also Cratinus and Eupolis. This article is chiefly concerned with Cratinus and Eupolis — a frustrating and unsatisfactory subject. Their plays are lost, and we have to rely on meagre fragments, preserved in quotations or on papyrus, and on various kinds of indirect evidence about their work. There is therefore very little that can be said about them, and even less that can be said with confidence. Nevertheless, the attempt to say something is worthwhile, in part because of the light that it may shed on Aristophanes' surviving works if we can discern something of the context in which he was working, but also because these men were evidently masters of their craft. One word of warning is in order: despite their mastery of the comic craft, uproarious entertainment is not to be expected from a paper on Cratinus and Eupolis; if jokes that have to be explained are notoriously unamusing, what can we expect of jokes that have to be reconstructed conjecturally before they are explained?

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 37 , Issue 2 , October 1990 , pp. 143 - 158
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1990

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References

Notes

2. ‘Plures eius [sc., antiquae comoediae] auctores, Aristophanes tamen et Eupolis Cratinusque praecipui,’ Quint. 10.1.66; cf. Hor, . Sat. 1.4.1Google Scholar.

3. I have argued for the coherence of Aristophanes' plots in Political Comedy in Aristophanes (Hypomnemata 87, Göttingen, 1987), pp. 43–54Google Scholar; for a more detailed discussion of Aristotle's notice of Crates see CQ 39 (1989), 348–52Google Scholar.

4. For a translation see Sandbach, F. H., The Comic Theatre of Greece and Rome (London, 1977), p. 49Google Scholar; some severely damaged scraps are omitted, and the text of Aphrodite's offer translated is probably corrupt (see n. 10 below).

5. For this portrayal of Hermes, see my paper in PLLS 9 (1990)Google Scholar.

6. See Dover, K. J., Aristophanic Comedy (Berkeley, 1972), pp. 26–8Google Scholar; the strongest evidence is provided by Clouds 887, where Socrates has to make an unmotivated exit to release an actor for the confrontation of Right and Wrong.

7. The former solution is preferred by Handley, E. W., BICS 29 (1982), 113Google Scholar; the latter by Luppe, W., Philologus 110 (1966), 173–4Google Scholar.

8. On Hermes dolios in Aristophanes see Heath (n. 5).

9. The most recent discussion supports the conjecture: Luppe, W., ZPE 72 (1988), 37–8Google Scholar.

10. See Luppe, W., CGA 227 (1975), 187–90Google Scholar, Philologus 124 (1980), 154–8Google Scholar. (The summary was copied onto the beginning of the roll by its owner, who was evidently careless; cf. Handley (n. 7), 114.)

11. The youthful Paris would naturally be portrayed beardless. Since Dionysus himself was usually portrayed as beardless in the late fifth century, it could be argued that he would not need shaving; but the bearded Dionysus is also found.

12. Luppe (n.7), 184–91 argues for Idaioi as the alternative title, taking the shepherds as the main chorus and the satyrs as subsidiary; Handley (n. 7), 115 is rightly cautious of this proposal.

13. For a notably flat-footed attempt see Schwarze, J., Die Beurteilung des Perikles durch die attische Komödie (Zetemata 51, Munich, 1971), pp. 6–24Google Scholar.

14. For the omission of lyrics see Barrett, W. S., Euripides, Hippolytus (Oxford, 1964), p. 438 n. 2Google Scholar (Taplin's sceptical discussion, LCM 1 (1976), 47–50Google Scholar, infers from the use of the formula χόρου μέλοσ where no lyrics had originally been composed that it was not used where the original lyrics had been omitted; this does not follow). Platonius' notice is discussed by Bertan, M., Atene e Roma 29 (1984), 171–8Google Scholar.

15. This interpretation is impossible if Pericles was restored to office before the following year's elections (thus, e.g., Gomme on Thuc. 2.65.4). For the contrary view see Fornara, C. W., The Athenian Board of Generals from 501 to 404 (Historia Einzelschriften 16, Wiesbaden, 1971), p. 55Google Scholar; Kagan, D., The Archidamian War (Ithaca, 1974), p. 93 and n. 69Google Scholar.

16. Some scholars are sceptical about this pun. Luppe, W., WZHalle 16.1 (1976), 79–80 and n. 105Google Scholar, followed by Schwarze (n. 13), p. 47 n. 105, distinguishes ⋯ξ ⋯ρχ⋯ς from ⋯κ τ⋯ς ⋯ρχ⋯ς but many Aristophanic puns put a greater strain on ‘common usage’. Carrière, J. C., Le carnaval et la politique (Paris, 1979), p. 280Google Scholar, objects that the speaker is supposed to be defending Hagnon, but see K. J. Dover (n. 6), pp. 59–65, on ‘discontinuity of characterisation’.

17. For the assumption that the number of comedies performed was reduced from five to three during the Peloponnesian War, cf. Pickard-Cambridge, A. W., The Dramatic Festivals of Athens 2 (Oxford 1968), p. 83Google Scholar; contra Luppe, W., Philologus 116 (1972), 53–75Google Scholar.

18. Cf. Andocides 1.1, Lysias 19.2, L. Radermacher, Artium Scriptores (SB Vienna 227.3, 1951), C29; παρασκυή often implies corrupt machinations, e.g. Lys. 13.12 δικαστήριον παρασκυάσαντες, of a ‘packed’ jury, cf. 13.26,28, Dem. 43.38.

19. Cf. Long, T., TAPA 103 (1972), 285–99Google Scholar.

20. For Aristophanes' ‘baldness’ cf. Knights 560, Peace 767–74; the Eupolis fragment is discussed by Sommerstein, A. H., CQ 30 (1980), 51–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

21. It is not safe to assume that Aristophanes attacked Eupolis for plagiarism only in the revised parabasis of Clouds (for another possible case see fr. 58, with the note in Kassel-Austen; others may simply have been lost). Hence Fowler's, D. P. claim that Eupolis ‘can rely on the audience knowing the revised Clouds’ (CQ 39 (1989), 258)Google Scholar is groundless, and no inference can be drawn concerning Buchpoesie in fifth-century Athens.

22. On the use of humour in political invective see Harding, P., Phoenix 41 (1987), 29–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23. Cf. Lefkowitz, M. R., The Lives of the Greek Poets (London, 1981), pp. 112–13Google Scholar.

24. On the derivation of the name Maricas from Old Persian (‘male child’, whence ‘slave’ and ‘rogue’) see Cassio, A. C., CQ 35 (1985), 38–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar, with Morgan, J. D., CQ 36 (1986), 529–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Morgan cites the comic and rhetorical invective against Hyperbolus based on his alleged servile or foreign birth; it is, of course, nonsense: Wankel, H., ZPE 15 (1974), 88–9Google Scholar.

25. Page, D. L. (ed.), Select Papyri, 3: Literary Papyri, Poetry (London, 1941), 202–4Google Scholar. Since the text is outdated, the translations in this volume should also be used with caution.

26. For the source of the ‘Myronides’ confusion, see Kassel-Austin's apparatus to fr. 110, with that to fr. 100 for the correct form; they retain the identification, but cannot solve the problems it entails (‘cur hoc nomine Myronides cornice appellaverit … poeta non liquet’). The contrary arguments in Plepelits, K., Die Fragmente der Demen des Eupolis (Vienna, 1970), pp. 116–32Google Scholar, are convincing.

27. For an unconvincing discussion see Plepelits (n. 26), pp. 69–75.

28. Other appearances of Dionysus in Old Comedy are known: Aristophanes wrote a Dionysus nauagos, Aristomenes a Dionysus asketes; two plays entitled Dionysusare attributed to Magnes; Dionysus appeared in Ameipsias' Apokottabizontes and a play of Hermippus (fr. 77, spoken by Dionysus according to Athenaeus).