Thanks to a number of recent developments, the idea of Attic Old Comedy has ceased to be largely synonymous with Aristophanes and become more like what Horace ( Sat. 1.4.1) thought it was: Eupolis atque Cratinus Aristophanesque poetae. To a considerable extent, this has been made possible by the monumental new edition of Poetae Comici Graeci by R. Kassel and C. Austin, in progress since 1983 and now approaching its last volumes; the resurgence of the ‘Rivals of Aristophanes’ was greatly facilitated by their fragments at last being available in masterfully edited and annotated form. Ample evidence for this resurgence was provided by the publication of a substantial collection of articles discussing those rivals just at the end of the old millennium.1 Already 15 years before, however, Ian C. Storey (henceforth St.) published his first article on Eupolis,2 and the bulk of his extensive work on Old Comedy has been devoted to this probably fiercest rival of Aristophanes ever since. With the book to be reviewed here, he presents us with a ‘Summa Eupolidea’, the most exhaustive study yet of all there is to know about Eupolis’ life and works.
After a short introductory chapter (‘Everyone knows Eupolis’, 1-6) on the reputation of Eupolis in recent Classical Studies as compared to his high acclaim (and numerous successes on the stage) in his own lifetime, we are at the outset provided with an English translation of all the extant fragments (8-33), keyed to the numbers of the PCG edition. Hereafter, a substantial chapter is devoted to ‘Eupolis in Antiquity’ (34-51). In a first section (‘Who knows Eupolis?’, 34-40), St. well sets out that “knowledge of Eupolis is found principally in the scholarly tradition” (34); while about six of his plays had gained a somewhat wider knowledge (they are listed on p. 39: Autolykos, Baptai, Demoi, Kolakes, Marikas, Taxiarchoi), “by far the majority of the fragments are cited for some technical or scholarly reason” (36). He is probably right in attributing some more in-depth familiarity with some of Eupolis’ plays to Lucian.3 In the following section (‘How was Eupolis regarded?’, 40-46), he deals with Eupolis’ standing vis à vis Cratinus and Aristophanes in the eyes of Later Antiquity; a third section (46-51) has a closer look at how the late author Platonius characterizes Eupolis.4
The next chapter (52-66) is devoted to ‘Eupolis’ Dates and Career’, presenting a good survey of what our sources yield in this respect.5 Hereafter follows the longest and most important chapter of the book (67-277): simply called ‘The Comedies of Eupolis’, it contains thorough and painstaking discussions of the remains of all known plays of Eupolis in alphabetical order (from Aiges to Chrysoun Genos), amounting to nothing less than a full-blown commentary on all the fragments which in one way or another contribute to a reconstruction (as far as that is at all possible) of these plays. It is hardly possibly to do justice here to the wealth of critical observations and penetrating judgments deployed in these discussions; some remarks (mostly concerning areas where I disagree with St.’s conclusions) must suffice.
The discussion of Aiges (67-74) contains a good section enumerating traits this play seems to have shared with Aristophanes’ Clouds‘. As for fr. 20, I am not sure whether we can really divide this fragment into 20a (from Hesychius, poking fun at Hipponicus) and 20b (referring to an unidentified priest of Dionysus), as already Hesychius (responsible for 20a) treats Hipponicus and the priest of Dionysus as one and the same person.
The section on Astrateutoi/Androgynoi (74-81) has good remarks on dating (74-6) as well as on the appearance of the title-figures (77).
Regarding Autolykos (81-94), St.’s most controversial assumption is that “this comedy turned on the relationship between these comic poets [Eupolis and Aristophanes]” (83).6 For this he combines two tales about Eupolis from the rhetorician Apsines (Autol. test. *iii K.-A.) and from Aelian and unearths an old suggestion by Kaibel (discarded by Kaibel himself) that “in this comedy Eupolis portrayed himself and Ephialtes [mentioned in Aelian’s tale] as slaves of Lykon [the father of the boy Autolykos]” (87) and that “the story of Ephialtes and Eupolis in Aelian reflected a trial in Eupolis’ Autolykos between two comedians depicted as slaves” (88). Building on this, St. imagines “a formal agon between Eupolis and another comic poet over the tutorship of Autolykos”, of which there might be a remnant in fr. 60 K.-A. (which he interprets as “an exchange between two comic poets over the relative merits of their plays”), and identifies Eupolis’ adversary in this agon (the ‘Ephialtes’ preserved in Aelian’s tale) with — of course — Aristophanes (88). This is admittedly an ingenious reconstruction, but one may well ask whether it is sufficiently supported by the evidence available to us: the words put into the mouth of the Eupolis character in Apsines’ tale do not fit easily into the play as reconstructed by St.; Aelian’s tale (in which the status of Eupolis as a slave is never explicitly recorded7) has to be twisted considerably (e.g. all the parts about the dog biting Ephialtes to death, about Eupolis’ own demise and the dog’s inconsolable lament at his grave would have to be left out); and for the context of fr. 60 various other situations can be envisaged. On the other hand, St. finds it curious “how a comedy could have turned on a youth like Autolykos” (85); but our oldest source for the play’s contents from Hellenistic times (Herodicus) attests this unequivocally, and there is nothing strange about such a subject of an Old Comedy.
As for the title-figures of the famous play Baptai (94-111), St. tentatively identifies them with “a comic ‘guild’ of dyers, who were dyeing robes for devotees of the new goddess [Kotyto], although Juvenal and his scholiast show that they were also worshippers of Kotyto themselves” (97); the second element is surely the really important one, while the first does not look too plausible (can one really imagine a whole ‘guild’ of dyers just for a very special group of customers?8). Interestingly, on p. 98, St.’s description of the chorus of the play, does not retain any explicit mention of “dyeing”. We get a good treatment of the goddess Kotyto and her possible role in Baptai (98-101), though St.’s statement (111) that “Kotyto was …not worshipped in Athens” at the time of Eupolis’ play seems too confident, given the ample presence of Thracians in Athens already at this time;9 he displays, however, a healthy skepticism about the extent of the role of Alkibiades and makes a good suggestion about the nature of his stage-appearance in the play (104), namely as “one of the … ‘intruders’ who turn up regularly in the second part of an Aristophanic comedy”. His inference, however, from Lucian’s short mention of Baptai in Adv. Indoct. 27 (= Bapt.test. i K.-A.) that “at the end of the comedy there was a scene at which the apaideutos should have blushed” ((107) is too speculative; nothing in Lucian’s words provides a reliable hint that he is talking about the end of the play.
Eupolis’ most famous play, Demoi, rightfully receives St.’s longest treatment (111-174). His reconstruction of what happened in the play — a matter still fraught with many uncertainties — is in general convincing: he sensibly argues against the identification of the play’s common-man hero Pyronides with the general Myronides, 116-121; he is in favor of a raising-scene of the dead Athenian leaders and against a katabasis into the Underworld, 121-124; the chorus of the play might have represented the “rural towns of Attica”, 125, and fr. 99 might be the conclusion of its parodos, 128; he argues for a tripartite structure of the play: a summoning-up of the four dead leaders, an agon over whether to hand Athens’ fortunes over to them, with the chorus as judges, and a sequence of episodes showing each of them confronting particular nuisances of contemporary Athens, 129-131; he gives good reasons why Solon, Aristeides, Miltiades and Perikles were the chosen ones to return to the upper world, 131-133; there is a good summary of St.’s picture of the play on pp. 172-4. On the other hand, his discussion of the text and context of particular fragments (133-149) in many cases does not yield really new results and often remains speculative (which is no wonder, given their scrap-like character), and the same has to be said for St.’s (valiant, but ultimately inconclusive) efforts to identify the demagogue described in fr. 99.23-34 (149-160).10 Last but not least, the date: St. argues extensively against the traditional dating (112-114) which puts the play into the year 412, regarding it as a reflection of the serious crisis besetting Athens after the disaster in Sicily, and argues for the year 417 (or 416) instead, “because it allows the demagogue of fr. 99.23-34 to be Hyperbolos (…) and the reference to Mantineia [in 99.30-32] to be an allusion to something recent” (114); but the wording of this reference seems rather more fitting if the speaker looks back to something that happened a number of years ago (“Don’t you people remember that when … the generals were not allowing you to take the field at Mantineia …”, St.’s own translation), and the description of the demagogue contains no elements that would make sense only if applied to Hyperbolos. In my opinion, 412 remains the more probable date.11
The subject of Heilotes (174-179) remains very much in the dark, and neither St.’s assumption (177) that it was influenced by Euripides’ Herakleidai, with runaway Messenian slaves taking the place of Heracles’ offspring, nor Hecker’s old suggestion (mentioned 177 n. 8) that Eupolis dramatized the cruel fate of 2,000 helots in Thuc. 4.80.3 (how could this atrocity be converted into a comedy?) looks very probable.
Kolakes (179-197): St. (182) thinks the speaker of fr. 160 might be a cook, but in this type of scene the man talking about expensive food could also be a slave.12 To consider this play “the first dramatic presentation of the kolax” (190) takes too little account of Epicharmus fr. 31 and 32 K.-A. According to St. (192), this play was rather apolitical, but we may have too little evidence to state that with confidence, though he may be right in thinking that the kolakes were not so much depicted as sophistai, but were “more concerned with exploiting their target than with expressing sophistic ideas” (193).
Marikas (197-214): After dealing well with the remains of this famous comedy (which seems to have led to a major spat between Eupolis and Aristophanes), St. remains somewhat undecided how to judge Eupolis’ more or less extensive ‘borrowing’ of material from Aristophanes’ Knights in this play: on the one hand, he calls it “an interesting mixture of material ‘stolen’ from Aristophanes’ Knights” (214); on the other he wants to believe Eupolis’ own claim (cp. fr. 201 K.-A.) that he was not doing Knights again.
In order to date Taxiarchoi (246-260), St. (247f.) puts too much confidence in a verbal resemblance of fr. 280 to Eur. El. 184-5 (cited in K.-A., together with another resemblance to Eur. Or. 225-6). Apart from the fact that the Euripidean Electra can still not be regarded as securely dated, there is no telling that Eupolis need to have had these lines in mind to write fr. 280. St. (254, 260) entertains the possibility that Dionysus may have sought out the dead Phormion in the underworld (in a somewhat similar way as he later went looking for Euripides in Frogs), but one would expect at least a hint about such a far from ordinary feature in the extant material; on the other hand he probably rightly argues (257-8) against E.L. Bowie’s thesis that Taxiarchoi was a kind of anti-war play (with Phormion as an unsympathetic miles gloriosus) and rather more likely considers it a probably “marvelous piece of fun” (259) which pitted the effeminate Dionysus against the good old down-to-earth soldier Phormion.
Philoi (263-266): St. (265f.) ventures the suggestion that this play had a plot somewhat similar to Clouds, Aiges and Taxiarchoi, “putting an old man in the incongruous situation of joining the cavalry … without the slightest knowledge of the art of horsemanship”; but this may put too much burden on fr. 293 (almost the only fragment of the play to allow any speculation about the action) and does, on the other hand, probably not provide enough material for a whole play.
For Chrysoun Genos (266-277), St. (266f.) provides an interesting case for dating this play earlier than Acharnians and Knights, i.e. “the Lenaia of 426 …, following Kleon’s prominent role in the debate over Mytilene in 427” (267); he also questions — and with good reason — the well-established idea that this play was a sustained attack on Kleon in the manner of Knights : If fr. 316, which sarcastically comments on Kleon’s ‘reign’, belongs to the parabasis (as also K.-A. suggest), there is indeed “no guarantee that one allusion in a parabasis reflects the whole flow of the play” (270).
All in all, St.’s patient and painstaking discussion of the remains of all of Eupolis’ plays is a significant achievement, not least of all because it very sensibly puts many received ideas about Eupolis’ productions on trial and finds many of them wanting. If my preceding remarks were in their majority critical, that is because it is one of a reviewer’s main tasks to state disagreements where he thinks them justified; this, however, by no means implies a negative appraisal of this long section, which, on the contrary, is a most useful tool to get at least some grip on the very often tantalizingly obscure remains of Eupolis’plays.
There follow another two substantial chapters. “The ‘War’ between the Poets” (278-303) is a lucidly written and in many aspects very plausible inquiry into the vexed question of the relationship (and its development) between Eupolis and Aristophanes and their respective plays. A major part of this question is the alleged ‘collaboration’ between the two over Knights (281-288). St.’s suggestion that ” Knights used themes and ideas that Eupolis had employed before” (286) is attractive, and he seems willing to prefer the notion of plagiarism over that of collaboration: “The claim and counter-claim of originality better fits … the charge of plagiarism lodged against Eupolis for reworking Knights in his Marikas… the most probable explanation of the collaboration is that in an ongoing series of parabatic exchanges Aristophanes and Eupolis praised the originality of their own comedy and the derivative nature of their rivals'” (287); but then he waters down this sensible position by stating “I would not rule out completely that Eupolis had a hand in Knights” (ibid.). The next section of this chapter — on the exchange of invective between the poets in the years 423-420 (280-290) — is to a certain extent overshadowed by St.’s questionable reconstruction of Autolykos (see above), and this extends into the next section (293, 295), which also somewhat speculatively tries to identify the three plays by Eupolis allegedly charged with plagiarism in Aristophanes Anagyros (fr. 89). The section ‘Paracomedy’ (297-300) convincingly deals with Sidwell’s questionable concept of Old Comedy as aimed more or less exclusively at the poets themselves (with the plays being nothing more than reactions to their predecessors). The last section of the chapter (300-303) deals with fr. 392, which St. tries — unsuccessfully in my opinion — to fit into his reconstruction of Autolykos.13
The last long chapter (‘Eupolis and Comedy’, 304-377) tries to present a comprehensive picture of Eupolis as comic poet and to situate him within his genre. A first section (‘Eupolis and the Chorus’, 304-314) gives a survey of Eupolidean choruses, as far as something can be known about them. One of St.’s conclusion is that these choruses are “the butt of humour and composed of comic stereotypes, rather more so than in Aristophanes” (308), another that “perhaps the choruses in Eupolis … did not have the major and memorable roles that they did in Kratinos and Aristophanes” (312), but our evidence may not be ample enough to support such a statement.
The next section (‘Women in Eupolis’, 315-320) takes an interesting look at female roles in Old Comedy in general and — after drawing attention to Korianno in Pherekrates, Leda and Helen in Kratinos and to some others — probably rightly points out that in this area “Aristophanes may not have been as innovative as some scholars assert” (317). Eupolis had several female (or effeminate: see Astrateutoi and Baptai) choruses, while individual female roles are much rarer; “there is certainly no female protagonist in Eupolis” (320).
The following section deals with the role of “Thoughts and Thinkers in Eupolis” (321-327), concluding that intellectuals and their thinking had a role in Eupolis, “although whether he wrote anything as large-scale as Clouds is unlikely” (327).
The next section (‘Poets and Parody in Eupolis’, 327-333) starts with the rather sweeping claim “Dramatic allusion and extended parody are one area where Eupolis seems not to have ventured as far as Aristophanes … there is very little of the dramatic parody that so distinguishes the comedies of Aristophanes” (327); but can the absence of evidence really be so readily construed as evidence of absence? Moreover, St. seems a bit too willing to reject any hint of parody in fragments (e.g. 260.23-6, 99.102, 106, 231) where others might well see it at work; on p. 350, St. himself considers the possibility that in Marikas“Eupolis followed Aeschylus’ lead in Persians and opened his comedy with an extended choral parody”. If he could do it there, why not elsewhere, too?
In the section ‘Eupolis on Peace and War’ (334-338), St. makes a good case (against E. L. Bowie) that neither Astrateutoi nor Prospaltioi can be considered anti-war plays, and he reasonably also regards the opposite assumption (i.e. that Eupolis was a war supporter) as possibly “too sweeping a conclusion” (337).
Likewise in ‘Eupolis and Politics’ (338-348) he cautions against viewing too much of Eupolis’ production as seriously (and sustainedly) political; he points to the fact that many important representatives of contemporary Athenian politics were “caricatured by Eupolis … for aspects other than their politics” (340). In downplaying the political content of Demoi and Marikas (339f.), though, he may be going too far.
The section on ‘Comic Structure’ (348-366) systematically surveys the single structural units of Old Comedy (prologue, parodos, agon, parabasis, songs, intruder scenes, exodos) and Eupolis’ treatment of them. In many cases, the paltriness of the evidence makes it barely possible to assign some fragments to these structural units, while precluding anything other than speculation about specifics in their employment by Eupolis and their function; regarding e.g. the agon, “the fragments do not allow us to answer any of the more interesting questions, especially how the contest in Eupolis compared with … Aristophanes” (356). As for the parabasis, St. tries to show “that Eupolis is rather more free and inventive in his parabases” (356). He is, though, not always sure what to subsume under the heading ‘parabasis’: thus, fr. 99.1-34 is called by him a “parabasis” (358), a “partial parabasis” (ibid.), and a “parabasis-like parodos” (ibid., compare p. 129: “parabasis-like feature within the parodos”); he clearly opts for the parodos in this case, but still treats fr. 99.1-34 in the subsection on parabasis.
The last section of this chapter is called by the same title as the book itself (366-377) and serves as a kind of concluding summary. As in earlier chapters, one might take issue with a few of his observations here, e.g. with the statement (368) that the closest Aristophanic parallel to Demoi“would be Birds“; St. does not give us much of a case to prove this assertion. Nor would I readily concede that Kolakes provided a model for Plato’s Symposium (one might rather be reminded of Protagoras). My unwillingness to look at Autolykos with St.’s eyes has already been stated above. On the whole, St. regards Eupolis as inferior in comparison to Aristophanes: “Perhaps Eupolis lacked … the brilliant and fanciful imagination of Aristophanes” (370), even calling him an “Aristophanes dimidiatus” (376). His judgment of fr. 99 K.-A. (the longest continuous passage of verses by Eupolis available to us) is downright negative: “The first part … is frankly crude, … vulgar and mean-spirited …” (373); for the second part (from v. 23 onwards) he notes “its incomprehensibility and lack of easy flow” (374); but for much of this the fragmentary state of these lines may be responsible, and this may hint at a general problem, when we try to evaluate Eupolis’ art. “Too often the passages of any length seem at best vulgar and crude” (ibd.), but do we have enough of these passages to justify such generalizing? On the other hand, St. gives all due credit to Eupolis where he thinks it may reasonably be assumed that he developed and presented an idea earlier than Aristophanes (376f.).
There follow an appendix assembling the ancient texts (accompanied by translations) dealing with “Eupolis’ Death and Burial” (378-381), another “Locating the Unassigned Fragments” (382f.) according to the proposals by various scholars (from Meineke and Bergk up to St. himself), a third listing up the “Komodoumenoi in Eupolis” (384-6), a fourth about “The Eupolidean Metre” (387-390), and a fifth on “The Meaning of Δῆμοι in the Fifth Century” (391-4). After an extensive bibliography (395-412), we also get a useful “Index Locorum” (413-434) an even more useful “General Index” (435-441).
The editing and presentation of the book leave something to be desired. ‘Normal’ misprints14 are not exactly rare, but the rate of misspellings in Greek words (wrong accents included) must be called appallingly high.15 Other mistakes in details must be laid at the author’s doorstep.16 Despite these flaws (most of them of only very limited extent) and despite the fact that many uncertainties (due to the nature of the material available to us) necessarily remain and that there is still room for disagreement regarding a number of St.’s theses and suggestions, no one seriously interested in the study of Attic Old Comedy will henceforth be able to do without this penetrating study.
Notes
1. F.D. Harvey — J. Wilkins (edd.), The Rivals of Aristophanes, London 2000.
2. “Eupolis 352K”, Phoenix 39, 1985, 154-7. As he tells us in his preface (p. vii), his interest in this poet goes back to 1969.
3. One may well suspect a specific allusion to Demoi at the beginning of Lucian’s Fisherman (not mentioned by St.), where a group of distinguished philosophers returns to earth (from Hades), just like a group of distinguished Athenian politicians seems to have done in Eupolis’ play.
4. In my opinion, St. (50) makes too much of what he thinks is a negative characterization of Eupolis’ ability to make jokes as λίαν εὔστοχος by Platonius. In later Greek, λίαν can simply mean “very” with no notion of “too much” attached; see, e.g., Dio or. 16.9, 32.60, Plut. Alex. 23.4, Caes. 62.10, De aud. 4 p. 39B, Quaest. Conv. 3.6.3 p. 654B.
5. On p. 59 n. 19, St. states that “Nesselrath (2000: 234. 241 n. 7) remains non-committal” regarding the question whether Eupolis died at sea while on military duty c. 411, as the Suda (Eup. test. 1 K.-A.) and IG I (3rd ed.) 1150.52 might suggest. This is a curious misreading of my words: Can one really take my remark “a casualty list which records the names of Athenian soldiers … list among other names that of Eupolis (…), and this may well have been the comic writer” as “non-committal”?
6. Moreover, his suggestion (84) that Demostratos, the producer of this play, and Kallistratos, the producer of various plays by Aristophanes, might have been brothers, seems much too speculative, given the frequency (pointed out by St. himself) of the name Demostratos in Athens.
7. The only hint that Eupolis is a slave is provided by the fact that the thievish Ephialtes is called a “fellow-slave” — but to whom? Might it not be the dog Augeas, whose clearly stated owner is Eupolis, and might thus Ephialtes himself be a slave to Eupolis as well, instead of his fellow-slave?
8. St. translates the remark which Alkibiades is alleged to have addressed to Eupolis before tossing him into the sea (Bapt. test. iii K.-A.) with “You may dye me in the theatre …”, but what exactly is that supposed to mean?
9. See B. Bäbler, Fleissige Thrakerinnen und wehrhafte Skythen, Stuttgart — Leipzig 1998, 183-191.
10. When trying to restore the end of fr. 99.29 on p. 153, St. disconcertingly disregards the famous Lex Youtie (“iuxta lacunam ne conieceris”), as he proposes to read τρυγωιδίαν or τρυγωιδίαις or τρυγωιδεῖ, while the papyrus has τρυγωιδο‐ (with, admittedly, the last letter somewhat uncertain), and his ascription of τρυγωιδίαν μέμφεται to van Leeuwen even produces a serious metrical howler (van Leeuwen had proposed τρυγωιδοῖς μέμφεται). His consideration (though quickly discarded) of ἐῶντος (instead of ἐῶντας) in fr. 99.31 would raise the problem how to fit this asyndetic (after βροντῶντος) participle into the rest of the sentence.
11. On p. 125, St. himself has to admit that to imagine the chorus of this play as representing “the rural towns of Attica … might support a date of 412”; likewise on p. 135, he has to concede that the identification of the “god-damned Bouzyges” of fr. 103 with a politician called Demostratos fits the year 412 very well. Moreover, the “rehabilitation” of Perikles on the comic stage (seen in the fact that he is among the chosen four) may be easier to explain in 412 than in 417.
12. See H.-G. Nesselrath, Mittlere Komödie, 285-292.
13. One might (among other things) take issue with his discussion of the fragment’s last verse: its last word νέων does not necessarily belong to the preceding ἡμῶν, but might be depending on μουσικῇ in the same line and might have had a reigning substantive (like, e.g., μελῶν) in the next.
14. On p. 45 read “Tzetzes” (instead of “Tztezes”); p. 49: read “discussioni” (instead of “-cusioni”); p. 74 read “fast ganz” (instead of “ganz fast”); p. 80: read “Aischines 3. 137″ (instead of 4. 137); p. 107: after ” ς Aischines 1.126″ something like “which” seems to have fallen out; p. 118: read “Oinophyta” instead of “Oini-“; p. 131 and 132: the manuscript γ of Schol. Ar. Ach. 61 is wrongly called “G”; p. 141: read “Theoria” instead of “Thoria”; p. 144: read “epirrhematic” instead of “epirhhe-“; p. 223 n. 16 read “oinoptai” instead of “oinopotai”; p. 256 read “Strepsiades” instead of “Stresp-“. There are also a number of misprints in the bibliography: s.v. Bianchetti read “delle Nuvole”; s.v. Breitholtz read “im griechischen Mutterland”; s.v. Carrière (2) read “Leclant”; s.v. Dittmar read “Sphettos” (not -ios); s.v. Lobeck read “Aglaophamus”; s.v. Lozanova read “Tsetskhladze”; s.v. Luppe (4) read “Gefährten”; s.v. Moretti read “Graecae”; s.v. Nesselrath read “Lukians”; s.v. Plepelits read “Fragmente”; s.v. Richards delete “the”; s.v. Schroeder read “Exceptis” (not -rptis); s.v. s.v. Tylawsky read “Saturio’s”; s.v. Wankel read “Rolle der griechischen”; s.v. Wilamowitz read “Moellendorff” (twice); s.v. Wüst (1) read “Philologie”.
15. See p. 37 (read ἀπιστουμένου instead of ἀπιστομ‐); p. 38 (read ἠρυθριάσας instead of ‐ίσας); p. 61 (read φησι instead of φασι); p. 91 n. 23 (read ἄμβωνας instead of ‐βονας); p. 92 n. 25 (read κεκωμῴδηκε instead of ‐ῳδηκε); p. 126 (read ἀριστητικώ‐ instead of ἀριση‐); p. 127 (the first two Greek quotes are wrongly concluded by a full-stop, as the sentence is not yet finished; p. 142 (read twice τούτοις instead of ‐οισι); p. 167 n. 75 (read κυκεών instead of ‐έων); p. 171 (read Πείσανδροι instead of Πειψ‐); p. 177 (read αὐτοῖς instead of αὐτοίς); p. 182 (read ἐκωμῴδει instead of ‐ῳδει); p. 190 (in fr. 172,11 read ἄλλος instead of ἄλλοις); p. 208 (read πενήτων instead of ‐ητῶν); p. 222 (read προσέταξεν instead of ‐πρσς‐); p. 225 (read ἡνίκ’ instead of ἡνίκ and ἐκεῖνος instead of )κεῖνος); p. 234 (fr. 260.19: ἀλλ’ has fallen out before ἐρχόμεσθ’; the same mistake on p. 245); p. 238 n. 13 (read χοροὶ instead of ‐ροί); p. 243 (read μουσοδονήματα instead of ‐ήαματα; p. 262 (read βουλόμενος instead of βουό‐); p. 267 (in Hes. Op. 116, read δεδμημένοι instead of δεδη‐); p. 285 (read φέροι instead of ‐ρει); p. 310 (read twice δες[πότηι instead of ‐ποτι or ‐πότι); p. 315 n. 17 (read γυναικεῖα instead of γυνακ‐); p. 322 (read twice ἐπίδειξιν instead of ἐπιδεῖξιν); p. 324 (read τἆλλα instead of τλλα); p. 326 (read διέφθορε instead of διέθφ‐); p. 328 (read ἀντιτείνοντ’ instead of ἀντιεί‐); p. 346 (read οἰκιῶν instead of ‐ίων); p. 359 (read συμπτύκτοις instead of ‐κοις); p. 361 (read μεγαλαυχούμενος instead of μεγαλο‐); p. 404 (read ἀλαζών instead of ἀλάζων).
16. On p. 40 it should not be claimed that the comic poet “Platon is more normally regarded as the exponent of Middle or Second Comedy”: see Nesselrath, Mittlere Komödie 35 n. 20. — 42 n. 10: Plutarch is not the writer of the treatise Education of Children. — 44 n. 16: St. totally confuses my remarks (in Harvey — Wilkins 2000, 245 n. 23) on the treatment of Aristophanes, Eupolis, and Cratinus in 1. Platonios’ On the Different Styles of Comic Dramatists, 2. in the Life of Aristophanes and 3. in the anonymous Peri komodias (Koster III): he states that regarding texts 1 and 3 I see “a common source for both in their linking of Kratinos and Eupolis …”, while actually I sharply differentiate between 1 and 3 (which is exactly what St. does himself, 44) and stress similarities between 2 and 3 (which again St. does as well, 45). — 45: “it is not clear whether he [the scholiast on Dionysios Thrax, Koster XVIIIa] is assigning Aristophanes and Eupolis partly to Old and partly to Middle [Comedy]” — but the text makes it quite clear that he does in fact do so; see Nesselrath, Mittlere Komödie 37. — 100: St.’s translation of the Probus-Valla commentary on Juvenal 2.92 leaves out “noctu”. — 164 (middle): read line 71 (instead of 72). — 175: read 638E (of Athenaeus) instead of 600E. — 175: the presumed play title Εἵλωτες οἱ ἐπὶ Ταινάρωι Σάτυροι is wrongly translated with “Helots: the Satyrs at Tainaros” (it should be “the Helots at Tainaron, a satyr play”). On this title (it is rather ἐπὶ Ταινάρωι Σάτυροι) see H. Lloyd-Jones in the third volume of the Loeb Sophocles on the remains of Sophocles’ play Heracles. — 185: “Menander fr. 745 (Körte) is really fr. 746 and should now be cited as fr. 608 K.-A. — 189 n. 18: As for contesting Arnott’s opinion that Alexis’ play Parasitos was the first to apply the term parasitos to the sponger in comedy, St. might also have cited Nesselrath, Lukians Parasitendialog (1985) 102f. n. 314 and Nesselrath, Mittlere Komödie (1990) 309 n. 62, where he would have found detailed arguments’ against Arnott’s suggestion; see moreover my review of Arnott’s commentary on Alexis in Göttingische Gelehrte Anzeigen 252 (2000) 19 n. 30. — 212: in the quote and translation of Ar. Thesm. 836, πονηρὸν after τριήραρχον is left out. — 237 (last part of text): St. confuses his own earlier (235) division of fr. 260 between speakers A and B; the text here should read “B could … be some … hero being prevailed upon by A … B’s refusal … may have been an essential part of the comic scheme”. — 242: On Megarian humor, St. would have done well to cite R. Kerkhof, Dorische Posse, Epicharm und Attische Komödie, München — Leipzig 2001, esp. 17-24. — 245: citing the conjectured supplements to fr. 260.15, St. misspells the word στρατείαν before Luppe’s supplement and forgets to tell the reader that Eitrem reads στρατείαν as well (otherwise, his supplement would be unmetrical); citing the supplements proposed for fr. 260.20, St. misrepresents that by Page (Page wanted to read ἓψ ἐστι ἄξια, apparently eliding the iota of ἐστι, for otherwise his line would not scan; but St. makes him read ἓψ ἐστιν ἄξια, spoiling the metrics). — 268 n. 4: Among the “most recent discussions” of Utopian themes in Attic Old Comedy St. should also have cited M. Pellegrino, Utopie e immagini gastronomiche nei frammenti dell’ archaia, Bologna 2000 and Marcella Farioli, Mundus alter. Utopie e distopie nella commedia greca antica, Milano 2001. — 274f.: Something has gone wrong with the list of Archestratoi on p. 270: it contains nine entries, but the subsequent discussion deals with ten. To bring this discussion into line with the list, one must read “(9)” instead of “(10)” on p. 270, and “(8)” instead of “(9)” on p. 271. — 283: St. translates Schol. Ar. Eq. 1291 ( ἐκ τοῦ ὅστις οὖν … φασί τινες εὐπόλιδος εἶναι τὴν παράβασιν …) with “As a result of ‘so whoever … such a man’ some people say that the parabasis is by Eupolis …”, but this may be a serious misunderstanding of the scholiast’s Greek; in my view, ἐκ means “from” here, and the scholiast says: “some people say that from the verse ‘so whoever … such a man’ the parabasis is the work of Eupolis”; probably these people detected the similarity between verse 1288 from Knights and Eup. fr. 99.33f. and concluded that Eupolis’ contribution to the parabasis of Knights started right here. — 322: The claim that the verb ἀδολεσχεῖν occurs in fr. 386 is not correct (it’s the substantive ἀδολέσχην). — 329: Putting a comma after τί in fr. 99.102 is wrong, as St.’s own translation of the line shows (“Why do you not let the dead be dead?”). — 361: M. West (Greek Metre, 97) does not describe the metre of fr. 316 as “hag” + tl”, but as “hag” + tl” “. — 388: In the metric notation of fr. 89.1 K.-A. the fifth syllable is wrongly presented as a brevis (u), while it is in fact a longa (-). — 390: in the metric notation of the lecythion the first long syllable is missing. — 400: Gomme should not be declared the sole author of the “Historical Commentary on Thucydides”, as volumes 4 and 5 were co-authored by Andrewes and Dover. — 429: it’s a mystery why St. refers to Lucian’s Verae Historiae as “‘Real’ History’ in his index, while citing it much more correctly as “True Story” in his text (37).