¹ Quotations: Heath, M., Political comedy in Aristophanes (Göttingen 1987) 27CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Sommerstein, A., ‘The decree of Syrakosios’, CQ xxxvi (1986) 101–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 104 n.16. Cf. the views cited in n.65 below.

² Radin, M., ‘Freedom of speech in ancient Athens’, AJP xlviii (1927) 215–30Google Scholar, is vitiated by arbitrariness, not least on the decree of Syracosius, and by a failure to consider atypical features of comedy's status. Bergk, T., ‘Über die Beschränkungen der Freiheit der ältern Komödie zu Athen’, Kleine philologische Schriften ii (Halle 1886) 444–65Google Scholar remains interesting, though aberrant on some details. In revising my article I have benefitted from consulting the unpublished discussion in Storey, I. C., Κωμωιδούμενοι and κωμωιδεῖν in Old Comedy (Toronto Diss., 1977Google Scholar), ch.2, and the fuller but somewhat wayward treatment in Behr, C. A., Old Comedy and the free state (Harvard Diss., 1959Google Scholar) [summary at HSCP lxv (1961) 345–8]. Herrmann, J., ‘Attische Redefreiheit’, in Guarino, A. & Labruna, L. (edd.) Synteleia Vincenzo Arangio-Ruiz (Naples 1964) ii 1142–8Google Scholar, is the merest sketch.

³ E.g. Eur. Hipp. 422, Supp. 433–41, Ion 670–5, Pl. Grg. 461e (where Dodds compares [Xen.] Ath. Pol. 1.12, Dem. ix 3), R. 557b (with Adam), Thphr. Char. 28.6, [Dem.] ix 26, and the implication of Isoc. viii 14 (p.67 below). Pl. Lg. 634d-e draws an apposite contrast with Sparta and Crete. Dem. xxiii 204 is an instance of παρρησία exercised in criticism of Athens itself.

⁴ Pl. Men. 94e-5a offers a dramatically ironic reflection on Athenian freedom of speech, à propos Socrates' prosecution. Cf. the piquant contrast between comic ridicule of Socrates, and the Athenian reaction to Socrates' own teachings, later drawn at Dio Chr. xxxiii 9.

⁵ Older discussions of the material: G. Glotz, ‘KAKEGORIAS DIKE’, Dar.-Sag. iii (Paris 1900) 788–91, Lipsius, J. H., Das attische Recht (Leipzig 1915) 646–52Google Scholar.

⁶ Such a law would codify the general ethical inhibition over abusing the dead: see Horn. Od. xxii 412 (but ctr. xix 331, S. Aj. 988–9), Archil. fr. 134 West, Diog. L. 1.70 (Chilon), Cratin. fr. 102 PCG/95 K, Pl. Hp. Mj. 282a7–8 (archaic religious colouring?), Arist. fr. 44 Rose³, Dem. xl 47–9, Thphr. Char. 28.6.

⁷ It is likely, as seen by e.g. Thalheim, RE x 1525, that Plutarch's law and the law attested at Lys. ix 6–10 (see n.10) are one and the same: note the term ἀρχεῖον in both passages, and cf. p.4 below. Further refs. to the Solonian law regarding the dead occur at Ael. Aristid. Or. iii 502 L.-B., σ] Ar. Pax 648–52.

⁸ Some scholars—see Lipsius (n.5) 649, Radin (n.2) 221–4—have discerned a legally material distinction between κακηγορία and λοιδορία: this is possible but unnecessary. Pl. Lg. 934–5 (see p.00 below), probably echoing Solonian law, makes no distinction between λοιδορεῖν (935c) and κακηγορεῖν (934e); cf. the virtual synonymity at e.g. Dem. liv 18–19 (a legal context), λοιδορεῖν can imply extra coarseness (e.g. Alex. fr. 156 K). Cf. Glotz (n.5) 788.

⁹ Dem. xxii 61 hardly shows that the other accusations cited there (servile origins, illegal citizenship for one's sons, male and female prostitution [by one's parents], peculation: all, incidentally, favoured topics of comic satire) fell into the legal category of ἀττόρρητα, though this term is used there, ib. § 21 virtually intimates that prostitution was not so covered. Dio Chr. xv 8, referring to illegitimacy, is not evidence for classical Athens.

¹⁰ Lys. ix 6–10 (date: ?c. 390; provision concerning abuse of magistrates, at least in official buildings), Dem. xxiii 50 (date: 352), Dem. xxi 32–3, 79–81, 83 (date: 348/7; a general law for δίκαι κακηγορίας, and a penalty of ἀτιμία for slander of magistrates), Dem. lvii 30 (date: 346/5; a prohibition against reproaching a citizen (woman) for working in the agora), Dem. xviii 123 (date: 330; a passing mention of aporrhêta), Dem. xxxvii 37 (date: c. 345?; allusion), liv 17–19 (date: c. 341?; δίκαι κακηγορίας / λοιδορίας), Isoc. xx 3 (specifying a fine, cf. Hyp. fr. 100 Kenyon), Arist. Ath. Pol. 59.5 (a law covering the abuse of free men by slaves), EN 1128a31–2, 1129b23. The inauthenticity of Aeschin. i 35 shows through in the sweeping prohibition of λοιδορία posited there.

¹¹ Storey (n.2) 54–5, 68 acutely finds allusions to an Athenian law of κακηγορία at Soph. OC 1001–2 (cf. 944) and Eur. HF 174–5 (cf. Bond, G. W., Euripides Heracles [Oxford 1981] on 174Google Scholar)—the latter, if right, yielding a terminus ante quem of c. 415. Ar. V. 1206–7 (p.49) pushes this back to 422; is Eur. Supp. 435–7, around the same date, pertinent? There is the faintest possibility that Antiphon frr. 66–7 Blass belong to a prosecution of Alcibiades on a charge of λοιδορία. Ar. Ec. 567 does not imply the lack of a law of λοιδορία, only the existence of the latter in public life (cf. 142–3, 248ff., 399ff.).

¹² Cf. the strikingly similar [Arist.] Probl. 952b28–32 (exaggerated by the claim that slander of individuals is free of penalty).

¹³ See Ruschenbusch, E., ΣΟΛΩΝΟΣ ΝΟΜΟΙ (Wiesbaden 1966) 79–80Google Scholar, and MacDowell, D., The law in classical Athens (London 1978) 127Google Scholar, whose view is endorsed as plausible by Sommerstein (n.1) 103. The term ἀνδροφόνος at Lys. x 6ff. creates some presumption of legal antiquity.

¹⁴ ‘Ordure’ translates the rare word σπατίλη: on this and other aspects of the passage see Rosen, R. M., GRBS xxv (1984) 389–96Google Scholar. Commentators such as Platnauer and van Leeuwen (emending ingeniously but unnecessarily) have worried over the meaning of line 48 (cf. σ ad loc. for Eratosthenes' concerns). But one does not explain x as allegorical of y by stating the obvious about x; so κεῖνος should mean Cleon (cf. 649). The Ionian expresses a quasi-Orphic view of Hades: compare the connection between αἱνίττεσθαι and Underworld βόρβορος (cf. Ra. 145–6) at Pl. Phd. 69c, with Graf, F., Eleusis und die orphische Dichtung Athens (Berlin 1974) 103–7Google Scholar. This ref. to Cleon is overlooked by Croix, G. E. M. de Ste., The origins of the Peloponnesian war (London 1972) 371Google Scholar n.24; Behr (n.2) 149 is equally wrong to take Nu. 550—in which κειμένωι means ‘down’ (in wrestling) not ‘dead’ (as at S. Aj. 989, where commentators confuse distinct expressions)—to refer to the period after Cleon's death.

¹⁵ The death of an individual is sometimes unnecessarily deduced from a comic passage: e.g. Pax 700–3 (Cratinus), Ra. 48, 422ff. (Cleisthenes).

¹⁶ Cratin. fr. 325 PCG/294 K conceivably refers to an archon on stage; commenting on it, Meineke, A., Fragmenta comicorum Graecorum (Berlin 1839–1857) ii 195Google Scholar, mentions a law ‘de archonte in scenam non introducendo’: I know no evidence for this, but Meineke may be thinking of Σ Ar. Nu. 31 (item 6, p.55). Cratin. frr. 17, 20 PCG (15, 18 K) gibe at a recent archon; cf. Archipp. fr. 27 K.

¹⁷ Cratin. fr. 458 PCG (Com. Adesp. 51 K) possibly belongs to a year when Androcles was polemarch; id. fr. 138 PCG is obscure.

¹⁸ von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, U., Kleine Schuften i (Berlin 1935) 287Google Scholar n.3, was therefore empirically wrong to deduce from the satire of Lamachus in Ach. that he could not have been general in 426/5. Other possible comic instances are Eup. fr. 49 PCG/43 K, Pl. Com. fr. 201 PCG/185 K. The comic penchant for satirizing generals was noted in antiquity: e.g. Platon, p.3.7 Koster/Kaibel. It remains unclear whether generals were anyway legally protected only in certain circumstances, as the speaker of Lys. ix 6 defensively claims; cf. the alleged public denigration of strategoi at Dem. xxv 49–50. Generic disparagement of current generals is found at Eup. frs. 219, 384 PCG (205, 117 K), as well as Eur. Andr. 699–702 (cf. Stevens ad loc.)!

¹⁹ See MacDowell's nn. ad loc. and on 74–85 (where, however, I would demur at some of the inferences).

²⁰ See Schaps, D. M., Economic tights of women in ancient Greece (Edinburgh 1979) 65Google Scholar for strong scepticism. Ach. 837–8, a similarly worded passage, seems to allude to moneylending in the agora.

²¹ Ar. V. 1038–9, recalling a play of the preceding year, probably refers to a type (perhaps συκοφάνται) rather than to individuals. Cf. Philonides fr. 5 PCG/K.

²² For the form of the name see Molitor, M. V., Mnem. xxvi (1973) 55–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²³ On Eq. 786 see Sommerstein ad loc. Lambin, G., REG xcii (1979) 542–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar, finds an obscenity at Lys. 632–4 which he thinks was original to the skolion, yet he also (549 and n.32) links such humour with the statute attested by Hyp. (p.49 above). This position, which is partly echoed by Henderson, J., Aristophanes Lysistrata (Oxford 1987CrossRefGoogle Scholar) ad loc., puzzles me.

²⁴ This is mooted in the case of Cleonymus by Sommerstein (n. 1) 104; for an alternative interpretation, along lines I find preferable, see Heath (n. 1) 28.

²⁵ It must always be remembered that in the period of Ar.'s career alone (427-c. 388) somewhere between 280 and 400 comedies were produced at the Dionysia and Lenaea; calculation is complicated by uncertainty over the number of poets competing at various dates: see Luppe, W., Philol. cxvi (1972) 53–75Google Scholar, Mastromarco, G., Belfagor xxx (1975) 469–73Google Scholar. Note the dubious figure of 365 for ‘Old Comedy’ in Anon, de com. p.7.11 Koster/7.13 Kaibel; for the larger calculations see Mensching, E., Mus. Helu. xxi (1964) 15–49Google Scholar.

²⁶ Lys. x 2 (p.50 above) perhaps suggests limits to how easily litigation for slander could be embarked upon; but this speech and the background to it (§12–13) show that it was feasible, as does Dem. liv 18 later in the century. The unqualified remarks about παρρησία in both oratory and comedy in Finley, M. I., Democracy ancient and modem² (London 1985) 149–50Google Scholar (cf. 171–2), completely overlook the existence of a law of slander.

²⁷ It would be fanciful to posit a strict immunity (ἄδεια) to the law of κακηγορία—a view apparently present at Cic. Rep. iv 10, ‘… lege concessum …’, but not, pace Radin (n.2) 217, at Hor. Ars 284 (where see Brink's n. on ‘ius nocendi’), nor at Them, viii 110b (see n.77 below). One is dealing, as the passages cited on pp.66–9 indicate, with the practical inapplicability of legal requirements to festival entertainment—an effective ἀσφάλεια (cf. p.69) rather than ἄδεια. Cf. Cobet, C. G., Observations criticae in Piatonis Comici reliquias (Amsterdam 1840) 27–31Google Scholar. The statement of comedy's subjection to the law of slander by Henderson, J., ‘The Demos and the comic competition’, in Winkler, J. J. & Zeitlin, F. I. (edd.) Nothing to do with Dionysos? (Princeton 1990), 271–313Google Scholar, at 288 and 302, is not supported by a consideration of all the relevant material.

²⁸ On Aristophanes and Cleon in 426/5 see next note.

²⁹ Since my immediate concern is personal ridicule, not defamation of the city or demos, I should stress that Ar. Ach. 377–82, 502–8, 659–64, and V. 1284–91 (if this refers to the same events), have no bearing on ὀνομαστὶ κωμωιδεῖν: Ach. 515–17 (cf. 631) makes the distinction plainly, though σ Ach. 378 (ridicule of magistrates) and Σ V. 1291 (ridicule of ‘citizens’) obscure the point, as do Roberts, J. W., City of Sokrates (London 1984) 169Google Scholar, and Bowie, E. L., JHS cviii (1988) 183–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar (speculating gratuitously, in my view, that Cleon may have attacked Eupolis too in 426–5). Cf. [Xen.] Ath. Pol. 2.18, discussed on p.65 below.

³⁰ Horace also provides comparative evidence for treatment of slander in Greece and Rome: esp. Ep. ii 1.152–3, 5. ii 1.80–3; cf. Crook, J., Law and life of Rome (London 1967) 250–55Google Scholar. Cic. Rep. iv 10.11–12 (apud August. C. D. ii 9) attests earlier Roman reflections on this aspect of Old Comedy; cf. n.27 above.

³¹ The scholion appears to take Amynias (see n.22) to be the archon of 423/2, thus compounding an anyway far-fetched interpretation with a chronological solecism.

³² For other claims about Alcibiades' riposte see Koster p.3.18–19 (Kaibel 4, Eup. Baptae test. v. PCG), Koster p.27 (Kaibel 27–8, Eup. Baptae test, iv PCG), Koster p.44/Kaibel 20–1. There is plausibility in the customary surmise that the story was embroidered around the actual death of Eupolis at sea, if the name at IG i² 950.52 (casualty list of 411) is the poet's. The whole apocryphal saga involving Alcibiades had been publicized by the anecdotalist, Duris of Samos (FGrH 76 F 73 = Cic. Att. vi 1.18); cf. Lefkowitz, M. R., The lives of the Greek poets (London 1981) 115Google Scholar. Schwarze, J., Die Beurteilung des Perikles durch die attische Komödie (Munich 1971) 114, 179Google Scholar, remains inclined to accept that Alcibiades did respond in some way to Baptae; cf. n.58 below.

³³ Did Arist. Po. 1448a38, referring to the confinement of early comic performances to the countryside, provide a cue for such ideas?

³⁴ See my comments at CQ xxxiv (1984) 83, with the works cited there. Cic. Att. vi 1.18 (Cf. n.32) indicates that such matters had already been raised, and confused, earlier than the massive work on comedy by Eratosthenes (c. 275–194).

³⁵ The scholia (or their sources) create a number of suppositious decrees on other subjects too: e.g. Σ Ar. Eq. 574 (dining in the prytaneum), b. 580 (long hair), Σ Ec. 22 (seating in ?assembly), Σ^TzetzNu. 518/Ar. test. 23d PCG (law of minimum age for ? producing a comedy). So it will not do to assume, with Brink, C. O., Horace on poetry (Cambridge 1971) 317Google Scholar, that the scholia in my items 4, 5, 7, ‘must go back to a time when the facts were readily available’: early Hellenistic scholarship was well capable of inventing its ‘facts' (cf. n.34).

³⁶ See Körte, A., RE xi 1234–5Google Scholar (rebutting earlier German attempts to make something of the scholion), and my discussion at CQ xxxiv (1984) 87, where different versions of the decree in the scholia are noted. Ussher, R. G., Aristophanes (Greece and Rome New Surveys in the Classics xiii, Oxford 1979) 24Google Scholar n.5, apparently still accepts the historicity of this decree.

³⁷ Cf. Maidment, K. J., CQ xxix (1935) 6–7Google Scholar, Körte (n.36) 1235–6, Bergk (n.2) 461–2.

³⁸ Syracosius (Cf. pp.58–63 below), accepted e.g. by Schwarze (n.32) 129, 179 n.24, does not seem to me a strong candidate: cf. Tammaro, V., Gnomon li (1979) 421–2Google Scholar. Page, D. L., Select Papyri III: Literary Papyri (Loeb, London 1941) 208Google Scholar n.27, notes the puzzling relation of this half-line to its context. See now Storey, I. C., Phoenix xliv (1990) 27Google Scholar, who argues for a redating to c. 416.

³⁹ Mattingly, H. B., ‘Poets and politicians in fifth-century Greece’, in Kinzl, K. H. (ed.) Greece and the eastern Mediterranean in ancient history and prehistory: studies presented to Fritz Schachermeyr (Berlin 1977) 243–4Google Scholar. For Cratinus' Όδυσσῆς see Platon, p.4.29–30 Koster/5.56–7 Kaibel.

⁴⁰ E.g. Körte (n.36) 1233–4, Geissler, P., Die Chronologie der altattischen Komödie² (Dublin/Zurich 1969) 17Google Scholar, Sommerstein (n.1) 108, and Kaibel 80 (who inserts <ὀνομαστὶ> before κωμωιδεῖν in his text of the scholion). Storey (n.2) 60–3, taking the same view, thinks the decree may have been meant to prevent jokes about Pericles and Aspasia—but how would such an intention have been offered to the assembly? Cobet (n.27) 12–13, 39. unjustifiably takes (ὀνομαστὶ) κωμωιδεῖν, in this and other contexts, to mean impersonation on stage. Starkie, W. J. M., The Acharnians of Aristophanes (London 1909) 243–5Google Scholar, records various older views. Cf. the verdict of Gomme, A. W., A historical commentary on Thucydides i (Oxford 1945) 387Google Scholar: ‘we know nothing about the law, not even its literal meaning.’ The thinness of the scholion inclines one against the suggestion of Radin (n.2) 220 that it derives from Didymus' use of Craterus' ψηφισμάτων συναγωγή (for which, independently, cf. σ Ar. Lys. 313 = Craterus FGrH 342 F 17).

⁴¹ Although the grammatical tradition, e.g. Ar. test. 83–4 PCG, regarded allegory (denoted by ψόγος κεκρυμμένος, συμβολικά, αἱνιγματωδῶς, ἐσχηματισμένως etc.) as a way of avoiding objections to explicit satire, I query whether this was its function for poets, since it was used in the same period as the growth of ὀνομαστὶ κωμωιδεῖν (and sometimes in combination with it, e.g. Cratin. frr. 73. 259 PCG [71, 241 K], cf. Ar. Pax. 47–8). Nor do I believe that allegory was as pervasive as M. Vickers, Historia xxxviii (1989) 41ff., contends.

⁴² Cf. Sommerstein (n.1) 101–2. Couat, A., Aristophane et l'ancienne comédie attique³ (Paris 1902) 62Google Scholar, appears to think in terms of a restriction on mentioning current political affairs.

⁴³ Cobet (n.27) 9–10, and Schwarze (n.32) 178–9, see the Samian war only as occasion, not cause, of Periclean action against comedy; doubt about Pericles' involvement is voiced by Dover, K.J., CR xxv (1975) 91Google Scholar. In view of his profile (see n.71 below), it is hard to read much into Crates' title, Σάμιοι.

⁴⁴ Ach. 502–8. I find far-fetched the argument of Rosen, R. M., Old Comedy and the iambographic tradition (Atlanta 1988) 63–4Google Scholar, that the clash with Cleon was self-propagated fiction on Ar.'s part, though I sympathize with the depersonalized reading of Knights to which it belongs. Bury, J. B. and Meiggs, R., A history of Greece⁴ (London 1975) 241CrossRefGoogle Scholar, give a brief interpretation of the 440–37 decree which stresses the importance of foreigners in the audience.

⁴⁵ I am inclined in general to agree with Behr (n.2) 182–209 that the archon's selection of plays did not involve an element of censorship. But the possibility remains that in special circumstances the archon could enforce conditions on the chosen playwrights, though it would be rash to infer normal Athenian practice from the suggestion at Pl. Lg. 817d. Cratin. fr. 17 PCG/15 K shows that archons were held personally responsible for their choices.

⁴⁶ Sommerstein (n.1) 101–8, following Droysen, J. G., Rh. Mus iii (1835) 161–208Google Scholar, iv (1836) 27–62. On Syracosius himself, note that his career may go back to 429, if this dating of Eup. Prospaltians is correct: see fr. 259.72 PCG (though Schwarze [n.32] 129 n.69 errs in finding a ref. in Ar. fr. 225 PCG/216 K). It is imprudent to call him ‘ignotum et ineptum hominem’ (Cobet [n.27] 41).

⁴⁷ Kaibel 80. Cf. Körte (n.36) 1235–6, Croiset, M., Aristophanes and the political parties at Athens, Eng. tr. (London 1909) 118–9Google Scholar, T. Gelzer, RE Supp. xii 1463, Newiger, H.-J., Aristophanes und die alte Komödie (Darmstadt 1975) 277Google Scholar, for agnosticism on the content and effect of Syracosius' decree.

⁴⁸ See Kock ad loc. (‘verba ἀφείλετο - ἐπεθύμουν … sine dubio scholiastae sunt’), who rightly points out that this reading is supported by the plural (προσφέρονται) in the following sentence. Droysen (n.46) 59 circumvents this point by a conjecture: ἀφείλετο γὰρ < ποιηταῖς > κωμωιδεῖν κτλ. It is question-begging to say ‘the fragment is a fact’ (Sommerstein [n.1] 102), since the constitution of the fragment is precisely what is at issue.

⁴⁹ This leaves the problem of the rest of the fragment, which is seemingly not anapaestic (the bold restoration of Cobet [n.27] 39 carries no weight). Could there be quotations from two parts, one melic and one anapaestic, of a parabasis? Droysen (n.46) 59 reconstructs the whole fragment as melic; cf. PCG ad loc.

⁵⁰ Norwood, G., Greek comedy (London 1931) 27Google Scholar and n.4, moots ‘non-legal, perhaps even accidental means’; various other possibilities could be imagined.

⁵¹ Sommerstein (n.1) 105–6 shows that the ref. to Poulytion in Pherecr. fr. 64 PCG/58 K need not allude to events of 415 (for a dating no later than early 415 cf. the second thoughts of Geissler [n.40] XVI). But it is not proven that the fr. cannot date from 415 (or slightly later): the mortgaged house might be a comic distortion of the legal facts of confiscation (ἀποσημαίνεσθαι: cf. Ar. fr. 447 PCG/432 K). The title, παννυχίς, remains suggestive too, pace Sommerstein 106: even a female chorus does not rule out a connection with the parody of the mysteries (the Eleusinia involved multiple παννυχίδες: cf. Ar. Ra. 371).

There are three other possible comic refs. to consider, none of them mentioned by Sommerstein: (a) Ar. Lys. 1105, which MacDowell, D., Andokides on the mysteries (Oxford 1962) 99–100Google Scholar, and the same author on Ar. V. 787, treats as a ref. to the Lysistratus of And. i 52; (b) Eup. Demoi fr. 99.114 PCG, which might refer to the same Diognetus as And. i 15 (and/or 14? see MacDowell on both); (c) Ar. Lys. 103, which MacDowell takes to be the same Eucrates as at And. i 47. (This latter Eucrates was denounced but acquitted: it is not clear whether he would be covered by the law posited by Sommerstein, who talks on 104 of those ‘denounced’, on 105–6 of those ‘condemned’.) Various other pertinent comic allusions are claimed, but without sufficient grounds, by Maxwell-Stuart, P. G., Historia xxii (1973) 400–1Google Scholar.

⁵² The calculation involves uncertainties noted at n.25 above. There could of course have been refs. to Alcibiades (and others) in works which did not survive long enough for later scholars (esp. compilers of Κωμωιδούμενοι) to extract passages from them: it is therefore not enough to cite the interest of later scholars in such material, as Sommerstein (n.1) 105 does. One thinks here of that (in the circumstances of the time) intriguing title, Ameipsias' Κωμασταί (cf. n.57 below), the victorious play at Dionysia 414, from which not a single later fragment or citation survives. (I see no compelling reason to follow Bergk's popular surmise that this work was the same play as Phrynichus' Κωμασταί: we know several cases of fabulae cognomines by contemporaries, e.g. Daedalus plays by Ar. and Pl. Com.) Could later writers really find nothing of interest in it—or is it more likely that no copy survived into the Hellenistic age? For the loss of plays cf. the case of Cratinus' Χειμαζόμενοι (Hyp. I to Ar. Ach. p.9.39–40 Coulon), from which, confirmatively, we have no frr. ; Hyp. II to Ar. Pax (expressly referring to Eratosthenes); IG xiv 1097.9 (Lysippus' plays); Anon, p.8.18–19 Koster/7.21 Kaibel (Magnes' works; but ctr. Hsch. s.v. λυδίζων); Didymus apud Σ Ra. 13.

⁵³ Sommerstein (n.1) 107 n.45, with JHS xcvii (1977) 122–3. Eup. fr. 103 PCG/96 K may have come from a context which, like Ar. Lys. 391–7, harked back to 415.

⁵⁴ Th. 962–4, Lys. 1043–5.

⁵⁵ See: Ar. Ach. 716, V. 44ff., Ra. 1422ff., frr. 205, 244, 358 PCG (198, 554, 907 K), Pherecr. fr. 164 PCG/155 K, Eup. frr. 171, 385 PCG (158, 351 K), Archipp. fr. 45 K, Com. Adesp. 3–5 K.

⁵⁶ (n.1) 105, 107. Droysen himself (n.46) 60 talks of the ‘Oligarchic’ character of Syracosius' measure, and its intention of banning the name of the democracy's ‘darling’ (Liebling). Sommerstein's further argument, 107 n.46, that the presence of comic poets among the parodists of the mysteries ‘could help to explain why Syrakosios and others might be afraid that other comic dramatists might seek to propagandize in Alkibiades' favour’, requires the assumption that comic playwrights could be regarded as sharing and promoting the same political Tendenz: Phryn. fr. 61 PCG/58 K, attacking Diocleides and Teucrus as false informers, will hardly clinch such a case, which is anyway implausible (what, for instance, of Eup. Baptae [c. 416/15]?).

⁵⁷ There are two clear comic refs. to the scandals of 415: Ar. Lys. 1093–4, Phryn. fr. 61 PCG/58 K. Ar. Av. 766–7 is a brief allusion. One must suspect that Eup. fr. 99.81–2 PCG (whose edd. are silent on the point) alludes to the profanation of the mysteries, and Ar. Av. 1479 (cf. Andoc. i 27) should be added to the list. Pl. Com. fr. 204 PCG/188K is sometimes thought a further case, but very speculatively. MacDowell (n.51) 88 moots the possibility that Ar. Av. 496 parodies the story of Diocleides attested at Andoc. i 38. Droysen (n.46) 60f. is happy to believe that Ameipsias' Κωμασταί could portray the scandals of 415, provided it named no names; cf. n.52 above.

⁵⁸ Bcrgk (n.2) 460, Cobet (n.27) 36–42; for ancient views cf. n.32 above.

⁵⁹ The alternative theory (Radin [n.2] 223–9), that Syracosius' decree was simply a new law of slander, is adequately rebutted by Sommerstein (n.1) 102–3.

⁶⁰ Av. 1297. Sommerstein (n.1) n.4 does not meet the point: ‘the structure and theme of Birds 1290–9′ cannot explain why Ar. did not make an opportunity, somewhere in his play, to refer to Syracosius' decree.

⁶¹ Janko, R., Aristotle on comedy (London 1984) 244–50Google Scholar, offers an unorthodox view of the development of the Old/Middle/New schema.

⁶² See e.g. the material cited in Halliwell (n.36) 84.

⁶³ Oligarchic interference with comedy is suggested in Platon, p.3 Koster/Kaibel. This is not intrinsically good evidence, for reasons obvious from my whole approach; but we can assume that comic poets avoided conspicuous criticism of the régime in 404/3: compare the position in 411 (p.61 and n.54 above). On the difficulty of criticizing an oligarchic régime cf. Dem. xxii 32.

⁶⁴ For the continuing presence of personal satire in 4th cent, comedy see esp. the frr. of Timocles (Kock ii, pp.451 ff), and e.g. Aeschin. i 157 (345 B.C‥), Philippides fr. 25 PCG/K, Archcdicus fr. 4 K. Cf. Schmid, W., Geschichte der griechischen Literatur i 4 (Munich 1946) 441–4Google Scholar, Cobet (n.27) 120–25, and n.37 above. Arist. Rh. 1384b9–11 (perhaps late 360s?) regards comic poets as comparable to gossips who publicize their neighbours' faults. But one should not, with Radin (n.2) 219, exaggerate the persistence of ὀνομαστὶ κωμωιδεῖν.

⁶⁵ See n.36 above for Körte's rebuttal of earlier German credulity. Some properly sceptical modern refs. to the subject: Heath (n.1), Bury & Meiggs (n.44) 241, Roberts (n.29) 178–9, Lefkowitz (n.32) 106 (but misdating Euthymenes).

⁶⁶ We do not know the result of Cleon's action; to say he ‘failed’ (Finley [n.26] 120, Heath [n.1] 17) is too bold. If Ar. V. 1284 refers to this episode (as I believe), it is at any rate consistent with an undertaking given by Ar. in 426/5.

⁶⁷ 2.18. Dio Chrys. xxxiii 9 (contradicting xxxii 6) repeats the distinction between satire of individuals and of the demos.

⁶⁸ The debate over the relevance of this passage to the date of the work is long-standing. See Kaiinka, E., Die pseudoxenophontische ΑΘΗΝΑΙΩΝ ΠΟΛΙΤΕΙΑ (Leipzig 1913) 7–16Google Scholar, Frisch, H., The constitution of the Athenians (Copenhagen 1942) 277–81Google Scholar, and Bowersock, G. W., Xenophon: scripta minora (Loeb, London 1968) 496Google Scholar n.2 (with HSCP lxxi (1966) 35). There is a consensus that 2.18 refers to a cultural, not a legal, state of affairs; but Gomme, A. W., More essays in Greek history and literature (Oxford 1962) 43–5Google Scholar, dismisses the value of the passage.

⁶⁹ A link between comedy and democracy is also implied, though pervertedly, at Isoc. viii 14 (p.67 below). Cf. the implications, though not the historicity, of the claim indicated at Arist. Po. 1448a31–2. Some later recognition of the point occurs at Platon, p.3 Koster/Kaibel (a crude view, corresponding to [Xen.]'s), Dio Chr. xxxii 6 (where a paradox is extracted from the point), and the admirably ben trovato anecdote concerning Plato and a copy of Clouds at Vita Ar. p.135 Koster, p.3 PCG (cf. Riginos, A., Platonica [Leiden 1976] 176–8Google Scholar.

⁷⁰ Cf. Herington, J., Poetry into drama (Berkeley 1985) 82–94Google Scholar.

⁷¹ It is impossible to test the view of some grammarians that personal ridicule had always been prominent in the genre: see e.g. item 10, p.56 above; σ Dion. Thrac. p.71.37–8 Koster/15.67–8 Kaibel; anon. Anecd. Estense II 5 (quoted by Janko [n.61] 246). It is also true that the evidence for Cratinus' earlier plays is too thin to allow demonstration of much ὀνομαστὶ κωμωιδεῖν (cf. the caution of Mattingly [n.39] 239–45); but there are traces in Άρχίλοχοι, which may date from the early 440s, and the critical tradition in antiquity uniformly ascribed satirical vehemence to Cratinus' oeuvre in general. Cratinus certainly established a practice which then became standard for playwrights such as Telecleides, Hermippus, Eupolis, Phrynichus, Aristophanes, and Plato Comicus. As for the exceptions, the evidence of Crates' fragments seems to bear out the implication of Arist. Po. 1449b8: on Crates and Pherecrates cf. Meineke (n.16) i 59–60, 66–7.

⁷² Compare the specifications at 935b4–8 with the report of Solon's law of λοιδορία at Plu. Sol. 21 (p.49 above); cf. also n.7 above.

⁷³ For the implication that ἴαμβοι were still being written in the mid-4th cent., cf. Arist. Pol. 1336b20 (quoted above) and n.75 below.

⁷⁴ The passage should thus be related to other Platonic treatments of comedy, in particular at R. 395e-6a and 606c.

⁷⁵ Performance of iambus in classical Athens: cf. Pl. Lg. 935e4 (above), and note the presumed identity of Hermippus κωμικός and H. ἱαμβογράφος (see PCG v, p.562 test. 8).

⁷⁶ The kind of exemption which Aristotle cites at 1336b16–17 is presumably conventional rather than legally specified (cf. nn.27, 77). He alludes to legislation against κσκηγορία of the kind mentioned explicitly at EN 1128a31–2 (cf. 1129b23): ‘the lawgivers forbid certain forms of abuse (λοιδορεῖν), and perhaps they should have forbidden some mockery (σκώπτειν) too.’ This presumably refers to the lawcode of more than one city: note, for what it is worth, the late evidence for a Zaleucan law of slander in 7th cent. Locri (Stob. 44.19: iv 126.16–19, W.-H.). Aristotle's remark also bears on the distinction between comedy and real abuse, though σκώπτειν can cover both.

⁷⁷ Later acknowledgement of the significance of the festive setting occurs at Dio Chr. xxxii 6 (ἑορτάζουτες), Luc. Pisc. 25 (ἐν διονύσου ἐφειμένον); cf. the refs. to legal ἄδεια at Them, viii 110b, Platon, p.3.6 Koster/Kaibel, and in Hyp. II to Ar. Av. (p.18.8 Coulon). The importance of festivity is overlooked by Ehrenberg, V., The people of Aristophanes² (Oxford 1951) 26Google Scholar, who explains comic liberty by the proposition that ‘comedy was an internal affair of the sovereign people as a whole’. One feature of festivity which consorts with licensed abuse and ridicule is inebriation: cf. the implication of Hyp. Phil. col.2 Kenyon (cited above, pp.2–3), with Pl. Phdr. 240e, Lg. 637a-b, 649a-b.

⁷⁸ The parallel, perhaps even historical kinship, between Old Comedy and ritual forms of raillery, is a major issue. Henderson, J., The maculate muse (New Haven 1975) 13–17Google Scholar, and Reckford, K., Aristophanes' old-and-new comedy (North Carolina 1987) 461–7Google Scholar, offer recent views. Storey (n.2) 16–23 raises the possibility that comedy may itself have influenced ritual αἱσχρολογία.

⁷⁹ I am grateful to Prof. D. MacDowell for giving me the benefit of his expertise in both comedy and law by reading a draft of this article. I have also had the advantage of thorough and helpful criticisms from the Editor, and comments from two anonymous referees.