Bakola, Prauscello & Telo (Eds.), Greek Comedy and The Discourse of Genres, CUP 2013

Cambridge University Press
978-1-107-03331-3 - Greek Comedy and the Discourse of Genres

Edited by E. Bakola, L. Prauscello and M. Telò
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G R E E K C O M E DY AN D TH E
DI SC O UR SE O F G E NRE S
Recent scholarship has acknowledged that the intertextual discourse of ancient

comedy with previous and contemporary literary traditions is not limited
to tragedy. This book is a timely response to the more sophisticated and
theory-grounded way of viewing comedy’s interactions with its cultural and
intellectual context. It shows that in the process of its self-definition, comedy
emerges as voracious and multifarious with a wide spectrum of literary, sub-
literary and paraliterary traditions, the engagement with which emerges as
central to its projected literary identity and, subsequently, to the reception
of the genre itself. Comedy’s self-definition through generic discourse far
transcends the (narrowly conceived) ‘high–low’ division of genres. This book
explores ancient comedy’s interactions with Homeric and Hesiodic epic,
iambos, lyric, tragedy, the fable tradition, the ritual performances of the Greek
polis, and its reception in Platonic writings and Alexandrian scholarship,
within a unified interpretative framework.
em m a n uel a bak ola is Leverhulme EC Fellow at King’s College London.

She has published a monograph on Cratinus (Cratinus and the Art of Comedy,
2010) and several articles which explore the relationship of comedy to other
genres. Her current project, entitled Aeschylean Tragedy and Early Environ-
mental Discourse, arises from her study of fifth-century comedy as reception
of tragedy. Using a cultural-anthropological framework, this project rereads
the tragedies of Aeschylus, arguing that their dramaturgy, imagery, stage
action, and engagement with cult and ritual show that Aeschylean tragedy
is profoundly preoccupied with the human relationship to the Earth and its
resources.
l u c i a p r a u s c e l l o is Senior Lecturer in Classics at the University of
Cambridge and Fellow of Trinity Hall. She is the author of Singing Alexandria:
Music between Practice and Textual Transmission (2006) and has variously
published on Greek archaic and Hellenistic poetry, drama, Greek religion
and ancient music.
m a r i o t e l ò is Assistant Professor of Classics at the University of California,
Los Angeles. His research interests mainly focus on Attic drama, and especially
on Old Comedy, but he has also published in other areas of Greek literature
(the Greek novel, ecphrastic literature, Roman tragedy and comedy). In
2007 he published a commentary on Eupolis’ Demoi, the best-preserved
fragmentary play of Old Comedy. He has now completed a book entitled
Aristophanes’ Wasps and the Generation of Greek Comedy.
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GREEK COMEDY AND THE

DISCOURSE OF GENRES
edited by
E. BAKOL A, L. PRAUSCELLO AND M. TEL Ò

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Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data

Greek comedy and the discourse of genres / edited by E. Bakola, L. Prauscello and M. Telò.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978-1-107-03331-3 (hardback)
1. Greek drama (Comedy) – History and criticism. 2. Greek drama (Comedy) – Influence.
3. Intertextuality. I. Bakola, Emmanuela.
pa3161.g74 2013
882 .0109 – dc23 2012042716
isbn 978-1-107-03331-3 Hardback
Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or

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Contents
List of figures page vii

Notes on contributors viii
Acknowledgements xii
Note to the reader xiii
List of abbreviations xiv
Introduction: Greek comedy as a fabric of

generic discourse 1
Emmanuela Bakola, Lucia Prauscello and Mario Telò
part i: comedy and genre: self-definition

and development
1 The Greek dramatic genres: theoretical perspectives 15
Michael Silk
2 Comedy and the Pompe: Dionysian genre-crossing 40
Eric Csapo
3 Iambos, comedy and the question of generic affiliation 81
Ralph Rosen
part ii: comedy and genres in dialogue

comedy and epic
4 Paraepic comedy: point(s) and practices 101
Martin Revermann
5 Epic, nostos and generic genealogy in Aristophanes’ Peace 129
Mario Telò

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vi Contents
comedy and lyric
6 Comedy and the civic chorus 155
Chris Carey
7 Aristophanes’ Simonides: lyric models for praise
and blame 175
Richard Rawles
comedy and tragedy

8 Comedy versus tragedy in Wasps 205
Matthew Wright
9 Crime and punishment: Cratinus, Aeschylus’ Oresteia,
and the metaphysics and politics of wealth 226
Emmanuela Bakola
10 From Achilles’ horses to a cheese-seller’s shop: on the
history of the guessing game in Greek drama 256
Marco Fantuzzi and David Konstan
comedy, the fable and the ethnographic tradition

11 The Aesopic in Aristophanes 277
Edith Hall
12 The mirror of Aristophanes: the winged ethnographers of
Birds (1470–93, 1553–64, 1694–1705) 298
Jeffrey Rusten
part iii: the reception of comedy and

comic discourse
13 Comedy and comic discourse in Plato’s Laws 319
Lucia Prauscello
14 Comedy and the Pleiad: Alexandrian tragedians and the
birth of comic scholarship 343
Nick Lowe
References 357
Index locorum 392
General index 400

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Figures
2.1 Attic red-figure fragments by the Berlin Painter, c. 480 bc;

Athens, National Archaeological Museum, Akr.702.
Courtesy of the National Archaeological Museum. Photo:
M. C. Miller page 42
2.2 Attic red-figure cup fragments, Antiphon Group, 490–470
bc; Paris, Louvre C11375. Photo: F. Lissarrague 45
2.3a Attic red-figure cup, Pistoxenos Painter, c. 470 bc; Orvieto.
and b Faina 45. Drawing: Hartwig 1893, pl. 38a,b 46
2.4a Attic red-figure cup, Sabouroff Painter, c. 460 bc; Malibu,
and b J. P. Getty Museum 86.AE.296. Courtesy of J. P. Getty
Museum 47
2.5 Attic red-figure lekythos, c. 440 bc; Athens. G´ Ephoria, inv.
no. A5801. Photo: E. Csapo, with permission 49
2.6 Attic red-figure chous, c. 400 bc; Hermitage 1869.47 Fa.
Courtesy of the State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg 72
2.7 Attic red-figure bell krater, Hare-Hunt Painter, c. 380–370 bc;
S. Agata de’ Goti. Drawing from Gerhard 1828a, pl. 72 73
2.8 Attic red-figure bell krater, 390–380 bc; Naples, Private
collection. Photo: courtesy, K. Schauenburg 75
2.9 Fragments of an Attic red-figure bell krater, 380–370 bc;
Castulo, (Linares, Jaén) 1309. A. J. Domı́nguez and
C. Sánchez 2001, fig. 168, with permission 78
vii

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Notes on contributors
emmanuela bakola is Leverhulme EC Fellow at King’s College London.

She has published a monograph on Cratinus (Cratinus and the Art
of Comedy, 2010) and several articles which explore the relationship
of comedy to other genres. Her current project, entitled Aeschylean
Tragedy and Early Environmental Discourse, arises from her study of fifth-
century comedy as reception of tragedy. Using a cultural-anthropological
framework, this project rereads the tragedies of Aeschylus, arguing that
their dramaturgy, imagery, stage action, and engagement with cult and
ritual show that Aeschylean tragedy is profoundly preoccupied with the
human relationship to the Earth and its resources.
chris carey is Professor of Greek at University College London. He has
published extensively on Pindar and early lyric, Homer, drama, Greek
law and politics, and the Attic Orators. His most recent work includes
a new OCT edition of Lysias. He is currently writing a commentary
to Book 7 of Herodotus for Cambridge University Press, Athenian Law
and a book of essays on Pindar’s Olympian Odes.
eric csapo is Professor of Classics at the University of Sydney. He has
a special interest in ancient drama and theatre history and is author
of Actors and Icons of the Ancient Theater (2010), Theories of Mythol-
ogy (2005), and co-author with William Slater of Context of Ancient
Drama (1995). In collaboration with Peter Wilson, he is preparing a
multi-volume history of the Classical Greek theatre to be published by
Cambridge University Press.
marco fantuzzi is Professor of Greek Literature at Columbia University,
New York, and at the University of Macerata (Italy). He is the author of
Bionis Smyrnaei Adonidis epitaphium (1985); Ricerche su Apollonio Rodio
(1988); Tradition and Innovation in Hellenistic Poetry (co-authored with
R. Hunter, Cambridge 2004); Achilles in Love (2012). He co-edited
viii

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Notes on contributors ix
(with R. Pretagostini) Struttura e storia dell’esametro greco (1995–6) and
(with T. Papanghelis) Brill’s Companion to Greek and Latin Pastoral
(2006). He is now co-editing for Cambridge University Press (with
C. Tsagalis) A Companion to the Epic Cycle, and completing (under
contract for the ‘Cambridge Classical Texts and Commentaries’) a full-
scale commentary on the Rhesus ascribed to Euripides.
edith hall, after holding posts at the Universities of Cambridge, Read-
ing, Oxford, Durham and Royal Holloway (2006–12), where she also
directed the Centre for the Reception of Greece and Rome, is now
Research Professor at King’s College London. She is also Co-Founder
and Consultant Director of the Archive of Performances of Greek and
Roman Drama in Oxford. Her research focuses on representations of
ethnicity, the role played by theatre (especially Greek tragedy) in both
the ancient and modern worlds and the uses made by classical culture
in European education, identity and political theory. Her books include
Inventing the Barbarian (1989); a commentary on Aeschylus’ Persians
(1996); Greek Tragedy and the British Theatre (2005, with Fiona Mac-
intosh); The Theatrical Cast of Athens (2006); The Return of Ulysses:
a Cultural History of Homer’s Odyssey (2008); Greek Tragedy: Suffering
under the Sun (2010).
david konstan is Professor of Classics at New York University, and
Professor Emeritus at Brown University. He is the author of Roman
Comedy (1983); Sexual Symmetry: Love in the Ancient Novel and Related
Genres (1994); Greek Comedy and Ideology (1995); Friendship in the Clas-
sical World (1997); Pity Transformed (2001); The Emotions of the Ancient
Greeks: Studies in Aristotle and Classical Literature (2006); Terms for
Eternity: Aiônios and aı̈dios in Classical and Christian Texts (with Ilaria
Ramelli, 2007); ‘A Life Worthy of the Gods’: The Materialist Pyschology
of Epicurus (2008); and Before Forgiveness: the Origins of a Moral Idea
(2010). He is currently working on a verse translation of Seneca’s Her-
cules on Mount Oeta and Hercules Furens, and a book on the ancient
Greek conception of beauty.
nick lowe is Senior Lecturer in Classics at Royal Holloway, University
of London, and author of The Classical Plot and the Invention of Western
Narrative (Cambridge 2000). His research interests include Greek and
Roman comedy, formalist literary theory, and the reception of anti-
quity in the nineteenth century. He is currently writing a book on the
construction of ancient Greece in modern fiction.

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x Notes on contributors
lucia prauscello is Senior Lecturer in Classics at the University of
Cambridge and Fellow of Trinity Hall. She is the author of Singing
Alexandria: Music between Practice and Textual Transmission (2006) and
has variously published on Greek archaic and Hellenistic poetry, drama,
Greek religion and ancient music.
richard rawles has taught at the University of St Andrews, University
College London and the University of Edinburgh, and is now at the
University of Nottingham. He is the author of a number of articles
on Greek poetry and of a forthcoming book about Simonides and his
ancient reception. With Peter Agócs and Chris Carey, he is the editor
of Reading the Victory Ode (Cambridge 2012) and Receiving the Komos
(2012).
martin revermann is Associate Professor in Classics and Theatre Studies
at the University of Toronto. His research interests lie in the areas
of Greek drama (especially its performance analysis, iconography and
cultural history), Brecht, theatre sociology and theatre theory. He is
the author of Comic Business: Theatricality, Dramatic Technique and
Performance Contexts of Aristophanic Comedy (2006). In addition to
various articles he is the co-editor (with P. Wilson) of Performance,
Iconography, Reception: Studies in Honour of Oliver Taplin (2008) and
co-editor (with I. Gildenhard) of Beyond the Fifth Century: Interactions
with Greek Tragedy from the 4th Century BCE to the Middle Ages (2010),
as well as the editor of the forthcoming Cambridge Companion to Greek
Comedy.
ralph rosen is Rose Family Endowed Term Professor of Classical
Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. He has published widely
on ancient Greek literature (especially comic genres), philosophy and
ancient medicine. His most recent book is Making Mockery: the Poetics
of Ancient Satire (2007). He is also co-founder (with Ineke Sluiter, of
Leiden University, NL) of the Penn–Leiden Colloquia on Ancient Values.
jeffrey rusten is Professor of Classics at Cornell University. He has
published widely in the field of Greek literature, including Hellenistic
mythography, historiography, tragedy and comedy. With J. Henderson,
D. Konstan, R. Rosen and N. Slater, he has co-edited The Birth of
Comedy: Texts, Documents, and Art from Athenian Comic Competitions,
486–280 (2011). He is now working on a Loeb edition of Philostratus’
Heroicus and Gymnasticus and completing a commentary on Thucy-
dides, Book 1.

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Notes on contributors xi
michael silk is Professor of Classical and Comparative Literature, and
from 1991 to 2006 was Professor of Greek Language and Literature, at
King’s College London. He is also Adjunct Professor in the Depart-
ment of English and Comparative Literature at the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has published on a wide range of top-
ics, from Aristotle to Nietzsche, and Homer to Ted Hughes. He was
elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2009. His current project is
a co-authored book (with Ingo Gildenhard and Rosemary Barrow): The
Classical Tradition: Art, Literature, Thought.
mario tel ò is Assistant Professor of Classics at the University of
California, Los Angeles. His research interests mainly focus on Attic
drama, and especially on Old Comedy, but he has also published in
other areas of Greek literature (the Greek novel, ecphrastic literature,
Roman tragedy and comedy). In 2007 he published a commentary on
Eupolis’ Demoi, the best-preserved fragmentary play of Old Comedy.
He has now completed a book entitled Aristophanes’ Wasps and the
Generation of Greek Comedy.
matthew wright is Senior Lecturer in Greek and Latin at the University
of Exeter and Blegen Research Fellow at Vassar College. He has worked
extensively on ancient and modern ideas of genre, and his publications
include Euripides’ Escape-Tragedies (2005) and The Comedian as Critic:
Greek Old Comedy and Poetics (2012).

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Acknowledgements
Most of the chapters in this volume are based on papers presented at

a conference entitled ‘Comic Interactions: Comedy across Genres and
Genres in Comedy’, held at University College London in July 2009.
The conference was organized under the joint auspices of the Institute
of Classical Studies and the Department of Greek and Latin, UCL; it
was generously sponsored by the Institute of Classical Studies, the British
Academy, the Classical Association, the UCL Graduate School and the
Department of Greek and Latin. It is our pleasure to thank all of these
institutions and organizations for their support. Our thanks also go to the
then Head of Department, Chris Carey, for his encouragement and helpful
advice during the organization of the conference and the preparation of
this volume.
Above all, we are deeply indebted to all the scholars who contributed to
this event by presenting material or discussing it, thus helping us immensely
in forming the outlook of this volume; these include Chris Carey,
Eric Csapo (keynote speaker), Giambattista D’Alessio, Pat Easterling,
Edith Hall, Stephen Halliwell, Simon Hornblower, Nick Lowe, Regine
May, Richard Rawles, Martin Revermann, Ralph Rosen (keynote speaker),
Michael Silk, Alan Sommerstein, Oliver Taplin, and a very lively and
knowledgeable audience from over fifteen countries.
The volume has benefited from the patient and efficient work of Michael
Sharp, the Senior Editor at Cambridge University Press. We would also like
to thank the anonymous readers of the Press for their constructive correc-
tions and comments, and for the time they patiently dedicated to reading
the typescript. We are most grateful to the following for supplying pho-
tographs and for permission to reproduce them: the J. P. Getty Museum; the
Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Archaeological Receipts Fund
and G´ Ephoria; the Louvre Museum; the State Hermitage Museum, St
Petersburg; Natalia Antonova; Eric Csapo; François Lissarrague; Margaret
Miller; Inna Regentova; Carmen Sánchez; Konrad Schauenburg.
xii

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Note to the reader
Editions of principal texts: the fragments of the comic poets are cited after
Kassel and Austin (K–A). The extant Aristophanic plays follow Wilson,
OCT. Aristophanic scholia are quoted from the general editorship of
W. J. W. Koster and D. Holwerda. Extant Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripi-
des are cited from Page, Lloyd-Jones and Wilson, and Diggle, OCT respec-
tively. All the tragic fragments refer to Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta.
Translations of ancient passages, when not otherwise indicated, are the
contributors’ own rendition.
xiii

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Abbreviations
The abbreviations of the names of ancient authors and their works follow
those in the Oxford Classical Dictionary (3rd edn) when available, other-
wise those of Liddle, Scott and Jones, A Greek–English Lexicon (9th edn).
Abbreviations of journals are cited after L’Année philologique.
Addend.2 T. H. Carpenter, Beazley Addenda: Additional Refer-

ences to ABV, ARV 2 & Paralipomena, 2nd edn. Oxford
1989.
Arnott W. G. Arnott, Menander, vols. i–iii. Cambridge, MA
and London 1979–2000.
ARV 2 J. D. Beazley, Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters, 2nd edn.
Oxford 1963.
Bergk Th. Bergk, Poetae lyrici Graeci, 4th edn., vols. i–iii.
Leipzig 1878–82.
Bernabé A. Bernabé, Poetae epici Graeci. Testimonia et frag-
menta, pars I, 2nd edn. Stuttgart and Leipzig 1996.
Bolton, Aristeas J. D. P. Bolton, Aristeas of Proconnesus. Oxford 1962.
Campbell D. A. Campbell, Greek Lyric, vols. i–v. Cambridge,
MA and London 1982–1993.
Davies, APF J. K. Davies, Athenian Propertied Families 600–300BC.
Oxford 1971.
Diggle, OCT J. Diggle, Euripidis fabulae, vols. i–iii. Oxford 1981–
94.
D–K H. Diels, and W. Kranz, Die Fragmente der Vor-
sokratiker, vols. i–iii. Berlin 1974.
FGE D. L. Page, Further Greek Epigrams, rev. R. D. Dawe
and J. Diggle. Cambridge 1981.
FGrH F. Jacoby, Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker.
Leiden 1923–.
xiv

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List of abbreviations xv
G–P B. Gentili and C. Prato, Poetae elegiaci: testimonia et
fragmenta. Pars altera, 2nd edn. Munich and Leipzig
2002.
Hausrath A. Hausrath, Corpus fabularum Aesopicarum, vols. i–
ii, vol. prius, rev. H. Hunger. Leipzig 1970.
Henderson Jeffrey Henderson, Aristophanes, vols. i–iv. Cam-
bridge, MA and London 1998–2002.
IG Inscriptiones Graecae. Berlin 1893–.
K–A R. Kassel and C. Austin, Poetae comici Graeci. Berlin
and New York 1983–.
Koster W. J. W Koster, Scholia in Aristophanem, pars i: fasc.
iA. Prolegomena de comoedia. Groningen 1975.
LGPN Lexicon of Greek Personal Names. Oxford 1997–.
LIMC Lexicon iconographicum mythologiae classicae, vols. i–
viii. Zurich and Munich 1981–97.
LSJ H. G. Liddell and R. Scott, A Greek–English Lexicon,
9th edn, rev. H. S. Jones and R. MacKenzie, and
suppl. P. G. W. Glare. Oxford 1996.
M H. Maehler, Pindarus. Pars II. Fragmenta. Stuttgart
and Leipzig 2001.
MMC 3 T. B. L. Webster, Monuments Illustrating Old and Mid-
dle Comedy, 3rd edn, rev. J. R. Green. London 1978.
MNC 3 T. B. L. Webster, Monuments Illustrating New Comedy,
3rd edn, rev. J. R. Green and A. Seeberg, vols. i–ii.
London 1995.
MPG J. P. Migne, Patrologiae cursus, series Graeca.
MTS2 T. B. L. Webster, Monuments Illustrating Tragedy and
Satyr Play, 2nd edn. London 1967.
M–W R. Merkelbach, R. and M. L. West, Fragmenta Hes-
iodea. Oxford 1967.
OCD3 S. Hornblower and A. Spawforth, The Oxford Classical
Dictionary, 3rd edn. Oxford 2003.
PMG D. L. Page, Poetae melici Graeci. Oxford 1962.
PMGF M. Davies, Poetarum melicorum Graecorum fragmenta,
vol. i: Alcman–Stesichorus–Ibycus. Oxford 1991.
POxy. The Oxyrhynchus Papyri. London 1898–.
Rose V. Rose, Aristotelis qui ferebantur librorum fragmenta.
Leipzig 1886 (repr. Stuttgart 1967).
Rutherford I. C. Rutherford, Pindar’s Paeans: a Reading of the
Fragments with a Survey of the Genre. Oxford 2001.

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xvi List of abbreviations

SEG Supplementum epigraphicum Graecum. Leiden 1924–.
S–M B. Snell and H. Maehler, Pindarus. Pars I. Epinicia.
Stuttgart and Leipzig 1987 (repr. 1997).
TrGF R. Kannicht, S. Radt and B. Snell, Tragicorum Graeco-
rum fragmenta, vols. i–v (vol. ii, 2nd edn). Göttingen
1971–2004.
Voigt E.-M. Voigt, Sappho et Alcaeus. Fragmenta. Amster-
dam 1971.
W2 M. L. West, Iambi et elegi Graeci ante Alexandrum
cantati, vols. i–ii, 2nd edn. Oxford 1989–92.
Wehrli F. Wehrli, Die Schule des Aristoteles, vols. i–x. Basel
1944–59.
Wilson, OCT N. G. Wilson, Aristophanis fabulae, vols. i–ii. Oxford
2007.

Introduction
Greek comedy as a fabric of generic discourse
Emmanuela Bakola, Lucia Prauscello and Mario Telò
Tragedy is a lucky kind of poetry in every respect (makrion . . .

po©hma kat pnt’). First of all, the plots (o¬ l»goi) are known to
the spectators, even before anyone opens their mouth. The only thing
the poet has to do is to refresh their memory (Ëpomnsai). I just need
to say Oedipus, and they know the rest . . . When the tragic poets are
short of things to say and have completely run out of ideas in their
plays (Âtan . . . komid d’ peirkwsin n to±v drmasin), they just
lift the mechane like a finger and this is enough for the spectators (kaª
to±v qewmnoisin pocrÛntwv cei). But we don’t have such an easy
life (¡m±n d taÓtì oÉk stin). We need to invent everything (ll
pnta de± eËre±n): new names (½n»mata kain), what happened in
the past (t dikhmna pr»teron), what’s going on now (t nÓn
par»nta), the resolution (tn katastrofn), the prologue (tn
e«sboln).
(Antiph. fr. .–, –)
In these few lines from the only extant fragment of Antiphanes’ Poiesis, an
unidentified character (probably a personification of Poetry or Comedy)
launches into a tirade on generic unfairness. Tragedy resorts to a pre-
packaged repertoire of subject matters and stage devices to release dramatic
products that never disappoint the spectators’ expectations. Comedy, on the
other hand, is always confronted with the challenge of concocting original
plots and new theatrical artifices easily liable to audience disapproval.
The rhetorical strategy behind this synkrisis of tragedy and comedy seems
to flip the terms of a recusatio. Instead of exposing its ‘low’ status and
lamenting its inability to take up the demanding tasks required of ‘high’
genres, comedy advertises its artistic superiority and purports to lay bare the
injustice of an audience-based hierarchy of genres that devalues the hard-
won inventiveness of the comic poets. It is evident that, by approaching
Our sincerest thanks to Richard Hunter and Jim Porter for having offered invaluable advice on earlier
drafts of this introduction.
 See most recently N. W. Slater : – and Olson : –.
Downloaded from Cambridge Books Online by IP 142.150.190.39 on Mon Sep 30 02:43:38 WEST 2013.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139519601.002
Cambridge Books Online © Cambridge University Press, 2013
 emmanuela bakola, lucia prauscello and mario tel ò
genre in such explicit terms, the mouthpiece of comedy speaking in this
fragment is adopting the righteous stance of the abject hero, the innocent
victim of social abuse and marginalization that comic poets assume as a
favourite mode of authorial self-positioning.
In this respect Antiphanes’ fragment, even if narrowly focused on
tragedy, offers a privileged entry point into some of the distinctive fea-
tures of Greek comedy’s interactions with the whole generic landscape of
archaic and classical literature. The high degree of self-awareness that the
surviving comic texts bring to their dialogues with this wide range of tra-
ditions turns Greek comedy into a fabric of generic discourse that sets the
terms of the theory and practice of genre in antiquity. This book considers
Greek comedy’s interactions with different traditions, both literary and
non-literary, by situating them within a unified interpretative framework.
It explores some of the ways in which Greek, especially Aristophanic, com-
edy employs the self-reflexive discourse of genre, turning it into a primary
imaginative force and an essential tool of poetic self-representation. By
absorbing diverse strands of tradition, which are made to confront and
comment on each other, Greek comedy constructs and projects its literary
existence.
Although, as is well known, the first explicit theoretical reflections on lit-
erary genre date back to Plato and Aristotle, Greek comedy prefigures these
concerns in many ways. Over the entire chronological arc of Greek comedy,
generic issues are raised and made the subject of poetic discourse. As the
Antiphanes fragment eloquently shows, confrontation between genres can
infiltrate even dramatic dialogue. It can also morph into an overarching
plot device, casting actors in the role of individual genres, or operate as a
pervasive subtext, investing characters with parallel metaliterary identities.
In other words, Greek comedy engages in a programmatic ‘theatralisation
 On this characteristic stance of the comic voice cf. esp. Rosen and Baines : – and Rosen
, passim.
 On the connections between ‘genre’ and (intertextual) ‘dialogue’ see Bakhtin . On the relevance
of Bakhtinian dialogism to the ancient practice and theory of genre cf. Farrell : –, Branham
, Whitmarsh : –; on the application of Bakhtinian theory to Old Comedy see Dobrov
 and Platter .
 For a theoretical discussion of this function of genre, see Depew and Obbink : –.
 Depew and Obbink :  remark that ‘theorizing about genre rose quite apart from conceptual-
izations of genre that were production- and performance-based’.
 The most emblematic instances of this tendency are Aristophanes’ Frogs and Women at the Thesmopho-
ria, but many other plays of Old Comedy must have featured scenes of intergeneric confrontation.
In Cratinus’ Archilochoi, for example, epic was probably pitted against iambos in the course of the
agon (cf. Bakola : –). See also Wright and Telò in this volume.
Greek comedy as a fabric of generic discourse 
of genre.’ While doing so, it also appropriates, manipulates and ridicules
ancient discourse on literary criticism.
Commenting on Women at the Thesmophoria, Helene Foley has observed
that in this play ‘comedy moves closer than before to intertwining as well
as competing with tragedy’. Foley’s observation fits in well with schol-
arly approaches to other Aristophanic comedies (such as Knights, Clouds,
Peace and Frogs) which have also shown that in its obsessive process of
self-definition comedy tends not only to antagonize but also to absorb
other genres. Foley’s use of the verb ‘intertwining’, however, is partic-
ularly apt for comedy’s systematic incorporation of elements from other
literary forms. ‘Intertwining’ builds on a metaphor that evokes the ideas
of crossbreeding and hybridization, which are associated with the concept
of Kreuzung der Gattungen. The biological paradigm of the Kreuzung,
which positivistic scholarship recognized as the driving force behind the
Hellenistic literary system, relies on the belief in the existence of pure and
uncontaminated poetic forms, which allegedly second-rate (or at least epig-
onal) authors commingle as a remedy for their dearth of originality. Yet,
as scholars have pointed out, the implausibility of this model of ‘generic
engineering’ is demonstrated precisely by the flexible, anti-essentialist idea
of genre reflected in Cratinus’ famous coinage EÉripidaristofan©zein
(fr. ). Old Comedy paves the way for later enterprises of generic cod-
ification and classification, but even before the rise of such enterprises
it undermines any essentialist position about genre by presenting genre-
intertwining not as artificial crossbreeding, but as the necessary condition
of literary self-consciousness and definition.
The postmodernist revaluation of Kreuzung in Hellenistic and Roman
literature has shifted attention from ‘genres as begetting genres to texts
 Barchiesi : , who applies this concept to the generic system of Augustan literature.
 On this point see N. O’Sullivan  and Hubbard ; on comedy’s role in ancient literary
criticism see Hunter a: –.
 Foley : .
 See, for instance, Hall : – (on Peace); Rosen  (on Frogs) and : – (on Knights);
Silk  (on Clouds). See also Vetta , Zanetto , Biles : –.
 For a stimulating reassessment of this concept see Barchiesi .
 We borrow this expression from Barchiesi : .
 On generic anti-essentialism cf. Bakhtin , Derrida  and, with particular reference to ancient
literature, Hinds ; Barchiesi : –; Farrell : –; Harrison : –; Rotstein
: –.
 On Cratin. fr.  see most recently Bakola : –. For the loosening of generic boundaries in
late fifth-century Athens see Gibert –, Revermann b and Foley .
 Foley : : ‘it seems likely that comedy played, because it could and needed to defend itself,
the critical public role . . . in popularizing generic aims and differences’.
 emmanuela bakola, lucia prauscello and mario tel ò
as mobilizing genres’, laying emphasis on ‘how texts construct and invoke
genres, and re-create a genealogy, not on how literary species transmute and
survive.’ This concern with genealogy holds a central position in Greek
comedy’s own negotiations with other literary traditions, which constantly
foreground a ‘kinship versus otherness’ dialectic. The antagonistic attitude
of Antiphanes’ fragment does not exhaust the range of stances that the
Greek comic texts adopt in engaging with these literary and non-literary
traditions. Comedy sets its voice not only against, but also alongside that of
other genres, putting on a ‘drama of appropriation and legitimization’ that
unfolds through the reconstruction of its origins and the impersonation of
its ancestors.
This volume sets out to enhance our appreciation of Greek comedy’s
generic receptivity by following in the footsteps of recent scholarship that
has illuminated the sophisticated strategies of self-positioning at work in
comic texts’ exchanges with other genres. We have now come to the
point where generic interaction in comedy is not understood as amount-
ing only (or mainly) to its engagement with tragedy. On the contrary,
it is gradually entering scholarly consciousness that the comic genre is
voracious and multifarious in its interactions with generic discourse. The
present collection, therefore, shifts the focus from tragedy as the privileged
or even exclusive object of intertextual investigation to a wider spectrum
of genres. Although in articulating its generic identity Greek comedy
assigns to tragedy the role of an obligatory point of reference, as the frag-
ment of Antiphanes’ Poiesis indicates, the interactions with tragedy need
to be understood within the wider fabric of comedy’s generic discourse.
Through a more comprehensive (and less tragedy-centred) approach to
comic texts’ ‘echoes of genre’, we aim to show that in incorporating and
manipulating other traditions comedy displays the same degree of self-
consciousness and creativity that it deploys when it confronts its dramatic
sister-genre.
Consequently, the chapters of this volume attempt to reach beyond
comedy’s favourite self-definition as trugd©a and to examine how its
 Barchiesi : .  Barchiesi : .
 Platter  conceptualizes Old Comedy’s intergeneric dialogism through the Bakhtinian opposition
between ‘high’ and ‘low’. But Old Comedy thrives on staging its generic kinship with iambos – as
the emblematic case of Cratinus’ Archilochoi shows (see Rosen in this volume) – and high traditions
as well. On Aristophanes’ affiliations with Odyssean epic and Hesiodic didactic see Telò in this
volume.
 For comedy and tragedy, see in particular Foley ; Sfyroeras ; Zeitlin : –; D. P.
Fowler : –; Gibert –; Dobrov : –; Bakola : –; Telò . For
comedy and other genres, see nn.  and .
 Even Platter’s most recent investigation of Aristophanes’ ‘carnival of genres’ (Platter ) is mainly
focused on tragedy (on his approach see above, n. ).
Greek comedy as a fabric of generic discourse 
‘kinship versus otherness’ dialectic plays into the interactions with other
traditions, literary and non-literary. In other words, the individual chapters
try to determine by what means and with what results comedy projects
its trugedic stance even when it sets itself against other generic matrices.
In this way, this volume hopes to enrich the picture of comedy’s generic
self-awareness and to open up new avenues for interpreting the ways in
which comic texts construct their identity by thematizing genre.
Our attempt to reconstruct comedy’s fabric of generic discourse pro-
ceeds along three main trajectories. The first part of the volume (‘Com-
edy and genre: self-definition and development’) endeavours to recover
some of the governing principles of this fabric by addressing the ques-
tions of generic self-definition and evolution from a theoretical stand-
point (Silk) and through exemplary case studies (Csapo; Rosen). Key to
this section is the ever-changing relationship between context and text:
in particular the contributions of this section all discuss, from comple-
mentary perspectives, how and in what degree contextual determination
affects the generic identity of the comic text. To what extent does con-
text, understood both as a socio-cultural background and the material
conditions of the performance, shape and condition the generic iden-
tity of the comic text? How does comic poetry’s inclusion of non-literary
forms influence the textual configuration of literary identity and fos-
ter generic development? Finally, what criteria define comedy’s notions
of generic dependence and affiliation? Within this framework, Silk’s
paper (‘The Greek dramatic genres: theoretical perspectives’) provides
an important starting point by drawing attention to three essential fac-
tors for a proper understanding of the generic system of classical drama
and, in particular, comedy’s self-positioning: () the interplay between
context and text; () the impact of non-literary or sub-literary culture on
the historical development of dramatic genres, with special attention paid
to comedy; () the role played by value judgements in the ancient and mod-
ern assessments of tragedy, comedy and satyr drama. These hermeneutic
conundrums are central to the interpretation of the surviving, never staged
version of Clouds, whose lack of ‘contextual authority’ evinces, as the paper
suggests, Aristophanes’ intention to present the play as a generic hybrid
(a ‘tragicomedy’ or a ‘comitragedy’).
The importance of comedy’s interaction with non-literary genres and the
need to extend our definition of its context to include the other Dionysiac
choruses contemporary with the comic performances held at the Athenian
Dionysia are at the heart of Csapo’s contribution (‘Comedy and the Pompe:
Dionysian genre-crossing’). Nine Attic vase-paintings (some of them
previously unpublished), which date from c.  to c.  bc, are shown to
 emmanuela bakola, lucia prauscello and mario tel ò
represent choruses of phallic entertainers at the Pompe of the Dionysia.
This identification is a springboard for re-examining how the phallic
processions may have influenced the evolution of the comic genre and
how comedy in its turn may have contributed to shaping the form of these
phallic performances. Finally, Rosen (‘Iambos, comedy and the question
of generic affiliation’) revisits the topic of his book Old Comedy and the
Iambographic Tradition. Building on recent scholarship on iambography,
Rosen addresses the thorny questions of what generic dependence really
entails and what kind of ‘work’ (as in Aristotle’s ergon) a genre is supposed
to do. Approaching the two genres, comedy and iambos, with these
questions in mind allows us to conceptualize a close generic relationship
between them that relies less on lexical similarities than on the literary
dynamics that govern all forms of comedy rooted in satire. Despite
obvious differences between iambos and Old Comedy in literary form,
performative structures or even localized social function, they remain
powerfully and uniquely affiliated as genres of satire in ways that go well
beyond whatever surface similarities we may detect in them.
The second part of the volume (‘Comedy and genres in dialogue’)
scrutinizes comedy’s interactions with some specific traditions (epic,
lyric, tragedy, fable, ethnography) through new or hitherto underex-
plored approaches. Scholars have long acknowledged comedy’s intertex-
tual engagement with the two major genres of archaic Greek literature,
namely epic and lyric. Yet the investigation of such an engagement has
rarely moved beyond the survey of isolated verbal borrowings and the mere
recognition of their parodic valence. Recent studies on paratragedy have
brought to the fore the complexity of comedy’s intertextual referentiality
and elucidated the forms of detailed and intense allusiveness that comic
dramatists put to use in their plays. Building on this sophisticated model
of comic dialogism, the chapters of this section that are focused on epic
(Revermann; Telò) and lyric (Carey; Rawles) highlight the appropriative
gestures foregrounded by the comic exchanges with these traditions. In
particular, they analyse significant examples of the strategies by which
 The investigation of Old Comedy’s engagement with lyric poetry that is offered in the helpful
study of Kugelmeier  is emblematic of this approach; Platter : – examines significant
aspects of Aristophanes’ appropriation of epic but without detailed intertextual analysis. See, on
the other hand, Rosen  (on comedy and iambos), Biles  (on Cratinus and Archilochus, in
particular), Hall : – (on comedy, lyric and epic), Bakola  (on comedy and the poetic
‘I’ of archaic lyric). See also Biles : –.
 As remarked by D. P. Fowler :  n. , Aristophanic comedy is ‘significantly intertextual with
its tragic source-text down to the level of the marked use of particles’. On the study of paratragedy
in Old Comedy see the bibliography quoted above, n. .
Greek comedy as a fabric of generic discourse 
comedy conjures different strands of epic and lyric tradition, mobilizes
and distorts their techniques of generic self-representation. This approach
has important bearings on our understanding of epic and lyric as well, as it
casts retrospective light on their modes of textual self-construction, brings
out their manipulation of generic boundaries and discloses the implicit dia-
logues between different strands of tradition that lie behind the evolution
of the literary system.
In particular, Revermann’s and Telò’s chapters both investigate the vari-
ety of ways in which comedy, ever the self-interested and self-promoting
genre, capitalizes on the specific cultural valence of epic poetry (Homer and
Hesiod). Revermann’s chapter (‘Paraepic comedy: point(s) and practices’)
analyses comedy’s relationship with Homer and the Epic Cycle, and seeks
to situate it relative to comedy’s dialogue with tragedy and satyr-play. Two
claims are at the core of Revermann’s argument: () comedy exploits the
specific cultural valence of epic poetry, which is higher and of a differ-
ent order from that of comedy’s performative rivals, tragedy and satyr-play;
() by contrast with tragedy, comedy’s interaction with epic tends to oscillate
between two poles. Comedy is either more ‘Homer-centric’ than tragedy
(that is, its focus is on the Iliad and the Odyssey, while tragedians show a
greater interest in the Epic Cycle) or it tends towards what the author calls
‘epic modality’, a looser form of genre interaction that conjures an epic
atmosphere for the recipient through a combination of metre, Homeric
Kunstsprache, dramatic character, plot and situation. This interaction does
not follow one single template but needs to be teased out in each case.
In a complementary way, Telò’s chapter (‘Epic, nostos and generic geneal-
ogy in Aristophanes’ Peace’) explores the strategies of generic self-definition
in the finale of Peace, where a rhapsodic contest takes place between a war-
addicted boy obsessed with Iliadic epic and a peace-oriented and Hesiod-
inspired paternal figure acted out by Trygaeus. Telò shows how, in framing
the strife between the boy and Trygaeus as an intergenerational conflict
between a Homeric son and a Hesiodic father, Aristophanes is appropriat-
ing a central moment of the epipolesis of Book  of the Iliad and transmuting
it into a literary-critical comparison. The author suggests that what is at
issue in the mise en scène of this intergenerational encounter is the tracing of
the genealogical tree of Aristophanic poetic identity. Aristophanes presents
Hesiod as an ancestor of the iambic-comic mode, but he also dramatizes
the Homeric roots of Hesiodic poetry and in this way he brings to the
surface the Homeric origins of the comic self.
Comedy’s complex dialogue with the lyric voice, monodic and choral,
is the overarching theme of Carey’s and Rawles’ chapters. Carey’s chapter
 emmanuela bakola, lucia prauscello and mario tel ò
(‘Comedy and the civic chorus’) challenges the common view of the comic
chorus as a distinctly civic voice. A comparison with non-dramatic cho-
ruses reveals that the comic chorus appropriates a civic choral mood in a
highly selective and idiosyncratic way. Non-dramatic choral performances
generally present the undivided voice of the polis, with some important
exceptions, most notably epinician poetry. Comedy straddles this divide
within the tradition, slipping into and out of the civic voice at will. The
comic chorus frequently defines itself as distinct from and at odds with the
polis but can also approximate the more conventional choral civic voice.
This complexity of the comic choral voice reflects comedy’s awareness of
its ability to create new effects with traditional forms of expression.
Rawles’ contribution (‘Aristophanes’ Simonides: lyric models for praise
and blame’) shifts the focus to comedy’s interaction with the epinician tradi-
tion. While previous scholarship has looked mainly at Aristophanes’ Pindar
in terms of comedy’s indebtedness to the lyric tradition, Rawles explores
the ways in which Aristophanes uses a strikingly democratic Simonides
as an advocate of a comic poetics of praise and blame. Differently from
Pindar and Bacchylides, Simonides constructs epinician as both blame of
the defeated and praise for the victor. The author argues that we should
see Aristophanes’ Simonides as one possible route to our own view of the
earlier poet, but as a highly selective one, focusing on aspects of Simonides
that facilitated an analogy between a Simonidean and a comic poetics.
Three chapters (Wright, Bakola, Fantuzzi and Konstan) illuminate com-
edy’s much-discussed relationship with tragedy by exploring, among other
themes, its reflections of and on socio-political discourse. Genre has been
aptly defined as ‘the mediating term between the literary work and the
various cultural discourses and social functions within which literature
operates.’ The first two contributions show that comedy uses social con-
flict to trope the agonistic dimension of its intergeneric engagement with
tragedy, but it also capitalizes on this engagement to participate in the
socio-political arena of the democratic polis. In ‘Comedy versus tragedy in
Wasps’ Wright argues that this intergeneric contest is what lies behind the
multiple thematic contests of the plot (father–son, old–young, aristocracy–
democracy). The lower genre presents itself as a serious challenger to the
higher genre, and Aristophanic comedy implicitly emerges as superior not
just to other comedy but to tragedy as well in both its literary and its social
dimensions.
 Segal in Conte : xiii.
Greek comedy as a fabric of generic discourse 
Bakola’s reading of Plutoi (‘Crime and punishment: Cratinus, Aeschylus’
Oresteia, and the metaphysics and politics of wealth’) assesses how generic
identity may be mapped onto contemporary perceptions of ‘classic’ tragedy
as well as cultural change. Cratinus’ engagement with Aeschylus’ Oresteia
shows how comedy engaged with a timeless theme of Aeschylean tragedy
while at the same time using Aeschylus to respond to contemporary political
and economic concerns of the Athenian society of the s. Furthermore,
given the importance of Aeschylean poetics for the comedy of Cratinus,
Plutoi constitutes further evidence for the self-positioning of the comic
author in relation to the tragic master as a ‘classic’ and may suggest the comic
poet’s appropriation of an Aeschylean anti-hegemonic political stance in
his persona.
In ‘From Achilles’ horses to a cheese-seller’s shop: on the history of the
guessing game in Greek drama’ Fantuzzi and Konstan illustrate the func-
tioning of generic discourse in Menander by examining a case of tragic
interaction that not only illustrates his Aristophanic self-positioning
against a tragic model but also lays bare the comic potential of the original
tragedy. A generic variation of the dramatic guessing-game motif shows that
in the Perikeiromene Menander defines the boundaries of comedy against
the background of Pseudo-Euripides’ Rhesus, a unique example of hyper-
epic tragedy. What is gained from this analysis is a better understanding
not only of the Menandrian play, but of Rhesus as well. In fact, Menan-
der’s reception of this play enables us to situate the Pseudo-Euripidean
scene between Hector and Dolon alongside the Aristophanic versions of
the guessing game in Acharnians, Wasps and Frogs.
The interconnections of genre and social discourse are also at play in
Old Comedy’s dialogue with the fable tradition. As Hall’s chapter (‘The
Aesopic in Aristophanes’) argues, Aristophanes’ absorption of the Aesopic
mode lies at the core of his generic persona and is at the root of some of his
distinctive ideological postures. In particular, Hall explores how Aesopic
fables are used in Aristophanic comedy (above all Acharnians, Knights,
Wasps and Peace) to trigger humorous ‘knowingness’ as a strategy for social
and ideological manipulation. Classical scholars generally agree that the
fables reflect at some level their origins as low or popular culture, oral
stories generated and circulated by slaves and lower-class individuals in
antiquity, while paradoxically often reaffirming the slave-owning agenda
in their validation of force majeure. The author instead proposes that the
 On the continuities between Old and New Comedy see Csapo .
 emmanuela bakola, lucia prauscello and mario tel ò
socially low knowingness in which this apparent paradox is expressed is the
greatest debt ancient comedy owes to Aesop. This stance may even take
us into an intergeneric dialogue of a far more ancient and international
kind, since fables in what is similar to an Aesopic form appear in Sumerian,
Akkadian and Aramaic texts from the third millennium onwards.
Comedy’s creative incorporation of paraliterary forms is also instan-
tiated by Aristophanes’ dialogue with ethnography, as Rusten shows in
‘The mirror of Aristophanes: the winged ethnographers of Birds (–,
–, –)’. This dialogue converts comedy’s construction of its
generic self into an exploration of the intersections between utopia and
para-history. Aristophanes’ absorption of ethnographic discourse raises the
question: to what extent can ethnography be regarded as a parodic version
of historiography? Furthermore, in Birds Aristophanes’ customary exer-
cise in generic self-definition draws upon the subversion of ethnography’s
identity–alterity dialectic.
The third and final part of the volume (‘The reception of comedy
and comic discourse’) maps out two significant aspects of the reception
of comedy’s discourse on genre outside the world of drama. If it is true
that our readings of ancient texts ‘are, in complex ways, constructed by
the chain of receptions through which their continued readability has
been effected’, the understanding of comedy’s generic identity has to be
inscribed against the background of its interpretations and reinterpretations
throughout antiquity. The concept of genre as ‘a succession of texts within
a continuous process of horizon-setting and horizon-changing’ is itself
bound up with the hermeneutics of reception. The reception of comedy is
investigated here as a twofold phenomenon that provides insights not only
into the diachronic making of comic identity, but also into the ways in
which comedy’s fabric of generic discourse is re-employed and manipulated
by later genres to articulate their strategies of self-definition. Offering a
comprehensive survey of the appropriations of comedy in antiquity is
beyond the scope of this volume. We concentrate, instead, on two key
moments of its critical reception, which mark crucial and similar turning
points in the history of the ancient visions and revisions of comedy.
Both contributions in this section (Prauscello, Lowe) consider the reflec-
tion on comedy in genres (Platonic philosophy and Hellenistic scholarship)
that programmatically adopt a prescriptive and normative viewpoint and
may even exhibit a ‘hostile’ attitude towards comic discourse. How do
self-declared ‘enemies’ of comedy (such as Plato) or practitioners of the
 Martindale : .  Skoie : , referring to Jauss’ Rezeptiontheorie.
Greek comedy as a fabric of generic discourse 
adversary genre (such as the Hellenistic scholars who are authors of
tragedies) contribute to its generic codification and canonization? To what
use does Plato put comedy’s own tactics of self-presentation? What influ-
ence does his and the Hellenistic tragedians’ authoritative, yet tendentious,
categorization exert on the later takes on comedy? And how does it reflect
back on our perceptions of comedy’s generic identity?
Along these lines, Prauscello’s chapter (‘Comedy and comic discourse in
Plato’s Laws’) considers how comedy and the comic discourse of abuse and
ridicule are absorbed, metabolized and redefined within the ‘communica-
tional utopia’ of Plato’s Magnesia. In the Laws Plato’s revisionist account
of comedy and its psychology of emotions, while coherently integrated
into his previous reflections on comic laughter and ridicule (Republic and
Philebus), draws extensively on rhetorical strategies of self-representation
advertised by comedy itself (in particular the typically comic poetics of
innovation and the trope of the comic poet and comic character as a
madman). Plato’s ways of selecting, adapting and deconstructing comic
metapoetics are mirrored also in one of the most remarkable features of
Magnesia’s policy towards its own citizens: the necessity to exert control
over citizens’ modes of speech. Comedy provides a model of what must
be avoided: experiential and representational mimesis as well as specific
speech-acts.
Lowe’s contribution (‘Comedy and the Pleiad: Alexandrian tragedians
and the birth of comic scholarship’) moves further down the centuries to
the defining moment for the canonization of comic texts: their Alexandrian
reception. Though comedy had been the subject of treatises by Aristotle and
his school for half a century, it was only with the scholars of the Alexandrian
Museum and Library under Ptolemy II that comedy became an object
of systematic study. Strikingly, the main figures here were all numbered
among the stars of the ‘Pleiad’ of early Hellenistic tragedians: Lycophron
of Chalcis, Dionysiades of Mallos and Euphronius of Chersonesus. The
activity of these tragedian-scholars as a group suggests that their role in
the formation of the Alexandrian tradition of comic scholarship marked
a philological as well as a generic and a professional turn in the ways in
which comedy would be studied, canonized and conceived.
The variety of approaches followed in this volume mirrors the broad
range of techniques of self-representation and dynamics of self-perception
that are at stake in Greek comedy’s discourse on genre and its repercussions
in later literature. At the same time, all of the chapters pose and attempt
to answer questions within a coherent interpretative frame. In investigat-
ing a wide spectrum of mises en scène du genre and tackling them from
 emmanuela bakola, lucia prauscello and mario tel ò
different, if tightly interconnected, angles, they offer a snapshot of the
omnivorous, open and intensely dialogic nature of Greek comedy. They
also show that dialogism not only is the instrument through which certain
literary traditions construct their parasitic identity but represents a defin-
ing condition of genre as such. In fact, ‘genre always involves a balance
between consistency and innovation, framework and deviation’ or, to put
it another way, a complex negotiation between prescription and descrip-
tion, langue and parole. It is precisely this programmatic manipulation of
the divide between norm and distortion, conservatism and transgression,
that lies at the core of the comic voice and makes Greek comedy the ideal
venue for generic discourse.
 Braund : .
part i
Comedy and genre: self-definition
and development
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c h ap t er 1
The Greek dramatic genres: theoretical perspectives

Michael Silk
preliminaries
I wish to draw attention to three relatable and under-discussed issues in
genre theory and then consider their relevance for our understanding of
the dramatic genres of classical Athens and their relationships. These issues
are: (i) the distinction between text and context; (ii) in the evolution or
development of a genre, the distinction between (a) cross-generic or inter-
generic influence and (b) influence from external factors; (iii) the question
of value. I shall have most to say about (i), because (ii) and (iii) are in part
contingent on it. In what follows, I leave largely to one side problematics
concerning the demarcation of the generic and the supra-generic (including
my own arguments elsewhere about the supra-generic status of comedy).
Conversely, I shall discuss examples pertaining to tragedy and satyr-play
as well as comedy – partly because ‘the comic’ might be thought to figure
in all three genres, but chiefly because the three constitute a miniature
system, such that the elucidation of any part of the system is facilitated by
the elucidation of the rest.
A better understanding of all three genres, and their relationships,
requires a better theoretical grasp of genre itself. This is a goal to which
classical scholarship has, in principle, much to contribute – but only on
the basis of a critical attitude to theory as it currently exists.
The first version of this chapter was delivered as a paper at a conference on ‘Greek Drama and its
Genres’ in Barcelona in : my thanks to Xavier Riu for the invitation to present my thoughts then
and for his understanding when it proved impossible to revise the paper for publication afterwards;
also to the organizers of the conference at University College London and the editors of the present
volume for the opportunity to adapt and expand the piece for a new context; and then to all those
who have offered helpful comments on different versions.
 In Silk a: –.
 Among recent discussions of genre by classicists, some of the contributors to Depew and Obbink
 show an admirable awareness of current theories – but much less sign of any interest in
confronting them. Cf. Silk (b).

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 michael silk
Modern theory (theory of the last two hundred years, from the Roman-
tics to our own age) is diverse, often very sophisticated, and – if critically
handled – unquestionably facilitates understanding of the Greek genres.
In several of its favourite emphases, though, modern theory is seriously
deficient. In the first place, it tends to assume the condition of modern
Western literature and generalize from that. It does this most obviously
by taking the modern novel as representative. Bakhtin, writing in ,
spoke for many: ‘Faced with the problem of the novel, genre theory must
submit to a radical restructuring.’ It is questionable, however, whether the
novel, though clearly dominant within modern literature, of and since the
nineteenth century, is also representative of it – while, for the twenty-six
centuries of Western literature before the nineteenth century, any such
proposition is simply absurd. But even for the modern period, the novel
surely represents an extreme: a major kind of literature (a supra-generic
kind, in fact), which has never had a context.
Initially, modern genre theory (rightly) assumed the Kantian separation
of ‘disinterested’ literature and art from (the rest of ) ‘life’, making a clear
distinction between literary or artistic genres and non-literary or non-
artistic phenomena. By contrast, theory of the last hundred years (from the
Russian Formalists onwards) tends to resist this opposition by identifying,
as ‘genres’, a wide range of social behaviour patterns, especially but not
only verbal patterns: that is, it tends to identify as ‘genres’ both the novel
and tragic drama (etc.) and forms of non-literary discourse, from technical
prose to (even) ordinary conversation. Thus Bakhtin again, in –:
Secondary (complex) speech genres – novels, dramas, all kinds of scientific research,
major genres of commentary . . . During the process of their formation, they absorb
and digest various primary (simple) genres that have taken form in unmediated
speech communication. These primary genres are altered and assume a special
character when they enter into complex [genres]. They lose their immediate
relation to actual reality and to the real utterances of others.
Compare, more recently, John Frow (in ), quoting Anne Freadman
(from ):
 Bakhtin : . The dominance of the novel within modern literature was proclaimed, as early as
, by Friedrich Schlegel (Schlegel : ), listing ‘Three dominant genres: ) In Greece, tragedy.
) In Rome, satire. ) In the modern world, “Roman”’ (‘Drei herrschende Dichtarten. ) Tragödie bei
den Griechen. ) Satire bei den Römern. ) Roman bei den Modernen’) – where the momentous
term ‘Roman’ (already prefiguring the distinctive association between modernity and what comes to
be called Roman-ticism) is both ‘novel’ and ‘romance’.
 Bakhtin : .
The Greek dramatic genres: theoretical perspectives 
Any performance of a text . . . takes place within a broader ‘ceremonial’ frame and
involves all the constituents of the occasion: the audience, the actions of opening
and closing the performance, talk about the performance, and its demarcation
from other performances. Such things as ‘reading a book, attending and giving
lectures, dinner conversations, filling in forms, interviews . . . are all ceremonial
frames and/or the genres that occur within them’.
Hence such expansive formulae as ‘genre classifications . . . have an organ-

ising force in everyday life’ (Frow) and ‘blurred genres: the refiguration of
social thought’ (Clifford Geertz).
This development is doubtless illuminating for the understanding of the
non-literary forms which are the concern of social scientists like Geertz.
But by flouting the Kantian principle, it is deeply unhelpful for the under-
standing of literature or art in any age. Contrary to many claims, the
Kantian principle is not to be seen as simply a modern construction. Even
though (as is endlessly, and correctly, pointed out) the specific boundaries
of literature or art shift significantly from era to era, the principle is itself a
cross-cultural reality. It is no coincidence that it is substantially anticipated,
in pre-modern antiquity, by Aristotle (Poet. –).
Correspondingly, most theory of the last hundred years (again, from
the Formalists onwards) has put great emphasis on cross-generic (or inter-
generic) interplay – at the expense of any discussion of interplay between
literature (or art) and that which is not, or not regarded as, literature (or
art). This emphasis is implicit in Bakhtin’s propositions about ‘primary’
and ‘secondary’ genres, just quoted, as it is, more fully, in earlier Formalist
doctrine, as sketched by Erlich in :
the distinctive Formalist contribution to the theory of literary history . . . lay . . . in
a recognition that a new art form or style is not an antithesis of the preceding one,
but its reorganisation, ‘a regrouping of old elements’. Hence an important role of
parody, with its capacity to present the old in a new key, as a mechanism of literary
change. Moreover, a healthy distrust of rigid definitions and official hierarchies
made the Formalists alive to literary affinities and cross-connections . . . They knew
that literary conflict, like politics, makes strange bed-fellows: ‘In the struggle with
the father, the grandson turns out to resemble his grandfather.’ Shklovsky urged a
still more heterodox genealogy: ‘In the history of art, the legacy is transmitted, not
from father to son, but from uncle to nephew.’ This ‘law’, which became known
 Frow : –, citing Freadman : .

 Frow :  and Geertz  (‘Blurred . . . thought’ is Geertz’s title).
 So Eagleton , among others.  Erlich : –.
 The quotation is from Tynyanov :  as translated by Erlich .
 Tynyanov : .  Shklovsky :  (= : ).
 michael silk
as ‘canonisation of the junior branch’, posited that periodically, in order to renew
itself, literature should draw upon motifs and devices of subliterary genres, e.g.
journalism, vaudeville, folksong, detective story.
The principle was summed up – with brutal simplicity, it has to be said –
by Tzvetan Todorov in . In response to the claim that talk of genre,
in today’s world, is outmoded, because the genres have all disappeared,
Todorov counters: it is not genres as such that have gone, but only ‘the
genres of the past’, which have in fact been ‘replaced by other genres’.
Hence his elegant, but oversimplified, formula: ‘Where do genres come
from? Quite simply, from other genres.’
The recent (structuralist and subsequent) theoretical fetishizing of ‘text’
symptomatizes and intensifies various of these developments. In Frow, rep-
resentatively, a postmodern-sociological theorizing of the relation between
‘text’ and ‘genre’ is almost unrelatable to the realities of literature in, for
instance, classical Greece. Frow writes:
texts respond to and are organised in accordance with two distinct but related
levels of information, that of the social setting in which they occur . . . and that of
the genre mobilised by the setting and by contextual clues.
The premise here is that ‘text’ is something separate from its realization.
Though this premise fits the modern world of the novel, consideration
of even the single counter-example of fifth-century Attic drama serves
to undermine it as a universal principle: there, the realization is the text.
And Frow’s conclusive-sounding general formulae – ‘genre . . . is a universal
dimension of textuality’; ‘texts as performances of genre’ – are, as uni-
versal principles, correspondingly suspect. One can only applaud Frow’s
aspiration to formulate universal principles (there can be no theory which
does not aspire towards the universal), but a principle that is contradicted
by even a single example, or group of examples, cannot be universal.
Finally, much contemporary theory (as, again, in Frow) broadly shows
an implicit (sometimes explicit) shift from a literary-critical or art-critical
comprehension of literature or art to a sociological understanding of gen-
res, which tends to evade issues of value (as live issues). Among the ear-
lier Formalists, the relevance of value is still properly apparent (witness
Erlich’s summary, and note, especially, Shklovsky’s talk of ‘renewal’); in
 This phrase comes from Shklovsky :  (= : ).

 Todorov : , : ‘Ce ne sont donc pas “les” genres qui ont disparu, mais les-genres-du-passé,
et ils ont été remplacés par d’autres’; ‘D’où viennent les genres? Eh bien, tout simplement, d’autres
genres.’
 Frow : .  Frow : , .
The Greek dramatic genres: theoretical perspectives 
Bakhtin’s reflections on ‘primary’ and ‘secondary’ genres (undeniably inter-
esting though these reflections are), it is hardly visible. Rather differently,
the influential doctrines of reception theory privilege response but tend to
minimize assessment – even though Hans Robert Jauss’ foundational prin-
ciple of genre as ‘horizon of expectations’ (Erwartungshorizont) specifically
assumed a Formalist-like connection with value.
generic text and context

Recent literary (and literary-cultural) theory interests itself in context, but
fetishizing text, as it does, is strikingly confused about it: witness Frow.
For literary genres, context, where operative, is operative as a socio-cultural
reality, generally an institutional reality. For and within a given culture,
it is (where operative) primary and determinative for the understanding
of a genre on the most fundamental level, which means: at the point of
identification. For and within that culture, it is – in principle – specific,
definite, unmistakable, uncontroversial: a right identification of a genre is
available which is not subject to interpretation in any ordinary sense.
Someone who went to a London cinema in (say)  would see a
film; films would only be seen (unless exceptionally) in a cinema, where
(unless exceptionally) nothing else remotely resembling a film would ever
be seen. Here, the context (cinema) would, in effect, predetermine the
identification (film), and any experienced cinema-goer would read that
context correctly: there would be no room for ambiguity beforehand about
what was to be seen, but only an overwhelming sense of expectation to
steer the identification as soon the first familiar cue (probably the lights
darkening) became apparent. As the qualification – ‘nothing remotely
resembling’ – suggests, there is, in practice, likely to be an element of
textual corroboration in the process; even so, it is still the context that is
determinative and primary.
In the example given, conversely, that context would have done nothing
in itself to identify a specific genre. Generically, the film might have been
a newsreel; or a documentary (if so, probably a wartime propaganda film);
or a cartoon comedy; or a feature film – and, if a feature film, it might have
been a western, a musical, a war film, a horror film, a love story, a historical
romance, or whatever. All these and other genres of film would indeed be
 In his Ästhetische Erfahrung (= Jauss ) and elsewhere, Jauss sees challenges to, or subversions
of, existing ‘horizons’ as constitutive of artistic achievement. Comparable views are associated with
a wide range of modern critics – from Leavis to Althusser and Eagleton (cf. Silk a: ) – but
without specific reference to literary genre.
 michael silk
available in only that one context – but at this level, plainly, context is
not operative as a determinant. Determination of the specific genre, rather,
would be effected on a textual basis, by identifiable characteristics of the
film, albeit probably with help from ‘paratexts’ (trailers, titles, posters)
and indeed reviews – but, with or without such help, individual viewers
would be free to read the genre in different ways: ‘it’s a horror film’; ‘no,
it’s really a love story’. On the textual level, the very existence of a genre
is open to challenge and debate: ‘I don’t think a film can just be “a horror
film”.’ Whereas the ideal ‘reader’ of context is an informed (experienced)
contemporary, text presents its readers with different demands.
By comparison with context, text is open, unspecific, indefinite; even
in the given culture, it calls for interpretation, which will be more or less
illuminating, rather than ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. Its ideal reader is unlikely to
be a contemporary reader (who lacks comparative perspective). Notwith-
standing characteristic advantages of the contemporary (such as relevant
language skills and fuller access to closely related texts), there are no grounds
for privileging any contemporary reading of text merely because it is con-
temporary – either at the time or (in a historicist spirit) subsequently. This
applies to overall judgements about ‘what sort of text this really might be
said to be’, just as much as it does to judgements of a more specific or
technical kind about the workings of the text.
Contextual identifications are a given within a given culture; textual
‘identifications’, along with all textual readings, are ours to decide, where
‘we’ means the ‘community’ of readers – a cross-cultural, cross-temporal
community, whose members debate alternative readings and seek more
persuasive ones. More specifically: within the given culture, operative con-
textual identifications are determinative and – unless there is some signif-
icant conflict with textual indicators – unchallengeable. If there are such
conflicts, textual identification will probably take over but may or may not
seem to be decisive.
In most cases – across all periods and cultures, no doubt – there may be
minor disagreement about text, but without any major conflict between
text and context: either because there is no fully operative context (as there
is no context to tell us when a film is a horror film); or because contex-
tual expectation and textual reality are still substantially aligned. Where
 See n.  below.
 ‘Reader’ is used, here and hereafter, as cover term for reader, spectator, viewer, listener, etc.
 Cf. the classic principle announced by Eliot in ‘Tradition and the Individual Talent’ (in Eliot ):
the literature of the past is altered by subsequent literature. Homer is read differently in the light of
Virgil, Virgil in the light of Milton, and so on.
The Greek dramatic genres: theoretical perspectives 
there is conflict, it will often take the disguised form of alternative textual
readings: ‘this is x’ – ‘no, this is y’ (‘this is tragedy’ – ‘no, it’s romantic
melodrama’). Meditations of the kind ‘does it really make sense to think
of “horror film” as a separate genre?’ are characteristic only of cases where
there is no contextual guidance at all – where, in fact, there has never been
any institutionalized context. The situation is common in the contem-
porary West, but it also applies to antiquity too. Was ‘philosophy’ ever a
genre? For instance: does it make sense (did it ever?) to read Heraclitus’
aphorisms, Plato’s dialogues, Aristotle’s treatises, as members of one genre?
They share no common form; they might or might not be thought to
share a common trajectory, as in effect Aristotle supposes in Book  of
Metaphysics; but no institutionalized context ever existed to interrelate
them, and that fact leaves – even – Aristotle’s reading as no more than one
possible reading.
As a paradigm of contextual determination, I suggest the Greek epigram
in the archaic age. Contextually, the epigram was unmistakable (words
inscribed on – almost always – stone). Textually, it was variable. It was
usually in verse (but sometimes in prose); when in verse, there was varia-
tion in the verse-type (most commonly, but not always, elegiac couplets);
there was also variation in length, and indeed in function, where the chief
distinction was between epitaphs and dedications, which might themselves
be distinguishable by context and, if so, in effect constituted separate gen-
res (with one broad genre, ‘epigram’, comprising two specific genres). As
a paradigm of textually identifiable genres, with no contextual determina-
tion, I suggest the modern novel, or any of its more specific types – from
science fiction to the Bildungsroman.
The scope of ‘text’ and ‘context’ needs clarification. Consider the Greek
dramatic genres. Here ‘context’ is the institutional festival(s) in its (their)
theatrical location; ‘text’ is . . . everything else. It would make no sense to
restrict ‘text’ to the words and associated features. The textual ‘repertoires’
of Attic and include their combination of actors and
chorus, their music, their masks and acting styles, their movement and
dancing styles – irrespective of the fact that all these features are lacking,
or become purely notional, when the ‘text’ in the limited sense is read
privately. Putting it another way, one might say that, with or
 See below, pp. , .

 I first touched on the relation of ‘text’ and ‘context’ in connection with Greek drama in Silk :
–. Some elements of that discussion recur in the present chapter, but various of its formulations
now seem to me loose or otherwise inadequate.
 See below, p. .
 michael silk
, ‘text’ subsumes all of Aristotle’s six ‘parts’ (": Poet. ): the
visual and musical aspects (which Aristotle subsumes under the headings
of 34 and "
), as well as the verbal or verbally realizable features
(from (!
to "5 ). The fact that 34 and "
are more obviously
performance-related than other parts is irrelevant. Performance (as the
epigram example shows) is not the point: the point is the institutionalized
occasion and location in which performance – if any – takes place.
As the wartime cinema example indicates, contexts may be operative as
determinants at one level, but not necessarily at the strictly generic level.
Then again, they may not be operative as determinants at all. Take another
modern example – in fact, another supra-generic modern example. In the
modern Western world, paintings (usually originals) are commonly dis-
played, as prospective art objects, in institutionalized settings (art galleries
or the like), where they are (commonly again) hung on walls. That is their
context, which, for any viewer, guarantees their status as prospective art
objects – though not actually their genre (the paintings might be portraits,
abstracts, landscapes, still lifes; crucifixion scenes; memento mori paintings;
and so on). At the same time, paintings (usually copies of originals) are
often hung on walls in private houses. That again is a characteristic con-
text, but this context is not operative as a determinant, partly because it is
not a recognizably institutionalized context, but also because various other
objects, which are not art objects, are also commonly hung on such walls
(mirrors, for one). Then again, there are institutional contexts which are
hardly operative as determinants, unless on levels too broad to matter. The
London O (formerly the Millennium Dome) houses a wide variety of
musical and other events; in ancient Greece the symposium hosted a range
of genres, musical and literary (including lyric poems, declaimed passages
from tragedy and competitive speeches).
Contrast the definitive contexts of lyric poetry in archaic Greece. In the
words of Claude Calame: ‘en Grèce archaı̈que les genres poétiques, quand
ils ont une consistance, se définissent surtout par rapport aux différentes
cérémonies qui en constituent régulièrement l’occasion d’exécution’.
That is: stability in the genres characteristically depended on their spe-
cial relation to the different ‘ceremonies’ which constituted their defining
contexts. Confusingly, and confusedly, ‘ceremony’ is one of the terms
Frow uses – as ‘metaphor’ – to expound his account of ‘everyday’ genres:
 Pace a misstatement at Silk a: .

 As, respectively, at Ar. Nub. – and in Plato’s Symposium.  Calame : .
The Greek dramatic genres: theoretical perspectives 
‘Any performance of a text . . . takes place within a broader “ceremonial”
frame.’
The crucial issue of text and context may be usefully restated with
reference to a productive but flawed account of genre by Alastair Fowler.
One of Fowler’s important contributions to the debate is the concept
of ‘generic repertoire’. Genres change over time, but every genre, sooner
or later (especially later), acquires a repertoire of textual features, which,
however, is not invariable, either collectively or in respect of any one feature.
Thus: with early epigrams, the repertoire includes metre (usually elegiac
couplets), length (short, more or less) and function (epitaphs or dedications).
What we should not add to the list is what Fowler, faced with this example,
probably would add: ‘and they are usually inscribed on stone’. The fact
of inscription is not part of the textual repertoire: it is the context, which,
by itself and even without any of the features listed, determines that the
words in question constitute ‘an epigram’ in the first place.
In later Greece, of course, that determinative context becomes – let
us say – optional, though even then, it makes no sense to construe it as a
variable part of the textual repertoire itself. At all events, later compositions
which later Greeks (or we) identify as epigrams will have some or all of
the repertoire, and are identified, not through the hitherto determinative
context, but on the basis of that repertoire.
Correspondingly, any similar texts from later ages – texts with the same
repertoire (more or less) – may be plausibly identified as ‘epigrams’ by
suitably informed readers from those or subsequent ages. On this basis,
one identifies as ‘epigrams’ texts from Rome, from the Renaissance, from
more recent centuries. The attempt by Fowler, among others, to down-
grade such (‘less impressive’) relationships between cross-cultural similars
to the status of ‘modes’ rather than genres – restricting the title of genre
to similars within a single culture, irrespective of interpretation – is futile.
In such cases:
Identification, whether modal or generic, is a matter of interpretation, and we
[as Fowler concedes] are to be the interpreters. But if so, it must also be for us,
as part of our interpretative function, to decide which sets of similarities are in
fact the more impressive sets. And it follows . . . that our interpretations, based
on perceived likenesses and unlikenesses, are not, after all, limited to historically
based [sc. single-culture] identifications and may, if need be, override them.
 At this point my argument draws on Silk a: –, discussing A. Fowler .
 Silk a: –; A. Fowler : – and (‘probably’) .  Silk a: .
 michael silk
It follows that, for instance:
we might interpret as a genre . . . instances of the comedy of manners from Menan-
der to Molière (and beyond), on the grounds of their perceived likenesses. But if
so, and by the same argument, we would find it difficult to interpret as a genre
a group of instances drawn partly from the Menandrian comedy of manners and
partly from the early comedies of Aristophanes, notwithstanding the fact that all
these instances belong to what is, by comparison, a single culture and a single
period, and share an unchallenged right to a single [sc. contextual] label,
and notwithstanding the fact that Aristophanic comedy (or at any rate its earlier
instances) itself seems to be, by any standards, a genre.
The lesson of this last example – /comedy – is threefold. First,
the example represents a paradigm of the difference, and the potential
divergence, between context and text. In textual terms, Aristophanes’ Old
Comedy and Menander’s New are too distinct (their repertoires are too
different) to be identified as ‘the same’ genre, even though, in contextual
terms – as instances of , sharing the same festival context – they
of course belong together. And whereas the knowledge of context is vested
in the original culture, the judgement about text is the world’s. Secondly,
the example makes it evident how necessary it is to confront these issues
from a perspective wider than a historically delimited ‘single culture’. It is
only from this wider perspective that the difference of repertoires between
what later antiquity properly distinguishes as ‘Old’ and ‘New’ Comedy
becomes fully unmistakable; in effect, the scholars of later antiquity who
formulate the distinction already have the advantage of a wider perspective.
Thirdly, we cannot assume a correspondence between context and text –
quite the contrary – and should be ready to acknowledge any mismatch
whenever it arises. And if this seems untidy, then so be it: art, like life,
often is untidy.
It will be apparent, then, why one must take issue with a recent response
to Euripides’ ‘escape-tragedies’ by Matthew Wright. Referring to modern
characterizations of plays such as Helen as ‘romantic tragedy’, ‘tragicomedy’,
‘melodrama’, Wright objects:
The practice of attaching modern labels to ancient plays is a totally anachronistic
and misleading exercise . . . [Every Athenian drama is] either a comedy, a tragedy
or a satyr-play, and the context of the festival would have left the audience in no
doubt as to what type of play they were watching.
Here Wright in effect equates text and context – elides text into con-
text – seeking thereby to eliminate the interpretative procedures that are
 Silk a: .  Cf. Puttenham, n.  below.  Wright .  Wright : –.
The Greek dramatic genres: theoretical perspectives 
necessarily involved in reading any text. He is right (in principle) about
context, wrong (in principle) about text, which he assumes to be readable
in ideal-contemporary (historicist) terms, to the exclusion of the non-
contemporary’s ‘anachronistic’ terms. He adds: ‘Familiarity with the works
of Shakespeare, Racine, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard and Freud (etc.) may make
possible rich and fascinating discussion about comparative literature – but
it can only hinder an understanding of Greek tragedies.’ Wright’s clarity
here is as admirable as his correlation of text and context is untenable.
Once again: no such correlation can ever be assumed as a matter of pro-
cedure, even though it may often be found in practice. It is up to readers
of texts (of whom Wright is one) to debate whether it exists or not, in any
given case, and to make use of any conceptual tools that seem to enhance
the debate.
Symptomatically, for all his distaste for ‘anachronism’, Wright repeatedly
finds it necessary to reach for ‘anachronistic’ characterizations himself. His
very label ‘escape-tragedies’ is hardly an ancient category. Then again, he
raises the question of the presence of ‘humour’ in Greek tragedy:
It would be wrong to suppose that humour in tragedy is a distraction or an
aberration; in fact, humorous elements, far from inhibiting the ‘correct’ response
to a tragedy (if there is such a thing) may enhance it. This is, in essence, the
view taken by Seidensticker in his Palintonos Harmonia. First of all, Seidensticker
makes a very important and necessary distinction between ‘comical’, i.e. humorous,
elements (‘komische Elemente’) and elements belonging to the genre of comedy
(‘Komödienelemente’): his interest is with the former type. He believes that, in
Helen and other plays, certain ‘comical’ elements or effects exist in a fruitful tension
with this context, which enhances the tragic effect of the whole work.
Seidensticker’s distinction (between ‘komische Elemente’ and ‘Komödi-
enelemente’) is relevant to the next section of our discussion. Mean-
while, one notes that, though it is not entirely clear how specifically
Wright means to invoke ‘humour’, this, in any event, is another mod-
ern category (not formulated or identified until, at the earliest, the
end of the seventeenth century). The phenomena that the ‘label’ cir-
cumscribes are indeed observable in Greek literature, but ‘humour’ as
a category has no counterpart in Greek (the phrase 6

is not
comparable). Conversely, Wright’s scepticism about ‘correct’ responses
 Wright : .
 And as his logic that ‘rich and fascinating discussions’ of multiple items somehow carry no impli-
cations for the items individually is remarkable.
 Wright : –, referring to Seidensticker .  See p.  below.
 In Poet.  Aristotle famously connects 6

(‘the laughable’) with 6 .# (‘the shameful’:
cf. Halliwell : –) and such negativity is never far away from the phrase. ‘Humour’ (though
 michael silk
(to tragedy) is itself correct, and constitutes an implicit recognition that
text points to debate.
Contemporary-historicist readings of text have no claim to determina-
tive status. No readings of text do, not even authorial readings, which
are notoriously debatable. A classic instance is recorded by the Rus-
sian theatre-director Stanislavsky, concerning a first, private reading of
Chekhov’s Three Sisters () in the presence of the playwright himself:
‘after the reading . . . our impressions . . . amazed Chekhov . . . He had writ-
ten a . . . comedy and all of us had considered the play a tragedy and even
wept over it.’ Here, we do not conclude: they got it wrong; Chekhov
knew it was a comedy and told them so. We conclude: the play, textually,
is elusive; it is not surprising that it provoked quite different readings, even
from the word go; the author’s own reading and identification is interesting,
important, revealing, but not, in itself, definitive.
Like Three Sisters at its first play-reading, modern literature (and quint-
essentially the novel) is largely without contextual determination; hence
modern readers become used to decision on a textual basis as a norm
and as a substitute for contextual determination. But in pre-modern lit-
erature too, wherever contextual determination is lacking, decision on a
textual basis will be a norm and a substitute likewise. In practice, most
pre-modern literature in most periods exhibits generic coherence at the
textual level (so that identification of a Roman epigram or a Renaissance
pastoral is usually uncontroversial in the event). Nevertheless, in any
literature, ancient or modern, the openness of text is an operative and
loosely invoked by many in recent decades) is quite different. It is a refined species of ‘the comic’,
associable with the sympathetic emotions, and elucidated by such theorists as Jean Paul, Kierkegaard
and Pirandello: Silk a: –, –, –. For an early discussion of ‘humour’, where the term
can be seen in the process of its evolution from reference to a psychological type (as in the ‘four
humours’) to something like ‘humour’ in the modern sense, see William Congreve’s letter to his
fellow playwright John Dennis ( July ) in Congreve, Dennis et al. .
 Stanislavsky : .
 Cf. Puttenham : : ‘The election is the writers, the judgement is the worlds, as theirs to whom
the reading apperteineth.’
 In much literature (from the early modern period onwards), what Genette  calls ‘paratexts’ –
generic indicators, such as titles and prefaces, supplied with the work – play a significant role in this
process, as ancillaries to the text. Genette’s discussion is of considerable interest, but I leave it out
of account here for two reasons: (i) paratexts are usually authorial glosses on the text and, as such,
subject to the non-determinative status of all authorial response; (ii) in the age of classical Greek
drama, either such indicators hardly existed or (an additional complicating factor) their provenance
and status are unclear (as with play titles – though here cf. Sommerstein : –). For drama, one
might argue that the information provided at the Proagon was significant paratext, albeit (unusually)
within the institutional context (the arrangements at the city Dionysia) – but our evidence for what
information was actually provided there is so limited that it seems unprofitable to pursue the point.
 Usually: contrast e.g. the well-known case of Shakespeare’s ‘problem plays’ (Measure for Measure,
etc.).
The Greek dramatic genres: theoretical perspectives 
ongoing reality. It follows that it is our ‘right’, and even duty, to make, or
consider, proposals on a textual basis. We can propose that in textual terms
it makes more sense to think of (say) certain Euripidean as
examples of ‘romantic melodrama’ than as examples of ‘tragedy’ – or vice
versa. These plays are still : that is a contextual given; but from
this contextual given no specifiable textual consequences follow.
Where contextual realities exist, one can, in principle, establish them,
by historical-scholarly reconstruction, after the event (just as a contempo-
rary can, presumably without any need for reconstruction, at the time).
In practice, though, most literary responses in any age will soon be faced
with the need for textual interpretation (and debate), if only to confirm
or qualify or challenge contextual realities – or else to provide a substitute
for them. Even in a culture used to contextual determination, a thought-
ful reader of text can be led to query it. Note the instructive example of
Aristotle in the Poetics. In general, he assumes (though without any dis-
cussion) the determinative-contextual status of Greek , but at a
crucial moment shifts (with a revealing sense of debate) towards a textual
identification of the genre. In Poetics , commending 7 -plays that
end ‘in adversity’, he defends Euripides against ‘those who criticize him’ for
favouring such a pattern: ‘if handled correctly, tragedies of this kind show
themselves to be the most tragic ( $ ) – and Euripides, even if
he mishandles everything else, is nevertheless shown to be the most tragic
( $
) of the poets’. Without ever saying so, Aristotle custom-
arily assumes that all plays staged as are equally –
but here he argues that some are ‘more tragic’ than others. His own argu-
ment about textual structures leads him to challenge the primary status
of context: he takes one significant step away from towards
‘tragedy’.
The three Attic dramatic genres are contextually determined by institu-
tional arrangements at specific festivals. Two of them – tragedy and satyr-
play – show striking textual stability (set repertoires); comedy (especially
Old Comedy), less so: quite apart from the remarkable range of material
and treatment in Aristophanes’ extant fifth-century plays, we must reckon
with the – rather different – range represented by the lost work of Crates
and Pherecrates. Once again, there is no necessary correlation between
contextual stability (which all three genres have in equal measure) and
textual stability.
 ‘Social comedy’ and love-plots: Silk a: .
 Confusion between the two is latent even in the otherwise admirable formula proposed by Calame
:  (see above, p. ): by ‘consistance’ does Calame mean textual stability, as well as (and
‘arising from’?) contextual stability? – or what?
 michael silk
In a culture used to context as a determinative factor, it is characteris-
tic that, when context is expected, without context the reader is liable to
feel destabilized, even perplexed – but chiefly, or specifically, when tex-
tual indicators are themselves elusive. In principle, Attic drama assumes
its institutional context, so that any drama introduced outside Athens
(therefore without such a context) might prompt such perplexity. In prac-
tice, unless textual elusiveness is prominent (unless, in effect, the text
is ‘unclassifiable’), the contextual awkwardness is ignored. Take Andro-
mache, on which a scholiast informs us that the play ‘was not produced
at Athens’. Without a second thought, we read the play, and likewise
the ancients read the play, as ‘a tragedy’, even though our evidence is that
contextually it was not actually a . We read it as such, first and
foremost because textually (in terms of repertoire) it looks like the others
(it is easy to ‘classify’) – though also, in such a case, because its author
is known as ‘a tragedian’ (another habit of mind that we share with the
ancients).
Contrast the curious case of Aeschylus’ Women of Etna. The ancient
Life of Aeschylus informs us that ‘Aeschylus went to Sicily at the time when
Hiero was founding Etna, and staged Women of Etna’, while fragments
of an ancient hypothesis, newly recovered, seem to indicate significant
departures from the familiar tragic repertoire. Oliver Taplin’s comments
are to the point:
the hypothesis goes on to tell of four or five scene changes in a single
play . . . Scholars have accepted this new information with remarkable equa-
nimity. They say calmly that the peculiar circumstance of the first production
will have produced peculiarities of scenic technique . . . [But] the play will have
been . . . utterly unlike fifth-century tragedy as we know it.
This play, then, was both decontextualized and textually elusive (‘unclassi-
fiable’ in repertoire): any ancient spectator familiar with Attic
will have been puzzled, even if modern scholars are not.
A more momentous, and more readily discussible case is Euripides’
Alcestis, produced in  bc, ‘in place of’ a satyr-play. Here there is a clear
 Scare-quotes around ‘classify’ and ‘classifiable’ (etc.) here and elsewhere, in deference to philosophical
objections (by Derrida  and others) to treating generic identification on a par with classification
in botany and other sciences.
 8 Eur. Andr. .
 We use the authorial name to help ‘classify’ the work: so, acutely, Foucault . Aristotle already
assumes the use in Poet. , where ‘Homer’ represents epic, ‘Sophocles’ tragedy, ‘Aristophanes’ comedy.
 TrGF :  (cf. ), POxy. , fr.  (= TrGF : –).
 One implication is that the chorus might well have been different in each act.
 Taplin : –.
The Greek dramatic genres: theoretical perspectives 
conflict between context (everyone, then and now, knows it should be a
satyr-play, as fourth play in a tetralogy) and text (there are no satyrs . . . ). In
addition, though, the play is textually elusive (in textual terms, clearly not a
satyr-play, but not quite an ‘ordinary tragedy’). With Alcestis, in fact, we have
another paradigm: an extant example of flagrant contextual contradiction
matched by unmistakable textual elusiveness. The hermeneutic upshot is
chaos, then and (this time, also) now: witness the Alexandrian hypothesis to
the play – and, equally, modern characterizations. The ancient hypothesis,
after informing us that Alcestis was the fourth play in its tetralogy, offers a
series of awkward, and contradictory, identifications:
The play has a more or less comic ending ( " . . . , 9

-) . . . It is more or less satyric (2 $
), in that it ends in happiness
and joy out of line with the tragic ( 6 ). Like Orestes, Alcestis devi-
ates from what is appropriate for a tragic composition (/ :

): it starts with misfortune, but ends in happiness, which is
more like a comedy (
#).
In  Seidensticker offered a list of generic labels attached to the play
in recent years: ‘Sie reichen über das gesamte Spektrum dramatischer
Genera, von “romantic comedy” und “near comedy” über “tragisches Satyr-
spiel” und “Tragikomödie” bis zu “melodrama”, “inverted tragedy” und
schliesslich “Tragödie”.’ More contextually minded, Dana Sutton and
others call it ‘prosatyric’, whereas Wright (this time, in clear defiance of his
own context-centred principles) decides on ‘tragedy’ himself.
In such a case, one is reminded of the ongoing hermeneutic crisis asso-
ciated with lay response to much modern art (‘is it . . . art?’), prefigured by
Duchamp’s urinal (‘Fountain’), a cautionary tale if ever there was one. A
 Hypothesis (a)  in Diggle, OCT, vol. i.  Seidensticker : .

 Sutton : –; Wright : . The compositions of the fourth-century writer Chaeremon may
well present a comparable instance. It seems likely that these compositions were not always staged
but ‘written to be read’, with or without staging. This is the apparent implication of Arist. Rh. .,

,
;
< , despite a one-time consensus (see e.g. Xanthakis-Karamanos
: –) that the curious term ‘anagnostic’ means something like ‘authors of compositions suitable
for reading’. What is in any case clear is that Chaeremon’s Centaur, in particular, was textually
eccentric, because written in a mixture of (partly epic?) metres: Arist. Poet. b–, a.
Aristotle, in fact, calls it not a drama, but a , =4 ; subsequently, Athenaeus calls it
a
>
(.e), and elsewhere (e.g. c) refers to Chaeremon as 6 ,
whereas the Suda calls the (presumably) same Chaeremon (s.v.) < , . On the passage
in Poet. , Halliwell :  suggests: ‘Centaur was probably a polymetric drama, perhaps meant
only for recital (hence “rhapsody”, elsewhere used of epic recitals).’ This makes sense and suggests
indeed that the later puzzlement about how to categorize the Centaur (significant name?!) reflects its
lack of defining context as well as its textual eccentricity. The fact that at least one of Chaeremon’s
other compositions was staged at least once (IG v ,  = TrGF  Did. b .) is hardly evidence
against this conclusion.
 michael silk
founder member of the Society of Independent Artists in New York, Marcel
Duchamp submitted his ‘Fountain’ pseudonymously for the Society’s 
exhibition. Stridently aberrant in textual terms (both a ‘readymade’ and a
taboo object, remote from the customary range of even the experimental
art of his day), the submission left Duchamp’s fellow members unable
to decide whether this was, indeed, ‘art’ – whether, that is, it belonged
in any context of artistic display. In the event, they rejected the submis-
sion, and Duchamp (pained by their conventional reluctance to challenge
conventional context so directly), resigned from the Society in protest.
generic development
With or without reference to structuralist notions of intertextuality, generic
development is often, quite plausibly, treated as a matter of influences
within or (especially) across genres. Thus it makes sense to discuss, for
example, Aeschylus’ influence on Euripides, or epic influence on tragedy, or
tragic influence on Aristophanes’ Clouds, or the question of possible comic
influence on tragedy, or Menandrian New Comedy as a convergence of Old
Comedy and Euripides’ ‘romantic melodrama’. Nevertheless, productive
discussion here also calls for consideration of theoretical alternatives to the
common assumption that (as Todorov puts it) genres simply develop out
of other genres.
In particular, we should ponder Shklovsky’s ‘law’ that literary genres are
liable to develop out of ‘subliterary’ forms, along with a sharper Marxist
argument that the issue here is the relation between emergent genres and
material outside existing literature or art altogether. In a neglected but
valuable discussion of ‘laws of literary development’, the Marxist David
Craig formulated ‘six hypothetical laws’ on the evidence largely of ‘British
literature from the sixteenth century to the present’, which, he suggested,
might ‘stand the test of being put to work in different fields’. Among the six
was this: ‘A new genre is likely to piece itself together out of motifs, styles,
means of circulation that had belonged to some medium not thought of
as art proper.’
Despite the possible awkwardness of an appeal to ‘art proper’ in the
pre-Kantian world, that formula (and, not least, its insistence on ‘means
of circulation’) immediately makes sense of some major developments of
modern times, beyond the sphere of ‘British literature’ or indeed litera-
ture itself – obvious cases are photography, cinema, jazz – but also, within
 Craig : .
The Greek dramatic genres: theoretical perspectives 
literature, the novel. It also surely sheds light on various instances from
ancient Greece. In Greek antiquity, one might point, once again, to the
epigram. Imagine an inscription on stone in the seventh or sixth century:
what could be further from the authoritative art of the age? – in particular,
from epic and lyric poetry, whose authority is epitomized by their associa-
tion with a named author and by the ceremonial performance that most of
their embodiments enjoy. Epic and lyric are ‘art proper’. The anonymous
epigram, on stone, is in the first instance a ‘subliterary form’ (Shklovsky),
and one that introduces a ‘means of circulation’ truly alien to ‘art proper’
(Craig).
Closer to our present concerns, we can point to tragedy. From this same
notional standpoint of ‘art proper’ in the sixth century, the brash new form
we know of as Attic introduces a remarkable tally of non-art
features from a variety of sources. Masks, costumes and impersonation, no
doubt, derive from religious ritual; the , ‘tent’, perhaps from military
experience; and the unmediated dialogue, presumably, from conversation
in ordinary life. As both tragedy and the epigram make apparent, however,
Craig’s ‘law’, illuminating though it is, is overstated. From an early date, the
epigram combines its non-art medium with verse structures and phrase-
ologies that draw on the ‘dignity’ and ‘epic stateliness’ of Homer. And
what we find with tragedy is an interplay between elements from earlier
genres (epic, lyric, iambos) and the new (‘non-art’) elements. Comedy and
especially satyr-play show this yet more forcibly. Most of the characteristic
elements of Aristophanic Old Comedy are actually shared with tragedy
or else with iambos; the exceptions include direct address to the audience
(the parabasis) and the development of ‘innocent’ or sympathetic humour
(sic) – both, presumably (like tragic dialogue, in the first instance), taken
from ‘ordinary’ life. In satyr-play, even more (including most of the tech-
nical repertoire) is shared with tragedy; the most prominent ‘non-tragic’
features of satyr-play are its earthier myth and its eponymous restriction to
a satyr chorus.
 For Herder, as early as the late eighteenth century, the novel is seen to bring together elements from
art (e.g. poetry) and non-art (e.g. geography). In , with specific reference to the English novel
of the eighteenth century, Herder writes (Herder : –): ‘Keine Gattung der Poesie ist von
weiterem Umfange, als der Roman . . . er enthält oder kann enthalten nicht etwa nur Geschichte und
Geographie, Philosophie und die Theorie fast aller Künste, sondern auch die Poesie aller Gattungen
und Arten – in Prose’ (‘No genre of poetry has a wider range than the novel . . . it contains or can
contain not only history and geography, philosophy and the theory of almost every art but also the
poetry of every genre and type – in prose’).
 The phrases are those of Friedländer and Hoffleit : .
 The iambos knows only ‘purposeful’ jokes: on the distinction (Freud’s) between purposeful and
innocent, see Silk a: , and, on Aristophanic humour (sic), passim.
 michael silk
In a theoretical perspective, the anomalousness of satyr-play comes into
sharp focus. The genre as we know it is contextually attached to tragedy,
under the performative arrangement at the City Dionysia – three tragedies
followed by one satyr-play. The ‘three-plus-one’ arrangement is remark-
able in its own right (albeit a few scholars attempt to see it as a ‘natural’
relationship, on the strength of supposed cross-cultural parallels). Equally
remarkable is the extreme textual stability of the genre (unlike tragedy, satyr-
play always seems to have featured the same chorus and the same tone);
and so too the extreme dependence of its textual repertoire on tragedy.
And the combination of these features is extraordinary.
The adjusted Marxist principle – that generic innovation probably brings
together non-art and pre-existing art – is applicable to the ongoing devel-
opment of a genre, as well as to its formation. That is, within an established
genre, new non-art elements may be introduced – which may ‘renew’ the
genre (the Shklovsky principle), without, necessarily, any textual impres-
sion of a new generic entity. The characteristic outcome, rather, is not a
new genre but a controversial widening of the range. There are abundant
analogies from the last two hundred years – in spheres as different as dance
and literary modernism – as equally from earlier eras (a straightforward
instance is Dante’s controversial use of vernacular language for serious
poetry).
This line of thought, I suggest, may shed light on Euripides: con-
ceivably, in respect of his use of ‘komische Elemente’, as opposed to
‘Komödienelemente’; more specifically, by helping to explain what was
so (seemingly) controversial in his own day about some of his ‘non-comic’
experiments. His offence was to challenge tradition, not so much by using
elements from (for instance) comedy (though here adhuc sub iudice lis
est), but (like Duchamp, even) elements from outside ‘art proper’. Here,
one might point especially to his innovations in the sphere of argument
 Aeschylus’ tetralogy of  provides our earliest evidence.  E.g. Sutton : .
 The two related points are reflected in a formula from the Hellenistic period: satyr-play as
1
2 ([Demetr.] Eloc. ).
 Contrast the quite different situation where a new genre is invented by hybridizing existing genres –
as Italian opera was invented at the end of the sixteenth century by hybridizing existing forms
(musical, pastoral, dramatic), purportedly in imitation of Greek tragedy.
 Dance: the incorporation into modern ballet of ‘popular’ figurations. Modernism: the introduction
of broken syntax (from colloquial speech) into poetry (Rilke, Eliot). Dante, of course, finds it
necessary to write a treatise in defence of his procedure (De vulgari eloquentia, c. ).
 The kind of example one might choose to argue for specific influence from would be
Pentheus’ cross-dressing at Bacch. –, in comparison with Ar. Thesm. –. Would Euripides
have written a scene like this without a memorable (and ‘Euripidean’) precedent like that? Cf. (more
circumspectly) Seidensticker b: –. On the case for comic influence on fifth-century tragedy
elsewhere, see e.g. Herington  and (broadly contra) Taplin .
The Greek dramatic genres: theoretical perspectives 
and language – perceived, one infers, as derived from sophistic rhetoric and
everyday life. This certainly is the implication of the Aristophanic critique –
however parodically exaggerated – in Frogs.
2
2 5 . . . |
. ) .,

; #$!),
; 5>: ‘I taught the public
how – within the confines of dramatic art-speech – to manage ordinary
talk’, says ‘Euripides’, ‘by bringing things from ordinary life on stage’ (Ran.
–). Likewise,
6 ! "# | "4 : ‘I put logic
and debate into my compositions’ (Ran. –). Ordinary , and
. , and then sophistic

and "4 : all these are
felt to belong, not to other art, but to non-art. Hence the eventual pro-
nouncement: Euripides has ‘done away with art’ altogether (
/

2 , Ran. ). Here one is reminded of Samuel Johnson’s reading
of Shakespeare in the eighteenth century. Johnson feels able to excuse, and
even celebrate, Shakespeare’s use of ‘tragic’ elements in comedy and ‘comic’
elements in tragedy – because that ‘only’ involves transference from one
genre to another (‘That the mingled drama may convey all the instruction
of tragedy or comedy cannot be denied’). Conversely, he castigates Shake-
speare’s wordplay (apparently even in comedy) – perhaps partly because,
in Johnson’s mind, what he dismisses as ‘idle conceits’ and ‘contemptible
equivocations’ are associated with everyday fashionable conversation.
Furthermore – with Euripides in mind – we might use the same line
of thought to help shed light on a familiar conundrum of Aristophanic
comedy itself. The intellectualizing experiment of Clouds fails to find pop-
ular favour – perhaps not surprisingly. But then why is Aristophanes so
obsessed with this popular response that he both rewrites the play and (in
that revised version and elsewhere) harangues his public about their lack of
enthusiasm? The answer – perhaps – has a Craigian dimension. Given the
affinity, at a deep level, between Aristophanes and Euripides – an affinity of
which Aristophanes himself (at a deep level, again) is surely uncomfortably
aware – could it be that the popular rejection of Clouds is partly due
(on Aristophanes’own reckoning, even) to a perception of a sophistic pres-
ence (a presence, again, of non-art) in his own creative work? The irony,
that the satire on ‘sophistic’ Socrates, shockingly violent as it is, should be
seen as sophistic itself, goes without saying – but the very terms Aristo-
phanes employs to identify his own intellectuality in the play could be
said to suggest it: his ‘novel conceptions’ (
. . .
, Vesp.
 There are traces of the ‘sophistry = non-art’ attitude in later antiquity, without reference to Euripides.
Cf. e.g. 8 Soph. Aj. :
(
-
*
. .
 Johnson : .  Johnson : .  Silk a: –.
 michael silk
) and their almost explicitly sophistic ingenuity (. ." .9
-"
- 1
| . . . 5 , Nub. –). The production
of a
- , 5 is, after all, the explicit object of Socratic-sophistic
education (Nub. ).
value
Though modern theory is largely (and damagingly) silent on this issue,
all discussion of, and all response to, genres is implicated in evaluation.
In contextual terms, genres (even in transient popular culture) are not
institutionalized unless they are achieving, or have achieved, something
distinctive (something which a culture or class or age group, or a subset
thereof, thinks is something worth institutionalizing). In textual terms,
genres and their repertoires are invariably understood, not by samples or
random instances, but by reference to what are, or what are taken to be,
their leading representatives. Identification of the leading representatives –
or, one could say, the construction of a genre’s ‘canon’ – inevitably changes
over time. In any event, the principle operates cross-culturally: ‘epic’ is
understood by reference to Homer, Virgil and Paradise Lost, not Apol-
lonius, Lucan and Beowulf. It operates also within a single culture: we
take Juvenal as the representative or defining figure of Roman satire, even
if Juvenal is not always typical. Aristotle (Poet. ) likewise takes Homer
as representative of epic, and Aristophanes as representative of comedy,
even though on his own evidence most epic was unlike Homer (‘less uni-
fied’, Poet. ), and most comedy, by his day, unlike Aristophanes (more
‘typical’, Poet. ). Then again, labels for genres may be evaluative per se:
positive (‘tragedy’), neutral (‘novel’), negative (‘soap-opera’). The labels
‘art’ and ‘literature’, conversely, are specifically and necessarily value-laden,
as the concepts of ‘art proper’ and the ‘subliterary’ attest. Genres are in any
case open to comparative valuation (as already by Aristotle). And any
meaningful understanding of generic development depends on the model
(which cannot be purely neutral) of growth, maturity and decline (as, var-
iously, in Shklovsky and Craig). Here as elsewhere, value judgements are
neither (in themselves) arbitrary nor detachable nor optional extras – but
 On the paradoxical nature of Aristophanes’ claim of see Wright and Prauscello in this
volume.
 A positive is already implicit in Aristotle’s use of ‘tragic’ (cf. above, p. ).  See Silk a: .
 Aristotle’s valuation of tragedy over epic, in Poet. , is procedurally sound, however problematic
in detail. In modern usage, ‘good of its kind’ is sometimes used as an argument-stopper, as if
debate could go no further (‘from Duchamp onwards, conceptual art can only be judged by its own
standards’). Here, Aristotle knew better.
The Greek dramatic genres: theoretical perspectives 
rather organic corollaries of comparative (and, of course, more or less
informed) readings of particular texts.
It is worth pondering the evaluative implications of Shklovsky’s ‘junior’
genre principle, whereby a ‘junior’, ‘subliterary’, genre – especially one
related to the canonical ‘branch’ – exercises a positive influence on it (helps
to ‘renew’ it). This principle is not, on the face of it, an especially good
match for the Greek dramatic genres. Though tragedy obviously had the
most esteem (the ‘canonical’ branch), neither comedy nor satyr-play (the
two ‘junior’ genres) could plausibly count as ‘subliterary’ (or not as we
know them: their early fifth-century proto-forms would have been, pre-
cisely, sub-literary). And on any reckoning, fifth-century comedy is far
more influenced by fifth-century tragedy than vice versa. Conversely, any
influence of comedy on (for instance) Euripides is a perfect example of this
principle in action: Euripides ‘renews’ his genre by drawing on elements
from the ‘junior’ genre of comedy (as well as on elements from outside
literature or art altogether). Interestingly, there is no apparent counter-
part to this pattern with satyr-play, where the relationship appears entirely
one-way, with satyr-play totally under tragic influence. In that sense, con-
sideration of the Formalist principle serves again to draw attention to the
anomaly of satyr-play within the miniature system of the dramatic genres.
It is hard to get a theoretical handle on satyr-play and its relation to
the canonical genre of tragedy. Satyr-play is not only contextually depen-
dent on tragedy, and textually derivative on tragedy, but also, on all the
extant evidence, hugely inferior to tragedy. Whatever wonderful profundi-
ties Nietzsche may have teased out as the deep meaning of satyrs per se,
satyric drama as we know it offers no hint of any stylistic, formal, imagi-
native breakthroughs, no ‘satyric’ vision of life comparable to the tragic or
comic visions, and yet no ‘entertainment value’ comparable to that offered
by Old Comedy either. Satyr-play is quaint, limited, effectively parasitic on
tragedy: in evaluative terms, entirely marginal. What is the synchronic
rationale of its persisting contextual attachment to tragedy? – a low-value
 Nietzsche : : ‘Der Satyr . . . war das Urbild des Menschen, der Ausdruck seiner höchsten und
stärksten Regungen, als begeisterter Schwärmer, den die Nähe des Gottes entzückt, als mitleidender
Genosse, in dem sich das Leiden des Gottes wiederholt, als Weisheitsverkünder aus der tiefsten
Brust der Natur heraus, als Sinnbild der geschlechtlichen Allgewalt der Natur . . . Der Satyr war
etwas Erhabenes und Göttliches’ (‘The satyr was . . . the archetype of man, the embodiment of his
highest and most intense emotions, the ecstatic reveler enraptured by the proximity of his god, the
sympathetic companion in whom the suffering of the god is repeated, one who proclaims wisdom
from the very heart of nature, a symbol of the sexual omnipotence of nature . . . The satyr was
something sublime and divine’, The Birth of Tragedy, trans. Kaufmann : ).
 Cf. the clear implication of limited value, and perhaps of quaintness too, in Aristotle’s reference to
6 2 in Poet. .
 michael silk
text embedded in a high-value context. It must be more than a sentimental
antiquarian gesture (sometimes offered as a diachronic ‘explanation’). If
the institutional pattern had involved three tragedies and one comedy, one
would have understood.
For the fifth century, actually, it is not clear in what sense satyr-play was
valued. Though certain satyrographers (Pratinas, Aeschylus) were appar-
ently esteemed within their own genre, there is only the presumption that
the institutional attachment to tragedy was ‘popular’. Euripides, indeed,
might have felt less emboldened to forgo a satyr-play in favour of the
non-satyric Alcestis, if satyr-play really had been prized as such; and cer-
tainly there is no evidence of anyone ever experimenting the other way
round (adding satyrs to a tragedy). One might see the limited survival
of (‘even’?) fifth-century satyr-plays as symptomatic of a lack of perceived
value: Cyclops, our only manuscript survival, only survives ‘accidentally’ as
one of the alphabetical Euripidean set. But such arguments ex silentio are
hardly satisfactory, and this one, in any case, presumably says more about
post-classical taste than about fifth-century attitudes.
In point of fact, any evidence for fifth- or fourth-century responses to
satyr-play is extraordinarily – but revealingly? – limited. In particular, the
genre is largely ignored by contemporary comedy; and as a genre it is
entirely ignored in Aristotle’s Poetics, as also, generally, by Plato.
The decisive evidence, if any were needed, of the inconsequentiality
of satyr-play in general esteem is provided by Plato’s celebrated appeal
to ‘satyrs’ in the closing part of Symposium (–, –). At a–b
Alcibiades compares Socrates to ‘Silenus figures that sit in the craft shops’,
then to ‘the satyr Marsyas’; and picking up these allusions at d, Socrates
then refers to ‘this satyr-play of yours’, but at once adds ‘or Silenus play’ (6
2
2
(
). Plato’s hero Socrates, that
is, is represented (by Plato’s Alcibiades) as a satyr – but not as a satyr in a
 ‘Satyric drama was . . . formally instituted in the festival to preserve what was being lost from tragedy
as it turned to non-Dionysiac stories’ (Seaford ).
 In the Hellenistic period there seems to have been a latter-day interest in satyr-plays – perhaps partly
a learned interest in a marginal proto-Alexandrian genre (cf. Hor. Ars P. –); in any event,
papyrus finds show that they were read in Egypt. In the late Renaissance, once again, Greek satyr-
play has a limited influence on learned drama-theory (though hardly on practice), as a supposed
paradigm for some tragicomic experiments, especially in Italy: see e.g. Battista Guarini’s Compendio
della poesia tragicomica ().
 Cf. Dobrov , but conversely Bakola : –. In so far as it is ignored by comedy, is this
also because satyr-play and comedy have no significant connection within the institutional system?
The relation between satyr-play and tragedy, by contrast, is contextual (as well as textual).
 The formula offered by Pseudo-Demetrius (n.  above) might seem to allow an inference about
status (as a ‘junior’ genre) – though only for the Hellenistic period.
The Greek dramatic genres: theoretical perspectives 
satyr-play, except for one passing joke by Socrates himself. And in the final
paragraph of the dialogue (c–d) it is made entirely obvious that tragedy
and comedy are the genres that are worth talking about (worth ‘thinking
with’?), along with their putative relationship (supposedly oppositional, but
supposedly reconcilable authorially). Agathon and Aristophanes, Plato’s
narrator tells us, ‘were the only ones still awake . . . and Socrates was forcing
them to agree’ – in the teeth of Greek experience, of course – ‘that one and
the same man should be able to compose comedy and tragedy – that is, the
qualified tragedian could be a comic writer as well’. One notes, in passing,
the privileging of tragedy against the ‘junior’ genre of comedy: no doubt,
it might be that the comic poet should be able to compose tragedy too,
but Plato fails to say so. More particularly, the schematism of the situation
is unmissable. Of all the speakers in the dialogue, the only three left awake
are the comic poet Aristophanes (who, as the ‘junior’ partner, falls asleep
first), the tragic poet Agathon (who, as the canonical-genre figure, out-
wakes Aristophanes, and falls asleep next) and Socrates himself (awake and
o’ermastering all).
This remarkable last paragraph is revealing – as much for what it does
not say as for what it does. Although Plato’s schematic argument here
could easily have accommodated – and schematically might have been
enhanced by – appeal to the satyr-play, he ignores it. In particular, if satyr-
play had suggested itself to him as a genre of the same order as tragedy
or (even) comedy, he could easily have used the satyric motif to present
satyr-play itself as a via media between the supposed opposites – or
to present Socrates himself as a superior ‘satyric’ alternative to the tragic
Agathon and the comic Aristophanes. But he says nothing of this. He even
forgets to remember that Agathon, his tragedian, is also (presumably) a
satyrographer himself. Plato’s tour de force, rather, serves to confirm the
huge anomalousness of satyr-play within the generic system of classical
Attic drama, albeit without explaining it.
genre theory and the clouds

In the light of these various observations, a final thought on Aristophanes’
Clouds is worth considering. The play, we know, was staged (that is,
 This order corresponds also to the ascending order in which the symposiasts deliver their speeches:
after the earlier speakers, we get Aristophanes, then Agathon, then Socrates.
 Which is roughly how Horace seems to think of satyr-play in the Ars Poetica (cf. Brink : –)
and, in the wake of Horace, some Renaissance theorists (notably Guarini: n.  above).
 Cf. Ar. Thesm. .
 michael silk
presented institutionally, as a ) in  bc. Aristophanes revised
it, but the revised version was never produced. As such, it indeed lacks
the contextual authority for calling it a , though (understand-
ably) the writer continues to call it one in the revised parabasis (Nub.
). At line , however, in one of his many self-characterizations, he
registers his claim to be a writer of .", ‘new modes’. Could it be
that Aristophanes (who never much enjoyed producing his own plays)
failed to restage this version because, in the end, he was content for it to
stay on the page (for all his talk of ‘spectators’, Nub. )? Now that – in
fifth-century Athens – would be a , ." . . . Or, more specifically, that
Aristophanes now (plausibly) identifies this play as a ‘new mode’ in the
particular sense of a textual hybrid, a ‘serious comedy’, a tragicomedy (or
comitragedy) even (hence the reference to a tragic ‘Electra’ at line )? –
and that therefore he never quite feels comfortable with the thought of
having the play restaged as (sc. in the normal institutional context of ) a
? His instinct, that is, like most people’s instinct, would be to
have text and context aligned – at the opposite pole from Euripides (with
Alcestis) or Duchamp (with his urinal), both of whom (though Duchamp
more ostentatiously and abrasively) seek polemically to have the two clash.
The issue of value is relevant here, as well. With his urinal, Duchamp is
challenging not only the expectation of textual-contextual alignment, but
the expectation of value attached to an art object. Both as a ‘readymade’ and
as an emblem of taboo bodily functions, the urinal constitutes a direct chal-
lenge to all the traditional associations of high aspiration that characterize
an art exhibition in a designated art space. With his Alcestis, Euripides, one
thinks, is hardly doing that, but a rather different issue of value does arise in
his case too. His play, in its context, is surprising and anomalous – but also
affecting, charming, sophisticated, quite unlike any satyr-play we know
of. Its artistic aspiration, simply, is higher, much higher. It too, therefore,
is challenging an expectation of low-value inconsequentiality traditionally
associated with the fourth, satyric slot.
And Aristophanes, with his revised and unstaged Clouds: if we are right to
suspect a reluctance, on his part, to stage the play in the expected komoidic
context, we might also read that reluctance as an acknowledgement that
this new hybrid (however problematic some of us judge it to be in the
event) is too sophisticated, too high-value, for that context, after all.
 Hypothesis Nub. vi in the edition of Wilson, OCT.  Silk a: –.
 Silk a: –, ; cf. Wright : . On the interpretative problems raised by the revision of
Clouds, see generally Rosen b and Biles : –.
 See Silk a: –, –.
The Greek dramatic genres: theoretical perspectives 
‘I sowed some utterly new ideas,’ he muses in Wasps, ‘which you, my
public, could not make sense of ’ – even though the sower of new ideas is
ready to swear that ‘no one has ever heard better komoidic poetry’ (–):

) *6
,
? 6
( , @ !@
) A

. . . 32 [sc. B
] . . .
, $
)
) % o> " )
( .
he [sc. the poet] sowed a crop of brand-new ideas that you made fruitless
by your failure to understand them clearly. And yet . . . he swears . . . that no
one ever heard any comic verses better than that.
Clouds (or so its creator thinks) exceeded the expectation of value associated
with its komoidic context – so why submit it to that context again? Is it,
indeed, symptomatic that when Aristophanes sums up the value of Clouds
in that last verbal flurry, he thinks of it not as a drama or (labels he
uses freely elsewhere), not, then, as staged spectacle or dramatic production
at all, but as komoidic verses?
Theoretical considerations prompt these thoughts on the generic status
of Clouds. I suggest that theoretical considerations (though not necessarily
fashionable theoretical considerations) should also be kept in mind when
considering the relations – any relations – between Attic and
other genres, dramatic or otherwise, as also the relations between this artistic
genre and elements that (in Craig’s words) are not felt to belong to ‘art
proper’. The status of ‘art proper’ is certainly what Aristophanes supposes
he has achieved with Clouds, above all else, whatever his contemporaries –
his readers – may have made of it. And indeed, when it comes to reading
text (one can agree with Aristophanes on this), contemporary response (like
all response to text) may or may not seem plausible, but in any event carries
no special authority.
 Translation by Jeffrey Henderson (but with ‘verses’ for Henderson’s ‘poetry’).

 A standard fifth-century use of %
: LSJ  s.v. IVc (Herodotus, Aristophanes elsewhere, and others).
c h ap t er 2
Comedy and the Pompe

Dionysian genre-crossing
Eric Csapo
This chapter presents some new and some neglected evidence for the
phallic processions of the Dionysian Pompe (Parade). The phallic choruses
performed on the first official day of the Dionysia at Athens, only one or, at
most, two days before the comic contests. If for no other reason, their place
in this volume is justified by Aristotle’s notorious claim that: ‘comedy arose
from those who led off the phallic rites’ (Poet. a–). But it is not
just the diachronic relationship between these genres that interests me here.
The new evidence I present is iconographic and, unlike the iconographic
material normally adduced to support or contest the theory that comedy
evolved from phallic choruses, this iconographic material is contemporary
with comedy. My series of vase-paintings extends from the time of the
formal introduction of comedy at the Athenian Dionysia to a date well
within Aristotle’s lifetime. This permits me at least to pose the question of
a synchronic relationship between phallic choruses and comedy.
Aristotle may of course have been guessing and he may have been
wrong. Neither of these possibilities really supports the claim of Pickard-
Cambridge and others that this ‘unhappily robs his statements of all histor-
ical value’. I should at once confess that I have trouble in understanding
what ‘arose from’ and the like might mean, since comedy as we know it
I thank E. Bakola, L. Prauscello and M. Telò for inviting me to contribute this chapter. For assistance
and advice I would like to thank J. R. Green, A. Hartwig, I. McPhee, M. C. Miller, S. Nervegna,
E. G. D. Robinson, J. Rusten, P. Wilson and The Centre for Classical and Near Eastern Studies
of Australia. For the provision of photographs and permissions I owe special thanks to E. Bakola,
A. Christopoulou and the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, E. Kalinovskaya, V. Matveyev
and the Hermitage Museum, A. Koronakis and C Ephoria, F. Lissarrague, S. Paspalas and the
Australian Archaeological Institute at Athens and K. Schauenburg. This paper was prepared with
the generous assistance of an Australian Research Council Discovery Grant. Further thanks to J. R.
Green, who recently brought Masseria  to my attention, but unfortunately too late for me to
include it here in my discussion of the Pistoxenos Painter’s cup in Orvieto.
 On Aristotle’s claim and its historical and cultural value, see also Rosen in this volume.
 Pickard-Cambridge : –; cf. Scullion : .

Comedy and the Pompe: Dionysian genre-crossing 
shows affinities with many genres (iambos, dithyramb, hymn, tragedy and
satyr-play, to name just a few) and has manifestly absorbed the influence of
all of them by the time we catch sight of it. Genres are not like biological
forms, with only two parents, let alone like single-cell protozoa with only
one, and they are rarely ‘born’ at any discrete or determinable moment.
The historical value of Aristotle’s testimony lies elsewhere. It lies in the
fact that a perceptive and intelligent eyewitness readily believed that comic
and phallic choruses had something important in common and that this
something probably included elements of spectacle as Aristotle’s statement
is notably based on autopsy (that is why to his statement that ‘comedy
arose from those who led off the phallic rites’ he adds ‘that even now they
continue as a custom in many of our cities’). One can still doubt, of
course, whether Aristotle’s belief was a good one, but one should not doubt
that it was at least based on close knowledge of the genres and rational
reflection. Cultural history, unlike biology, needs to account for beliefs,
true or false. So Aristotle’s statement does have historical value even if we
reject the literal truth of the statement.
The material I present has implications for both diachronic and syn-
chronic history of comedy’s relationship with a sub-literary and (despite
Aristotle) generally overlooked performance genre. Considerations of
space, however, dictate that the focus must be on the presentation and
interpretation of a group of nine vase-paintings. I need to establish the
claim that they do in fact relate to the phallic entertainments of the
Dionysian Pompe: the few people who know these vase-paintings attribute
them directly to comedy or to non-Greek cults. The first three sections of
this chapter examine the iconographic evidence for phallic performers in
the fifth century; the fourth clears away some misconceptions about the
Pompe; it is only in the fifth that I can begin very briefly to sketch out how
the phallic performances influenced the comic genre and in the sixth to ask
how the comic genre impacted on the form of phallic performances. The
treatment will be very far from exhaustive. It aims to open new territory:
in it one will find underdeveloped and empty spaces.
 For the influence of biology on Aristotle’s evolutionary theories, see in the first instance Depew .
 There is no question therefore of a ‘contradiction’ with Aristotle’s later statement that the early
history of comedy is unknown (Poet. b). Despite Aristotle’s assurances, even as careful a scholar
as Rusten (b: , ) writes that phallic processions ‘ceased with the introduction of comedies
to the Dionysia’ and that comedy simply ‘replaced’ them.
 The possibility that Aristotle had historical evidence should not, however, be dismissed, and especially
not in the case of dithyramb: see Csapo and Miller b: ; Depew : .
 See also Storey : –.
 eric csapo
Figure . Attic red-figure fragments by the Berlin Painter, c.  bc
phallic choruses in fifth-century attic vase-painting

Two small fragments of a water jar or wine jug were unearthed in the
nineteenth-century excavations of the Athenian acropolis (Figure .).
 Attic red-figure (hereafter rf ) fragments, Berlin Painter, c.  bc, Athens, NM Acropolis Collection
G , .; Beazley, ARV 2 .. The fragments were found in September and October of .
The upper fragment measures . m., the lower . m. in height.
Comedy and the Pompe: Dionysian genre-crossing 
The jar was manufactured close to the traditional date of the introduction
of a competition for comedy at the Athenian Dionysia,  bc. The
fragments are by the Berlin Painter -– the Michelangelo of red figure. Yet,
despite the artistry, and despite preserving tantalizing bits of one of the
most extraordinary scenes in all Greek art, these particular fragments have
never received more than a few rare and passing glances – and glances from
scholars in various subdisciplines (iconography, religion, theatre history)
that have lost contact over the years. The subject is not an easy one. Even
the great John Beazley threw up his hands in genuine perplexity asking:
‘Who can this be?’
Beazley rarely missed a detail, but he did here. He should have asked
‘Who can these be?’ There are certainly two figures, not the single figure
implied by Beazley’s question or the manner in which the fragments are
joined and displayed in the National Museum in Athens. The upper frag-
ment from the shoulder of the vase preserves the head of a man described
as ‘ugly’ and ‘middle-aged’ in the literature. It is the unusual costume
that is mainly responsible for the impression of deformity or dereliction.
Most particularly, it is the large phallos that emerges from his forehead. The
effect is reinforced by another phallos attached to his nose (only the stump
is preserved – but what else could it have been?). A third phallos sits atop a
lost stick, which he once carried in his lost right hand. Phallos-sticks of this
sort characterize the entertainers who are the subject of this essay. Their
hand-held phallos-sticks regularly descend to ground level. Since no trace
of the stick appears on the lower fragment we can be sure that the surviving
fragments were not originally in vertical alignment and that the restoration
is wrong. Graef and Langlotz correctly assigned the lower fragment to a
second man.
The Berlin Painter, therefore, showed at least two men in shin-length
tunics of an identical ivy-leaf pattern, a costume so unusual – to say nothing
of the phalloi – that it permits no doubt that the artist intended to show
part of a costumed chorus. We can guess that the second man wore a crown
of ivy leaves like the first, perhaps also phalloi. He may even have carried
a phallos-stick, but if so, he held it in a different position. The costume
 Suda s.v. Chionides. The date receives some rough confirmation from restorations of the Dionysian
Victors’ Lists (IG ii ) but it is certainly not beyond dispute. See most recently Olson :
–.
 Beazley :  no. , pl. ..
 Cf. the drawing in Hoffmann :  fig. , or Frontisi-Ducroux : .
 Graef and Langlotz : ; Beazley : .
 Graef and Langlotz :  no.  and pl. . Cf. Herter : ; Herter a: –.
 eric csapo
is completed by the boots we find on the lower fragment. These boots
are a recurrent feature among the phallos-stick bearers: they are laceless
and unadorned except for a vertical seam that appears on the side. Some
examples show that the upper boot can be turned down to form a cuff.
Most scholars identify this boot with a type that writers of the fifth century
bc called kothornoi: notoriously loose and formless (the same boot could be
worn on either foot). Interestingly kothornoi later became the hallmark of
tragic actors, but these later kothornoi look very different. In the first half of
the fifth century we find boots of this type on contemporary symposiasts
and on tragic choreuts. Kothornoi appear already to have developed strong
Dionysian associations, even if not exclusively so.
Possibly earlier in date than the Berlin Painter’s phallos-bearers is a solitary
and generally obliterated figure from a cup attributed to the Antiphon
Group (Figure .). No phallic protrusions emerge from the head. We
see only a ribbon. The figure also carries a phallos-stick. The phallos-stick
is covered with dots. Many of these dots when viewed closely have a heart
shape or at least a triangular shape. We are evidently to think of the stick as
entwined in ivy. Like the Berlin Painter’s phallos-bearers, this phallos-bearer
also wears a long shin-length garment, but this one is fringed. One can
make out a few dots above the fringe. On his feet the phallos-bearer wears
the boots we have identified as kothornoi. They have the same vertical seam
running up from the ankle as the Berlin Painter’s pair, but apparently with
an added piece to reinforce the heel. A horizontal line just under the fringe
of his garment shows that his boot is folded over into a cuff.
A cup by the Pistoxenos Painter in Orvieto shows phallos-stick bearers
of a similar stamp (Figure .). It is a decade or so later than the Berlin
Painter’s chorus. Two men in the tondo (a) and four men on the side
(b) sport kothornoi and shin-to-ankle-length garments with fringes. Long
garments of this sort are mostly worn by women. The garments are belted.
Belts too are almost exclusively used by women: these are particularly
 Pickard-Cambridge : –; E. Simon : –.

 Genre scenes with tragic choreuts have the same simple undecorated form, unlaced, either cuffless
or cuffed, and usually showing a vertical seam and narrow pointed toes, sometimes markedly curved
up at the ends (see our Figures .–.): 1. Attic rf oinochoe fragments, Near Hermonax, c.  bc,
Agora P , MTS2 AV , Moore :  no. ; Froning :  fig. . 2. Attic rf bell krater,
– bc, Ferrara T C, MTS2 AV  and pl. a; Pickard-Cambridge : fig. . 3. Attic rf
pelike, Phiale Painter, c.  bc, Boston MFA .–, MTS2 AV , Pickard-Cambridge :
fig. . Dionysus himself prefers the Thracian style embades: Carpenter : –, .
 Attic rf cup fragments, Antiphon Group, – bc, Louvre C; ARV 2 , . The fragments
have never been published. F. Lissarrague very generously photographed the fragments at my request.
 Attic rf cup, Pistoxenos Painter, c.  bc, Orvieto, Faina ; ARV 2 ., ; Addend.2 . The
cup was excavated in the s from a cemetery just North of Orvieto: see G. Körte .
Comedy and the Pompe: Dionysian genre-crossing 
Figure . Attic red-figure cup fragments, Antiphon Group, – bc
emphasized by overfolds with fringes at the waist. Two of the men are
pipers and they wear a type of hat elsewhere associated with rustics. The
pipers also have sleeves. The other four men are evidently members of the
chorus. Their heads are bald and tied with ribbons. All sport scruffy beards.
Their garments are spotted. Even in the drawing, which was executed with
a very different interpretation in mind, the spots frequently reveal the
distinctive heart shape of ivy leaves. A crown of ivy leaves is very clear on
the hat of the piper in the tondo (a). The phallos-sticks held by four of
 See Pipili : –.
 eric csapo
Figure .a and b Attic red-figure cup, Pistoxenos Painter, c.  bc
the men are also very clearly meant to be seen as wrapped in ivy. The ivy
theme is picked up by the decoration under the handles. Sadly none of
these chorusmen has phalloi emerging from his head, but the phallic theme
is nonetheless very prominent: the phallic tip of the sticks is emphasized
Comedy and the Pompe: Dionysian genre-crossing 
Figure .a and b Attic red-figure cup, Sabouroff Painter, c.  bc.
with added red and the artist has been very careful to outline the distinctive
eye-spots that often characterize Greek phalloi.
A cup by the Sabouroff Painter shows a chorus in much the same
costume as the Pistoxenos Painter’s chorus (Figure .). It is accompanied
by the phallos-stick on the less well-preserved side (far right of b, before
 Attic rf cup, Sabouroff Painter, c.  bc, Malibu .AE.; ARV 2 , ; Kavvadias : –,
 no. , pls. –.
 eric csapo
handle). The stick has the characteristic eye and is decorated not with
ivy but with a ribbon. The chorus have nearly bald heads bound with red
ribbons and shaggy beards like those of the Pistoxenos Painter (Figure .).
The choreuts also have long tresses dangling from the sides and back of
their heads. In this case, the details of the relative size of the heads, the
wide staring eyes, stiff gaping mouths and a general similarity of features
suggest the possibility of a uniform mask. The chorus wear ankle-length
garments with effeminate overfolds, like the Pistoxenos Painter’s chorus,
but this time the garments are still more effeminate, with overfolds under
the breasts and with the addition of elaborate pleats. The choreuts wear
kothornoi, like the Pistoxenos Painter’s chorus, but this time with the more
stylishly upturned toes, which may underscore their effeminacy. They are
more obviously dancing than any of their colleagues. Only the absence of
ivy in the costume makes this chorus unlike other phallos-stick bearers, but
ivy at least is present on the pot: ivy-leaf decoration appears prominently
above the handles.
Probably related to our phallos-stick bearers is a figure on a lekythos
in Athens who marches with a vigorous step (Figure .). His garment
is sleeved like those of the Pistoxenos Painter’s chorus and covered with
tadpole-like blobs with descending tails: a few of them attain the heart
shapes of ivy leaves that were evidently intended, even if quickly and
carelessly applied. One can make out the horizontal lines above the figure’s
hip to show that his garment has a belt or possibly a hem. This is female
fashion if not quite the feminine overfolds of the Pistoxenos and Sabouroff
Painters’ choruses. He wears boots. This is clear from the folded cuff
visible on the right below his knee. His head suggests a mask (or at least the
elaborate disguise) of a wild man. The nose is pointy and his ears are satyr-
like. He also has a very large extra eye on his forehead. If he is supposed to
be a Cyclops, his eye is far off centre. Nothing impels us to determine his
species: he is a creature of fantasy, not nature. The stringy hair reinforces
the general impression that whatever he is meant to be, it is of a low order
of civilization. In his right hand he holds a large knife in a very aggressive
 This less well-preserved side, generally ‘B’, was probably intended as the principal decoration: see
Kavvadias : .
 See Simon : . There is a suggestion of curvature of this sort on the boots of Figures . and
. but nothing explicit as here and on the choral genre scenes.
 Attic rf lekythos, c.  bc, found in Athens in  and currently in the storerooms of Gamma
Ephoria (inv. no. A). The vase was found in ‘Grave VIII’ excavated near Veikou and Aglaurou
Streets in Koukaki (south of Philopappos Hill). See Alexandri :  and pl.  . J. R. Green first
brought this vase to my attention.
Comedy and the Pompe: Dionysian genre-crossing 
Figure . Attic red-figure lekythos, c.  bc
posture. The shape of the knife and the way he holds it is unparalleled.
The painter clearly wished to emphasize the superfluous extension of the
 Two curving lines rise up from the back and appear to extend beyond the neckline. They do not
appear to be part of the knife.
 eric csapo
handle beyond the grip, because he interrupts the otherwise fairly tidy
upper frieze in order to show it. The handle curves abruptly upwards.
It appears likely that a phallos is intended. In his left hand he holds the
remnant of a torch (one can see a vertical line separating two bits of wood
and horizontal lines binding them together). It curves slightly to the right
above the point where he grasps it (not visible in the photograph). The top
is lost. One should perhaps infer that the painter means to incorporate the
torch in the wildman’s gesture of menace towards his imaginary victim.
phallic choruses and the dionysia

So who are these men? The Pistoxenos Painter’s cup is the only one that
has received much comment. The Beazley Archive calls this group ‘bearded
barbarians’, ‘Northerners’ and ‘Agathyrsoi’. The line of interpretation goes
back to nineteenth-century German scholarship and its conviction that
Greeks do not dress or behave in this way. Gustav Körte thought them
Asiatic and probably Lydian. Friedrich Hauser seized upon Herodotus’
description of the Argippaioi, a tribe of Scythian mountain dwellers, who,
he says, ‘from birth are all bald, snub-nosed and long-bearded, both males
and females’. From this promising beginning Hauser gleaned passages
from Herodotus’ description of completely different tribes and races of
people, concluding that our dancers wore beaver-pelts fringed with human
scalps, and deciding with curious precision that the Pistoxenos Painter had
drawn Agathyrsoi, a people about whom the only relevant information
we have is Herodotus’ claim that they ‘live in luxury and wear lots of
gold’. Some of these ornaments are visible, he thought, on the pot and
highlighted in added red. They were obviously difficult to interpret: the
man right of centre on Figure .b is said to wear a phiale around his neck.
Hauser thought the phiale an obscure allusion to Heracles’ visit to Scythia.
Near the beginning of his account of Scythia, Herodotus records that the
Pontic Greeks claimed that Heracles came to Scythia, had intercourse with
the mistress of the country, who was half-woman and half-snake, and left
her pregnant with triplets, giving instructions that any son of his who
proved able to string his bow and put on his belt remain in Scythia and
that any who could not should be banished. Only the youngest, named
 The prevailing assumption at the time was that Dionysus himself was foreign and Asiatic: see
Isler-Kerényi : –.
 G. Körte : .  Hauser in Hartwig : – quoting Hdt. ..
 Hdt. ..  On the Scythian snake-goddess, see Ustinova .
Comedy and the Pompe: Dionysian genre-crossing 
Scythes, succeeded. He and his line became the kings of Scythia, ‘and to
this day Scythians carry bowls (phialai) hanging from their belts’.
Even in the matter of the gold ornaments Hauser manhandles his only
witness. The myth does not explain why the Agathyrsoi wear phialai but
clearly indicates that they do not. The banished sons of Heracles are
called Agathyrsos and Gelonos. It is a misrepresentation to call Scythes,
Agathyrsos and Gelonos ‘die drei Stammväter der Skythen’, as does Hauser,
let alone ‘die drei Stammesväter der Agathyrsen’ as Bulle calls them. The
tale clearly marks Scythes alone as the ancestor of the Scythians. It functions
to establish the Scythians’ exclusive right to their territory. For the purpose
of the tale Agathyrsos and Gelonos serve as the ancestors of non-Scythians:
they are as Corcella describes them ‘eponyms of other peoples of the
region’; indeed most modern scholars are inclined to regard the Agathyrsoi
as Thracians (Herodotus himself says that ‘their ways most resemble the
Thracians’).
But it would be a mistake to give the impression that the value of
the analysis depends on the precise designation of the tribe to which our
chorus of ‘Scythians’ belong. Although archaeology offers no confirmation
that Scythians decorated their persons with bowls, the testimony may well
be true. But Hauser’s evidence is irrelevant no matter which Scythians
you choose. Herodotus reports that Scythians wear phialai ‘hanging from
their belts’ (zosteres is used of girdles that go around the waist), not strung
around their necks as we see them on Figure .b. Far more disturbing is
the fact that not a single item of clothing in any way resembles anything
that archaeology or iconography can show was ever worn by an ancient
Scythian or Thracian.
Despite the fact that it had very little going for it, Hauser’s theory was
accepted as ‘schlagend’ and ‘geistvoll’ by Bulle and as ‘very probable’ by
Beazley, who extended the barbarian label to our other dancers by the Berlin
Painter, the Sabouroff Painter and the painter belonging to the Antiphon
Group; current iconographers still treat the connection with Agathyrsoi as
 Hdt. .–.  Hauser in Hartwig : ; Bulle : .

 Hdt. .. Corcella : , .  See Corcella :  on Hdt. ...
 The standard modern treatments are Tsiafakis  and Raeck . Hauser’s methodology required
no real knowledge of Scythian material culture. He was happy to draw upon a generic stereotype of
the savage, in what would now seem a parody of the more outrageous trends in nineteenth-century
comparative anthropology: the fringes on the garments of the chorus from Orvieto, Hauser admits,
are too string-like for furs or beaver pelts, so he did not hesitate to argue from the customs of North
American Indians that they must be human scalps: ‘die Angabe, dass die Kahlköpfe ihren besiegten
Feinden das Fell vom Kopfe ziehen, [hat] eine innere Warscheinlichkeit für sich’ (Hauser in Hartwig
: ).
 eric csapo
established fact. For Hauser and Bulle the only real question was how the
painter came to acquire ‘such a detailed knowledge of Scythian costume
and customs’: Hauser thought he must have been a Scythian slave trained
as an artist in Athens; Bulle thought that the requisite knowledge for a
portrait of ‘such ethnographic precision’ could ‘scarcely be credited to an
artisan of the Athenian potters’ quarter’ and must therefore have been
copied from a drama based on the antics of the Agathyrsoi (as if we might
not just as easily ask how a poet came to portray a distant central Asian
tribe with ‘such ethnographic precision’). Hauser’s far-fetched theory may
not deserve a formal refutation. In light of its reception, unfortunately, a
refutation is required.
If not to advertise their barbarism, why would choruses prance about
in unusual costumes, carrying phallos-sticks and wearing masks or other-
wise distorting their facial features through the application of extraneous
penises? Had it not been for Hauser, the answer would have been obvious.
They do this to advertise their connection with Dionysus.
Ironically, the Dionysian context is most urged by the very features that
led Hauser to conclude that the Pistoxenos painter drew Scythians. Hauser
took the spots on the garments of the dancers in Orvieto as indications
of shagginess and – with the help of Herodotus on Scythians – decided
that they wore beaver fur. On closer inspection the spots indicate varying
degrees of care in attempts to render the shape of ivy leaves. Ivy is in fact very
much on the menu. Some of our performers wear ivy wreaths (Figures .,
.), others red ribbons. Ivy is entwined around most of the phallos-sticks
(Figures .–.). And ivy leaves appear in the marginal decoration of the
scenes (Figures .–.). All of this should have indicated that the images
have nothing to do with Scythia and everything to do with Dionysian
art and cult. Ivy is of course ubiquitous almost anywhere where Dionysus
is present. It is especially worn at the Dionysia. Sacred law required all
inhabitants of Attica to garland their heads during the Dionysia. This
was true even outside Athens: a Euboean decree of / bc, for example,
requires everyone to wear ivy garlands during the Pompe of the Dionysia,
with a free distribution to all residents and a mandatory rental fee for
visitors.
The pendants around the necks of the Orvieto entertainers are very
unlikely to be phialai. On Hartwig’s line drawing, Figure .b, the ghostly
half-circle around the neck of the second dancer from the right, with its
 Bulle : – (quotation ); Beazley at ARV 2 p.  (‘Addenda I’); Kavvadias : –.
 Hauser in Hartwig : ; Bulle : .  Blech : –; Bierl : .
 Sacred laws in Dem. Meid. –; Philoch. FGrH  F .  IG xii , .
Comedy and the Pompe: Dionysian genre-crossing 
phiale-like central knob and the suggestion of metalware lobes, is a pretty
clear instance in which Hauser’s interpretation guided Hartwig’s hand
in rendering what was obviously a faint and much-damaged image (no
photograph of the side of the cup has ever been published). Originally,
the neck ornament probably resembled that of the man at the lower left
of Figure .b, which does not at all resemble the shape of a phiale. Both
ornaments are coloured with added red, not because they represent the
gold frippery of the decadent Agathyrsoi, but because the colour and shape
of the ornaments echo the phalloi on the tips of the choruses’ phallos-sticks
(which are also marked with added red). The phalloi emerging from the
head and nose of the Berlin Painter’s entertainer may be iconographically
unique, but ancient sources, albeit late, consistently mention the neck, in
addition to the loins, as a common place to tie on a phallos to celebrate
the Dionysia. Dionysian processions were rife with phallic imagery: some
even came to be known by the term periphallia meaning something like
‘phalloi all over the place’.
Finally, the bald heads and long beards have a simpler explanation than
the putative effects of inbreeding in the remote mountain communities
of Central Asia. Baldness and long beards not only are a familiar feature
of comic ugliness but follow a pattern well known from the depiction of
phallic and Dionysian creatures. Baldness and shaggy beards are above all
characteristic of satyrs. The many minor phallic deities who came to be
connected with Dionysus are also, according to Herter, characterized by
baldness and wedge beards. The reasons require no explanation. Ancient
physiognomists, who habitually deduce human character on the analogy
of natural forms (in this case assimilating heads and genitals), consis-
tently identify baldness and shaggy beards as signs of lewdness and erotic
hyperactivity.
The proof that our choruses are connected to Dionysus, however, is
their use of phallos-sticks. In Greek art such phallos-sticks otherwise appear
only in the hands of the mythical counterparts of our Dionysiac dancers:
 Suda s.v. -
(- ), cf. Suda s.v. .!2-
( ); Etym. magn. p.  Kallierges; [Nonnus],
Or. . and .; Apostol. .. See further Herter :  and nn. – below on the martyrdom
of Saint Timotheus. I am not convinced that the Attic black-figure (hereafter bf ) fragment, found at
Segesta and attributed to Sophilos, shows a man wearing a hat with phalloi (Fuchs and Tusa : 
fig. ; cf. Blech :  n. ; Bierl :  n. ).
 Hesych. s.v. - ( ); Herter a: ; Herter : .
 Herter : , cf. .
 Arist. Hist. an. a–b, Gen. an. b; Comm. in Arist. Graeca .. (Johannes Philoponus); Della
Corte : . Baldness and wedge-beards become the distinguishing characteristics of pimps
in New Comedy (who also have phallic names and display phallic behaviour): Poll. .; MNC 3
vol. i.–.
 eric csapo
komasts, satyrs and at least once Dionysus himself. Some of the satyrs
sporting phallos-sticks have already been closely associated with Dionysian
processions, in particular a red-figured amphora by the Flying Angel
Painter: on one side we see a satyr holding a phallos-stick and on the
other a satyr father holds his son up on his shoulder as if to watch the
parade (whence the name ‘Flying Angel’). Otherwise satyrs consistently
use phallos-sticks as a weapon, either in the hunt or in battle. Though
essentially mythical fantasy, we will see (below) that the visual simile that
turns the phallos-stick into an aggressive weapon is also very much rooted
in ritual. The link between phallos-sticks of this sort and Dionysus and his
retinue is in Greek iconography virtually exclusive. It was the presence of
the phallos-stick that urged Bulle to suppose that we must have a Dionysian
scene, but he contented himself with the observation that the Agathyrsoi
must also have worshipped Dionysus and that the image was in any case
mediated by drama.
Since Bulle’s time, more judicious scholars have interpreted the
Dionysian quality of our phallic choruses in one of two ways: as performers
in comedy and as choral entertainers belonging to Dionysian processions.
 Lissarrague : : ‘It should be noted that the phallos as weapon is the specific attribute of satyrs.
The maenads of course do not have such weapons, nor does Dionysus.’ Dionysus: he does appear
once with the phallos-stick on a now largely forgotten fragment of a late bf hydria, once Rhusopoulos
Collection, Athens. The fragment known only from a murky drawing in Vorberg :  may be a
processional scene (there are curving lines that hint at the Dionysian ship-cart). Komast: Corinthian
fragment of unknown vessel shape, early sixth century bc?, Corinth  (KP ); Seeberg : 
no. bis; Stillwell and Benson :  no. , pl. . For the interpretation of the fragment, cf.
the Middle Corinthian phiale, Athens NM , illustrated in Smith :  fig. , at twelve o’clock.
Satyrs: Attic rf cup from Vulci, Painter of Berlin , once Rome market, ARV 2 , ; Attic rf
volute krater, Nikosthenes Painter, c.  bc, Munich , ARV 2 , ; Attic rf amphora, Flying
Angel Painter, Boston MFA ., ARV 2 , , Addenda2 ; Attic rf skyphos, Brygos Painter,
c.  bc, Thebes Museum, ARV 2 , ; fragmentary rf cup, Foundry Painter, ARV 2 , ; Attic
rf cup-skyphos from Capua, Near the Painter of Bologna , – bc, Brussels, Bibliothèque
Royale , ARV 2 . The phallos-sticks used by satyrs resemble those used by phallic dancers except
in so far as the bottom end of the stick is consistently shaped like testicles. A rf pelike fragment
(Louvre G , Pan Painter, ARV 2 , ) shows a phallos-stick beside a man catching a boar or pig.
The man is bald on top with shaggy sides and beard and, though the ears are not obviously those of
a satyr, his appearance and primitive hunting techniques make it likely that assimilation to a satyr
is intended (the other side shows a young man catching a deer with his bare hands): see Peirce :
. Another possible exception is the phallos-stick held by Pothos in the sculpture in Samothrace
by Scopas, if the reconstruction by Bulle  is correct. But the trefoil-shaped appendages on either
end of the ‘phallos-stick’ on the gem in Berlin, upon which the reconstruction ultimately depends,
make it unlike any other. The trefoil shape brings it much closer to sceptre iconography, though it
would still be unusual for a sceptre to have trefoil-like tips on both ends.
 See Herter a:  and esp. Hedreen : . The amphora by the Flying Angel Painter (see
previous note) was produced c.  bc.
 This is true of the Corinthian komast as well: for the link with Dionysus, see esp. Csapo and Miller
b: –.
 Bulle : .
Comedy and the Pompe: Dionysian genre-crossing 
Erika Simon first ascribed the Sabouroff Painter’s chorus (Figure .a–b) to
a comedy with a chorus of old men dressed up as women, citing for exam-
ple Cratinus’ Effeminates (Malthakoi). Of all the phallos-stick bearers we
have examined, the Sabouroff Painter’s chorus have the best credentials for
illustrating a comic chorus: they may indeed wear masks (as may our wild-
man in Figure .), and if the old men are disguised as women, there may
be a reason for de-emphasizing the typical comic somation with its padded
bellies and buttocks, and its bodytights. Transvestism could also excuse the
shin-length garments and boots that would otherwise be unexpected and
unparalleled for comic choreuts (and rare for comic actors). Three prob-
lems remain, however, for any identification of the Sabouroff Painter’s vase
as a comic chorus. In the iconography comic choruses otherwise dance with
a uniform step and this must have been standard practice in the theatre
as well. Moreover, a comic chorus of transvestites has no obvious reason
to dance with a phallos-stick unless they are cultic transvestites (but if they
are, then what is left to support the notion that they are also comic?). Most
importantly the closest parallels in time, style, costume and movement are
the choruses of the Berlin Painter, Antiphon Group and Pistoxenos Painter
(Figures .–.). None of these appears to wear a mask. Two (Figures .–
.) are certainly not transvestites and so have no excuse for not wearing
or de-emphasizing normal comic padding. Most importantly, even though
the jury is still out on whether comic choreuts normally wear the phallos,
these choruses do, and do so in a way that no comic actor or choreut
ever does: they wear them only in unnatural places and they wear them
erect, quite unlike the standard limp and unimaginatively located phalloi
of comedy.
The unique costumes and above all the phallos-sticks (and other phal-
lic paraphernalia) were rightly perceived by a tiny minority of scholars to
be key to the identity of two of the vase-paintings of our group. Herter
first recognized that the Berlin Painter’s chorus (Figure .) are entertain-
ers at a Dionysiac procession: he specifically identified them as a kind of
entertainer called ‘ithyphalloi’. Green first recognized that the effeminate
 E. Simon : . Kavvadias’ suggestion that the chorus might belong to satyr-play arises from the
mistaken belief that satyr-play could have other than a satyr chorus (: ). For other examples
of effeminate choruses in comedy, see Bakola : –.
 Which is why Green excluded this vase from his list of early comic choruses (:  n. ).
 Herter a: –; Herter : ; cf. Blech :  n. , who compares their headgear with
Semos’ description of phallophoroi; and Hoffmann : , who refers them to the Anthesteria.
Although Herter cited the Pistoxenos Painter’s vase in this context, he nonetheless accepted their
identification as ‘Agathyrsoi’ (a: ).
 eric csapo
chorus of the Sabouroff Painter had much in common with the descrip-
tion of the costume of the ithyphalloi described by Semos of Delos (c.
 bc). Semos evidently contextualized his work On Paeans with a
general discussion of processional choruses, among them choruses from
Dionysian parades. The description of the ithyphalloi is the fullest exam-
ple. The ithyphalloi ‘wear the masks of drunken men, are garlanded and
have flowery [or “ornate”] sleeves. They wear whitish chitons and gird
them with a tarantinon that reaches down to their ankles.’ The effect of
effeminacy is in this case evidently desired: the Suda adds that the ithy-
phalloi ‘are guardians of Dionysus and accompany the phallos, wearing
women’s clothing’; from Synesius we learn that the ithyphalloi also wore
their hair in tresses. The descriptions of the figures on our vase-paintings
are by no means precise, but they come interestingly close in the case of
the Pistoxenos and Sabouroff Painters’ choruses. Both choruses seem to
wear girded effeminate ankle-length robes and one of them (the Sabouroff
Painter’s) certainly gives a strong suggestion of masks. More problematic is
the fact that both choruses wear ribbons rather than garlands, that only the
Sabouroff Painter’s choreuts have tresses, that only the Pistoxenos Painter’s
auletes wears sleeves, and that these sleeves are not exactly ‘flowery’, but
have ivy patterns. Semos’ description of the costume of the ithyphalloi
actually coincides with only half the details we see in the Pistoxenos and
Sabouroff Painters’ choreuts. Against these inaccuracies we must reckon
that Semos lived some two hundred and fifty years after the production of
our vases and in an age when literary science displayed a compulsion for
over-nice and often arbitrary genre-distinctions. More important is the fact
that, from Semos’ description of the ithyphalloi’s song, it is clear that the
chorus carried a phallos or phalloi of some sort. In the archaic and classical
periods genres were still embedded in specific performance occasions and
practices and it is to these that we must look if we are to understand the
identity and function of the phallic dancers depicted in late archaic and
early classical vase-paintings.
 Green :  n. .

 Semos FGrH  F  (Athen. a); Suda s.vv. -
-
( ), .!2-
( ), 8
(
); Phot. Lexicon s.v. .!2-
( .); Hesych. s.v. .!2-
( ); Syn. Calvitii encomium
. (= Suda s.v. /2#
(/ )). Thorough discussion of Semos’ fragment in Bierl :
–.
 We do not know what a tarantinon is. It is also worn by the Spartan dancers called Gypones (Poll.
.), where the material is described as ‘diaphanous’. See Bierl :  n. , with further
literature.
 Semos FGrH  F : ‘Make way, open wide for the god. He wishes to march through your midst
upright and bursting.’
Comedy and the Pompe: Dionysian genre-crossing 
ithyphalloi , phallophoroi and others

In Attica phallic choruses are only attested, whether in literary or epigraphic
sources, for the Pompe of the Dionysia in the city or in the demes. We
hear from our Hellenistic sources, principally Semos of Delos, of various
kinds of phallic performers (autokabdaloi, phallophoroi, ithyphalloi and
phalloidoi), but classical sources only certainly attest the ithyphalloi as a
distinct genre or subgenre of phallic performers. It is, however, likely
that classical Athenians would have recognized at least two types of phallic
chorus, even if they did not have distinct labels. I infer this not from
different elements of costume (I doubt very much that costumes were ever
as regular as Semos implies), but from the two very different types of phalloi
that were processed at the Dionysia and the very different kinds of choral
performance they presuppose.
The Pompe of the Dionysia included very large phallic ‘floats’ that had
to be carried by choruses of men or carried on wagons. Inscriptions and
iconography make it clear that Athenian colonies (and subject states) were
obliged to contribute gigantic phalloi of this sort, doubtless along with
 Herter a: –; Pickard-Cambridge : , –, , ; R. Parker : –. The one
apparent exception is ithyphalloi singing a hymn for Demetrius the Besieger in  or  bc on
the occasion of his ‘epiphany’ in Athens at the time of the procession to Eleusis (Democh. FGrH
 F ; Duris FGrH  F ). But this is probably only an apparent exception. The ithyphalloi
were incorporated into the Eleusinian procession for this particular occasion in order to honour
Demetrius (who identified himself with Dionysus and because he identified himself with Dionysus).
See Csapo : – citing earlier literature.
 Knowledge of performers known as ‘ithyphalloi’ is indicated by Cratin. fr.  from his Archilochuses
produced sometime between  and  bc (Luppe ). Youth gangs named after the phallic
performers are attested by Dem. In Conon. , , , which cannot be precisely dated but was
most likely delivered in the s (Carey : ). Ithyphalloi are certainly described by Hyp.
fr.  Jensen. ‘Phallophoroi’ may, however, also be pre-Hellenistic: see below, n. . Rotstein denies
that the autokabdaloi are phallic on the grounds that both Semos and Sosibius list various forms of
entertainers in order to draw strict distinctions and infers that, because phallophoroi and ithyphalloi
did, autokabdaloi and iamboi ‘wore no mask, mocked no one in the audience, carried no phalloi ’
(: ). The lists of Semos and Sosibios represent varieties of Dionysian entertainers, often only
regional variants, and invite one to see them as overlapping, not mutually exclusive categories.
 The principal evidence is the cup in Florence, below with n. . Note also the intriguing [D5
]2
at line  of the lamentably fragmentary inscription IG ii  which deals with
the Pompe of the Dionysia including the phallic procession ( -[ ] at line  is an
inevitable supplement). See Cole :  and Wilson : . There are a few non-Attic parallels
or near parallels to the phallic float: a rf calyx krater argued to be from Boeotia (Brommer ;
Auffarth : , figs. –); the bf ‘Clazomenian’ amphora fragments in the Ashmolean museum,
Oxford . (Boardman ; Csapo : –, details pl. ). As reconstructed by Boardman
it is a Dionysiac ship with phallic attributes rather than a phallos. It would, however, be easy to
reconstruct the image as a phallos with naval attributes. It is carried in the same manner as the
contemporary phallic ‘floats’ on the Florence cup. The giant phallus in Ptolemy’s parade was carried
on a wagon (Kallixeinos in Athen. e). Other evidence for phallos-wagons from Hellenistic Delos
and Edessa in Csapo : .
 eric csapo
choruses of men to carry them, to the Pompe of the Athenian Dionysia.
Images of this kind of gigantic phallos survive on an Athenian black-figured
cup of about  bc, now in Florence. On the cup we see two choruses of
six and seven men (probably meant to represent pairs, one man on either
side of a phallos, so twelve to fourteen men), visibly bending under the
weight of enormous phallos-poles (in fact they are complex double poles
ridden by sculpted satyrs and komasts). Carrying floats of this size is heavy
work and allows little freedom of movement – certainly no independent
movement – and little breath for more than a periodic refrain. Indeed the
choreuts need close co-ordination if the phallos-pole is to remain upright.
It is for this reason that they are furnished with a leader, or exarchos, who
directs their movements and takes up the principal burden of the song.
In the miniature phallic procession staged in Aristophanes’ Acharnians, a
pair of slaves carry the phallos-pole (presumably a simplified and much
smaller version of the sort of thing we see on the cup in Florence). Their
exarchos, Dicaeopolis, does most of the singing: the slaves’ task is limited
to singing refrains of ‘O Phales, Phales’ and to holding the phallos upright.
On the Florence cup the phallos-bearers appear to be unmasked and, except
for erect phalloi tied to their loins, naked, as we might expect of Greek
men involved in very demanding physical exertion. It is these performers
whom Aristotle thinks of when inferring an origin for comedy: it is the
separation of, and interactivity between, exarchos and chorus that strikes
him as the minimally necessary combination of fission, and fusion, to
trigger the evolutionary process that led to Old Comedy with its entirely
separate but integrally linked components of chorus and actors. Aristotle
refers to these ritual choruses only with vague descriptive periphrasis ‘those
who led off the phallika’ (Poet. a). If we are justified in giving a
name to these performers we should probably think of the men on the
Florence cup as phallophoroi. ‘Phallophoroi’ may not have been a technical
term for this genre of performance until much later.
 IG i .–; SEG  p. ; IG ii ; Accame : –; Krentz : –; Dreher : ,
–; Rhodes and R. Osborne : – no. ; Dio Chrys. .; Cole ; Csapo .
 Attic bf cup, Florence ; see most recently Iozzo , with further literature.
 Csapo –: –.
 Ar. Ach.  indicates that two slaves carry the phallos (not one as suggested by R. Parker : )
so it is apparently something larger than a phallos-stick that they carry.
 Philomnestos, a historian of unknown date (FGrH  F ), refers to an Antheas of Lindos who
composed ‘comedies’ which he ‘led off for his phallophoroi’ (? 5#
!’
( -
9
-

( ). Sourvinou-Inwood :  would place Antheas in the sixth century bc (contra
Pickard-Cambridge :  n.  ‘a poet of late but unknown date’): that Philomnestos thinks
of Antheas as early should surely be inferred from Philomnestos’ report that ‘he first invented the
use of compound nouns in poetry which technique was later used by the Phliasian Asopodoros
Comedy and the Pompe: Dionysian genre-crossing 
Phallos-sticks are very different from these huge phalloi. Our ancient texts
also connect them exclusively with Dionysian processions, and most often
with Dionysian processions in Athens. The scholiast to Aristophanes’
Acharnians a describes them as: ‘a long piece of wood fitted with a
leather penis at the end’. ‘Long’ of course is relative, but the detail ‘fitted
with a leather penis at the end’ shows that the scholion does not refer to
the gigantic phallic floats such as we see on the Florence cup, which are
evidently entirely of wood, each phallos-pole carved from a single timber,
and which would more accurately have been described as ‘representing
large penises’ rather than ‘fitted’ with them. In the case of phallos-sticks,
the division between wooden stick and leather phallos is emphasized by the
use of added red for the phallic tip of the sticks by the Pistoxenos Painter
(Figure .). Moreover, the scholiast informs us that Athenians furnished
themselves with both ‘public and private’ phalloi. The large floats provided
by City or deme and colonies and subjects are clearly beyond the means of
most private citizens.
Unlike the phallos-bearers we see on the Florentine cup, our phallos-
stick-bearing choruses are highly mobile and active. Although there is
some evidence to suggest that phallos-stick bearers could also make use
of an exarchos (see on Figure ., below, pp. –), the exarchos is in this
case a far less necessary role. Certainly the vase-paintings we have studied
show groups of men without obvious leaders and with little co-ordination
in their movements. Far from appearing regimented and measured, their
movements in Figures .–. are lively and wild, with all the choreuts
equally engaged in song and dance. The phallos-stick itself, like a baton,
appears to serve both the spectacle and the music. In the Sabouroff Painter’s
cup (Figure .b) it appears to move (autonomously?) with the movement
of the dance. In the other cases it seems to be held more or less vertically
[also undatable] in chanted iambics’. Crusius (: –) suspected that later antiquity acquired
this information through the peripatetic literary historian Lobon of Argos (late fourth or early third
century bc, see Garulli : –): Crusius and other nineteenth- and twentieth-century scholars
characterize Lobon as a forger or hoaxer, but this has been discredited as a philological conspiracy
theory: Farinelli . The term ‘phallophoroi’ is otherwise first attested by Sosibius c.  bc
(FGrH  F ). A late lexicographer perhaps guesses (from the name) that men who tie phalloi to
their loins are ‘ithyphalloi’: [Nonnus], Or. .., ...
 The phallos-stick (as opposed to other forms of phalloi) is described by 8 Ar. Ach. ; 8 Clem. Al.
Protr. . p. , – St.; Suda s.v. -
 (E ); Atil. Fort. p. , – K.; Terent. Maur. (Keil,
Gramm. Lat., vol. vi) –.
 8 Ar. Ach. .
 The images listed in n.  and n.  indicate a single timber for the large ‘floats’ or ‘phallos-poles’
and this is explicitly attested for the phallos at Delos: Vallois : .
 Possibly we are to think of it as fixed in the ground: see Suda and Phot. s.v. ithyphalloi ( ,
.).
 eric csapo
like a walking stick, but even so it surely served as more than just an idle
prop: Terentianus Maurus implies that the ithyphalloi beat the ground with
them in rhythmic accompaniment to their song. Indeed, two out of the
three sources that connect phallos-sticks with any particular genre, connect
them with ithyphalloi. Lively dance, song and aggressive behaviour are
certainly more consistent with what we know of this genre of performer.
the character of the pompe or why do phalloi

have sticks?
In a recent book Kenneth Rothwell describes the Pompe of the Athenian
Dionysia as a ‘formal and dignified’ ritual, stressing its religious and sacrifi-
cial function and contrasting it with the free, wild and creative aristocratic
komos in which he seeks the origin of comedy. Was the Pompe really
‘formal and dignified’?
Surely the costume and processional accoutrements of the choruses that
participated in the Dionysian Pompe are not easily reconcilable with formal
dignity. Apologists have for centuries excused the phalloi as religious and
fertility symbols, tolerated, we are encouraged to believe, by the piety of an
otherwise mortified populace. Piety certainly licenses the phalloi. But our
archaic and early classical images of drunken men on the march bristling
with erect phalloi tied to heads and necks, or with them fixed like spear-
points on wooden sticks, are at best indifferent symbols of piety, and poorer
still, if they are meant to represent love and fertility. Surely the images, like
the sticks themselves, express the Pompe’s carnival mood of playful trans-
gression and aggression. This is why phallos-sticks consistently appear as
weapons in the hand of satyrs in Athenian vase-imagery. And surely the
phallic knife poised in the hands of the Dionysian clown on the red-
figured lekythos signifies ritually licensed aggression (Figure .), as does
the rhinoceros-like placement of phalloi on forehead and nose on the face of
the entertainers captured (or imagined) by the Berlin Painter (Figure .).
Even the large phallic floats are not just passive dolmens. The phallophoroi,
according to Semos, frequently rushed forward thrusting the phallos into
 Terent. Maur. (Keil, Gramm. Lat., vol. vi) –: ithyphallica porro citarunt musici poetae, | qui
ludicra carmina Baccho versibus petulcis | Graio cum cortice phello tres dabant trochaeos, | ut
nomine fit sonus ipso, Bacche Bacche Bacche.
 Mar. Plot. p. , ff. K.; Terent. Maur., previous note. The exception, Atil. Fort. p. , ff. K.,
connects them with phallophoroi and phalloidoi.
 Song and dance: Hyp. fr.  Jensen; Democh. FGrH  F . Aggression: see below.
 Rothwell : . Cf. Sourvinou-Inwood : , who claims that the Pompe of the Dionysia
‘involved a certain solemnity’.
Comedy and the Pompe: Dionysian genre-crossing 
the watching crowd and then paused (or ‘performed a stationary dance’)
while mocking the spectators. Semos’ ithyphalloi advertised the invasive
quality of their eponymous props: ‘make way, open up wide for the god,
because, upright and bursting, he wants to march through your midst’.
The name ‘ithyphalloi’ became popular among disaffected, vandalistically
minded aristocratic Athenian youth gangs, not because the ritual perform-
ers were famously ‘formal and dignified’, but surely because they came to
symbolize the physically aggressive and transgressive behaviour to which
these alienated and arrogant youths aspired. You do not put on a mask
and phallos in order to look like a satyr, but to act like one!
Verbal aggression is well attested for the Pompe (as it is for other
Dionysian processions in Athens) – this is why the word pompeia came to
denote aggressive abuse. On Semos’ testimony, verbal abuse formed part
of the performance of the phallophoroi and it should probably be inferred
from his report that the autokabdaloi were also later called iamboi. But
a certain amount of physical aggression was also tolerated and expected.
Demosthenes tells us of one Ctesicles who thought it fitting to participate
in the Athenian Pompe carrying a leather strap. Unfortunately he hap-
pened upon a personal enemy and thrashed him with it. The revealing
thing is that Ctesicles pleaded not guilty to violent assault due to ‘the
influence of the Pompe and drunkenness’ and would have been excused the
assault had it not been for the history of enmity between Ctesicles and his
victim, which made the violence look more like premeditation than the
 Semos FGrH  F  (On Paians): ‘then charging forward [the phallophoroi] would mock whomever
they chose’. ‘Clearly an aggressive gesture’, notes C. G. Brown : . For the connection between
phallic entertainers and ritual abuse: see Brown : –; Bierl : – ( for the inter-
pretation of ); Hedreen : . In addition to the passages on pompeia, below n. , see
also 8 Dem. De falsa legatione a (Dilts).
 Semos FGrH  F . For the sexual innuendo, see Csapo : .
 Dem. .–, , , . For the other youth gangs with phallic names, see Herter : –;
Bierl : .
 On masks at the Pompe: Dem. De fals. leg.  with scholion; 8 Dem. Meid.  (Dilts); Frontisi-
Ducroux . Cf. the expressions > and 2 - (Pl. Phdr. b; Platon.
Diff. Char. . Kost.; Ioh. Chrys. MPG .., .., .., .., .., etc.).
Sourvinou-Inwood :  is wrong to suppose that the words komos and komazein are technically
limited to the night procession of the Eisagoge: Halliwell : –.
 Men. Perinthia fr.  Arnott; 8 Dem. De cor. b (Dilts); Harp. s.v.

> ; Phot.
Lex. s.v.

> ( .); Phot. Lex. s.v.
( ,); Suda s.v.

> ( ). The term ‘from the wagons’, usually referred by modern scholars to the
Anthesteria and Lenaia because of Phot. Lex. s.v. @ 75@ ( .) and Suda s.v.
@ 75@ $ ( ), is likely to be common to all the main Dionysian processions at
Athens. See Dion. Hal. Ant. Rom. ..; 8 Lucian, Iupp. trag. .a–b (Rabe); 8 Lucian, Eun.
. (Rabe); Halliwell : – with further literature.
 See above, n. ; cf. Sosib. FGrH  F . See C. G. Brown : . Rotstein :  disagrees.
 Dem. Meid. .
 eric csapo
sort of random outburst one might expect on this occasion. A scholiast to
Demosthenes says that in the Pompe, men wore felt caps underneath masks
to muffle the impact of blows to the head acquired when they abused one
another. Unruliness was not only licensed but expected. For this reason
Aeschines could demonstrate the habitually good behaviour of Epicrates
by claiming he showed perfect control even at the Pompe of the Dionysia.
Decrees honouring ephebes make specific reference to their orderly con-
duct at the Dionysia. Decorum and good order from any semi-organized
group of young men was so far from being expected that the Athenians
created boards of ‘Wardens (epimeletai) of the Pompe’, who appear also to
have been called ‘Wardens of Good Conduct in the Theatres’ and ‘Wardens
of the Choruses’. Their task was ‘to make sure that choruses did not lose
control’ – not likely to refer to the circular, tragic or comic choruses, which
could hardly be expected to riot in the middle of their performance, but to
the many choruses of men at the Pompe, who paraded about armed with
phallos-sticks and very drunk.
The Christian polemicists clearly recognized the primarily aggressive
and transgressive character of phallos-sticks and phallic processions. The
ancient martyrology, Deeds of Saint Timothy, gives the most sensational
account. At the Katagogia for Dionysus at Ephesus on  January, ad
, the participants are said to have ‘tied on indecent adornments, and
even hidden their faces with masks so as not to be recognized, and carried
sticks and images of idols’. Here the ‘indecent adornments’ can only be
phalloi and ‘sticks and images of idols’ seems to refer to phallos-sticks, or
phallos-sticks and thyrsoi (only the phallos-sticks could be called ‘images of
idols’). Timothy, outraged and disgusted by ‘the indecent ornaments they
had put about themselves’, blocked the processional route and demanded
that the Ephesians give up their idolatry. Instead they advanced upon
him with the weapons at hand and we are told that he achieved a grizzly,
 8 Dem. . (Dilts). Felt bands or caps are also seen on the heads of tragic and comic actors. This
suggests that the caps are worn for comfort rather than protection. It is the cultural assumptions
behind the scholiast’s claim that are of interest. Felt bands or caps: Attic rf pelike, Phiale Painter,
c.  bc, Boston MFA .–, ARV 2 , ; Attic rf chous, c.  bc, Hermitage .
(Figure .). Cf. second figure from right on the first-century ad mosaic from the Casa del Poeta
Tragico in Pompei, Naples NM .
 Aeschin. De falsa leg. .
 The inscriptions are all second–first century bc: IG ii , ll. –; IG ii , ll. , ; IG ii
, ll. –; IG ii , ll. –; IG ii , l. ; IG ii , l. .
 See the discussion in Csapo and Wilson : .
 Usener . The event may well be historical: see Keil ; Herter b: .
 On the ‘indecent ornaments’, see Herter a: ; Herter b: ; and Herter :  and
n. .
Comedy and the Pompe: Dionysian genre-crossing 
if poetic martyrdom, beaten to death by the phallos-sticks of the pagan
faithful, a martyrdom so delightfully Dionysian, that one would sooner
be tempted to shelve Timothy with Orpheus and Pentheus than with
Lawrence and Anthony. A second episode of phallic transgression is
known from Antioch in ad : a heathen ran into church brandishing
phalloi and shouting abuse at the Christian faithful before (as Bishop
Athanasius reassures us) the wrath of God struck him blind. These are
the last two recorded uses of the Dionysian phallos.
It is easy to dismiss any diachronic or even synchronic connection
between drama and Dionysian ritual if we think of the Dionysian Pompe
as a formal and dignified procession of civic officials, priests and sacrifi-
ciants. Our sources suggest that for most Athenians the Pompe, not the
dramatic competition, was the climax of the festival. It was a playful, cre-
ative and transgressive ritual that involved costume, role-playing, dance,
music, obscenity, abuse, mock aggression, laughter and direct, universal
participation.
Rothwell’s interpretation of the Pompe conforms to a broader trend in
scholarship since the s that identifies the aristocratic symposium as the
mainspring of (especially archaic) Greek cultural achievement. It is true
that much of our ‘lyric’ poetry seems to assume a sympotic setting and also
true that imagery related to music and dance is found mainly on vessels
designed for the symposium. Many poetic and musical genres grew up in
the elite symposium. But most such genres were also only seconded to the
elite symposium from popular festival entertainments and others were never
absorbed into elite culture, even if they are found on sympotic vessels. Elites
were not as isolated from the public religious and festival activities of the
 The phallos-sticks used at the Katagogia are uncomprehendingly referred to as rhopala in the Greek
version and pali in the Latin.
 Athanasius, Hist. Arianorum . (Opitz) with Herter : .
 It is very tempting to connect the Berlin Painter’s phallic nose (Figure .) with the false noses
or long-nosed masks used in medieval and modern carnival, as does Hoffmann (: ). The
Berlin Painter’s phallic costume is, however, creative costuming beyond the Dionysian norm. Far
more tempting is to derive from phallos-sticks the plastic clubs that gangs of young celebrants use
to beat each other over the head at carnival processions in Athens today (also , see above,
n. ). Despite its transformation, the carnival hardware would show a gratifying continuity in both
spirit and function.
 Symposium and lyric poetry: Rösler : ; Pellizer : ; Stehle : –. Symposium
and komast vases: Fehr ; Isler-Kerényi ; Seeberg ; Smith ; Steinhart : –
(although Steinhart does not distinguish regularly between public banquet and private symposium);
Smith , passim. Symposium and komos vases: Steinhart (above); Rothwell . Without
denying the importance of the elite symposium, much of the more recent literature takes a softer
stand on its exclusivity or even its primacy in the development of music/poetry: see Budelmann
b: –; Carey : –; and on iambos, especially Rotstein : –. See for komast
and komos vases, Csapo and Miller b: –, –.
 eric csapo
polis as the lingering adherents of the polarized ‘alterity’ theories spawned
during the Cold War would have us believe. This is particularly true of the
Dionysian entertainments that developed in Athens and elsewhere: they
were certainly colourful, creative and transgressive enough to appeal to the
aristocrat in his cups, even if they did derive from the common culture of
the masses.
what comedy owes to the phallika

‘Discourse of genres’ implies a primarily synchronic relationship. If so,
it is nonetheless necessary to outline a theory of the diachronic relation-
ship between Athenian comedy and the choruses that participated in the
Dionysian Pompe: first because received wisdom is that Attic comedy began
much earlier than reliable evidence allows; secondly because a belief in com-
edy’s lineal or collateral descent from choruses of the Pompe appears to have
influenced the character and performance of many comic choruses in the
fifth century bc. In what follows I traverse some heavily trodden ground
but aspire to more concision and more strictly evidence-based conclusions
than is usual in discussions of comedy’s origins.
Attic vase-painting gives a clear indication of the impact that the cre-
ation (or revival) of the Athenian Dionysia had upon popular conscious-
ness. Dionysian imagery first appears in Attic black figure from about
 bc onwards, at first derived from and imitating Corinthian themes.
But Dionysian imagery becomes rampant only around  bc, when Attic
art also introduces many new subjects, and in particular subjects related
to Dionysian processions. Hedreen has shown that the treatment of
Dionysian myth, especially in depictions of the Return of Hephaestus,
is directly informed by the spirit and spectacle of the Dionysian Pompe.
Even satyrs after  bc begin to show a previously unknown and uncharac-
teristic discipline in their dance, moving in procession or with orchestrated
movements. It is from about  bc that we can date the beginning of
a series of over twenty Attic vases that show elaborately costumed cho-
ruses, depicting animal riders, beasts or transvestites. These are indeed
komoi, but hardly the spontaneous aristocratic entertainments hypothe-
sized by Rothwell. They perform a processional dance that is more lavishly
 Carpenter ; Shapiro : –; Hedreen ; Csapo and Miller b: –; Smith :
.
 Hedreen .  Hedreen .
 Green : –; Rothwell : –; Csapo and Miller b: –.
Comedy and the Pompe: Dionysian genre-crossing 
equipped, better choreographed and more practised than any known per-
formance before them.
This new interest in Dionysian processional imagery begins early in
the time of Peisistratus’ tyranny and its sudden efflorescence at this date
is hard to explain except in relation to Peisistratus’ creation of the Great
Dionysia (or its reorganization on a grand scale). Iconography confirms
the general view that Peisistratus attempted to eclipse the many local
festivals of Dionysus by creating a far more elaborate festival, centred in
Athens, and centred ultimately on the person of the tyrant himself.
The iconographic evidence (we have little else) thus suggests the fol-
lowing scenario for the early history of the City Dionysia. It was created
(or greatly expanded) about  bc. The primary event was a parade that
included choruses of various types. That some of these choruses were per-
ceived as dithyrambic, or actually performed hymns called dithyrambs,
seems probable: the komos (‘animal rider’) vases and some satyr choruses
are likely candidates. Other choruses were, from the very beginning,
phallic. Both phallic and ‘dithyrambic’ types have several Dionysian fea-
tures in common: they might have leaders (exarchoi), they wear costumes,
and the costumes are by nature bestial or grotesque – indeed the phallic
and bestial imagery freely crosses the boundary, if such it can be called
(I doubt that the archaic Pompe recognized the boundaries or genres dis-
tinguished by later Greeks). Despite the fact that the name ‘dithyramb’
was certainly in use and meaningful at this time, our evidence suggests
that both species of Dionysian processional choruses were still thought of,
generically, as komoi: that is why the men’s choruses (popularly also called
‘circular chorus’ or ‘dithyramb’) that were later held in the theatre might
be referred to by this archaizing term and why also comedy literally means
‘song of the komos’. We should probably think of a generic Dionysian
 Csapo and Miller b: . The control and development of Dionysian cult was a conscious policy
of archaic tyrants, notably Periander of Corinth, Cleisthenes of Sicyon and Pheidon of Argos: the
subject is profoundly treated in the recent work of Seaford, especially: Seaford b; Seaford ;
and Seaford .
 The Peisistratan creation of the City Dionysia was challenged by Connor  but reconfirmed by
Sourvinou-Inwood ; cf. R. Parker : –.
 For the ‘dithyrambic’ imagery of the komos vases, see Csapo , esp. –; Rusten b: –;
Hedreen : –, –; Seaford : .
 See above, nn. –.
 For the iconographic representation of the exarchos, see Csapo – (to which add Athens NM
: see Smith : pl. a).
 Pickard-Cambridge : –; Csapo and Miller b:  (citing other literature). The inter-
pretation of komos is disputed both in the Fasti and in the Law of Euegoros. I hope to address the
problem elsewhere. Note that Kourebion/Epikrates is said to 1 in the Pompe of the Dionysia
(Dem. De fals. leg. ; Aeschin. De fals. leg. ).
 eric csapo
choral form, ‘komos’, of two main varieties, dithyrambic choruses and phal-
lika, each with subvarieties: animal-rider (or beast) choruses and satyrs for
the former; phallophoroi and ithyphalloi for the latter.
The vase-paintings of animal-rider (or beast) choruses from the Pompe
show both processional and circular song and dance. Even in the classical
period the Pompe moved slowly, probably from the Dipylon gate, stopping
to perform sacrifice and hymns at altars, and especially at the Altar of the
Twelve Gods in the Athenian agora. The existence of important stations
along the processional route of course explains why our komos vases depict
dancing both in a linear (processional) and in a circular formation (circling
altars). The part of the agora adjacent to the Altar of the Twelve Gods was
known as the ‘orchestra’ or dancing place and later became a book market
outside the festival season. But during the festival season (both Dionysia
and Panathenaea), wooden stands (ikria) were set up for those who wished
to sit and watch the succession of choral performances around the altar.
We appear still to have the text of at least one dithyramb performed at the
Altar of the Twelve Gods, written by Pindar (fr.  M).
Things changed when a theatre was built north of the Sanctuary of
Dionysus: the archaeological remains suggest a date for the building of
the theatre at the very end of the sixth century bc. With the building
of the theatre, a much larger audience could gather at the end-point of
the procession and this probably encouraged a far greater elaboration of
choral set pieces than did the smaller ‘stations’ along the processional route.
Possibly prizes previously existed for komoi; we have no way of telling. But
with the building of the theatre there was an unprecedented opportunity for
 Csapo : –.
 Xen. Eq. Mag. .. The altar, which dates back to the time of the Pisistratids, was doubtless
a station on the processional route even before the classical agora was built. The archaic route
probably moved on from the Altar of the Twelve Gods, along the Street of the Tripods, through the
archaic agora, to stop again at the large plateia in front of the Old Prytaneon, before finally moving
on to the Sanctuary of Dionysus: Schmalz . It is possible, but I think unlikely, that Xenophon
is referring to performances connected to the procession of the Eisagoge (or a connected ‘komos’)
which took place the night before the Pompe, as Sourvinou-Inwood argued (: –; cf.
R. Parker : ): in this case it would have nothing to do with the phallic choruses (which are
uniquely attached to the Pompe), but would have something to do with dithyrambs.
 Wycherley : – nos. , –.
 Wycherley :  nos. –, ; Camp : – fig. ; Camp :  and pl. .
 Zimmermann : –; Wilson : .
 It is interesting that tradition placed the transfer of entertainment from the agora to the newly
built theatre in / bc after the wooden stands (ikria) collapsed: Suda s.v. Pratinas ( )
cf. Phot. Lex. s.v. ikria ( .) (the collection of evidence by Hammond : – conflates two
traditions: one that there were performances in the agora before the theatron, meaning ‘theatre’,
was built; second that there was a poplar or poplars above the ikria of the Theatre of Dionysus
before the theatron, meaning ‘[‘Lycurgan’] auditorium’, was built; see Roselli : –. The logic
is presumably that benchwork built onto the natural slope of the acropolis above the theatre would
not need to be so elaborate and so a collapse of ikria there would be less catastrophic).
Comedy and the Pompe: Dionysian genre-crossing 
establishing a contest that a large audience might witness, and it is probably
no coincidence that Athenian civic records of the competition stretched
back no earlier than the last decade of the sixth century. It is from c.  bc
that the Fasti (as usually reconstructed) record winners of tragic and men’s
and boys’ choruses. That men’s and boys’ choruses soon came to be known
as ‘circular’ suggests that an effective separation was soon made between the
processional and the theatrical entertainments. Some such development is
indicated by the ancient testimony that Lasos of Hermione ‘introduced
the contest for dithyrambs’ as well as Pindar’s testimony that Lasos first
converted the dithyramb from a linear to a circular form. In official
speech, however, men’s and boys’ choruses are never called dithyrambs,
presumably because true dithyrambs were perceived to be processional and
cultic.
The building of the theatre may have prompted another set of changes
in the iconographic record. The most important shows a shift in focus
from the procession to the theatre. Within a decade or two of the building,
the komos vases with beast choruses, animal riders and transvestites come
to an end. At the same time two new subjects, based on the theatrical
competitions, appear: we have the first appearance in Attic vase-painting
of choregic tripods (and other imagery related to the men’s and boys’
lyric choruses) and the first depictions of tragic choruses. Paradoxically,
perhaps, the Pompe continues to be a topic of interest, but with a new
subject. It is in about  bc that we get the first depictions of the choruses
of ithyphalloi that are the subject of this chapter. The ithyphalloi doubtless
emerge as a subject because of new interest stimulated by the expansion
of the City Dionysia; but unlike the new genres they are not theatrical.
(By this date ‘theatrical genres’ could have included comedy, added to the
Dionysia around  bc.) Depictions of comedy in vase-painting appear
only much later, and they focused for the most part on actors. Might it
be that early comedy was so close in form and spirit to the phallic choruses
that the former sparked the vase-painters’ interest in the latter? (This is a
genuine question, not a disguised proposition.)
The building of the theatre doubtless had some impact on the perfor-
mance of the phallic choruses. In late classical and Hellenistic times the
theatre could be the site of a prolonged and climactic performance by phal-
lic choruses: Hyperides mentions the ithyphalloi dancing in the orchestra
 Suda s.v. Lasos ( ); Pind. fr. b M (with D’Angour ; D’Angour’s theory is criticized and
modified, unsuccessfully in my view, by Porter ).
 Csapo and Miller b: –.
 Choregic imagery: Csapo b. Tragic choruses and choreuts: Csapo a: –.
 Csapo a: –.
 eric csapo
and Semos’ account of both ithyphalloi and phallophoroi focuses on the
moment that the choruses enter the theatre. But ithyphalloi remained
primarily processional and non-theatrical, as is clear from Demochares’
account of the ithyphallic procession to greet Demetrius the Besieger.
Not much later we have evidence that the actors’ union, the Artists of
Dionysus, who in Hellenistic times assumed much of the responsibility for
organizing the Dionysian Pompe, also provided the choruses of ithyphalloi,
at least at the Soteria in the time of Ptolemy Philadelphus.
It is impossible to say in what sense comedy existed in Athens as a
separate genre before around  bc, when it was officially adopted as a
competitive genre at the City Dionysia. Before this date there is no trace
of Attic comedy apart from the rather desperate efforts of later scholars
(ancient and modern) to invent a tradition older than the Doric. But
comedy did already exist certainly in Sicily and possibly in Megara and
elsewhere in the Peloponnese. Suppose, for the sake of argument, that after
the building of the theatre the phallic choruses expanded their normal
processional repertoire to include a finale in the theatre with more plot
and narrative structure and that this gradually grew into a fully theatrical
event. Even if this was the case, we would still have to believe that the
main models for the creation of Attic comedy were the already evolved
narrative and theatrical genres of tragedy, satyr-play, circular chorus and
Dorian comedy, not to mention evolved literary genres such as iambic
poetry (despite the cultic obscenity and abuse already practised in phallic
processions). By the time we can measure its pulse, Attic comedy is
sui generis and multigeneric. The one most striking feature that comedy
inherits from its carnival matrix is an unrestricted freedom in appropriating
the form and contents of other genres, and for this reason it has fairly been
called a ‘carnival of genres’.
 Hyp. fr.  Jensen; Semos FGrH  F  (PMG a; Bierl : –); cf. the prominence of the
theatre in a third-century ad phallic performance in Euboea (SEG  no. ,  no. ; Csapo
: ).
 Democh. FGrH  F ; Duris FGrH  F .
 Ath. c (Powell : ); Lightfoot : ; Bierl :  n. . See also n.  below.
 The efforts of later scholars to defend the theory of the genre’s Attic origins have left us only the
(dubiously formed) name Sousarion, a fragment that is clearly a later forgery, and biographical
details of the poet which indicate that, if he existed, he may have been Megarian and composed
iambic poetry (rather than real comedy). Rusten b is surely right to cast doubt on both the
name and the tradition.
 For a possible original coalescence of iambos, dithyramb and phallic procession, see Csapo and
Miller b: .
 I refer to the Bakhtinian reading of Aristophanes by Platter . Bakhtin took a particular
interest in Greek Old Comedy, ‘a polyglot genre’ (: ), in developing his carnival theory and
his approach has had broad resonance in recent work on Old Comedy: see esp. Carrière ,
Möllendorff .
Comedy and the Pompe: Dionysian genre-crossing 
What ancient Athenians thought, even if questionable or untrue, is,
nonetheless, important for understanding later developments in comedy.
We cannot be sure if phallic choruses were supposed to be the origin of
comedy by anyone earlier than Aristotle, but the connection is an easy
one: in addition to sharing a mixture of choral and individual delivery, both
genres were scurrilous, obscene, potentially aggressive and abusive; both
employed costume which emphasized the phallos, physical distortion of
the body and potentially masks. Aristotle does, however, mention a debate,
possibly much older than his day, in which pro-Dorians supported their
claim to have invented comedy by disputing the derivation of ‘komoidia’
from ‘komos’. There can be no doubt that ‘komoidia’ really did mean
the ‘song of the komos’ and it is very likely that all the various genres
of processional chorus (including but not limited to the phallic varieties)
that appeared in Dionysian parades were closely associated in the popular
mind with comedy. A large percentage of the earliest known titles of
comedy, not only from Athens, but even from Sicily, appeal to choral
types that are either known from the archaic Pompe or part of a broader
Dionysian matrix of processional choral forms: titles such as Epicharmus’
Komastai (alternatively called Hephaestus and reportedly about the Return
of Hephaestus), Dionysoi, Bacchae and Harpagai (apparently about Kotyto,
whose choral forms were assimilated to Dionysian komoi) – this is all the
more surprising if, as many believe, Sicilian comedy had no chorus. From
the first fifty years of comedy in Athens we have a very high density of
beast choruses: Magnes’ Birds, Gall-Flies, Frogs, Crates’ Beasts, Ecphantides’
Satyrs, Callias’ Satyrs (relevant too no doubt are the plays entitled Dionysus
by Magnes, Crates and Ecphantides). And, as we will see in a moment,
such choruses continue to be popular.
The synchronic influence of the komos is most palpable in the second
and third generation of Attic comedy. Recent studies of Cratinus make
it very clear that he cultivated a public image of himself as a poetic reac-
tionary: Emmanuela Bakola in particular has convincingly shown that
Cratinus presented himself as a champion of traditional ‘Dionysiac poet-
ics’ in opposition to the comic poets of his day, who, he felt, had strayed too
far from their roots, particularly, it seems, in their emulation of tragedy.
It is not just for his revival of the spirit of Archilochus that Aristophanes
spoke of ‘the initiates in the Bacchic rites of the bull-eating tongue of
 Philomnestos, who seems to presuppose such a connection, is undatable (see above, n. ).
 Arist. Poet. a–b.
 Kerkhof : , –; Jameson, Jordan and Kotansky : –.
 Bakola : – and passim. Bakola picks up from the important studies of Cratinus and iambos
of Rosen  and Biles , who however speak more narrowly of an ‘Archilochean poetics’.
 eric csapo
Cratinus’ (Ran. ). Cratinus claimed to draw his creative inspiration
directly from Dionysus, writing only when drunk and reviving the ‘tra-
ditional’ Dionysian spirit of comedy. Cratinus’ choruses frequently have
a Dionysian or closely paradionysian persona: he wrote a Boukoloi (not
‘Cowherds’ but a term referring to worshippers who process with Diony-
sus in the form of a bull), a Euneidae (named after the clan of musicians and
priests of Dionysus Melpomene who also organized Dionysian parades),
Thracians (probably Thracian women processing for the cult of Bendis, an
orgiastic cult with dance and music broadly assimilated to that of Diony-
sus), one or two choruses of transvestite men (Malthakoi and Drapetides),
and at least two satyr choruses (Dionysalexandros and Satyroi), and a beast
chorus (Cheirones), not to mention a play called Dionysoi, whose chorus
was presumably composed of the god’s worshippers. About some of these
plays we know enough to be sure that Cratinus imitated cultic choruses:
in Boukoloi (as in Euripides’ Bacchae) the parodos imitates a processional
dithyramb; in Dionysalexandros both the parodos and the exodos seem
to have imitated cultic processions. Even in Archilochoi the fragments
suggest that iambic poetry was conceived to be a performative rather than
a literary genre and possibly in a komos setting: the fragments refer to an
annual festival and notably to ithyphalloi (frr.  and ). In presenting
himself as an authentic Dionysian poet, Cratinus draws liberally upon all
the choral types associated with either Dionysus’ mythic retinue (satyrs,
bacchants) or his festival retinue composed of the typical choral groups that
perform in the Pompe: satyrs, beasts, transvestites, iambists and ithyphalloi.
But he does this without privileging any single choral type: like the Pompe,
Cratinus’ comedy is both generically inclusive and transgressive.
Cratinus probably marks the high point of the Pompe’s influence upon
comedy, but the influence continues to be felt until well into the fourth
century and the era associated with ‘Middle Comedy’. Beast choruses con-
tinue to appear in comedy until – bc. Satyr choruses in comedy
have their main burst of popularity in the s and s bc and are after-
wards only revived by the archaizing Timocles as late as the s bc. At
least one classical comedy had a chorus whose persona was drawn directly
from the Pompe, Ephippus’ Obeliaphoroi, although we may suspect the
respective Komastai of Ameipsias (or Phrynichus) and Timocles’ Dionysi-
azousai. Other choruses definitely had a mystic or Dionysian character
and are likely to have incorporated motifs common to the choruses of
 Bakola : –, –. The exodos in which the satyrs escort Dionysus to the Greek ships
alludes to a Dionysian Pompe even without the scapegoat overtones argued by Bakola.
 See the thorough study by Rothwell : –.  Storey .
Comedy and the Pompe: Dionysian genre-crossing 
the Pompe: Eupolis’ Baptai (with a chorus of transvestite worshippers of
the orgiastic goddess Kotyto), Autocrates’ Tympanistai (see fr. ), Phryn-
ichus’ Mystai, Antiphanes’ Carians (a transvestite or effeminate chorus of
orgiastic worshippers of Cybele) and of course the respective Bacchae of
Antiphanes, Diocles and Lysippus. The beast choruses of Aristophanes
are well known; Babylonians may have had a chorus of Asiatics introducing
Dionysus; Seasons appears to have been about the rites of Sabazius; the
chorus of Lemnian Women introduced the cult of Bendis. It should be
remembered that Acharnians (–) directly incorporated a representa-
tion of the Pompe.
what the phallika owe to comedy: phallic choruses in

fourth-century vase-painting
Whatever comedy owed to phallic choruses, it is clear from vase-painting
that from about  bc at the latest comedy dominated the intergeneric
exchange. Four Attic vase-paintings from the first half of the fourth century
show that the costume and character of phallic dancers underwent some
assimilation to those of comic choreuts and actors.
The latest surviving wielder of a phallos-stick is indeed embedded in a
scene that is otherwise entirely concerned with comedy. Hitherto unno-
ticed, the phallos-stick appears on a well-known chous in St Petersburg
dated to about  bc (Figure .). The chous shows five children play-
ing the roles of Dionysian entertainers (a recurrent motif in choes). Each
of the children is in costume and each is associated with a comic actor’s
mask. All of the figures wear the protective band used by actors to shield
the sides and (in some cases) top of the head against the hard edges of the
mask (and doubtless also to secure the fit). And yet the figures on the far
 Storey a: –.
 This list of choruses that draw upon komos types familiar from the Pompe would be much longer
if it could be shown that choruses of ‘foreigners’ appeared on the series of Attic komos vases, as is
frequently claimed (e.g. Seeberg : –; Rothwell : –), but this seems to me the same
kind of misreading of general Dionysian costume and imagery as led to the initial identification of
our phallic performers as Lydians and Scythians. Play titles such as the Lydians of Magnes or the
Cretans of Nicochares are likely to be relevant as choruses of worshippers introducing an orgiastic
cult (either that of Dionysus or the various deities that are regularly conflated with Dionysian cult
in ancient drama), but not qua foreigners.
 Norwood : –, –.
 Attic rf chous, c.  bc, Hermitage . . Rusten (forthcoming) demonstrates the impor-
tance of this vase to the history of comedy. If Bulle is right that Scopas’ Pothos carried a phallos-stick,
then the gem, mentioned in n.  above, is later. But see the doubts expressed in the same note.
 See Csapo a: –.
 Rusten (forthcoming) shows that the masks are accurate representations of known types.
 See above, n. .
 eric csapo
Figure . Attic red-figure chous, c.  bc
Comedy and the Pompe: Dionysian genre-crossing 
Figure . Attic red-figure bell krater, Hare-Hunt Painter, c. – bc
right and left of the scene are certainly not dressed as actors: one wears the
costume of a choregos and the other appears to be dressed as a piper. There
is therefore a certain blurring of comic actor imagery with other personnel
involved in Dionysian entertainment.
The three boys in the centre of the visual field all wear the actor’s
bodytights and the comic somation (padded body with enlarged stomach,
buttocks, breasts and phallos). It is the ‘actor’ on the left who is of particular
interest to our investigation. He carries the mask of a comic king (it has
a little crown and is the usual mask for Zeus in western Greek comic
vase-paintings). Unlike the other two ‘actors’ he also wears a himation,
though possibly only as a mark of his superior social status. In place of a
sceptre, however, the figure carries a phallos-stick. We do not actually have
an image of a phallic entertainer, but rather an image in which the cultic
symbol of one Dionysian entertainer is confused with, or appropriated to
the use of, another. The readiness with which the attribute of a phallic
dancer is transferred to a comic actor is of particular interest as the first
sign of a process of assimilation, at least in vase imagery, of the performers
in the Pompe to the performers in the theatre.
Although phallos-sticks are missing from three fourth-century vase-
paintings of choral entertainers, the entertainers have enough points in
common with their fifth-century counterparts to make it likely that they
too are to be thought of as choruses at the Pompe. One is known only from
a drawing made in  (Figure .): the Attic red-figured bell krater upon
 Rusten (forthcoming).
 eric csapo
which it is based has never been photographed and I infer that it is in poor
shape. Nonetheless, we can see ivy-wreathed men wearing spotty body-
suits moving in procession; one appears to carry a cake. These costumes
look something more like comic actors’ costumes, since they include the
usual form of actor’s phallos and a suggestion of padding. But the figures are
not likely to be comic actors or a comic chorus. The padding is slight and
the bodysuit worn in comic costume, since it represents stage-nakedness, is
never decorated and never belted as this is. Moreover the facial features are
differentiated and not distorted: even if the faces are meant to be seen as
masked, the masks are not uniform and the beardlessness of the figure on
the left shows that the chorus is of mixed age. Comic choruses never show
this diversity. One should note too that the toes of the piper are articulated
but none of the toes of the choreuts, suggesting that they are wearing boots.
Possibly Gerhard could not make out (or did not recognize) the ivy spots
that are here rendered as Xs and Os. He also could make nothing of the
stick in the hand of the rightmost dancer. It is too long and crooked to
be a torch. It may be a walking stick, but a walking stick is an odd prop for
a chorus especially of men in their prime. It is likely that Gerhard would
have misrecognized a phallos-stick if he saw it.
The vase indicates a processional movement: the feet of the four leftmost
figures are all directed to the right and their bodies appear to describe a
stylized march rather than what we would call a dance. The rightmost figure
faces the group and has one arm raised in what might appear to be a speaking
gesture (Gerhard apparently took him to be holding something small in his
right hand, but this is unlikely). His configuration conforms to a standard
schema for showing a lead singer, or exarchos. Even without the detail of
a phallos-stick, we would have to conclude from the processional nature of
the image, the details of costume (including the ‘comic’ phalloi), the ivy
crowns as well as the ‘ivy spots’ on the costume, and of course the presence
of the cake, that the vase is meant to depict a chorus from a Dionysiac
procession. The phalloi indicate a connection with the Dionysian Pompai,
the only processions at Athens for which phallic choruses are attested.
An image on a recently published Athenian bell krater of – bc
shows a chorus which is certainly meant to be interpreted as a group
 Attic rf bell krater, Hare-Hunt Painter, c. – bc, S. Agata de’ Goti, formerly collection
Mustilli, ARV 2 , MMC 3 , AV . Gerhard a: pl.  and Gerhard b: . Gerhard’s
drawing is reproduced in Wieseler : pl. ix, ; Bieber :  fig. .
 Gerhard b: .
 Even the chorus of old men on the bf skyphos, Thebes BE ., carry torches not sticks: see
Green :  fig. a.
 Csapo –.
Comedy and the Pompe: Dionysian genre-crossing 
Figure . Attic red-figure bell krater, – bc
of performers from the Pompe of the Dionysia (Figure .). The bell
krater shows a group of four men in procession against a background of
decorative ivy leaves. The first man on the right is bald, front and top,
like the Sabouroff Painter’s group, and prances in what appears to be a
mincing effeminate manner (krotalos-players sometimes adopt this stance).
The second and third men have several days’ growth of beard on the
side of their faces like the Berlin Painter’s choreuts. All the men wear ivy
garlands (the berries are emphasized with added white), spotty bodytights
and large ‘looped’ phalloi. The phalloi are certainly of the type worn by
comic actors (and possibly comic choreuts). So are the bodytights, but only
in form: comic tights are never decorated but are designed to represent
naked flesh. And there is no suggestion of comic padding. Three of the
men wear the familiar kothornoi highlighted in added white paint. There
is enough similarity in costume with the early classical phallic choruses of
Figures .–. to suggest that the spots on the costume are intended to
suggest ivy. We are probably to recognize the men as masked: Ian McPhee
tells me that the line of the chin continues up to the ear, contrary to
 Attic rf bell krater, Telos Group (Schauenburg) or Telos Painter (McPhee), – bc, Naples,
private collection. Schauenburg : pl. .–; Green : . I thank Dick Green for bringing
this vase to my attention.
 eric csapo
the normal practice of the Telos Painter and other painters of the fourth
century. In any case the faces are different and suggest men of different
ages: they are certainly no comic chorus. Threatening, probably, is the way
the figure on the left holds his stick or torch. The middle figures are engaged
in transporting important contributions to the feast that will follow the
sacrifice at the end of the procession.
I do not know the identity of the prominent object emphasized by
added white paint in the hand of the man second in the procession: Green
very plausibly suggests a Mediterranean white radish. Unmistakable,
however, is the large object, also emphasized by added white that the man
with the radish(?) carries on a pole together with the man behind him. It
is not a cake, but something equally suited to the sacrificial procession of
an Athenian festival, indeed one uniquely attested for the Pompe of the
Dionysia. It is a kind of bread baked on a stick called ‘obel bread’.
The exclusively Dionysian quality of obel bread seems to have elicited
an aetiological myth that Dionysus invented the bread while on military
campaign: no doubt so that it could be carried by his creatures while ‘on
the march’. That obel-bread carriers, obeliaphoroi, were no less colourful
 I. McPhee per litteras; Schauenburg : ; Green : : Green sees ‘jutting chins’, but adds
that ‘it is hard to say if the painter omitted to fill in their beards, or if the intention was simply to
make them grotesque’.
 Green : , but it is not primarily, I suspect, ‘festive food’, as Green suggests (the most
common use of the radish in Greek literature, if not in Greek culture, is to provide an emetic). The
associations of the radish in this context are at least as likely to be symbolic as alimentary, and to
allude to the phallic nature and function of the vegetable: Ar. Nub.  (with scholia ad loc. and
a, d, a); 8 Ar. Plut. ; Lucian, De mort. Peregr. . (with scholia ad loc.); Hesych. s.v.
=- ! ; Suda s.vv. ( ) and =- ( ); Carey .
 The obel bread said to be found on choes (van Hoorn :  figs. –, ; Crosby : ) is
in fact streptos cakes: see Hamilton : . Choes are not in any case restricted to themes related
to the Anthesteria; they have a broad (and not exclusive) preference for Dionysian themes.
 Ath. b; Poll. .; Paus. Attic. %ttikän ½nomtwn sunagwg
1; Phot. Lex. s.v. obelias artos
(
.). See also Kassel and Austin on Ar. fr. . Schauenburg : – considers but ultimately
rejects the notion that the object is meant to represent meat. A Boeotian bf lekanis lid, c.  bc
(Adolphseck Schloß Fasanerie ; van Straten , V, fig. ; cf. Schauenburg : ) shows
meat being stacked over most of the length of a long spit (the one possible Attic equivalent, a cup
by Makron, ARV 2 /, Para. , Addend. , is described by van Straten :  as ‘man
taking dough (?) from lebes on tripod stand’). Schauenburg, however, notes the difference in shape
(the object here is in fact ‘stomach shaped’, exactly as Photius describes obel bread). But one should
also note that the Boeotian lekanis is careful to articulate the divisions between slices of meat.
Moreover, the Telos Painter and the painter of the agora polychrome oinochoe (see below) paint
the bread white (it is uncooked or semi-cooked dough which is meant to be baked at the sacrifice
in the sanctuary), even though the agora polychrome has seven different colours, including pink,
at his disposal. Moreover, one never sees men carrying meat in this way, nor is one likely to (Attic
scenes of men carrying meat are very different: see van Straten : ): the meat is butchered
and cooked at the place of sacrifice. Only live animals appear in sacrificial processions. If food is
carried it is almost invariably cakes or bread (for the radish, see above, n. ).
 Ath. b drawing on the Epikleseis of Socrates.
Comedy and the Pompe: Dionysian genre-crossing 
characters than phallic entertainers, if they were indeed distinguishable,
is suggested by the attested use of ‘obeliaphoroi’ as a derogatory term for
workers and rustics. Obeliaphoroi were interesting enough to Ephippus
for him to give their name to one of his comedies (and evidently therefore
to the chorus). Depictions of obel bread appear twice elsewhere: once
on an Attic polychrome oinochoe, and once on an Apulian bell krater.
Only in the case of the Apulian krater do the obeliaphoroi clearly wear full
comic costume. Indeed the comification of the subject is so complete that
the figures are drawn on top of a stage. The Attic oinochoe, though it is
frequently referred to comedy, is far more likely to belong to our small
(but growing) repertoire of images of entertainers from the Dionysian
Pompe. Although the details of costume have not survived in any clear
form, enough remains to show that both figures share features with our
phallic choruses: they have long beards and one is depicted in kothornoi
and the same kind of rustic hat we find drawn by the Pistoxenos Painter
(Figure .).
Yet another chorus of Dionysian performers appear on an Attic red-
figured bell krater excavated from an ancient cemetery in Cástulo, near
Linares in Southern Spain (Figure .). This is a far more doubtful
case. The costumes look comic: lines at the four visible ankles and the
three visible wrists indicate the use of the bodytights worn by actors and
choreuts. The use of the comic bodysuit (somation) is indicated by the
large bellies, buttocks and phalloi. Even the piper (second from left) wears
a comic body: the lines on his upper thigh make this especially clear. There
are, however, good reasons to think this is not comedy. The one Attic vase-
painting and the two Attic reliefs that do certainly show comic choruses
show uniform masks, costumes and movements, only the piper excepted
(the pipers wear the same formal costume that we find in scenes of tragedy).
Here, however, the costumes are distinguished, even if all appear comic
 Phot. Lex. s.v. obelias artos ( .).  Ephipp. frr. –.
 Attic polychrome oinochoe, c.  bc, Agora P , MMC 3 AV ; Apulian bell krater, Near to
the Painter of Copenhagen , – bc, St Petersburg  (W. ), PhV 2 .
 The claim that all of the polychrome oinochoai in the group published by Crosby  are somehow
related to comedy cannot be sustained. In fact Agora P , identified by Webster in Pickard-
Cambridge : fig.  as an ‘effeminate reveller’ is very likely to be another phallic entertainer
from the Pompe: he wears the cuffed kothornoi and carries a staff that, judging from the photograph
of the pot, is intended to be a phallos-stick. Unfortunately the poor quality of the painting and the
even more lamentable state of its preservation allow no firm ground for argument.
 Attic rf bell krater, – bc, Cástulo ; Blázquez : – fig. , pls. –; McPhee
: ; Domı́nguez and Sánchez :  no. ,  fig. ; Green : .
 The published photograph makes clear, as the drawing does not, that there are lines at the wrists
of the rightmost figure.
 eric csapo
Figure . Fragments of an Attic red-figure bell krater, – bc
(including the costume of the piper). Only the figure on the right looks
masked, or at least has a grotesque face, but not those on either side of the
piper. It is possible that the figures that flank the piper are wearing roughly
the same costume (the one on the right does not have the himation worn
by the one on the left). If this is a scene from comedy it must show an
image of two choreuts, a piper and a comic actor. But if this is so, the vase
is truly unique: there is virtually no representation in Greek art that shows
choreuts and actors together in performance. But the choreuts are not
shown making uniform movements or even movements that might strike
the viewer as belonging to the same pattern. It is very hard to see how the
painter could have expected anyone to recognize that these two figures are
meant to represent a comic chorus. Their incoherent, vaguely processional
movements (a procession seems indicated by the presence of torches) seem
rather to suggest the iconography of entertainers at the Pompe. But if so,
they share nothing more with the genre than this vaguely processional and
non-uniform movement and the ivy garlands whose traces are visible on
the heads of the rightmost figures. The fragment from Cástulo remains
problematic no matter what genre we refer it to.
 The small figure adjacent a tragic chorus on an Attic rf krater in Basel (BS ) is a notable
exception, if this is an actor.
Comedy and the Pompe: Dionysian genre-crossing 
conclusion
From about  bc Athenian art takes a minor interest in the choral
groups that performed in the Dionysian Pompe. From about  to  bc
we have several vase-paintings of choral groups who wear costumes typified
by sleeved, belted and ankle length (sometimes fringed) garments, ivy
spots, kothornoi, ivy garlands and sometimes masks. They move and dance
in procession to pipe music and are associated with such Pompe-specific
props as phallos-sticks, phallic adornments and obel bread. They are not
comic but they have a lot in common with comedy. They may not be
precisely the subgenre of phallic chorus that Aristotle was visualizing when
he derived comedy from ‘those who led off the phallika’, but they were
surely included within his general purview when he linked comedy and
phallika. Even if the diachronic relationship between phallika and comedy
is wrong (at the very least it is simplistic), the remains of Old Comedy
attest to a general belief that a special relationship existed between them.
Athenian comic poets frequently model their choruses after choral varieties
(including phallic choruses) known from the Pompe, and this is especially
true of self-styled Dionysian traditionalists and archaizers, such as Cratinus
and (much later) Timocles. By about  bc, however, we have strong
evidence that the main influence flowed from comedy to phallika: the
costume of phallic performers remains clearly distinct from comedy but
undergoes a high degree of assimilation nonetheless: one wonders if the
‘voluntary’ performers were already being replaced by professional actors
in the fourth century Pompe: this appears to have been standard practice
in Hellenistic times.
The vase-paintings also show that our phallic performers belong to a
broad community of Dionysian choral performers with whom they share
many motifs, and with whom they share the same occasion (the Pompe)
and purpose (carnival, sacrifice). The patterns that differentiate our phallic
performers from other phallic performers and other komoi are variable,
relatively vague and easily transgressed. This is a characteristic of Dionysian
choruses and of Dionysus himself, who transgresses all norms and barriers.
But this transient and permeable quality is something that comedy also
 See n.  above. For the artists organizing and/or participating in processions generally: Aneziri
: , –, –, ; Lightfoot : . Already in the Euboean decree of c.  bc (IG
xii , , – supplements) it appears that pipers and perhaps other artists who were hired
for the theatrical competitions were also required to participate in the Pompe (in IG xii , ,
ll. –, – all contest performers are required to take part in the procession for the Artemisia).
Cf. Aneziri : .
 eric csapo
inherits to a far greater degree than tragedy or even satyr-play. For this
reason comedy can fairly be called a ‘genre of genres’ and in this respect
too it resembles its cultic Dionysian matrix. Old Comedy draws freely
upon all musical and speech genres, but Old Comedy mostly draws its
form and contents from the cognate Dionysian genres of tragedy, satyr-
play, dithyramb, iambos and the sub-literary choral komoi of the Pompe. In
this sense, Aristotle is both deeply insightful and surely wrong, or at least
overstating the case, when he derives comedy specifically from the phallika.
c h a p te r 3
Iambos, comedy and the question of

generic affiliation
Ralph Rosen
It is a commonplace to note Old Comedy’s many explicit interactions with

other literary genres. Indeed, parodic, mocking comedy, in particular –
which characterizes much of Aristophanes and probably many of his frag-
mentary or lost contemporaries – derives much of its appeal, if not its
very raison d’être, from its relationship with other genres. In the case of
Old Comedy, parody of tragedy is the most famous instance of its self-
conscious dialogue of genres, but there are many others as well – its parody
of epic and lyric poetry, for example, and even of contemporary prose gen-
res of history, philosophy, medicine and rhetoric. The relationship that
Old Comedy fashions for itself with all such genres is one of alterity, by
which I mean that its success depends at the most basic level on the fact
that these target genres are other than, different from, comedy, and would
under ordinary circumstances be out of place within the comic enterprise.
Literary parody within comedy, in short, is a process of ‘allusion’, construed
in the most traditional sense of the word as indicating a conscious attempt
by the poet to play to an audience’s familiarity with a literary tradition that
is not comedy (or at least not Aristophanic comedy), and which would be
laughable when incorporated into it.
 See Willi : – (and then passim) on linguistic ‘register variation’ in Aristophanes. Not all register
variation in Aristophanes is parody, but most parody involves some sort of register variation to mark
it as a language that is different from an expected norm. See Willi : – for an attempt to
establish a base-line Aristophanic grammar (and stylistics) which can be helpful in detecting parodic
deviations.
 Literary parody (as opposed to parody in other artistic modes, such as music, where the term can
be used neutrally to describe thematic borrowing), especially in comic genres, tends to be mocking
and ‘negative’, but not necessarily or always so; it does, however, nearly always strive to elicit some
form of laughter. See M. A. Rose : –, for the history of terms for parody, and in particular,
the relationship between parody and ridicule; for parody in Aristophanes in particular, see Goldhill
: –. On the problem of sorting out the different kinds of allusion in Old Comedy – from
benign citation to overt parody – see Kugelmeier’s taxonomy of ‘Reflexe’ (: –) that he uses in
discussing how poets of Old Comedy interacted with Greek lyric poetry.

 ralph rosen
This otherness of a parodied text within comedy makes it fairly easy to
spot and to understand in context, and it explains why scholars have often
analogized the relationship between a comedy and the texts it parodies
to that between parasite and host. But Old Comedy also interacts with
other genres in more organic ways, where there is no question of parody
and quite often no apparent self-consciousness about allusion or authorial
intentionality. Sometimes these are instances where texts interact with
each other synchronically as a function of cultural forces that a poet may
or may not pay any attention to, such as the ways in which Athenian
tragedy and comedy share the same stage and are influenced by common
production and performance protocols. Other times comic texts interact
with previous authors diachronically, reflecting a generic heritage so old
and complex that no single poet could possibly trace a comprehensive
history of origins. Aristotle himself put his finger on the problem for Old
Comedy when he noted at Poetics a that the early history of Greek
comedy could not really be known because no records were kept before
its formal state recognition at the City Dionysia ( bc). We still, in
fact, share Aristotle’s frustration and crave information about how these
 I am thinking here of the many formal devices and structures shared by Athenian tragedy and
comedy – e.g. stichic verse, alternation of episodes and lyric passages, and presumably an entire array
of stage and costuming practices now largely lost to us. It is likely that in such cases poets were not
terribly self-conscious about whether they were ‘interacting’ with one genre or another. Taplin 
weighs the evidence for and against a meaningful generic relationship between Attic tragedy and
comedy, concluding () that ‘on the whole they reject . . . rather than invite overlap’. This is not
to say that there were not many self-conscious ‘borrowings’, one from the other, as many scholars
have discussed (cf. Taplin : –), but in terms of what each genre actually ‘does’, Taplin finds
them worlds apart. Cratin. fr. , which refers to someone as engaging in ‘euripidaristophanizing’
(0*
- 1), offers a rare moment of self-consciousness about how the two dramatic
genres might ‘fuse’. But without real context, it is impossible to know what it all amounts to: it might
well imply that Cratinus thought of Aristophanic comedy as deeply informed by Euripidean tragedy;
or it may only suggest that Aristophanes is capable of posing as an intellectual like Euripides but was
not necessarily derivative of him. See Bakola : –, with bibliography, who argues that Cratinus
links Aristophanes to Euripides with the word 0*
- 1 in order to highlight his own
poetic relationship with Aeschylus.
 This area includes the many questions about ‘origins’: did Old Comedy evolve, e.g. out of forms
inherited from other realms of human activity, such as religious ritual, long lost to the consciousness
of any individual poet or his audience? Such a claim is often made for passages such as Dicaeopolis’
lyric phallikon at Ar. Ach. –, even if the passage itself is not felt to replicate such a ritual song
exactly (see e.g. Pickard-Cambridge : –; Rothwell : , ; Halliwell : –, with
further bibliography, n. ): it re-enacts, or perhaps parodies, an aspect of a specific religious festival
that we suspect had a long past even by the fifth century, it seems to have some bearing on what
goes on in Attic comedy (viz. aischrologic mockery), but did Aristophanes put it all together in his
mind when he composed this scene? Cf. also Rusten , for a similar argument suggesting a link
between Old Comedy and the ritual gephyrismos. See Kugelmeier’s third category of lyric ‘reflexes’
in Old Comedy (: ), which includes passages that are best regarded as ‘reminiscences’ (‘Der
Reflex klingt an ein lyrisches Vorbild an . . . ’), where it is unclear how conscious the author would
have been of what we might call an ‘allusion’.
Comedy and iambos 
diachronic literary relationships might have actually taken shape: where
does Old Comedy come from? What accounts for its distinctive generic
hybridity? Will isolating its constituent ‘parts’ help us understand how it
interacted with other genres and, more important, clarify for us what Old
Comedy, as a discrete genre itself, actually is supposed to do?
While we cannot here take up the grand (and, it has to be said,
intractable) problem of Old Comedy’s ‘ultimate’ origins, I would like
to address a specific aspect of Old Comedy’s generic provenance that has
a bearing both on the question of its early, pre-fifth-century – and so,
pre-historical – forms, and on how it came to be conceptualized in later
periods of antiquity when it had become a genre to be read or studied rather
than performed. In my book Old Comedy and the Iambographic Tradition
(henceforth, OCIT), I tried to make a case for Old Comedy’s close generic
dependence on the tradition of iambic poetry, most famously represented
by Archilochus in the seventh century bc and Hipponax in the sixth. Since
then, there has been considerable scholarly progress on the iambic poets,
and some useful engagement with, and criticism of, the approach I took in
that work, so this seems a fitting time to revisit the position I argued for in
that work.
The conception of ‘generic dependence’ that I was working with in
OCIT was standard for philological scholarship at the time: look in authors
working in genre A for lexical similarities with authors working in genre
B, collect overt allusions and pay special attention to passages where one
author mentions an earlier one by name. Next, affirm the suspected con-
nection, if possible, by finding ancient testimonia that support the notion
of generic affiliation. This method is neither illegitimate nor inconsequen-
tial as a first pass at the problem. Certainly, if Aristophanes can be shown
to quote Archilochus (as he does), or to mention Hipponax by name
(as he does), we have the beginnings of an argument for at least some
sort of relationship among these poets. But the real question is what kind
of relationship. Are Aristophanes’ quotations of Archilochus categorically
different from his far more numerous and full quotations of tragic poets,
 Rosen .
 The methodological problems with arguments for generic affiliation based on lexical similarities were
well presented by E. Bowie , on which see discussion below. Although I find his scepticism at
times excessive, his challenge affords us an opportunity to articulate what, in the first instance, we
are seeking when we ask how literary genres interact. Other critiques of my argument for generic
affiliation tended to fixate unduly on my suggestion that historical figures targeted for mockery by
comic poets can in some respects be profitably treated as ‘stock characters’ (e.g. Hubbard : –
and Kugelmeier : –). I offer some clarification at Rosen :  n. .
 Rosen : –; Kugelmeier : –.  Rosen : –; Kugelmeier : –.
 ralph rosen
for example? Or to put it another way, when Cratinus wrote a play entitled
Archilochoi, almost certainly bringing Archilochus on to the stage in some
guise, and peppering the play with Archilochean allusions and quotations,
was he constructing a parodic relationship – a relationship of mocking oth-
erness, not affiliation – with Archilochus, akin to Aristophanes’ relationship
with Euripides? Or was it an attempt on Cratinus’ part to acknowledge
an organic generic relationship between his poetry and Archilochus’ that
was more knowing hommage than parody? I argued for this latter position
in OCIT, but the case can be made even more forcefully that iambos and
Old Comedy were powerfully and uniquely affiliated, I believe, if we move
beyond a strictly philological approach and consider them – despite their
many differences in literary form, performative structures, or even localized
social functioning – as, first and foremost, genres of satire.
The key issue in any discussion of generic affiliation is the question of
authorial self-consciousness: if we say that various genres are ‘affiliated’ or
‘connected’, or whatever metaphor we choose, does it matter that the poets
whom we think were influenced by others were aware of the processes by
which they were influenced? Is this kind of self-consciousness an essential
criterion for even speaking of ‘influence’ to begin with? And is ‘influence’
even the appropriate word to use in cases where there seems to be no
awareness on the author’s part of how his work interacts with anyone else’s,
even when we seem to be able to see a clear case of interaction? These
are questions that genre theorists in other literary fields have wrestled
with for some time, and classicists, too, have not been insensitive to the
complexity of the problems, but for a variety of reasons comic genres have
presented particular challenges to thinking outside of familiar philological
parameters. In the specific case of iambos and Old Comedy, this reluctance
to theorize about genre has created some confusion about what we are
 Rosen ; Kugelmeier : –; Bakola : –.

 For my use of the term ‘satire’, see Rosen : –, esp. –.
 See e.g. Farrell , Rosen : –, and now Rotstein  (esp. –), who offers a lucid
discussion, with bibliography, of the major theoretical challenges of genre criticism as practised both
in antiquity and by theorists of our own time.
 Among other things, comedy, and in particular satirical strands of comic literature, tend to construct
for themselves a historically specific reality that exists primarily in the here and now, cajoling its
audiences into thinking that there must be some relation between their lived reality and reality
of the comic performance. Matters become even more complicated when authors speak in their
own voice in their works, especially when they mock other people who would be known to the
audience and make claims for themselves that have the veneer of a veridical truth. One can find even
the most sophisticated critics, for example, being drawn into a satirist’s insistence (a conventional
trope in itself ) that his work must be taken at face value and as representative of a historical reality.
See Rosen : –, –.
Comedy and iambos 
looking for when we come to the question of how the two relate to one
another.
Much of the confusion has arisen because scholars have often conflated
what are really four distinct questions:
() How, historically, did a particular genre come into being and develop?
() How did a given genre represent itself, its origin, its history and its
‘essence’, and why did it do so in that way?
() What did the audience think of the genre of Old Comedy?
() How have critics (and this can include authors themselves, contemplat-
ing the provenance of literary genres) understood a given genre’s origin,
history and ‘essence’, and why did they do so in that way, especially if
their claims turn out to be historically inaccurate?
Sometimes scholars will assume that the one will necessarily follow from the
other but, in fact, as I would like to argue here, actual historical dependence
between, or affiliation of, genres need hardly imply self-consciousness of
such a relationship, nor need we always assume that what an author tells
us about generic history is historically ‘accurate’.
The argument of OCIT illustrates well the need to clarify which ques-
tions we are seeking to answer, and the evidence that can be brought
to bear on them. Everyone would agree that Old Comedy and iambos
share some literary features: both can employ invective, obscenity, episodic
narrative structures, and so forth. I wanted to argue that these shared fea-
tures suggested that the later genre, Athenian Old Comedy, in some sense
descended from the earlier one, and that the comic poets were both aware
of the generic affiliation they had with iambographers and self-consciously
indebted to those earlier poets for many of the stylistic features for which
they were famous in their own time, especially obscenity and political
 Rotstein  addresses some of these questions as well, passim, and explicitly at –, although in
her study of the genre of iambos she is mostly concerned with my question  below, i.e. she is less
interested in ‘an answer to the question of what iambos is, an answer that would take the form of a
definition . . . [but rather] the history of the conceptualization of iambos as a literary genre’ (). She
focuses on what she calls the ‘received iambos’, which focuses on authors who were ‘received into’
the tradition by ancient authors and scholars themselves (cf. –, –).
 Few people today conceptualize genres as natural categories in the way we think of objects in
the world (e.g. birds, cups, water), and most would assent to the three descriptions of genres as
‘category concepts’, ‘mental representations of abstract entities’ and ‘cultural products’ suggested by
Rotstein . Rotstein’s synthesis of current approaches drawn from cognitive science is illumi-
nating (‘chunking’, ‘embodiment’, ‘scripting’, –), and helpful for explaining why it is often so
difficult – for original audiences as well as for us who study them – to pin down the generic identity
of a given literary work. I do think, however, that the generic identity of iambos in antiquity (indeed,
even the possibility for ancient audiences to define it) was more stable than Rotstein  and E.
Bowie  would allow. Bowie’s () whimsical characterization of iambos as an ‘à la carte menu’,
for example, seems overstated. See further discussion below.
 ralph rosen
mockery. Let us say, however, that the philology, and even the testimonia,
are not strong enough to sustain the position that Attic comedy ‘descended’
from the iambos or that Athenian comic poets knowingly modelled their
plays on iambic poets. What would this actually mean for the question
of generic affiliation? How self-aware of their literary forebears must poets
be before we can legitimately speak in terms of generic ‘descent’, ‘affil-
iation’ or ‘influence’? Other criteria have been invoked to downplay or
even deny a meaningful affiliation between iambos and comedy: ‘social
conditions’, length of work, composition of the audience, modes of per-
formance – each of these categories looks quite different for iambos and
Old Comedy. Another way of putting this might be to say that although
Archilochus composed a humorous, obscene psogos against Lycambes in
the seventh century bc, and Aristophanes composed a humorous, obscene
psogos against Cleon in the fifth, the date and conditions of performance,
audience composition and reception were so different that any similarities
between them were more likely coincidental than indicative of any sort of
lineal relationship.
The major premise behind this statement is that because both iam-
bos and Old Comedy can be shown to involve many other things
besides abuse and political mockery, these elements themselves cannot be
regarded as definitional of either genre. As a basic principle, this seems
unobjectionable enough; just because we can find similar phenomena in
two genres does not necessarily mean that they are related in anything
more than a coincidental way. As Farrell has pointed out, Pindar’s Odes
may have been commissioned to praise victors, but they could on occasion
include blame and criticism as well; the mere appearance of ‘blame’ in his
Odes does not, however, suddenly turn Pindar into a ‘blame poet’, and he
even famously goes out of his way to distance himself from such an associ-
ation, at Pythians .–, where he repudiates the iambic poet Archilochus
for being psogeros. With Pindar, there is never any question of what his
 As E. Bowie , who concludes that we should not think of Attic comedy as ‘descended’ from, or
even ‘strongly influenced’ by, iambos. See also Willi : –. The real issue, it seems, is the use of
‘descent’, which again returns us to the question of authorial self-consciousness: is a modern pop love
lyric ‘descended from’ ancient examples of similar songs? Is Death of a Salesman ‘descended from’
Greek tragedy? A case could be made for either position in both examples, depending on whether
one uses the word ‘descent’ to imply that authors need to be aware of their literary antecedents.
Rotstein : – distinguishes between genres that develop ‘out of’ other genres, and those that
are ‘similar to but not deriving from’ other genres. This distinction highlights well the problems
inherent in the terms we use to discuss influences on, and relationships between, genres, since the
actual difference between the two options is not always easy to pinpoint. (See further discussion
below, n. ).
 Farrell : –.
Comedy and iambos 
Odes are supposed to ‘do’ – Pindar in this context composed praise poetry,
no matter what other literary elements he deployed, some of which, as we
have seen with iambos, may even be generically at odds with the goals of
epinician. So, in the case of iambos and Old Comedy, the real question is:
how important is abuse and comic mockery to each, and what is it actually
doing in each one? And if we can determine that the ‘work’ being done
by such elements in each genre is functionally similar, would this similarity
effectively constitute generic affiliation?
This is a far more profitable direction for us to take in considering
iambos and comedy, I believe, than mere philology, since literary works by
different authors can certainly function in similar ways, as similar ‘speech
acts’ with similar claims to efficacy – even if the words and forms they
use are dissimilar to each other’s. Horace offers a useful case in point: he
did not have philology, or even history, on his mind when he noted at
the opening of Satires . that Lucilian satire derived from (pendet) the
poets of Old Comedy. This is one of the most famous pronouncements
of generic affiliation in all of classical literature, especially since it addresses
the bifurcation I have discussed earlier between generic self-consciousness
on the one hand (Horace seems to want us to believe that all Roman
satirists would have been conscious of a literary, or at least discursive, debt
to Old Comedy and could draw on the antecedent genre for allusive play)
and, on the other, the notion of an organic generic affiliation (Old Comedy
and Roman satire were related to one another simply by virtue of doing
similar things, whether or not the poets realized it).
What exactly has Horace sensed here in Old Comedy that seemed
relevant to Roman satire? He says clearly enough that it was the libertas
of Old Comedy, its freedom to attack prominent wrongdoers, that he
admires, even if (as he claims) his own speech has to be more constrained.
There is an interesting, playful bit of generic gamesmanship at work here;
for by denying that he is able to do in his satires what Old Comedy could
(notabant . . . ), Horace both distances, apologetically, the nature of his own
work from Old Comedy, and at the same time brings it into closer contact
by implying that in a perfect world where speech was unconstrained (as he
believed it was in fifth-century Athens) his satires would be just like Old
 This is the central question that Bowie’s remark (: ) calls to mind: ‘If my arguments [for a
multiplicity of “identifying features” of iambos] were to be correct, their relevance . . . would be to
diminish the importance within iambos of that element which has most often been seen as linking
it closely with comedy, abuse’ (my emphasis).
 As Freudenburg :  succinctly put it: ‘The lines are fraught with misinformation that caricatures
not only the poets of Greek Old Comedy, but Lucilius as well.’ See Rosen : – for discussion
and further bibliography.
 ralph rosen
Comedy. If Horace had never written these lines, or if they were lost to
us, how willing would we be to think of Roman satire and Old Comedy
as affiliated genres? A strict historicist would probably conclude that any
resemblance between Roman satire and Old Comedy was coincidental
or arose, one might say, ‘independently’. Certainly no one, ancient or
modern, would claim that the relationship between Roman satire and Old
Comedy was anything like that between Roman comic drama and Greek
New Comedy, where it can be easily shown both that the relationship was
historical and that the Roman comic poets were well aware of that fact.
Horace’s statement in Satires . about satire’s provenance in Old Comedy
is by all measures eccentric, in fact, at least when considered as a piece of
literary history. But what might we imagine prompted it? What kind of
relationship between the two genres did Horace perceive – despite whatever
a historian might think – that could be both ‘valid’ and yet unhistorical at
the same time?
These are questions that can be applied equally to the problem of how
Old Comedy was related to iambos, where the historicity of a generic
relationship – which is to say, clear evidence that the former descended
organically and formally from the latter – cannot be well established. We
are left, instead, with impressions from the poets of Old Comedy, as I
discussed in OCIT, that remind us of Horace on satire: they sensed that
what they were doing with their comedies was somehow ‘like’ an antecedent
genre, even if they would have been unable to make a historically legitimate
argument for lineage and descent. Their clear interest in iambos, however,
like Horace’s interest in Old Comedy, ought to be sufficient to prompt us,
in turn, at the very least to consider what inspired this interest in the first
place.
To answer this question, it is helpful for us to think in terms of a genre’s
‘dynamics’ rather than any static qualities of form or language. What
distinguishes one genre from another, to rephrase my earlier question,
becomes more a matter of what they do than of what they are. This
approach allows us to reframe our search for a genre’s defining features by
asking what it is about a given literary work that no other genre would be
able to replicate in quite the same way, and with the same effect. In the case
 Scholars of an earlier era seemed more sympathetic to conceptualist approaches such as this,
particularly as a by-product of their obsession with finding the ‘origins’ of Old Comedy. If concrete
historical (and pre-historical) evidence was lacking, some progress seemed possible with more
folkloric, anthropological or structural approaches. See e.g. Zielinski ; Süss ; Cornford 
[] (with J. Henderson’s Introduction to the  reprint: xi–xxxiii); more recent discussion in
Sifakis , , ; Rusten b; Csapo and Miller a: –, Rothwell ; Halliwell
:  n. ; Bierl : –.
Comedy and iambos 
of iambos, Old Comedy and even Roman satire, I have argued elsewhere
that the concept of ‘satire’ is a reasonably good start, for ‘satire’ is a broad
term that is not defined by specific literary elements – metres, or structures
or performance protocols – but rather by its dynamics, the way it sets out
to construct a particular relationship between an author and an audience
over against some other person or abstract thing. Satirical authors may
draw on a common arsenal of tropes or devices (obscenity, low diction,
parody and personal mockery, just to name a few), but none of these itself
defines satire, and most of them can be found in any number of other
genres. Greek orators, lyric poets and even tragedians mock individuals,
use obscenity or engage in parody, and in such moments we may even
say that these authors are being ‘satirical’. But to use that adjective is to
imply that there is something we consider ‘true satire’, different from the
examples that we label ‘satirical’. What distinguishes genres of satire from
genres that may merely incorporate satire, is that the work of the former –
the ergon or telos of satire, to borrow terms that Aristotle uses for the
function and aim of tragedy – is understood by audiences, authors and
critics to be laughter. This is laughter of a rather specific kind, of course,
but it always lurks behind the mockery and ridicule found in this kind
of literary work, and there usually is no further telos, despite an author’s
occasional (and equally humorous) claims to the contrary. Aischrology
may pepper a forensic or persuasive speech, for example, and elicit laughter
from its audience at that moment, but laughter is hardly that work’s telos;
it functions more as rhetorical spice – strategically deploying humour in a
work that is not otherwise generically characterized as comic. Even the
 Rosen : –.

 See now Worman , on the wide range of classical Greek authors who deploy these many
abusive tropes. These tropes allow us to consider many of these authors satirical, but not necessarily
‘satirists’.
 See Rosen : –.
 On Aristotle’s use of the terms ergon (‘function’) and telos (‘aim’) for tragedy in Poetics, see Halliwell
: – and Woodruff . In the end, Aristotle is not particularly explicit in his use of these
terms, and Halliwell’s summary () exposes Aristotle’s thinking here as almost circular: ‘ . . . the
end or function of tragedy is not presented by Aristotle as a matter of some single, discrete factor.
It involves, rather, the complete, harmonious fulfillment of the “nature” of the genre, and that is
something that embraces all the major principles set out in the Poetics – principles of structure and
unity, of agency and character, of the arousal of the genre’s defining emotions.’ Does this amount
to saying that the nature of tragedy is for it to fulfil its nature? The function of satire is, by contrast,
much easier to articulate than that of tragedy, since it involves a rather specific recipe of attack or
complaint plus humour, as Aristotle himself seemed to realize. See further discussion below.
 On the laughter associated with mockery, ridicule, derision, insult – all features of what we call
‘satire’ – in Greek culture, see Halliwell : –.
 See Worman : –, where she argues that ‘in fourth-century prose, comedy . . . was becoming
a resource for the kind of outrageous character assassination that entertains the audience and furthers
argument’ ().
 ralph rosen
frequent didactic claims one associates with satirical authors, disingenuous
or not, are subservient to the work’s goal of humouring an audience.
In considering the relationship between iambos and comedy, therefore,
we can more easily lay aside the many formal or contextual differences
between the two that scholars have legitimately pointed out and instead
look at the work each is trying to accomplish. What we find, I think, are
strikingly parallel dynamics in play – an author singles out another person
for ridicule, usually indignant over that person’s behaviour or some other
abstract issue of the day in which that person is implicated; he speaks to,
or in front of, any audience of people who are supposed to be sympathetic
listeners; and in the course of his attacks, he makes an audience laugh. It
is easy to anticipate objections that such a formulation is simplistic and
incomplete – surely not every iambic or comic poet at every moment in
a given work is engaged in this very enterprise; and there are, of course,
many other aspects of their works that seem to have nothing to do with
invective or mockery. But if we start with the (almost tautologous) fact
that both iambos and Old Comedy are comic genres, and consider what
the preponderant nature of that comedy is – namely, what kind of humour
these genres most rely on to distinguish themselves from other comedic
forms – it is clear that this would be the comedy of personal mockery. It is
worth noting, moreover, that iambos and Old Comedy are the only literary
genres (certainly the only poetic genres) of Greek antiquity about which
this can be said.
 Satirists commonly make didactic claims for their ridicule and indignation, but such claims tend to
be complicated, if not undermined, by their heavy use of (generically indicated) humour and irony.
See Rosen ().
 This notion is what seems to have persuaded E. Bowie ,  that iambos has been wrongly
conceptualized as, at root, a genre of mockery and blame: ‘Iambos was a form of poetry in which
a number of identifying features regularly appeared’ (: ), and mockery was simply one of
these features. ‘No one of these features’, he continues, ‘needed to be present for a poem to be
recognized as (an) iambos.’ Here we confront again the vexatious question of what we think we
are describing – a historical phenomenon that would have been recognizable to contemporary
audiences, or a conceptual construct that only crystallized as a genre over time (Rotstein’s much
subtler ‘received iambos’, see above n. )? The problem is knowing when to consider that a genre
has ‘come into being’ in the first place. If there really were archaic performances of iambos that
could be completely devoid of anything we might consider, broadly construed, satirical (which I
very much doubt, but here our evidence is too incomplete to judge for sure either way), are we even
justified in referring to such performances as ‘iambos’ to begin with, especially in light of the fact
that later antiquity almost univocally came to regard blame and mockery as ‘identifying features’
of iambos and would not readily refer to something as ‘iambos’ that did not include mockery? See
Rotstein , –, a chapter with the revealing title, ‘Invective as the Dominant Feature of
Iambos’.
 Rotstein : –, in her analysis of Aristotle’s use of the terms psogos and iambos, lays out
Aristotle’s varying stances on the matter clearly but, like Bowie, she fixates on the issue of individual
iamboi that may not actually contain abuse: the ‘different forms of abuse figure only in part of
the works by poets of the “received iambos”, while they are found in other genres of poetry as
Comedy and iambos 
As most modern genre theorists are quick to point out, genres are
defined not by any kind of reified essence, but phenomenologically:
literary works exist within a social and cultural context; people respond
to them and classify them according to how they perceive them, how they
work, what they look like, and so forth. It is people who label genres,
and if they conclude that two genres are affiliated, the issue is not so much
whether they are ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ to do so, but what has led them to such
a conclusion in the first place. Looked at from this perspective, it comes
to matter far less whether we can ‘prove’ that the poets of Old Comedy
themselves thought of their work as ‘iambic’ than why someone else, able
to compare the two genres, would reach that very conclusion.
This is why, of course, the testimony of Aristotle’s Poetics has become
so crucial for the debates about how (or whether) iambos and Old Com-
edy are related, for he is our earliest and most explicit testimony (though
never explicit enough, alas) that Athenian comedy in some sense evolved
out of the iambos. Aristotle’s discussion of this topic at Poetics  does
not especially help us with the question of how self-conscious the comic
poets might have been about their relationship with iambos, though his
acute sense of the literary dynamics at work in each genre certainly makes
it likely, prima facie, that he thought they were. The more critical
well’ (). See above, p. , on the difference between satire as a genre and genres that merely
incorporate satirical elements but do something else, generically speaking. To put this another way,
if we find a poem with no abuse by a poet who otherwise has a predilection for abuse, does that
mean that the poet cannot be considered, in terms of generic categorization, a poet of abuse? It
seems more profitable to identify an author’s genre as a function of his entire known oeuvre, and
of what we can know about what this oeuvre is supposed – by author and audiences alike – to
be doing. No one would ever say, for example, that Euripides is not a tragedian because his plays
sometimes contain scenes that play like love lyric, pastoral or comedy. Rotstein :  is right
to say that ‘invective is not a literary genre’, but ‘invective’ is not synonymous with ‘satire’, which,
even if we are unwilling to regard it as a bona fide genre as such, is certainly a literary mode that
can define certain authors and the genres they work in. This is surely what Pind. Pyth. .–,
had in mind in his complaint about Archilochus as psogeros (= a ‘blamer’, but in the context of
Archilochus’ comic aims, not so far from our term ‘satirical’), whether or not we should assume that
Pindar had Archilochus’ iamboi specifically in mind here (cf. Rotstein : ). Pindar’s insight
into Archilochus is not that everything Archilochus composed was blame poetry, but that so much
‘blaming’ could be found in his work that he can legitimately be characterized with an adjective
that reflects this (psogeros). See also Nagy : –; Rosen : , . That term, in other
words, would still have meaning even in the context of a non-invective, non-satirical poem. Of
course, in the end, one has to concede that not enough Archilochean poetry survives to make any
very certain judgement about the variations in generic character across his different works; which is
why the testimony of a witness relatively close in time to Archilochus, such as Pindar, is all the more
revealing.
 See above, nn. , .
 Pace E. Bowie : , whose firm denial that Aristotle could have had any notion of ‘descent’ in
mind when he noted similarities between iambos and comedy seems overconfident, based as it is
on arguments e silentio: ‘that [Aristotle] did not [think Old Comedy was descended from iambos]
is further demonstrated by his total silence on Ionian iambos . . . when he alludes to . . . the origins
 ralph rosen
question is just how Aristotle conceived of their relationship. The case
I would like to make on this point is this: even though Aristotle imagines
a more or less conventional diachronic history of tragedy at the begin-
ning of Poetics, he is not really concerned with trajectories of ‘influence’ or
authorial self-consciousness. His notions of literary evolution derive rather
from a phenomenological analysis and taxonomizing of literary forms and
dynamics, and from an attempt to extrapolate from this commonalities
among different works. This is why Bowie imagines a false problem when
he voices scepticism that Aristotle saw Old Comedy as a ‘direct descendent’
of iambos, since Aristotle does not seem especially concerned to make an
argument for direct descent here.
The relevant passage from Poetics (b–a) is worth considering
here with these issues in mind:
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Poetry branched into two, according to its creators’ characters: the more
serious produced mimesis of noble actions and the actions of noble people,
while the more vulgar depicted the actions of the base, in the first place
by composing invectives (just as others produced hymns and encomia).
Now, we cannot name such an invective by any poet earlier than Homer,
of Attic comedy in phallic choral performances’. ‘Again, it would have been very easy to say that
pre-Crates comedy was a direct descendant of iamboi . . . ’ In fact, Aristotle does not have to mention
iambos at a, because he had already dealt with it in the preceding section, where he had made
it clear that iambic writers were precisely the ones who became writers of comedy (pace Rotstein
: ):
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(‘so some became poets of comedy
instead of iambic verses’).
 E. Bowie : . See above, n. .
Comedy and iambos 
though probably many poets produced them; but we can do so from Homer
onwards, namely the latter’s Margites and the like. In these poets, it was
aptness which brought the iambic metre too into use – precisely why it is
called the ‘iambic’ now, because it was in this metre that they lampooned
one another. Of the older poets some became composers of epic hexameters,
others of iambic lampoons. Just as Homer was the supreme poet of elevated
subjects (for he was preeminent not only in quality but also in composing
dramatic mimesis), so too he was the first to delineate the forms of comedy,
by dramatizing not invective but the laughable: thus Margites stands in
the same relation to comedies as do the Iliad and the Odyssey to tragedies.
And when tragedy and comedy had been glimpsed [i.e. in Homer], those
whose own natures gave them an impetus towards either type of poetry
abandoned iambic lampoons to become the comic poets, or epic to become
tragedians, because these newer forms were grander and more esteemed than
the earlier.
In discussing this passage, Bowie concludes that Aristotle ‘writes as if
[iambos and comedy] had related features’ rather than that the one was
‘descended from or strongly influenced by the other’ (my emphasis). Even
if Aristotle were interested in making this specific point, which is hardly
clear from the text, Bowie’s scepticism raises an interesting methodological
question – if one acknowledges that two genres have ‘related features’, as
Bowie does, what does it take to transform these features into sufficient
evidence for generic affiliation? Philosophers might recognize here a vari-
ation of the sorites-problem (how many individual grains of wheat does it
take to make a ‘heap’?), and the stakes are far from trivial. For establishing
affiliation between literary genres brings us back to our original concern
for discovering what each genre is actually trying to ‘do’. Put more con-
cretely: if we think we understand what Hipponax is doing when he mocks
Bupalus, and we think that, when Aristophanes mocks his targets, we can
detect in him similar goals, formal structures, diction, and so on, a case
for affiliation, if not descent, seems assured. Some might object, as Willi
and Bowie have done, that historical contingencies colour the nature of
each poet’s mockery too much to argue for anything but the most casual or
coincidental affiliation. Why, for example, should we assume that a poet
mocking a target in sixth-century bc Clazomenae should be after the same
effect as a poet mocking a target in the fifth, when political structures
and social relationships were different? Because, I think we can say, each
poet would have the same answer to the following question: ‘what are
you really trying to do when you make fun of your targets – not at the
localized, specific level, but at the most conceptual, poetic one?’ To this
 Here and elsewhere I reproduce the translations of Aristotle’s Poetics by Halliwell  (my emphasis).
 E. Bowie : .  See above, n. .
 ralph rosen
question, each would doubtless answer that he is ultimately interested in
making his audience laugh, and the mode he has decided to adopt is one
of satire and mockery; each would claim he has privileged a satirical mode
because something about his targets annoys him, and the indignation that
results allows him to fulfil his comedic strategy. Exactly how each puts this
together in a given poem is highly idiosyncratic, of course, but the same
satirical scaffolding can be seen sturdily in place in each case, in examples
from antiquity to the present.
Aristotle himself also urges us not to fixate on the contingencies of
individual authors and works, but rather to think in terms of literary telos,
dynamics and a largely unconscious evolutionary process. The opening
line of the passage quoted above is a key statement: ! ' kat
t o«ke±a ¢qh &
. ‘Poetry’, he says, ‘split apart according to poets’
. S!’, their ‘individual characters’. By suggesting that poets are

drawn to certain types of poetry according to their respective temperaments
(
. S!), Aristotle attempts to isolate fixed, ‘natural’ categories that
can unify a multiplicity of poetic forms, regardless of how these forms
might relate to one another diachronically or as a function of authorial
intention. Aristotle’s phrasing of this process at a is revealing:
- '
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And when tragedy and comedy had been glimpsed [in Homer], those
whose own natures gave them an impetus towards either type of poetry
abandoned iambic lampoons to become the comic poets, or epic to become
tragedians, because these newer forms were grander and more esteemed than
the earlier.
 See Rosen : –, for a fuller exposition of the formal, and psychological, structures of satire.
 See Rosen and Marks , and Rosen and Baines  for comparative studies of satirical poetics
beyond classical authors. For Aristotle, the scaffolding seems to be what lies behind his use of the
word (for the first time in extant Greek literature) ./ 1 at b, now well discussed at
Rotstein : –, who sums up the meaning of the verb as ‘to do what is typical of iamboi’
as it was conceived in the fourth century bc, namely, as she enumerates, humorous, sometimes
scandalous, content, aischrology, and ad hominem ridicule. Rotstein would say that the idea of
iambos as ‘dominantly abusive’ () was a conception that was developing in the fourth century,
and then applied ‘backward to a pre-Homeric age’. Why she resists so categorically, along with
Bowie, the idea that early iambos might also have been ‘dominantly abusive’ (or at least, to use a
phrase with broader connotations, ‘dominantly satirical’) in its own day eludes me, especially given
the paucity of actual fragments from the period that would allow us to make definitive judgements
either way.
 There has been some dispute as to whether
. S! refers here to poets or poetry, but see Lucas
:  ad loc.
Comedy and iambos 
When poets began to see, through their experience with Homer, what
tragedy and comedy were all about, they cathected to one or the other
(B@) in accordance with their -> . In the lines immediately
preceding these Aristotle had already established that comedy, as he con-
ceptualized it, was not identical to iambos, but he still could say that epic
and iambic poets of an earlier age ( "

@ @
'
& @
' ./
) could map on, by analogy, to the tragedy
and comedy of his own day. The kind of person whose physis would have
drawn him to iambos, in other words, would have had the same character
as the person who in classical Athens would have been drawn to comedy.
Aristotle is grasping here for that certain something in both iambos and
comedy that would appeal to a person with such a physis, their ‘natural bent’,
irrespective of any arguments about how these genres might be interrelated
from a diachronic perspective. In fact, it is striking that Aristotle makes a
point of saying a few sections later (b) that there is no real memory
of what came before comedy. The history of comedy’s formal aspects – for
example its masks, prologues, number of actors – was unknown because
there were no records and no explicit cultural memory, at least none that
he had recourse to ( ' " T

2 T !

@
(, U , b). Even so, however,
Aristotle has no trouble in positing a clear generic link between iambos
and comedy based on his argument that each genre attracted practitioners
whose temperaments were themselves linked by their predilection for satiric
invective, whether or not they thought very much about how other genres
deployed similar literary strategies.
In short, for Aristotle, the many types of poetry that exist can be cat-
egorized according to the kinds of things that each purports to do or
what others (audiences, critics) claim that they do. This is an inevitably
imprecise procedure, and it is never quite clear what Aristotle regards as
 Aristotle notes that Homer’s Margites, for example, was a form (#) of comedy that dramatized
the ‘laughable’ (6

), which included invective (4
), but not exclusively so. At b
he cites Homer as the first known composer of 4
in his Margites, so it is curious that a few lines
later, he says that Margites dramatized the laughable, but not invective (
* 4
). This seems to
show that Aristotle thought of 4
as a prominent component of a larger work of comedy, but
that not all the comic aspects of the work had to be invective. See now Rotstein : –: ‘For
Aristotle the Margites seems to be an item on the margins of the broad category of psogos that builds
6

into a proto-dramatic story (

)’ ().
 See above, n. , on Pind. Pyth. .–, which anticipates Aristotle’s correlation between a type
of poetry and the poet’s character. For in calling Archilochus psogeron there, he imputes to the
personality of the poet a quality that he would identify as lying at the heart of Archilochean poetry,
namely its fondness for psogos. People who are naturally drawn to invective in ‘real life’ will just as
naturally be drawn to poetry that features invective if they decide to become poets.
 ralph rosen
the actual criteria for establishing generic categories. But when he says
that certain personality types ‘rush’ (B@) to compose in one genre,
these poets are rushing towards something, and that something is both
real and specific in his mind. Iambos, for example, is for Aristotle a dis-
tinct subspecies of comedy, which is itself a subcategory of what he calls the
non-serious (*"). It is, moreover, a form of comic poetry distinguished
from others by its predilection for psogos – invective and mockery; it likes
to make one set of people laugh by exposing others to mockery. Aristotle
is not concerned if individual examples of iambos can be found that might
not feature a psogos; it is enough for him to know that this is the type of
poem where a psogos could be right at home and, equally important, that its
author is the type of person who could be characterized as psogeros. When
we arrive at Old Comedy, it is obvious, and often noted, that not every
episode of every Aristophanic play is satirical or invective. But if we were to
ask Aristotle what sort of person a poet of Old Comedy would be, there can
be little doubt that he would say it was someone who loved a good psogos
himself – someone who by nature (i.e. in keeping with his physis) revelled
in being funny through personal mockery and who deployed the many
literary tropes associated with such an enterprise. Such tropes themselves
were not necessarily stable and could vary in detail from poet to poet, but
on this point too Aristotle would doubtless have found unifying generic
categories for them, if only by characterizing them all as low (phaula) and
non-serious (cf. Poet. b–, quoted above).
Aristotle’s basic position on the relationship between iambos and Old
Comedy, therefore, is not, in the end, especially complicated: he did think
they were related, in ways that I have discussed, and he did imagine some
sort of historical relationship between them, although he had to remain
agnostic about the details. He does not himself theorize a concept of
 Rotstein’s distinction (: –) between Aristotle’s ‘theoretical’ and ‘empirical’ approaches to the
history of poetry makes good sense up to a point, but I suspect the lines between each approach were
considerably more blurred for Aristotle: ‘ . . . In the empirical approach dithyramb and phallic songs
are “historical” (“out of which”) forerunners of tragedy and comedy . . . In the theoretical approach,
iamboi appear as the conceptual (similar to but not deriving from) consequent of psogoi, which I
argue is Aristotle’s construct, and the conceptual forerunner of comedy.’ It is not clear to me why the
two approaches need be mutually exclusive, either for Aristotle or for ourselves. If Aristotle thought
that Attic comedy arose historically and most directly ‘out of’ phallic songs, and phallic songs would
have featured the kinds of psogoi associated with iamboi, why would he have had any trouble in
thinking that phallic songs themselves had a historical – not only a conceptual – relationship with
iambos, that they arose ‘out of’ iambos (on comedy and phallic songs see Csapo in this volume).
In Aristotle’s speculative literary history, after all, all comic forms ultimately derived from the split
between the poets of ‘the serious’ and ‘the vulgar’ non-serious (
'

(
5 @

>,
' *"
@ ->, b). It is
Comedy and iambos 
generic affiliation, but it is clear that he is willing, unlike many scholars, to
lay aside the many contingencies that individual works exhibit within the
contexts of their production in favour of thinking in terms of a work’s ergon,
and that this kind of thinking encourages a consideration of how different
genres interact with one another. Aristotle’s insight about iambos was merely
a first step in the generic analysis of iambos, but its significance lay in the way
it articulated a literary dynamic – what we would call satire or mockery –
that could serve as a meaningful criterion for generic classification without
relying on specific authorial practices or self-consciousness. The question
of a deliberate, authorially self-conscious, historically verifiable affiliation
between iambos and Old Comedy is impossible to answer with much
certainty in the current state of our evidence; but denying that there was
one or remaining agnostic on the issue does not mean that the two could
not be affiliated according to a different set of criteria that have more to
do with how humans interact with each other in the world than how aware
they always are of what they are actually doing.
true that he had no real evidence on which to base this statement, but he seems to have imagined
that all those people with ‘psogeric’ -> , driven to compose in comic forms that involved what
we would call ‘satire’, were people who had really existed. See Rusten b, for the diversity of
comic forms in Greek poetry that seem to have been around in the sixth century bc, as potential
antecedents to elements found in fifth-century Attic comedy.
part ii
Comedy and genres in dialogue
Comedy and epic
c h ap t er 4
Paraepic comedy: point(s) and practices

Martin Revermann
Epic poetry, notably that of the Iliad and the Odyssey, casts long shadows
over Greek cultural and literary history. With a genre of such clout and
presence there is no question of whether or not to interact, but only
how to interact. Greek literary history can, in fact, plausibly be seen as a
long series of responses to epic in the form of the Homeric poems: lyric
poetry, tragedy, historiography and the novel (let alone the epic poetry of
Apollonius, Tryphiodorus or Nonnus) all cannot but interact with Homeric
epic as a critical part of their artistic and ideological self-definition.
Comedy too, of course, exists ‘in the shadow of Homer’. The epic legacy
(and challenge) contained a set of features which held great appeal for its
comic heirs: colourful and complex characters; plots which explored the
human condition in extreme, sometimes fantastical, conditions; a distinct
linguistic register, Homeric Kunstsprache; a metre, the dactylic hexameter,
which was strongly though not exclusively associated with the genre; and an
unrivalled panhellenic recognition factor which cut across socio-economic
divisions to an exceptional degree: here, if anywhere, it seems legitimate
to view comedy’s audiences (Athenian and non-Athenian) as a ‘black box’,
united in their knowledge and appreciation of epic poetry and competent
to spot how comedy engaged with it. All of these features, then, provided
comic playwrights with a rich set of cues, deployable in isolation or as
clusters, to signal interaction, trigger off audience responses and position
comedy relative to that epic legacy.
My account of paraepic comedy is interested both in the ideologies
underlying the interaction and in the more technical aspects of dramatic
craftsmanship that are involved in it. I will not approach the topic from
I wish to thank the editors and Donald Sells for their helpful comments.
 Audience competence, in Athens and beyond, was therefore even stronger for epic than for tragedy,
see Revermann b on the issue. Swift : – assumes a similarly high level of audience
competence with regard to lyric (melic) poetry. But there are problems, especially in Athens where
partheneia are not attested (see R. Parker : –) and epinicians may not have been common.

 martin revermann
an Atheno-centric and Aristophanic viewpoint but from somewhat off-
centre, starting in the fourth century and proceeding to sixth-century Sicily
before, eventually, moving on to fifth-century Athens and to Aristophanes.
This itinerary, I believe, is necessary to bring out the complexity and
diversity of the phenomenon, and to demonstrate the historical and artistic
contingencies that shape comedy’s interaction with epic poetry.
a paraepic kitchen
A Homeric cook operating in a fourth-century kitchen: this is the scenario
in a precious and long comic fragment by Strato from a play entitled
Phoenicides, the only fragment, in fact, we have from this late fourth-
century playwright, quoted, needless to say, by Athenaeus. ‘I brought a
male Sphinx, not a cook, into the house’, complains the old man who hired
the cook, as Athenaeus informs us, implying a free male as the speaker.
The old man continues (–):
To put it simply: I do not understand a single word of what he is saying, by the
gods. He is here equipped with novel words ( =). For the minute
he walked in, he boldly looked at me and asked instantly: ‘How many mortals
articulate with voice ("
) did you call to dinner? Speak.’ ‘I haven’t called
any Meropes to dinner. You are nuts!’
The cook’s pompous Homerisms continue, quickly aggravating the old
man’s frustration (): ‘I am a pretty rustic man (

), so
talk simply to me’, and later (–), ‘I implored him now, changing my
approach, to speak to me like a human being (! ).’ To no avail:
this cook can only talk JK @, even if that means talking about an ordi-
nary dinner using the language of Homeric sacrifice (–). Small wonder
that the old man, out of his depth, feels he would need the Miscellaneous
Glosses by Philetas of Cos (–) to make any sense of this, and ends up
insulting the pompous cooking Homerist as a ‘bastard’ (, 7
), a
slave since childhood ‘of some sort of rhapsode’ (=4

>
2 6
|
(
).
The humour of this remarkable fragment operates on a number of levels.
There is the failure of the boorish old man to understand any Homeric
Greek – the words are invariably novel to him ( ) – even though at least
some of them are far from being hapax legomena but used fairly frequently
 Ath. b = Strato Com. fr.  (= D  in Olson , who provides a commentary).
 The old man, in other words, takes the Homeric adjective "
to be a personal name.
 All translations are mine.
Paraepic comedy: point(s) and practices 
(especially when the cook deploys the language of Homeric sacrifice, at 
or ). It ought to be decipherable to anyone who has had modest exposure
to Homeric language. Secondly, humour is derived from the failure of the
pompous epic cook himself to use Homeric language appropriately: "
4,
for instance, is used in Homer exclusively as an epithet (in conjunction
with V!
or /

), and not as a free-standing adjective that has
become tantamount to a noun; and a couple of the cook’s coinages seem
to be ad hoc inventions (or, put more cautiously, they are not attested
in the epic corpus we have), a strategy pursued by the cook, it would
seem, for the sole purpose of sounding pompous. This applies to the word
=5 #!
(‘earth-breaker’) for ox (), or the verb !2 1 (), which
is never attested before this fragment, instead of !>. Finally, there is the
comic entertainment an audience is to derive from watching these two
characters fight their own Homeric battle, if you will, where the conflict
revolves about poetic language itself and becomes manifest as the failure
(on the part of the old man) to decode linguistic registers properly while the
pompous slave cook is funny because of his correct, incorrect or half-correct
use of Homeric idiom.
At least three bigger features of this fragment need to be mentioned.
There is, first, the failure of communication (the old man simply ‘doesn’t
get’ the epic mode), a source of humour in its own right, and a comic
strategy which can be found in a number of cases of paratragedy as well
(notoriously so in parts of Aristophanes’ Women at the Thesmophoria).
Secondly, the class aspect: Strato exploits the comic effect of inverting
class-based social stereotypes and assumptions in that the owner of a slave
cook may be expected to have at least a vague understanding of Homeric
language, whereas a slave cook would not exactly be expected to be able
to converse in it. This is, in fact, not the only case where exploiting the
incongruity between a cook’s perceived social status and his displayed cul-
tural competence is the principal means of generating humour: the cook in
the Syntrophoi by Damoxenus (fr. ) waxes philosophical. Moreover, there
is an established link between epic and food, and cooking ‘Homerically’
has some tradition. Finally, and most importantly for the purposes of this
chapter, we witness the creation of a paraepic character: the cook is not a
 Wilkins : – and Dobrov : –.
 Olson and Sens : xxviii–xliii. The epicizing fragments from the fourth century by Archestratus
of Gela and Matro of Pitane are the fullest extant evidence, see Olson and Sens  and  for
the texts and an extensive commentary. But there are also some fifth-century food-related hexameter
fragments. Cratin. fr.  consists of two hexameters (but no Homeric Kunstsprache) where someone
is invited to eat, probably in a symposiastic context. The thirteen hexameters of Pherec. fr. 
(from his Cheiron, no Kunstsprache) are also associated with the symposium, while Hermipp. fr. 
 martin revermann
figure from the Homeric poems entering the world of comedy as, on the
Choregoi vase, the tragic Aegisthus enters the world of comedy. Rather,
this is a stock character of contemporary comedy, the cook, who is being
‘Homerized’. This poetic strategy is a way of combining disparate and
incongruous features that I have previously called ‘layered juxtaposition’.
Cumulatively, this kind of juxtaposition constitutes a paraepic comic char-
acter who provides the playwright with specific opportunities to solicit
laughter and amusement. In this particular case the cook’s Homerization
is, for all we can tell, brought about by one single set of distinct cues, the
diction of the Homeric Kunstsprache and not, for instance, by metre (i.e.
the dactylic hexameter) or by costume.
While the Strato fragment is a convenient entry point into the field
of paraepic comedy, the bigger claims and concerns of this paper are
best spelt out early on. The term ‘paraepic comedy’ is used to denote
any instance in which a comic playwright is trying to cue his audience
into connecting, for whatever length of time, what they experience right
now in the theatre with epic poetry. The range of such cues is very wide
indeed, and they can be classified, roughly, into three categories (which
may partially overlap): linguistic (metre and diction, equivalent to what
Peter Rau considered paratragoidia when examining, in , comedy’s
relationship with tragedy); performative (costume, props, gesture and
movement, pitch, delivery); and narrative or dramaturgical (choice and
development of character as well as plot). These cues can operate for any
length of time during a performance, and at any level (the micro-, meso-
and macro-level). Within the space constraints of the article format, I wish
to make and substantiate the following four points:
() In its interactions with Homer and epic poetry, comedy exploits the
specific cultural valence of epic poetry, which is higher and of a different
order from that of comedy’s performative rivals, tragedy and satyr-
play, genres which comedy (certainly as practised by Aristophanes)
is even more keen to appropriate. By cultural valence I mean the
set of assumptions and evaluative judgements that inform societal
discourses on any kind of cultural commodity. As a result of the steady
ascendancy of Homer as the authority, and of the Iliad and the Odyssey
as the classics, the fifth century attaches an extremely high cultural
(= H  in Olson ) has twelve hexameters (again no Homeric Kunstsprache) in praise of wine. In
addition, there is the cookbook by some Philoxenus mentioned in Plato Com. fr.  (from Phaon,
dated to  bc) who quotes twelve and a half mock hexameters from it.
 Taplin : –.  Revermann a: .  Rau .
Paraepic comedy: point(s) and practices 
significance to anything thought to be by ‘Homer’. Comedy, ever
the self-interested and self-promoting genre, capitalizes on this specific
cultural valence of epic poetry.
() By contrast with tragedy, comedy’s interaction with epic, the available
evidence suggests, tends to oscillate between two poles. It is either quite
‘Homer-centric’, meaning that there is a focus on the Iliad and, most of
all, the Odyssey. Tragic playwrights, on the other hand, show greater and
more sustained interest in the poetry of the Epic Cycle (even though
there are several and important cases of tragedy appropriating material
from the Iliad and the Odyssey as well). Alternatively, comic playwrights
like to create what I call epic modality, a somewhat looser and more
vague form of generic interaction which utilizes as cues to the audience
any combination of metre (i.e. in this case the dactylic hexameter as a
signature cue), Homeric Kunstsprache (another signature cue), dramatic
character, plot or situation in order to invoke for the recipient an epic
atmosphere or tinge which suggests grandeur or mock-grandeur (the
Strato fragment just discussed is an excellent example of such epic
modality creating mock-grandeur).
() While the two general points just made crucially inform comedy’s
handling of epic poetry in general, these interactions do not follow
one single template but need to be teased out in each individual case.
Critical parameters include an individual play’s thematic agenda, the
broader socio-cultural context as well as particular features of the local
cultural economy. It should, for instance, not be assumed that Sicilian
comedy and Attic comedy responded to epic in identical ways, or that
the responses remained uniform and did not vary over time.
() Of particular interest and relevance is the comparative analysis of
Attic paratragic and Attic paraepic comedy. The technical similari-
ties between the two are considerable, on the micro-, macro- as well
as the meso-level. Especially the exploitation of incongruities between
linguistic registers and the ‘comedification’ of characters, situations and
plots taken from the other genre are poetic strategies which are used in
quite similar ways in both paratragic and paraepic Attic comedy. Ideo-
logically, however, the two are very different indeed. While paratragedy
is an especially aggressive version of comedy’s parasitic way of generic
appropriation in general, the paraepic mode, albeit still parasitic in
 A concept which changes over the centuries: only by the fourth century ‘Homer’ seemed to have
narrowed down to denote the author of the Iliad, the Odyssey and the Margites, see Pfeiffer : ,
–, ,  and .
 martin revermann
nature, seeks not to devalue the object of appropriation and, in a zero-
sum game situation, profit from its alleged failures and deficiencies
(as is the case with paratragedy). On the contrary: paraepic comedy
aggrandizes even further the already high status of the appropriated
genre and strives to feed off the cultural prestige of epic poetry, thereby
leaning more towards a scenario which economists and game theorists
call ‘Pareto optimal’. Here none of the participants is worse off and at
least one of them is in fact better off than before. Since not every reader
may be familiar with the concept of Pareto optimality in particular, I
add two explanatory charts:
Zero-sum Game
10
5 10
0
A B
−5 −10
−10
Gain A = Loss B
Pareto Optimality
20
15
10 20
5
5
0
A B
Gain A ≥ Gain B ≥ 0
a sicilian take on homeric epic

Of these four central points it is the third which I would like to illustrate
first, continuing my off-centre approach to the topic from the margins of
Paraepic comedy: point(s) and practices 
the continuum that is Greek comedy. If the Strato fragment belonged to
the end of the fourth century, I would like to shift to the late sixth and
early fifth century, and to the Greek West. Epicharmus, we are being told,
in some of his plays resorted to parody. This, very interestingly, included
parody of Attic tragedy as embodied by Aeschylus (who, of course, spent
his last years in Sicily). But it is Epicharmus’ parodic appropriation of epic
that we have a much better idea of. This is thanks to two papyri, the com-
bination of which yields fragment , one of the longest extant fragments
of Epicharmus. It is part of a play entitled Odysseus the Deserter ()K2W
*

) which shows Odysseus in conversation with another uniden-
tified character. Previous scholarly discussions all failed to make sense of the
obvious implication of the play’s title, namely that Odysseus deserted from
the Greek army and found refuge, of whatever sort, among the Trojans.
It was Willi in his important  monograph on the socio-linguistics of
Sicilian literature who for the first time put together the pieces in a way that
fully ties in with those implications of the title Odysseus the Deserter, and I
am following his reconstruction here. Odysseus was sent to Troy on a spy
mission which went wrong, badly. This much is certain, and uncontested,
from the last and best-preserved lines (lines – of fr. ):
(Odysseus) If only I had gone where (!' Q) they told me to go . . . to prefer
evil deeds () to good behaviour . . . to master the danger and acquire divine
glory ("
!
) . . . to go to the city ( V2), to find out everything well and
clearly, and to report back to the Achaeans and the esteemed son of Atreus the
things around here, myself being unharmed (!).
This passage is preceded by a beating scene, where Odysseus is being
maltreated (–): ‘But I see – why are you hurting me, wretch? ( , 1>),
;) – the Achaeans are close. How badly I am off!’ The assault must be
conducted by a Trojan, and it is evident that Odysseus is currently in their
hands (probably in the Trojan camp outside the city walls rather than within
the city itself ). Odysseus, then, abandoned his mission and deserted to the
Trojans. In the other major fragment of this play, preserved in Athenaeus
(= fr. ), the speaker relates that he has lost the neighbour’s piglet that was
reserved for sacrifice at the Eleusinia festival, and that someone accuses him
of having sold the piglet secretly to the Achaeans. Therefore, in what would
be a hilarious inversion of the Homeric model, Odysseus the deserter may
well have been made to do at Troy what Eumaeus of the Odyssey does
 Test. (K–A). Willi :  misleadingly narrows this down as referring to parody of hexameter
poetry only.
 Willi : –.  Willi , .
 martin revermann
on Ithaca: work as a swineherd. Some kind of black-market trading with
his fellow Achaeans may have got Odysseus into trouble with his Trojan
host(s).
Epicharmus’ handling of the epic foil is as intriguing as it is bold. His cues
are taken from Odyssey , where Helen reminisces about Odysseus entering
Troy in disguise, and most notably Iliad , the Doloneia, which is also
established as a significant intertext by a number of linguistic pointers.
It is worth mentioning already at this point that it is quite unusual for
any comic playwright to use as a model the Iliad instead of the Odyssey,
which dominates comic Homer reception, for reasons which will shortly
become clearer. That said, those pointers to the Iliadic model only rein-
force the daring comic creativity with which Epicharmus goes on to do his
own thing – even if this means rewriting the Homeric master narrative by
inverting or defying its basics, to the point of making the resulting comedy
‘counterfactual’. Odysseus, the archetypal heroic survivor and epitome of
the superior Greek intellect, is being cast in the role of the treacherous
deserter, the swineherd with fraudulent inclinations, the object of physical
abuse (note the inversion of Odysseus’ verbal and physical abuse of Ther-
sites in Book  of the Iliad ): all of this undermines the nobility, the status
and the justification of the cause which the epic Odysseus represents. It
does so to a degree which seems to hint at a larger aesthetic and ideological
agenda if this narrative is situated within the larger discourse of negotiating
a specific western Greek cultural identity.
Willi takes quite a radical view here when regarding Epicharmus’ inven-
tion of a deserting Odysseus and his linguistic integration into the col-
loquial vernacular of Sicily as an ‘attack on epic poetry’ (‘Angriff auf das
Epos’) and everything epic poetry represents to a Sicilian audience around
 bc. The relationship of comedy with epic would, in this instance then,
be head-on antagonistic, almost an act of cultural aggression in the sense
that Epicharmus’ ‘writing against’ the Homeric model as well as his ‘writ-
ing beyond’ that model both taken together turn into what post-colonial
critics like to call ‘writing back’. This ‘writing back’ would delineate along
two axes here: the internal axis of class, whereby Epicharmus the comic
playwright claims for the colloquial vernacular, hence for popular con-
sumption in large theatres, an art form written in a Kunstsprache with an
obvious ideological appeal to the aristocracy; and an external axis of cre-
ating and renegotiating cultural identity, whereby Epicharmus the Sicilian
 Cassio :  and Willi :  n. .  The title of section . of Willi : –.
Paraepic comedy: point(s) and practices 
claims for the colloquial vernacular, hence his home region, an art form
championed by the whole of Greece.
It is crucial to note in this context, and for the larger question of the
ideologies that underlie paraepic comedy, that there is no evidence for the
existence of Sicilian tragedy as a rival genre to Sicilian comedy. The closest
performative rival for Sicilian comedy is probably melic poetry, especially
when and if it was choral, as many continue to believe much, though
perhaps not all, of Stesichorus’ poetry is. In the absence of another full-
blown dramatic rival to comedy, this form of ‘writing back’, then, becomes
much less an act of generic self-assertion, as Aristophanic paratragedy
arguably is, rather than a means of carving out and establishing cultural
identity in an environment which may justifiably be called ‘postcolonial’.
In the context of Sicily and its complex relationship with the Greek
mainland, the cultural valence of Homer and epic poetry appears there-
fore to have been somewhat ambiguous. It can, to great comic effect, be
subjected to bathos and various forms of funny inversion. Irony is one of
the comic modes here when, for instance, Epicharmus makes the comic
Odysseus recount what he ought to have done and mention that he would
have achieved ‘divine glory’ ("
!
). But the very act of ‘writing back’
is, of course, an implicit acknowledgement of the target’s cultural value,
and there is no reason at all to believe that Homer and epic poetry were
held in lesser esteem in Sicily than anywhere else in the Greek world. On
the contrary: recitals of the rhapsode Cynaethus from Chios are attested
for Syracuse for the late sixth century, and it has long been plausibly
suggested that the Greek colonies and, indeed, the very process of colo-
nization were vital for the dissemination of epic poetry in general and the
canonization of the Homeric poems in particular as panhellenic classics.
There are further indications in the Epicharmus fragment that the
Homeric poems are not the direct targets of ‘writing back’ as part of
an ‘attack on epic poetry’ but more of a vehicle for much larger concerns.
The dactylic hexameter is not being used: the lines are in anapaests (note
that hexameters are attested elsewhere in Epicharmus three times). More
compelling, perhaps, is the observation that the epic lexicon and linguistic
register are integrated very discriminately and much more subtly than what
 Power : – provides a useful and up-to-date synthesis. He, in my view correctly, argues that
Stesichorus primarily wrote for choruses but would also compose solo pieces on occasion.
 There is much interesting research currently being done on trying to contextualize Sicilian literary
culture, from both a socio-linguistic and a socio-historical perspective. See Willi ,  as well
as Bosher .
 Burkert  and Willi : .  Burkert  is a particularly important discussion.
 In frr. ,  and ., which quotes Il. . (a line also quoted at Pax –).
 martin revermann
is regularly encountered in that paragon of comic appropriation, Aristo-
phanic paratragedy, which often uses blatant and sustained linguistic and
metrical cues to signpost its appropriation of its (stage) rival tragedy. And
as the Strato fragment discussed at the beginning of this chapter demon-
strates, there are ways of appropriating epic poetry which are much more
‘in-yer-face’, if you will, than what happens in the Epicharmus fragment
(brief as it is). Lastly, I believe it is critical to note that in Epicharmus’
Odysseus the Deserter the empowerment (albeit temporary) of the Trojans,
the Other on the margins of the Greek world, over a cowardly and treacher-
ous Greek from Ithaca may well have held a specific appeal for its Syracusan
audiences. Odysseus, the archetypal Greek survivor who prides himself on
a superior intellect and outstanding strategic skills, not only shows what he
is really made of (cowardice and opportunism) but also ends up becoming
the object of comic Schadenfreude at the hands of the marginal Other. So
this comic Odysseus is used to articulate broader socio-cultural anxieties
and conflict. But he could not, would not, and was not conceived to under-
mine the overwhelming authority of epic poetry, that charter narrative of
all Greeks. I submit that for Syracusans living around  bc epic poetry
was, and quite possibly had been for a while, something that was ultimately
above and beyond cultural competition, as it provided not just a platform
to articulate anxieties and conflict but also, and even more importantly, a
unique and distinct way of connecting with a past of heroism and grandeur
that was shared among all Greeks.
the athenian context

On to fifth-century Athens, at last, where the parameters for comedy’s
interaction with epic poetry are notably different from the situation in
Sicily, resulting in a reconfigured cultural economy within which comedy
 I am thinking, for instance, of the powerful and not altogether rare comic use of dochmiacs, a metre
very much associated with tragic anxiety. See L. P. E. Parker : – and my remarks below on
Ar. Ach.  and .
 Hermipp. fr.  would be another example: twenty-three hexameters (!) of an epic catalogue of
goods being imported into Attica by sea, starting in the proper Homeric vein with an invocation of
the Muses.
 The need to re-cast traditional tales in order to appeal to western Greek sensitivities has also been
observed for Stesichorus. Thus Burnett  argues that in the Lille papyrus (a PMGF) the
solution proposed by Iocasta (and endorsed by Teiresias) – Eteocles stays in Thebes while Polyneices
accepts his fate and departs in peace and for good – reflects a problem all too familiar to audiences
in the western Greek colonies: how to depart from your homeland without subsequent conflict.
The myth of the Seven then becomes a negative example: a failed departure and a dysfunctional
homecoming – a colonization gone wrong.
Paraepic comedy: point(s) and practices 
competes for attention and prestige. This is a century in which the cultural
valence of epic poetry in general and Homer in particular is not only strong
but also highly differentiated, in a number of ways. As a cultural icon,
Homer by this time has certainly emerged as the unmatched authority who
determines Greek conceptualizations of their past (see Herodotus passim).
As a poet, he is now being disassociated from works such as the Cypria
(Hdt. .) which are universally considered to be artistically inferior. As
an author, he starts to be conceptualized as a text ready to be searched and
scrutinized in full (which Herodotus claims to have done at .). As a
thinker, Homer solicits lively, even hostile theological and philosophical
debate. And as an instructor, he has thoroughly penetrated the educational
system: a fragment from Aristophanes’ Banqueters (fr. ), for example,
presents the explanation of obscure Homeric words (JK
2 @ )
as a standard feature of old-style education.
But the parameters for comedy are also different as a result of the specific
cultural environment in fifth-century Athens. Crucially, in this city, comedy
has to grapple with a more than formidable stage rival, Attic tragedy – by
contrast, it seems, with the situation in Sicily where no indigenous tragedy
is attested. Two areas in particular provide grounds for competition here: by
generic convention, it would appear, tragedy inhabits the same narrative
space as epic poetry, which in turn has implications for paraepic forms
of comedy; and in the form of satyr-play, tragedy’s performative adjunct
at the dramatic festivals, tragic playwrights venture into the realm of the
grotesque, the bad, the ugly and the exotic which comedy considers to be
its home turf. Moreover, and as if that austere sister genre were not rival
enough, there are of course the competitive comic playwrights themselves,
all trying to come up with that blockbuster by some kind of extravaganza,
which regularly entails the challenge of giving a well-known traditional tale
that unpredictable, hilarious spin which will sweep the audience off their
feet (or so they all hope at least).
Cratinus’ Odysseis seems to have done exactly this. Here we meet
another Homeric cook, chef Polyphemus himself, whose refined palate
sets him apart very firmly from the world of his cruelly omnivorous
Homeric ancestor. This Polyphemus threatens (fr. ), in dactylic
 There is a steadily growing body of work on Homer reception in antiquity. I find particularly
stimulating the articles by Burkert , Ford , Burgess , Hunter , Carey a.
Monograph-length discussions of select aspects are Erskine , Graziosi , Nagy a.
 Recent years have seen a renewed interest in satyr-play. The research by M. Griffith must be singled
out for its quality and freshness: Griffith ,  and .
 A development that is already underway in Epicharmus’ Cyclops (fr. ) and probably featured in
Callias’ Cyclopes (fr. ) but is also detectable in Euripides’ satyr-play Cyclops, see Mastromarco :
esp. .
 martin revermann
hexameters and perfect Homeric diction, to make not mincemeat but a
gourmet meal of Odysseus and his entourage. And he complains, again in
hexameters (fr. ), about the abuse of his generous hospitality by the par-
asitic intruders from Ithaca who have taken over his cave, an abode which
has morphed from the filthy bachelor pad of the Odyssey into something of
a rather more accommodating luxury condo with all appliances, including
the couches ( ) mentioned in fragment . A civilized and artic-
ulate Cyclops confronting an Odysseus who abuses, like the suitors of the
Odyssey, the sacred social practice of xenia: this is the kind of inversion of
the Homeric master narrative which was evident in Epicharmus’ Odysseus
the Deserter, even though in Cratinus’ case such an inversion surely does
not tie in with questions of identity formation but, probably, ongoing
discussions of cultural relativity as embodied most prominently, for us at
least, in the nomos versus physis debate.
The Cyclops character is remarkable, for the heavy and sustained, though
not ubiquitous, adoption not just of epic diction but of that other hall-
mark of epic poetry, the dactylic hexameter, and exemplifies a different level
in the epicization/Homerization of a comic character by way of an intrigu-
ing dichotomy: chef Polyphemus, it would appear, comes (more rather than
less) straight out of the Odyssey linguistically while being entirely removed
from it with regard to character. In addition, there is the inversion of xenia,
a social concept and practice which is at the heart of the Odyssey master
narrative but which is now upheld and violated in reverse roles by the
Cyclops and Odysseus respectively. Here the parodic strategy of paraepic
comedy, in other words, revolves around upgrading the Cyclops from mon-
strous cannibal to refined gourmand conversing in Homeric Kunstsprache,
all for the ulterior purpose of comically downgrading his heroic foil and
counterpart, Odysseus, and with him Homer’s Odyssey.
Odyssey-related themes enjoy a remarkable prominence in paraepic com-
edy, although it cannot be emphasized enough that the evidence is sparse.
Of the twenty play titles associated with the late fifth-century playwright
Theopompus three are Odyssean: Sirens, Penelope and Odysseus (or Odysseus
 On the use of the dactylic hexameter in Old Comedy see L. P. E. Parker :  (to her survey add
Hermipp. fr.  and, as a possible case, Call. Com. fr. ) as well as Bakola :  n. .
 Mastromarco : –.
 As has been observed very perceptively by Mastromarco : –.
 On this debate see Guthrie : – and Kerferd : ch. .
 Fr. , spoken by the Cyclops and Odysseus, is not in dactylic hexameters. The metre is either the
catalectic trochaic tetrameter (as restored by K–A) or the iambic trimeter (as some earlier editors
would have it).
 Platon. Diff. com. .– Koster remarks that Cratinus’ Odysseis did not contain abuse of any specific
individual but was about the ‘ridicule ( 2) of Homer’s Odyssey’.
Paraepic comedy: point(s) and practices 
and his Companions), in which play a character (probably Penelope) men-
tions a garment (# $) worn by Odysseus which ‘Homer likened to the
skin of an onion’ (fr. ), a metatextual reference to Odyssey .–.
Theopompus’ contemporary Philyllius wrote a play entitled The Washing
Women or Nausicaa (Plyntriai or Nausikaa), perhaps a paratragic treat-
ment of a play with the same title by Sophocles. In addition to Odysseus the
Deserter Epicharmus, to look back to Sicily once more, wrote at least three
more Odyssey-related plays: Cyclops, Sirens and Odysseus Shipwrecked. My
survey of known play titles yields twenty-three plays in total which draw
on events narrated in the Homeric poems or the Epic Cycle. Of those
plays nineteen are clearly related to the Odyssey, a staggering  per cent.
The Homer-centrism of comedy’s interaction is then, really, an Odyssey-
centrism, and this contrasts very sharply with tragedy and its well-known
penchant for themes taken from those epic poems which from about the
fourth century bc were considered non-Homeric and constitute the Epic
Cycle.
Yet, the formula ‘comedy appropriates Homer/Odyssey while tragedy
appropriates the Epic Cycle’ is, needless to say, not quite so clear-cut. It
was mentioned earlier that Epicharmus’ Odysseus the Deserter interacts not
only with the Odyssey but also with Book  of the Iliad (both linguistically
and thematically). Moreover, the best-documented case where a comic
playwright resorted not to the Homeric poems but to the Epic Cycle is the
play by Cratinus that we can probably claim to know most about: for his
complex comic aetiology of the Peloponnesian War in his Dionysalexandros
Cratinus, quite naturally, went to the Cypria. Comedies based on the ‘birth
of Helen’ motif, one of which inspired a well-known South Italian vessel,
may have resorted to the Cypria as well and deployed Homeric language,
but here we approach an area where the distinction between a paraepic
comedy and a mythological burlesque is likely to have been particularly
fluid. Two particularly interesting comic vases, the ‘Rape of Cassandra’
calyx krater by Asteas (Paestan, second half of the fourth century) and the
‘Death of Priam’ bell krater (Apulian, first quarter of the fourth century),
refer to the Ilioupersis, with fascinating inversions: in the first Ajax is being
raped by a violent Cassandra (with Athena looking on winking) while the
second seems to be comically counterfactual by deferring, if not averting
 See n.  above.
 In addition to the play titles mentioned in the main text I note Alexis’ Odysseus Being Bathed,
Odysseus Weaving; Anaxandrides’ Achilles, Helen, Odysseus; Anaxilas’ Calypso, Circe; Antiphanes’
Aeolus (paratragic), Cyclops; Callias’ Cyclopes; Euboulus’ Nausicaa, Odysseus or Men Who See Every-
thing; Nicophon’s Sirens; Philemo’s Myrmidons and Strattis’ Myrmidons.
 Walsh : –.
 martin revermann
for good, the death of Priam. It remains, however, disputed whether
either vase is inspired by a paratragic comedy or paraiconographic in nature
(I must confess a preference for the former scenario).
Other comedies too may have appropriated material from the Epic Cycle,
but the evidence is very thin indeed. The little that can be inferred from
the remains of Cratinus’ Cheirones does not suggest larger paraepic themes
touching on Achilles’ youth or the like. This is despite the paraepic tone
of fragment , where the chorus calls Aspasia ‘Hera’ and, deploying the
Homeric epithet though not the dactylic hexameter, and the ‘dog-eyed
whore’ (of Zeus-Pericles, that is). It is, however, worth pointing out that
fragment  is a line written in the dactylic hexameter. Its content (‘This
was worked out by us in just about two years’) suits a parabasis or, more
probably, the play’s closure. The paratragic tinge is undeniable, perhaps
simply adding a tongue-in-cheek sense of grandeur considering the mon-
umentality of the challenge to finish a good comedy. The Myrmidons by
Strattis appears not to have been looking to epic but, possibly, Aeschylean
tragedy, although the one surviving fragment (fr. ) does nothing to sug-
gest a paratragic scenario. A play of the same title is attested for Philemon,
and it has been speculated (by supplementing a highly lacunose line of an
inscription) that Anaxandrides might have written a play entitled Achilleus
(fr. ). The notion of a comic Achilles modelled on the Iliad is not par-
ticularly far-fetched, especially in view of the Achilles-‘Aeschylus’ figure in
Aristophanes’ Frogs (see below).
Conversely (and turning to tragedy), the Rhesus, whoever its author, is
a Homer-centric tragedy, interestingly enough again drawing on Iliad ’s
Book  (as did Epicharmus in Sicily sometime earlier), a book which in
many ways is quite exceptional and widely considered to be a ‘latecomer’
to what we know to be the Iliad (whatever ‘latecomer’ actually means
in this context). The only satyr-play that is completely preserved, the
Cyclops, is of course modelled on the Odyssey. The author of the Life of
Sophocles, who certainly knew more Sophoclean tragedies than we do, main-
tains that Sophocles ‘copies (
- ) the Odyssey in many plays’,
although in our evidence only Sophocles’ The Washing Women or Nausicaa
(Plyntriai or Nausikaa) is obviously Odyssey-inspired. He goes on to say
 See the discussions of both vases in Taplin : –; Walsh : –, –; Sells : –,
–.
 The early biography of Achilles was quite certainly part of the epic tradition if not perhaps what
became known as the Cycle: see Burgess : –.
 On Iliad ’s Book  and its peculiarities see especially Danek , Taplin  and Danek . On
the hyperepic dimension of Rhesus, see Fantuzzi and Konstan in this volume.
 Sophocles was famous for impersonating Nausicaa in this play, especially when playing ball with
the maidens. See the testimonia collected in TrGF  Tt. –.
Paraepic comedy: point(s) and practices 
that Sophocles imitated Homeric grace (# ) and that he alone could
be said to be ‘Homer’s disciple’. But the single most significant tragic
piece in our context is surely Aeschylus’ famous (and lost) Achilles-trilogy
(Myrmidons, Nereids, Phrygians), which confronted the Iliad head-on and
transposed key events (from Book  through to Book  it seems) into the
tragic format (a case that will become highly relevant to my discussion of
Frogs).
To complicate the picture even further, there is, needless to say, always
the problem of what ‘Homer’ actually means to a Greek author in the sixth,
fifth or fourth century. To use as an example a passage from the ending
of Aristophanes’ Peace: the first line of this passage () is the beginning
of the Epigonoi, a poem of the Theban Cycle. Antimachus of Teos is
considered to be its author in a number of ancient sources. But Homer
must also have been thought to have composed it well into the fifth century.
For it is Aristophanes’ near-contemporary Herodotus who questions (.)
the Homeric authorship of that very poem, evidently taking sides in an
ongoing debate. In other words: while the modern scholar will by default
categorize this passage as non-Homeric, there is a very good chance indeed
that Aristophanes thought he was using Homer, that pinnacle of all Greek
poetry. And if it is true that, decades earlier, Aeschylus described his own
work as ‘slices from the big meals of Homer’, as Athenaeus would have it,
this Homer is almost certainly not fully identical with ours.
Why does paraepic comedy, by and large, gravitate so much towards
the Odyssey (for this much, at least, seems undeniable)? I submit that
this is hardly connected with the intricacies of canon-formation or the
like. The reason is more likely to be as simple as it is compelling: it is
the enormous, the in fact overwhelming thematic appeal of the Odyssey
which was bound to attract comic playwrights. Everything one could want
to see in a good soap opera – sex, violence, intrigue, marital problems,
the perils of adolescence, romance, deception, separation of lovers and the
temptations of the flesh – the Odyssey has it all: superbly told by the Master,
and with an unparalleled recognition factor among any imaginable Greek
audience anywhere. Gold dust, in other words, for the comic playwrights,
who used the creative power of their imaginations for a range of artistic
responses which we are unfortunate enough only to see faint glimpses of:
 TrGF  T .–.
 See Sommerstein : iii.–, – and – (with extensive references to earlier discussions).
 Pfeiffer : , –, , , and  discusses the various conceptions of ‘Homer’ in antiquity.
See also Graziosi  and .
 Olson  ad loc. On the intertextual implications of Aristophanes’ reference to Epigonoi in Peace
see Telò in this volume.
 Ath. d = TrGF  T a.
 martin revermann
from the bold invention of Polyphemus as a gourmet chef (in Cratinus)
through the banter of Homeric characters about their own ‘Homericness’
(in Theopompus) to Menander’s subtle use, in the Shield, of the central
Odyssean themes of separation through war, the unpleasant and greedy
suitor, and the pain that results from failure of recognition.
It is time to pause for a brief preliminary summary of what the evi-
dence considered so far (from Athens as well as Sicily) contributes to our
understanding of how paraepic comedy functioned. At the narrative and
dramaturgical level there is a palpable preference for themes and characters
from the Odyssey, even if use of the Iliad and some poems of the Epic Cycle
is also attested. In these appropriations the structural and thematic integrity
of those epic narratives was not always preserved, especially under the pres-
sure of having to generate humour by comic inversion. Thus Epicharmus’
need for a lowly and disloyal Odysseus results in significant deviations from
the basic structure of the Homeric model. Linguistically, paraepic comedy
can and does, as one would expect, resort to the dactylic hexameter and/or
the use of Homeric Kunstsprache to signal epic modality. Those cues can
be as simple as standard Homeric epithets such as ‘dog-eyed’, deployed for
personal abuse of Aspasia in Cratinus’ Cheirones (fr. ). Standard epithets
may also be comically distorted: in another fragment from the same play
(fr. ) Cratinus ingeniously poked fun at Zeus-Pericles without nam-
ing either Zeus or Pericles, simply by changing two letters and turning
the standard epithet ‘cloud-gatherer’ (-") into ‘head-gatherer’
(-"). Other markers included paraepic metapoetics. In addi-
tion to the explicit referencing of Homer (Od. .–) in Theopompus
Comicus fragment  there is a fascinating hexameter line from Hermip-
pus’ Europa (the only line we have from that comedy), where a man says
that in his anger he will eat all his fingers (D . . .
W >
2) –
clearly a metapoetic pun on the metre (note that the metrical term ‘dactyl’
is used at Ar. Nub. ).
Last but not least, paraepic casting and character development appear to
have been of central importance. Here comedy could effectively exploit the
fact that the Homeric poems, and probably those of the Epic Cycle as well,
featured stock characters (divine and mortal) with fixed and predictable
attributes who also enjoyed a high recognition factor among any possible
Greek audience. Against this backdrop, it is fun and funny to play around
with stereotypes: why not invert the standard character of the brute and
animalistic Cyclops and turn him into a refined gourmet, complete with
 On the Odyssey’s central role in Aristophanes’ generic self-positioning see Telò in this volume.
Paraepic comedy: point(s) and practices 
dinner jacket and bow tie? Or take Odysseus’ smoothness to an extreme
and make him a deserter? And why not compare the promiscuous Aspasia
with Hera, that epitome of marital austerity and boredom?
Paraepic casting extended to The Bard Himself: he materialized on the
Cratinean stage, in the Archilochoi (produced between  and ). For
one of the few things known for certain about this play (to be inferred
from fr. ) is that it featured an agon in which a comic ‘Homer’ was prob-
ably up against a comic ‘Archilochus’ – and lost! To situate this outcome
within the context of paraepic comedy seems, in fact, more difficult than
trying to determine its significance as part of Cratinus’ self-positioning: the
‘iambic mode’, Cratinus seems to have maintained, prevails over the ‘epic
mode’, probably qua being more useful for the community as some kind
of beneficial political corrective.
But does Cratinus’ elevation of the ‘iambic mode’, hence iambic comedy
with its collectively beneficial ridicule of individuals (+
),
entail the dismissal, in a zero-sum game situation, of the ‘epic mode’ and
paraepic comedy as ineffective and inferior? At least two considerations
point against such a view. First, there is reason to believe that in the
Archilochoi ‘Homer’ was not alone but, somehow, in the company of
‘Hesiod’, thereby innovatively developing the certamen tradition of a con-
test between Homer, poet of war, and Hesiod, poet of peace. If for
Cratinus the ‘epic mode’ indeed encompassed the whole tradition of hex-
ameter poetry associated with both of these cultural icons and founder
figures, a wholesale iconoclastic attack against traditional value systems
seems all the more unlikely. More plausibly, the point was that the ‘iambic
mode’, and with it Cratinean comedy, was even more useful for politi-
cal and ethical hygiene than the poetry of those great hexameter poets (a
Pareto optimal scenario, in other words). Secondly, in the other cases where
we see Cratinus deploy paraepic comedy it can quite plausibly be argued
that Homer and epic poetry were not the primary targets but proxies of
some sort. The Dionysalexandros, for all its recourse to the Cypria, was a
political allegory aimed at Pericles initiating the Peloponnesian War. And
while the Odysseis comedy was without doubt, in Platonius’ words, ‘ridicule
of the Odyssey’, it was also suggested earlier that the fundamental (and
 Bakola : – is an incisive discussion of this play.

 Cratinus’ competitor Telecleides wrote a play with the title Hesiodoi, strongly suggesting another
comic ‘Hesiod’ (and other poets?). Some paratragic element seems certain in view of fr.  (in iambic
trimeters), which pokes fun at the tragic poet Philocles. For the dramatization of this conflict in
Peace see Telò in this volume.
 Graziosi : –; Bakola : .  See above, n. .
 martin revermann
hilarious) upgrades to the status of the Polyphemus figure insinuate not
‘Homer bashing’ but a different, more sophisticated agenda within the
context of the nomos-versus-physis debate and socio-cultural discourse in
general. Reverting to the Archilochoi, Bakola argues that the real target of
this comedy was not epic but tragedy, often perceived to be the offspring
of epic. Here, the argument goes, the agon takes place on a somewhat
displaced battleground: comedy celebrated its victory over tragedy by way
of having comedy’s ancestor iambos defeat the stand-in for tragedy, epic
poetry.
There is, then, a lot to be said for assuming that in the Athenian context –
a cultural economy where comedy finds itself constantly competing with a
most veritable stage rival, tragedy – epic poetry is not so much target and
obstacle as it is vehicle and springboard: for political allegory, metapoetic
self-definition, competitive self-positioning vis-à-vis tragedy as well as other
comic playwrights, or just entertaining parody that did not require high
theatrical competence but could be appreciated by almost anyone vaguely
familiar with the Greek cultural heritage (the ‘sure laugh’, so to speak).
In Athens, if anywhere, epic poetry is not comedy’s obnoxious rival: it is
its cherished ally.
turning to aristophanes
It is of course the Aristophanic oeuvre which provides the most substantial
body of evidence for any aspect of Greek comedy, including its practices
of generic appropriation. Here we have, in principle, the best chance of
observing in detail how paraepic operates, especially on the micro- and
meso-level. A good introductory example is the paraepic vignette from
Philocleon’s escape attempts early in Wasps (–). Deploying neither
the dactylic hexameter nor Homeric Kunstsprache, Aristophanes creates
an epic modality by way of using different paraepic markers: narrative, a
signature phrase, character, props and proxemics. Philocleon, ‘an Odysseus
of sorts’ (as Bdelycleon calls him at ), tries to escape underneath a donkey
(that particularly lowly animal which the Homeric sheep has morphed
 Bakola : . Sells : – interprets the agon of the Aristophanic Frogs as a paracomic
response to that of the Cratinean Archilochoi.
 On that concept see Revermann b.
 In addition to the linguistic remoteness of the Homeric Kunstsprache, the often-noted thematic ‘non-
Athenianness’ of the Homeric poems, and probably of the Epic Cycle, may have helped to increase
the value of epic as a vehicle and lessened its appeal as a target for the Athenian comic playwrights.
Attic tragedy is different: it too is non-Athenian in its plots and settings (with few though significant
exceptions), but regularly projects into its world concerns prevalent in fifth-century Athens.
Paraepic comedy: point(s) and practices 
into) pretending, of course, to be ‘Nobody’ (–). This brief paraepic
scene looks very much like a ‘sure laugh’ because of its extremely high
recognition factor: its epic model must have been most notorious among
any possible Greek audience (even most twenty-first-century beginning
undergraduates instantly get it!), and the modes of comic distortion used
are very transparent (neither of which can be said about most cases of
Aristophanic paratragedy).
The overall yield, however, of Aristophanic comedy for understanding
paraepic comedy is smaller than might, perhaps, initially be expected,
since for Aristophanes the opportunities of epic are eclipsed by those
tragedy offered. His focus on tragedy is a phenomenon which I (and others)
believe to be exceptional by the standards of the genre during Aristophanes’
lifetime, both in its pervasivenesses overall and in its obsession almost
with Euripides. The corollary is that Homer, for Aristophanes apparently
even more so than for his rivals, is somewhat hors concours. There is no
evidence to suggest that Aristophanes ever resorted to sustained parody of
the Homeric model (as Cratinus or Epicharmus did), or that the comic
incarnation ‘Homer’ – with phallus, ugly mask and all the rest – might
have appeared on the Aristophanic stage, as opposed to, again, Cratinus
(in the Archilochoi, discussed above). Twice in the preserved Aristophanic
evidence Homer is mentioned using evaluative adjectives, both times highly
favourably, as wise Homer (Trygaeus at Pax ) and ‘divine Homer’ even
(!
O K
: ‘Aeschylus’ at Ran.  – note the hexametric character of
this phrase). This kind of positive nomenclature, exceptional in a genre
which lives off making (and keeping!) enemies who can be ridiculed and
devalued, would seem to confer on Homer the status of an ‘untouchable’,
who is spared comedy’s aggression, a privilege very rarely granted by comedy
to any mortal or immortal (the goddess Athena may have been another
lucky one).
All of this said, Aristophanic comedy too does shift into the paraepic
mode, and those instances are crucial for a deeper and more differentiated
appreciation of how paraepic comedy could function. Character is a good
starting point. As a woman with the courage to wage war on war among
Greek men, Lysistrata is an anti-epic character of grand (dare I say ‘epic’?)
 See M. Griffith  on the broad spectrum of social perceptions associated with various equines.
 Revermann a: –; Silk a passim. Bakola : – devotes an illuminating chapter
to exploring possible interfaces between Cratinus and Aeschylean tragedy. While she is surely right
to emphasize that paratragedy was a standard feature of both Cratinus and Old Comedy in general
she also concludes () that paratragedy was less dominant in Cratinus than in Aristophanes.
 The elevation of Homer beyond the mortal sphere appears to be older: it is implied at Pind. Isthm.
.–.
 martin revermann
proportion, a point strongly reinforced by the gender inversion. The shield
oath early in the play most overtly interacts with the epic genre through one
of its most notable props, although there is a strong sense of paratragedy
as well. The protagonist of the Acharnians is perhaps not so much an
anti-epic as, more precisely, an anti-Homeric hero, not least because he is
given Lamachus as his Homer-inspired counterpart. Ridiculously linear,
dull, backward-thinking and solely focused on things martial, Lamachus
takes to comic extremes character traits shown by the Iliadic Diomedes
or Ajax. The irreverent and obnoxious Dicaeopolis, by contrast, is rem-
iniscent of Thersites in Book  of the Iliad. What makes Thersites a
despicable and ultimately ineffective nuisance to the elite circles of Home-
ric leaders is, of course, what renders the comic Dicaeopolis successful in
his radical fantastic project and sympathetic to the democratically minded
notional audience in Athens. Their first encounter (Ach. –) contrasts
Lamachus’ ridiculous bombast in appearance and attitude with Dicaeopo-
lis’ irreverent and subversive behaviour towards that ‘hero’ (Dicaeopolis’
cynical address X Y#’ Z () is emphatically repeated at ).
Lamachus’ shield – that martial, and epic, prop par excellence which is
also central to the scene from the Lysistrata discussed above – is inverted,
literally speaking, for Dicaeopolis to vomit into. Homeric Kunstsprache is
not being adopted, let alone the hexameter, but Dicaeopolis’ ranting at
– can be considered a paraepic vignette invoking the catalogue style
of epic which features so prominently later on in the known fourth-century
epic parodies by Archestratus of Gela and Matro of Pitane. In Acharnians
the juxtaposition, embodied by the pair of contrasting central characters,
between the doomed grandeur of epic and comedy’s celebration of survival
and the good life culminates in the play’s showdown, the arming scene
and its aftermath (–). Staged as a tableau of parallel actions (and
parallel ways of living) the scene’s conceptual core, the lavish description of
the hero getting ready for battle, is profoundly Homeric. The epic standard
scene comes with the kind of comic modifications one would expect from
the genre: the warrior’s armour, rather than being described in painstaking
detail, is presented to the audience in a busy sequence of quick, parallel and
contrasting carrier entries; there is much emphasis on food and physicality;
and the epic hero fails visibly, returning as a battered victim, while the
comic hero is free to leave for his aristeia – between the sheets, and not
with one but two women. Lamachus’ agonizing exclamation ‘I’m having a
 Revermann a: –.  Excellent remarks on this can be found in Hunter : .
 Olson and Sens  and .
Paraepic comedy: point(s) and practices 
black-out’ (,

@) – uttered in dochmiacs, that most tragic and
expressive of metres, and echoed by Dicaeopolis’ metrically corresponding
dochmiacs ‘I want to fuck in the dark’ (,

/ @) – is but the
culmination of the scene’s pervasive paratragic modality, which started
with the introduction of the parallel messengers at the very beginning of
the sequence (–) and continued throughout, casting Lamachus as a
paratragic victim wailing in the mode of a tragic kommos while the comic
hero triumphs. Paraepic and paratragic modes, in other words, are com-
bined and merge into each other to create a smashing comic finish. The
metapoetic dimension – does comedy triumph over epic and tragedy in
the first fully preserved comedy we have? – may, perhaps, not be pushed
too far. It is, rather, the additive strategy of blending the paraepic with the
paratragic mode in order to reinforce cumulatively the desired comic effect,
which is impossible to deny here. Whether this additive strategy of generic
interaction, which results in a hybrid modality (of tragedy and epic, in this
case), is typical of fifth-century paraepic comedy in general or a speciality of
Aristophanes is difficult to make out on the basis of the preserved evidence.
I, for one, believe that the latter view is far more plausible, in part because
of what happens in Frogs, my next case study.
That the ‘Aeschylus’ of Frogs is somehow modelled on Achilles will not
have been lost on the alert and more competent members of the play’s
audiences. Not only is ‘Aeschylus’ addressed as ‘Achilles’ by the chorus
(). More strikingly, it is the prolonged silence of ‘Aeschylus’ at the
beginning of the agon () which cues the audience as early as possible into
making the connection with Achilles – more precisely, a specific Achilles:
that of Aeschylus’ Achilles trilogy in Myrmidons and the Phrygians, the first
and (probably) third play of the trilogy, both of which were famous for
their protagonist’s long periods of silence (as Aeschylus was notorious for
long-silent characters in general). This feature is critical for the use of
epic in this particular comedy: not only are paraepic and paratragic features
combined, but the epic component in fact comes heavily mediated already,
by way of (Aeschylean) tragedy. We are dealing, then, with a version of
the additive strategy of generic interaction that is heavily tilted towards
tragedy and its representation of the other genre (epic, in this case) that is
used to generate the hybrid modality. This preponderance of the paratragic
modality will persist throughout the agon, which culminates with Achilles-
‘Aeschylus’ throwing his words into the scales to weigh against those of
 The shape of these particular two dochmiacs (
Parker : –.
@ * * @ * )@ is common only in Aeschylus, see L. P. E.
 Ran. – and Taplin .
 martin revermann
‘Euripides’, a comic coup de théâtre inspired by Aeschylus’ Pyschostasia
(where Zeus weighed the souls of Achilles and Memnon) and, again, the
Achilles trilogy (where, in the Phrygians, Priam’s ransom appears to have
been weighed in scales against the body of Hector). Only the very last
lines of the play (–) invert, intriguingly, the relative preponderance of
tragedy and epic within the hybrid modality: the chorus clearly allude to the
ending of Aeschylus’ Oresteia – but the passage is in dactylic hexameters!
This is exceptional, perhaps unique, in our evidence, and clearly a strategic
move. A comic chorus with an epic voice, leaving the stage not singing
ditties but reciting or quite possibly even singing dactylic hexameters to
the accompaniment of the aulos, is noticeably different in performative
terms for anyone in the audience. It is an unusual stratagem meant to
add gravitas to the closure and elevate it to a higher level, that of Homer,
whom ‘Aeschylus’ has just called ‘divine’ (). In addition, there is the
important aspect of community. The voice of the epic hexameter, be it
sung or recited, is a solo voice. Its transposition by Aristophanes into the
mouth of a collective, the comic chorus, creates a new sense of communal
rather than individual ownership and self-expression.
Peace, finally, needs discussion in this context. The play’s generic inter-
actions, striking in complexity and sheer number, are not confined to the
stage rivals of comedy, although those do have a prominent place: tragedy,
especially in the clearly flagged paratragic use of Euripides’ Bellerophon at
the start; and satyr-play which is more subtly woven into the play’s fabric
in, for instance, the central theme of hauling out a deity or the scattered
and disorderly choral movements which appear to be modelled on those
of satyr choruses. The epic mode, however, grows in scale and intensity
during the course of the play. The fact that, as Hermes informs Trygaeus
 Sommerstein : iii. and .

 The processional movement from darkness to light and the use of
() are, rightly in my
view, commonly considered to echo the final moments of the Oresteia. For a different modality of
comic engagement with the Oresteia see Bakola in this volume.
 On Cratin. fr.  (from Cheirones) see above, p. .
 The possibility that the closing hexameters of Frogs were sung must be seriously entertained. Dactylic
hexameters were obviously being sung by the Homeric ‘singer’ (
), to the accompaniment of
his phorminx, until the advent of the rhapsodes who would start reciting them (M. L. West  and
: –). There is also inscriptional evidence with musical notation from Epidauros suggesting
sung dactylic hexameters, see M. L. West  and : , –, who dates the inscription to
a period not later than the third century bc. By the late fifth century sung dactylic hexameters – to
the accompaniment not of a lyre-type instrument but that of the aulos – may have been perceived
as particularly unusual and solemn.
 Hall  and Sells : – are two wide-ranging discussions of this complexity.
 Sells : –. On the parody of Euripides’ Bellerophon see Dobrov : – and Telò :
–; on the interaction with satyr drama cf. in particular Dobrov .
Paraepic comedy: point(s) and practices 
(–), the gods have angrily retreated from watching Greeks wage wars
against each other inverts the Homeric notion of the divine audience who
will take interest – benign or malicious – in human suffering. In Trygaeus’
interaction with the priest Hierocles (–), the metre quickly (–
) shifts from the colloquial iambic trimeter into the solemn dactylic
hexameter tinged with Homeric Kunstsprache. During this battle of hex-
ameters, quotations explicitly attributed to Homer, real and made-up,
and the authority they convey are turned into heavy weaponry capable
of deflating and undermining the hexameters used by Hierocles for his
impromptu verse oracles. Once things get physical (), the comic trime-
ter instantly returns: no dactyls for fist fights! In the play’s final sequence
(–), Trygaeus completes and counters the bellicose traditional hex-
ameters recited by the son of Lamachus with hexameters of his own mak-
ing before shifting back into the comic trimeter mode at , where the
topic is food and having more than plenty to eat. The whole passage is
a prime example of how metre and meaning can be linked and made to
re-enforce each other (note, for instance, that – are emphatically
spondaic). The formal use of Homeric metre and diction only highlights
all the more strongly the ideological shift and transference which redi-
rect the power, the universally acknowledged authority and the beauty
of Homeric poetry towards peaceful and universally desirable goals. It
would be hard to think of a more appropriate way to conclude a play which
advocates panhellenic peace and unity than by shifting formally into the
mode of ‘wise’ and ‘divine’ Homer while inverting, transferring and redi-
recting his epic tale of war and suffering into the praise of peace, food
and the good life, just before the final wedding song that accompanies the
union, physical and symbolic, of Trygaeus with Harvest.
What emerges from integrating the Aristophanic evidence into the dis-
cussion is a considerably richer typology of paraepic comedy than the
one that could be sketched earlier on. Characterization and choice of plot
and subplot again turn out to be critical dramaturgical strategies. Paraepic
comic protagonists and plots revolve around deflating the grand, pacifying
and domesticating the martial, and turning the confrontational into some-
thing convivial and celebratory. Standard devices of epic (arming scene
or catalogue, for instance) are subjected to comic inversion, which also
includes epic props (shields and armour in general). Specific epic intertexts
can be invoked (Philocleon’s failed paraepic escape attempt specifically
 Lines – are a Homeric pastiche, lines – are Il. .– (= Epicharm. fr. .).
 See Telò’s analysis of this scene in this volume.
 martin revermann
echoes Odysseus’ successful one), but often paraepic markers are used to
create, more broadly, an epic atmosphere or modality: whole scenes or brief
moments of the comic performance simply ‘smack’ of epic and convey a
distinct sense of grandeur which can be played with and distorted. The
dactylic hexameter and/or Homeric Kunstsprache, including direct quota-
tions from the Homeric epics, can be used for those effects, but often are
not. All of these techniques just mentioned, it must be noted, are used
in paratragedy as well, and the similarities between the paraepic and the
paratragic at the level of craftsmanship are considerable. The two modes
blend into each other to the point of being almost indistinguishable.
There appears to be a particular fondness of epic aggrandizing towards
the closure of a comic performance, as is the case in several Aristo-
phanic comedies (Acharnians, Peace, Frogs) and possibly Cratinus’ Cheirones
(fr. ). Of special interest are additive strategies where several paro-
dic modes are combined into hybrids: both Acharnians and Frogs create
long sequences which combine epic and tragic modalities. Such additive
strategies of generic interaction were probably quite common: Cratinus’
Dionysalexandros combines the paraepic with the parasatyric, and other
plays (for example Cratinus’ Archilochoi) would, if more of them were
preserved, almost certainly yield something about combining the paraepic
with the paramelic or para-iambic, not to mention the paracomic (i.e.
comedy’s intra-generic interactions). In fact, I suspect that, at least in Attic
fifth-century comedy since Cratinus, hybrid generic interactions were so
widespread that the sustained ‘pure’ interaction with only one genre, as
seen in Aristophanes’ Women at the Thesmophoria (tragedy) and possibly
Cratinus’ Odysseis (epic), may have been the exception rather than the rule.
Aristophanes’ Frogs, finally, shows an interesting variation of hybrid inter-
action where epic and tragic modes are combined in such a way that much
of the epic material used comes heavily mediated by way of tragedy, in this
case Aeschylean tragedy. Using tragedy as a catalyst may be a function of
Aristophanes’ unusually strong interest in tragedy (especially Euripides) in
general, or of this play’s topic in particular, or both. But Aeschylus may
well have had a particular appeal for other comic playwrights wishing to
interact with epic; for he not only constantly appropriated epic material
(Seven Against Thebes, for instance, is a full-scale tragic transformation of
an epic arming scene), more importantly, he did so with characteristic
grandeur (the 3
that Aeschylus was famous for in antiquity). The
bigger the better, if only because then comedy can deflate epic grandeur
 Bakola , Sells : –.  Easterling .
Paraepic comedy: point(s) and practices 
even more spectacularly – and a tragedian who went as far as to materialize
on stage the scales with which the epic Zeus weighs the souls of mortals
was surely asking for comedy to step in!
Whether such a tragedy-heavy hybrid interaction is typical of paraepic
comedy in the late fifth century or whether this is an Aristophanic speciality
is perhaps impossible to say on the basis of the evidence currently available.
But there are considerations which make me, for one, believe that such a
strategy is more specifically Aristophanic. One is, of course, my conviction
in general that Aristophanes’ interest in tragedy is unusual in its intensity
as well as its almost obsessive engagement with Euripides. An emphasis
on tragedy wherever possible would therefore seem an almost logical step
for Aristophanes. But there is also a critical formal feature, the use of
dactylic hexameters in Aristophanes compared with that in other fifth-
century poets, which seems relevant here. The dactylic hexameter is actually
quite frequently used by Aristophanes, but for mock oracles. Its use in a
paraepic environment, however, is rare, confined as it is to the instances just
discussed and at most three fragments. And it is interesting to note that
in the case of Eupolis there exist no more than two hexameter fragments,
only one of which appears to be paraepic (and that one only partially).
‘The fragments of some other comedians suggest a much greater fondness
for parody of epic’, Parker observes before concluding that ‘it may be that
Aristophanes and Eupolis were at one in regarding epic parody as in danger
of being overworked’. If this is indeed so, giving his paraepic interactions
a heavy tragic component may well have been Aristophanes’ special way of
trying to refresh and invigorate a comic feature which he felt was in danger
of becoming stale and flat.
slicing the big meals of homer

Epic poetry is a genre like no other for comedy, both Attic and Sicilian, to
interact with. Comedy adapted its innate and compulsive parasitic drives
accordingly. Unlike tragedy (at least in Athens though not in Sicily), epic is
not comedy’s stage rival. It may, instead, best be described as comedy’s older,
 Eq. – and –, Av. –, Lys. –.
 The ending of Frogs and Pax –, a sequence which also contains parody of oracles. The
fragments are frr. ,  and  (but the metre is uncertain in all).
 Fr.  seems to be the parody of an oracle: see Storey a: –. Only fr. , one line which
parodies a proverb, has a paraepic tinge in its use of the adjective *
, a concept associated
with the craft of Hephaestus in the Iliad (.) and the Odyssey (implied for the chains made by
Hephaestus at .–).
 L. P. E. Parker : .
 martin revermann
experienced and authoritative companion, ever-present through education
and ongoing rhapsodic performance. And a special companion it is. Epic
is in common perception represented seriously by only one artist, Homer
‘the divine’, as Aristophanes calls him, while the others tend to be neglected
and passed over (contrast the various well-known poets not just of tragedy
but also of lyric poetry). And the Bard has exceptional standing from
at least the sixth century onwards, conveying to epic a cultural valence
second to none in the panhellenic cultural economy. All of this made epic
not impossible but unwise to denigrate: putting down Homer to extol
your own product in a zero-sum game situation is a strategy that backfires
all too easily (while it might work just fine when dealing with tragedy).
Riding on Homer and the prestige associated with epic, on the other hand,
makes perfect sense and leaves everyone, comedy and Homer, even better
off (Pareto-optimal scenario). And there is reason to believe that tragic
poets approached Homer on similar terms. The rhetoric of ‘slices from the
big meals of Homer’ attributed to Aeschylus, for what it is worth, certainly
suggests not an aggressive but a grateful parasite who considers himself
lucky to be around. All of this is despite the fact that ideologically comedy’s
stance versus epic is often bound to be one of conceptual opposition, where
the comic world of survival and the good life meets the epic one of war,
suffering and doom.
Using Homer as a vehicle rather than a target did not, however, follow
a simple template but manifested itself differently. Sicilian comedy of the
sixth and early fifth centuries appears to have approached Homer and epic
poetry in ways that differed quite substantially from the appropriations
in Athens later in the fifth century. For Sicilian artists like Epicharmus
(or Stesichorus, for that matter) who worked from a fairly recently estab-
lished periphery of the Greek continuum Homer is a means less of generic
and artistic than cultural and regional self-definition. Here, even the very
little evidence we have shows that comedy’s parasitic self-interest could go
as far as to disrespect, in the Odysseus the Deserter, the structural integrity
of the Homeric master narrative by rewriting it ‘counterfactually’, in the
comic mode. Such ‘counterfactual’ rewriting of the epic paradigm, though
probably not unique within the comic tradition, has particular connota-
tions in Epicharmus’ post-colonial context not as an attack on Homer but,
more broadly, as an expression of confidence vis-à-vis the Greek mainland
and an act of cultural emancipation, reassertion and autonomy. This latter
conceptual triad is crucial for fifth-century Attic comedy too, but within
 Burkert , Burgess , Nagy a.
Paraepic comedy: point(s) and practices 
entirely different parameters: in Athens it is comedy’s place within the cul-
tural and socio-political discourses of the Athenian polis which was, to no
small extent, also defined by its interactions with other genres. Here Homer
and epic poetry, however, were only one of several readily available options
for interaction, and tragedy, comedy’s illustrious stage rival, emerged as
the most rewarding host for comedy’s aggressive parasitism. This process
seems to have culminated in the last quarter of the fifth century and with
Aristophanes.
After that, in the fourth century and later, the balance shifts yet again.
Comic playwrights, who now for the most part hailed from non-Athenian
backgrounds and produced for audiences all over the Greek world,
resorted extensively to myth as passed on authoritatively by its two major
disseminators, tragedy – and epic poetry. In this equilibrium of generic
interactions the point and mode of appropriation is likely to have been
less aggressive and more benign, less parasitic and more utilitarian. Strato’s
Homeric cook, to be sure, is not an attack on epic but a funny and highly
idiosyncratic creation of comic character. And Archestratus of Gela or
Matro of Pitane seem primarily interested in formal rather than ideological
features of epic. Lastly, the prominence of mythological burlesque in the
fourth century may often have made it very hard, and quite possibly even
pointless, for audiences to try to identify a particular play, sequence or
even line as parodying epic poetry specifically rather than traditional tale
at large. If, however, the generic boundaries become so fluid and fuzzy,
the paraepic mode loses much of its appeal to a comic playwright as an
instrument to engage his audience. This may help to account for the fact
that much of the paraepic poetry of the fourth century that we know of is
so overtly paraepic: at this point in time the nature of generic interaction
needed to be emphasized in the stongest possible terms to be understood
properly and as a distinct poetic mode.
What does the story of paraepic comedy tell us about Homer? A bet-
ter understanding, perhaps, of what the term ‘Homer the Classic’ ulti-
mately meant to creative minds in the ancient Greek world. Not the ‘sun’
which Homer was compared to in German Romanticism, as the brilliant,
warm and friendly source of all life which is also glaring, monstrous and
potentially overbearing. May the term ‘lighthouse’ be a more appropriate
 Taplin .
 ‘Und die Sonne Homers, siehe! sie lächelt auch uns’ writes Schiller in the final line of the elegy
Der Spaziergang (), exploring in this context the ambiguity between the sun as a physical entity
of cosmic durability (shining on himself as it did on Homer) and its metaphorical use to denote
Homer’s incessant and life-sustaining vitality. On Homer’s reception in German Romanticism more
generally see Rutschke  and Wohlleben .
 martin revermann
metaphor for what Homer was to Epicharmus and his successors? A trea-
sured guide by night, an imposing monument by day, an infallible token of
(self-) recognition and an indispensable point of reference for those seeking
to come home, whatever ‘home’ may have meant for each and every one
of them.
c h ap t er 5
Epic, nostos and generic genealogy in

Aristophanes’ Peace
Mario Telò
poetic contrasts and gene(ric)alogical trees

It is beyond doubt that words like ‘genealogy’, ‘filiation’ and ‘affiliation’
play a pivotal role in the metaphorical vocabulary that modern (and post-
modern) critics employ to describe and interpret intertextual phenomena.
But since antiquity writers themselves have built on the notion of paternity
to define the relationship with their forebears and stake out their position
within an established literary tradition. In classical literature certain texts
are more prone than others to represent the complex dynamics of generic
inheritance as father–son conflicts. For example, recent studies on Latin
epic have investigated how the thematic concern with generational and
dynastic continuity exhibited by Virgil and the post-Virgilian epicists self-
reflexively encodes their anxiety about measuring up to or even surpassing
their predecessors.
A similar connection between thematics and poetics is at work, albeit on
different grounds, in other genres as well. No reader of Old Comedy can
fail to notice that in several of his plays Aristophanes takes a peculiar interest
in staging intergenerational friction. In this chapter I intend to explore how
this thematic preoccupation intersects with Aristophanes’ definition of his
comic self. In particular, I set out to show that Aristophanes’ representation
of intergenerational conflict in the finale of Peace is inextricably bound up
with the tracing of his own generic genealogy. The concluding scene of
Many thanks to Elton Barker, Jim Porter, Lucia Prauscello, Alex Press, Alex Purves and the Cambridge
University Press anonymous referees for comments on earlier versions of this chapter.
 As observed by Kerkhecker : , in Brut.  Cicero seems to conceptualize the intertextual
exchange between Ennius and Naevius in terms of anxiety of influence (cf. Bloom ). In Dion.
. Nonnus refers to Homer as a father (see Hopkinson : –). On the application of Bloom’s
Oedipal model to classical literature and on the idea of literary filiation in antiquity, see Thalmann
: –; Finkelpearl : –; Hubbard ; Whitmarsh : ; Gildenhard : .
 Cf. esp. Hardie : –; Farrell ; Casali ; Gildenhard ; Oliensis : –.
 Elmer  has recently shown that in Heliodorus’ Aethiopica paternity is assigned a primary narrative
force and informs the ways in which this novel self-reflexively represents its complex intertextuality.

 mario tel ò
Peace presents us with a rhapsodic contest between the old comic hero
Trygaeus, relishing the joys of future peace, and a boy revelling in nostalgic
fantasies of martial turmoil. This peace–war opposition operates as the
ideological clothing of an interpoetic match casting Trygaeus and the war-
addicted boy in the roles of Hesiod and Homer respectively.
My main contention is that Aristophanes intertextually mobilizes a scene
of intergenerational confrontation embedded in Book  of the Iliad and
transfers this episode into the metapoetic dimension of a literary-critical
comparison. As Philip Hardie has recently remarked, ancient authors tend
to inscribe their literary and cultural histories within self-constructed con-
trastive pairings of poetic personalities. What shapes the chapter of ‘do-
it-yourself literary history’ that Aristophanes forges out of his reading of
Book  of the Iliad is a far-reaching search for the roots of his comic self.
The result is an intricately crafted dramaturgy of generic affiliations revolv-
ing around the figures of Archilochus, Hesiod and Homer. Recovering the
governing principles of this dramaturgy will enable us to gain a sense of
the intensity of self-awareness and inventiveness that Aristophanes brings
to his exchanges with different generic traditions. But it will also help us
to pin down the distinctive traits that Aristophanes places at the core of his
authorial self-presentation.
I begin by setting the terms of Trygaeus’ impersonation of Hesiod and
examining how it combines with his endorsement of Archilochus’ iambic
persona. In the second section I examine the overarching intertextual pro-
cedures that position the rhapsodic agon between Trygaeus and his young
contender against the so-called epipolesis in Book  of the Iliad, where
Agamemnon chastises a group of heroic sons for their alleged cowardice.
In the following section I consider the process of creative engagement
with the epic tradition and its own modes of generic self-representation by
which Aristophanes construes this scene as an instance of the opposition
between Homeric martial poetry and Hesiodic didactic. As I contend, the
displacement of this epic scene into the finale of Peace causes Aristophanes
to identify Trygaeus’ Hesiodic persona with Diomedes and Odysseus, two
filial figures who pose as defenders of paternal authority. In the fourth sec-
tion I build on this kinship between the Hesiodic Trygaeus and Odysseus
to bring to the surface the extensive layering of Odyssean motifs in the
finale of the play. I argue that in the genealogical tree of the comic self
emerging from Trygaeus’ impersonations of comedy’s generic predecessors,
 Hardie .
 On the concept see Hinds : –, . On Aristophanes as a literary critic see Wright in this
volume.
Epic and generic genealogy 
the Odyssey figures as a vital branch that connects Hesiodic didactic with
Archilochean iambos.
comedy and its ancestors: hesiod and archilochus

In the closing scene of Peace Trygaeus’ versatile theatrical talent causes
comedy to infiltrate the territory of other performative genres. Before
attending the party that will celebrate his nostos from Olympus and the
return of Eirene (‘Peace’) the comic hero runs into two boys coming from
backstage, where his much longed for wedding banquet is getting under
way. The first boy immediately displays his hopeless warfare addiction
and ventures into an impromptu rhapsodic performance of martial epic.
The comic hero is thus impelled to take on a similar role of virtuosic
improviser of dactylic hexameters. He attempts to beat out his young
adversary by concocting a peace-oriented selection of hexametric morsels,
originally Homeric or made up on the spot (–). At  the second
boy intervenes. He is introduced as the son of Cleonymus, well known to
the Aristophanic audience for his almost proverbial cowardice. At –
 this second boy performs the Archilochean elegiac quatrain about the
loss of the shield (fr.  W ), twisting this recitational duel into a flagrantly
anti-Iliadic conclusion.
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 Aristophanes’ numerous allusions to Cleonymus’ cowardice are discussed in Storey .
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(First Boy) ‘But now let us begin on the younger men –’ (Trygaeus) Stop
singing about ‘younger men’ and that, you triply miserable creature, when
we are in peacetime! You are stupid and cursed. (First Boy) ‘Now as these in
their advance had come close together, they dashed their bucklers together
and their shields massive in the middle.’ (Trygaeus) Shields? Will you stop
reminding us of shields? (First Boy) ‘There the screaming and shouts of
triumph rose up together of men.’ (Trygaeus) Screaming of men? You will
be the one to cry, by Dionysus, singing ‘screams’ – and ‘massive in the middle’
at that. (First Boy) Well, what should I sing about? Tell me whatever it is you
like. (Trygaeus) ‘So they feasted on beef’, and that sort of thing; ‘they had
breakfast laid out before them and whatever is best to eat’. (First Boy) ‘So
they feasted on beef, and they released from the chariot-yoke the necks of
the sweating horses, having had their fill of fighting’. (Trygaeus) Good. They
had their fill of fighting, and then they ate. Sing about these things, yes,
about how they ate after being sated. (First Boy) ‘They armed themselves
after they finished –’ (Trygaeus) Gladly, I think. (First Boy) ‘and poured
forth from the walls, and the ceaseless clamor arose’. (Trygaeus) To hell with
you, boy, and your battles too! You don’t sing about anything else but wars.
Whose son are you, by the way? (First Boy) Me? (Trygaeus) Yes, by Zeus,
you. (First Boy) I’m the son of Lamachus.
...
(Trygaeus) Oh, where has Cleonymus’ child gone? (To the Second Boy) Sing
something before you go in. I’m sure that you won’t sing about troubles,
Epic and generic genealogy 
for you are the son of a prudent father. (Second Boy) ‘One of the Saeans
now boasts of my shield, a faultless weapon that I unwillingly left by a
bush –’ (Trygaeus) Tell me, mon petit frère, are you singing about your
father? (Second Boy) ‘but I saved my life –’ (Trygaeus) And you disgraced
your parents. But let’s go inside, for I know well and clearly that, being the
son of that father, you’ll never forget these things that you have just sung
about the shield.
Many recent studies have directed attention to the metapoetic quality of
this complex scene and read into the animated exchange between the first
boy and Trygaeus the dramatization of a well-rooted tension within the epic
genre between Homeric and Hesiodic poetry. In particular, critics have
noted that the contrast between a pro-war and an anti-war epic under-
pinning this rhapsodic match is fashioned in terms strikingly reminiscent
of the rhetorical tactics deployed in the Certamen Homeri et Hesiodi to
dichotomize the literary personas of the two outstanding representatives
of early Greek hexametric poetry. At – the first boy shrewdly shifts
Trygaeus’ previous praise of feasting (a
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2 effect by reviving Homer’s reply to Hesiod
in the first couplet of the so-called epic part of the Certamen, where the
two poets are made to duel with mock-epic hexameters (Certamen ):

% !’ b

/
@ " *#" b –
%2
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,
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"!.
Then they dined on beef and the horses’ necks –
They released from the chariot-yoke the necks of the sweating horses,
having had their fill of fighting.
In the first line Hesiod appropriates Homeric language, eliding the expected
martial verb, even at the cost of creating an absurd image of horse-eating.
 The translation is my own except for the quoted Homeric language. Here and elsewhere I reproduce
with some modifications the translation of the Iliad and the Odyssey by Lattimore  and .
 See esp. Richardson : –; Compton-Engle ; Hall : ; Revermann, in this volume.
On the opposition between Homeric and Hesiodic poetry in archaic and classical Greek literature,
see N. O’Sullivan : –; Rosen a; Morris : –; Graziosi , : –;
Tsagalis : –; D. Steiner : –; Rosati : –. See also below n. .
 There is a wide agreement among scholars that the Certamen, a second-century ad composition
derived ultimately from Alcidamas’ Mouseion, is deeply ingrained in a literary tradition of synkrisis
between Homer and Hesiod that probably predates the fifth century bc: see most recently Graziosi
; M. L. West b: ; Rosen : –; Nagy b: –.
 The formal structure of this poetic agon accords well with the practice of rhapsodic competitions in
the classical age: see M. Griffith ; Collins , : –, –; Graziosi : –.
 Text and translation of M. L. West b.
 mario tel ò
In the second line, Homer reinstates the martial verb – the horses are to be
washed, not eaten – and shifts the emphasis back from feasting to war.
It is thus quite straightforward to draw the conclusion that, in this
Aristophanic scene, Trygaeus ‘plays the role of Hesiod’ and is assigned
‘the advocacy of peace and symbolic representation of peasantry associated
with the author of Works and Days’. The comic hero intertwines this
Hesiodic self-fashioning with an implicit endorsement, at –, of
the Archilochean shield-dropping posture of the second boy, whose lyric
performance elicits a jeering response from Trygaeus but, significantly, nei-
ther provokes a fierce reaction of disapproval on his part nor stirs up a new
contest. In fifth-century Athens the elegiac poem in which Archilochus
forges the much-imitated image of the = 4 was regarded as emblem-
atic of the stances of comic abjection and self-abasement typical of the
satirist’s self-portrait, as we can infer from Critias’ censorious judgement
on the iambic poet (Critias  b  D–K). Therefore, there is no doubt
that, in spite of its elegiac facet, the successful Archilochean performance
of the second boy serves the function of affirming the generic kinship
between the iambic mode and comedy as incarnated by Trygaeus. As his
name (connected with 2 ) transparently indicates, the protago-
nist of Peace acts, in fact, as a spokesman or even a personification of the
comic genre. As a result of this metaliterary identity, Trygaeus’ imperson-
ation of Hesiod and his alignment with Archilochus’ anti-martial attitude
transform this scene into a parade of comedy’s poetic predecessors that
 Cf. Graziosi : –. On the ideological opposition between war and food see Revermann in
this volume.
 Thus Compton-Engle :  and Hall : . Platter : – analyses the scene as
a Bakhtinian opposition between epic tout court and comedy without considering Aristophanes’
alignment with Hesiod.
 For the significance of the expression #2 '
() see below, n. .

`
#6 N, Sh V, . , ’ *
( !,
`
/ ,
6 %
> j#
, , "/ (‘we should not have known either that
he was an adulterer, unless by learning it from him, or that he was lecherous and wanton and –
what is even more disgraceful than these things – that he threw away his shield’). On this passage,
where Critias turns Archilochus’ generic self-characterization as a blame poet into biography, see esp.
Kurke : – and Rosen : –. Modern critics have recognized the genuinely iambic
quality of Archil. fr.  W : cf. esp. Seidensticker a; Miller : –; R. D. Griffith and Marks
: –; on the numerous references to = 4 in Old Comedy see Halliwell a: –.
Rotstein :  n.  points out that ‘the fact that this poem was composed in elegiacs stands
against an assumption that Critias speaks of Archilochus’ blame poetry as represented in his iambic
poems’ but, as observed by Dover : , there are ‘no grounds for believing that Archilochus
regarded iambos and elegy as different genres’.
 On this much-discussed topic cf., in particular, Rosen ; Degani ; Kugelmeier : –;
Zanetto ; Bakola : –. For a critique of the sceptical positions of E. Bowie  and
Rotstein , see Rosen in this volume.
 On Trygaeus as a self-reflexive agent of 2 see esp. Hubbard : –; Dobrov : –
(according to whom Trygaeus acts as ‘Mr Comedy’); Hall : –.
Epic and generic genealogy 
encapsulates a double statement of generic genealogy: Aristophanes reveals
not only the iambic ‘fathers’ but also the Hesiodic ‘grandfathers’ of his
comic self. But what connection, if any, does Aristophanes posit between
the apparently unrelated traditions of Hesiodic didactic and Archilochean
iambos? And what idea of comedy does the self-conscious disclosure of this
generic pedigree encode?
The literary persona that Hesiod projects in the Works and Days pre-
figures some of the central themes and postures of satiric literature.
Hesiod’s relationship with his brother Perses and the corrupt judges that
sets up the overarching situational frame of the Works and Days re-creates
the distinctive contours of one of the (real or fictional) feuds in which
satirists self-indulgently depict themselves as innocent targets of injustice
or abuse. This constantly evoked autobiographical background endows
the poetic voice of Hesiod with a ‘pose of moral rectitude’ that alternates
between irony and invective, recalling the self-righteous stance character-
istic of iambic and comic poets. Recently, Elizabeth Irwin has added an
important element to our appreciation of the points of contact between
Hesiod’s didactic mode and Archilochus’ satiric posture by illuminating
their shared use of the ainos as a narrative form that, despite its seem-
ingly ‘low’ and ‘weak’ status, enables both authors to trumpet ‘the strength
of their poetry and the power of their role as poet, particularly in the
assessment of what is dikaion’.
To determine what kind of kinship Aristophanes establishes between his
declared ancestors and how he assimilates the Works and Days into satiric
discourse, in the next two sections I will tease out the defining features
of the Aristophanic alter egos of Homer and Hesiod by looking at the
scene’s intertextual construction from a hitherto unattempted angle. I will
illustrate the comic scene’s recasting of the epipolesis in Book  of the Iliad,
 Other plays of Old Comedy are metapoetically engaged with Hesiod. In Cratinus’ Archilochoi the
couple of Homer and Hesiod was probably treated as an epic unity pitted against Archilochus: cf.
Bakola : – and Revermann in this volume. Telecleides’ Hesiodoi (frr. –) testifies to ‘the
canonization of Hesiod in comedy’ (Cingano : ), but it is not clear whether and to what
extent this play presented Hesiod as an ancestor of the comic genre. On ‘fathers’ and ‘grandfathers’
in the critical discourse on genre see Silk in this volume.
 Cf. Nagy : – and, in particular, Hunt . Martin :  has remarked that the structure
of the Works and Days has to be understood ‘within the demands of a genre that may have had more
in common with Roman satire than Greek epic’. On the Works and Days as an angry speech, cf.
Lardinois . Worman :  draws attention to the association between wisdom poetry and
archaic abuse.
 On this situational frame as a distinctive feature of satiric discourse in all of its manifestations see
most recently Rosen ; Hawkins : –; D. Steiner .
 So Hunt : . Rosen :  n.  draws attention to Hesiod’s ‘interest in establishing his
own self-righteousness through the narration of a neikos’.
 Irwin : . See also D. Steiner b: .
 mario tel ò
aiming to show that the poetic contrast between the first boy as Homer
and Trygaeus as Hesiod pivots on a table of ideological opposites which
comprises not only war versus peace and heroic versus anti-heroic but
also young versus old and son versus father. First of all, I will examine
the complex of epic quotations that overlay the Iliadic epipolesis onto the
contest between Trygaeus and the young warmonger; my analysis will
suggest that in this literary match Homeric epic figures as an embodiment
of filial defiance.
re-enacting the epipolesis in peace

The opening of the first boy’s performance (( I!’ B
" @
#$! – ) quotes verbatim the incipit of the Cyclic poem Epigonoi,
relating to the expedition against Thebes led by the sons of the Seven (fr. 
Bernabé):
( I!’ B
" @ #$! M
(
But now, Muses, let us begin on the younger men.
The key word B
, which ‘defines youth by its ability to bear arms’,
bestows an intergenerational dimension upon the contest between poetry
of war and poetry of peace that is dramatized in this scene. It is not by
chance that the first boy unveils his fixation on pro-war epic by evoking
the Theban cycle. At the end of his heated exchange with Trygaeus (),
he introduces himself as the son of Lamachus. In this way he turns out to
be not only ‘the worthy offspring of a valiant, even bellicose father’, but
also a real Tydeus, for Tydeus was the name of Lamachus’ son, a general
himself in / bc. The epic quotations of Trygaeus’ competitor seem
thus to be a priori conditioned by his onomastic affiliation with the boldest
 Aristophanes is not the only author who represents the opposition between Homeric and Hesiodic
poetics as an intergenerational strife. In the second oration On Royalty of Dio Chrysostom the
Homer–Hesiod contrast takes the form of a confrontation between Alexander and his father, Philip,
in which the former endorses the heroic poetry of Homer as suited to kings and generals and the
latter defends Hesiodic poetry as dispensing gems of practical wisdom: see Rosati : –.
 The same line is also quoted in Certamen  as a classic piece of the Homeric performative repertoire.
On this quotation from Epigonoi see Revermann in this volume.
 Translation of M. L. West a.
 Vernant : . On the paretymological connection between B
and see Burkert
.
 In Homer B
frequently appears in contexts of intergenerational confrontation: Il. .
(comparison between Priam and his sons); . (Nestor contrasts himself with the younger genera-
tion of warriors), on which see below; Od. . (Telemachus sets himself against the old swineherd
Eumaeus).
 Mattingly : . Cf. Compton-Engle :  n.  and Platter : –.
Epic and generic genealogy 
of the Seven. But how can a historical Tydeus like Lamachus’ son identify
himself with the B
, the second generation of fighters at Thebes
rather than the first one (to which his namesake belonged)?
Let us consider the central moment of the first boy’s rhapsodic per-
formance. Lines – and  have usually been reckoned as ‘a free
Aristophanic composition, roughly based on Homeric models such as Iliad
.– or .–’. These two passages from Book  and Book  present
us with an identical sequence of lines that is evidently echoed by Trygaeus’
adversary:
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Now as these advancing came to one place and encountered, they dashed
their shields together and their spears, and the strength of armoured men in
bronze, and the shields massive in the middle clashed against each other, and
the sound grew huge of the fighting. There the screaming and the shouts
of triumph rose up together of men killing and men killed, and the ground
ran with blood.
But are we certain that what the first boy is borrowing from the Iliadic
encyclopaedia of martial poetry is only a cluster of contextually inter-
changeable Homeric formulae stitched together to picture the loud tumult
of battle? Can we reach beyond the reading of these lines as merely a pas-
tiche of epic clichés? If we restore them to the larger situational compass of
Book , it becomes evident that Trygaeus’ interlocutor is patterning his
comic =4 upon a distinctive narrative syntax and conjuring a rich
network of thematic associations structurally anchored to a specific context.
In Book  the vibrant description of the battlefield to which lines –
belong is preceded by two speeches delivered by Sthenelus and Diomedes
at the end of an animated debate on how to live up to one’s father’s
military accomplishments. This debate takes place within the context of
the epipolesis, a self-contained episode of almost two hundred lines in which
Agamemnon, after finding and praising Nestor, confronts and scolds four
‘heroic sons’: Menestheus, Odysseus, Diomedes, Sthenelus.
 Olson : .
 On the epipolesis and its role in the Iliad ’s narrative and ideological economy see Nagy : –;
Kirk : –; Martin : –; Alden : –; Cairns b; Beck : –; Lentini
a: –; Barker and Christensen .
 mario tel ò
At – the leader of the Achaeans harshly accuses Diomedes of cow-
ardice and reproachfully holds up to him the example of his father Tydeus,
well known, by contrast, for fighting tirelessly in the forefront of the bat-
tle. Diomedes’ falling short of his father’s reputation as a valorous warrior
induces Agamemnon to draw the conclusion (–) that Tydeus’ son
is much better as an adviser than as a fighter:
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Ah me, son of Tydeus, that daring breaker of horses, why are you skulking
and spying out the outworks of battle? Such was never Tydeus’ way, to lurk
in the background, but to fight the enemy far ahead of his own companions.
So they say who had seen him at work, since I never saw nor encountered
him ever; but they say he surpassed all others . . .
This was Tydeus, the Aitolian; yet he was father to a son worse than himself
at fighting, better in conclave.
Respectfully, Diomedes does not respond to Agamemnon’s rebukes; it is
instead Sthenelus, Capaneus’ son, who takes over the burdensome task of
retorting to his charges from a filial point of view (–):
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So he spoke, and strong Diomedes gave no answer in awe before the majesty
of the king’s rebuking; but the son of Capaneus the glorious answered him.
Significantly, Sthenelus endeavours to defend Diomedes by recalling their
common commitment to the second expedition against Thebes and explic-
itly summoning up the contents of the poem Epigonoi. He claims that not
only can the sons of the Seven like Diomedes live up to the expectations
imposed upon them by their fathers’ exploits, but they prove to be even
"’
than their fathers (–):
 See Burkert : . Barker and Christensen  discuss the ways in which, in this scene, the Iliad
activates and manipulates a rival epic tradition centred on the Theban saga.
Epic and generic genealogy 
&
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We two claim we are better men by far than our fathers. We did storm the
seven-gated foundation of Thebes though we led fewer people beneath a
wall that was stronger. We obeyed the signs of the gods and the help Zeus
gave us, while those others died of their own headlong stupidity. Therefore,
never liken our fathers to us in honour.
As recent studies have shown in detail, Homeric epic builds its notion
of the paternal-filial bond around two mutually exclusive paradigms, a
conflictual and a congenial one. The latter characteristically realizes itself
on the battlefield, wherein the son’s success is not meant to activate any
form of rivalry with the father but, on the contrary, to strengthen famil-
ial solidarity, ‘affirming reciprocal identification across two generations’.
In Iliad .– Glaucus recalls the instructions he received from his
father before leaving for Troy and thus provides one of the most eloquent
formulations of the congenial paradigm: .' >
#

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p "’ V
|
% ’ )0-> "

Y2 * (‘to be always among the
bravest, and hold my head above others, not shaming the generation of my
fathers, who were the greatest men in Ephyre and again in wide Lykia’).
According to Agamemnon, Diomedes’ cowardly conduct has betrayed this
paradigm (epitomized by the directive ' "
" .#2"),
failing to reinforce intergenerational continuity through martial excellence.
Conversely, Sthenelus’ defence of Diomedes seeks to move the relationship
between Diomedes and Tydeus from scanty intergenerational co-operation
into the realm of the conflictual paradigm by defiantly depicting the second
expedition against Thebes as a proof of the sons’ martial superiority to the
fathers.
As I have already noted, in the final scene of Peace the first boy’s quotation
of the incipit of Epigonoi programmatically aligns him with the descen-
dants of the Seven (the B
). His first lines combine an explicit
reference to the second expedition against Thebes with a description of the
 See esp. Strauss : –; Crotty : –; Thalmann : –; Felson , .
 Felson : .
 On this passage see esp. Cairns a: –; Felson : –; Alden : –; Bakker :
; Lentini a: –.
 mario tel ò
battle’s tumult markedly reminiscent of Iliad .–. This conjunction of
elements causes the rhapsodic opening of Trygaeus’ adversary to re-create a
crucial segment of the narrative set-up of Book . Thus, the first boy adopts
the role of Sthenelus and the overboldness of the epic Tydeus to whom
he is onomastically related merges with this heroic son’s unruliness. But
how can the congenial paradigm, which Agamemnon suggests Diomedes
should follow for the sake of Tydeus, coexist with the conflictual one,
embodied by Sthenelus? Trygaeus’ encounter with the second boy may be
illuminating in this regard.
The comic hero contrasts the Archilochean loss of the shield boasted
about by Cleonymus’ son with the Homeric ethic of intrafamilial co-
operation through martial prowess that I have just discussed ():
[. /´ ‘42#, ’ 5 –’
_. #2 '
.
Trygaeus is undoubtedly ridiculing Cleonymus’ son, who in losing his
shield has not, in fact, ‘dishonoured’ his faint-hearted father at all. But,
as has been rightly remarked, ‘it is significant that this boy, in contrast to
Lamachus’ son, is not asked to change his tune’. This detail suggests that
Trygaeus is conjuring the Homeric paradigm of paternal-filial solidarity
with the purpose only of rejecting it in the name of Archilochean poetics.
From the peace-oriented comic point of view, there is no substantial dif-
ference between the congenial paradigm and the conflictual one: they are
interchangeable expressions of the Iliad ’s martial code.
As we have seen, in the literary match staged at the end of Peace
Lamachus’ son acts as a stand-in for Homer. By onomastically linking
this character with the notorious overboldness of Tydeus, Aristophanes
identifies Homeric epic with the most extreme manifestations of the mar-
tial spirit; at the same time, the mapping of this Athenian Tydeus onto
Sthenelus assimilates this reckless martial spirit, presented as constitutive
 In this line, #2 '

echoes Homeric formulations such as Il. .–, on which
see above. Bonanno – detects in this half-line an allusion to Alc. fr. .– Voigt ,
#> [| %
` . [ "
. It is beyond doubt that in this poem, which
develops martial themes, the expression #>
is self-consciously employed as a
marker of Homeric intertextuality: cf. Hall : – and Lentini b: –.
 So Compton-Engle : , who adds: ‘the antiheroic ethic expressed in the poem matches
the mood of Peace’. See also Platter : –. In lines – Storey : – recognizes
‘the friendliest tone in which Aristophanes mentions Cleonymus (in the context of war and peace
a = 4 , after all, is on the right side)’. Therefore, the idea that, in this scene, ‘Archilochean
escapism is condemned’ (Harriott : ) seems quite unlikely.
 Cf. Thalmann : : ‘Sthenelus’ speech . . . although its rhetoric is sharp in response to Agamem-
non’s perceived insult, is within the norm defined by the heroic ideal.’
Epic and generic genealogy 
of Homeric poetry, to an outburst of filial defiance. The apparent contra-
diction, which we have noted at the beginning, of a character’s positioning
himself within the generation of the B
in spite of his onomas-
tic association with the previous one foregrounds this notion of Homeric
martial poetry as inevitably resulting in a stance of intergenerational com-
petitiveness.
But what part does Trygaeus play in this comic reconfiguration of the
Iliadic scene’s intergenerational frame? This is the question that I take up
in the following section. We will see how the epipolesis sets the terms of
Trygaeus’ Hesiodic identity, one which is defined first and foremost by the
defence of paternal authority.
trygaeus, hesiod and the iliadic sons

We have thus far seen how the intergenerational tension between the
Seven and their descendants that comes to the fore during the epipolesis is
intertextually manipulated in the agon of Trygaeus and the first boy. Upon
closer scrutiny, the same episode spins out other narratives of father–son
conflict. Exploring the ideological underpinnings of these narratives will
help us to clarify the interpretative paths that prompt Aristophanes to use
this Iliadic episode to style Trygaeus as a Hesiodic figure.
The description of Diomedes’ silent reaction to Agamemnon’s neikos
speech lays emphasis on the key concept of .$ (.! /

, .

, ) and accords well with the excellence in the art of
advising (
" ’ ) that, though juxtaposed with supposedly
defective military ability (#" #), the leader of the Achaeans ascribes
to the young hero at the end of his reproach (–). The proximity
between lines  (
" ’ ) and  (.! /

, .

) seems to configure a thematic cluster – resting on the
combination of faultless speaking capacity and .$ – that, in Homer
and Hesiod, is deployed to identify authority figures weaving together royal
sovereignty and the practice of wisdom. It is precisely by assuming an
authoritative stance and self-reflexively signposting it through the marked
 On the agonistic valence of Diomedes’ silence see Martin : –.

 Cf. Od. .– (B ’ -"
> , | .
# , ' "
"
, | #9

’ V2 !6 a .
) and Hes. Theog. –, – (B ’ -"
> |
L4 "
" "2A . . . #
’ ’ @ !6 a
9
| .
# , ' "
"
), which characterize the condition of the ideal
king in strikingly similar terms. For a discussion of the paraenetic elements of these two passages
see Martin .
 mario tel ò
term (!
 that, at lines –, Diomedes addresses Sthenelus and urges
him to comply with Agamemnon’s orders:
" q
, ’ !
>!.

* g @ r"

" @
+>
#! s r#
>.
Friend, stay quiet rather and do as I tell you; I will find no fault with
Agamemnon, shepherd of the people, for stirring thus into battle the strong-
greaved Achaians.
In so doing, Diomedes casts himself in a part not dissimilar to the one
assigned to Nestor, who in the Iliad is not just an adviser, but represents
the paternal figure par excellence and acts as a self-conscious practitioner of
paraenetic discourse. During the epipolesis, Nestor reminds his charioteers
not to get overconfident on the battlefield in their desire to achieve their
personal glory and, with such a warning, he attempts to pre-empt the same
kind of defiant attitude that Diomedes reproaches in Sthenelus. As Nestor
confesses with remarkable narrative self-awareness, his task is precisely to
restrain the B
(!) by practising /
2 and (!
(–):
m ( "
U' >
/
2 >!
A 6 " .
.# ’ .#
2 $
,
b
B
"
! / - . 
Yet even so I shall be among the riders, and command them with word and
counsel; such is the privilege of the old men. The young spearmen shall do
the spear-fighting, those who are born of a generation later than mine, who
trust in their own strength.
In the Iliad Diomedes figures as ‘the model of the young Greek male
initiated into forceful speaking’. In appropriating the paraenetic stance
of Nestor to warn Sthenelus, Diomedes foreshadows the didactic posture
 On the semantic and ideological distinction between %

and (!
in the Iliad, see Martin :
–, –; for its developments in the Odyssey see Clark .
 Cf. Martin : : ‘Nestor and Phoenix . . . become conduits for the genre of paraenetic poetry.’
On Nestor as a symbol of */
2 and paternal authority see Schofield : –; Martin :
–, ; Dickson ; Christensen : –; Barker : –, –; on his resemblances
to the figure of the Hesiodic good king see Martin ; Christensen : –; Hunter b:
–. In .– Nestor approves Diomedes’ attitude, but remarks that it has not achieved the "

>!: cf. Schofield : –; Martin : –; Barker : –; Christensen .
 JK
and its cognates represent Lieblingsworte of Nestor’s vocabulary: see Il. ., where the
superlative B
is used. On the thematic relevance of this adjective in the opening of the
performance of Trygaeus’ adversary, see above.
 Martin : . See also Barker : – and Christensen : .
Epic and generic genealogy 
of the Hesiodic narrator in the Works and Days, who, despite his fra-
ternal status, casts the relationship with his nepios addressee Perses in a
father–son framework. In particular, the opening address of Diomedes
to Sthenelus (" q
, ’ !
>!, ) resonates
with the vocative expressions that the authorial voice of Hesiod repeatedly
uses to signpost the essential moments of Perses’ education. If Sthenelus’
filial defiance is taken as a generic icon of Homeric epic, it is quite a small
step to (mis)read into Diomedes’ paternal exercise in authoritative speech
a manifestation of proto-Hesiodic didactic. This being the case, one can
suggest that in the final scene of Peace the altercation between the first boy
as Homer and Trygaeus as Hesiod mimics the exchange between Sthenelus
and Diomedes.
Aristophanes has more than one reason to identify a ‘proto-Hesiodic
moment’ in Diomedes’ (!
and plot it into the agon that brings
Peace to an end. Not only does the young hero adopt a fatherly persona
that anticipates Hesiod’s purported commitment to redeeming his nepios
brother; in the context of the debate, the ideological contrast resulting
from Sthenelus’ combative assertion of military bravery and Diomedes’
protreptic stance also amounts to a mise-en-scène of the dichotomy between
# and
that Agamemnon laid out at the end of his speech ().
The Iliad ’s heroic code feeds upon ‘the idea that a hero will ideally be
distinguished in both wisdom and valour’ and ‘debating in the assembly
is part of what one has to do to prove oneself a man’, but the last lines
of Agamemnon’s taunt seem to envision the possibility that excellence in
speaking may be divorced from or even opposed to prowess in fighting.
If understood within a Hesiodic frame of reference, this #–

tension can be easily connected with the binary oppositions through which,
 On Hesiod’s appropriation and manipulation of the father–son didactic model, cf. Pellizer  and
Martin :  n. ; M. Griffith b: –,  interprets the fraternal setting of the Works and
Days as a deliberate innovation of the classic father–son paradigm (see also Tsagalis : –).
Pucci a:  notes that in the Works and Days Hesiod’s authorial voice ‘agit constamment
comme le substitut du père absent’.
 Cf. e.g. Op. : X [", W ' ( !
!2; : X [", W ’ V
2 .
For a thorough analysis of all the addresses to Perses in the Works and Days, see Clay : –
and Lardinois : –.
 The idea that intertextuality works through ‘a plurality of moments in which the tradition is locally
called into being and then turned and troped’ (Bryson : ) lies at the root of the concept of
‘do-it-yourself literary history’: cf. Hinds : –,  and , to which I owe the formulation
‘proto-Hesiodic moment’.
 The quotations are taken respectively from Schofield :  and Barker : .
 In .– Nestor seems to correct, at least partially, Agamemnon’s judgement on Diomedes: _2e,
" '
" % , | /
2 B %2 V
. Cf.
Christensen .
 mario tel ò
in the Works and Days, Hesiod figures the generic contrast between his own
poetic endeavour and martial epic. As many studies have recognized, the
agriculture–sailing opposition that is foregrounded at lines – (the
so-called Nautilia) metaphorically sets the aesthetic worldview of Hesiodic
didactic against the poetic values of the Iliad. Even the avian dispute
at the centre of the ainos of the hawk and the nightingale is loaded,
as Deborah Steiner has most recently shown, with a similar metapoetic
significance. In both cases the pole of Iliadic poetry is explicitly paired
with the ethical world of Perses: the unstable and unpredictable nature
of seafaring captivates his knack for gambling and risky deals, while the
predatory morality of the j5 nicely epitomizes the insatiable greed and
nefarious scheming that the Hesiodic narrator imputes to his addressee.
In Aristophanes’ tendentious reading, the animated debate that engages
the Iliadic sons Sthenelus and Diomedes in Book  not only generates the
governing principles of Hesiodic didactic but also dramatizes and tropes the
distinctive strategies by which this generic tradition articulates its identity
against the background of martial epic.
Trygaeus plays the role of Diomedes, but Diomedes is not the only actor
of Iliad’s Book  to exert impact upon the Hesiodic self-characterization of
the Aristophanic comic hero. At – (‘a
' 2
/
@ "’,

2 A | ‘V

!
D!’ Z ! ’) a
recognizably Odyssean tessera introduces the theme of feasting into the
duel between the comic mouthpieces of Homer and Hesiod. Line 
opens, in fact, with the initial segment of Odyssey . a
' 2
!’ 4-' " @, which also shows up amid the patchwork of
Homeric quotations deployed by the character of Hesiod in the Certa-
men. Feasting is a constant presence in the thematic baggage of Homeric
 On the poetological meaning of the Nautilia, cf. Nagy : –; Rosen b; Graziosi :
–; Murnaghan : –; Tsagalis : –, : .
 As D. Steiner :  observes, ‘the hawk and its mode of delivering its harangue carry an Iliadic
character and one that corresponds to the (pejorative) characterization assigned to heroic epic in
several other programmatic passages’, while the nightingale – ‘a bird that remains close to the
ground’ – captures well the scope and the quality of Hesiodic poetry.
 On the depiction of seafaring as ‘a dangerous temptation to Perses’, cf. Clay : –.
 Building upon the possible connection of Perses’ name with )P
2 [" , Martin  has suggested
that the addressee of the Works and Days stands not only for ‘a brother and a general audience in
need of instruction’ but also for ‘the entire genre of epic about Troy’s fall’. On the Iliadic character
of Perses see also Rousseau .
 Cf. Certamen : a
p ' 2

,
*' %#
. Od. . alludes to the banquet
that Menelaus arranges in Sparta to celebrate the weddings of his son and his daughter. As lines –
indicate, Menelaus had promised to marry off his children when he was still in Troy but this promise
was enacted only after the end of the war. By placing emphasis upon the post-Iliadic dimension of
this wedding celebration, the Homeric narrator seems to present feasting as a typically Odyssean
theme.
Epic and generic genealogy 
epic. It pervades the world of the Iliad ‘but it is especially in the peacetime
epic of the Odyssey that we see young men gathering in the halls of the
great to feast’. In the Odyssey feasting is the single most frequent activity
and is charged with a broad network of symbolic associations pertaining
to the concepts of social orderliness, civic harmony and political stability.
Therefore, it certainly comes as no surprise that the Homer–Hesiod con-
trast staged by Trygaeus and his adversary is also constructed out of the
antagonistic opposition between a war-centred Iliad and a feasting-oriented
Odyssey. What is surprising is to find this opposition thematized within
the same Iliadic episode that, as we have seen, serves as the pivotal inter-
textual background of the intra-epic contest staged at the end of Peace.
Before addressing Diomedes, Agamemnon reviles Menestheus and, espe-
cially, Odysseus for their defective commitment to fighting in the vanguard
(–):
>,

" -
,
$
-", ’ V
2; 
-@l " ’ "
$

R &' # 2 /
A
$ 6
21!

,
B "
2 -
1 r#
.
%! - ’ +" " % U' > 

j
2 " "
, 3-’ !"
A
( ' - #’ B . " >
r# @

! #

"l #.
[Son of Peteos, a king supported by Zeus] and you, too, you with your
mind forever on profit and your ways of treachery, why do you stand here
skulking aside, and wait for the others? For you two it is becoming to stand
among the foremost fighters, and endure your share of the blaze of battle;
since indeed you two are first to hear of the feasting whenever we Achaians
make ready a feast of the princes. There it is your pleasure to eat the roast
flesh, to drink as much as you please the cups of the wine that is as sweet as
honey. Now, though, you would be pleased to look on though ten battalions
of Achaians were to fight with pitiless bronze before you.
This rebuke and that subsequently directed against Diomedes share
a set of structural and linguistic similarities – primarily in their open-
ings ( $
-", ’ V
2;  ∼
$ , ’ + >
"

->; ) – pointing to the sym-
bolic kinship between Odysseus and Diomedes that is repeatedly posited
 Ford : . See also Sherratt : .

 On the metaphorical meanings attached to Odyssean feasting see esp. Saı̈d : –; W. J. Slater
; Pucci : –; Ford ; Bakker .
 mario tel ò
throughout the poem. In both of his blame speeches Agamemnon defines
the normative world of # against an alternative (and allegedly inferior)
ethico-social microcosm ( or
) into which he contemptuously
relegates his interlocutors. It is evident, in other words, that the #–

dichotomy emblematized by Sthenelus and Diomedes reformulates,
in different terms, the dialectic between # and that Agamemnon
devises to chastise Odysseus.
If the practice of
exemplified by Diomedes’ admonitory address
to Sthenelus can be taken to adumbrate the didactic setting of the Works
and Days, conjures an ideological concern with fair sharing and equal
distribution that is central to Hesiod’s paraenetic enterprise. In fact, the
Works and Days’ just speech urges its Iliadic addressee Perses to overcome
greed, detach himself from the group of the
-
kings and embrace
. It seems thus possible to conclude that Agamemnon’s tendentious
presentation of Odyssean  as an alternative to and a diversion from
# provides Aristophanes with another ‘proto-Hesiodic moment’, which
brings out a concept resonating with the Works and Days’ moral universe
and places it against the backdrop of martial poetry. In this perspective,
and
can function as interchangeable tags of the generic territory of
Hesiodic didactic.
The merging of the proto-Hesiodic worldviews ( and
) with
which Agamemnon associates Odysseus and Diomedes enables Trygaeus
to confront his Sthenelus-like opponent by deploying an Odyssean stance.
Trygaeus is impelled to re-enact Diomedes’ role, but instead of positioning
himself within the discursive domain of
he intrudes into the cognate
realm of Odyssean . How shall we explain this choice? In the Iliadic
scene consider Odysseus’ response to Agamemnon’s attack (–):
34 , T !"! j "
,
_#

-
"
#
"
_$
A W ' (’ $ /1 . 
 Cf. Martin : .

 On the ‘association of a clever speechifier with food’ that lies behind Odysseus’ concern with
in the Iliad, cf. Worman a: –, b, : –.
 See, among others, Griffith b; Clay : –, : –; Lardinois ; Edwards : –
. D. Steiner :  n.  has pointed out that the epithet
-
, similar to
/
,
which is attached to Agamemnon in Il. ., underscores the association of the corrupt kings of the
Works and Days with the world of the Iliad.
 The vocative expression that Agamemnon uses to address Odysseus (l.) creates ‘a less than heroic
persona for Odysseus, which . . . is put to good use by the Odyssey as it realizes its hero’s
’
(Bakker : ). Cf. Pucci : – and Clay : . Significantly, this address is alluded to
in Eq. – (
2 | 1
"

).
Epic and generic genealogy 
Only watch, if you care to and if it concerns you, the very father of Telema-
chos locked with the champion Trojans, breakers of horses. Your talk is
wind, and no meaning.
What is most striking in Odysseus’ self-defence is the strong emphasis

laid on his paternal condition. At line  Agamemnon addresses him as
Y , and in so doing he betrays his attempt to equate Odysseus
with the other addressees of his taunts, namely Menestheus, Diomedes
and Sthenelus, whose status as heroic sons is continually underscored
through an insistent usage of patronymics (X 2' [@

-"

/
, ; k
, _2"
2' e-

, ; 6 ’
26 c
4
2

, ). By presenting himself as
father of Telemachus, Odysseus clearly aims to shake off the filial identity
that Agamemnon is imposing upon him or, to put it another way, he is
trying to displace the paternal authority embodied by the leader of the
Achaeans onto himself and, by extension, into the domain of . If in
Book  the exchange between Agamemnon and Diomedes configures itself
as the clash between a war-centred political father and an
-oriented
son, Odysseus’ self-presentation as ‘the father of Telemachus’ seems to
have paved the way for Trygaeus to flip the terms of this exchange and
turn it into its opposite: a match between a Sthenelus-like son and an
Odysseus-inspired father.
One could even say that Trygaeus picks up on Odysseus’ retort to
Agamemnon and retrospectively downgrades the head of the Achaeans to
filial status by coupling him with a transgressive symbol of hypermartial
attitude such as Sthenelus. Trygaeus is, in other words, reading this scene
according to the same intertextual strategy that informs the agon between
Odysseus disguised as a beggar and the suitor Eurymachus in Book  of
the Odyssey. In the course of this agon Eurymachus mockingly addresses
Odysseus and suggests that he should work for him gathering stones for
the walls and planting trees, but he immediately withdraws his offer
 See Lentini a: –.

 On the ‘easy passage uniting the three figures of the king, the god, the father’ (Derrida : ) in
classical literature see D. P. Fowler : –. That Agamemnon is made to play a paternal role
is guaranteed by the resonance of Odysseus’ response with Od. .– (34 , j ’ !"!,
- , ’ !2 |
` #>
6 "
, :
> ). In both scenes
a filial figure (Odysseus / Telemachus) rebels against or challenges a paternal one (Agamemnon /
Odysseus): cf. Murnaghan : –.
 Nagy :  reads the contest between Odysseus and Eurymachus as a Homeric counterpart to the
relationship between Hesiod and Perses. See also Murnaghan : – and D. Steiner a: .
In Hymn .– Callimachus significantly turns the episode into a metapoetic conflict between
Homer and Hesiod: cf. Bing .
 mario tel ò
claiming that the beggar could never accept it because of his insatiable
belly (–):
’
I , % ’ %!,
* !
%

#! , $

/
> , 3-’ t %# / , "’ V
.
But since all the work you have learned is bad, you will not be willing to go
off and work hard; no, you would rather beg where the people are, and so
be able to feed that ravenous belly.
Such an insulting remark echoes the reproach that Agamemnon targets
at Odysseus in Book  of the Iliad. In both the Iliadic and the Odyssean
context what exposes Odysseus to the blame heaped upon him by his inter-
locutors is his supposed habit of lagging ($
, ; cf. Il.
., $
) and slackly indulging in the pleasures of
the belly (/ , "’ V
, ; cf. Il. .–, $
6
21!

, | B "
2 -
1
)\#
). In the Odyssey the suitors are persistently qualified as "
(or

(
) and display many features of the ‘recklessly individualistic warriors
of the Iliadic battlefield’; significantly enough, the formulaic line m "
j "
is always and exclusively referred to
them. The effects of retrojected intertextuality that Eurymachus’ self-
patterning upon Agamemnon determines are, thus, quite easy to gauge.
Agamemnon is retrospectively paired with a figure of arrogant youth
and accorded the filial identity that, in Book  of the Iliad, Odysseus
intended to impose polemically upon him. The head of the Achaeans is
likened not only to the suitors, but also to Sthenelus, another example of

" "
whom, as we have seen, Trygaeus’ adversary deliberately
imitates.
It is thus clear that what prompts Aristophanes to understand the
characters of Diomedes and Odysseus as parallel embodiments of a
 On these lines, anticipated almost verbatim at .–, cf. D. Steiner a: –. On the thematic
centrality of in Book  of the Odyssey, see most recently Worman : – and D. Steiner
.
 On these verbal echoes cf. Lentini a: –; as Pucci :  has shown, Odysseus’ response
to Eurymachus, too, resonates with the exchange between Odysseus and Agamemnon in Book  of
the Iliad.
 Graziosi and Haubold : .
 Cf. Scheid-Tissinier ; Falkner : ; Felson : –; Graziosi and Haubold : .
 One should also observe that the epithet
/
, which Achilles applies to Agamemnon in
Il. ., recalls the depiction of the suitors’ hubristic behaviour in the Odyssey (see e.g. Od. .,
.).
Epic and generic genealogy 
proto-Hesiodic poetic personality is their adoption of a fatherly role.
Aristophanes’ idea of Hesiod seems, in other terms, to coincide with the
paradox of a filial figure conferring upon itself and exerting paternal author-
ity through which the narrator of the Works and Days programmatically
constructs his persona. Within the parade of the heroic sons taunted by
Agamemnon, Diomedes and Odysseus are aligned with two father-oriented
ethico-social domains (
and ) that Aristophanes construes as
anti-Iliadic generic forces causing the didactic impetus of Hesiodic poetry
to intrude into and compete with the rival world of epic #. As a result
of this literary-critical manoeuvre, the intergenerational debate of Book 
is turned into an intergeneric arena wherein didactic and martial epic con-
front each other in terms reminiscent of the contrasts between Hesiodic
and Homeric poetry that the Works and Days often dramatizes.
If this reconstruction of Aristophanic ‘do-it-yourself literary history’ hits
the mark, the contest between the first boy and Trygaeus encodes the
Homer–Hesiod contrast by retrieving in the intergenerational thematics
of the Iliadic epipolesis different strands of epic tradition and their modes
of generic self-representation. As I have concluded, among these modes of
self-representation the Hesiodic voice’s alignment with paternal authority
is essential to Trygaeus’ identity and, consequently, to Aristophanes’ comic
persona. However, the question posed at the beginning of this chapter still
awaits an answer: why is Hesiod coupled with Archilochus in Aristophanes’
genealogical tree of the comic self? In the next and last section I will contend
that the Aristophanic idea of Hesiod that we have so far recovered can help
us to make sense of the connection between these two comic ancestors.
comedy and the odyssean hesiod

Scholars have long recognized that the Archilochean poem on the loss
of the shield (fr.  W ), which the second boy recites with Trygaeus’
implicit approval (–), triggers a subversion of the heroic code
that sounds not only anti-Iliadic, but markedly Odyssean in register. The
iambic persona of Archilochus is self-consciously re-enacting the gesture
that, according to what Odysseus himself boastingly recounts in one of
his Trugreden, the epic character performed to save his life in a dangerous
moment of a raid on the Egyptians (Od. .–):
 Cf. J. Russo ; Seidensticker a; Miller : –; Newton : –. Barker and
Christensen  have retrieved traces of the same Odyssean stance in the new Archilochus elegiac
fragment.
 mario tel ò
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b
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At once I put the well-wrought helm from my head, the great shield off
my shoulders, and from my hand I let the spear drop, and went out into
the way of the king and up to his chariot, and kissed his knees and clasped
them; he rescued me and took pity.
Archilochus’ account of his = 4 offers an eloquent example of the
major role that the character of Odysseus plays in the iambic poets’ strate-
gies of literary self-fashioning.
As we have seen in the previous section, Aristophanes constructs the
Hesiodic identity of Trygaeus by assimilating the comic hero to the figures
of both Diomedes and Odysseus, whom, in the epipolesis, Agamemnon
depicts as adversaries of the Iliadic devotion to #. It is beyond doubt,
however, that in wielding the language of Trygaeus accords special
prominence to the Odyssean component of his Hesiodic self. If we glance
at the context of the finale of Peace, we can easily notice its shaping through
the appropriation of several Odyssean plot motifs. The resourceful (
-

| -
, –) and much-suffering (’
, ) comic hero comes back from his successful trip to another
world and looks forward to celebrating his nostos with his (new) wife.
Just like Odysseus, he also confronts and defeats a young Sthenelus- or
suitor-like supporter of martial epic. But there is more. Odysseus’ nostos
ultimately amounts to a restoration of fatherly authority resulting from his
defeat of the suitors and his assuming responsibilities as Laertes’ caretaker.
When Odysseus visits Laertes in the orchard (Od. .–), he recollects
the names and the order of the trees through which as a child he had walked
together with his father. By so doing, Odysseus not only re-acquires ‘the
long-lost parental embrace’ and re-enters the symbolic space of the oikos
but also commits himself to curing his old father, disparaged by the suitors
and relegated to solitude. Thus, the poem’s narrative telos resolves itself
in a forceful assertion of the principle of generational continuity and in the
 On this topic cf. Rosen a, : –, –; on the Odyssey’s foreshadowing of iambic motifs
and situations see Worman : – and D. Steiner .
 On the marriage feast of Trygaeus see Calame : – and Hall : –.
 The quotation comes from John Henderson : . On the relationship between paternity, mem-
ory and nature that is thematized in this scene see Pucci b; John Henderson ; Murnaghan
: –; Purves : –.
 On Odysseus as Laertes’ caretaker cf. esp. Falkner : –.
Epic and generic genealogy 
triumph of an agricultural poetics evocative of the Works and Days over
the heroic past of the Iliad.
In exactly parallel terms, the final nostos of the rustic hero Trygaeus
reunites him with his fervently longed-for trees and, through the inter-
textual mediation of Diomedes and Odysseus, casts him in the role of
a paternal son, that is, a son painstakingly dedicated to defending and
embodying fatherly authority. The plot of Wasps, centred on the father-
saving mission of Bdelycleon, dramatizes this role and its intersections
with the comic poet’s self-presentation. As I have argued elsewhere,
the stance of the paternal son is central to Aristophanes’ articulation of
his comic persona in Wasps, Clouds and Peace. In these three plays Aristo-
phanes fashions himself as a filial figure attempting, with alternating suc-
cesses and failures, to rescue his fatherly audience from the tricks of his
adversaries.
In the final scene of Peace Aristophanes engages in a programmatic
search for the generic precedents of the posture of the paternal son. He
foregrounds its affinities with the authorial voice of the Works and Days, and
by applying Hesiod’s own strategies of generic self-definition, he detects
the emergence of such a voice in the oppositional attitude towards the
Iliadic heroic code that Agamemnon imputes to Diomedes and Odysseus
during the epipolesis. The ultimate outcome of this staged archaeology of
the Hesiodic persona is the assimilation of the Works and Days’ didac-
ticism to Odysseus’ anti-Iliadic stance, the same one that Archilochus
appropriates as a key constituent of his satiric self-presentation in the
account of his = 4 . In virtue of this Odyssean lineage, Aristo-
phanes can position the Works and Days among comedy’s generic ancestors
alongside archaic iambos and incorporate Hesiodic didactic into satiric
discourse.
 Pucci b:  remarks that in this scene ‘the Odyssey enacts a sort of pillaging of the splendors of
Iliadic | heroic diction’. On the connection between Laertes’ orchard and the agricultural poetics of
the Works and Days see Murnaghan : –; other points of resemblance between Odysseus
and the poetic persona of Hesiod are discussed by Kelly . As D. P. Fowler b:  has
observed, Odysseus’ nostos represents the quintessential didactic plot in that it metaphorically
captures the endeavour to ‘return home after being alienated from the way things are by false
beliefs’.
 Trygaeus’ homecoming is often viewed as a familial reunion with his trees: see, in particular,
ll. – (
/
>
"
2, | 2, ? g ’->2
i $
, |
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#) and –. Cf. Telò :  n. .
 Cf. Hubbard : : ‘by projecting his own experience onto his main character, Aristophanes
clarifies both the potential and the limitations of his comic art’. See also, among others, Reckford
: –, –; Olson : ; Dobrov : .
 Telò .
 mario tel ò
Thus, through Archilochus, Hesiod and the Iliadic practitioners of
proto-Hesiodic poetics Aristophanes retrieves and parades the Odyssean
roots of his comic self. It is this elaborate exercise in self-styled generic
genealogy that lies at the core of Trygaeus’ nostos and his reunion with all
of his literary fathers.
 On the central role of the Odyssey in Old Comedy’s interactions with epic see Revermann in this
volume.
Comedy and lyric
c h a p te r 6
Comedy and the civic chorus

Chris Carey
Choral song has a unique position in the cultic and cultural life of the
ancient Greek city. It is arguably the voice of the Greek polis at worship
and remains so in all regions of Greece throughout the archaic and classical
periods and into the Hellenistic period. No solo form (sung, chanted or
spoken) achieved either the contextual range or the public standing of
choral song and dance. Despite the major differences of scale, mode of
performance and fictionality that separate Athenian drama from the var-
ious non-dramatic choral genres in Athens and elsewhere, the chorus
remains central to the collective perception both of tragedy and of com-
edy. Permission to compete is always described in terms of the giving/
withholding/receiving of a chorus from the archon (Ar. Eq. , Pax 
and , Ran. ; Cratin. frr.  and ; Arist. Poet. b). And even
when the chorus dwindles in the fourth century to (often) an interlude, it
is inconceivable in civic performances at least that a play could be staged
without one. All literary genres are located at a point of convergence
between contexts and tendencies, diachronic and synchronic, generic and
individual. But the status of drama as a choral form underlines in particular
both the performative dimension of this intersection and the relationship
of the singing voice with the collective voice of the city. Drama is acutely
aware that it exists within a network of choral performances both within
its own festivals and within the Greek (not just Athenian) festival calendar.
It is also self-consciously aware of its own capacity to achieve new effects
with these traditional forms. It is this overt sense of belonging to a larger
picture of choral activity that I wish to explore. I shall have less to say about
parody of and citations from known authors of lyric works than about the
way in which the comic choral voice locates itself in relation to those of
 For the continuing centrality of the chorus see Rothwell b.

 See on this, the Introduction and Silk in this volume.

 chris carey
other choral forms. My approach is unhistorical, in the sense that I am
more interested in phenomena and perceptions than in putative origins
and development.
This sense of belonging to a larger picture takes very different forms in
tragedy and comedy. In tragedy every known kind of non-dramatic choral
performance is in one way or another drawn into the fiction. It is not just
that individual odes use generic markers to identify themselves and create
or reflect narrative moments. The tragic chorus frequently shifts register
between non-dramatic genres within the ode to create changes in mood. A
single song can begin as one kind of composition and shift or mix register
up to several times within a score of lyric verses. This kind of complex code
switching within the ode is more rare in comedy. Momentary effects such
as bathos and para prosdokian more generally are common. But, unlike the
tragic chorus, the chorus in comedy retains a more sustained focus on the
individual dramatic moment; it generalizes less, narrates less, predicts less.
This has implications for the range of moods and modes available within
any one ode and consequently for the potential for interaction with other
choral forms. The comic chorus is also regularly more firmly partisan than
all but a small number of tragic choruses. This reduces the ability of the
comic chorus to switch genre codes to anything like the extent of the tragic
chorus. Code switching is therefore more often to be seen in the larger
architecture of the play and the corpus than within the individual choral
song.
In some obvious respects the comic chorus comes closer to the non-
dramatic choral tradition. It shares with archaic lyric a pronounced sense
of occasionality. Comedy is more explicitly aware of its place within a
performative framework than is tragedy, which because it resolutely stays
within its own mythos can only indirectly acknowledge its status as per-
formance. The sort of choral self-consciousness discussed by Henrichs as
an intermittent effect in tragic songs is both normal for comedy and more
overt. Unlike tragedy, comedy acknowledges and intermittently addresses
its audience. This quasi-dialogic relationship with the audience distin-
guishes it from its generic sister tragedy and brings it closer to effects
achieved in non-dramatic lyric, most notably the way in which the chorus
in Alcman draws its own performance into its song:
 See Swift  and (for the victory ode exclusively) Carey .  See Henrichs .
 On the rhetoric of the comic audience as the comedian’s ‘own friends’, see also Prauscello in this
volume.
 For this aspect of Alcmanic deixis, see Peponi .
Comedy and the civic chorus 
N
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Do you not see? The courser is
Enetic. And the hair of my cousin
Hagesichora blooms
like unalloyed gold;
and her face of silver,
why do I speak it to you outright?
(Alcman .– PMGF)
The sense of comedy as recurrent ritual is enhanced by the tendency of

the comic chorus on occasion to adopt a seamless identity with other
comic choruses past and future. The chorus can refer back to previous
performances. Thus at Acharnians – the chorus recalls how at the
Lenaia in a previous year it was sent to bed hungry by a previous choregos,
who ignored his obligation to feast his chorus:
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Antimachus the son of Spray, † the chronicler †, the lyric poet,
let Zeus obliterate horribly – in short;
who when he was producer at the Lenaia sent me off with no dinner.
It can anticipate future productions as at Acharnians –, where the
chorus expresses a hostility to Cleon which is difficult to square with the
identity of the speaker and puzzling in its immediate context:
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I won’t take it! Don’t you even talk to me!
For I hate you even more than Cleon,
whom I’ll cut up into bootsoles for the cavalrymen.
The textual-dramaturgic effects here are very complex. Unmistakable in ret-
rospect is a specific anticipation of Aristophanes’ next production, Knights.
 Differently from Wilson, I tentatively follow here Bothe’s reading.
 chris carey
At the moment of performance the joke is probably felt as no more than a
threat to savage Cleon. But this war-hungry chorus should not be opposed
to Cleon in a play which associates the ascendant politicians collectively
with the war. The threat is an example of the parabatic glide which Bakola
has established as part of the Aristophanic, and more generally comic,
manner, in which the authorial voice can surface momentarily and often
elusively in the mouth of almost any character in the play. Audible through
the threat is an Aristophanes unbowed (despite the anxiety of Dicaeopolis
at –) by the attack on him from Cleon after Babylonians, hinting
slyly at plans to reopen hostilities. But a side effect is to draw the chorus
imaginatively into a future dramatic production. Less obvious perhaps is
Peace , where the chorus’s self-description as a grim juror looks like a
backward glance at Wasps:

*") V ) H
, W
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.
You won’t find me any more a grim and ill-natured juror.
The comic chorus thus has a sense of its place within a continuous series
of performances, past and future, as though despite the shifts in dramatic
identity the composition of the chorus were the same throughout time.
This aspect of the Aristophanic chorus is at its strongest in the parabasis of
Knights (–):
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If any man of the older generation as producer
had tried to press us to approach the audience and speak,
he would not have had an easy time.
It is as though the specific chorus, assembled and drilled together for
this one performance, has always been there, performing. This explicit
sense of chronological continuity, though formally different from surviving
civic choral performances, which usually leave the element of iteration
unexpressed, nonetheless reinforces the sense of comedy as, like paean,
maiden song or dithyramb, a cyclical civic ritual.
 Bakola : –. For the polyphonic voice of fifth-century comedy (in contrast to New Comedy)
see also Dobrov b, especially , .
 For the chorus of Peace, and its affinities with that of Wasps, see McGlew .
 The practice finds an interesting parallel in the continuity (within democratic Athens) in other
bodies with a civic role; speakers addressing the assembly and the jury courts regularly refer to the
immediate audience as though it were coterminous with all other assembly or court meetings.
Comedy and the civic chorus 
But comedy is a slippery medium and on closer inspection it turns out
to have an ambiguous relationship with the choral tradition, as it does with
every other cultural discourse. I return to the role of the chorus in civic
celebration. Our evidence suggests that the choral voice in non-dramatic
state performances is generally the undivided voice of the polis. This is
explicitly the case in Pindar’s second and fourth Paeans. The voice in the
paean for Abdera identifies itself as a typical inhabitant, or as the collective
voice of the inhabitants (Pind. fr. b.– M = D Rutherford):
..] []
n[]l [] []
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. . . I dwell in this
Thracian land rich in vines
and harvests – may great time as it advances
not tire in its steadfastness in future.
I inhabit a new city; but still I gave birth to my mother’s mother
struck down by war’s fire.
The paean for Ceos is more ambiguous, in that the voice seems to hover
between that of the community and that of the island (Pind. fr. d.–
M = D Rutherford):
]#>
"
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] d/2@
4

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A !@
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g []
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2 V
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 See Rutherford : ; Lefkowitz : –.
 chris carey
. . . narrow-necked breast of land
. . . will not change it for Babylon
. . . plains
...
Indeed I too, though I live on a crag, am renowned for athletic achievement
in Greece, and am known too for providing Muse enough.
Though it’s true my land bears Dionysus’
life-enriching release from perplexity,
I am horseless and am not skilled in cattle rearing.
This sense of the choral speaker as representative of the whole community
is articulated most sharply in Pindar’s Paean . (= fr. k M = A
Rutherford), where having rehearsed the possible ill-omened aspects of the
solar eclipse the chorus says:
+
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*>", "
.
I lament nothing which I suffer together with everyone.
Common to all civic song is the tendency for the poet’s voice to remain
hidden, even where the song identifies its author.
There are two significant divergences from this pattern in the choral song
tradition. One is the maiden song, where grammatical gender inevitably
identifies the choral voice as a subset of the polis rather than the community
as a whole. The genre plays up the age/gender identity of its performers,
slipping constantly between the subgroup and the city as a whole. Thus
Pindar’s virgins can move easily from expressions of maidenly modesty
(fr. b. M) to narrative of the past, athletic and political (fr. b.–
 M). This flexibility allows it to become at will a communal voice
representing the whole of society. Another divergent form is the victory
ode, where the choral voice, unlike the cult songs discussed earlier, rarely
identifies itself. Consequently, though the epinician chorus may use the
language of communal values and communal response, the speaking voice
is less explicitly the community. This reflects the unusual place of the epini-
cian within the choral repertoire, whose status as civic song is unstable. In
most cases the chorus is privately commissioned. So if this is a communal
voice, it is by aspiration rather than by delegation. It seeks to align the
 The same shift can be seen in Alcm. .– PMGF (esp. –, –) and –. For the lability
of the choral voice in the partheneion cf. D’Alessio : –. The role of the maiden chorus as
civic voice is neatly captured in the form taken by the choral projection in Bacchylides , where
the male epinician chorus assimilates its role to that of a maiden chorus as part of a (tacit) claim to
a civic role; see Power .
 See Carey b.
Comedy and the civic chorus 
listeners with its own position rather than taking that alignment (as cult
song can) as a starting point. This ambiguous relationship with the com-
munal voice is enhanced by a tendency (though with striking variations
between authors, regularly ignored by modern scholars) for the choral
voice to merge into the authorial voice. The same applies on occasion to
choral songs composed by panhellenic masters for performance at the great
Greek sanctuaries.
Comedy straddles this divide within the choral tradition, slipping in
and out of civic voice at will. The comic chorus frequently defines itself
implicitly as distinct from the polis. This is embedded in the text at the
level of title and choral identity, a point worth stressing, obvious as it may
be. Whereas the tragic chorus most commonly has an ethnikon, the comic
chorus (where it has a geographical, regional or ethnic identity) vacillates
between ethnikon (where it is set outside Athens) and demotikon (when it
is set inside Athens). They are people of Acharnai or Prospalta first and
foremost. And unlike the chorus in tragedy and other public choral forms
(except, interestingly, the partheneion) they occasionally dissolve into a
group of named individuals, as in Wasps –:
#$ , / ) ". X c , /> .
6 ] )
* "
6
( ), ) N! ) >
A
2 '
2 < / 1 .
X 82 c
!2(, /" 2 @,
0* y)
2 )(! ), T </ B 2>u
Move on, go on firmly. Komias, you’re loitering.
By Zeus you wouldn’t have before – you were a dog’s hide strap.
But now Charinades is better on his feet than you.
Strymodorus of Konthyle, finest of juror-comrades,
is Euergides somewhere here, or Chabes of Phlya?
But the difference goes beyond such superficial details. In civic choral
utterances any sense of division tends to be relegated to the safe past,
not presented as a problem for the present. But the comic chorus often
 First-person utterances which refer unambiguously to the poet but are spoken by the chorus are
common in Pindar (e.g. Ol. .–, –, .–, Pyth. .–, ., .–, Nem. .–,
Isthm. .–, .–, .–). They are far less common in Bacchylides, though not unknown
(Bacchyl. .–). Simonides is less easy to evaluate but see Carey . The rhetoric of such
statements is immaterial here; it is their presence that matters.
 See in particular Pind. Pae.  = fr. f.– M = D Rutherford (with Rutherford : –).
 Alcm. .– PMGF.
 Cf. Lys. –, –. The closest parallel in tragedy is Aesch. Ag. –, though the absence of
naming remains a significant difference.
 For the narrative of fraught politics in the past in cult song cf. Pind. fr. b.– M, Pae.  = fr.
b.– M = D Rutherford.
 chris carey
sets itself apart from Athens. It becomes a flamboyantly discordant and
disgruntled voice. A good example is the epirrhema in the parabasis of
Acharnians, where the chorus opens by complaining about the way they
are treated by the polis (Ach. –):
o "

-! A

* 5 m 2#

/

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.
We old codgers have a complaint against the city.
For we’re not looked after in old age worthily
of those glorious sea battles we fought, but are treated terribly.
The advice which they go on to offer to the city acknowledges a civic duty
and is offered as a policy for the future, not just a personal complaint.
But at the level of text they do not represent the polis. They remain a
collective voice; but it is their (dramatic) age group, not the city, that
they represent and they explicitly present the polis as the cause of their
unhappiness. It is the audience who represent the polis, since in spelling
out their grievance they substitute ‘you’ (@) for ‘the polis’ ( ).
Again in the parabasis of Knights the epirrhema by implication identifies
the audience, not the speaker, with the polis (Eq. –):
& ) 5
(

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.
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.
We think it right
to defend the city and our local gods nobly for free.
And in addition we ask for nothing but just this:
if ever peace comes and we cease from struggles,
do not resent us for our long hair and our well-groomed skin.
The knights see themselves (realistically) as an unpopular subgroup within
the polis and regard themselves as its unappreciated benefactors; their
plea is that the audience as representatives of the polis should show their
appreciation when the time comes. In Women at the Thesmophoria this
becomes a grumble of the women against the men (–):
) t 2 & 4 ! ) t

, z ) -2"
.
# , &@ . "
V #6 . . .
 Differently from Wilson, OCT I follow the MS reading "

against van Leeuwen’s
"
.
Comedy and the civic chorus 
There are many complaints we women could justly bring
against the men rightly, but one most enormous.
For it would be fair, if any of us were to bear a man who serves the
city well . . .
This begins as a straight opposition by gender but by a fluent (and
readily intelligible) process the men become the city ( ., X
. . . ). The gap is less marked in the parabasis of the Frogs (–):
6 6 #
6 #
52 .
It is right that the sacred chorus should give the city
good advice and teaching
Here the chorus claims that it has a duty to advise on political matters;
the language of duty and the emphatic link to the sacral role of the chorus
aligns the advice with civic and not sectional interests, as does the slippage
between second-person plural and first-person plural in the narrative and
advice. But even here the disjunction between chorus and polis remains.
The chorus speaks to, not for, the polis. The Aristophanic chorus in these
instances acts like a concerned citizen in the assembly, not like the conduit
for the collective identity which we find elsewhere in choral performance
commissioned by the state.
But despite the divergence of these choral utterances from the norm
as we encounter it elsewhere, and irrespective of the date and manner in
which the parabasis entered the comic festival tradition, what we have
makes sense as a naturalization of the choral voice within the context of
the democratic polis. The disjunction we have seen appears to be part of
a larger tendency in ‘loidoric’ choruses. So one would conclude from the
account in Herodotus .. of the choral performances in the worship of
Damia and Auxesia on Aigina and in Epidaurus:
2
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2 . . .
Having set them up in this place they sought their favor with sacrifices and
female choruses in the satirical and abusive mode. Ten men were appointed
providers of a chorus for each of the deities, and the choruses aimed their
raillery not at any men but at the women of the country. The Epidaurians
too had the same rites . . . (trans. Godley).
 For discussion e.g. Sifakis : ch. ; Hubbard : –.
 chris carey
These choruses share the sectional identity of the Aristophanic chorus.
What they lack is the political dimension, that is, the element of (what
claims to be) practical advice from the part to the whole. Moses Finley
famously observed that dispute and conflict are central to democracy:
Substantial inequalities, serious conflicts of interest, and legitimate divergences
of opinion were real and intense. Under such conditions, conflict is not only
inevitable, it is a virtue in democratic politics, for it is conflict combined with
consent, and not consent alone, which preserves democracy from eroding into
oligarchy.
Irrespective of how we choose to read the advice offered to the polis in
these parabases, the statements of dissent are fundamentally serious in this
respect; by this I mean that such utterances simply by virtue of being
uttered make an important statement about the nature of public discourse
in a democratic state, that dissent is an important part of the political
process and that the right to speak out is open to all. They enact (or
exemplify) democracy. In terms of literary genre they form a complex
hybrid. The chorus as subset of the city in some respects resembles the
chorus in at least some ‘comic’ contexts outside Athens; it also resembles
the female chorus in the partheneion, though it differs in that the virgin
chorus never lectures its audience. As individualizing adviser to the city,
the comic chorus is closer to monody, elegy and iambos. Formally it also
shows affinities with effects found in the epinician (especially in the hands
of Pindar) in the slippage in the choral voice in the anapaests between
group and poet and the pronounced interest in poetics.
This studied and overt positioning by the comic chorus is also reinforced
by some less explicit choral uses. One choral form favoured by Aristophanes
is the wedding song. Two of his surviving plays end with this form. The
wedding chorus is different from other choruses in a number of respects.
For reasons we can only guess at, as a vehicle used by named authors the
wedding song is confined to the early period of Greek lyric. Sappho certainly
composed wedding songs; so too according to tradition did Alcman.
Though the wedding song persisted in Greek culture, and its status as
 Finley : .

 To forestall misunderstanding I should make clear that I do not suggest that the parabasis emerged
as part of a conscious and concerted effort to enshrine democratic values in choral utterance, merely
that this is part of the function of the comic chorus as it evolved within its interactive performative
environment. See on this subject Goldhill : – and for this aspect of comedy see Carey .
 See Bakola : –; Calame : . For comedy and iambic tradition see Rosen in this volume.
 Both endings have been studied recently by Calame .
 Anth. Pal. ..–; see further Campbell, vol ii.; Haslam : .
Comedy and the civic chorus 
public marker of formal marriage gave it enormous civic significance, this
was a choral genre which never made it into the songbooks of the great
panhellenic lyric poets. We do not get specially commissioned works,
unlike the obvious parallel, the threnos, which was prominent among the
lyric products of the late archaic and early classical period. The difference
from other forms of lyric is all the more marked if one accepts the argument
for mixed-gender composition of the chorus in at least some contexts,
since it erases one of the key features of the public chorus, which is its
organization by age, status and gender. It lacks the crisp sense of social
order which other choral forms generate and as such it is the most inclusive
of forms. The wedding song hovers between formal and informal. It is
impromptu and presumably (like spring songs, work songs and the like)
consists of repeated popular forms. But unlike other popular forms it
conveys community approval on the marriage. Whatever the historical
reasons for its recurrence in comedy (and the persistence of marriage as an
ending in Menander may be suggestive in this respect), the wedding song
sharply captures the combined communal and individualistic interests of
Old Comedy. It gives collective recognition of the achievements of the
Aristophanic hero through the unprompted voice of the community; but
because this is a spontaneous social gesture rather than a centrally controlled
celebration it leaves the hero comfortingly (in terms of the values of the
comic world) unassimilated into the formal structures of the state.
This sense of the people as distinct from the formal structures of the
state is caught neatly by the reuse of a celebrated opening of Stesichorus in
Peace (–):
M
(, W '
"
2 " ’
(

( -
2 #2
,

2 !@
2
@ ! A
Muse, do you thrust aside wars and with me
your friend dance,
proclaiming marriages of gods and feasts of men
and celebrations of the blessed ones.
 Swift .
 The ending of Acharnians offers a parallel for this complex effect. The most recent discussion by
Wilson b:  stresses the absence of a communal element in Dicaeopolis’ victory. This is an
achievement which he both secures and enjoys alone. Yet though the victory is solitary, its celebration
is communal. It is significant that the excluded chorus voices no resentment of the lone success of
the comic hero; this is self-assertion sanctioned by the popular voice, the ultimate comic fantasy.
 For Stesichorus in Peace see Hall : –.
 chris carey
The original comes from Stesichorus’ Oresteia ( PMGF ). In its original
context it may have been performed at a festival. Certainly it speaks the
language of public performance. In Aristophanes the text is exquisitely
relocated to a context which celebrates the achievement of peace. Even
the season is right, since Stesichorus’ original proclaims itself a spring
song, while Aristophanes’ text was performed at the Dionysia. This is a
remarkably clever transplant. But in its new context the Stesichorean poem
comes with a typical Aristophanic twist. We are promised marriages of
gods and feasts of men and instead we get jibes at individuals of a sort
common in Aristophanes’ lyrics. This is not the voice of collective formal
ritual but rather the voice of popular scorn at individuals who earn it. As
well as providing the aesthetic pleasure of recognition and the humorous
effect of incongruity the text also tacitly makes a claim to be the voice of
the people.
But comedy is never simple and this is only one aspect of a more
complex picture. The disjunction between the comic choral voice and the
formal voice of the polis is not maintained with anything like consistency. I
start with Frogs, which contains one of Aristophanes’ most sustained ritual
performances. For much of the play the mystic dimension of the chorus is
not prominent. But the parodos gives them an unusually dense association
with public ritual. This is probably the most complex choral moment in
Aristophanes. What we are given is not an imitation of an actual ritual but
a composite blended from different ritual moments. This is not real ritual
but fiction. Part of this synkrisis is to superimpose the forms of civic choral
celebration on to aspects of the cult which were not choral (the gephyrismos)
but which work in context partly because this resembles certain skoptic
songs in Aristophanes. Another part is to combine different chronological
moments of Eleusinian cult. At one moment we are in the agora (–
), at another somewhere (in terms of time) on the road to Eleusis
(–). A further effect is to combine mystic religion with public civic
formula; the anapaestic tetrameters at – are derived only in part from
the mysteries. They begin and end with the exclusion of the uninitiated.
But the exclusions in – come from the curse uttered at the beginning
of the assembly meetings. The chorus of initiates thus presents itself as
the formal representative of the polis, and the sovereign demos. The civic
chorus which is created by this process is both imaginatively appealing
and also (like comedy itself ) a blend of the silly and the serious. Both the
emphasis on unity in the anapaestic interlude and the religious authority
 This depends on the reading )

in .
Comedy and the civic chorus 
created in the parodos allow the chorus to resume its solemn function
and describe itself at the beginning of the parabasis () as the ‘sacred
chorus’ in preparation for a political intervention which offers what looks
like both practical and (unlike what we get in other parabases) contentious
advice. The description of the chorus there fuses the intra- and extra-fictive
character of the comic chorus (sacred as mystics within the fiction, sacred in
the festival context as part of the worship of Dionysus). But the ambiguity
begins in the parodos.
The other play which makes prominent use of the extra-fictive role
of the chorus is Women at the Thesmophoria. At the heart of the play
are two sustained hymns (–, – – the first of these probably
a hyporchema) which are firmly in dramatic character, in that they are
explicitly connected to the cult activities of the women in their dramatic
role as participants in the Thesmophoria. There are no jokes and no bathos.
Anton Bierl has rightly stressed here the convergence between the dramatic
and the festival role of the chorus, in that what the chorus says is fitting
in context but can also be taken seriously as an act of worship. The
convergence between civic cult and dramatic fiction is enhanced by the
expansion of the hymnal focus to include other gods of the polis, which
makes the narrow intra-dramatic ritual moment representative of the larger
cult activity of the polis as a whole, not just the enactment of a single cult,
while the inclusion of Dionysus creates a convergence between the intra-
fictive worship and the actual cult moment of the festival in which the play
is performed. A similar dynamic can be seen at work in the two prayers
sung at the beginning of the women’s assembly (Thesm. – and –
), one of which includes elements of the curse uttered at the beginning of
the Athenian democratic assembly (which appears in the parodos of Frogs).
The tone is consistently solemn (though juxtaposed with humour from
the herald). The two sets of songs are linked by the surprising prominence
given at – to the patron goddess of the city as enemy of tyrants, which
gives a political twist to the later choral context:
-! ), X 2
2 2
(’, F ..
Appear, you who hate tyrants, as you should.
One feature shared by the two plays is their location in a fraught political
context: at the time of Women at the Thesmophoria the democracy had been
 Bierl : –, –, –, –. See on these hymns also Bremer .
 Silk a: ; Bierl : –.
 chris carey
undermined and was soon to be (temporarily) removed; at the time of Frogs
there were reasonable concerns that the city’s situation was precarious and
that defeat was a possibility. And Women at the Thesmophoria, like Frogs,
returns to its political concerns in later choral utterances. A curse on all
who worked against the collective good was equally at home in both. But as
the most recent commentators note, it was probably safer to express such
thoughts obliquely in  bc, when men were being murdered for their
political views. Hence the more oblique approach of the earlier play. Even
with this oblique approach, it is significant that its politics is voiced by a
female chorus, whose distance from real politics adds sufficient ambiguity
to the message to afford some protection.
But despite the distinctiveness of their context, these two plays also reflect
a broader trend in the treatment of ritual moments. For the gap between
the chorus as a character in a comic fiction and the chorus as participants
in a civic festival is regularly elided in one of the most common non-
dramatic lyric forms used in comedy, the hymn, cletic or other. Hymns
are the most frequent of all the non-dramatic lyric forms in Aristophanes.
Perhaps the most striking feature of Aristophanes’ hymns taken as a whole
is the relative solemnity of tone. Solemnity of tone is in itself common in
Aristophanes; it is also commonly subverted by bathos. So solemn utterance
cannot be examined separately from its immediate context. But choral
hymns and prayers are rarely parodic (rarely is anything said which could
be seen as distortion or mockery, either affectionate or hostile) and bathos
is generally avoided, irrespective of the place in the play, though these
religious moments may be juxtaposed with comic elements. There is no
hint of undercutting at Clouds –, –, hymns which summon a
number of gods. The same is true of the two hymns at Knights –, –
. Both of these can be explained away as special cases because the hymns
in Clouds include Athena, the patron goddess of Athens, and her mythical
rival for control of Attica, Poseidon, while the hymns in Knights are devoted
to these two gods. But this does not fully explain the phenomena, since
there was no obligation to include these gods in these hymns. We can, if
 Austin and Olson : xliii–xliv.
 The word hymnos is not used as a specific term for a song of praise to a god before Plato. But with or
without the terminology the speech act of praise to a god (what Plato would later call a ‘hymn’) was
firmly established across a range of metrical forms, including lyric song both solo and choral, and
with it a number of formal features; on the formal features of hymns and prayers in Aristophanes
see recently Willi : –.
 Silk a:  with n.  rightly notes that praise of Athens, ‘invariably religious praise’, is not
undercut; but the phenomenon seems to extend beyond reverence for Athens.
Comedy and the civic chorus 
we wish, argue for the parabasis as a special case because, in systematically
(unlike the intermittent slippage which is the bedrock of Athenian comic
fiction) eliding the gap between the fictive world of the drama and its
festival context, it has a very distinctive role in Athenian comedy. But the
same tendency is also observable in the choral songs which flank the prayer
of Bdelycleon at Wasps –:
(<
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(Cho.) Phoebus Apollo, god of Pytho, harness

to good fortune for us all
the scheme which this man devises before the doors
and end our wandering.
Oh, Paean!
(Bd.) My lord and neighbour Apollo of the street, who stand before my door,
accept this new ritual, my lord, which we instigate for my father.
End his too sour and rigid temper adding in a little honey in his heart.
May he be right now gentle to mankind
and pity the defendents more than the indicters
 chris carey
and weep as they entreat
and ceasing from his ill-temper
take the nettle from his anger.
(Cho.) We join our prayers and chants to yours
for the new regime because of what you’ve said.
For we favour you ever since
we saw you love the people like no one
among the young.
< Oh, Paean!>
The chorus here remains resolutely in character, as does Bdelycleon. There
is none of the ambiguity about role which we find in Women at the
Thesmophoria and Frogs or the explicit (partial) suspension of plot and
fiction which we find in the parabatic songs. But again there is no element
of parody or coarseness or anything else to undermine the relatively serious
tone. This is true also of the (non-choral) Phales-hymn which Aristophanes
gives to Dicaeopolis at Acharnians –, where humour is certainly
present, together with a (by Aristophanes’ standard) mild sexuality, but all
in keeping with the nature of the procession.
At this point some caution is needed. The reasons may not in these
cases be purely religious. It is very rare for a comedy of any sort to survive
solely on a run of jokes, as the ubiquitous presence of the ‘straight man’
from Aristophanes to music hall and modern television comedy amply
demonstrates. Humour desperately needs solemnity in its proximity, if it
is to work. And in drama the (largely aesthetic) desire for variety of tone
may also be influential. In both Wasps and Acharnians there are good
dramatic reasons for absence of bathos. In Acharnians the idyllic peace of
Dicaeopolis’ festival is about to be shattered by the irruption of the chorus
and in Wasps Bdelycleon’s hopes for the conversion of his father will in
the long run founder on his irrepressible nature, even though the home
trial achieves initial success. So interpretation of the phenomena remains
subjective. But the seeming seriousness of tone in such ritual moments
not just in the parabasis but elsewhere in the play is very striking in a
genre which regards the gods as a legitimate comic target. There is no
blanket reluctance to mock the divine in comedy. But there does (on the
evidence available) appear to be a disinclination to parody choral hymns
and prayers. It may be a shared sense (between writer and audience) that
the chorus’s role reflects a larger duty to the collective, and that the chorus
is the cornerstone of the drama itself as an offering to a god, that keeps
these hymns from descending into comic bathos. If so, there appears to be
a consistent tendency to blur the intra- and extra-textual dimensions of
Comedy and the civic chorus 
the choral utterance. This would merely be another example of comedy’s
consciousness of its festival context and another way in which comedy’s
relationship with its audience generates implicit limits to what is perceived
as right.
One’s suspicion that there is a reluctance to undercut ritual utterances
from the chorus is reinforced by the celebration of Peisetaerus’ achievement
in Birds. The hero has brought the gods to their knees and forced Zeus to
give up Basileia, personification of Zeus’s power. Though Peisetaerus has
ousted Zeus, he receives not a hymn but a wedding song (Av. –).
Within the fiction he is the supreme being but this is not reflected in the
formal honour he receives.
Choral prayers are especially common in Aristophanes’ parabases. So
the picture of the parabasis I gave earlier needs to be adjusted, since the
largely individualizing epirrhematic sections are juxtaposed with choral
hymns which have the air of formal choral performance. The parabasis is
a complex fluctuation between fusion with and distinction from the civic
voice. This is the closest comedy comes to the complex shifts achieved by
the tragic chorus, in that two modes are juxtaposed without either of them
destabilizing or ousting the other.
There is one last example of engagement with civic choral forms which
I would like to mention briefly. Lysistrata closes with not one but two civic
choral performances. The first of these is sung by the Athenians; it is a
syncretistic song which presents us again with a generic hybrid, part paean,
part hymn (as Plato would later understand the term). The second is a
hymn sung by the Spartans. This second song is a very elegant illusion,
in that it looks like a maiden song but it is sung by males. The song is
assimilated to a Spartan culture of partheneia by the strongly feminine focus
of its third-person narrative. The evidence of comedy suggests at least some
familiarity with Alcman in fifth-century bc Athens. Probably the Alcmanic
partheneion was what an Athenian would recognize as Laconian cult song.
This link provides the Spartan song with a cultural and religious authority,
making it the civic voice of Sparta as it was heard in cultural contexts
in Greece. The juxtaposition of the two choruses acting as the voice of
the two cities gives us (in the imaginary world of the play) a new era of
harmony between the warring states. Unlike the Frogs, where the choral
engagement with contemporary politics is inescapable, it is more difficult
 A useful (if imprecise parallel) would be the way in which comedy sets up rules of propriety in
dealing with respectable living women, for which see Sommerstein b; a closer parallel still would
be the reluctance to bring Athena on stage in the comic theatre, for which see Bakola : .
Despite its ostentatious subversiveness comedy has its tacit boundaries.
 chris carey
to argue that this play is offering a straightforward message. But the play
is at the very least expressing a yearning, even if the desire is unrealizable.
And the sustained dialogue between the civic voices at the close of the play
articulates this aspiration for peace in presenting dual collective celebration
of the key combatants.
The ambiguity we have observed in the relationship between the comic
choral voice and civic choral forms extends to comedy’s comments on
choral lyric. I have discussed elsewhere the self-positioning of comedy in
relation to the victory ode. Here I would like to expand the focus. Against
the song which celebrates the hero’s success at the end of Birds, with its
roots in the popular tradition, can be set the more contrived products
of the professional lyric tradition we meet earlier in the play. Comedy
is ambiguous in its treatment of this branch of lyric poetry. Both Aristo-
phanes and Eupolis represent a knowledge of lyric poetry, including late
archaic choral lyric, as a mark of culture. As such it becomes part of a con-
trast between a better past and a degenerate present. Simonides’ choral lyric
in Clouds becomes a test case for the right choice of song at a symposium,
when Strepsiades invites his son to sing a victory ode of Simonides and
his son rejects this as old-fashioned. Eupolis echoes this divide between
generations and Weltanschauungen in lumping together three choral lyric
poets, Stesichorus, Simonides and Alcman, as figures now considered old-
fashioned at symposia, in contrast to Gnesippus; possibly in the same
context he observed that the work of Pindar had fallen into disuse (it was
‘silenced’) by the general insensitivity of the age. It may or may not be
coincidence that it is choral lyric rather than the simpler and more versatile
monody which is cited as losing appeal. But at the same time as comedy
underlines the cultural importance of the lyric corpora, the products of that
tradition can be viewed with suspicion. Comedy, as often, is able to have it
both ways. The hero has founded a new city. In the world outside the comic
theatre the founder would acquire honours, and the inauguration would be
a matter for celebration. Unsurprisingly therefore the setting up of the new
city attracts (among other unsavoury hangovers from the corrupt Athens
which Peisetaerus is trying to escape) a choral lyric poet. He offers a mish-
mash of choral lyric songs to Peisetaerus. All are rejected, as is the poet
himself. What is rejected is not the idea of personal celebration, since (as
 See Carey .  Nub. –.
 For this fragment (especially in relation to the work of Gnesippus) see most recently Prauscello
.
 Eup. fr. ; cf. also fr. .
Comedy and the civic chorus 
the ending shows) the play has no reservations about self-aggrandizement
on a very large scale. It is the kind of celebration, which is presented as
yet another example of the charlatanism and self-seeking which frequently
occurs in Aristophanic comedy as various people enter and try to share the
benefits of the hero’s achievement according to a common Aristophanic
pattern. These works are pompous and bombastic; they are also mercenary
and parasitic. There is a near repeat of the scene later when Cinesias (that
rare creature, an Athenian lyric poet) enters. This time the focus is not
on choral modes in general but on the dithyramb in particular. If comedy
finds – or can choose to find – bought choral lyric unpalatable, it finds
the work of poets like Cinesias still more so, for these are exponents of the
New Music. Here what we have is not so much bought song as vacuous
song, over-embellishment of the commonplace, a triumph of form over
content. The choice of forms tacitly articulates comedy’s sense of its place
within the lyric repertoire. Not the flashy and expensive products of elite
self-congratulation but the living tradition of the community.
Comic choral utterance (in Aristophanes at least) engages with civic
choral song in a flexible, generally opportunistic way. Comedy can use its
lyric modes to lay claim (tacitly or explicitly) to a particular relationship
with the formal structures of the state and can even separate itself from
the city and present itself as a voice of protest. No other choral form
can do this. It is unique to comedy. But the comic choral voice can also
approximate to the more conventional choral civic voice. It can become
serious in the simple and obvious sense that it does not invite laughter. The
further effects sought here can be complex. It can be context-specific and
express anxiety, hope or wish which reaches into the extra-textual context.
Or it may simply fulfil the larger role of the chorus as the voice of the city
at worship. The same flexibility can be seen in the comic treatment of non-
dramatic choral poetry. High lyric can be a mark of culture but can also be
used to mock pretensions and position both the work and the corpus in
contrast to higher forms. This flexibility of choral voice reflects the nature
of comedy itself as genre, which the chorus as the non-negotiable core of
the performance is best suited to express: it is an organ of the polis yet
it claims independence; it is fundamentally humorous yet it demands to
be taken seriously; it is at times subversive of the norms of society yet it is
intolerant of deviant behaviour. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the
 On the wandering poet in this scene see Martin , especially (for the critique of commissioned
work) –.
 Though not exclusively; see Ach. .
 chris carey
comic choices is the frequency with which the effects achieved have their
antecedents in the songs of young virgins. This too may be no accident;
the maiden chorus is marginal in terms of power yet it can play a central
role in the polis and can articulate collective values; this is the way comedy
sees itself.
c h ap t er 7
Aristophanes’ Simonides
Lyric models for praise and blame
Richard Rawles
This chapter is a discussion of some places where Simonides is the target

of allusion in Aristophanes. It is not a complete survey; a number of
passages are not discussed here. I shall focus on three examples, from Peace,
Clouds and Knights, which show Aristophanes’ Simonides in particularly
interesting ways, before attempting to draw some broader conclusions both
about Simonides and about Aristophanes’ use of the earlier poet.
If it is a truism that most of our knowledge of ancient texts is shaped
by subsequent traditions and receptions, this is something of which one
needs to be particularly aware when dealing with quotations from and
allusions to otherwise lost texts. Aristophanes’ quotations from and allu-
sions to Simonides serve Aristophanes’ own purposes and interests (in a
context conditioned by the knowledge and expectations of Aristophanes’
audiences), and these interests do not include helping out the future scholar
who wants to try to work out what may be said about Simonides after the
loss of almost all of his work. Even if this is potentially an obstacle for a
study directed solely towards the understanding of Simonides (which is
true only to a limited extent: it can help rather than hinder our approach
to the earlier poet to see what people in later times might think of him,
especially where they could read or hear what we have not), it is also an
opportunity to enhance our understanding of Aristophanes. One under-
lying contention in what follows, therefore, is that this exercise cuts both
ways. Looking at Aristophanes’ Simonides helps us to understand both
Thanks are due to the editors for criticism and encouragement (and for the organization of such
a stimulating conference), and to Elizabeth Irwin for advice on Aeginetan matters, and for a great
many other suggestions and observations besides. Errors and omissions remain my own.
 Note Ar. Av. – (Simonides T Campbell, T Poltera), Pax – (T Campbell, T Poltera),
Vesp. – (T Poltera); also Eup. fr. .
 Some of our hopes concerning these – that they can serve interests firmly directed away from the
quoting author and towards the ‘target text’ – are revealed when we refer to ‘quotation fragments’.
Sometimes the laudable care of editors of fragmentary texts to separate ipsissima verba from their
contexts in quoting authors can be unhelpful, if the result is to present isolated snippets in the main
text with only a very few words of quoting authors given in tiny print below.

 richard rawles
the earlier poet and the later one; indeed, these two tasks are not readily
separable from one another.
In the present instance, this is not the only mediation involved: this
work is only possible because it has in some respects been done before.
The Aristophanic allusions to Simonides discussed here would not all have
been recognizable from the text of Aristophanes alone but are known to us
because of the observations of ancient scholars preserved in the scholia; even
in the case of Simonides  PMG (=  Poltera), where Aristophanes has
Strepsiades identify the song as 8
2 "
(Nub. ), the scholia
are still informative. For the passages considered here, it is a result of the
ancient scholars’ interest in Aristophanes’ interactions with earlier poetry
that we can follow the same interest.
The observations presented are of value (I hope) in their own right,
both as a reading of selected fragments and passages with an exploration
of aspects of the two poets concerned, and as a contribution to a broader
understanding of comedy’s relations to other texts of different generic
kinds. To the extent that this is a contribution to a larger view of comedy’s
relationship with the sung verse of the archaic and early classical periods
(considered as a genre, ‘lyric’), it points to the need for such a generic
account to be tempered by careful awareness of differences between the
individual poets and their receptions. This account emphasizes differences
between Simonides and other poets whose work would seem generically
close to his (Bacchylides and Pindar), and also differences between Aristo-
phanes’ interest in Pindar and his interest in Simonides. Aristophanes’
Pindar is not particularly similar to his Simonides. Thus the present focus
on one lyric poet seems justified and to some extent even necessary.
I start, then, with Aristophanes’ Pindar: a passage from Acharnians,
where an allusion to Pindar is identified in the scholia (Ach. –):
- ) L
@ !@ V5
B
,
> 5

, 5! ,
! ) Z! !2
"
2, ) L #2

.

) 6 @
"/ 5@
@
' +,
2A ,
( j
,
*!W
W -
2 ) V @ 2 !!.
. "
!> ! " r!,
H
t !+, -> , 4.
 For the complex process of mutual dialogue between the ‘comic voice’ and the ‘other’ tradition thus
ventriloquized, see also Telò in this volume.
 Here and below I have used the Loeb translations of Aristophanes (Henderson), Pindar (Race),
Simonides, Bacchylides and Timocreon (Campbell).
Aristophanes’ Simonides 
 V5
codd.: j
Bentley
Our poet says that he deserves rich rewards from you, since he has stopped
you from being deceived overmuch by foreigners’ speeches, from being
cajoled by flattery, from being citizens of Simpletonia. Before he did that,
the ambassadors from the allied states who meant to deceive you would start
by calling you ‘violet-crowned’; and when anyone said that, those ‘crowns’
would promptly have you sitting on the tips of your little buttocks. And if
anyone fawned on you by calling Athens ‘gleaming,’ that ‘gleaming’ would
get him everything, just for tagging you with an honour fit only for sardines.
8 R0 ad  .
-
2A @ [
2 !2/
.
"-
r!
The dithyramb in question, for which we have also other sources, is repre-
sented for us by Pindar fr.  M:
X .
"-

,
J0
% , r! ,

!

O shining and violet-crowned and celebrated in song, bulwark of Hellas, famous
Athens, divine citadel.
Probably (see Plut. De glor. Ath. a) this comes from the same song as fr.
 M, which referred to Artemisium:
! r! /

) 2!

Where the sons of the Athenians cast the foundation of freedom.
The dithyramb of Pindar known to us from fr.  and probably fr.  was
a big hit in Athens. It is the object of allusion by Aristophanes at least
twice. This song is an Athenian dithyramb, but looking at both Simonides
and Pindar there is no special tendency towards interaction of comedy
with dithyramb rather than with other lyric genres. Allusion to ‘classic’
lyric in Aristophanes thus differs from interaction with tragedy: with the
exception of this one dithyramb, there is no focus on songs from the same
Athenian Dionysiac performance programme as comedy. Interaction with
 Isoc. .. On Pind. frr. – M see the commentary provided in Lavecchia , and note his
vast collection of testimonia (indicating the fame of the song in antiquity).
 In addition to the passage from Acharnians quoted above, see also Eq.  (with 8) and (according
to 8 ad loc.) Nub. –: but in the latter place, the scholiasts’ belief in an allusion to the Pindaric
dithyramb need not be found particularly convincing. Cf. of Athens also at Ar. fr. , in
an extremely ‘high-register’ context: cf. K–A ad loc.
 By the use of ‘classic’ here I mean to indicate that I am leaving ‘new dithyramb’ out of consideration –
that would be another paper.
 richard rawles
tragedy is a kind of ‘cross-reference’ within official Athenian state-sponsored
performance culture, but this is not generally so with lyric.
The words of the Theban Pindar are presented as those of an out-
sider trying to curry favour with the demos (this does not happen with
Simonides). In the play made in Acharnians with the words .
"-

and , Aristophanes goes to Pindar for a very high-register lyric
style, which is here made the object of comic parody, and juxtaposed with
the mundane and low register (bumlets, sardines). This applies to Aristo-
phanes’ Pindar in general: he goes to Pindar for lyric of a high linguistic
register which contrasts with the much lower-register ‘base level’, so to
speak, of comedy. Given the analogy with paratragedy, this is no surprise.
But even though similar linguistic features are clearly visible to us in the
fragments of Simonides (as it happens both .
"-
and are
attested Simonidean words), this characteristic of Aristophanes’ Pindar is
not a feature of Aristophanes’ Simonides. Finally, the allusions to Pindar
in Aristophanes are to instances of ‘civic poetry’: an Athenian dithyramb,
a prosodion (for Delos?) and a hyporchema celebrating Hieron’s foundation
of Aetna. Only the last could also be categorized as praise of an individual
(but the poet in Birds speaks of songs . ^-

2 ). I find no
sure allusion to Pindaric epinician in Aristophanes: Aristophanes’ Pindar
is not a poet of praise of individuals. His Simonides is different.
My first Simonidean example, however, does look like praise for the
city, and emphatically so: I shall argue that this looks like an explicitly
democratic kind of praise for Athens. In the parabasis of Peace we find the
following (–):
# ' >
W =/
>#
2, j

,
6 6 6 !"
/

.
. )
I . , !> ] , V

!$
" ,
V5
L -) *
B
&@.
@
'
W
2
!$ "2
. = $

-!

( .
 The use of Simonides’ name at Av.  is perhaps analogous to a limited extent.
 See the observations of Silk a: , concerning Aristophanes’ own lyric style.
 .
"-
: . PMG = . Poltera; :  fr. . PMG = a Poltera (on which fr. see
further below).
 A Pindaric prosodion is the object of allusion at Eq. – ∼ fr. a M; the poet scene in Av.
(–) involves parody of Pindar’s hyporchema commemorating Hieron’s foundation of Aetna.
Kugelmeier’s candidates for possible Aristophanic allusions to Pindaric epinician are Av.  ∼
Nem. . and  ∼ Pyth. .: neither seems to me especially strong (Kugelmeier : ).
Aristophanes’ Simonides 
The ushers should beat any comic poet who praises himself before the
audience in the anapaests of a parabasis, but if after all it is fitting, daughter
of Zeus, to honour one who has been and still is the world’s best and most
renowned comic producer, then our producer says that he’s worthy of high
praise. In the first place, he was the only man on earth to stop his rivals from
making jokes about rags and waging war on lice . . .
The scholia identify a Simonidean allusion (8 V ad ) from his
(on the probable meaning of this term see below):
. )
I . A 8
2 @
. ) V , !2" ] , V

r! 5"
.
This is Simonides  W (=  G–P). The fragment as the scholia give it
is clearly corrupt (‘corruptum vel lacunosum u.v.’ West). I would print the
following text:
. ) V , !> ] , V
,

r! 5"
.
!>, 5" Schneidewin: 5" Hartung
and if [sc. it is right], daughter of Zeus, to honour whoever is best, the demos
of the Athenians alone accomplished this.
It may help us, putting aside the caution which should be provoked by its
fragmentary state, to try to work out what kind of a poem this might be.
Although both West and Gentili–Prato call this ‘incertum an ex epigram-
matis’, I believe that it comes from an extended elegy, and not inscribed
epigram, for the following reasons:
() The scholia cite the couplet @ : this should probably
mean ‘from the book of elegies’ (the singular
might have
 !> seems safe. 5" is unmetrical, so the minimum correction is to 5" (Schnei-
dewin): ‘If . . . to honour, daughter of Zeus, whoever is best, I, the demos of the Athenians, accom-
plished this alone.’ (We must understand a verb equivalent to . from the missing previous
line; alternatively Gentili–Prato suggest . and . # could also be considered; on . ) y
here see Denniston : –.) Can we accept ‘I, the demos, accomplished this’ in either elegy
or epigram (this generic question is considered below)? The collective dead in early epitaphic epi-
grams can speak in the first person (‘we lie here’). But this seems very difficult: we need 5"
(Hartung). The change of person to 5" in the MS may reflect that the scholiast or a scribe
has in mind Aristophanes’ presence as an authorial voice, i.e. he is mentally paraphrasing ‘Our poet
did this and that’ as ‘I did this and that.’
 Unless we have to suppose another object for 5" in the next couplet.
 For parallels to the general sense, cf. from epigram Anth. Pal. . (= ‘Simonides’  FGE), but also
Pind. Isthm. .–. With the latter, cf. V5
. . . *
at Pax : from Simonides? But cf. also
e.g. Eq. , Nub. . Note also
at Pax .
 richard rawles
referred to either an elegy or an epigram). Of course this might be the
result of imprecision or error.
() I do not think that the couplet we have could fit into an epigram of
fewer than three distichs, and this is unusually long for an epigram
commemorating the Persian Wars. Of the surviving elegiac Persian
Wars epigrams only two are longer than two elegiac distichs (these are
‘Simonides’ FGE  and ). Of one of these, our sources enable us
to say with confidence that it has been expanded in transmission after
its original composition (FGE : we have long and short versions),
and I agree with those who have argued that the same is true of the
other (FGE , the Megarian epigram; however, even if we believe that
part of this epigram is a later addition, the original may still have been
atypically long). Is our fragment part of a four-line epigram? I think
we need a preceding couplet, where we find the missing verb ‘If it is
right something-or-another . . . ’ Then follows the surviving couplet.
But then we may feel that we want another with some kind of
clause or equivalent explaining what they did (‘for they defended all
Hellas by fighting the Mede and now lie here’ or the like); we might
also want an expressed object for 5". So in my view it is hard
to make this a two-couplet composition. If so, this makes epigram less
likely, though not impossible.
() If !> ] is, as has been generally thought, an address to a Muse,
this would be unremarkable in elegy but surprising in epigram.
() I am not aware of any other place where Aristophanes appears to be
engaging with inscribed poems (the language of Athenian decrees etc.
might count as [prose] inscriptional; Vesp. – and Ach. , references
to graffiti, are a different matter).
Various sources and fragments show that Simonides wrote elegies com-
memorating a number of battles of the Persian Wars, and we should
think of one of these. Bergk attributed our fragment (fr.  Bergk) to a
 Wilamowitz-Moellendorf : ; Barigazzi : ; M. L. West : –.

 The epigrams are collected as an appendix in Kowerski : – (numbered up to , but this
includes a few which are either not verse or not elegiac, and some numbers include more than one
epigram).
 On FGE , see Petrovic a: – with bibliography: for Petrovic, only the last couplet is
later, so that the original text was eight lines long. The epigram is treated as belonging to the early
fifth century bc in its entirety by Kowerski : – and Faraone : –.
 On inscribed poems in other pre-Hellenistic literary sources, see Petrovic b.
 Simonides’ elegies concerning battles of the Persian Wars: Marathon (?) Vita Aeschyli  (could be
epigram?); Artemisium Suda, frr. – W ; Salamis (?) Suda ‘ @’ perhaps frr. – W (but cf.
M. L. West : –); Plataea frr. – W . Kowerski  questions the usual assumption that
different battles were each commemorated in separate elegies. On Simonides’ ‘battle poems’, see
Aristophanes’ Simonides 
Marathon elegy, and was followed by Barigazzi. Podlecki preferred to think
of Salamis. My analysis of the rhetoric of the fragment suggests we might
prefer one of the sea-battle poems.
The question ‘who was V
?’ was current at the time of the Persian
Wars, and prominent in the discourses about them. This is visible in
Herodotus, as where he tells us how the Aeginetans were considered best
in the Battle of Salamis and how this judgement was validated by Delphi
(Hdt. .., .). With reference to this battle he also tells us how the
Greeks gathered at the Isthmus to decide who was the best individual (but
failed to agree). We can see already a similar concern in Simonides’ elegy
concerning Plataea: in the longest fragment (fr.  W ) the poet talks about
Achilles and his commemoration by Homer, addresses a (singular) Muse
and turns to those who fought at Plataea, before identifying Pausanias
of Sparta in a badly preserved couplet which defines him as V
(fr.
.– W ). As Achilles was V
r# @ then, and commemorated
by Homer, so Pausanias is V
now, and his "
is ensured by
Simonides’ elegy. In Homer V
is regular in this position in the
formula r# @ V
| (this occurs several times in the Odyssey,
but in the Iliad only once (Il. .): Helenus advises Hector to challenge
‘whoever is best of the Achaeans’ to a duel), and in Iliad  we see the Muse
asked ‘who was best?’ (Il. .).
Our fragment represents another take on the same general idea – but
in a completely different way. Although the grammar and the intertex-
tual resonances lead the audience to expect a personal name, the V

here is neither Pausanias nor Miltiades nor Themistocles but the

r! – the contrast between singular and collective is sharpened up
by the almost paradoxical
. The use of
r! rather than
another expression meaning ‘the Athenians’ is striking (Athenian Persian
Wars epigrams do not refer to the Athenian
). This looks like a
democratization of "
poetry: the elegy commemorates neither an indi-
vidual nor Hellas in general, but the community of Athenian citizens.
Some might have understood
in a less inclusive sense as a class
word: the aristeia belongs not to the aristoi, but to the demos. An obvious
especially Parsons , M. L. West , essays in Boedeker and Sider , Kowerski , and
now also Grethlein : –. Epigrams on the Persian Wars are generally ascribed to Simonides,
correctly or otherwise, in subsequent tradition: for the latest treatment of the vexed question
of the authorship and transmission of ‘Simonidean’ epigrams, see Petrovic a: –, with
bibliography; cf. Sider .
 Barigazzi : –; Podlecki : –.
 For a sense of the surprising and politically forceful impression which this expression might have
made, cf. the discussion of " for the demos (Solon fr. . W ) at Irwin : –: this is
 richard rawles
comparandum is Aeschylus’ Persians, where no individual Athenian or
Greek is named. This democratization of poetry seems to me much
more likely to go, here as in Aeschylus, with a naval battle rather than with
Marathon, a victory of the thetes rather than of the hoplites. If the elegy
was commissioned by an individual or on the proposal of an individual
politician, we should think of Themistocles (associated with Simonides in
later anecdote) rather than, as it might be, the aristocratic Miltiades or
Aristides. So I think we are dealing with either Salamis or Artemisium. This
might be in part a response to the awkward position that the Aeginetans
could claim to be V
in what Athenians saw as an Athenian triumph:
a circumstance especially odious to Themistocles and to supporters of
Themistoclean hostility to Aegina.
What does this mean for the parabasis of Aristophanes’ Peace? The
chorus tells us that any comic poet who uses the anapaests of the parabasis
to praise himself should be beaten by ‘the ushers’ (=/
(#
). But ‘if after
all it is fitting, Daughter of Zeus, to honour one who has been and still is
the world’s best and most renowned comic producer, then our producer
says that he is worthy of great praise’. Why does Aristophanes deserve
praise? He has replaced the tired old rubbish that comedy used to be with
something better: this includes replacing clichéd elements, and diverting
comic satire away from the poor and ordinary towards the great, and
specifically Cleon. The Simonides fragment is thematically relevant to the
concerns of the parabasis. As the fragment suggests a kind of democratic or
at least ‘demophilic’ poetics, so we see a refusal to engage in ‘ridiculing the
another place where the language characteristic of singling out elite individuals for special honour
is re-targeted in the direction of the demos.
 A survey of views on the politics of Aeschylus’ Persians is now conveniently provided at Garvie
: xvi–xxii.
 Plut. Them. .– (T, T Campbell = T, T Poltera); Cic. De fin. .. (T Campbell =
Tb Poltera); Suda s.v. Simonides (  Adler); cf. the traditions concerning Timocreon,
Simonides and Themistocles discussed below. On the extensive anecdotal tradition concerning
Simonides, see Bell .
 On rivalries between Athens and Aegina expressed in terms of competitive claims to panhellenic
arete and visible for us especially through Herodotus, see Kowalzig : –, esp. – with
n.  (but at  with n.  I find Kowalzig’s point with reference to Crius, Simonides  PMG and
Timocreon  PMG rather unclear). On the highly contested status of the Aeginetan past in the
later fifth century bc as reflected in the works of Herodotus and Thucydides, see now Irwin a
and b; on Salamis, especially a: –. Figueira : – argues that the Athenians
may have conceived of – or at least represented – their colonization of Aegina in the later fifth
century as the restoration of the island to ‘democratic’ Aeginetans who had previously taken refuge
in Athens (perhaps including the family of Aristophanes). In this light (and if I am right that the
fragment comes from a Salamis elegy), then Aristophanes’ use of this Simonidean tag, combining
democratic ideology with rivalry towards Aegina, resonates strongly with Figueira’s observation that
the Athenians’ colonization of the island might have seemed legitimated ‘in terms of a populist
ideology that prioritized the existence of a sovereign and activist demos’ (Figueira : ).
Aristophanes’ Simonides 
ordinary little man, or women’, or in ‘mocking rags and making war on
lice’: Olson (ad loc.) comments that Aristophanes characterizes the comedy
of his predecessors as ‘vaguely anti-democratic.’ The question ‘who is the
right object of praise?’ is handled in both the fragment and the parabasis.
First we have the disingenuous suggestion that public officials should beat
the one who makes the parabasis into praise of the poet – this suppression
by the state of individualistic self-assertion sits well with the sentiment of
the Simonides fragment. Then the idea is introduced that it might (‘If . . . ’)
be appropriate to praise the best poet, and the poet’s reported assertion that
he is V5
*
. Finally, in the account of the poet’s adversary (Cleon)
at –, we see the praise of the wrong kind, directed at the wrong target:
the snaky hair of the monster is not made of snakes but of flatterers,
().
But there is a striking reversal: if Simonides’ elegy replaces the praise of
named individuals with the praise of the demos, the Aristophanic revision
precisely reverses this process. Praise of the demos is changed into praise
of the poet, who is not named but whose name is perhaps punningly
suggested by the very word V
. ‘Le demos, c’est moi’: Aristophanes
deletes the demos as laudandus and puts himself in its place. The regular
egotism and poetic self-praise of the parabasis is powerfully emphasized by
contrast with the source-text. Aristophanes’ self-advertisement as a heroic,
one-man warrior against Cleon seems to contradict the collective values
suggested by the elegy’s praise of the whole demos together.
The parabasis not only sets up the poet as an individual hero deserving of
praise (V5
*
) but also shows awareness that this self-promotion
might seem dangerous and problematic in contrast with the collectivist ide-
ology seen in the Simonides fragment. It also gives us a striking glimpse of
Simonides as an exponent not only of commemoration of the Persian Wars,
but also of democratic sentiment which may have carried an identifiably
Themistoclean flavour. However, in his presentation of Simonides as in his
presentation of himself, Aristophanes allows a degree of paradox and denies
the satisfaction of a straightforward or schematic meaning. He knows of
other constructions of ‘Simonides’. Just as Aristophanes’ own commitment
to a democratic poetics might seem at odds with his individualistic self-
assertion, so this ‘democratic’ Simonidean voice is already undermined: the
parabasis starts a mere thirty lines after the passage at Peace –, where
Sophocles’ supposed avarice is compared to Simonides’: for profit’s sake,
he’d go to sea in a sieve . . .
In other places where we find allusion to Simonidean poems in Aristo-
phanes we find poems in praise not of the city but of individuals. In Clouds,
 richard rawles
Strepsiades explains how it happened that he and Pheidippides came to
blows (–):
(8.) , ! @
U5!

!
g -. ) , $! ), F j,
@
' *6 , > /’ g )"2
8
2 "
, 6 c , : "#!.
B ) *!" #
L ) %- 6 ! 1

! ), : #2 2 )
(.
(.)
* ) *!W # ) ! ! ,

>
! ,) : "  R @;
(Strepsiades) I will indeed tell you how our name-calling started. You’ll recall
that we were having a feast. First of all I asked him to pick up his lyre and
sing a song by Simonides, the one about how Ram got shorn, and he right
away said it was old-fashioned to play the lyre and sing at a drinking party,
like a woman hulling barley. (Pheidippides) Why, right then and there you
should have been pounded and stomped – asking me to sing, as if you were
throwing a feast for cicadas!
At least after his time in the phrontisterion, Pheidippides’ tastes are defined
by a generational conflict between those who like the old-style habits of
Athenian song-culture, and the young who prefer the trendy Euripides and
recite spoken verse rather than singing to the lyre, which in the world of
professionalized music seems banausic and old-fashioned. But for this idea
any song by a poet of the ‘old school’ might have done: we ought to ask
why this one might have particular force.
Good independent information is preserved by the scholia, including a
fragment of the song, which is corrupt only to a relatively minor extent;
here I give the texts of both Page and Poltera ( PMG =  Poltera):
8 E a and b (other MSS slightly different)
8
2 5
2
"5! ) B c 6
* ".
N ' , \. . - ' *
-,
L . 6 6 1@

"5 2"5
†
† B
, "
"5! ) B c 6
* "
!g . "
6 ] 6
"
.
cf. 8 RVE a/A #, "
2 . c 6 6 \. 
 Here I give the manuscripts’ " rather than Blaydes’ " ’ (accepted by Wilson).
 The scholia of Tzetzes seem to me not to add anything which is not guesswork or the result of
drawing false inferences from corrupt text.
Aristophanes’ Simonides 
Page’s text ( PMG) and Campbell’s translation:
"5! ) B c 6
* "
!g `
6 ] 6
"
.
`
Dobree
Crius not surprisingly got himself shorn when he came to the glorious
sanctuary of Zeus with its fine trees.
Poltera’s text (his fr. ):
"5! ) B c 6
* "
!g
] 6
"
.

Valckenauer, !g Hermann
I shall start by looking at this puzzling fragment in isolation and then
return to its context in Clouds. The problem which I shall address – was
Crius the victor, or a defeated athlete? – is an old one. The view that
Crius was a loser (as I argue here) was expounded in particular by Page
in . The key point is that Crius, which as a regular noun means
‘ram,’ is here a personal name. The first question is the sense of "5
.
Although this verb " can refer to persons combing their hair, it can also
mean ‘shear (sheep)’. That Aristophanes paraphrases "5
with "#!
probably signifies that the middle here is close in sense to a passive. We
 Important earlier contributions include Schneidewin : –; Wilamowitz-Moellendorf :

ii. n. ; :  n. ; :  n.  (Wilamowitz’s opinion changed over time).
 Page : –. For a recent exposition of the opposite view, see Mann : –. The view
expounded here is close to that expressed at Figueira :  n.  (much less fully in the earlier
publication of this essay at Figueira :  with n. ): note particularly Figueira’s comment that
the interpretation ‘is just the sort of thing that would fit the taste of the unabashedly non-aristocratic
and patriotic Strepsiades’, an idea which I develop below. However, I am doubtful whether we should
call this song (identified by our sources as 5
2) ‘a parody of an epinician’ commemorating
a non-athletic event which Simonides merely ‘compared to an athletic defeat’: the qualities of this
song, though surprising, need not prevent our calling it epinician (see further below).
 On the linguistic questions at stake (can the sigmatic aorist middle form ever be said to represent
the passive? to what extent may a middle be said to have a quasi-passive sense?), see Wackernagel
: –; Bers : –; Koniaris : –. For possible analogous cases, see Pind. Ol.
. -$
(Wackernagel : ; Koniaris : ) and Verdenius  ad Ol. .
-
. G. B. D’Alessio kindly suggested to me the possible relevance of Pind. Pae. .
M (= D. Rutherford). Here the papyrus reads R$ , but a scholion appears to correct to
R$
and another scholion in a different hand gives the gloss
( ![. Here the
scholiast (surely correctly) understands that Pindar is using a metaphor by which ‘marriage gift’
represents ‘song’ (D’Alessio : , coll. Callim. fr. . Pfeiffer). It made sense to a scholiast to
gloss a middle form with a passive. To my mind, the sense of "5
is middle – it means ‘got
himself shorn’ – but it is a middle which can legitimately be paraphrased (as it is by Strepsiades)
using a passive ‘was shorn’.
 richard rawles
are dealing at most with the difference between ‘got himself pekoed’ and
‘was pekoed’. And at least in conjunction with the name Crius, the sense
‘the ram got himself shorn’ seems unavoidable. Since, despite his name,
Crius was not a sheep, we must wonder what this figurative expression
might signify. Two possibilities arise: it means ‘Crius got his hair cut’, or
it means ‘Crius suffered some disadvantage, that is, was defeated in the
games’ (the latter might involve an analogy between a human’s haircut and
suffering disadvantage, an analogy between the shearing of an animal and
suffering disadvantage, or a combination of both of these). If we think
that we are to understand ‘Crius was defeated,’ we will translate
*
" ‘and no wonder’, whereas if we think that he merely had his hair
cut and is praised for a victory we will put ‘and in no unseemly fashion’.
Mockery of named losers is not found in Pindar and Bacchylides: the
only mentions of losers (both from songs for Aeginetan wrestlers: is this
just coincidence?) are Olympian .– and Pythian .–:
Ol. .–
x ># '

,
" )
* $
" !
2

%#!

" @ 2-

L
. . .
[Alcimedon, the victor,] who, with divine favour, but also by not failing his
manhood, put away from himself on to four boys’ bodies a most hateful
homecoming, words less respectful, and a hidden path . . .
 Cf. Wilamowitz-Moellendorf :  n. .

 There are further interpretative possibilities with regard to the paraphrase of "5
with "#!.
Koniaris : – suggests that Simonides used the middle aorist "5
para prosdokian for the
middle aorist , moving towards the treatment of Crius as the animal, but Aristophanes’
Strepsiades takes the equivalence of ram and athlete further by using the passive, which shows that
Strepsiades is treating the athlete as if he really were a ram. This line of approach (humour is derived
from a difference in sense between "5
and "#!) is as old as Schneidewin (: –: his
fr. ) and seems in some ways attractive, but is vulnerable to two objections: () the joke relies on
(some of ) the audience’s remembering Simonides so accurately that they could spot the substitution
of "5
with "#! even in a context where the word "5
never occurs, which might be
doubted (cf. Molyneux : ); () we can explain "#! much more easily by observing that the
sigmatic aorist middle usages with sense close to passive, as discussed by the authorities named in
n.  above, seem to be uncommon and high-register verse usages, so that it is natural for Strepsiades
to paraphrase using the passive, which would be more usual in ordinary speech. Emmanuela Bakola
suggests to me the possibility that Simonides may have meant ‘got his hair cut’ while Aristophanes’
Strepsiades changed this to ‘was fleeced’, perhaps with the implication ‘lost his money’ (sc. paid to
the proverbially greedy Simonides, it being understood that Crius commissioned the song): this
seems to me to share in the attractive ingenuity of Koniaris’ reading, but also in its vulnerabilities.
 A parallel for the idea ‘fleece’ ∼ ‘cause disadvantage to’ might be provided by Cratin. fr. ; for
other, later parallels see Molyneux :  n. . At Hdt. .  the Argives resolve to wear their hair
short as a response to defeat.
Aristophanes’ Simonides 
Pyth. .–
" ) % 4!
-
",

`
B@
%
[2! !,

*'
") - " 2>
X # A > ) #!@

$
, 2-
"
.
And upon four bodies you fell from above with hostile intent, for whom
no homecoming as happy as yours was decided at the Pythian festival, nor
upon returning to their mothers did sweet laughter arouse joy all around;
but staying clear of their enemies they shrink down alleyways, bitten by
failure.
Where losers are mentioned they are neither named nor individualized;
they are basically foil to the account of a victor. In Pindaric (and Bac-
chylidean) epinician, naming confers praise: they do not name to blame.
But this is a dubious reason for denying that Crius is a defeated wrestler
in Simonides. While Pindar and Bacchylides may pun on the names of
victors (e.g. Bacchyl.  init.), they do not start their songs by making
facetious comments about victors’ haircuts either. By any interpretation
of this fragment, it suggests something surprising and different from what
we would expect to find in Pindar and Bacchylides.
Crius of Aegina is known to us from elsewhere. Herodotus tells us how he
was a prominent Aeginetan when the island gave earth and water to Darius
(c.  bc). He was confronted by the Spartan Cleomenes on Aegina and
subsequently captured and held in Athens. The historian records another
pun on Crius’ name made by Cleomenes (Hdt. .):
c
" ' 2
\. j
6 c 6
j
6
`
A B "
6 6 %-. B ' c
" 6 *6 %-A ‘S
( #
(, X ", ", : 2

.’
When Cleomenes was being driven out of Aegina, he asked Crius what his
name was, and Crius told him. Cleomenes said to him ‘Get your horns
tipped with bronze, Mr Ram: you’re about to meet with a big misfortune.’
Molyneux suggested that in these circumstances, combined with the regular
Athenian hostility to Aegina, it was unlikely that a song praising Crius
 Cf. Poltera : –; Bagordo .
 Cf., with a different take on the Pindaric passages, Molyneux : ; Poltera :  cites
Bacchyl.  init. and Bagordo  to argue that a joke of this kind could be made about the
laudandus of a short epinician for performance at the site of the games.
 richard rawles
would be popular in Athens, and that this should encourage us to suppose
that Crius featured as a defeated loser. This need not be so. Aristophanes
can allude to a song praising Hieron for the foundation of Aetna, and the
Sicilians were fans of Euripides because he was a great poet, not because
of their attitudes towards Athens in general: we need not believe that the
fact of dissemination in Athens is in itself evidence of a song’s political
content (in any case the song might have circulated among Athenians
who did not share in the hostility towards Aegina). But this approach
suggests another. We ought to try to understand this song in terms of its
Aristophanic context. Strepsiades asks Pheidippides for this song, and not
another, by a favourite poet. What does this mean in the world of the play?
Strepsiades’ wife is from a family background composed of identifiable
members of the international aristocracy (Nub. –):
% ) % M"
2
( M"
2
- V

i 5 V,
, 2-@,
2".
(Strepsiades) Then I married the niece of Megacles son of Megacles, I a
rustic, she from town, haughty, spoiled, thoroughly Coesyrized.
Through her, Pheidippides has not only the poshest but also the most
epinician pedigree possible, including Megacles the laudandus of Pindar’s
Pythian  and probably also the Olympic victor in the chariot race of
. Given his ancestry and his earlier horse mania, one might almost
have expected that Pheidippides rather than Strepsiades would be a fan
of epinician. Strepsiades is characterized (and characterizes himself ) in
contrast to the family of his wife, identifying himself as V

. Perhaps
the sheep-shearing imagery corresponds to this.
Strepsiades’ attitude to the world at large is laid out for us in the scene
where the student of the phrontisterion shows him a map. His interest
in the world outside Athens is about cleruchies for people like himself,
 Molyneux : .  Plut. Nic. .–.

 Megacles senior: LGPN II Megacles , ostracized /, laudandus of Pind. Pyth. . Megacles
junior: LGPN II Megacles , Olympic victor (chariot race) . Koisyra: no. in M. J. Osborne
and Byrne , wife or mother of Megacles senior, from Eretria. The mention of Koisyra indicates
that we should think of the two men named Megacles as historical individuals, even though the
name is also redolent of aristocratic ideology in a more general way by virtue of its etymology. (The
scepticism in Dover’s notes ad  and  reflects the position before Koisyra’s historicity and identity
were clarified through the discovery of ostraka cast against Megacles senior and bearing her name:
these may now be found in Siewert and Brenne .)
 See in particular Nub. –, –.
 For Simonides’ role in Theocritus’ construction of ‘bucolic epinician’, cf. Theocritus  with Rawles
.
Aristophanes’ Simonides 
and chauvinist pride in Athens’ imperial conquests under Pericles (another
Alcmaeonid, but of a rather different kind from the picture of Strepsiades’
in-laws) (Nub. –):
(8.) 6 @ !@, ) ; ."
. 
(M.)

' .
(8.)
2 ' ;
(M.) .
(8.)
()
I #
;
(M.) ! .
(8.) ,
2# ;
(M.)
`, , >.
(8.)
" A
6 -
6 #
. 
(M.) H "

. B ;
b ' r! .
(8.) W " ;
* !
,

*# B@ !"
2.
(M.) :
() !@ r 6 6 #
.
(8.)
( c 2 . ,

; 
(M.) (! ) % . & " ) 0`/
), : B ,
& " 2.
(8.)
L)A 6 &@ ! [ "
2.
) & Y
( ) ;
(M.)
2 ) ; .
(Strepsiades) What in god’s name are these, then? Tell me. (Pupil) This one
here is for astronomy. (S) And this one? (P) Geometry. (S) So what’s that
good for? (P) For measuring land. (S) You mean land for settlers? (P) No,
land in general. (S) Talk about sophisticated. That device is democratic,
and useful too. (P) And look, this is a map of the entire world. See? That’s
Athens right there. (S) What do you mean? I don’t believe it; I don’t see any
juries in session. (P) Anyway, this really is the territory of Attica. (S) Then
where are the Cicynnians, my fellow demesmen? (P) They’re over here. And
Euboea, as you can see, is laid out here, over a very long stretch. (S) I know;
we laid it out ourselves, with Pericles. But where’s Sparta? (P) Let me see;
right here.
Strepsiades refers to the Euboean campaign again later on: Periclean vic-
tories come naturally to his mind. In this light, a song which mocks
the discomfiture of an Aeginetan aristocrat seems right up Strepsiades’
street, while a song praising Crius seems out of place. Praising aristocratic
foreigners for their victories in athletic pursuits in no way conforms to
 Nub.  with Dover ad loc.
 richard rawles
Strepsiades’ characterization, while a chauvinistic taste for the discomfiture
of a foreigner from a country with a long history of enmity with Athens and
subsequently conquered by Pericles is precisely to his taste. When Clouds
was first performed ( bc) and subsequently revised, it was not long
since the Periclean invasion and ethnic cleansing of Aegina in  bc, and
only a year since the Athenians attacked the Aeginetan exiles at Thyrea in
 bc: Aegina (and the defeat of Aeginetans) is an especially contemporary
matter. Two years before the first Clouds, Aegina had been mentioned in
the parabasis of Acharnians because of the Spartans’ demand that the island
be given back. It taps into a rich seam for Aristophanes to characterize
Strepsiades by means of his taste for a song mocking an Aeginetan who
was remembered in Athens as a Medizer and a captive of the Athenians,
and, being more consistent with the trend of the play than the alternative,
supports this reading of the fragment. Consideration of Aristophanes and
Simonides together helps us to judge what is likely to be a better account
of the Simonides fragment, and also to perceive more clearly its function
and meaning within the play.
In Aristophanes’ Knights it is the chorus who recall Simonidean epinician
(–):
: ' 6 >
* ! 
( #$

(
.
j , @,
c
2

M

2 .
X )

) V! b1,
j! ->, F Q, /
, %! .

) t
A
‘ ’ 2-
.’
 Cf. Figueira :  n. .
 Thuc. .–; Plut. Nic. .. Elizabeth Irwin has rightly stressed to me the significance of the dating
of the first version of Clouds in relation to the conflict at Thyrea. Aelian (VH .) refers to an
Athenian decree that the Aeginetans have their right thumbs removed, which should belong at this
date, but Thucydides records that the captives were all killed. In any case the sources report that
the captives were brought to Athens, where the decision what to do with them was taken by the
assembly: the question has therefore been a recent matter for debate in Athens itself (not merely
news). I wonder whether it is relevant that, according to Hdt. ., Thyrea was the site of a battle
between Sparta and Argos, in which the Argives were defeated, and as a consequence of the defeat
resolved to wear their hair short until they might recapture Thyrea; the Spartans resolved always to
wear their hair long.
 It is this same passage which seems to presuppose that Aristophanes had a personal connection with
the island (Ach. –): this might indicate that his family had arrived in Athens as pro-democratic
refugees from Aegina in the early fifth century (Figueira : –).
 Here I give the manuscripts’ ! , which has been emended to ! (van Herwerden,
accepted by Wilson) and !" (Hirschig).
Aristophanes’ Simonides 
6 K* ) t
j
, "
2
,
&!") . /#"/#
.
See how he keeps up his boundless brazenness
without even changing his usual colour!
If I don’t hate you, may I turn into a blanket in Cratinus’ house
and be coached by Morsimus to sing in a tragedy!
Oh, you’re everywhere, in everyone’s business,
lighting on bribery’s blossoms;
I hope you throw up your mouthful as easily as you found it.
For only then will I sing
‘Drink, drink on a happy occasion!’
(Chorus leader) And I imagine Ulius, the old grain ogler, would
whoop a paean of joy and sing the Bacchebacchus.
The scholia are again informative:

8 VEGnM a:

A , - ,
6 8
2 "

) 2-
. @ 8
2 '
(
_! . 6 '
2-
) !
A @ " & 2-
.
That is, it says, I would sing to you the song of Simonides ‘Drink, drink for
the results!’ This is from Simonides’ epinicians for winners in the four-horse
chariot. ‘Results’ refers to ‘good things’: the word 2-
is a vox media.
Cf. Suda  (s.v. 2-

)
From the use of the line quoted as a kind of title (6 8

2 "

) 2-
) we can infer that this is another incipit. The potential
ambiguity of 2-
, of interest to the scholia, is thought-provoking.
In later Greek (including Aristophanes) 2-
without further quali-
fier often carries the negative sense ‘disaster, bad outcome’. Bacchylides
illustrates the ambiguous quality of the noun which the scholia point out,
but in a gnomically generalized way (Bacchyl. .–):
]2-
’ ! <’> >-
/]>[].

(
]6 . [6] 4 - 
>[# ]
!!A
. . . if Fortune comes with a load of suffering, she ruins a fine man, while if
set on a prosperous course she makes even a base man shine on high.
 Bravi : –.  Cf. Bravi : .
 richard rawles
In Pindar the word is used only in the negative sense: Olympian .
2-

., and (suggestively) Pythian . 2-
"
,
of the losers in the wrestling, as quoted above. The scholia show that it
seemed to somebody, with information unavailable to us, that 2-
in
the Simonidean song carried a positive sense. But the way in which this
is argued suggests that there was at least a little room for ambiguity: the
poem did not include, for example, an adjective like ! qualifying
2-
, otherwise it would have been unnecessary to explain that
2-
was vox media.
In a way, problematic dictionary definitions are not the point. An athletic
victory is a 2-
! for the winner – and a 2-
for
the rest. This aspect of athletics is not generally acknowledged in Pindar
and Bacchylides, who rarely mention losers. The ‘inclusivity’ of Pindaric
epinician creates a world in which the celebration of the victory is an
underlying fact or premise of everything that follows, while opposing
viewpoints are ignored or acknowledged only with general references to
-!

. Pindar’s epinicians are generally reluctant to acknowledge that
there are those who would prefer that the laudandus had not won.
By my account of the Crius fragment, Simonides took a very different
line there: a celebration of the defeat of another, named competitor. Perhaps
) 2-
points in the same direction: it is suggestive of
faction and enmity also in its echoing of the celebratory and stasiotic
drinking of Alcaeus ( Voigt):
( # !>! ' /
$, , ! M>
.
Now must men get drunk and drink with all their strength, since Myrsilus
has died.
Considering factionalism and the ambiguous reference of 2-
, we
should look at the fragment within Knights. If Paphlagon were to come to a
 In my view the comment in the Suda (s.v. 2-
,  Adler),
' "
2 ) )
!
, probably reflects the same idea (i.e. ‘some say [that it means] “drink to the good things!” ’);
but cf. Trombetta :  for a different view.
 Contra, Bravi :  (‘lo scoliasta risolve l’ambiguità in maniera inequivocabile’).
 References to wine and conviviality are common in both Pindaric and Bacchylidean epinician, but
this kind of straightforwardly colloquial exhortation to drink is not characteristic. One may wonder
about the pragmatic implications of the second-person singular imperative . It might invite
the addressee to form a part of a group (‘drink with me/us’), as commonly in Alcaeus (frr. a, ,
a Voigt, and cf. the popular song  PMG). Did the singular have the effect of singling out the
laudandus, as perhaps with # at Pind. Pyth. ., Nem. .? This is speculation: the singular
might have conveyed the idea ‘drink, each of you severally!’ (cf. in Alc. fr.  Voigt, quoted
here).
Aristophanes’ Simonides 
nasty end and to have to hand over all his corrupt gains, the chorus would
sing: ) 2-
, ‘drink, drink for the 2-
: good for
us, and bad for you!’ It hardly makes sense to decide whether 2-

here ‘means’ good outcome or bad: the Knights’ delight in their victory is
inseparable from their Schadenfreude at Cleon’s downfall.
This use of Simonides for the expression of jubilation in the defeat of an
enemy is of broader interest in Knights more generally. In this most partisan
of plays, the chorus is unambiguously on one side, that is, opposed to
Paphlagon-Cleon, and as such is especially easily aligned with an ‘authorial’
presence. It is easy for a choral voice to start to shift towards a ‘poet’s voice’
even outside explicitly parabatic passages. In our passage at – we
can hear the poet behind the chorus, a poet’s voice being suggested by the
mockery of the poets Cratinus and Morsimus (while the identity of the
chorus is perhaps closer to the foreground in the choice of a song for a
victor in the chariot race, corresponding to the equestrian interests of the
knights). The Simonidean allusion represents an adoption of a Simonidean
voice by both poet and chorus.
A little later the chorus make their most shocking statement of partisan-
ship (Eq. –):
X

(# [, X
7-
@
"
-
2 ! ) -
>-
"
2 #$, 
() -
( /
( ,
#
&" 526
^ , f #
@ R

) #!
! ) &@ 1 . 
(
I (
-! A

-
"#
-
j
' (.
Pallas, City Guardian,
mistress of the land
that is the holiest of all
and the most successful in war, poets
and power,
come join us, and bring
 I retain the manuscript reading #
@ against Wilamowitz’s emendation < (accepted by
Wilson, OCT).
 richard rawles
our helper in expeditions and battles,
Victory, our companion in choral dances,
who sides with us against our enemies.
Come then, appear to us, for you should
by all means bestow victory
on these gentlemen,
now if ever before!
Athena is asked to provide Nike, who is described as a helper in military
conflict as well as choral performance. This conflict is explicitly character-
ized as stasis. Victory in the comic competition is blurred together with
military victory and with civil strife against ‘enemies’, and the project of
the play is characterized as stasiotic, divisive and partisan.
However, this partisanship of the Knights as co-belligerents against
Cleon stands in contrast to their avoidance of such attitudes in the places
on either side of the song just described. Here the coryphaeus addresses
the audience in two matching public speeches of praise. First there is praise
of those who fought at Marathon, ‘our fathers, who were men worthy
of this land and of the peplos’ (–), and secondly the encomium of
the Knights’ horses. Both speeches emphasize the chorus’s identification
with the polis as a whole: the Knights want to serve the city, and praise
of the cavalry is hilariously displaced on to their horses, who are happy
to muck in with the sailors of the fleet. So the presentation of the chorus
is marked by a bifurcation between their identity as partisan collaborators
and proxies of the poet in his attack on Cleon, and their identity as a class
within the polis, in which they stress their non-partisan commitment to the
whole community. The quotation from Simonides belongs on the partisan
side.
Some of these observations can be analysed under a familiar heading, by
which the poetry of hostility – mockery, insult, reproach – is contrasted
with the poetry of more friendly expression – amicable celebration, com-
memoration, praise. The dichotomy, present in both ancient and modern
analysis, is usually expressed as ‘praise and blame’. What surprises about
the Crius fragment, and perhaps also ) 2-
, is the
extent to which triumphalism or mockery of the defeated might push
epinician praise poetry in the direction of blame. In Greek poetry the
praise–blame dichotomy may be perceived in different ways. Thus while
in one place Pindar claims that his aim is to live ‘praising things praisewor-
thy, but casting blame on evildoers’ (Nem. ., ." .,
-
 For subtle reflections on comic Nike, see Wilson b (where the present passage is not discussed).
 See (e.g.) Nagy : –; Gentili : –.
Aristophanes’ Simonides 
)
), he is in practice reluctant to blame. In Pythian
 Pindar rejects blame, and singles out Archilochus, as archetypal poet of
blame, for extended censure (Pyth. .–):
' ' #$
->
7 6
.
L
R g ) #
4
6 r#
#
/2
%#!

A 6
2 ' W >#

2
- V
.
But I must flee the persistent bite of censure, for standing at a far remove I
have seen Archilochus the blamer often in straits as he fed on dire words of
hatred. And possessing wealth that is granted by destiny is the best object
of wisdom.
In the Pindaric corpus as a whole, however, Archilochus is a poet of blame
and praise: the beginning of Olympian  names him as the author of the
proto-epinician kallinike song.
In an important recent article, Morgan has argued that, as here in
Pythian , the principal kind of negative evaluation which we can find in
Pindar is negative evaluation of the wrong kinds of speech. The chief target
of Pindaric blame is blame itself. That his aim is praise without blame is
asserted in a famous fragment (fr.  M):
B 5
j
2
@
%

Praise which comes from home is mixed with blame
This is a claim for the superiority of praise which comes from a disinterested
outsider, such as Pindar, whose praise is not contaminated by blame arising
from local rivalries. The right kind of praise is pure praise. But the quotation
from Nemean  suggests a different attitude, where the poet should employ
both praise and blame and distribute them correctly, each to the proper
target. Morgan describes Pindar’s reluctance to engage in blame as in part
a generic feature of epinician, arising out of the professional circumstances
of a praise poet. But perhaps the Simonidean picture was different: it
is a measure of Pindar’s continuing poetic success that we find it easy to
 On the kallinike song cf. e.g. Rawles ; on its use in comedy, see e.g. Wilson b: – (on
Acharnians) and Carey .
 Morgan .
 Morgan , esp.  (‘largely a function of the genre itself’); cf., with regard to Simonides’ Crius
fragment, Wilamowitz-Moellendorf :  n.  (and :  n. ).
 Differences between Simonidean and Pindaric ethics are briefly addressed by Morgan with reference
to Simonides  PMG ( Poltera) (Morgan : –).
 richard rawles
regard his preferences as if they were generic features. Praise in Simonides
seems often to touch on areas which might belong under the heading of
blame: mockery, insult, reproof (compare the story of the song for Anaxilas
of Rhegium,  PMG =  Poltera). These apparent deviations from what
we expect of praise, combined with the surprising attitude of  PMG
( Poltera; the poem analysed in Plato’s Protagoras) led Gentili to speak
of a ‘poetics of tempered praise’: the opposite of the unadulterated praise
which seems to be the ideal in the Pindar fragment.
An example of the poetry of praise with blame comes from a contempo-
rary of Simonides (Timocreon  PMG):
) . > [2 T > |!
.,
T > Y22# , g ) r "
V ) ) r!
! G
, n
S#! Y$,
4> V

, x _
"
5

2

/
!
*
) P) 26 j<>,
/g ' ) 2
2 ) %/ " . 3!
,

W ' ,
W ) $,
W ' A
2 ) )P!

2 
42# <> #A

) S!
`#

, k n
"
"! .
Well now, if you praise Pausanias and you, sir, Xanthippus, and you Leo-
tychidas, I commend Aristeides as the very best man to have come from
holy Athens; for Themistocles incurred the hatred of Leto, Themistocles
the liar, the criminal, the traitor, who was bribed with mischievous silver
and would not take Timocreon home to his native Ialysus, although he was
his guest-friend. Instead he accepted three talents of silver and sailed off to
the devil, restoring some to their homes unjustly, chasing others out, killing
others. Gorged with silver, he made a ridiculous innkeeper at the Isthmus,
serving cold meat: the guests would eat up and pray that no attention be
given to Themistocles.
This may be a complete song. Although abuse of Themistocles is the prin-
cipal point, we should not discard the initial praise as mere foil: this is praise
as, like athletics, a zero-sum game, where naming a winner involves reject-
ing losers. There can only be G
in Athens; praising Aristeides
 Gentili : .

 On this song, see Robertson , Scodel , Stehle ; for possible historical contextualization
of Timocreon’s siding with Aristeides against Themistocles, Kowalzig : – (where 
is misidentified as elegiac: surely part of the rhetoric of the song was that, however its initial
performance was intended, it shared in the formal features of collective, public choral performances).
Aristophanes’ Simonides 
and denigrating Themistocles go together. Praise and blame are integrated
in the work of one poet. We know even less about Timocreon than we
do about Simonides. What we do know, however, is suggestive for our
purposes. Timocreon is known to Aristophanes. Aristotle (fr.  Rose,
from the lost work On Poets) tells us that Timocreon was quarrelsome
(-
) towards Simonides. The Suda asserts that he argued with
both Simonides and Themistocles and that he composed a comedy against
them. This refers to aggressive mockery rather than comedy proper. This
tradition, visible in the Aristotle fragment, is also our best testimonium
to suggest that a close relationship between Simonides and Themistocles,
assumed in later anecdotes, reflects earlier Athenian tradition: if it was
visible in lost poems of Timocreon, it dates from Simonides’ own time. The
Simonidean attribution of an amusing mock-epitaph for Timocreon (Anth.
Pal. . = ‘Simonides’  FGE) cannot be leant on heavily. Our sources
explicitly attest only to the expression of aggression by Timocreon aimed
at Themistocles and Simonides, and not the other way around. There is
no reason to believe that Simonidean poems looked ‘just like’ Timocreon’s
poem against Themistocles – but the latter is a valuable source for a non-
Pindaric poetics of praise and blame, and close to the world of Simonides
in Athens.
What, then, does Aristophanes’ Simonides look like? This is in part
Simonides through Athenian spectacles, a practitioner of praise of a naval
demos Athenaion with what I interpreted as a Themistoclean inflection. It is
Simonides the praise poet, but simultaneously engaged with the poetry of
aggression, partisanship, mockery and abusive ridicule. We might see him
as part of the world suggested by the figure of Timocreon: street-fighting
 I am uncomfortable where Gentili (: ) calls this a ‘parody’ of praise and a ‘transgression
of generic propriety’, since I think that combination of praise with blame may have been more
common than this formulation might imply (which is not to deny that the conceptual dichotomy
praise vs. blame doubtless long predated Timocreon).
 Aristophanic allusions to Timocreon: Timocreon  ∼ Ach.  with 8;  ∼ Vesp. – with 8.
 Suda  s.v. _
".
 See n.  above. For discussion of the presentation of Simonides in Plutarch’s Themistocles, see
Zadorojnyi , for whom Simonides’ significance in the Life is especially to be interpreted in
terms of his regular association in the anecdotal tradition with excessive concern for money. On the
Timocreon fragments concerning Themistocles (for which our source is Plut. Them. .–), see
Zadorojnyi : –.
 The attribution cannot be traced further back than the hand of a corrector in the manuscript of
Anth. Pal. (who may have known the tradition reported in the Suda), and the epigram, which
might itself be early, was cited by Athenaeus without the name of an author. See Page FGE ad
loc. On attribution of Simonidean epigrams in general, see Petrovic a, Sider  (both with
bibliography).
 richard rawles
poets in the world of political conflict and rivalry, like jackdaws squabbling
close to ground level while the Theban eagle soars serenely above.
In the context of a different kind of investigation from this, Michael
Silk drew a useful distinction between a high-register line of lyric tradition,
including Simonides, and an alternative strand of ‘low lyric’, retaining links
with ‘popular elements’:
Aristophanes the lyric poet does not belong to the well-known line that runs
from Alcman to Simonides, from Pindar to the authors of those magnificent
choral odes of tragedy. His lyrics may be more or less affected by that line, but
he does not belong to it. His affinities are rather with the tradition of low lyric
that descends from folk song and Archilochus – or, presumably, from folk song to
Archilochus – and is drawn on variously by Hipponax and, under the aristocratic
accent, by Anacreon: a tradition that, by comparison with the ‘serious’ line, keeps
recognisable links with popular elements.
This set of distinctions seems to me valid and helpful. But my analysis of
Aristophanes’ Simonides suggests to me that Simonides’ place in the tradi-
tions of lyric could sometimes be seen differently. Aristophanes’ Simonides
is characterized by skoptic and comedic elements and aggressive partisan-
ship – the relationship with Aristophanic comedy is as much one of analogy
as of contrast, as if Aristophanes went to Simonides as a precursor. This
applies to language as well. The Simonidean passages we have considered
are not marked by the high register which is frequently characteristic of
the choral lyric tradition. On the contrary, this Simonides is a poet of
low-register lyric language, quite different from Aristophanes’ highfalutin’
Pindar. With boozy, yo-ho-ho drinking song, obvious punning on the
name Crius and mockery of the defeated aristocrat, they may seem closer
to a demotic, popular tradition. This Simonides could as easily belong
with Archilochus and Anacreon as with Pindar.
If this is Aristophanes’ Simonides, should it then be ours? To put it
another way, does this account enable us to get behind the encrustations
of later ages for a better look at the ‘real’ Simonides? Yes and no. This kind
of reception-through-allusion is not working on nothing: the picture of
Simonides which has been developed is partly based on real fragments, pre-
served for us through Aristophanes and his scholia. It cannot be dismissed
as mere fabrication. Further, Aristophanes may well be close to some ele-
ments in the repertoire of contemporary Athenian responses to lyric poetry.
I think that Simonides really was close to Themistocles (or at least that the
 Silk a: .

 For Simonides and ‘popular’ traditions, see e.g. Vetta , Trombetta ; cf. Rawles .
Aristophanes’ Simonides 
ancient assumption to this effect was not baseless, but reflected real con-
tact between them); that Timocreon did engage in polemic against them;
and that Simonides did engage in mockery of the defeated Crius. But
this picture is highly selective. Even within Athenian tradition, it does not
describe Simonides at the court of Hipparchus, or the proto-philosopher
of Plato, and it leaves open whether we should integrate this picture
with Aristophanes’ depictions of Simonides as greedy for profit. This
Simonides does not look much like the poet of the Danae fragment (
PMG =  Poltera), or the encomiast of the panhellenic ambitions of the
Spartan regent Pausanias (fr.  W ).
As far as praise is concerned, we can make a couple of observations.
First, both the Crius fragment and ) 2-
are incipits –
the same is true of # )
!> b ( PMG =
 Poltera), known to us from Aristotle. Perhaps Simonides liked to begin
praise songs in a startling way in order to grab the audience’s attention,
and the rest of these songs would surprise us less. Secondly, Simonidean
epinician from papyrus does not necessarily share the striking features of
the quotation tradition. Here is an incipit preserved on papyrus ( fr. a
PMG =  Poltera = POxy.  fr. a):
c0Y}_P
_. KP8 \P\_PK~ [. \P8P.^.
K* ] c

2[
] \.
2
]. #2
-[] [5
r R/
[
. [2!. [$
] !’
[
(
. . .
.]..[.]2. [ . . . . . . ]..[
omnia suppl. ed. pr. (Lobel)
The glorious son of Kronos, child of Uranus, (protects?) the race of Aeatius,
and the far-shooting Apollo of the golden lyre and shining Pytho mark them
out and (the glory of ) the horse racing . . .
 The fragments of a song addressed to Scopas of Thessaly quoted in Plato’s Protagoras ( PMG =
 Poltera) seem to show ‘tempered praise’ in a rather different, albeit analogous (and perhaps
analogously surprising) way.
 As stressed at the beginning, the present chapter is a selective treatment and does not purport
to describe all aspects of the Aristophanic Simonides. For Simonides’ greed in Aristophanes, see
Pax – (T Campbell, T Poltera); the same perception arguably underlies the naming of
Simonides at Av.  (Simonides T Campbell, T Poltera).
 richard rawles
Here I see no hint of ‘tempered praise’: this is epinician praise as we know it,
straight out of the tin. The language is firmly in the high-register lyric tra-
dition: 2, #2
- 5, even : ‘greasy Pytho’. Though
the number of epinician papyrus fragments which are both recognizable
and substantial is pretty small, this may suggest that the quotation tradi-
tion, including Aristophanes, emphasizes aspects which looked surprising
in a post-Pindaric world.
However, there is one surprising element here: the title, ‘For the sons
of Aiatios in the single-horse race’. Doubtless racehorses, then as now,
could be owned by syndicates such as ‘the sons of so-and-so’. But the
ancient scholars who were responsible for the titles found before Pin-
daric and Bacchylidean epinicians never name more than one person but
always isolate a single victory and a single laudandus, even where a song
seems to commemorate multiple victories by one family. Can we see
here a reflex of a phenomenon visible also in the Crius song? That the
ancient scholars either could not extract a single name here, or felt it
was unnecessary or inappropriate to do so, might reflect that the poetics
of naming in Simonides followed a different pattern from what we see
in Bacchylides and Pindar, just as it did in the Crius song, where (by
my argument) we find the similarly unparalleled naming of a defeated
loser.
In any case, this fragment does not show us the features that we remarked
upon in Aristophanes, and reminds us that Aristophanes’ reception of
Simonides is selective: it reflects Aristophanes’ poetic choices. He could
have gone to Simonides for the features which he found in Pindar, but
he chose Pindar for the likes of .
"-
and and went to
 <2
- 5 is hapax here; cf. Pind. Pyth. ..
 Importantly, the same factors should warn us off straightforwardly evolutionary accounts of ‘popular’
features in Simonides: where these are found they show the poetic choices of Simonides and the
selective receptions of Simonides instantiated in our sources, rather than being a simple reflex of
Simonides’ ‘earliness’ as a poet of epinician. Our awareness of the fragments of Ibycus should be
enough to discourage the idea that Simonides could not compose praise in a high-register style
before he heard Pythian  (that Ibycus composed praise poetry is clear from S PMGF; on the
possibility of Ibycean epinician see Barron , Rawles ). On popular elements in Simonides,
see the works cited in n.  above.
 Lobel in ed. pr. cites Paus. ...
 Naming the event first is also unlike the practice with Pindar and Bacchylides: it was this, combined
with our knowledge that the Simonidean edition was arranged by type of event, which led Lobel in
ed. pr. to attribute the fragment to Simonides (albeit tentatively).
 On naming in Pindar, see Carey , esp. .
Aristophanes’ Simonides 
Simonides for other things. This pattern of reception is about Aristophanes’
poetic choices as much as those of Simonides.
 I finish with the observation that Aegina is a recurring motif in this chapter: Crius the Aeginetan
wrestler, captive in Athens; the two Pindaric passages concerning losers, both from songs for
Aeginetan wrestlers; the possibility that much of the force of Simonides fr.  W will have derived
from rivalry between Athens and Aegina concerning the kleos to be gained from the battle at Salamis;
the likelihood that Simonides was seen as an associate of Themistocles at a time when he was the
leader of an anti-Aeginetan faction in Athens. This is not something I was looking for; but here I
should flag up the possibility that inside this chapter about Aristophanes’ Simonides a study of the
long quarrel between Athens and Aegina in fifth-century poetic culture might be waiting to be born.
On Aegina and poetry, the collected volume edited by David Fearn was on the verge of publication
when I submitted this chapter (Fearn ); I am grateful to Elizabeth Irwin for sharing with me
her chapters from this volume in advance of their publication.
Comedy and tragedy
c h a pt er 8
Comedy versus tragedy in Wasps

Matthew Wright
It is the middle of the night, and two slaves are sitting outside a house,
keeping watch. We are not told at once what they are watching out for,
except that it is something monstrous. The slaves pass the time with desul-
tory conversation, in the course of which they recount certain ominous
dreams that they have had. Both dreams have a political significance, but
the second slave interprets his dream as being enormously important, per-
taining to the whole ‘ship of state’. After a while, the first slave turns to
the audience and delivers a long expository prologue-speech, of a type par-
alleled in numerous tragedies, in which he gives a narrative of the terrible
events currently afflicting the household. It transpires that the ‘monster’
in the house is actually his master, who has been struck down by an awful
disease, and that he is confined to the house in a state of mania, imprisoned
there by his own son.
Nocturnal fears; prophetic dreams; disease and madness; intra-familial
conflict; a note of foreboding; trouble brewing within the doomed house-
hold and the entire city – this all sounds distinctly like a tragic scenario.
In fact, it is the prologue to Aristophanes’ comedy Wasps. Aristophanes
is ‘doing’ tragedy, in a ludicrously distorted but none the less clearly
recognizable manner.
 Ar. Vesp.  ($
): Sommerstein  ad loc. compares Aesch. Cho. . Beta b discusses
the word $
in his study of tragic intertextuality in Aristophanes: he notes that the word is
often used of the mad or inhuman (cf. Aesch. Eum. , referring to the Erinyes).
 Vesp. – () % "A | ,
( -
2
2). The metaphor of a
ship of state, though seen in a variety of contexts, was particularly common in Aeschylean tragedy:
see Dumortier : –.
 Vesp. –. On the scene-setting narrative prologues of tragedy, see Erbse ; cf. Goward :
–. Aristophanes highlights and parodies this stylistic tendency at Ran. –.
 Other comedies too, at the very start, gave the impression that they were ‘doing’ tragedy (e.g. Eriph.
Aeolus fr. , parodying the beginning of Sophocles’ Trachiniae); for Cratinus’ Plutoi, see Bakola in
this volume. This impression may have been maintained all the way through the play, in the sense
of full-scale parody (e.g. Strattis’ Lemnomeda, Anthroporestes and Medea, Aristophanes’ Phoenician
Women and other titles seem to have presented themselves as ‘tragedies’ in toto).
 Obviously the prologue, which is also full of jokes, does not function purely as tragedy, but it is hard
to agree with MacDowell :  that ‘the chief function of this passage is to provide a string of

 matthew wright
In this chapter I offer a contribution to the debate about comedy’s cross-
generic responsiveness, by taking a closer look at the various ways in which
Aristophanes ‘does’ tragedy – and the things he does with tragedy – in
Wasps. I will also be asking why he uses tragedy in this way, and what his
audience might have made of it all. It seems to me that Aristophanes is
self-consciously playing around with the idea of dramatic genre, but in a
way that has serious consequences for his self-definition as a poet and for
his relationship with the audience. Aristophanes’ engagement with tragedy
has been quite widely discussed (see below); but it is argued here that
Wasps in particular can be read as embodying a contest between comedy
and tragedy.
There are a couple of reasons why the idea of contest and competition is
an especially useful one in this case. In the first place, as others have pointed
out, contests of various sorts are central to the plot and thematic structure
of Wasps – father versus son, young versus old, civilized versus uncivilized
behaviour, the extended agon of the courtroom scene, and so on. ‘Comedy
versus tragedy’ is yet another of these contests, but structurally speaking
it seems to be an unusually important one. What we see in Wasps is a
carefully constructed series of encounters between the world of comedy
and the world of tragedy, culminating in the final dancing scene, which,
together with the paratragic opening, constitutes an emphatic framing
device for the whole play.
The second reason for using the metaphor of contests is that Wasps is a
play in which Aristophanes’ own competitive stance, as a poet competing
against other poets, is established in an unusually emphatic manner. The
Lenaea of  bc, at which this comedy was performed, provided Aristo-
phanes with an opportunity to respond to the failure of Clouds in  bc
and to persuade the audience of the merits of his own distinctive type
of comedy. As we shall see, tragedy is central to Aristophanes’ comeback
strategy and his poetic agenda. Thus the contest of comedy versus tragedy
is important not only for understanding Wasps but also for understanding
Aristophanes’ comic art in a more general sense.
The concept of competition is central to the whole issue of Aristophanic
poetics. This is seen most notably in Frogs, which culminates in a poetic
agon between two tragedians, but in general the way in which Aristo-
phanes’ own ‘voice’ is articulated within his work is inherently, powerfully
jokes to get the audience warmed up’: it is more complex than that, as well as more closely linked,
thematically, to what follows.
 See below, n. . See also Bakola’s contribution to this volume.
 See particularly Vaio : –; Platter : –.
Comedy versus tragedy in Wasps 
agonistic. In a sense all Greek poetry, from its very beginnings, had been
implicitly or explicitly agonistic: poets always had an eye to the competi-
tion when formulating claims of poetic excellence or individuality. As it
has been well said, ‘poems were usually designed to defeat other poems’.
But fifth-century comedy, as is well known, became much more overtly
competitive than any previous poetic genre. Its practitioners made liberal
use of the artistic or personal put-down, not only drawing attention to
their rivals’ supposed literary defects (such as plagiarism, boring old jokes,
or stylistic infelicities) but also accusing them of sexual abnormality, bed-
wetting, alcoholism and countless other vices. Denigration of one’s rivals
went hand in hand with ingratiating or cajoling remarks to the audience, as
the comedians urged the spectators to award them first prize in the festival –
or reproached them for giving them the thumbs down on some previous
occasion.
It is almost always a case of comedy versus something else. However,
that ‘something else’ did not have to be a rival comedian’s work. Just
as important in terms of Aristophanic poetics is comedy’s sibling genre,
tragedy. Whether or not Aristophanes’ rival comedians were preoccupied
with tragedy to the same degree is a moot point; but certainly he presents
himself as an unusually tragic – or rather anti-tragic – sort of comedian.
When Aristophanes brings tragedy into play, it is frequently in the context
of (explicit or implicit) claims about the way he wants his own work to be
read. Many of these claims are based on the premise that the supposedly
lesser genre of comedy is, in Aristophanes’ own hands, just as worthy of
serious attention as tragedy is. Often tragedy is evoked – and rejected –
precisely at those points where comedy is claiming to possess authority.
For example (from Vesp. –), Bdelycleon, at the start of the agon-scene,
 On the problematic issue of ‘the poet’s views’ or ‘voice’ in general see Goldhill ; for a sophisticated
Bakhtinian approach to comic ‘voices’ in particular, see Dobrov b and Platter . On
Aristophanes’ poetics of competition see most recently Biles ; but cf. Wright  for a rather
different approach.
 This aspect of early Greek poetics is discussed by (e.g.) M. Griffith  and Graziosi , with
reference to Homer, Hesiod and lyric poetry. Cf. the tradition surrounding the Contest of Homer
and Hesiod: see Rosen  and Telò in this volume.
 M. Griffith : .
 Some excellent recent scholarship on this subject includes Rosen , Biles , Ruffell ,
Bakola , Storey a: –; cf. Sidwell  on the ‘war’ between the comic poets of the
s bc and later.
 See (e.g.) Ar. Av. –, –; Nub. –; Eccl. –; Eq. –; Cratin. fr. ; Eup. fr. .
See Jeffrey Henderson ; cf. also Wright  and  on the comedians’ unusual spin on the
idea of competitive poetics.
 See Silk a and b; cf. n.  below.
 matthew wright
acknowledges that it will be hard for him to put a stop to the jury mania
that is threatening Athens:
#6 ' $ - . / !' ,%
.!
#
2.
It is a difficult undertaking, requiring formidable intellect, and beyond the
power of trugedians, to cure a chronic disease which is thoroughly entrenched
within the city.
As MacDowell observes, this statement seems to mean that ‘comedy
normally deals with trivial subjects, not with fundamental importance to
the state; Aristophanes regards this part of his play as being above the
normal level of comedy’. But the crucial point is that the word used
for ‘comedians’ here is 2
(trugedians) – a coinage which appears
precisely in those contexts where comedy is being implicitly contrasted
with tragedy and where the alleged social function of the respective genres
is in question. Aristophanic comedy, it is implied, can cure the city’s ills
more effectively than any other comedy and more effectively than tragedy.
In order for this and other similar jokes to make sense, we have to go
along with the assumption, first, that tragedy was seen as being a higher
and more socially beneficial genre than comedy, and, second, that comedy
is staking a competitive claim to some or all of tragedy’s superiority. Of
course, this is not to say that Aristophanes really cared whether or not
he won first prize, or that he really thought that comedy was superior to
tragedy (whatever that might mean), or that he really had anything very
serious to say to his audience. We are always having to deal with a complex
variety of comic conceits and postures – hence the frequent recourse to
‘ironical’ inverted commas by those who find themselves writing about
comedy.
Wasps is an especially important play to examine if we want to address
these questions of poetic self-assertion, because here Aristophanes seems
to be trying particularly hard to please, as well as telling us (as usual)
 MacDowell : . The passage is thus closely comparable to Ach. .
 E.g. Ach. – (esp. , 6

L 2 , ‘comedy too understands what is
right’) with Olson  ad loc.; Taplin  is the classic discussion of 2 . Cf. Zanetto ;
see also Dobrov , Foley  and Rosen  on the ways in which Acharnians uses tragedy to
reflect on the purpose of comedy.
 Was tragedy seen as having a curative effect on its audience? Aristotle’s terminology of !
in Poetics may imply this; cf. Philippid. fr. , which implies that Euripidean tragedy in particular
heals the audience’s ills. See Clarke Kosak , esp. –, for further discussion. Reckford  also
pursues the idea of comedy as social cure.
 Rosen  is an excellent study of comic ‘seriousness’: he interprets Aristophanes’ claims to social
utility as disingenuous or ironical.
Comedy versus tragedy in Wasps 
just why we ought to feel so privileged to be watching his new play. The
reason for this is that Wasps is presented as his big ‘comeback’ after the
(supposedly disastrous) public reception of Clouds at the  Dionysia –
and this makes a big difference. The posture which Aristophanes adopts in
Wasps is deliberately crowd-pleasing. That is, he claims to be going out of
his way to appeal to a much broader section of the audience than he did
with the esoteric Clouds. At the same time, though, he also aims to reinforce
our sense of a distinctively Aristophanic comic ‘brand’ which is infinitely
preferable to other brands in terms of seriousness and sophistication.
Are these two aims compatible? Perhaps not – but either way, the main
point to note is that Aristophanes articulates these claims competitively,
pitting Wasps against other comedy (on the one hand) and tragedy (on the
other).
The question of ‘comedy versus comedy’ in Wasps has already been
raised by a number of previous studies. Most of these studies, predictably,
centre on the parabasis, in which Aristophanes affects to be laying into
the spectators who hated Clouds so much. Some of them also discuss
the bizarre fact that Aristophanes seems to have been competing against
himself at the  Lenaea by entering more than one play: this fact alone
shows that Aristophanes’ attitude to the competition was very far from
straightforward. However, the question of ‘comedy versus tragedy’ in Wasps
has received little attention – perhaps surprisingly, given that Aristophanes’
engagement with tragedy has been the subject of a considerable amount of
modern scholarship.
 Aristophanes promises his audience nothing too grand (' . . . ", Vesp. ) but still
cleverer than his ‘vulgar’ competitors’ work ( ' -

-$
, ); he reminds
them of the ‘service’ he has performed to the city through his distinctive political content (–);
he encourages them to think more carefully in future about the benefits of ‘new’ and ‘clever’ comedy
(–). Cf. the presentation of the Aristophanic ‘brand’ in Clouds (–). On such claims see
Bremer , Dover  –, and Sommerstein  – but with the caveat that in this matter (as
in all matters) Aristophanes is not to be taken quite at his word. On Plato’s reuse of this Aristophanic
claim ( ), see Prauscello in this volume. Note, especially, that Aristophanes rejects comedy
based on Euripides (Vesp. ) even though Euripidean paratragedy is decidedly part of the ‘brand’
(see below).
 See (most recently) Hubbard : –; Biles ; Platter : –; and Biles . My
wording here, which may seem unnecessarily fussy, is quite deliberate: Aristophanes affects to lay
into the audience, but it’s a posture (like everything else in comedy). Did Clouds really bomb in
? Did Aristophanes really care? – see Wright  and .
 The play Proagon, which won the competition, was produced by Philonides (according to the
Hypothesis) but almost certainly written by Aristophanes (as all the ancient citations to the play
attest): see K–A vol. iii., frr. – (and Test. i–ii). This issue and the questions it raises about
the organization of the dramatic festivals are dealt with by Storey b.
 Rosen  and Silk a, already mentioned, are the most notable contributions; cf. also Beta
b; Dobrov : –; Gelzer ; Medda, Mirto and Pattoni ; Rau .
 matthew wright
Most recently, Helene Foley has argued that an increasing amount of
‘cross-generic responsiveness’ is observable in the tragedy and comedy of
the last quarter of the fifth century or thereabouts. Foley is particularly
interested in Aristophanes’ use of tragic tropes and techniques from around
the time of Acharnians ( bc), and in the fact that Euripidean tragedy
in particular seems to have become a ‘signature theme’ for Aristophanes –
a relationship which has long been suggested by Cratinus’ famous phrase
0*
- 1 (‘a Euripidaristophanizer’). It is surprising that
Foley does not make use of Wasps in her discussion of generic overlap.
This seems to be because she regards it as an experimental (but basically
unsuccessful) combination of ‘crude’ and ‘high’ forms of comedy, prompted
by the problematic reception of Clouds; her view is that Wasps predates
Aristophanes’ eventual return to tragedy in any more sustained or full-
blown manner (with Women at the Thesmophoria). In fact, though, Wasps
does contain a considerable amount of tragic material and, despite Foley’s
negative view of the play, it actually seems to fit in quite closely with
the overall image of generic interactivity that she presents. At the same
time, it is certainly true that Wasps is less overt in its deployment of
tragedy than earlier or subsequent plays (such as Acharnians, Women at the
Thesmophoria, or Frogs). It is also true that Euripides in particular – as
opposed to tragedy in general – is less important in Wasps than in these
other comedies. Both of these facts have a significant bearing on the type of
comedy that Aristophanes now professes to be giving us in this ‘comeback’
production.
Aristophanes prepares us very deliberately for all of this in the prologue,
at the same time as he is setting up the ‘tragic’ scenario. We are told, by the
improbably knowledgeable slave Xanthias, that this time there will be none
of those familiar jokes making fun of Euripides (
*) I! 9

0* , ). The words
*) I! (not again!) acknowledge,
tongue firmly in cheek, that Aristophanes may have parodied Euripides a
little too much in the past but promise that he will henceforth be moving
 Foley ; see her  study of Acharnians for an earlier version of this approach. Whether the
genres are interdependent or whether we should talk in terms of a one-way process (of comedy’s
dependence on tragedy) is a somewhat separate problem.
 Foley : –, quoting Cratin. fr. . On this fascinating fragment see N. O’Sullivan ; cf.
Bakola  for the interesting possibility that various other comedians each had their own ‘special’
tragedian whose work they made a particular point of adapting or parodying. But (on the other
hand) one notes that Euripides pops up all over the place in comedy, which makes one question
just how distinctive Aristophanes’ Euripidizing was: cf. Miles  on Strattis’ engagement with
Euripides.
 Foley : –; cf. Hubbard : .  Foley .
Comedy versus tragedy in Wasps 
on to new material. He does not keep his promise, of course. Euripides,
though he does not appear as a character on this occasion, is nonetheless
important in what follows, and his plays are quoted, or parodied, half a
dozen times or more. We also know that Proagon, Aristophanes’ other
entry in the same festival, did indeed feature Euripides as a character; but
all the same, Aristophanes – so he claims – is trying very hard in Wasps to
do something a bit different.
The prologue also tells us that Wasps is going to be a ‘middle-brow’ sort
of play. Nothing too grand, nothing too intellectual, but none of that
crude Megarian stuff, either – just a little story with a moral (

$ %#
). Now the perceptive (or even not-so-perceptive) spectator
may well start thinking that this is very far from the exaggerated claims to
greatness that Aristophanes makes elsewhere, but for the moment we just
have to go along with the posture that is being adopted. And in this case,
it seems that a restrained use of tragedy, in contrast with the flamboyant,
extended parodies that we find in Acharnians and other plays (including,
presumably, Proagon), is going to be entirely in keeping with the play’s
overall characterization of itself as a restrained, middling sort of play.
In connection with this last point, it is worth remarking that paratragedy
in Aristophanes is not simply there to be deployed indiscriminately for the
sake of individual jokes here and there; it is not just one among a number of
comic techniques or devices (alongside physical comedy, puns, obscenity,
political satire, and so on) to be wheeled out willy-nilly. Paratragedy often
corresponds very closely to the overall themes of the play in question and
 A comparable joke (not Euripides again?) seems to underlie Ran. –: see Wright . Whether or
not Aristophanes was the only comedian to make fun of Euripides, it is quite clear that he did make
extensive use of Euripidean tragedy, and that audiences knew (and loved?) it, and that Aristophanes
openly draws attention to this tendency.
 That is, unless we are to believe that the unnamed Accuser who enters at Vesp.  is Euripides
(as a number of manuscripts have it): MacDowell , ad loc. says that this identification cannot
be correct, since the Accuser’s speech contains no tragic language (as in other appearances of
‘Euripides’ in Aristophanes): he compares Nub. – for a similar mistake. All the same, it is
certainly significant that scribes should expect to see Euripides popping up as a character in an
Aristophanic comedy.
 Vesp. –, –, –, , ; Euripidean models (of one sort or another) may underlie
paratragic passages at –, –, , –, , , –, , – as well as the
prologue (see below). See F. D. Harvey ; Padel ; Rau : –, –, ; Starkie  ad
locc.; Horn : –; MacDowell  ad locc. is often sceptical of such attributions (in contrast
to Rau). See also my own discussions in the pages that follow.
 8 Vesp. c.
 M. Griffith  has plenty of good things to say about the concept of ‘middle-brow’ drama (though
he is not talking specifically about the type of play that Wasps claims to be).
 Vesp. –.
 Not only in the parabasis here (–) but elsewhere, e.g. Nub. –.
 matthew wright
is used precisely to develop and emphasize those themes. In Wasps –
initially, at least – the use of paratragedy seems to enhance the play’s
ironical characterization of itself as ' . . . ". In the end (as we
shall see), restraint goes out of the window, and we are presented with an
over-the-top paratragic extravaganza as the play’s finale – but for the time
being it seems that subtle use of tragedy is Aristophanes’ main aim. Tragedy
is unmistakably present in the mixture of comic material, it is central to
the overall effect, but it is not overstated. This is the sort of comedy that
Aristophanes (says that he) wants to give us this time round.
It is important to keep Proagon in mind when interpreting all these
claims in Wasps: the two plays were very clearly composed to be read in
dialogue with one another. By setting up one play which was full of
tragedy (and ostentatiously metaliterary in its whole conception, to judge
by the title – Proagon) against another play that claimed not to be too clever
or literary (Wasps), Aristophanes seems to be undertaking an odd sort of
experiment. He is testing out the audience, in order to discover, objectively
(as it were), which type of comedy they favoured. Since he was the author
of both types, a victory for one or the other could be interpreted as a direct
indication of their literary preferences, rather than simply a predilection for
one particular author over another. Obviously the test is not really objective
at all; and obviously a playwright who competes against himself is having a
joke at the audience’s expense; and indeed Wasps, despite its claims, turns
out to be full of paratragedy and literary allusions. But all the same, it is
extremely interesting to observe that Proagon beat Wasps to first place in
the competition – and extremely frustrating that the play is now lost.
Let us have another look at the scene-setting prologue of Wasps. At
first it seems to be paratragic rather than parodic (to employ Silk’s useful
distinction). That is, it presents us with a typically ‘tragic’ scenario which
might come from any tragedy at all. Certain similarities to specific plays
can be detected, but only in a fairly broad sense. The basic situation
(slaves delivering speeches in which they explain their masters’ troubles)
finds parallels in a large number of tragedies. The prominent use of the
 As in (e.g.) Acharnians, where paratragedy is used to bring out the theme of political advice (see
Foley ); in Women at the Thesmophoria, where it enhances the play’s exploration of gender and
role-playing (see Zeitlin ); and in Frogs, where the principal paratragic passages centre on the
nature and function of drama (see, most recently, Hunter a: –).
 Cf. Platter : – for the importance of reading Wasps as a ‘dialogic’ play; but he is interested
in the dialogue with Clouds.
 Hypothesis i ll. –: Wasps came second, and Leucon’s Ambassadors came third.
 Silk :  distinguishes between parody (seen as negative or subversive, with a specific ‘target’
text) and paratragedy (seen as ‘the cover term for all of comedy’s intertextual dependence on
tragedy’); cf. M. A. Rose : – for an even more nuanced taxonomy of parodic modes.
Comedy versus tragedy in Wasps 
language of disease and passion to describe the behaviour of Philocleon
has been seen by David Harvey as loosely recalling similar preoccupations
in Euripides’ Hippolytus and Medea, while Simone Beta detects echoes
of Euripides’ Heracles. Keith Sidwell, in his study of the play’s use of
disease imagery, argues that Aristophanes has ‘an intuitive grasp’ of ‘tragic
patterns’ in general (and implies that the audience would have shared the
author’s ‘intuitive grasp’ of general patterns when interpreting the play).
In the particular story pattern in question, a disease or potentially fatal
passion is contracted by the main character and later cured – or, a cure
having failed, leads to utter disaster. Further examples of this pattern
noted by Sidwell include Ajax, Heracles and Trachiniae. Sidwell adds that
there are other signs of a broadly tragic sequence of events later on in the
play: Philocleon, in distress, asks for a sword (–) and attempts to use
it on himself (–, –) in a parody of a tragic suicide motif familiar
from numerous plays.
How would this broad paratragedy have been perceived by Aristophanes’
audience? On the one hand, it could be seen as a genuine strategy of avoiding
anything too ‘clever’, if the audience does not need to be particularly
learned to be able to get the point. Sustained verbal parody and allusion,
of a type demanding detailed knowledge of the text of Euripides (or some
other tragedian), may be out of place, but perhaps all that the audience
needed was a base-level sensitivity to the generic register. If they did not
recognize the tragic ‘pattern’ on the basis of the content of the scene, then
the style of acting and verbal delivery may have made it clear to everyone
that they were watching comedy ‘doing’ tragedy. On the other hand, it is
striking that there is little tragic or high poetic language in the prologue,
which raises the question of just how obvious the paratragedy is meant
to be. I said earlier that the paratragedy is ‘clearly recognizable’, but I
recognize it because I am on the lookout for it and because I am fairly
well acquainted with tragedy. Did all (or most) of the theatre audience in
 bc spot it? Perhaps the paratragedy would actually have escaped the
notice of all but the literati. In this case, it may be that Aristophanes is only
 Vesp. –, , , , , , , –, , , , etc.
 F. D. Harvey  suggests that the ‘sick heroine’ was a characteristic ‘motif’ of Euripides, exploited
by Aristophanes not just in Wasps but also in Peace and Birds: he notes detailed similarities between
Aristophanes and Medea and Hippolytus in particular.
 Beta b: –. Beta’s overall argument (that the transmitted text of Heracles represents a revised
edition, composed in response to Aristophanic parody) does not seem to rest on any solid evidence.
 Sidwell , esp. –.
 The question is difficult to answer (but see my comments below). Cf. Revermann b for a recent
attempt to assess what he calls the ‘competence’ of theatre audiences in classical Athens.
 matthew wright
claiming to avoid what is ‘clever’, drawing as little attention as possible
to his continued engagement with tragedy in an attempt to seem more
‘middle-brow’ or inclusive. With such a strategy he might after all succeed
in pleasing everyone at the same time. Indeed, we need to bear in mind
the prevalence of irony in Aristophanes and his tendency to contradict or
undermine his own claims. When Aristophanes goes out of his way to tell
us that he is doing something, it is usually a signal that he is really doing
something else entirely.
In any case, the broadly paratragic opening of Wasps, with its professed
rejection of Euripidean jokes, before long does resort to parodic quotation
of a specific – Euripidean! – text. When Xanthias is describing Philocleon’s
mad behaviour at greater length (–), he adapts a couple of lines from
Stheneboea:

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Such is his raving; but despite receiving constant warning, he judges cases
all the more.
Philocleon’s ‘madness’ is an addiction to jury service, whereas the Euripi-

dean original described Stheneboea’s fatal love for Bellerophon. It may
be significant that Stheneboea (though not mentioned by either Har-
vey or Sidwell) is yet another tragedy constructed on the same general
pattern of ‘disease/passion/ruin’, and it may be that there were fur-
ther parallels between the opening scenario of Wasps and the plot of
Stheneboea, but the loss of this tragedy means that we cannot speculate
very far along such lines. It does seem fairly clear, though, that Xanthias’
adaptation of these lines is funny primarily because of the incongruity
of using the high-flown language of tragic emotion to describe Philo-
cleon’s rather more mundane or ridiculous condition. Aristophanes is using
tragedy to add ‘depth’ (the inverted commas are important) to Philocleon’s
plight.
This use of the tragic register at moments when comedy is pretending to
depict strong emotion is probably the most common function of tragedy
within comedy. Within Wasps we see a similar effect at (for example) –,
 E.g. Nub. –, Pax –, Ran. –, where Aristophanes explicitly rejects precisely the sort of
jokes which he himself uses.
 Eur. Stheneboea fr. :
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"1 . Cf. Allen  on
the perceived similarity between eros and orge in classical Athens: such a connection may add further
resonance to the intertextual relationship between Philocleon and Stheneboea.
 See Eur. frr. – (TrGF ., pp. –): the play was clearly very similar in outline to Hippolytus.
Comedy versus tragedy in Wasps 
where Philocleon calls out for a sword with which to kill himself; at –
and –, where Philocleon joins the chorus in tragic-style lamentation
over the loss of his jury pay; and at –, where Xanthias complains
about his violent treatment at the hands of the old jurors. Perhaps the
joke in each case lies purely in the discrepancy between the silliness of the
context and the gravity of the emotions expressed. Alternatively, we might
detect a more negative type of parodic comment on the tragic text: that is,
comedy may be implicitly criticizing tragedy for its unrealistic conventions
(since in real life no one experiences such extremes of feeling in such an
elaborately theatrical manner). It is hard to say precisely why such moments
are funny: perhaps both explanations are true to some extent. But it is
clear that Aristophanes turns to tragedy not only when he wants us to
take him ‘seriously’ as a poet but also when he is pretending to be giving
us ‘serious’ subject matter on stage. Tragedy connotes seriousness (in all
senses of the word), in contrast with comedy, which normally connotes the
exact opposite.
Elsewhere Aristophanes adopts a more obviously parodic (that is, critical
or hostile) attitude to his rival genre and its representatives. Wasps’ pre-
sentation of the long-dead tragedian Phrynichus is particularly interesting.
His style of dancing is important in the closing scene of the play (discussed
below), but he is first mentioned just before the parodos. At daybreak, the
chorus of jurors arrive to summon Philocleon out of the house by singing.
As Bdelycleon grumpily informs us before their entry, this is their usual
custom (–):
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By Zeus, they’re certainly up and about late to-day: they always call for
him after midnight, carrying torches and warbling those old-sweet-Sidon-
Phrynichus-pretty songs that they use to summon him out.
 Rau : , followed by F. D. Harvey : , considers the desiderative verb ()
to be paratragic (cf. Pax ); Sommerstein , ad loc. compares the lines to Aesch. Cho.  and
remarks on the ‘absurd’ tragic style of acting.
 These lines contain yet more Euripidean parody (of Theseus frr. –, Bellerophon fr. , and
perhaps others) as well as parody of the tragic motif of desperate escape fantasies (e.g. Eur. Hipp.
; Soph. Aj. ; cf. Padel ). See Rau :  and MacDowell  ad locc.
 The tragic model here is unknown, but cf. Thesm. –. On all these passages see Rau : –.
 Cf. Rau : –, where there seems to be a certain degree of indecisiveness.
 The inverted commas are (as always) important: what counts as ‘serious’ comedy? See Silk a:
–. Cf. Platter  on tragedy’s .
 matthew wright
Eventually the chorus start singing (–), and it is likely that their
song is based on a real Phrynichean original. This, presumably, would
have been a lyric from his tragedy Phoenician Women (which is alluded
to by -
- in the middle of that monstrous adjective at ). Just
beforehand, the chorus leader has enquired where Philocleon is, saying that
he habitually leads them to the court singing something from Phrynichus
(). So it appears that both the chorus and the hero of this comedy
are obsessed by tragedy – and not just any tragedy, but specifically the
tragedy of Phrynichus. The most significant point about Phrynichus here
(given particular emphasis by #
-) is that he represents a much older
generation of tragedian that by the late s was seen as being rather old
hat (Phoenician Women was produced over fifty years earlier).
Thus Phrynichus and his works are made to participate not just in the
contest of comedy versus tragedy but also in one of the other major contests
in the play – old versus new. The aged Philocleon and the decrepit jurors,
predictably, prefer the archaic tragedy of Phrynichus to that of the more
up-to-date younger tragedians (a contrast that is developed prominently in
the last scene of the play). The younger Bdelycleon’s use of that ludicrously
ponderous adjective #

-2 # seems to convey a
hint of condescension towards the older tragedian; and perhaps there is
also a suspicion that Phrynichus is being mocked for his sesquipedalian
diction (rather as Aeschylus is parodied for his prolixity and penchant
for compound words at Ran. –). Since Aristophanes often adopts a
posture of mocking what is old-fashioned and praising what is modern in
literature and drama, it is likely that he is sending up these old codgers
and their preference for the out-of-date Phrynichus. One can well imagine
that the obsolescent lyrics would have been accompanied on stage by an
exaggeratedly senile, moribund style of choreography.
 See Sommerstein  ad loc., noting a similarity between the metre of this passage and several
fragments of Phrynichus; cf. Av. – for similar Phrynichean parody.
 8v Vesp. , quoting 8 $
V2 . (= Phryn. fr.  TrGF; cf. fr. ).
 Nevertheless, Aristophanes’ treatment is one-sided, since obsolescence is not Phrynichus’ only
characteristic. In his time he was seen as an original or even controversial poet: the Suda (- )
reports that he was responsible for metrical innovations and that he was the first playwright to put
female characters on stage; cf. Herodotus’ account (..) of his tragedy The Sack of Miletus, which
proved too hot for the Athenians to handle.
 E.g. Nub. – (Simonides vs. Euripides); Frogs passim (Aeschylus vs. Euripides). See Handley
 on the ‘generation gap’ theme in general. But Aristophanes’ view of novelty is more complex
than it seems: see Wright .
 See MacDowell :  (who notes the exaggerated predominance of long syllables, which may
be indicative of slow and painful movement); cf. L. P. E. Parker : –, who links the ‘old
vs. young’ contest to the metre and music. For comic dance as a medium of mockery, cf. Ar. Eq.
–, Nub. .
Comedy versus tragedy in Wasps 
Phrynichus may seem to come off fairly lightly from this treatment:
Aristophanes does concede that his poetry has a sort of ‘sweetness’ and
‘prettiness’ about it, which may be read as a form of critical approval
(though Bdelycleon’s overall attitude makes it more likely that he is actu-
ally damning with faint praise). Other tragedians fare much worse. For
instance, Philocles, the nephew of Aeschylus, is referred to disparagingly
for his famously unpalatable lyrics; and a somewhat obscure reference to
Acestor, which is apparently making fun of his social standing or behaviour,
could be seen as an implicitly critical reflection on his work. These par-
enthetic put-downs are effective in spite of, or perhaps even because of,
their casual brevity. It is obvious that, for the audience, the mere mention
of these tragedians’ names carried immediate associations of bad drama.
Another brief dismissal is dealt out to Sthenelus, who is mentioned in pass-
ing as a term of comparison within a simile: someone is said to be as useless
as a locust without wings, or Sthenelus shorn of his props (8!" . . .
2 ", ). Evidently Sthenelus was renowned for his
over-reliance on spectacular stage action or special effects at the expense of
plot or style: other references to him are similarly withering.
All these parodic jibes and put-downs, like many others of the same sort
scattered throughout Aristophanes’ works, are significant in that they imply
an inherently hierarchical relationship between the comedian and the poets
whose work is being criticized. In a sense, all literary critics are required to
adopt an authoritative, de haut en bas stance for the purposes of their work.
Such a stance may be articulated in many different (stronger or weaker)
ways, using a wide variety of rhetorical techniques. But inevitably the act
of passing positive or negative judgement on another writer’s work is an
 Vesp.  (above); cf. Av. –.

 Note that ‘Euripides’ at Ran. – says that Phrynichus turned his audience into a bunch of
morons – not even faint praise here.
 Vesp. –; all other comic references to Philocles seem to be pejorative, drawing attention to his
stylistic ‘bitterness’ (Thesm. , Av.  (with 8); Cratin. fr. ; Telecl. fr. ), and indeed his
nickname was ‘Gall’ (Suda ). See Taillardat : –, – on metaphors of eating or
drinking to describe poetic ‘taste’.
 Vesp. : the reference is obscure partly on account of a textual uncertainty. Acestor’s non-Athenian
origins are mocked elsewhere, as is his parasitic character (e.g. Av. –; Cratin. fr. ; Eup. fr. ).
Sommerstein :  thinks that he is mentioned here qua parasite: cf. Storey  and Vaio 
for discussion of the delicate social nuances conveyed by the symposium scene in Wasps. However,
tragedians’ (and others’) social standing is often used as the basis for an oblique form of comment
on their work: e.g. the numerous jokes about Euripides’ mother’s profession (Ach. , Thesm. ,
etc.; cf. the ancient Lives of Euripides: Kovacs : , , , , ).
 Cf. Kaimio and Nykopp .
 Ar. fr.  mocks Sthenelus’ writing for its lack of flavour (cf. Vesp. – on Philocles); Arist. Poet.
a– finds Sthenelus’ style clear but undignified. Cf. TrGF .–.
 matthew wright
assertion of the essential superiority of the critic. When Aristophanes lays
into Sthenelus, Philocles and the others, he is saying in effect that he is better
than they are – at least, better qualified to recognize what counts as good or
bad writing. For a comedian to criticize a tragedian (in particular) implies
an inversion of the normal hierarchy of the genres, whereby the ‘inferior’
writer becomes the superior. This move may be interpreted, perhaps, as a
‘carnivalesque’ reversal of status, of a type which is characteristic of comedy
in general.
Aristophanes’ superior stance is not based exclusively on the passing
of implicit or explicit critical judgements. Another way in which he uses
tragedy to assert his own authority is simply by demonstrating wide knowl-
edge of it. His numerous quotations, references, allusions and adaptations
all add up to a virtuoso display of learning as well as a profound appre-
ciation of the tragic genre. To refer to Aristophanes’ quotation of specific
texts as ‘parody’ reflects only one aspect of his activity: ‘intertextuality’
may be a more appropriate all-round term. Tragic texts are quoted, in
Wasps and elsewhere, far more often than any other sort of literature. In
part this is because tragedy represents high culture, the ‘great tradition’ of
Greek poetry. Aristophanes is using tragedy to demonstrate his literary and
cultural credentials – to show us, in yet another sense, that he is a writer
to be taken seriously.
The question of audience reception arises again in this respect. How
many of the audience would have spotted the tragic allusions? Some of
these intertextual references would have been easier to detect than others.
For example, the parody of Phrynichus’ Phoenician Women (–) no
doubt relied on a fairly obvious pastiche of musical style (and there is
some evidence to suggest that Aristophanes’ audience were in the habit of
memorizing songs more than spoken passages from tragedy). One of the
quotations from Euripides’ Stheneboea (, discussed below) was clearly
in circulation as a piece of quasi-proverbial wisdom, independent of its life
 Cf. Too’s  view of ancient criticism as a series of bids for power.
 Möllendorff  effectively applies Bakhtin’s concept of the ‘carnivalesque’ to comedy. Cf. Platter
 on ‘the carnival of genres’ in Aristophanes.
 This is broadly the position arrived at by D. P. Fowler .
 Lyric excerpts would have been commonly circulated and memorized via performance at symposia
(etc.): Plut. Nic.  is a valuable piece of evidence. The skolia quoted at Vesp. – and the lyric
poems at Nub. – fall into this category. Some comic passages allude to the memorization
of iambic speeches (not dialogue): Ran. – apparently concerns the recitation of excerpts from
speeches or agones. Vesp. – mentions a defendant, Oeagrus, who recites speeches from a
tragedy Niobe in order to entertain the jurors: but Oeagrus is an actor, not an average member of
the theatre-going public. On all these matters see Ford : – and Rosen b.
Comedy versus tragedy in Wasps 
as a ‘tragic quotation’ as such: this is shown by the large number of times
that it is cited by other (contemporary and later) authors. But many of
the allusions are more obscure: they do not stand out from their context as
being obviously quotations; they are not particularly pointed or funny in
themselves; they are brief and not especially catchy or memorable.
A couple of quotations from Euripides’ Theseus are incorporated into the
paratragic lament at –. Here a young child cries to his parent, who
has been bewailing the lack of money to buy food: ‘Why then, wretched
mother, didst thou bear me?’ ( ), X " , % ;). In
Euripides’ play the words were uttered by a child who was about to be
eaten by the Minotaur, whereas in the comedy this child’s situation is
rather more trivial. Perhaps even the bookworms in the audience would
have found this joke relatively obscure; at any rate, this unremarkable line is
probably not the sort of quotation that would be recognized by the average
spectator, even if Theseus had been produced relatively recently. Still, the
parody works on a more basic level as well: even those spectators who had
not read Euripides would have been able to tell that the line is ‘tragic’
in style and language, and they would have been able to appreciate the
disparity between high style and absurd context (as well as the incongruity
of a child calling his father ‘mother’!). This disparity is emphasized by the
chorus leader’s silly, deflating answer to the child’s pathetic question (),
and the insertion of a further parodic quotation from Theseus (–).
Once again, even if not everyone caught the specific allusion to Euripides,
they would still have been able to derive humour from the insertion of the
down-to-earth word !2
(‘lunch-box’) in the middle of this high-
flown, recognizably ‘tragic’ passage.
The brief, mangled quotations at – are comparable in type: were
either (), X 42# (‘Hasten, my soul!’) or , X (‘Give
way, thou shadowy . . . ’) really striking enough phrases to prompt the
 Cf. Vesp. – for another quotation which is effectively a proverb: see MacDowell  ad loc. Of
course proverbs (gnomai) represent another way in which tragedy was seen as embodying authority,
and comedy undermines this authority by means of parody: cf. Eriph. Aeolus fr. .
 Eur. Stheneboea fr.  (
, ) V | 0 , t V
2
Nh 6 ): quoted by Pl.
Symp. e; Plut. Amat.  (Mor. b), De Pyth. or.  (Mor. e), Quaest. conv. . (Mor. c);
Aristid. Or. ., .; Long. Subl. .; Chor. Op. : Kannicht ad loc. supplies other references.
 E.g. Vesp.  (loosely adapted from Eur. Cressai fr. ; see Rau : , ); – (a four-word
phrase apparently quoted from Achaeus’ Momus = fr.  TrGF; cf. Pax ); – (an apparent
allusion to the supplication scene from Euripides, Ino).
 Vesp.  = Eur. Theseus fr.  : the context is provided by the scholiast ad loc.
 Vesp. :
V ) X !2 , ) L#
V, adapting Eur. Theseus fr.  (

V ) <X> ,
j
$).
 Cf. Eur. Beller. fr. .
 matthew wright
recognition of the average audience member? Probably not – in fact, the
source of the first of these quotations has never been identified – but it
is still possible to see the humour as operating on several different levels
simultaneously. Clever spectators (or a reading audience) will have taken
pleasure in identifying the precise quotation and noting the absurd dis-
similarity between the tragic and comic contexts. However, the most basic
level of humour, open to many more people, derives from the over-literal
treatment of an obviously poetic phrase: Philocleon, having addressed his
soul, suddenly breaks off to ask, bathetically, ‘Where is my soul?’ (
(

42#;). A further level would have been added for those who were able
to recognize apostrophe of one’s own soul, heart or body parts as being a
familiar tragic device in general, even if they missed the exact source of the
quotation.
I have already mentioned the difficulty of judging the precise effect on
the audience of all these tragic allusions and intertextual jokes: how high
does the humour aim? On balance, it seems unlikely that the full extent of
Aristophanes’ intertextuality would have been appreciated by an ordinary
spectator of Wasps who happened to have watched – perhaps many years
earlier – a single performance of the plays quoted. The complete effect
seems to have been aimed at a more sophisticated, text-reading audience.
Despite his mock-humble claims not to be confusing the audience by
giving them anything too clever, Aristophanes is essentially a sophisticated
connoisseur of literature writing for other sophisticated connoisseurs. Nev-
ertheless, at the same time there is enough material to cater for the less
sophisticated spectators as well. Even though he downplays his intertex-
tuality in order to seem less highbrow, Aristophanes does not disguise the
importance of tragedy. Indeed, it is important that everyone should notice
its presence (even if they missed the fine details), because it is central to his
distinctive ‘brand’ of comedy. In his ‘comeback’ play Aristophanes is trying
to have it both ways, providing something for everyone – and tragedy is
at the very heart of his negotiation of the complex relationship with his
audience(s).
Even the least culturally clued-up spectator could scarcely have failed
to appreciate the importance of tragedy in the final scene of Wasps. All
 A similar parody of the same motif is seen at Ach. , , ; for the tragic version cf. Eur. Med.
, , , IT , Or. , Ion ; Neophr. fr.  TrGF, etc. Rau : – provides further
discussion.
 See Rosen : –; N. W. Slater ; and Ford  for further discussion of literacy and
comic readership (as such).
Comedy versus tragedy in Wasps 
pretence at restraint has now been abandoned, and we are presented with
an elaborate display of music and dancing. This final section of the play
used to be seen as a relatively insignificant coda, unconnected to the main
action. Actually it is thematically linked to the plot in various ways, as
a number of studies have shown. But the main significance of the scene
is that it represents the culmination of Aristophanes’ preoccupation with
tragedy: it is the moment at which his implicitly competitive relationship
with tragedy is made fully explicit.
In this last scene, as in the prologue, there are various signs that Aristo-
phanes is ‘doing’ tragedy: thus generic interplay is used to provide a neat
framing device. This time tragedy is evoked specifically through the use
of closural effects. The scene starts when Xanthias emerges from within
and exclaims that a god has come to their house, ‘wheeling in’ baf-
fling events (, 6 ] 2
, V
) & |
.> . ,
. , –). This seems to be an oblique
allusion to the pattern, familiar from the end of numerous tragedies, in
which a deus ex machina arrives unexpectedly at an impasse and alters
the course of events in astonishing ways. Sommerstein also detects in
the verb .> an allusion to the clunky stage machinery which
Aristophanes elsewhere parodies as being characteristic of Euripidean
dramaturgy. A few lines later, Philocleon cries out, as he is emerging
from the house, ‘Let the doors be unbarred!’ (! #! ,
) – an utterance which is clearly paratragic in diction and content.
The doors are already open, which makes his instruction nonsensical, but
the point is that he is playing out his own version of a tragic dénouement, in
which the doors are flung open to reveal dreadful things within the doomed
house.
 E.g. Wilamowitz-Moellendorf : –, ; Schmid and Stählin : .
 E.g. Beta b:  connects the dancing to the theme of madness, which is central to his reading
of the play; A. M. Bowie : – focuses on Philocleon’s transformation, which he makes central
to a ritualized reading of the plot; C. F. Russo : – sees Philocleon’s sensuality as a major
theme of the play which is brought out in the last scene; Silk a: – sees the scene as an
affirmation of the ‘exuberance’ of comedy and Philocleon’s ‘antinomian’ habits; Vaio  emphasizes
the importance of the sympotic theme (cf. Roos : –, who sees the style of dancing as more
like that of komasts or courtesans than of tragic dancers).
 The device is seen very widely, especially in Euripides (at the end of (e.g.) Andr., Bacch., El., Hipp.,
Suppl., IT, Hel., Ion, Or., [Rh.]). See Dunn .
 Sommerstein : . Thesm.  may provide a parallel; Ach.  almost certainly does.
MacDowell : ad loc. rejects this interpretation on the grounds that Philocleon did not enter the
house by means of the ekkyklema, but this objection is surely over-literal.
 See Rau : –, comparing Eur. Med. , Hipp. , IT , Hel. , Soph. Ant. –,
etc.
 matthew wright
But our main focus is on the extraordinary dancing contest which finishes
everything off. Now that Philocleon has (apparently) been cured of jury
mania, the slave Xanthias announces (–):
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.
The old man is overjoyed, seeing as it’s such a long time since he had a
drink or listened to music – and all night long he’s not stopped dancing
those old-fashioned dances which Thespis used to enter in the competitions.
He also says that in a little while he’s going to hold a dancing contest and
demonstrate that it is today’s tragic performers who are really old fogies.
What Philocleon is proposing, in other words, is literally a contest of com-
edy versus tragedy. It is also a contest of old versus new, in which the usual
status of the contestants is paradoxically reversed. Philocleon, performing
material from the has-been Phrynichus and the antediluvian Thespis,
is the ‘young’ one, and it is contemporary tragedians such as the sons of
Carcinus who are now seen as ‘old’. The scene which follows is a hilarious
comic pastiche of tragic-style dancing, which probably contains specific
and detailed parody of the style of choreography and music employed by
Phrynichus and others.
To begin with, Philocleon seems to be aping the style of Phrynichus, first
crouching like a cock () and later performing high leg-kicks (–
). This description may refer to particular dance moves associated with
Phrynichus. Whether or not this is so, and whether or not the audience
members detected the reference after all these years, it seems likely that
for many people the name Phrynichus would have had associations of a
 The point of the joke would be lost if the Phrynichus mentioned at  were not the tragedian
(previously parodied at –): this is demonstrated by MacDowell : – and Borthwick ,
who consider and reject other identifications (with (e.g.) Phrynichus the comedian or Phrynichus
the politician).
 The earliest tragedian of all, according to tradition (TrGF ; cf. Suda ! ).
 See Borthwick . Dale : – is more cautious about the extent to which one can reconstruct
the dancing; cf. L. P. E. Parker : –, who nevertheless notes that the prevailing metre of
the exodos (Archilochean) seems to be paralleled in a fragment of Phrynichus (fr.  TrGF). Lawler’s
 attempt to detect satyric elements in this dance is unconvincing.
 Usually it is taken to be a parody of a specific Phrynichean line (fr.  TrGF), but there is some
doubt about the attribution: see Snell, TrGF  ad loc.
Comedy versus tragedy in Wasps 
different sort. The tragedian was famous for, among other things, having
been defeated and driven out of the theatre for his disastrous play The
Sack of Miletus. Phrynichus may be an old fogy, he may be a purveyor of
flowery lyrics and easily parodied dance moves – but he is also a loser: this
fact above all explains why he is an ideal figure for Philocleon to include
in the contest.
Eventually Philocleon tires of dancing on his own and issues a challenge
to anyone who wants to compete against him (–):
j - +#! @,

#
!) . .
If there’s any tragic performer who claims to be a good dancer, let him come
on up here and have a dance-off with me!
Comedy’s challenge to tragedy could hardly be more explicit. Philocleon’s
words here could almost be read as embodying Aristophanes’ attitude to
tragedy in general (it will not have escaped anyone’s notice that
can mean ‘a tragedian’ as well as ‘a performer in a tragedy’). The final
comedy-versus-tragedy ‘dance-off’ which follows (–) provides lots
of fun for its own sake, including hilarious choreography and parodic
caricature of the ‘crab-like’ sons of Carcinus, as well as further parody of
Phrynichean dance steps (–). However, it also embodies a relationship
between the genres which is absolutely central to Aristophanes’ whole
project as a comedian.
Tragedy, then, occupies a prominent position at the very end of this
comedy. In a sense, it has the last word. As the dancers representing Carcinus
and his sons prepare to leave the orchestra, Aristophanes – through the voice
of the chorus leader – makes a final, emphatic statement of his originality as
a comic poet. No one, it is claimed, has ever before done what Aristophanes
is now doing:
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 Hdt. ... 8 Vesp.  mentions this episode as an explanation for Phrynichus’ ‘crouching’ (i.e.
in humiliation). See Borthwick : – for discussion.
 The precise details of the dancing have been widely discussed, with little overall consensus being
reached, but it is clear that the dancing is extremely exuberant. The parody seems to recall specific
features of the choreography and style of tragedy embodied by Carcinus and his sons: see Borthwick
: –; Roos : –; Rossi ; Sommerstein ; and MacDowell  ad loc. for details
and differing interpretations.
 It would be very strange if, as MacDowell :  suggests, Carcinus and his sons appeared
in person here. Granted, the parody is not overtly hostile, but the predominant tone is strongly
anti-tragic in general, and Aristophanes’ treatment of Carcinus and Xenocles elsewhere is insulting
(Nub. –; Thesm. ; Ran. ; cf. Pax –). Rau : ; Vaio : –; and others are
probably right to interpret the attitude here as ironical or mocking.
 matthew wright
5 #
6 2@ (–). But what precisely is it that no one
has ever done before? Nobody has ever been able to understand this claim
properly. On the face of it, it means that ‘no one has ever sent a comic
chorus off dancing’. Surely this cannot be literally true. Dancing was
so central to comic drama (from its very origins onwards), and surviving
comedies (and tragedies) so often end with the chorus singing and dancing
off stage, that it seems unlikely that such an ending would have seemed
innovative as late as . Alternatively, it has been suggested that the
originality lay in the fact that extra dancers were introduced especially for
the final scene; or that the actor playing Philocleon joined in. Like
the literal meaning, these explanations are hard to disprove, but they do
not really seem to justify the rhetorical boast of novelty. Surely the way in
which Aristophanes has phrased his claim, and its emphatic position as the
very last sentence of the play, suggests that he is doing something far more
striking.
I suggest that the real point of this claim is that no comedian had
previously ended his play with a tragic style of dancing (as opposed to
a festive komos or similar). Even though comedians had ‘done’ tragedy
before, and even though Aristophanes had previously established himself
as a comedian who was unusually preoccupied with tragedy, Wasps was
the first comedy which had ended in a conspicuously ‘tragic’ (that is,
paratragic) fashion. The stress lies not on +#
>
at the beginning of
the line but on 2@ at the end. As we have already seen, ‘trugedy’
stands for comedy precisely when comedy is being compared and contrasted
with tragedy. A trugic chorus, which is what we have here, is not just a
comic chorus but specifically a comic chorus ‘doing’ tragedy – and that
is Aristophanes’ innovation at the end of Wasps. His originality, as he
has been trying to make clear all along, lies precisely in his handling of
the contest of comedy versus tragedy, and so it is fitting that the last
word of the play should remind us of this defining aspect of his comic
art.
 MacDowell  and Sommerstein  ad loc. consider this claim seriously: they point out that
only two complete comedies predate Wasps (not counting Clouds, which is a later revision), making
it impossible to falsify the claim.
 Sommerstein  ad loc.
 N. W. Slater : – (comparing the end of Wealth).
 What is the last word? The text as printed by Wilson (and other recent editors) gives 2@,
but the reading of several manuscripts and the earliest printed edition is @. If one were
to adopt this alternative reading (as Rogers  ad loc. tentatively suggests), Aristophanes’ claim
would appear slightly differently – but perhaps even more emphatically – as an ironic declaration
that his chorus was literally a tragic one rather than a trugic (paratragic) one. Note that the closely
Comedy versus tragedy in Wasps 
As for the outcome of the contest, Aristophanes does not need to tell
us whether comedy or tragedy is the winner. Anyone with any sense will
know immediately which genre is better, and (more importantly) who is
its most talented representative.
similar - and 2- are often mixed up, though more frequently - is emended to 2-:
see Ghiron-Bistagne .
c h ap t er 9
Crime and punishment

Cratinus, Aeschylus’ Oresteia, and the metaphysics and
politics of wealth
Emmanuela Bakola
It is a common notion in archaic and early classical thought that unjust

wealth brings punishment upon its owner and, moreover, that while the
punishment may come late, it is nevertheless inescapable. This is a domi-
nant theme in two archaic authors whose concept of dike is fundamentally
economic, namely Solon (esp. frr.  and  W ) and Hesiod (Works and
Days). In surviving drama this theme is explored mainly by Aeschylus
throughout the Oresteia, which has strong echoes of the Hesiodic and
Solonian precedents. The argument of this chapter concerns the recep-
tion of the Oresteia in a comedy of  bc, namely Cratinus’ Plutoi. This
play, which featured a chorus of divinities of wealth, dramatized the late-
coming but inescapable justice brought upon individuals accused of having
amassed their riches unfairly. Cratinus’ Plutoi is arguably the earliest sur-
viving response to the Oresteia, and actually – and most importantly – to a
crucially important aspect of the trilogy which generally receives much less
scholarly attention than others, namely its reflection on man’s relation to
wealth as a fundamental dimension of dike. Even more importantly, Plutoi
The argument of this chapter, first presented at the  Classical Association annual meeting,
develops some brief thoughts published in Bakola : –. I would like to thank Pat Easterling,
Chris Carey, Oliver Taplin, Richard Seaford and Manuela Dal Borgo for their invaluable advice and
insights, from which this chapter benefited greatly.
 For the economic perception of dike in archaic and early classical authors, and the Hesiodic influence
on this, see Gagarin  and . However, contra Gagarin, dike is not primarily a legal term;
‘natural order’ (i.e. ‘balance’ as natural principle) is an indisputable part of the semantic spectrum
of the term in the same period: cf. Lloyd-Jones ; Burian : –. Crucially, the ‘natural order’
is often conceived of as disturbed or upheld by human economic behaviour and the way in which
human beings position themselves with regard to the Earth’s productive powers and resources (as
especially in Hesiod, where, again, man’s punishment or reward concerns the natural processes which
bring him wealth: the land’s and the livestock’s fertility, favourable conditions for productivity and
prosperity, and their opposites: cf. Hes. Op. –). See also Perysinakis : –, –, and
ch.  passim. More recent and nuanced discussions of the economic dimension of archaic and early
classical dike are found in Nelson : –; Balot : –.
 The principal reference work here remains Solmsen . However, the rich Aeschylean debt to
Hesiod (esp. Works and Days) and Solon deserves much further exploration.

Crime and punishment 
reflects an understanding that in the Oresteia man’s relationship to wealth
is conceived of as part of an even larger concern which governs the trilogy:
the relationship of man to the Earth and its resources.
The aim of this chapter is to show that our study of Cratinus’ engage-
ment with the Aeschylean trilogy may have a profound effect on our
understanding not only of Cratinus, but also of Aeschylus. The discourse
with tragedy, therefore, works in two directions, since comedy elucidates
and defines both itself, but even more so, its tragic model. To begin with,
the comic text is multifariously shaped by the Aeschylean subtext and by
the Hesiodic and Solonian discourses that both Aeschylus and Cratinus
appropriate. The shaping of the comic text is not restricted to its themes,
motifs, characterization of its chorus and its overall structure; for, as the
Plutoi recontextualizes the socio-political commentary of the Oresteia, in
particular, the discourse of comedy about itself in relation to its political
function and role is also conditioned by that of its model and by cultural
change. This has a profound effect on the poetic voice: on a first level,
Plutoi constitutes further invaluable evidence for the self-positioning of
the comic author in relation to the tragic master. Even more interestingly,
it also suggests Cratinus’ construction of an ‘Aeschylean’ anti-hegemonic
political stance, which coheres with the Hesiodic and Solonian stances
which he also evokes.
However, it is the opposite direction of the discourse which is even
more intriguing and revealing: for, as it emerges, Cratinus’ use of the
Oresteia reflects an early (and today largely ignored) understanding of the
Aeschylean trilogy, one which privileges the notion of the Earth and the
human relationship to it. This is an understanding which relates the trilogy
much more firmly to other Aeschylean works, especially Persians and Seven
Against Thebes, than most modern readings do, and one which coheres
with – and elucidates – unappreciated evidence from Aristophanes’ Frogs
as reception of Aeschylean tragedy.
The argument of this chapter develops in four stages: in the first stage,
it revisits two widely recognized intertexts of Plutoi, namely the opening
 The few scholarly works which engage with the discourse of wealth in the Oresteia (Jones :
–; Di Benedetto : –, –; P. W. Rose : –, –; Seaford e.g. : –
and : –), do so predominantly in relation to the Agamemnon; Crane ; Collard :
xxxviii–xxxix; and Bakewell  engage with the theme somewhat more narrowly. However, none
of these scholars discusses the role of the Erinyes and especially the Earth, which is indispensable for
our understanding of the discourse of wealth in the Oresteia.
 See Bakola : – (on his ‘Aeschylean’ self-presentation); – on Cratinus’ Drapetides and
Aeschylus’ Hiketides; – and  on Dionysalexandros and Aeschylus’ Theoroi or Isthmiastai; –
on Eumenides and other Aeschylean references.
 emmanuela bakola
scene of Prometheus Lyomenos and Hesiod’s account of the Golden Age in
Works and Days. By exploring in more depth the argument that the Plutoi
are modelled on the tragic Titans of Prometheus Lyomenos as well as the
daimones ploutodotai of Hesiod, and by discussing salient elements of the
nature of the chthonic deities and the Earth, it highlights the importance of
the chthonic nature of both literary models – and as a result, its significance,
and that of the Earth, in Cratinus’ construction of his Wealth-gods. It
also points out another important dimension of the Plutoi, namely their
enactment of the Solonian-Hesiodic concept of delayed punishment for
unjust wealth. The second section of the argument turns to the Oresteia and
demonstrates the importance of the notion of ‘wealth’. It focuses especially
on the fact that ‘wealth’ is conceived, more specifically, as ‘wealth of the
Earth’ across the Aeschylean trilogy and that it is consistently correlated
with the chthonic Erinyes. The third, synthesizing, section shows that
the chorus of Plutoi has been fashioned on the model of the Aeschylean
Erinyes more closely than on any other model, thereby establishing strong
thematic and structural links between Plutoi and the Oresteia. It is finally
shown that by engaging so closely with the Aeschylean trilogy and its salient
theme of wealth, Cratinus recontextualizes its socio-political stance; he thus
enhances the ‘Aeschylean’ dimension of his own poetics, in particular, by
appropriating a largely ‘Aeschylean’ anti-hegemonic political posture.
cratinus’ plutoi and its intertexts: chthonic deities,

wealth and delayed punishment
For a fragmentary play, Plutoi is attested relatively well, with substantial
papyrus fragments surviving from its opening scene, from an episodic scene
and from an agonal scene. In addition to those, eight more fragments have
been preserved through indirect tradition. Among those, most revealing are
the fragments from the opening and the agonal scenes, especially because
they tell us the most about the role and characterization of Cratinus’
chorus. The fragment of the opening scene (PSI  fr. a – = fr. .–
) preserves part of the anapaestic parodos of a chorus of Titans, who
present themselves by the name of Plutoi (multiplications of the chthonic
deity Plutos/Pluton, king of the Underworld), and who arrive having just
 PSI xi  and PBrux. e  ‘P. Cumont’ = fr. . For a full discussion of the play and for earlier
scholarship, see Bakola : –; Farioli : –; Ruffell : –. All translations are
Jeffrey Henderson’s, in Rusten (), adapted.
 Cf. Farioli : –; Mazon : .
Crime and punishment 
been set free from the tyrannical power of Zeus and intending to visit their
ancient brother (ll. – and –):
. . . . '
[ . . . bad[
(<
.) ’ 5
[ (Cho.) Well, even though revealing [

- [
deserving to win, [
6 2#6 " [ to accept whatever comes; [
, 522# /2
 that these judges, weighed down by
events,

[ [will not be?] patient.
( )
( ' .[ ( ) For me too this is[

*
(
( ![ of my previous[
(<
.) m ’
H’ - [Z (Cho.) But why we said [we have come
>!’ S.  you shall now hear.
_ ' [ We are by birth Titans
[
(
’
>!’ ’ [N# and used to be called Wealth-gods when
c
. [Cronus reigned.
’ N -!’ [ That was the time when he swallowed
" ’ his children alive with whetstones
6
W .6 [.  with a mighty gulping sound/
swallowing up your hooting and
you were happy with that.
( ) L ' " 6 ] [ ( ) Then secretly from Zeus you . . . (or
. . .
. [ Then you steal Zeus . . . )
[ c]
/[ ](?) depose . . . Cronus[
[ ] _
[ ]and the Titans[
[ ] . [  ]bond(?s)[
[c.  lines missing]
6 5.
[  bondage
(<
.) : ' 2
#, (Cho.) Since the tyrannical rule [is over
. ["2

' , and the people are in power,
(’ >! 6
. [ we rushed here to our [(?) kinsman
*
6  and ancient brother
1
([] . . !6 S. seeking him, though he’s now decrepit.
]4 $ ](our) first excuse
I] #’
>. on the other hand] you will soon hear.
In the fragment from the agonal scene, the Plutoi take on the role of
prosecutors in the trial of Hagnon, on the charge that he amassed riches
unjustly (esp. l. ):
 emmanuela bakola
(<
.)
...[
[
: . . . . [
’
[ 
"

2 [

( 2"[
% , !2", @[ *-
"
+!
2"
. . 
( ) 2
W
"
[2
@ #A
( 8 @ *
. 2. [
x
(’ (
. [
(<
.)
Q

*
2 !’ F. [> .
( ) , #
2 . ’ 5 #[ %# 
!’ ’ ’ *, ' [][] , [
(<
.) 5 $ - . [ ]-"
[
^ -
6 N [ ]
[
[ !
2 !6[ ] [
( )
Q "42 []
. [ 
( ) ) $
, ] [
for giving [
as one of the old generation[
to me then . . . [ 
turn to speak[
this . . . to combine [
My spirit, bestir your tongue
well-balanced roused
for delivery of speech. 
( ) The summoned witnesses [
must [stand] here; it’s desirable [? to investigate] the man from Steiria,
whom they call Hagnon now, and his deme [
(Cho.) This man here is unjustly wealthy; let him [pay for it!
( ) But he’s inherited his wealth, and [had] everything he owns from the start
(/ from office) 
some [from . . . or from . . . ]
(Cho.) I’ll improve by explaining [] more clearly
Nicias was a porter [
hired by Peithias [
( ) He has told lies about this[ 
( ) Well I, by Zeus, won’t
As noted earlier, the identifiable engagement of this comedy with ear-

lier literature does not concern only the Oresteia. In the characteristically
Crime and punishment 
‘omnivorous’ manner of comedy, in the opening scene Plutoi alludes to at
least two more intertexts in a strikingly close fashion: Prometheus Lyomenos
and Hesiod’s account of the Golden Age in Works and Days. These, as
will be demonstrated, are closely interwoven with the Aeschylean inter-
text and form an inextricable part of the effect of Cratinus’ engagement
with Aeschylus. A re-analysis of the details of these intertextual allusions is
beyond the scope of this chapter; however, a number of points should be
made as they are important for the present argument, especially in respect
of the characterization and function of Cratinus’ chorus.
(i) Prometheus Lyomenos. The first point concerns the degree of closeness
in which the opening scene of Plutoi refashions the corresponding scene
of Prometheus Lyomenos. In the latter the tragic Titans had explained upon
arrival that their reason for coming was to visit their enfeebled brother
Prometheus. They had just been freed from their long imprisonment in
Tartarus to which they had been condemned by Zeus. In Cratinus’ highly
allusive parodos, composed in the same metre as its tragic model, the Titans
say that they have also just become free from their bonds in the Underworld,
and have come to visit their brother, also described as enfeebled (fr. .–
). This striking similarity in dramatic situation is strengthened by the
fact that the register, style and, as far as we can see, staging of the Plutoi
opening scene allude copiously to that of its model. The comedy’s debt
to the Prometheus Lyomenos is a heavy one.
(ii) Hesiod’s account of the Golden Age and the daimones ploutodotai.
The Titans of Prometheus Lyomenos are not the only literary figures who
have been identified as lying beneath the characterization of Cratinus’
chorus of Plutoi. The Plutoi, as they say in line  of the papyrus fragment,
are Wealth-gods who had once lived at the time of Cronus. As such, as
many scholars have pointed out, the Plutoi clearly draw on one more
literary identity, that of the Hesiodic Golden Race of the age of Cronus as
described at Works and Days –. Fragment  gives us an idea about
 For the debt of Plutoi to the Prometheus Lyomenos and the Hesiodic Golden Age see (most recently)
Bakola : – and –; Farioli : , ; Ruffell : –. My own analysis of the
Hesiodic intertext is revised and significantly expanded here, below.
 TrGF  fr. , quoted by Arr. Peripl. M. Eux. : At least the Titans say there to Prometheus: ‘We
have come . . . to view your labours, Prometheus, and these chains which you endure’. Although in
[Aesch.] PV – we learnt that Zeus had imprisoned the Titans in Tartarus along with Cronus
(cf. Hes. Theog. ff., ), in this tragedy the Titans were free. As PV – foreshadowed, in the
meantime Zeus may have relented. For Prometheus’ enfeeblement, see Aesch. TrGF  F .–.
 See above, n. .
 First suggested by Mazon : – and adopted by most scholars. See most recently Ruffell :
. Contra Farioli : –.
 emmanuela bakola
how Cratinus may have reworked this theme in Plutoi, which is generally
understood to have had a prominent utopian dimension:

; , / W c
N 6 ,

V
U 1
, 1 ’
\. /"/
2 /$

@
Those who in days past had Cronus as king, when they played dice with
loaves, and in the exercise yards dough from Aegina was deposited, ripe and
flowing with lumps.
However, there is one part of Plutoi whose debt to the Hesiodic account
of the Golden Race of men has not been properly appreciated, namely
the partly surviving agonal scene where the Plutoi are shown to prosecute
Hagnon as
2
( (fr. .–). In order to appreciate this
connection, it is important to understand a crucial element concerning the
nature of the Golden Race of men after their death as described at Works
and Days –, namely the fact that they are described as chthonic divinities:
* ,
(
"
24

'
" . ] 6
2 /
2
!
, #!
, -> !@ !$,

b = -2
2 #" %
U" R
-
@ ’ L, 

2
A
(
" /
%#

But since the earth covered up this race, by the plans of great Zeus they are
fine spirits haunting the earth, guardian-watchers of mortal human beings:
they watch over judgements and cruel deeds, clad in invisibility, walking
everywhere upon the earth, givers of wealth; and this kingly honour they
received (trans. Most , adapted).
After they perished and went to the Underworld, the Golden Race of
men are said to have become daimones ploutodotai. Thus they are described
as spirits of the dead and as divinities of wealth at the same time. On account
of their association with these two elements, the Underworld and wealth,
it is clear that the Hesiodic daimones are seen as chthonic divinities. This
 See Ruffell  for discussions of other utopian comedies with Hesiodic echoes. Cratin. fr.  is
cited by Athenaeus alongside Crates’ Beasts (fr. ), Teleclides’ Amphictyons (fr. ), and Pherecrates’
Mine-workers (fr. ), under the general idea of ‘descriptions of a life without work in comedy’.
" ’ in fr. . is another Hesiodic echo, recalling Cronus’ devouring of his children in Hes.
Theog.  and .
 For the fundamental dual association of the chthonic divinities with the dark realms of the dead
and with wealth and growth, see Burkert : ; for the dead, more specifically, as sources of
wealth, see Ar. fr. . and Hippoc. Vict. . ‘all growth comes from the dead’; cf. R. Parker :
–. The connecting concept behind the two ostensibly contrasting notions is, of course, the
Crime and punishment 
is also why – something which still remains unnoticed in scholarship – in
Works and Days they are described as having both a benevolent, or rewarding
(ll.  and ), and an avertive, that is potentially punitive function (ll.
– and –). To be more precise, the ambivalence of the Hesiodic
daimones correlates with human beings’ just or unjust relation to wealth, as
they not only grant them riches and protection in their activities but also
keep watch on them, their accumulation of wealth and the judgements
which pertain to economic matters. If we realize the ambivalent nature of
these chthonic beings in relation to wealth, we can clearly see the full extent
of Cratinus’ debt to the Hesiodic account of the Golden Race: for, while
in the parodos (and probably at the end, as I will suggest) the Plutoi evoke
the positive aspects of their model, in the agon, as watchers and punishers
of the unjustly wealthy of Athens, they also embody the negative functions
of the Hesiodic chthonic
.
Our knowledge of these two intertextual relationships enriches our
understanding of the chorus of Cratinus’ Plutoi in a number of signifi-
cant ways. First and foremost, it makes clear that the Plutuses’ chthonic
nature and origin in the Underworld is a salient aspect of their identity, not
only because of the chthonic nature of the king of the Underworld Plu-
tos/Pluton (whom they represent as his multiplications), but also because
Earth, which is not only the place of the dead, but also the primary source of all growth and wealth.
Scullion ,  and  provide the most balanced analysis of the validity and applicability of
the concept of the ‘chthonic’, as opposed to modern scholarly attempts at questioning the distinction
between ‘Olympian’ and ‘chthonic’ (although a more precise definition of what Scullion means by
‘Earth’ is necessary).
 The ambivalent nature of the chthonians has long been recognized, although no scholarly authority
makes any reference to these Hesiodic passages: see, above all, Henrichs , with  n. 
for earlier bibliography; see also Lloyd-Jones a. The element of ambivalence is crucial for
understanding that Hes. Op. – and – refer to the same divine beings (as argued by Paley
: , Wilamowitz-Moellendorf :  and ; Bona Quaglia : ; Clay : –, and
others on different grounds). M. L. West  and most scholars before and after him believe that
-> !@ !$ means ‘guardians’ of men, whereas -> !@ !$ at
Op. – (which echoes the previous passage almost verbatim: Op. –∼–), means ‘watchers
of mortal men’. Thus, the two groups of -> have been distinguished because of the perceived
discrepancy between the ‘benevolent’ and ‘policing’ functions in the first and second passage
respectively (and as a result Op. – have been deleted in most editions as interpolation; see M. L.
West ad loc.). Nevertheless, not only can ->5 mean both ‘guardian’ and ‘watcher’ (see LSJ s.v.),
but the chthonic nature of these beings explains perfectly their ambivalent nature as both ‘guardians’
and ‘watchers’ and supports their identification. It should be noted that these deities’ activity upon
the Earth (Op. , , ) does not tell against their chthonic nature, as chthonic deities, like the
god Plutos in Hes. Theog. –, are thought to review human activity on the Earth. #!
,
therefore, means that the daimones ‘haunt the earth’, cf. LSJ s.v.
 Cf. the context in which the three thousand -> are described, which is about perversion of
justice for profit (Hes. Op. –). The second phylakes’ preoccupation with the just or unjust
accumulation of wealth coheres with the first phylakes’ preoccupation with dike (as natural order)
once we take into account Hesiod’s economic perception of dike (see n. ). See also n. .
 emmanuela bakola
it is central in both intertexts which inform their characterization. Their
chthonic dimension is, as has begun to emerge and will be further explained
below, paramount when it comes to our assessment of their function in
Plutoi. Ultimately, only if we realize the strong connection of the concept
of wealth with the chthonic deities and the Earth, can we appreciate
Cratinus’ debt to the Aeschylean Oresteia.
Furthermore, the intertextual relationship of this play to the Prometheus
Lyomenos provides one more important dimension of the function of Plutoi,
this time concerning the timing of their intervention: their long imprison-
ment in Tartarus, which was related in the opening scene (at fr. .–)
and of which much was made in the Prometheus trilogy, and their concern
for explaining the reasons of their long absence upon arrival suggest that
the avengers of unjust wealth appear from the depths of the Earth after a
very long time to execute their role.
(iii) The relationship of the Plutoi to the Aeschylean Erinyes as working
hypothesis. The main elements which emerged from the exploration of
the intertexts of Plutoi (chthonic nature, connection with wealth, delayed
punishment of unjust wealth) are significant and merit further exploration,
as they open up a range of possibilities. In addition to them, another
element emerges as a possible hint that there is yet another dimension in
the characterization of Plutoi: the way in which they present themselves as
a chorus early on in the comedy:
(<
.) m )
H’ - [Z
>!’ S. 
_ ' [
[
(
’
>!’ ’ [N# c
.
(Cho.) But why we said [we have come
you shall now hear.
We are by birth Titans
and used to be called Wealth-gods when [Cronus reigned.
 Beyond alluding to the Hesiodic daimones, as Titans, and hence children of Earth and situated in
the Underworld, the Plutoi would also be recognized as chthonic powers: Hes. Theog. ; [Aesch.]
PV ; Aesch. Eum. .
 The perversion of justice for profit in Hes. Op. – is punished in ways which strongly evoke
the reaction of chthonic deities and the Earth herself: infertility, terseness, poverty and disease.
Conversely, justice is rewarded with fertility, agricultural growth and wealth. Cf. Ar. fr. , where
the chorus of Heroes express the chthonic concern against unjust acquisition of wealth: &

| @ @ @ !@, | !
(
W
2 | "

> |
>
'
2
.
 The dramatic time of the Titans’ release from the Underworld is at least thirteen generations after
Prometheus’ chaining: cf. PV –,  and Prometheus Lyomenos TrGF  F , with M. Griffith
a ad loc.
Crime and punishment 
As has been observed by numerous scholars, this resembles in structure
and diction the self-presentation of the chorus of Erinyes in Aeschylus’
Eumenides (–):
> 2, ] 6 A
& ^26 . ",
r ’
j
! . . .
You shall learn the whole of it concisely, daughter of Zeus. We are Night’s
eternal children, and in our home beneath the Earth we are called the
Curses.
We have strong lexical and contextual links between the two passages: a
second-person address using the future of 2!
, a self-identification
through genealogy, a naming that uses the first-person plural middle/passive
of ". This, together with the element of the chorus of divinities, itself
relatively infrequent, makes the possibility that there is an intertextual
connection between the two passages quite strong. These are not formulae
of choral self-identification, since no parallels in extant tragedy can be
found. Besides, it should be pointed out that Cratinus certainly had an
interest in the Eumenides of Aeschylus. He himself had written a play of the
same name which presumably featured a chorus connected to the Erinyes.
However, the ascertaining of a link between these two passages will have to
wait until we take a more global look at the relationship between Plutoi and
the Oresteia. As will emerge, the intertextual relationship of the Plutoi and
the Oresteia runs much deeper, and in terms of its impact in shaping the
comedy, it supersedes even the engagement with the Hesiodic and pseudo-
Aeschylean models. The relationship becomes clear on consideration of
a central theme of Plutoi, that of unjust wealth and its punishment.
 Since Schmid and Stählin :  n.  and Pieters : –. See most recently Bakola : –;
Farioli : .
 All translations of the Oresteia are from Collard , unless otherwise indicated.
 For Cratinus’ Eumenides and its relationship to Aeschylus’ play on the basis of the title see Bakola
: –. The relationship of Plutoi to the Oresteia demonstrated here depends only on Cratinus’
familiarity with the trilogy, not on the case that Eumenides was the original title of the final play.
There is also a probable allusion to Eumenides at Drapetides fr. ; see Bakola : .
 For the authenticity of the Prometheus plays, see M. Griffith  passim; M. Griffith a: –;
M. L. West : –. Recent discussions which defend the authenticity of PV are Pattoni 
and Podlecki : –. Yet as M. L. West :  notes, although no single feature of the
play can in isolation prove the play spurious, what counts essentially against its authenticity is the
accumulation of a large number of such features diverging from Aeschylean practice, many of them,
in fact, in the direction of Sophoclean or Euripidean practice. Prometheus Pyrphoros and Prometheus
Lyomenos constituted a trilogy together with PV: cf. M. L. West : –; M. Griffith a: 
with n.  and –. The trilogy was probably composed and produced between  and : see
M. Griffith : –, –; M. L. West : –; Bees  passim. Moreover, the audience
knew the name of the author (which may or may not be in our records) or they at least thought they
 emmanuela bakola
In the other fragments of PSI  and in PBrux. e  there are no clear
signs for the development of paratragic play with the Prometheus trilogy.
Yet even if the specific parody of the Prometheus trilogy was abandoned or
(more probably) relaxed after the opening scene, engagement with tragedy
altogether was not. It has already been noted that in fragment .–,
which preserves part of the ‘trial’ of Hagnon and in all probability comes
from the agon, the chorus still uses a consistently elevated register (cf. ll.
–). As will be shown, this is part of an even larger paratragic scheme.
unjust wealth, the ‘wealth of the earth’ and the erinyes

in the oresteia
As already mentioned, in drama the notions that wealth acquired and used
unjustly brings punishment upon its owner and that, although punishment
may come late, it is nevertheless inescapable are explored by Aeschylus and,
tellingly for the paratragic dimension of our play, throughout the Oresteia.
Something which is very often disregarded is that the discourse of dike in the
Aeschylean trilogy is inextricably bound with the discourse of economics,
as most often in archaic Greek thought, including, above all, Hesiod and
Solon, on which the Oresteia draws heavily. This is vital. On a close reading
of the Oresteia, one realizes that the discourse of dike focuses persistently
on man’s unjust relation to wealth, as regards both acquisition and use.
This, as was suggested earlier, is a fundamental strand of an even more
salient and overarching idea which the Oresteia explores, the problematic
relation of man to the Earth and its resources.
Two clarifications are necessary at this point: the first one concerns
the notion of ‘wealth’ in the Oresteia, especially the fact that it is not
restricted to the material kind of wealth alone, nor to its acquisition alone.
Indeed, in line with the technique of the Aeschylean ‘unfolding’, ‘wealth’
emerges as a dynamic concept, and owing to the predominance of the
notion of the Earth in the trilogy, it progressively expands beyond material
wealth and ultimately includes everything that the Earth begets for man.
Having first been introduced through the notion of kerdos, the desire
for material gain (which motivates crimes of hybris) in the all-important
sacrilege image at Agamemnon –, the notion of ‘wealth’ progressively
knew it: according to West’s bold but attractive hypothesis (M. L. West : –) the trilogy
could have been produced by Aeschylus’ son Euphorion in the name of his father. Cf. Sommerstein
: –.
 A technique at the heart of Aeschylean poetry, best demonstrated in the analysis of the Oresteia by
Lebeck , esp. –.
Crime and punishment 
amplifies and acquires ever-more significant and poignant connotations. It
becomes, especially during and immediately after the ‘carpet scene’, one
of the most dominant themes of the trilogy which drives it until the very
end: the ‘wealth of the Earth’, a highly significant conceptual compound
which combines material wealth, natural resources and the ultimate wealth,
human life and lifeblood. The complexity of the notion of the ‘wealth
of the Earth’ and its dependence on multiple strands of dramatic meaning
(above all those of religion/ritual, economics, imagery, dramaturgy and
gender) suggest that its analysis demands a full-length discussion elsewhere.
Here, the intertextual relationship with Plutoi requires one to focus mostly
on the discourse of ‘material’ and, especially, ‘unjust material wealth’ in
the trilogy. Indeed, despite the notion’s progressively amplified semantics,
‘wealth’ as ‘material wealth’ is central in nearly all the choral odes and
a large part of the dramatic action of the first play, always connected
with the disruption of dike. It is through this consistent discourse that by
Agamemnon  and throughout the first play ‘unjust wealth’ emerges as
the perennial cycle of satiety, greed and, finally, abuse, destruction and waste
of wealth, and the accusation is persistently directed at the elite oikoi.
Eumenides returns to these problematics in order to give a final solution
to the fundamental problem of man’s relationship to wealth and to the
Earth itself. In other words, the discourse of ‘wealth’ returns, with striking
echoes of Agamemnon, as the trilogy draws to a close, namely in the choral
odes in the second part of the final play and in its final scene.
The second clarification concerns one of the most significant features of
this complex discourse of wealth, which has also remained unnoticed: that
punishment of unjust wealth throughout the trilogy is associated explicitly with
 Human blood and human life are conceived of as wealth in Aeschylus, and more precisely, as the
ultimate wealth that the Earth begets. In the Oresteia, having been symbolically enacted in the ‘carpet
scene’ (and suggested by implication in the parodos and the first stasimon), this idea is explicitly
articulated in the choral ode which closes it (esp. Ag. –). Hence, during the ‘carpet scene’
and thereafter material wealth (by which one should also understand ‘natural resources’, namely
the Earth’s resources, as clearly demonstrated at Ag. – – as we will see below) and human
life together constitute the idea of the ‘wealth of the Earth’. Across the Oresteia the ‘wealth of the
Earth’ is abused and destroyed by man on two interconnected levels: through greed and waste of
wealth on one hand, and commodification and destruction of human life on the other. As the
concept of wealth develops and the notion of the Earth takes centre stage, in Choephori and the
first part of the Eumenides human life and lifeblood dominate the semantics of ‘wealth’ more than
material wealth per se – although material wealth retains an important role: see below. However,
both aspects of the Oresteian ‘wealth’ return with equal force in the choral ode of Eum. ff.
Man’s gendered problematic relationship with the Earth and its wealth is finally ‘resolved’ (albeit
not without ambiguity) at the end of the Eumenides.
 See the penultimate section of this chapter.
 For the role of the Choephori in the discourse of wealth see n.  above.
 emmanuela bakola
the Erinyes. The Erinyes, as we will see, have a central role in the entirety
of the trilogy’s problematics, making an entry as early as Agamemnon –
, maintaining a pervasive presence and, ultimately, determining the
meaning of the final scene. Having both these points in mind, we can now
observe how the discourse of wealth unfolds in the Oresteia, and how it is
consistently correlated with the Erinyes as enforcers of dike.
In the first stasimon of Agamemnon (–) it is suggested that Paris’,
Agamemnon’s and Menelaus’ acts of hybris are inextricably bound with
their pathology of koros, the complex condition which includes not only
satiety but also greed, as in Solon, on whose poetry this ode draws heavily.
The reflections of this ode, which implicate all three individuals in crimes
associated with wealth (violation of the sacred in the name of profit,
commodification and waste of human life with an eye to wealth, satiety
 Easterling , esp. , stresses the continuity of the role of the Erinyes across the trilogy. See
also Macleod : –. For the free alternation between singular and plural of the Eriny(e)s, see
Easterling : .
 See esp. Ag. –. As Lebeck :  has acutely observed, in this ode’s complex array of images
and reflections, Paris and Agamemnon mirror one another in terms of guilt, and Menelaus is also
entangled in the same nexus of blame. Most commentators, including Lebeck, do not attribute to
koros the importance that it deserves in terms of the three individuals’ motivation and responsibility.
The reason seems to be that koros is usually perceived as a passive condition, i.e. ‘satiety’, ‘excess’.
However, a major aspect of the Aeschylean koros is insatiability, acquisitiveness, greed (hence :

>
2 6
means ‘from his insatiable desire for wealth’; see below nn. –), and it can be
shown that, along with other motives, it stands behind Agamemnon’s and Menelaus’ responsibility
for the Trojan War and Paris’ theft of Helen.
 Beyond the Solonian echo (see n. ), the reasoning includes (but is not restricted to) the following
points: (i) the altar image in –, where koros is first introduced, maps onto Clytemnestra’s
strikingly similar image in –; koros is thus illuminated by the earlier kerdos (desire for profit).
This is confirmed later on by Eumenides –, where the altar image is used again with the same
connotations, and in a context bristling with echoes of Agamemnon: there the term kerdos has
replaced its synonym koros (see below); (ii) the altar-image of Ag. – is immediately preceded by
an explicit disavowal of insatiable acquisitiveness: ‘May I have wealth without the taint of trouble,
enough to satisfy a man of sense’ (Ag. –; trans. Sommerstein ) which refers to the ability to
control insatiability; (iii) in Ag. – Agamemnon and Paris are targeted together by the accusation
of acquisitiveness in connection with the war. Paris, in particular, whom the play brands repeatedly
as a member of a house teeming with excess, is targeted with language of theft and robbery (Ag. ,
cf. , –). The perceived economic value of Helen, important already in the Iliad (Wohl :
ch. ), is an important dimension of this. (iv) Helen is a precious commodity not only for Paris but
also for Menelaus, whose erotic desire for her is merged with his desire for other, more transgressive
things (–). That greed is part of Menelaus’ transgressive motivation becomes gradually clear
by the consequences of his desire, portrayed immediately afterwards through the suggestive image
of the exchange of the ashes and urns of the soldiers for gold (–). Koros means insatiability
in Aeschylus’ Persians (cf. Rosenbloom : –; ), a play which develops the discourse on
wealth, dike and the Earth in a way strikingly similar to the Oresteia.
 See Anhalt : –; Balot : –; and Helm , none of whom, however, discusses this
passage in Agamemnon. Nevertheless, it is widely accepted that there is a rich Solonian subtext in
the first stasimon of this play. Theognis uses koros in the same sense in frr. – and – W ;
(cf. Nagy : –; Helm : –).
Crime and punishment 
and yet insatiable greed), climax with the suggestion that the Erinyes may
delay punishing, but eventually do punish such acts (Ag. –):
@
2
* For the gods do not fail to take aim
V

!
, - against those who have killed many,
’ )0 > # and in time the black Furies
2#6 3’ V2 enfeeble him who succeeds against
2# / /
2 justice, reversing his fortune
!’ 2 . . . and corroding his life . . .
........................... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..
’ V-!

3/
A I approve unresented prosperity;
’ j
! I wish I may neither sack cities
’
I *6 7
W ’ V- nor as captive myself see my life
/

. under others.
(trans. Sommerstein , adapted)
The idea of unjust wealth and its punishment is examined further in the
second stasimon of Agamemnon. The Solonian overtones are here as strong
as in the first stasimon, since at the ode’s heart lies the contemplation of
the adverse effects of unjust wealth on the wider oikos and the community,
an idea predominant in Solon (and appropriated from Hesiod, see Op.
). Lines –, which explicitly reflect on the unjust wealth of elite
oikoi, point, at their climax, to the revenge of the daimon of the house.
This female divinity (Ag. –), as Collard has rightly pointed out, is
meant to be understood as the Erinys, who once again is said to exact
late but inescapable punishment (cf. Ag. , "1 "
#).
 In the earlier stanzas of the ode (–) the chorus reflects on Helen as destruction and con-
templates the terrible consequences of Paris’ abduction of her on the entire Trojan community,
including his own oikos. The ode closes with three stanzas on insolent prosperity (–). What
is the connection between the two parts of the ode? The first stasimon made it explicit that it
was Paris’ koros which motivated his abduction of Helen and the abuse of Menelaus’ xenia. In this
choral lyric his oikos and the entire Trojan community are emphatically shown to have endorsed
and legitimized his crime through the rituals of marriage (–). By doing so and by delighting in
her as an agalma ploutou (–), they have been implicated in Paris’ koros-guilt. Unjust wealth,
its effect on communities and its punishment seem to be the connecting idea behind the two parts
of the stasimon.
 See Collard : . There is a series of identifications which construct the image of the Erinys
and her avenging action in this ode: Erinys ∼ Wrath in –; Helen ∼ lion cub (as a primary
reference) ∼ priest of Ate ∼ Erinys in –; black daimon of Ate ∼ Erinys in –. It is not only
Paris and the Trojan oikos in our text who are punished by the power represented by the Eriny(e)s. In
the case of Menelaus, the horrific storm which eliminates the entire fleet of the Atreid brothers and,
as we are meant to understand, takes Menelaus’ life also is, in fact, a victory-hymn of the Erinyes
(). After Paris and the Trojan oikos, it is plainly suggested, the Erinyes have started punishing the
Atreids for their koros and the crimes it bred.
 emmanuela bakola
-
) /

" Long spoken among men, there exists

an old
"2 , " - saying that a man’s property grown
!" -6 3/
fully great has offspring,

(! ’ V ! , not dying childless;
) ! ># " his life’s good fortune
/

.1>. bears shoots of insatiable woe.
# ) V
- .- I differ from others, alone in my
. 6 2/' %
thinking: it is the impious deed which
later on
'
, begets more deeds
-" ) . ". that resemble their own parentage;
j *!2 for to houses upright and just

. . fine children are destined forever.
- ' H/ Ancient insolence is wont to breed
' - youthful insolence
1
2
/
@ in evil men
H/ ) T ! ), 6 >- sooner or later, when the appointed day

-

2, comes for birth, rancour rising afresh,

V#
- and a daimon unfightable invincible

,
!
- unholy in boldness, a daimon in
!
{, black Ruin
.
"
( . for a house, resembling its parents.
] ' ' Justice gleams in houses
2
$ , foul with smoke,
)
. doing honour to the righteous man;
#2 ) %! W but gold-bespangled mansions
#@
where hands are unclean
3
([] . . . she leaves with her eyes turned away . . .
The second stasimon climaxes with the contemplation of this idea and
powerfully prepares the way for the ‘carpet scene’, Agamemnon’s trampling
on the red tapestries, where the notions of unjust wealth and its punishment
are physically enacted. Several questions and possible objections may arise
at this point: whilst Agamemnon can be conceived of symbolically to enact
‘unjust wealth’ by way of his highly significant action of trampling on the
dark red tapestries, are we meant to understand that there is a connection
between this enactment and his murder? And, more importantly, can the
Erinyes be shown to have anything to do with his murder – as punishment?
We shall shortly see so, as well as that the multiple levels of determination
of the heavily debated ‘responsibility/guilt of Agamemnon’ can be read in
 I.e. abuse and destruction of both wealth and life, see above.
Crime and punishment 
the light of ‘unjust wealth’ as enacted symbolically in this scene. However,
we should first seek the answer to another important question which has
in the meantime arisen, namely why the Erinyes would be associated with
wealth in the first place.
Modern scholarship suggests that in the mid fifth century the Erinyes
are perceived as agents of retribution after violation of justice (especially in
familial crimes). However, despite being correct on a general level, this
explanation of their role in the Oresteia seems insufficient, because it does
not explain their intervention in relation to crimes associated with wealth,
which, as will be further shown below, pervades the entire trilogy. There is
something even more important involved here, namely the Erinyes’ nature
as chthonic deities. As chthonic deities, like the king of the Underworld
(Hades or Plutos/Plouton), Persephone and Hecate, and like the Hesiodic
daimones plutodotai analysed earlier, the Erinyes are associated with wealth,
an association which we find not only, as argued here, in the Oresteia,
but also in Aristophanes’ Wealth, and elsewhere. Wealth in the Oresteia
is, as suggested earlier, conceived of explicitly not only as ‘material wealth’,
but also and above all, as wealth of the Earth, the primary source of wealth.
As chthonic deities, and as such, guardians of the Earth and, consequently,
guardians of the ‘proper’ use of its natural resources, and of the natural
order, or dike – in the Oresteia they are punishers of unjust wealth, in the
form of excess, greed, abuse and waste.
Having this dimension of the Erinyes in mind, it is fitting to return
to the text and remind ourselves of Clytemnestra’s words of extraordinary
danger and transgression in the carpet scene, as Agamemnon is hybristically
encouraged to trample on the red tapestries (Ag. –):
 For example, Sommerstein : –, who also points out their deterring role. Sewell-Rutter :
ch.  is the most recent treatment of the subject and focuses on the issue of inherited guilt. While
the Erinyes are said to be originally guardians of the natural order, this is not considered in relation
to their chthonic nature.
 Explicitly in Cho. –; cf. Garvie  ad loc.
 In Plut. –, Penia is likened to an Erinys when she tries to stop Blepsidemus and Chremylus
from giving Wealth back his sight, and hence his ability to grant riches to the poor and just. The
connection of wealth with injustice, argued by Penia-Erinys herself (Plut. ff.), permeates the
entire play.
 The Erinys is connected with wealth and the Earth in Aeschylus’ Seven Against Thebes, where the
image of the Erinys/Curse develops in a manner very similar to that of the Erinys/daimon of the oikos
in the Oresteia. The second stasimon and especially Sept. – (cf. –, –) are particularly
suggestive of this. It is also intriguing that in the cyclic Thebaid fr.  Oedipus’ curse on his sons to
divide the family wealth with iron attracts the attention of the Erinys.
 For the role of the chthonic deities as guardians of the Earth’s resources, see Burkert : . I am
grateful to Pat Easterling for helping me sharpen these thoughts.
 emmanuela bakola
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(Clytemnestra) The sea is there – and who shall quench it? – nurturing the
juices which yield much purple worth its weight in silver, wholly renewable,
the dye of vestments; there is a remedy for these here with the gods’ help,
my lord; the house does not know how to be poor . . . (trans. Collard ,
adapted).
These words construct a very strong image of human wealth production
by exploitation of natural resources. The idea of the natural productive
powers’ perennial ability to renew themselves dominates the passage. It
is suggested that the oikos has subjugated these powers to its own use and,
above all, to its own waste. As Clytemnestra’s words enact a breathtak-
ing degree of transgression, so Agamemnon enacts the destruction of the
resources by treading on the precious textiles. So the oikos does not only
waste – by harming – itself and its wealth, although this is an extremely
important idea of the play and explicitly stated as such in the text (Ag.
–,
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. . . ). It is ulti-
mately the natural productive powers of the Earth which the oikos of the
Atreids wastes and treats hybristically. Crucially, the natural productive
powers refer not only to material wealth and the natural resources, but,
as the powerful symbol of the dark red textiles which Agamemnon and
Clytemnestra are together ‘destroying’ in this scene suggests, also the ulti-
mate wealth, human life, conceptualized across the Oresteia as the image of
human blood which is endlessly shed on the Earth. As wealth is treated
hybristically and with contempt, and wasted, so too is human life which, as
the first stasimon in particular suggests, the Atreid oikos had commodified
and wasted in the name of wealth.
 This idea is amplified by the image of the sea as unquenchable; the sea, like the rest of the natural
world, is part of the Aeschylean notion of ‘Earth’.
 For the concept see Jones : –.
 It is important to keep in mind that when it comes to production of natural resources and to the
natural powers’ ability to generate, the concept of the Earth used by the Greeks includes our concept
of the natural world and the depths of the Earth. For the more global semantics of the ‘Earth’, see
Eum. –. The trilogy constructs a close parallelism between the oikos and the Earth, both as
wealth-producing entities; see Bakola (forthcoming).
 See above, n. . This is an idea which the ode closing the carpet scene makes once again especially
explicit (Ag. –), and which dominates the Cassandra scene and thereafter (see especially Lebeck
: –).
 As nearly all commentators point out, here are symbolically recalled the blood of Iphigeneia and
that of the soldiers of the Achaean army with a poignant emphasis on the loss of young life
Crime and punishment 
It is the hybris towards the ‘wealth of the Earth’ (which includes the whole
cycle of unjust wealth as constructed earlier: acquisition, abuse – including
commodification – and waste) that most definitely imbues the scene and
the house with the threatening presence of the Erinys, towards whom – as
the punisher of this crime – Agamemnon walks. Crucially, it was in the
second stasimon, the choral ode immediately preceding the ‘carpet scene’,
and not as late as the Cassandra scene, as it is usually claimed, that the
Erinys was explicitly associated with the oikos and beset it. The role of
the Erinyes as punishers of unjust wealth in the case of Agamemnon is
explicitly ascertained a little later: Clytemnestra suggests that it was the
Erinys who armed her hand to kill Agamemnon () before she goes
even further to identify herself with the Erinys, the daimon of the house
(–). The role of the Erinyes as agents of punishment of the crime of
unjust wealth is confirmed once again later on, when Agamemnon’s dead
body is revealed wrapped in the ominous red cloth; this cloth is revealingly
called ‘an evil wealth of clothing’ and ‘the woven robes of the Erinyes’:
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(Aegisthus) . . . when I see this man lying here in the woven robes of the
Furies in a manner pleasing to me . . .
The red cloth, symbol of hybristic wealth and shed lifeblood, and – to be
consistent with the analysis above – of ‘unjust wealth’ is also the instrument
of punishment of the Erinyes.
(cf. the wrath of chthonic Artemis for the loss of young life in the omen of the hare at Ag. –;
and the emphasis on lost hebe in Aesch. Pers. esp. –. That youth is wasted and children killed
aggravates the offence against the Earth, which is not only a nurturer of crops (source of wealth),
but also of children: for Earth kourotrophos see Solon fr.  W and Aesch. Sept. –; cf. R. Parker
: –).
 This is through the complex imagery of the lion cub bred in the house and Helen-Erinys as destruction
of the oikos (see also above, n. ). To associate the oikos unambiguously with the Erinyes is one
of the functions of the second stasimon. This was foreshadowed already at Ag. – (
.

. . . M

).
 Here it is suggested that the wrath of the Erinys about the blood of Iphigeneia merges with
Clytemnestra’s own wrath about her as her daughter. As revenge seeking the restoration of the
natural order, the action of the Erinys coheres with dike in this passage (). It goes without saying
that Clytemnestra’s responsibility is also determined on multiple levels.
 emmanuela bakola
Furthermore, it is not only Agamemnon’s, and as we saw earlier, Paris’
and Menelaus’ punishment, with which the Erinyes are associated. Every
member of the two oikoi who has been implicated in ‘unjust wealth’ sooner
or later encounters the revenge of the chthonic force represented by the
Erinyes. In the Atreid oikos, after Agamemnon it is the turn of Aegisthus
and Clytemnestra to be punished. Clytemnestra’s crime of ‘unjust wealth’ is
enacted not only in the carpet scene, but much earlier. She herself revealed
her desire for the wealth of the house and the power that comes with
it when she first appeared on stage (Ag.  with Collard’s translation),
something which she also enacted dramatically with the ‘control of the
threshold’. Aegisthus’ words about the wealth of the oikos and its power
in Agamemnon – confirm that this is a justified assumption, not only
about her, but about the murderous pair:
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(Aegisthus) From this man’s wealth I shall try to rule the citizens; any man
who does not obey me I shall put under a heavy yoke.
Clytemnestra and Aegisthus are killed by Orestes inside the house in the
Choephori, which has by now become associated with the ‘Erinys of the
house’, and the Erinys herself is said to ‘drink the third draught of unmixed
blood’ (Cho. –); when their bodies appear, in the scene which mirrors
that with the dead bodies of Agamemnon, Cassandra and the red cloth
(Cho. ff.), Orestes points at the same sinister device of the red cloth of
the Erinyes over them, recalls the entrapment of his father by his killers
and suggestively calls them robbers (Cho. –):

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(Orestes) This is the sort of thing that a footpad might get for himself,
a man who led the life of beguiling travellers and robbing them of their
 See note  above.
 Cf. Taplin : –. It is also suggested that Clytemnestra is guilty for the commodification of
human life: Cho. – (treating her children like chattel); Ag. – and – (treating Cassandra
like chattel).
Crime and punishment 
money . . . the ooze of blood contributes over time to spoiling the many dyes
in the embroidery. I praise my father now, I lament him now, while I am
here and addressing this woven thing that killed him.
The place of this cloth, the ‘evil wealth of clothing of the Erinyes’, on
the bodies is highly suggestive: this powerful symbol has proven murderous
not only for Agamemnon, but also for the ‘robbers’ and abusers of wealth
(including human life) Clytemnestra and Aegisthus.
That the pattern ‘unjust wealth-punishment by the Erinyes’ is seamlessly
followed until the end and includes Orestes as its last victim can be seen
from the very same scene, where the heir of the Atreid oikos reveals himself
as also entangled in the cycle of abuse and destruction of the ‘wealth of
the Earth’. The striking image of the destroyed expensive red dyes on
the red cloth illustrates how the notions of waste of wealth and waste of
lifeblood have been conflated into one another, and have become one.
With a dramatic gesture pregnant with symbolic meaning, Orestes shows
himself trapped inside the circle which the chorus forms around him by
holding the red cloth (Cho. –):
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. . . 5’ . . .
stretch it out, and standing round me in a circle, show the thing . . . (trans.
Collard , adapted).
This scene demonstrates with full force how Orestes is, like the two previous
generations of the oikos, guilty of the same crime against the ‘wealth of the
Earth’, because he has abused and destroyed it by shedding human blood. A
poignant reminder of the vicious circle in which his father and mother had
been entangled is that Orestes’ motives for killing were partly economic,
namely the recovery of his father’s property (Cho. ; cf. Cho. –, ,
Eum. –). As is to be expected, his punishment will be sought by the
 The oracle Orestes receives from Apollo (Cho. –) is suggestive of the driving force of the
Erinyes behind the killing.
 There is no need to suppose, as some commentators suggest, that the chorus (or Orestes’ attendants)
are only asked to form a circle or a semi-circle around the cloth. The cloth has to be stretched out so
that Orestes is fully encircled by it. The dramatic meaning of this action is enormous, supporting
his portrayal as guilty, since Orestes, by being caught in the same vicious circle of blood and unjust
wealth, mirrors the other two generations. See Sider : ; cf. Tarkow : .
 Orestes’ acquittal does, however, suggest that he is not simply to be bracketed with previous
generations. At the civic level he puts an end to the tyranny and at the familial level he releases his
sister. Unlike others he also acts not to increase his possessions but to restore what would normally
be his. This is not to underrate the horror of matricide. However, although in certain key respects
Orestes is unlike the previous generations, the unfolding of a pattern in relation to wealth across
generations is clear.
 emmanuela bakola
Erinyes. And indeed, at this very point Orestes sees the Erinyes coming
after him (Cho. –). After a long wait and an elaborate build-up across
the first and second plays, the Erinyes are finally appearing in bodily form.
Crucially, they appear again in the same role as they assumed throughout
Agamemnon and Choephori. They will retain this role in the third play and
until the very end, as we will now see.
Indeed, the concept of ‘unjust wealth’ and its punishment by the Erinyes
returns forcefully in Eumenides. The echoes of Agamemnon are strong (Eum.
ff.), and so is the emphasis on material wealth (which had been overriden
by life and lifeblood as ‘wealth’ in the second play). In Eumenides –
the Erinyes allude to the highly significant altar image of Agamemnon’s first
stasimon, to reassert that there is no escape for the man who disregards
justice for kerdos, for profit, and they remind their listeners of their punitive
action against this crime:
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In all things I say to you: respect the altar of Justice; and do not, with
an eye to profit, insult and kick it down with godless feet, for retribution
results.
The Erinyes’ punitive action is evoked even in the final scene, where they
have been accepted by the Athenians as benevolent Eumenides/Semnai
Theai, thus embodying a resolution to man’s problematic relationship
with the Earth and her wealth, both material and human life. The scene is
one of hope that from now on only the benevolent aspect of the Erinyes’
chthonic nature will manifest itself, and the chthonic goddesses will provide
natural abundance, fertility and riches to reward human dike in a city that
is ideologically constructed to embody it. However, in two unexpectedly
poignant verses the goddesses are shown to retain the avertive function
of their ambivalent chthonic nature, since their message of rejoicing still
carries an implicit warning to the Athenians to observe moderation in their
accumulation of wealth (Eum. –):
 On the whole, the positive and negative aspects inherent in the Erinyes’ ambivalent chthonic nature
make it more likely that their association with ‘Semnai Theai’ (cf. Eum. ) and ‘Eumenides’ was a
traditional religious concept before Aeschylus and certainly before Euripides; see Lloyd-Jones a
passim and Henrichs : –; cf. also Macleod : –; contra Brown  and Sommerstein
: –.
Crime and punishment 
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Greetings and may you rejoice in moderate measure of wealth. Greetings,
people of Athens! (trans. Collard , adapted)
The above analysis shows that there is a remarkable continuity in the

image and role of the Erinyes across the Oresteia and a consistent correlation
with the theme of wealth. The ubiquitous role of chthonic forces and the
theme of wealth across the trilogy are bound together by the enormous
emphasis on the idea of the Earth as the ‘power below’, which is dominant
in so many aspects: dramatic, dramaturgical, imagistic, religious, cultic,
philosophical. The persistent reflection on man’s relation to wealth across
the trilogy is inextricably bound with man’s physical and metaphysical
relation to the Earth. It is on that basis that wealth is presented as the
ultimate measure for the natural order, or dike. This is because wealth
is conceived of not only as material wealth but also and above all as the
‘wealth of the Earth’, the Earth’s natural resources and productive powers,
the primary source of wealth.
There is a final aspect of the Erinyes’ role in the trilogy in relation to
wealth which should be pointed out, as it is crucial for the characteriza-
tion of Cratinus’ chorus in Plutoi, namely the dramatic technique of the
anticipation of their arrival: from a mere image of an imminent avenger
in the lyric songs of the Agamemnon chorus and a personified wrath of the
oikos, the Erinyes gradually become a presence which we can only sense,
the daimon of the house of the Atreids, then a real vision for Cassandra,
then an even more vivid vision for Orestes, until they actually appear as
a live chorus. This build-up, together with the trilogy’s deeply Solonian,
persistent focus on the idea of delayed punishment (see the concept of
 Cf. e.g. ’ j , Od. .; Seaford a: xxiii provides a translation which is consistent
with the interpretation offered here.
 Beyond the intervention of the Erinyes and the other chthonic deities, a wide range of elements
(both on the level of imagery and on the level of plot) associated with the Earth construct her
dramatic ‘presence’ in the Oresteia. For example, the earth under the feet of the characters is the
focus of the ‘carpet scene’ and of the entire first half of the Choephori (–). Furthermore, the
trilogy’s natural imagery, reflecting the disturbance and the distortion of nature which mirrors or
even results from human crimes, is a pervasive element and keeps the problematic relationship of
man to the Earth in permanent focus. Moreover, the winds, perceived by the Greeks as chthonic
powers (cf. Gagné ) have an instrumental role across the trilogy (e.g. Ag. –, –, –,
–, Cho. –, –, Eum. , , –, , etc.), as do dreams, which in myth, popular
belief and everywhere in Aeschylus are understood as coming from the Earth (Cho. –, –,
Eum. –; cf. Supp. –, Pers. –).
 emmanuela bakola

(Ag. ) and synonymous expressions (e.g. Ag. –; Ag.
)), dramatically portrays their function as avengers who come late but
do not fail to come. This is a crucial idea for Cratinus’ play, too, as we will
see.
cratinus’ chorus of plutoi and the erinyes of

the oresteia
In Cratinus’ Plutoi, a play reflecting on both justice and wealth, the
Aeschylean intertext is evoked very closely. Not only is the Oresteia’s general
theme of unjust wealth and its punishment turned into the main theme
of the comedy, but there are also striking affinities between the Plutoi of
Cratinus’ play and the Erinyes of the Oresteia. What is meant by ‘Erinyes’ –
it should be clear by now – is not only the chorus of the Eumenides, but
the entire image of the divinities across the trilogy, as they are conceived of
as avengers on behalf of the Earth and the natural order from Agamemnon
 and throughout the trilogy, and as their presence gradually increases
in intensity until they appear in reality. In relation to the Plutoi and the
Erinyes’ characterization and function we can thus say:
() Both the Erinyes and the Plutoi – who, crucially, combine the
identities of the king of the Underworld Plutos/Pluton, the tragic
Titans who emerge from the Underworld and the Hesiodic daimones
ploutodotai – are chthonic divinities who come from the depths of the
Earth and avenge the crime of unjust wealth. The surviving fragments
of Plutoi allow us to understand ‘unjust wealth’ only as unjust acquisi-
tiveness of material wealth, which, as we saw, is a salient notion in the
Oresteia – albeit not the entirety of what is meant by ‘wealth’. Nev-
ertheless, frr.  (*
!6 !: ‘a god sends
up for them self-generated blessings’) and  (see above) and possibly
frr.  and  suggest that wealth in Plutoi was explicitly viewed as
associated with the Earth. As a result, it is likely that ‘unjust wealth’
was portrayed as an act provoking the chthonic wrath of the Plutoi,
and hence as an abuse of the natural processes and the Earth as a whole,
as in the Oresteia and elsewhere in the Aeschylean corpus, notably the
Persians.
() Both the Plutoi and the Erinyes arrive late to execute their punitive
role: through the Prometheus Lyomenos intertext the Plutoi evoke the
centuries-long interval from their imprisonment in the Underworld
until their release. This seems to be a reworking of the portrayal of the
Erinyes, who are repeatedly characterized in terms of

Crime and punishment 
and synonymous expressions, and who appear on stage only after a
long and elaborate build-up throughout the trilogy. Ultimately, both
choruses enact the Solonian idea of late but unfailing punishment of
unjust wealth.
() In the Eumenides a new system of justice replaces the old one and it is
suggested that all crimes which in the past drew upon themselves the
retribution of the Erinyes will now be pursued and punished under a
new judicial system. The first prosecutors in this new system are still
the Erinyes, who are thus shown to retain their role as avengers of the
‘wealth of the Earth’. Nowhere else in drama apart from Cratinus’
Plutoi do we have a trial scene with the chorus as prosecutors, and in
the light of the previous correlations, this seems to be another strong
point of contact between Aeschylus and Cratinus: therefore, the trial
setting of the Oresteia is evoked in the agon (or one of the agonal scenes)
of the comedy, where the Plutoi strive for the punishment of unjust
wealth in Hagnon’s acquisition of wealth during his office.
() The Oresteia closes with a scene of an Athenian utopia, with the natural
order restored, dike redefined into the justice of law (which, under
the auspices of the Erinyes, coheres with the natural order), and the
Erinyes accepted in Athens as benevolent divinities and promising to
grant prosperity and riches to its people. We cannot be certain of
the ending of Plutoi, but it is interesting that no matter how much
commentators differ in other respects of its reconstruction, owing to
the generic tendency of comedy towards endings of a particular style,
there is a consensus that the final scene would have been one featuring
a utopia. The surviving fragments ,  and  (and possibly )
strongly enhance this likelihood, since their context may have been or
may have anticipated this final scene. Therefore, if the widely accepted
reconstruction of the ending of the Plutoi is correct, one can see that
Cratinus’ engagement with the Oresteia was probably sustained until
the end, since the comedy seems to allude even to the trilogy’s final
scene: the chthonic Plutoi, manifesting the benevolent side of their
nature and having ensured dike, grant, like the Aeschylean Erinyes (and
 In this trial this is primarily the human blood shed by Orestes (Eum. ). That here they defend the
mother’s blood is also paramount, because the notion of the ‘mother’ has meanwhile been merged
with the image of the ultimate female who generates and nurtures, the Earth (cf. Cho. ,
; , #!
6
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( / ; ,
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 See, most recently, Farioli : –, who discusses all previous studies. See also Ruffell :
–.
 emmanuela bakola
like the Hesiodic ploutodotai daimones), a wealth of natural abundance
and create a utopia.
cratinus and aeschylus i: the earth and elite wealth in

the oresteia and in plutoi
By exploring and explaining the consistent correlation of the chthonic
Erinyes with the concept of wealth, the reading outlined in this paper
suggests that the notion of the Earth has a far higher prominence in
the Aeschylean trilogy than has so far been allowed. A reconsideration of
earlier Aeschylean works such as the Persians and the Seven Against Thebes,
where the notions of the Earth, the chthonic powers and wealth are also
central (albeit in different forms and degrees), suggests that the Oresteia
may even have been the ultimate reworking of a concept which repeatedly
preoccupied the tragic poet. Cratinus’ response reveals an understanding
of the centrality of the chthonic element and its connection with wealth
in the Aeschylean trilogy – although the fragments do not allow us to
say with confidence how these notions may have been exploited further.
However, the likelihood that the element of the Earth was understood
as central in Aeschylean tragedy by fifth-century audiences more widely
is corroborated by another comedy, namely Aristophanes’ Frogs: in Frogs
‘Aeschylus’ is revealingly presented as a chthonic power manifesting his
wrath (a central concept in the religious understanding of the chthonic
world, and ubiquitous in the Oresteia) as a reaction of the natural forces,
but as also able to bestow blessings on human beings from the Underworld.
He thus embodies the very concept which was arguably central in many
Aeschylean works. Further research into other literature of the period will
probably confirm that the Oresteia did indeed trigger wider responses for
its engagement with a concern timely and poignant at all times.
Furthermore, Cratinus’ use of the discourse on wealth in the Oresteia –
and through the Oresteia, of its Hesiodic and Solonian precedents – reveals
 For the dramatic exploitation of wrath in Aeschylus, see e.g. Ag. –, –, , Cho. –, –,
–, –, –, –, –, , –, Eum. –, –, –, –, –, –,
–, –, –.
 Aeschylus’ striking portrayal in Frogs as a chthonic force (especially as the Typhon, cf. Ran.
–, –) and as a divinity of the Underworld who can bestow blessings to humanity (Ran.
) are extremely important and should not be missed. They are arguably a vivid manifestation
of the perception of Aeschylean tragedy as preoccupied with the Earth and its wealth.
 As argued in my forthcoming paper, in a deeply symbolic way, which in the Oresteia is mostly
expressed through the role of the Erinyes, man’s greed, abuse and destruction of wealth provokes
the reaction of the environment towards his actions and entangles him and the environment itself
in an increasingly destructive cycle for both sides.
Crime and punishment 
the fascinating response of a comedy to another perennial concern which
pervaded Greek societies and constituted a source of major cultural, social
and political developments: the balance between the elite’s striving for
increasing their wealth and power, on the one hand, and the voices of
resistance in the name of just order, on the other. This response corroborates
the reading of the Oresteia as an ideological attack on the aristocratic elite,
which has been argued by many scholars, most recently and with admirable
sharpness by P. W. Rose in Sons of the Gods, Children of Earth.
In the Oresteia Aeschylus adopted the perception of dike as expressed
by archaic sources, especially Solon and Hesiod, that is, as natural order
but with a strong economic dimension, and reshaped it in the light of the
particular political and socio-economic conditions of his own time: in the
still relatively young democracy of  the Oresteia reflected a continuing
anxiety over the role of the elite and their perennial competitive struggle for
wealth, prestige and of course power. The weight of the anxiety concerned
the traditional establishment of the old propertied families, the # 9

2
, something most poignantly suggested by the trilogy’s pervasive
emphasis on the powerful aristocratic emblem of the oikos, on the role of
inheritance (albeit as ‘inherited evil’ rather than ‘inherited excellence’) and
on the transmission of great wealth from generation to generation (e.g. Ag.
–; –). When allowed to disregard the order of dike – the Oresteia
suggested – the aristocracy tends to manifest its socially constructed and
traditionally reinforced ethos, above all its insatiable desire for more,
thereby breeding destructive injustices and plights for the community, and
for humanity as a whole. The ideological opposition of ‘ancestral’ to ‘newly
acquired’ wealth, which seems to have been a major concern in the aristo-
cratic discourse of archaic and classical times and is explicitly evoked in
Agamemnon –, was therefore ironized, because it was the traditional
 See, above all, P. W. Rose’s compelling analysis of the Oresteia (: –, –) as an ideological
attack on the aristocracy and the inherited and socially reinforced ethos of the oikoi. For a similar
approach see Winnigton-Ingram : . Contra M. Griffith .
 Cf. Thgn. –, –, –, –; cf. –, –, –, –, –, – W ;
Alc.  Voigt; Simon. Tg. The economic developments and the social mobility generated by
the expansion of trade, the overseas settlement, the developments in agriculture and the violent
intra-elite rivalry during the archaic period made the nouveaux riches a considerable threat for the
old elite, as the former increasingly sought a share in power. Cf. O. Murray : –, –; de
Ste Croix : –. In Athens this social phenomenon is reflected, above all, in Solon’s reforms
of the class structure and hence the eligibility for office-holding on the basis of income: cf. Foxhall
. Even if the newly wealthy did not constitute a significant percentage of the elite during the
archaic period, what matters is that (as the literary sources suggest) the hereditary elite’s perception
of them was that of a real threat. For a different account of the intra-elite struggles in archaic Greece,
see Van Wees .
 emmanuela bakola
aristocratic classes – the ‘children of Earth’ – who were effectively cast in a
negative light. In the context of the decisive changes which the Ephialtean
reforms had only recently brought for the role of the aristocratic clans,
the Oresteia seemed to pass a historical judgement. The anxiety over the
role of aristocratic wealth and its concomitant psyche was in the trilogy
brilliantly interwoven with ecological reflections, philosophy, Greek cult
and the Erinyes.
In Plutoi Cratinus responds to the concerns of his own times by evoking
and recontextualizing salient aspects of the Oresteia, namely the voices of
criticism against the elite, the old discourse about hereditary wealth, as well
as the cultural, social and political context of the tragic trilogy. In particular,
he brings to the fore the conflict between the elite’s perceived greed and the
polis’s aspiration to just order. However, the basis of the anxiety that Plutoi
reflects and plays on is a different one from that of the Oresteia: as has been
shown elsewhere, Plutoi presupposes the events surrounding the decree of
Dracontides (Plut. Per. .–) and the deposition of Pericles from strategia
in the late summer or autumn of . More precisely, it draws on the
climate – before and immediately after the outbreak of the Peloponnesian
War – of public disquiet, accusations and trials against individuals from
the circle of Pericles, especially those who were perceived to have enriched
themselves with public resources: Pericles himself, Phidias and Hagnon.
The ultimate target of those orchestrated attacks against Pericles and his
circle was clearly the statesman’s policy concerning the war. If what has
survived from Plutoi is representative of the comedy’s overall political tone,
the discourse on #
2
(Plutoi fr. .–) which dominates
the surviving part of Hagnon’s trial, and the opposition of ‘ancestral’ to
‘new’ wealth (Plutoi fr. .–; cf. Ag. –) are suggestive. As we will
see, like the Oresteia, Plutoi ironizes the opposition of ancestral and new
wealth; by extending the argument of the Oresteia, however, and by abiding
by the generic prejudices of the comic genre, it charges both types of wealth
with violation of dike, criminalizes and condemns them. Both are seen as
 For the concept of autochthony as connected with aristocratic nobility, and later appropriated by
the democratic civic ideology, see Loraux : –; Thomas : –. The concept of ‘land’,
more narrowly, was central to the aristocratic ideal and rhetoric which disparaged ‘new’ wealth, as
the principal landowners were the hereditary ruling aristocrats. Both ideas arguably underlie the
concept of the Oresteia.
 On Ag. –, P. W. Rose :  aptly comments that ‘the relation of vast wealth and disaster
evokes metaphorically, on the one hand, the natural process of a cycle of growth, reproduction,
aging, and death, and on the other the social institution of the aristocratic family that perverts that
natural process’ but does not take this comment any further. However, this concept can be shown
to have a pervasive significance in the entire trilogy.
 See Bakola : –.
Crime and punishment 
ultimately parasitic on the polis in that the elite collectively are guilty of
exploiting the city for their own personal ends.
The concept of ‘inherited excellence’, with its credentials of ‘noble birth’
and ‘hereditary wealth’, died hard even in the circumstances of radical
democracy of the last decades of the fifth century. Old comedy makes
interesting uses of this perception in order to serve and maximize its pop-
ular appeal. The topical background of Plutoi outlined above suggests
that Cratinus was disparaging the superiority attached to the concept of
‘ancestral wealth’. Our sources, including comedy, suggest that Pericles’
aristocratic lineage and vast hereditary wealth were ubiquitous in his public
profile and its disparagement. Given the circumstances of Pericles’ depo-
sition from office and the overall theme of the play, it is very likely that
Plutoi exploited the fact that the #
2
Pericles was understood
to have been charged with
and punished. Furthermore, Hagnon’s
claimed identity as #
2
(whether he was one or not) and the
line of defence attached to this claim (fr. .–) are disparaged just as
much, since the mere characterization #
2
puts Hagnon on a
par with Pericles: Hagnon, it is claimed, is an #
2
only as a

2@ who enriched himself 5 #, an ambiguous expression which
in this context is understood most fittingly as ‘from his office’, or – as is
also suitable in Hagnon’s case – ‘from the empire’, thus undercutting the
intended meaning ‘from the beginning’. However, comedy does not stop
at the disparagement of ancestral wealth: for comedy all wealth is criminal,
especially when it is in the hands of public officials. By evoking Theognis’
 See Ober : –. Arist. Rh. a and Eth. Nic. b are our principal sources for the lasting
appeal of the aristocratic credentials over new wealth.
 Thus comedy most often disparages the newly rich politicians (e.g. Ar. Knights; Cratin. frr. , )
by playing on the popular anxiety about their lack of the credentials of the class which traditionally
provided the city with its leaders. A direct reflection of the popular appeal of the aristocratic ideal
‘wealth-cum-birth’ is found in Eup. fr. , but one should be aware that comedy never praises
wealthy politicians if they are in office, and indeed if they are alive (regardless of the origin of their
wealth). In Aristophanes’ Wealth it is alleged that it is inconceivable to be wealthy without being a
criminal.
 Pericles’ aristocratic ancestry and wealth in public perception: Plut. Per. ., esp. ,
(
-> Z
,
I (cf. .–); Pericles as choregos: IG ii .; hypothesis to Aesch.
Pers.; estates: Thuc. ... His lineage figured prominently in comic satire: for example, the frequent
jokes about his cranial deformity (Cratin. fr. , , ; Telecl. fr. ; Eup. fr. ; cf. Plut. Per.
.–) certainly aimed at the ‘kalos’ element of the kalos kagathos aristocratic ideal.
 It is not clear whether Hagnon came from an aristocratic oikos or not, as we do not know anything
about his father, Nicias. See Pesely ; Davies, APF  and  (on Theramenes).
 This interpretation of the word was suggested to me by R. Rawles.
 A central argument, for example, in Aristophanes’ Wealth: see Sommerstein : . See also
Knights, etc.
 emmanuela bakola
disdainful characterization -
 and the contempt attached to ‘new
money’ from the point of view of ‘inherited wealth’, the Plutoi suggest that
Hagnon’s wealth is in fact acquired – which in the comedy of the s
(and thereafter) automatically equals dubious financial practices. Whether
inherited or new, it is therefore implied that wealth is equally corrupt and
criminal. That Athens needs to rid itself of the individuals who abuse pub-
lic money to serve their own interests is the ‘message’ of Plutoi – which at
the time would have played well on the Athenian populace mostly affected
by the misfortunes of the war. The Erinyes come from the depths of the
Earth once again, in the guise of Plutoi, as a salient strand of the Oresteia
once again reminds people of the dangers of unjust wealth.
cratinus and aeschylus ii: cratinean poetics, and plutoi

between comedy and aeschylean tragedy
Plutoi, as we saw, engages with and ‘attacks’ the idea of elite wealth by
appropriating and recontextualizing the very important discourse on class
of the tragic trilogy. Once again, therefore, comedy takes a distinctly pop-
ulist stance and flags its self-fashioning as a defender of the interests of the
demos and as a genre that appeals to the masses by opposing the hegemonic
order. What is very interesting in the case of Plutoi is that it does so by
alluding to the voice of the Oresteia, a work whose anti-hegemonic stance
is wrought, as suggested above, on multiple levels: dramaturgy, imagery,
thematic motifs, characterization and ideas – beyond the (much debated)
political statement of the end of Eumenides. Cratinus both alludes to and
subtly adjusts the Aeschylean presentation, in that his elite (in reflection
both of the shifting dynamics of power in the evolving democracy and
also the comic stance toward politicians as a class) are a more fluid group
than those of Aeschylus. Cratinus’ reception of the Oresteia, therefore, is an
active one, since it reworks salient aspects of the Aeschylean positioning.
Crucially, his stance is enhanced by the allusions to Solon’s elegies and Hes-
iod’s Works and Days, works which, notwithstanding the complexity of the
discourse which they advance – especially in relation to their socio-political
context – have also been felt to express anti-hegemonic voices.
Cratinus’ engagement with Aeschylus’ Oresteia, therefore, significantly
enhances our knowledge of his poetic programme and self-presentation. In
the context of comic competition, and even before he entered the rivalry
 Thgn. fr.  W -

’ V#
2 ,
’ !@ !>!: cf. Cerri :  n. .
 Contra Farioli : –, who argues that Plutoi reveals Cratinus’ aristocratic bias.
 For a different view on the class discourse in the Oresteia, see M. Griffith .
Crime and punishment 
with Aristophanes, Cratinus presented himself as the ‘old and inspired’
master of comedy by appropriating the perception of ‘Aeschylus’ in the
fifth century. He also engaged repeatedly with Aeschylean works, such as
Hiketides, Eumenides, the satyr drama Theoroi or Isthmiastai and probably
others. Finally, depending on whether the Prometheus trilogy was per-
ceived as genuinely Aeschylean by its original audiences, Cratinus’ return
to it in two of his plays (Seriphioi and Plutoi) may also suggest that his pre-
occupation with the master of tragedy was remarkably extensive. With
his persistent focus on poetics, one of the prevalent elements of Crati-
nus’ Aeschylean preoccupation seems to have been the appropriation of
the status of a classic, as Aeschylean tragedy was perceived in the time
of Cratinus. In Plutoi, however, Cratinus’ interests seem to have gone
even further and drawn on the political facets of Aeschylean tragedy for
his self-presentation: thus, by presenting his comedy as making a bold
statement against the elite order of wealth and privilege and, conversely,
as creating an imaginary utopia of justice and wealth for the benefit of
the wider community, Cratinus may have striven to give an explicitly
political-ideological position to his comedy which complicates his overall
self-potrayal. As opposed to the elitist inclinations which the presentation
of his poetics may have implied, but in line with his Archilochean persona
and its concern for the community, Cratinus seems to have fashioned
himself alongside Aeschylus to form a pair of politically engaged drama-
tists and especially champions of the demos and the community.
 See above, n. .
 No ancient source doubts the Aeschylean authorship of the Prometheus trilogy. For West’s attractive
hypothesis that it was produced as a genuine work of Aeschylus posthumously by someone else,
such as his son Euphorion, see above, n. . For the [Aesch.] PV and Cratin. Seriphioi see Bakola
: –.
 For such utopias of supernatural abundance as expressions of radical popular idealism, see Ruffell
: –.
 See Bakola : –.
c h ap t er 1 0
From Achilles’ horses to a cheese-seller’s shop

On the history of the guessing game in Greek drama
Marco Fantuzzi and David Konstan
Pseudo-Euripides’ Rhesus – would seem to be the longest and formally

most clear example of what we are calling a guessing game known to us from
archaic and classical poetry – the guessing game consisting in a bantering
exchange between two people in dialogue whose aim is to disclose some
kind of information by a progressive series of guesses. Instead of a simple
sequence of question and direct answer, one of the interlocutors who knows
the answer, or at all events imposes his answer as the truth in the end, guides
the other in formulating guesses, or else criticizes false guesses, until the
uninformed interlocutor finally catches on or the information is revealed
to him.
The Rhesus passage consists of a long stichomythia, framed by an intro-
ductory distich (–), in which Hector agrees to Dolon’s request to obtain
a reward for the spy mission he has agreed to undertake in the camp of
the Greeks, and asks him to choose this reward, and a concluding distich
(–), in which Dolon finally states that he wants Achilles’ horses. The
frame provides all the information which is necessary to the context (the
distichs – and –, read one after another, make complete sense for
the scenic action to continue), and the stichomythia itself, which, as a
consequence of the ‘autonomy’ of the frame is highlighted as a stylistic
device, is a sort of priamel, in which Hector suggests several alternative
prizes, and Dolon rejects them one after another until Hector runs out of
ideas. Only at this point does Hector give up guessing and poses a direct
question (), and this occasions Dolon’s final answer, which brings the
stichomythia to an end:
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(Hector) Yes, that is quite right, I cannot deny it. Name your reward –
anything except my kingship. (Dolon) I have no desire to be the city’s
protector and king like you. (He.) Well then, marry and become brother-in-
law of Priam)s sons. (Do.) I do not want a marriage tie with my betters. (He.)
Perhaps you will ask for gold: we have plenty of that. (Do.) I have money
at home and do not lack livelihood. (He.) Well what of Ilium)s treasures do
you desire? (Do.) Promise me a gift once we destroy the Greeks. (He.) I will
give you anything you ask except the admirals. (Do.) Kill away! I won’t beg
you to spare Menelaus! (He.) Surely you are not asking to receive the son of
Oileus? (Do.) The hands of those nobly nurtured are bad at farming. (He.)
Which of the Achaeans do you want to hold to ransom? (Do.) I have said
already that I have gold in my house. (He.) You can come yourself and take
some of the booty. (Do.) Nail it to the temples in honor of the gods! (He.)
Well what greater gift than these will you ask me for? (Do.) The horses of
Achilles: it is right for me to work and risk my life in the dice game of fate
for a prize that is worthy (trans. Kovacs ).
In this chapter we propose to reconsider the unstudied history of the
guessing game in comedy and what seems to be its pre-history in tragedy.
We will also exhibit similarities between the Rhesus passage and lines –
of Menander’s Perikeiromene, with a view to achieving a better understand-
ing not only of the complex generic status of the Rhesus (an epic tragedy
with a smattering of comic innuendos), but also of Menander’s conception
 The evidence for the massive presence of comic hints in the Rhesus is well discussed by Burnett  –
though we do not agree with her conclusion that the Rhesus would therefore be a sort of farcical
satyr drama, and we prefer to think that this tragedy reflects an overlap between tragedy and comedy
along the lines of Menandrean comedy (see below).
 marco fantuzzi and david konstan
of comedy’s relation to its neighbouring genre, with particular reference
to Old Comedy and to the epic-tragic features specific to the Rhesus. This
intertextual relationship will turn out also to be part of a larger pattern in
the history of the guessing-game topos, which achieves its fullest expression
in Aristophanes but seems to have been a recognizable Euripidean device –
as Aristophanes himself appears to acknowledge.
The guessing game in the Rhesus has no direct antecedent in the brief
dialogue between Hector and Dolon in Iliad .–. It is first attested in
some short series of false guesses or assumptions which occur fairly often
in Euripides’ tragedies, especially in his early and mature productions
(see in particular Alc. –, –, Med. –, Hipp. –, Hec.
–). Almost all of these examples pertain to dialogues between two
characters, one more in the know and the other less so, and typically involve
exceptionally bad news that is broken by the better-informed character to
the other; they are thus evidently designed to rouse pity in the audience.
The function of this device has recently been well described:
the strategy was as follows: through their initial false guesses the uninformed
characters reveal, also to the audience, the bad things they can off-handedly think
of, once they have grasped that something bad has happened. However, what
really occurred is always worse than what they were able to imagine. This way
it is conveyed to the audience just how terrible, how devastating the news is for
the unknowing character (often the victim). What has happened – this is the
impression that is created – was literally ‘unthinkable’.
Thus, for instance, in the first Alcestis passage Heracles inquires who has
died in the household; the surprise comes at line , when Admetus
informs his guest that Alcestis is both alive and not alive – an unimag-
inable combination (more below on this passage, and its possible parody
in Aristophanes’ Acharnians). In the second passage Heracles learns that
Admetus entertained him despite the death of his own wife – this is an
unimaginable climax for Heracles (not for the audience, of course), since
he had supposed, reasonably enough on the basis of what Admetus had told
him, that the death involved a foreigner and not an intimate of Admetus’
household. And in the Medea () Jason learns that it is his own children
whom Medea has slain – the one thing he had failed to guess.
The guessing game takes the form, however, of a more fully rounded
riddling repartee and thus becomes a clearly recognizable motif, only in
comedy and in the Rhesus ascribed to Euripides. The expansion of the
guessing debate seems to be a function of the comic possibilities of this
 All discussed by Dubischar  (i).  Dubischar  (i): .
The guessing game in Greek drama 
form of dialogue; the more or less extended reiteration of false guesses and
assumptions, combined with a persistent misunderstanding and a certain
pretension to being able to divine the truth, are especially conducive to
humour and belong to the common strategy of refusal of the ‘ordered
communication’ which is typical of comic poetics, and more specifically
of its taste for riddles, derived from sympotic practice. More particularly,
the shift from the self-consciously tentative guesses of Euripidean characters
to bolder assumptions, which seem reasonable but unexpectedly turn out to
be false, takes place first and foremost in Aristophanes: the most prominent
instances of the guessing game are in his comedies Acharnians –,
Wasps – and Frogs –. As for the Rhesus, this development was, we
argue, probably influenced by its particular intersection with comedy, an
effect already noticeable in late fifth-century tragedy and which plausibly
increased in the course of the fourth century. In fact, despite the thesis that
the Rhesus belongs to the youth of Euripides, we consider it more probable
that it was the work of an imitator in the fourth century, when the popular
fortune of Euripides and the frequency of revivals gave rise not only to
a vast number of minor interpolations in his text, but also to the ample
additions to the anapaestic dialogue at the beginning of the Iphigenia in
Aulis. In any case it is odd to suppose, we believe, that a young Euripides
knew and adopted in the Rhesus the expanded form of the guessing game,
for which we have evidence only from Aristophanes’ Acharnians onwards,
but in the other tragedies of his maturity never resorted again to this fully
developed device and only exploited the shorter series of false assumptions
which we have discussed above – unless we are prepared to accept the
idea that the Rhesus was conceived by the young Euripides as a kind of
semi-comical farce, and hence especially open to comic techniques; but
this view has never met with substantial favour.
From the way in which Aristophanes manipulates two of his instances
of the guessing game, he seems to have considered it a paratragic motif
with a specifically Euripidean flavour. Acharnians – and Frogs –
 See most recently Kloss : ch. .
 Cf. Lada-Richards : –; Konstantakos .  See below, p.  and n. .
 This was the main thesis of Ritchie , promptly and authoritatively refuted by Fraenkel .
 Cf. most recently Olson : –.
 For instance, developing a suggestion recently re-proposed by Kovacs : –, our Rhesus may
have been mistaken for the by then lost Rhesus of Euripides and could thus fill the slot of this title in
the pre-Hellenistic collection of the works of the fifth-century tragedian (after all from the hypothesis
ii we have fragments from two different prologues, whereas the text which has reached us through the
manuscripts lacks the prologue). This prompt inclusion would be especially plausible if our Rhesus
was by a fourth-century interpolator, who paid special attention to indulging the tastes of the theatre
audience – a ‘professional’ attention which Euripides’ interpolators observed as a rule: see Page .
 marco fantuzzi and david konstan
are manifestly paratragic passages, and both allude explicitly to Euripides.
In Acharnians – Dicaeopolis has decided to speak in defence of the
Spartans in front of the chorus of old Acharnians, and hence he wishes to
dress in the most miserable rags so as to elicit their pity (2! )
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– it is clear that he has some specific tragedy
in mind, and Euripides starts guessing who the most wretched character
in his tragedies might be:
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(Dicaeopolis) I entreat you by your knees, Euripides, give me a bit of rag
from that old play of yours. I have got to make a long speech to the chorus,
and if my speech fails it means death. (Euripides) Which ragged raiment?
 A brief series of guesses, in which, however, there is no precise piece of information to be revealed,
also occurs in the dialogue between Euripides and his in-law in Thesm. –: (c)

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j (‘(In-law) What Agathon is that? (Euripides) There is one Agathon. (In.) You don’t mean the
bronzed, muscular one? (Eu.) No, a different one; haven’t you ever seen him? (In.) Not the one with
the bushy beard? (Eu.) You haven’t ever seen him! (In.) I certainly haven’t – at least not that I know
of. (Eu.) And yet you have fucked him – but perhaps you are not aware of the fact!’). If this set
of wrong assumptions by the In-law in fact intimates the structure of the guessing game, then this
quasi-guessing game of Aristophanes too would feature Euripides as a character. The difference here
is that the guesses yield no conclusion, since it is impossible to state which is the real appearance of
the tragic poet Agathon.
The guessing game in Greek drama 
Not that wherein this ill-fated ancient, Oeneus, performed? (Di.) It wasn’t
from Oeneus, it was from someone even more wretched. (Eu.) That of
blind Phoenix? (Di.) Not of Phoenix, no: there was someone else more
wretched than Phoenix. (Eu.) Whatever shreds of robing doth the fellow
seek? – Then meanest thou that of beggar Philoctetes? (Di.) No, someone
much, much more beggarly than him. (Eu.) Desirest thou then the squalid
garb this lame Bellerophon bore? (Di.) Not Bellerophon; but my man was
lame, importunable, glib, a formidable speaker. (Eu.) I know the man; ’tis
Mysian Telephus. (Di.) Yes, Telephus. Give me his wrappings, I beg you
(trans. Sommerstein a).
His first four guesses fail to identify the all-time winner in Dicaeopolis’
hierarchy of wretched attire, but in the end he hits the target and realizes
that Dicaeopolis wants the rags of Telephus (Aristophanes will return in
several later comedies to making fun of this drama: in the Acharnians,
Telephus not only is a ‘double’ of Dicaeopolis, but becomes a foil for
Aristophanes as well and for the poetics of comedy). This round-up of
Euripidean tragic characters, delivered by Euripides himself but directed
by the comic character Dicaeopolis, is a clear case of paratragedy, among
other reasons because it is tailored to the specific dialogue structure of
the guessing game, which was perceived, we are arguing, as a Euripidean
stylistic device. Indeed, if enough members of Aristophanes’ audience
were conscious of Euripides’ penchant for this motif, which is already
manifest in tragedies produced prior to the Acharnians, the comic effect
of this scene would have been considerably enhanced. As Euripides fails
in his first self-confident assumptions concerning which of his dramatic
characters is the most wretched of them all, the guessing game ‘not only
mocks the tragic poet’s propensity for these pathetic figures but wants his
audience to consider the range of tragic models available to him and to
pay special attention to the apt choice of Telephus’. At the same time,
Aristophanes appears to hint at the Euripidean copyright of the guessing
game, with a precise parodic purpose. Not only does he feature Euripides as
the unfortunate conjecturer, but he also introduces the scene of his guessing
game by having Euripides’ slave answer Dicaeopolis’ very simple question
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(‘He is at home and not at home’, Ach. ). This is
doubtless a paratragic allusion to the paradoxical statements in oxymoronic
 Cf. Foley  (useful specifications in Heath b: – and A. M. Bowie : –); Goldhill
: –; N. W. Slater : –; Beta a; Brockmann : –; Voelke : –.
 Foley : ; see also N. W. Slater :  and Olson : .
 marco fantuzzi and david konstan
form which are typical of Euripides, and in particular of his Alcestis, a
play which is fond of playing with the identity of opposites. In fact one
of these paradoxical statements in Euripides is Admetus’ reply – %

*") % (‘She is and is no more’) – to Heracles’ question
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alive?’, Alc. –), precisely at the conclusion of one of the false guesses
in an early tragedy of Euripides (as discussed briefly above). By exposing
the Euripidean lineage, the guessing game of the Acharnians turns out to
mock a device of Euripides’ style by making it (and its author) a butt of
Dicaeopolis’ (and Aristophanes’) wit. The comic poet who, in the Frogs,
could make Aeschylus wait in silence as a way of caricaturing his dramatic
practice with his protagonists (on which Euripides will then comment
explicitly) was perfectly capable, even at the beginning of his career, of
making Euripides participate in the role of hapless diviner in the game that
he himself had invented, but which is now being controlled by the comic
actor who is in many respects a stand-in for Aristophanes himself.
In Frogs – Dionysus confesses to Heracles that his heart has been
struck by a sudden longing (!
), and Heracles tries to conjecture what
it may be for:
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 Cf. L. P. E. Parker : , who comments: ‘Aristophanes was prompt in spotting Euripides’
fondness for this type of paradox.’
 Cf. Gianotti .
 Another evident reference to Euripides encapsulates the guessing game in ring composition. In fact
Ach. –, 5 #6 L
, | L ' . , E ! ' (‘for
I this day must seem to be a beggar, be who I am and yet appear not so’) quotes, according to
Triclinius, a passage of the Telephus where the protagonist commented on his attire to the audience
(TrGF .) – ‘a quotation which involves an obvious metaliterary element, as “who I am” is not
merely the disguised Telephus, not only the disguised Dicaeopolis, but the dramatically disguised
comic poet as well’ (Hubbard : ). The density of the references in the Acharnians of  bc to
the Telephus, a tragedy which was performed thirteen years before, leads us to wonder how many
members of the audience could have recognized all these allusions. It is possible that the Athenians
had the memory of the Telephus refreshed in some re-performance of this piece between  and
 bc and could perceive the details of Aristophanes’ paratragedy, but in any case most members
of the audience will have laughed at least when perceiving high-flown language of tragedy taken
down to the low everyday level of comedy: cf. Foley : ; Collard, Cropp and Lee : –;
MacDowell : ; Olson : liv–lxi; in general on the recognizability of allusions in comedy
and tragedy see Stinton  =  and (with different emphases on the orality/writtenness of
the tragic texts presupposed by Aristophanes’ reuse) Mastromarco , ; Nieddu : ch. ;
Konstan : –.
The guessing game in Greek drama 
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(Dionysus) And, anyway, on the ship I was reading Andromeda to myself,
and suddenly my heart was struck with a longing, you can’t imagine how
hard. (Heracles) A longing? how big a longing? (Di.) Only a little one – the
size of Molon. (He.) For a woman? (Di.) No, it wasn’t. (He.) Then for a
boy? (Di.) No, by no means. (He.) You mean it was for a man? (Di.) Aaaah!
(He.) So you had it off with Cleisthenes, did you? (Di.) Don’t make fun
of me, brother; I really am in a bad way, such is the passion that’s ravaging
me. (He.) What kind of passion, brother dear? (Di.) I can’t describe it; but
none the less I’ll explain it to you by analogy. Have you, before now, ever
felt a sudden desire for a lentil soup? (He.) Lentil soup? Whew: thousands
of times in my life! (Di.) ‘Do I make my sense clear’, or shall I explain
it some other way? (He.) Not about lentil soup, you needn’t. I understand
perfectly. (Di.) Well, that is the kind of yearning that is devouring me for –
Euripides.
After excluding Heracles’ suppositions that the object of his desire is
a woman, a boy, a man, or – a lentil soup! – Dionysus finally reveals
that his craving is for the dead Euripides: once more, not the kind of
thing the audience, or Heracles, would naturally have divined. Again, the
humour of this passage would be more pregnant if Euripides’ copyright on
such dialogues based on false assumptions and the progressive revelation
of the true answer was widely recognized by at least some of the more
astute members of the audience. The unveiling of the object of Dionysus’
 The first or (less probably) the second hemistich of the line is a quotation from Euripides’ Hypsipyle:
TrGF ..
 marco fantuzzi and david konstan
longing, Euripides, thus takes place over the course of a dialogue shaped
as guessing game, in a sort of homage to its ‘inventor’ Euripides, which
would be parallel to the homage paid to him by Dionysus’ love – and
Aristophanes’ own – at verse  through the quotation from Euripides’
Hypsipyle. We may, moreover, add one further detail to the pattern, as
Aristophanes manipulates it. Heracles has already himself offered a kind
of bathetic version of the surprise or inconceivable answer, when he tops
off the sequence of passion for a boy and a woman with the suggestion
that it may be for a man. Dionysus’ reaction (, ) is in part one
of distress, because his desire, though not sexual, is in fact for a grown
man, and Heracles’ guess, ) , ‘touches him on the raw’; but
Dionysus’ is also a cry of repudiation para prosdokian of the idea
of a homosexual passion, since one did not normally, in Athenian society,
acknowledge an erotic desire for an adult male, an . Dionysus then
adduces the desire for lentil soup, though only by way of comparison:
such a passion Heracles understands at once and supposes that this is what
Dionysus longs for, only to be informed, finally, that Euripides is the object
of his desire (). Therefore, after the crescendo represented by woman,
boy, and man – all plausibly objects of erotic desire, even if the last is not
entirely respectable, and almost paradoxical – there is the sudden drop in
level to lentil soup, topped off at last with the big shocker, the tragedian
Euripides. This shift in direction depends on the idea that there are, after all,
at least some ‘low’ physical pleasures of everyday life – in this case the value
of food – which are commonly shared, always thinkable and always and
unarguably desired (even when they are not the primary concern, everyone
is interested in them). Therefore it may serve also as a sort of sign of the
poetics of comedy, which is marked, as Bakhtin already observed, by a
preoccupation with bodily functions – a deft touch by which Aristophanes
innovates on the intimation of the unthinkable, patented by Euripides.
Though not manifestly pointing to its Euripidean ‘pre-history’ (Euripi-
des is not involved in the scene as a character), Wasps – appears to
be at least in tune with the Euripidean technique of false guesses. Having
indicated that his master is suffering from a strange malady, Xanthias, in
dialogue with Sosias, pretends that members of the audience are conjec-
turing the nature of the disease (passion for dicing, passion for drinking,
passion for sacrificing, passion for entertaining): Xanthias acts as though
 Though a hint of comic humour surfaces in Aristophanes’ text, thanks to the discrepancy between
high tragic register and ordinary life content. On this coexistence of homage and comic humour,
see already Van Leeuwen : .
 Dover : .  See now Wilkins .
The guessing game in Greek drama 
he hears their remarks and replies to them, while Sosias comments on
them. Alternatively, Xanthias imagines a series of incorrect guesses by
members of the audience before he reveals the actual sickness that afflicts
Bdelycleon’s father – that is, a passion for the courts: whatever else one
might have imagined, a mania for trials exceeds all expectation. Now, at
lines – Xanthias introduces the guessing game with a brief description
of what the procedure will be and describes the news about to be imparted
in a way that seems to reflect a metaliterary awareness of its unthinkability,
precisely the feature which Euripides’ series of false guesses often appear to
convey:

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His father, you see, suffers from a bizarre sickness, which no one here will
be able to recognize or diagnose unless we tell you. Go ahead, take a guess.
Among the many types of possible comic effect which might be trig-
gered by a series of wrong assumptions (e.g. emphasizing the stupidity of
the conjecturer), both in this metaliterary preface and in the course of
the guessing game proper, Aristophanes seems to focus specifically on the
exceptional strangeness or unpredictability of the news to be delivered,
thus in tune with Euripides’ practice.
After Aristophanes, a much briefer instance of the guessing game occurs
in Menander’s Perikeiromene –, which again would most probably be
a case of paratragodia, as it seems to allude to the Rhesus, and thus point
once more in the direction of Euripides, or at least to a text that at a certain
point was acknowledged as Euripidean. At the beginning of the second
act Moschion enters the stage with his slave Daos. Even though Daos has
had nothing to do with the decision of Glycera (with whom Moschion is
infatuated) to leave Polemon’s house and move into the house of Myrrhine,
where Moschion also lives (he is Myrrhine’s foster son), the slave boasts
and takes credit for organizing the move of Glycera, who – he pretends –
made this move just to be near Moschion. He thus starts a discussion about
the reward he should receive for his initiative (–):
 The MSS are not coherent at this point in defining the changes of speaker, and a few commentators,
following the ancient scholia, have assigned the whole passage to a single character, Xanthias.
 The Rhesus has reached us as part of the corpus Euripideum and was listed ‘as a genuine work’ in the
Peripatetic Didascaliai, as reported in the hypothesis ii prefaced to the tragedy in some manuscripts –
though the same hypothesis also states that ‘some have supposed that this play is spurious and not
a work of Euripides’.
 marco fantuzzi and david konstan
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(Daos) If it is true, though, and you find her in the house here, Moschion,
I am the man who has engineered it all on your behalf, the man who
persuaded her to come here, drafting countless arguments, and who has got
your mother now to grant her refuge, and to meet all your wishes. So what is
to become of me? (Mo.) What sort of life, see now, Daos, most of all attracts
you? Ponder that. (Da.) I do. Is it best to be a miller? (Mo., probably aside)
Daos here will make his way any day now to the mill! (Da.) Do not name
an art or craft to us! (Mo.) I should like to see you as an overlord of Greek
affairs and a marshal of land forces . . . (Da.) I do not care for mercenaries,
who will promptly cut my throat for any theft, if given the chance. (Mo.)
But you will thieve (?) by farming contracts, that is the way you will secretly
pocket seven talents out of every eight. (Da.) A general store, Moschion,
The guessing game in Greek drama 
is what I would like, or in the market on a stool selling cheese. I swear I
have no desire to be a millionaire. That is my line, I find it more attractive.
(Mo.) It is a wicked plan. I recall the proverb: ‘let me never meet a pious
hag selling honey’ (?). (Da.) A full belly – that is attractive, and I claim I
deserve it, after what I have told you. (Mo.) By Zeus, you are no fool, Daos!
Sell your cheese, and work your fingers to the bone. (Da.) That is fine. As
the proverb goes: ‘let us say amen to that’, etc. (the texts and all trans. of
Menander are from Arnott ).
At lines – Daos asks Moschion what he will now become (

%
[ ], ), thanks to the service he has performed for his master –
the question opens a short debate, a sort of priamel of the perfect reward,
similar to the one discussed in the Rhesus, though the scope of the rewards
is from the beginning comically exaggerated by Daos, and the perspective
of a drastic change of life seems playfully fantastic. Moschion pretends
to engage seriously with this issue, and instead of openly proposing a
reward or approving a reward suggested by Daos, he begins the discussion
by questioning his slave: [ ] /
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" ; (–). At this point Daos as well might have answered simply
by stating his preference, without beating around the bush, as Dolon does
when questioned by Hector in Iliad . But Menander prefers to set up a
dialogic exchange, so that two possible kinds of life are proffered by one
of the two characters (unfortunately, the distribution of the lines between
the two is uncertain) and rejected or commented on in turn either by the
speaker who mentioned each of them or by his interlocutor. The result
is a series of two exchanges – proposal and negation or criticism – which
essentially constitute guessing games in miniature.
First of all Moschion, or more probably Daos, suggests that Daos might
become a miller (2!, ), but in a scornful comment (perhaps
 This question doubtless reminded the audience of a favourite philosophical topic of conversation
concerning the best-possible life (often that of the tyrant was the ostensible winner, only to be
revealed as the worst of the lot: cf. the end of Plato’s Republic, Xenophon’s Hieron, etc.).
 It is common opinion, after Schmidt : , and Gomme and Sandbach : , that the first
suggestion should come from Daos about his future life, after Moschion’s invitation (b–)
to ponder the issue; of course, as already pointed out by Schmidt, this idea implies that Daos
would practise a sort of self-irony on himself, as turning the grindstone was a common punishment
for miscreant slaves (also mentioned in Men. Her. ). There is a possibly analogous case of such
self-irony in Aspis b–a, where again the uncertain distribution of lines leaves it unclear who
is speaking (according to the papyrus the speaker seems to be the waiter; but, for instance in J.-M.
Jacques’ text, the lines are ascribed to Daos): cf. Konstan ().
 2! can mean to be the overseer of a mill (cf. Gomme and Sandbach :  ‘if the
suggestion that he should manage a mill comes from Daos, a counter-suggestion by Moschion ()
that he should “manage the affairs of the Greeks” would follow effectively’). But Daos may simply
 marco fantuzzi and david konstan
an aside) Moschion affirms (b–a) that it would rather suit Daos,
as a slave, to be sent to turn the grindstone as a punishment. Daos replies
that in any case he wants nothing to do with a professional manual craft
("#) of any kind. Moschion then suggests, as an alternative, that Daos
might become an ‘overlord of Greek affairs and a marshal of land forces’
(–) – clearly a superior kind of occupation, and surely beyond the
reach of a slave such as Daos; in other words, this is already a kind of
crescendo in the direction of an implausible glory. But Daos refuses this
other possibility as well, because he fears that he will be killed – if he is
caught stealing (). There is again an instance of para prosdokian here.
As a military man, Daos might have risked death, of course, and it is even
possible that historical events made Daos’ fear quite justifiable: behind
Moschion’s description of the career he proposes to Daos, and Daos’ own
fear, may lie a memory of the murder of Alexander son of Polyperchon,
who was elected 6 [

2 by Cassander in  bc
and soon after was killed by a group of Sicyonians. However that may
be, as the second hemistich of  reveals, Daos’ thoughts are on the
level of disburser of goods or paymaster; still, even the prospect of profit,
which Moschion points out as an advantage of the military role he has
recommended (–a), is rejected by Daos, who ignores the idea and
puts forward his own preferred profession, which belongs to a completely
different and much lower social register. For Daos in the end proposes that
he become a retailer (as distinct from a craftsman) – either the owner of a
general store or a cheese-seller, as he suggests immediately afterwards, in a
sort of further humiliating anticlimax. He motivates his humble choice
by explaining (it would seem: there is a lacuna in the papyrus at this point)
have expressed here the wish to become a miller, because millers were believed in Greece never to
be likely to be short of bread: cf. Lloyd-Jones b: .
 Gomme and Sandbach : ; Lamagna : .
 If Jensen’s supplement Z[5 ] at l.  is correct, Moschion’s phrase . 2@. [ |

. E

Z[5 ] may borrow a similarly malicious double entendre addressed by Dionysus to Pentheus in
Eur. Bacch.  -
Z5 – a phrase that Pentheus interprets as referring to his being carried
shoulder-high in triumph, whereas Dionysus means that Pentheus’ head will be ‘carried’ to his
mother. That Menander alludes here to the Bacchae was suggested by Robert  and Goossens
, but strongly denied by Whittle  and Gomme and Sandbach : . I agree with
Lamagna  that the allusion might have been perceived by at least a part of the audience, despite
its brevity. But Z[5 ] is not at all sure, and &[], to be ascribed to Moschion or to the following
intervention by Daos, seems paleographically more probable: cf. Arnott : .
 Maybe ‘he thinks of occupations followed by slaves who had been manumitted or allowed to live
independently’ (Gomme and Sandbach : ), as the majority of the freed slaves worked in
Athens as artisans: Calderini : –.
 As usually agreed, after Schwartz : .
 The transition from the more generic
to the more specific 2

has the comic
function of further trimming down Daos’ ambitions: Lamagna : .
The guessing game in Greek drama 
that he has no ambition to become rich (), whereas the profession of
shopkeeper is ‘on his level’, and thus he likes it more: ) ' (), [

) " ]
(). Not without some further sarcasm (see the pun
on 2
and , ‘endure hardship’), Moschion accepts
this choice, and Daos at once ratifies this option for his future (), so
that the solution of the question concerning Daos’ ‘best life’ appears to be
found. The same ideal of fulfilling his basic materialistic needs and sticking
to a low level that is appropriate for him is expressed by Daos again at lines
– ( 1! could not be more explicit).
As soon as the reward for Daos’ service (as he pretends) is decided upon
definitively (), he promptly asks Moschion to let him enter the house
() so that he can confirm that the situation in fact conforms to what he
has claimed. Moschion agrees and assigns him in formal terms the mission
of reconnoitering the situation inside the house as a scout or spy (. g
"
>, ], @

|
(, ‘Go in,
please, Daos, and be my scout for all the actions’, –), thus making
sure that Glycera is now in Myrrhine’s house and determining both what
she is doing and in what frame of mind Glycera and Myrrhine are likely to
receive Moschion.
This debate about Daos’ ‘best life’ as a reward for his enterprise, which
seems the miniature of an Aristophanic guessing game, thus contrasts two
humble professions (the miller and the cheese-seller) to the prestigious
job of managing materiel and marshalling armies, which is framed by the
lesser two. In this respect, it seems to develop a device of the guessing
game as illustrated in Aristophanes’ Frogs: rather than providing a list of
more or less plausible alternatives, and then topping them off with a truly
unexpected and indeed unimaginable solution to the riddle, there is a
kind of back and forth movement, proceeding from a low but entirely
reasonable recommendation to the surprise suggestion of a post well above
the level that Daos might aspire to, only to have Daos come up with a final
choice that is surprising just because it reverts to a more humble ambition,
one that is not in itself startling for a slave but becomes so after the more
elevated and pompous position proposed by Moschion.
Despite the obvious difference in size, and the tangled structure of this
brief debate, that the debate which we have in the Perikeiromene alludes
to the guessing game of the Rhesus is confirmed (for us modern scholars)
 As remarked by Gomme and Sandbach : , setting up as small shopkeepers was common for
many slaves when freed (cf. IG ii –), ‘but Daos need not have immediate freedom in view;
slaves were often established in some craft or business, paying their masters a fixed sum, and keeping
the balance of their earnings’.
 marco fantuzzi and david konstan
and must have been highlighted (to the ancient audience) by the role of

that Moschion invites Daos to assume at the end of the
discussion about the reward. In the jocular arrangements for the reward
between Moschion and Daos this mission seems to be a must-do final
confirmation of Daos’ merit and the lead-up to his reward. A scouting-
or spy-mission had been also the mission for which Dolon, in the Rhesus,
demanded his reward from Hector, as Dolon’s task consists precisely in
being a

(, ; also (@) , –,
, ). And we can believe that very few other literary texts (if any) will
have displayed a discussion of the reward to be given to a soldier in the
context of, specifically, a spy mission. Besides, both in the Rhesus and in the
Perikeiromene the guesses through which the reward is decided have the
same kind of subject: both are priamels, namely lists of alternatives which
serve as a foil to final and privileged options, which thus stand out in
relief – though, we repeat, in the comedy this list is extremely short and no
more than hints at the neatly articulated and expanded list in the Rhesus. In
particular, Daos’ wish for what is ‘at his level’ () ' ((), ) may
also be another cue for the audience to connect Daos with Dolon, who
had stated in the Rhesus that he did not want to marry into the royal family
because he belonged to a different social level:
*) 5 2
( 1
!" (). Last but not least, the contrast between an option
that represents a highly public and visible reward that brings glory and one
that offers rather concrete and private self-advantage and profit may have
its model in the similar contrast between Hector’s and Dolon’s different
ethical values in the Rhesus.
The main difference, indeed, between the characterization of Dolon in
the Rhesus and in its Iliadic model consists in the greater greediness of
the tragic Dolon. Interestingly enough, the perspective of the Rhesus is in
substantial agreement with a traditional exegesis of the dialogue between
Hector and Dolon in Iliad , which is documented for us in the scholia
to the passage but may well have been prior to the Hellenistic age. In fact
Hellenistic and later philologists display a consistent tendency to interpret,
or over-interpret, the text of Homer as derogatory in respect of Dolon’s
character, behaviour and words. Within the frame of their usual belief
that Homer was - ", the scholiasts invested their malice in finding
clues in the Homeric text which could be read as stigmatizing Dolon as
 A. Petrides points out to us, per litteras, that the name Daos is also particularly associated with the
crafty slave, master of ruses and tricks (the
from which Hector paretymologizes Dolon’s name
in Rhesus ): such slaves probably wore masks with reddish complexions, a physiognomy of foxy
deceit not unlike the wolfish disguise of Dolon.
The guessing game in Greek drama 
the quintessence of pure avarice and lack of military intelligence – very
differently from what happens on the Greek side, where Diomedes did
not even ask for a reward (8 Il. ., B ' ]

*' "
), and wisely co-opted a companion for the spy mission (8 Il.
., ,
]
2# ). Homer’s text was not
precisely kind towards Dolon, but the way the scholiasts read it attests
to a deep antipathy towards him, which gives rise to a kind of negative
deconstructive bias.
Fully in tune with the openly demeaning characterization of Dolon that
we find in the Rhesus, and also in the scholiasts to Homer (and possibly
others in the classical period), Menander characterizes Daos’ contribution
to the guessing about his best future life in terms of his prosaic choice and
lack of more noble ambition. After he refuses the manual profession of
miller (motivated in part, no doubt, by his master’s little joke) and then
craftsmanship in general (), and when he next excludes the political or
military position offered to him by Moschion, the audience might have
expected that Daos would have requested a relatively grand bourgeois
living standard, like Dolon, or (since he is a slave, after all) an idle sinecure
without labour. But Daos’ wish in the end is reduced to the lowbrow
option of working in the tertiary sector as a shopkeeper (), for the sake
of the even more vulgar ideal of always enjoying a ‘full belly’ (). With a
degradation which is natural enough in light of Daos’ inferior social level
(and consistent at the same time with the poetics of comedy), the material
greediness of the bourgeois (
>#2
) Dolon for the possession of
Achilles’ magnificent horses becomes in Daos the basic physical desire for
a full belly and a humble job. The surprising twist that we noted above
thus takes on yet a further dimension by means of the subtle intertextual
allusion to the Rhesus.
If the dialogue between Daos and Moschion alludes to this tragic
antecedent, as we think likely, then Menander would have adapted this
antecedent quite neatly to the broader context of his poetics. Coming
after the epic point of view of Agamemnon’s promised gifts in the Iliad,
and the transformation of these parameters in the guessing game between
 On Dolon’s greed and unheroic behaviour, see in particular 8 Il. . (despite his being rich,
he insisted on compensation); . (he was ugly or insignificant, but despite that he dared to
conceive the idea of having the horses of Achilles); . (what could you expect from someone
who has grown up together with many sisters?); . (how could a person of such a low level deal
with Hector?); . (as a barbarian without loyalty, he can only trust oaths); . (he asks for
impossible things and compels Hector to swear impossible things, whereas Diomedes did not do
that at all). On Dolon’s total lack of military experience (especially for his decision to carry out his
mission without a companion), see 8 Il. .; .; ..
 marco fantuzzi and david konstan
Hector and Dolon in the Rhesus, with its polarized representation of the
values of the two men, Menander summons attention to the humblest of
everyday values and wishes, which he places in the mouth of a slave, the
lowest social status in the classical world. It is plausible that this scene
in the Perikeiromene was meant to be understood in the light of the two
heroic models of epic and tragedy: Menander took the episode of the
Rhesus, which had already rendered Dolon more materialistic in his values
in respect to the Iliad (this in line with the Homeric interpreters’ empha-
sis on Dolon’s greed), yet another step forward, and, by means of this
metaliterary allusion, he both evoked his tragic predecessor and affirmed
the more prosaic ideals of comedy as a genre.
Last but not least, we may note that there is perhaps a particular moti-
vation for an allusion to this play in the context of Menander’s comedy.
Wilamowitz famously defined the Rhesus as a ‘Soldatenstück’. Many other
tragedies focused on the deeds of heroes in arms, but the attention paid
by the Rhesus to the life – indeed the everyday life – of soldiers and the
meticulous accuracy that the play reveals in respect to military terminology
are distinctive features of this tragedy. The Rhesus also evinces a specific
concern to highlight the nature, limits and aberrations of military power
and military leaders in relation to the army – a neat variation on the inter-
est displayed in many other tragedies of the fifth century in the nature
of power among political leaders and in relation to the city. Alluding to
the Rhesus through the guessing game, and equating the ‘mission’ of Daos
to that of Dolon, might thus have a particular meaning in the context
of the Perikeiromene, in which, just a few lines before Moschion assigns
Daos the job of

and probably alludes to Dolon in the Rhesus,
Moschion expresses his particular antagonism to the profession of Pole-
mon, Glycera’s lover and a professional mercenary soldier. In fact, he seems
obsessed with the military profession, to which he refers twice, and in
both cases not without a certain display of self-conscious technical preci-
sion: first he identifies the high political and military power with which
he proposes to reward Daos’ merits by way of two rather specialized titles:

. . . J0 [@ |
,
"
(–, quoted above). A little later he remarks on Polemon’s military
title and flashiness with a similar flourish of technical details: . . . !

#!
E # # (‘ . . . over a god-damned commander – with
a feather in his cap’, ). ‘Militarizing’ the scouting mission of Daos may
thus be a private joke on the part of Moschion, inasmuch as his enemy
 Wilamowitz-Moellendorf : –. See also Geffcken : .
The guessing game in Greek drama 
is a soldier (later, Polemon’s own slave, Sosias, will in turn propose orga-
nizing a regular military attack on Moschion’s house in order to rescue
Glycera). Creating this military atmosphere through an allusion to the
‘Soldatenstück’ Rhesus is an elegant literary operation.
We conclude by suggesting one further function of the guessing game
in these texts. Riddles of all sorts invite the audience to venture their own
guesses, before the characters have a chance to respond. This is the more
so in drama, where the characters speak aloud and can allow significant
pauses. It was a recognized device of ancient rhetoric that the audience’s
interest could be aroused by allowing it to fill in gaps in the argument, or
to take an active part in constructing the text. Theophrastus, for exam-
ple, affirmed that a speech is more persuasive if it omits some things, and
leaves it to the listener to supply what is missing: ‘for by catching on to
what has been omitted by you, he becomes not just part of your audience
[akroates] but also a witness [martys] on your side’ (cited in Demetr. De
interpretatione  = Theophr. fr.  Fortenbaugh). Fables, allegories,
symbolic tales that went under the name of ainigmata or ainoi, which
conveyed their meaning by implication or hyponoia (cf. Pl. Resp. d),
were a staple of early literature. When the priestess of Apollo emerges in
terror from the temple at the beginning of Aeschylus’ Eumenides, where she
has seen Orestes stained with blood and next to him the crowd of Furies,
she expresses her wonder at the sight and offers guesses as to the identity
of the strange creatures: they are like Gorgons but not quite, or perhaps
they are Harpies, but not these either (–); the audience is presumably
able to guess their nature, and to feel in the know at being able to provide
the answer. One has to wait in wonder at the beginning of Aristophanes’
Peace until the purpose behind the feeding of the dung beetle is revealed;
one of the slaves explicitly remarks: ‘One of the young, smart-aleck specta-
tors must already be saying: “what’s this? What’s the dung beetle for?” And
then some Ionian sitting next to him says: “I think it’s a riddle signifying
Cleon”’ (–). Aristophanes is here plainly indicating how mysteries and
conundrums within the text elicit efforts on the part of the spectators to
solve them and so enter into the action, as it were. It is only a further step,
but a significant one, to dramatize successive answers to a potential riddle
in the form of a dialogue, and more particularly one that involves a choice
on the part of one speaker that the interlocutor must guess at. To the best
 A soldier, by the way, whose name, Polemon, sounds terribly like an omen, as it points to substantive

"
‘military enemy’: he is thus predestined to be what in fact he is at this point of the comedy:
a soldier and an enemy of Moschion’s.
 Cf. Konstan  for the discussion of ‘active reader’ and further bibliography.
 marco fantuzzi and david konstan
of our knowledge, Euripides was the first to make this move, or, if not the
first, then at least he was the dramatist with whom the device was closely
enough associated for Aristophanes, who liked to poke fun at Euripides in
any case, to target him in particular when he parodied it.
Thus, while the particular format of the guessing debate identified in the
Rhesus and in Menander’s Perikeiromene, along with the partial antecedents
in Aristophanes, is a peculiar and identifiable scene type in its specific
structure, it is part of a larger set of literary strategies for engaging the
audience or reader in the construction of the text. On the other hand its
very specificity also enabled the guessing game to be co-opted for inter-
textual resonances, and this allowed for the kind of spoof or caricature
that could travel across genres, from tragedy to comedy – whether Old
Comedy or New. In fact this technique turns out to be a new unstud-
ied case in the ongoing and subtle exchanges that both distinguished
and united the dramatic genres in antiquity, and fourth-century comedy
and tragedy (and Menander and tragedy) in particular.
 On the overlappings of tragedy and comedy in the fifth century bc, see Rau ; Seidensticker
; Medda, Mirto and Pattoni ; for the fourth century bc see Xanthakis-Karamanos . On
Menander and tragedy, Pertusi ; Webster  (especially ch. ); Katsouris ; Arnott ;
Hurst ; Gutzwiller ; Cusset ; Konstan (forthcoming); regarding the parallel evolution
of Menander’s and tragic masks, A. Petrides is preparing a volume on Menander.
Comedy, the fable and the
ethnographic tradition
c h ap t er 1 1
The Aesopic in Aristophanes

Edith Hall
Unlike most genres that informed and interacted with Old Comedy –
epic, tragedy, satyr-play, choral lyric – the ancient fable tradition did not
manifest its presence in comic theatre through the insinuation or parody of
distinct metres, melodies, musical conventions, or dance movements. But
since my first introduction to Aristophanes in the s, when I attended
a reading of Aristophanes’ Frogs, I have been forcibly struck by the prima
facie affinities between the world imaginatively conjured up in the Aesopic
fables and the world dramatically realized in Old Comedy.
The most obvious affinity is in the use of animal allegory. Of course,
archaic ritual had played a role in the adoption of animal choruses in
early comedy, as evidenced by the choral performers in various animal
and bird costumes in vase-painting, and Aristophanic animals, as well as
those in the plays by other poets of Old Comedy, will have had residual
ritual associations. But in the plays which have survived, almost all the
animals are actually used vicariously, to stand in as surrogates for certain
types of character, social or political stereotype, or point of view – litigious
wasps, for example. Animals used to represent human characteristics, in
both Aesop and Aristophanes, are animals used allegorically. This aspect
of Aristophanes also opens up the scope of Old Comedy’s ‘intergeneric
I would like to thank the editors of this volume for their kindness and patience and Gregory
Hutchinson for helpful comments.
 Schirru  lists and analyses most of the evidence for Aesopic fables in Aristophanes, but his
emphasis, which is on the comic effect of allusions to the fable rather than their philosophical,
ideological or socio-political functions, is very different from mine. The animal allegories in Plato’s
Republic, which Saxonhouse  argued are part of a conscious Platonic strategy to bring Old
Comedy to mind, may imply that Socrates regularly used animal fables in his teaching (for Plato’s
engagement with the rhetoric of Old Comedy, see Prauscello in this volume). It has also been
suggested that animal allegory was used frequently by some Presocratic philosophers, most of whom
composed treatises in prose. See also below, pp. – on Democritus and fable.
 See Sifakis  for a discussion of the theriomorphic choruses on sixth-century vases, with the
excellent photographs in Rothwell .
 See, in addition to Sifakis : –, the testimonia in Rothwell : –.

 edith hall
dialogue’ to the symbolism of oracular language and proverbial sayings, as
we shall see; it extends it even to the ancient tradition of dream interpre-
tation, which, like Aesopic and other types of fable such as those anciently
labelled ‘Sybaritic’, is a genre that primarily manifests itself in prose. The
earliest example of a fable in Greek literature may be the reference to the
story of the hawk and the nightingale in Hesiod (Op. –), and verses
about battles between certain species of animal certainly existed, but this
does not mean that the fables were ordinarily performed in metre even
in the archaic period, from which we happen to possess no records of
storytelling in ancient Greek prose.
In Aristophanes’ Wasps the audience are introduced, by the dream-
interpretation session conducted by the slaves Xanthias and Sosias, to
the notion that they will later need to ‘read’ wasps and dogs on stage as
symbolic substitutes for political figures and constituencies. Xanthias has
had a dream in which an eagle picked up the shield that the notorious
rhipsaspis Cleonymus had discarded, and this raises the question (which is
actually not answered) of whom the eagle might represent (–). But the
animal symbolism in Sosias’ more complicated dream is read quite explicitly
as a political allegory (–). Sosias saw a rapacious whale, screaming like a
pig, haranguing sheep in the Athenian assembly and weighing portions of
ox-fat. Xanthias immediately interprets this scene as Cleon depriving the
Athenian people of what was theirs. Sosias also saw Theorus turning into a
crow, witnessed by Alcibiades, which Xanthias hopes holds the significance
that Theorus will ‘go to the crows’.
This dialogue is conducted in the language which we know from the
surviving examples of the ancient oneirocritical tradition was the stan-
dard way in which dreams were presented for interpretation. Although
the Oneirocritica of Artemidorus of Daldis was composed several centuries
later than Aristophanes’ comedies, it not only uses the identical vocabu-
lary to denote the experience and interpretation of dreams but is indeed
self-consciously dependent on a much older established body of dream
interpretations, dating from the fifth century bc onwards (see especially
.). Moreover, not only does animal symbolism play a prominent role in
 On the relationship between proverbs and fables as instantiated in the example of the ‘dog in the
manger’, see Priest : –. Trygaeus in Peace, who cites Aesopic fables and aligns his mission to
Zeus with the fable of the eagle and the dung-beetle (see below), is probably himself to be associated
through his name with the proverb ‘to strip unwatched vines’: see Hall : .
 On Aristophanes, fable, and the Batrachomyomachia see the remarks of Bliquez :  and n. .
 On the implications of this for the early writers of artistic prose, who often self-consciously (if
ambivalently) aligned their works with the Aesopic tradition, see the excellent article of Kurke 
(esp.  n. ).
 See further Hall : . On the oneirocriticism in Wasps see Reckford .
The Aesopic in Aristophanes 
Artemidorus’ analyses, but he implies that slaves have always participated
in dream interpretation, as both dreamers and dream analysts themselves.
Another dimension of experience shared by the worlds of ancient fables,
dreams and Aristophanic comedy is the somatic, especially sexual activity
and eating. But whereas it is with dream interpretation that comedy shares
its tendency towards the discussion of erotic matters in its characteristically
matter-of-fact idiom, unabashed by explicit naming of body parts, geni-
tals, apertures, and techniques of masturbation, the emphasis on food and
drink overlaps more specifically with the world of fable. It is connected
with the third prima facie affinity between the Aesopic and Aristophanic
worlds – that the perspective they share is so often that of the peasant
farmer. Aristophanes’ Dicaeopolis and Trygaeus are the primary examples,
but even his more urban heroes are never from the upper class of Athenian
citizen families and have much in common with their rural counterparts;
Philocleon has a history of stealing vine-props, and Chremes’ most valu-
able possession is his wine-sieve (Vesp. , Eccl. –). The modern
distinction between town and country, as Robin Osborne rightly insists, is
wholly misleading in the case of classical Attica. The literary genre most
closely allied to comedy – tragedy – sidelines eating almost completely,
as well as preferring aristocratic personnel. This throws the fable/comedy
affinity into sharper perspective.
Besides animal allegory, a strong interest in food, and a subjectivity and
agency of an agricultural smallholder, a further feature that the Aesopic
and Aristophanic worlds had in common, at least in the fifth century, was
the physical presence and involvement in the narrative of gods, often in
an aetiological role. Gods and aetiology, which tended to be excised in the
later, secularized Aesopica, were still prominent in the Aesopic tradition in
the fifth century bc. Evidence for this is supplied by Plato’s Phaedo. Just
after his wife has been led away, Socrates rubs his leg and remarks on the
intimacy of the relationship between pleasure and pain. If a man pursues
pleasure, he is usually compelled to accept pain along with it (b–c),
as if the two were joined together at a single head. ‘And I think,’ he said, ‘if Aesop
had thought about them, he would have composed a fable telling how they fought
each other and god wished to make a truce between them, and when he couldn’t
do it, he fastened their heads together; and that is the reason why, whenever one of
them comes upon someone, it is followed by the other. That’s what seems to have
happened to me. I had pain in my leg because of the fetter, but pleasure seems to
have come following after it.’
 Hall .  R. Osborne .  See the references in Dover :  and n. .
 All translations are mine unless otherwise indicated.
 edith hall
Socrates here invents, extempore, an aetiological explanation for a universal
principle of human experience in a manner that he explicitly associates with
Aesop. The fable not only is aetiological but uses embodiment to make
pleasure and pain – concepts that have no material form – concrete and
material: they are a creature with two bodies but one head, which once upon
a time consisted of two separate creatures. It can be no coincidence that
the closest parallel to this aetiology in Plato is constituted by the story of
the primeval two-faced, four-footed, four-handed hominid, split asunder
by Zeus and Apollo for challenging the supremacy of the Olympians
and destined to feel yearning desire for reunion for ever (Symp. d–
b) – a story told, of course, by none other than the comic playwright
Aristophanes. ‘Aesopic’ cosmic aetiology, where both animal and human
bodies are used to discuss abstract principles such as pleasure, pain and
desire, thus has a demonstrable affinity with its Aristophanic counterpart.
The final obvious feature shared by the worlds of Aesop and Aristo-
phanes, at least in the fifth century, is the prominence of the god Dionysus.
Dionysus is the god of the festival at which comedies were produced,
as well as god of vines and wine production, and he of course appears
not infrequently in plays by Aristophanes and his contemporaries, includ-
ing, famously, Frogs. But he also features prominently as the architect of
aetiologies in the Aesopic fable tradition, as early as the poet Panyassis
of Halicarnassus in the first half of the fifth century bc. A fragment of
Panyassis quoted by Athenaeus (.d = fr.  Bernabé) describes Diony-
sus apportioning wine at a symposium. The first share goes to the Graces,
the Hours, and Dionysus himself; the second to Aphrodite and Dionysus
again; but the third share goes to Hybris and Atē, personifications of the
kind of regrettable behaviour which drinking in excess can provoke. As
Ben Perry saw, this was an Aesopic fable, discussed as such in great detail
in a letter by Photius. It is actually related by Aesop himself in the Life of
Aesop (Vit. Aesop. ), but in a later, ‘secularized’ form in which Dionysus
gives the servings of wine directly to men, the first for pleasure, the second
for joy, and the third for irresponsible or violent behaviour. Vines, wine
and Dionysus form a thematic cluster which belongs to both comedy and
fable, and indeed to a third genre which has its own close dialogues with
both comedy and fable, and that is the Attic skolion (drinking-song).
The affinity between the Aesopic and comic worlds was certainly recog-
nized explicitly in the fourth century bc, when Aesop appeared in several
 Perry : –; Photius’ text is discussed in detail by Grumel .

 Perry : .  On fable and skolia see Van der Valk : –.
The Aesopic in Aristophanes 
plays as a character, including one by Eubulus, entitled either Semele or
Dionysus, which actually enacted the fable narrated by Panyassis. A frag-
ment of the play features Dionysus as a character serving portions of wine
to himself, then to the gods of love, and then to Hybris (fr. , quoted
by Ath. .b–c). The wine theme seems also to have been important in
Alexis’ Aesop, the sole fragment of which (fr. ) features Solon explaining
to a surprised Aesop that the Greeks drink their wine mixed with water.
Other fourth-century comic playwrights seem to have structured whole
fables around their plots, since Archippus composed a comedy entitled
The Ass’s Shadow, which refers to one of the most famous fables of the
day. In New Comedy it may have been common practice for character
types from fables to be absorbed into the dramatic narrative. It has been
plausibly suggested, for example, that the character of Cnemon in Menan-
der’s Dyskolos is the equivalent of the dog in Aesop’s fable of the gardener
and the dog. Cnemon has fallen down a well, like the dog in the fable,
whose character is similarly ungrateful and aggressive, and the Aesopic
connection is rendered more likely by the explicit reference to the ‘logos’ in
Menander’s comedy (–).
We have already noticed that a fable narrated by Panyassis and drama-
tized by Eubulus – Dionysus and the three servings of wine – is actually
quoted by Aesop himself in the Life of Aesop, generally regarded as reaching
its full development in around the first century ad, but including elements
that can be traced back as far as the fourth century bc or earlier. Three
decades ago, Adrados demonstrated that there are wide-ranging echoes of
the diction of Aristophanic comedy in the Life of Aesop, especially in the
scatological language, an inference supported by the apparent popularity
of Aristophanes as reading material in Roman Egypt; one detailed exam-
ple of shared diction, discussed by Dickie, shows how deeply the language
of Old Comedy seems to have become ingrained in the traditional narrative
of Aesop’s own life, in an intergeneric dialogue conducted over several cen-
turies after the work of Aristophanes himself. While discussing metalwork,
Pollux (.) says that blacksmiths attached baskania to their furnaces.
These were ridiculous objects (
) with an apotropaic function. He
illustrates this with a line and a bit from Aristophanes (= fr. ):
 This is fr. . Hunter :  suggests that the play may have ‘concerned the birth and early career
of Dionysus’.
 See Freeman :  with Ar. fr. ; Hall : –.
 See Tzifopoulos : .  See Lissarrague : .  Adrados .
 Aristophanes assumes thirteenth position in Willis , a review of the Greek authors most
frequently found in the papyri from Egypt.
 edith hall
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Unless one bought by begging
a forged amulet from a blacksmith
The idea seems to be that nobody would have purchased something or
someone unless they were so laughably ugly that a blacksmith could use
them as a baskanion. Dickie points out that in the Life (Vit. Aesop. ),
when Aesop is bought by a slave-dealer and sent into the slave quarters,
the good-looking slaves ask each other, ‘What has become of our mas-
ter that he has purchased such a filthy creature? It can only be that he has
bought him to protect the slave shop from envious fascination’ (, 6
/ . . .
). Dickie suggests that the joke in Aristophanes
did indeed originally refer to someone with some of the physical char-
acteristics commonly attributed to Aesop, presumably a newly purchased
slave.
Goins has accumulated a series of further parallels between the content of
these two genres of ancient Greek literature. One is the similarity between
the characterization of the lascivious wife of Aesop’s master Xanthus in
the Life and the treatment of women in Old Comedy. Another is the
resemblance borne by Xanthus to the Aristophanic Socrates of Clouds.
Xanthus studies claptrap disguised as philosophy and surrounds himself
with a crowd of students who want to share in ‘the beautiful’. But, as
Goins stresses, what is more important than questions of direct influence
is ‘the common perspective held by both authors’. Like Aristophanes, the
author of the Life ‘used a deceptively simple cleverness to demonstrate the
arrogance of the intellectually pretentious’.
To sum up the argument so far: there are strong prima facie similarities
between the worlds of Aesopic fable and the world dramatized in Aristo-
phanic comedy (animal allegory, eating and drinking, peasant personnel
and perspective, aetiology and the Dionysiac); the post-Aristophanic comic
tradition, in Middle Comedy and Menander as well as the prose Life of
Aesop, suggests that the intimate connection between the two genres of
fable and comic drama was consciously perceived and elaborated over cen-
turies. We are now in a position to address the extended sequences of
dialogue between the genres as they are conducted within the extant plays
 Dickie : .  Goins : –.

 The fable tradition is also fairly well represented in other types of ancient Greek prose fiction,
including the Lucianic Onos and ‘romances’ of Achilles Tatius and Heliodorus. See Van Dijk .
 Goins : .
The Aesopic in Aristophanes 
of Aristophanes. Although the manifestations of fable are diverse, I argue
that incorporation of Aesopic material performs three main functions in
his comedies: (i) Aesopic fables are used as a source of knowledge by indi-
viduals engaged in trying to control other people’s behaviour; (ii) they
signify a cultural product almost universally known, familiar even to the
least educated members of the audience, and with rather ‘low-class’ asso-
ciations; and (iii) the act of interpreting a fable is presented as analogous
to the process of interpreting allegories staged within the play.
Before turning to the texts themselves, however, it will be helpful to
define a key concept which I have used in exploring the Aesopic in Old
Comedy: knowingness. Almost all the passages I am about to discuss feature
an invocation of Aesop by individuals engaged in trying to control other
people’s behaviour, whether to good or evil purpose, through positioning
themselves as in possession and control of specially significant knowledge.
I first came across the notion of dramatic ‘knowingness’ in the cultural-
historical sense in which it is used by Peter Bailey in his brilliant analysis
of the ideological workings of Victorian music hall:
The bourgeois man and wife . . . were learning to savour the collusive but contained
mischief of the performer’s address, in whose exchanges they too could register the
competencies of knowing-ness. By the turn of the century, music-halls’ knowing-
ness was fast becoming a second language for all classes, as music-hall itself became
an agreeable national alter ego, a manageable low other.
In the nineteenth century those who used the term ‘knowingness’ or its
cognates in a tone of disparagement were invariably asserting a position
of superiority in class, taste and actual education: James Hardy Vaux
can in  speak of a thief who ‘affects a knowingness in his air and
conversation’. But, in the music hall, all classes could unite in adopting
the knowing but manageable collective ‘alter ego’, despite (or perhaps on
account of ) this persona’s somewhat déclassé identity. In such heroes as
Dicaeopolis, Philocleon and Trygaeus, the ancient Athenians had similarly
identified collective ‘low others’ who were, however, extremely shrewd and
knowledgeable.
Knowingness has recently attracted the interest of contemporary psycho-
analysts and philosophers, who use the term in two slightly different ways.
For the psychoanalyst Jonathan Lear, knowingness can have tragic effects.
In the political realm, cynical journalists’ assumption that politicians are
 Bailey : .

 Vaux , s.v. knowingess. See also the ‘knowing look’ in Martineau : i.: .
 edith hall
corrupt has the potential, for example, to occlude occasions on which indi-
vidual politicians are acting altruistically and with integrity. In the personal
realm, knowingness – feeling confidently in charge of information both
technologically and intellectually – can prevent us all from understanding
deeper emotional and psychological currents at work which are obscur-
ing crucial information, often with tragic results. For the philosopher
Richard Rorty, on the other hand, ‘knowingness’ is particularly a hallmark
of the postmodern literary critic, who no longer believes in any of the
grand narratives of social progress and in tandem with this cynical political
stance rejects aesthetic appreciation of literature in favour of controlling
it through knowing sociological analysis. In a trailblazing lecture entitled
‘The Inspirational Value of Great Works of Literature’, delivered in ,
Rorty began with the famous Horatian advice to Numicius, ‘Nil admirari’:
to stand in awe of absolutely nothing is virtually the only way in which to
feel good about oneself (Epist. ..–). Rorty argued that contemporary
critics ‘substitute knowing theorization for awe, and resentment over the
failures of the past for visions of a better future’. Knowingness is the enemy
of utopian thinking and enthusiasm; it is ‘a state of soul which prevents
shudders of awe’. This formulation is helpful, I think, in approaching the
perspective of Aristophanic comedy, with its underlying cynical pessimism
about human nature, allied with a competence in parodying all kinds of
literature and philosophical discourse. It can also help us to understand the
way that Aristophanic comedy functions socio-politically.
Raymond Tallis has used Rorty’s definition of knowingness to charac-
terize the stance adopted by a certain type of demagogic politician whose
appeal actually depends on suspicion of intellectuals and the premise that
fundamental ignorance about the world, far from being a problem, is
actually an advantage. Tallis points to the use by the North American
republican politician Sarah Palin of unverifiable or entirely false ‘knowl-
edge’ to impress and amuse her listeners. This kind of knowingness, Tallis
urges, should ‘be of interest to philosophy if only because it is the obverse
of the anguished sense of uncertainty that drives philosophy’s primary
discipline – epistemology, the scrutiny of knowledge itself.’ Knowingness
functions by binding the speaker and his or her hearers
 Lear’s classical paradigm for this psychoanalytical definition of knowingness is the figure of Oedipus,
who is on one level master of knowledge (he has regularly consulted the Delphic oracle, etc.), but this
mastery actually inoculates him against asking really penetrating questions when he should have –
for example, who killed the husband of the woman he is about to marry. See Lear .
 Rorty : –.  Rorty : .
The Aesopic in Aristophanes 
into an an ‘epistemic community’, affirming cognitive solidarity. This is linked to a
wider, unspoken solidarity with a constituency out there of the like-minded . . . A
shared cultural reference . . . reinforces the warrant that comes from being estab-
lished as a regular guy talking to others who feel themselves spoken to as regular
guys. Knowingness . . . carries an air of cognitive privilege. Reinforced by the wink,
the finger tapping the nose, the complacent smirk, it lays claim to the superior
condition of the one who is ‘in the know’.
Aristophanic comedy certainly lays claim to the superior condition of
being ‘in the know’, and it functions to create an ‘epistemic community’
through cognitive solidarity, often achieved through the humorous use of
fiction, falsehood, unverifiable information or unsubstantiated allegation.
The invocation of Aesop in Aristophanes almost always constitutes just
such an amusing appeal to fiction.
The earliest Aristophanic use of an Aesopic fable appears in the memo-
rable scene in Acharnians when Dicaeopolis looks closely at Pseudartabas’
retinue and sees that its members are Athenians (–):

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(Dicaeopolis) Well! I recognize one of this pair of eunuchs; it is Cleisthenes,
the son of Sibyrtius. Behold the audacity of this shaved rear-end! How did
you think, monkey-man, you could play the role of a eunuch coming to us
with a beard like that?
The joke here seems to parody Archilochus fr.  W , from an epode
addressed to Cerycides, itself related to an Aesopic fable ( Hausrath).
This instance of Aesop in Old Comedy may come by way of the iambo-
graphic tradition of invective, psogos, which seems to have been similarly
attracted to animal allegory, as Semonides’ invective against women amply
testifies. The physical image of a monkey with a hairy bottom is somehow
connected, through mask or costume, with the appearance of Pseudartabas’
attendant, who is likely to have worn an imposing beard. Aristophanes
and his audience are far too knowing to be fooled by the attempt of public
men to camouflage their true natures. But the joke also implies that the
decoding of an animal identity in Aesop (here, the monkey) is analogous
to seeing through the allegorical personae in which public men might
 Tallis .  Rosen : –.  Chiasson : .
 edith hall
appear in comedy, equipped with costume and props (here, Cleisthenes’
skeue). Reading the political scene, like reading theatrical personae, is akin
to reading the ‘real’, human meaning underlying an animal fable.
In their lives beyond the theatre Aristophanes’ audience also frequently
encountered animal allegory in the context of oracular language; in the
mouth of the Delphic Pythia, Cyrus, King of the Medes, could be just a
‘mule’ (Hdt. .). In Aristophanes, Aesop tends to figure in the attempts
of knowing charlatans to control the behaviour of others. In Peace –
the charlatan oracle-pedlar Hierocles, who (in order to continue making a
living) needs to promote the war with Sparta, seems to refer (although text
is slightly problematic) to the fable of the noisy she-dog who gives birth to
blind puppies:
hierocles . . . it does not please the blessed gods that we should stop the War
until the wolf shall unite with the sheep.
trygaeus How, you cursed animal, could the wolf ever unite with the sheep?
hierocles As long as the wood-bug gives off a fetid odour, when it flies; as long as
the noisy bitch is eager to litter blind pups, so long shall peace be forbidden.
A more extended example of the same trope occurs when the Sausage Seller
in Knights tries to manipulate Demos, who does not know how the navy is
to be paid, with an oracle from Apollo (–):
sausage seller ‘Son of Aegeus, beware of the dog-fox; he bites in secret and runs
swiftly away; he is cunning, crafty, knowing.’ Do you know what this means?
demos The dog-fox is Philostratus.
sausage seller No, it’s Cleon here, who is constantly demanding that you send
light ships to collect tribute, and Apollo says that you should not grant them
to him.
demos How can a trireme be a dog-fox?
sausage seller How? Because a trireme and a dog both move at speed.
demos So what is the point of adding the ‘fox’ bit to the dog?
sausage seller The god is likening the soldiers to fox cubs, since they both eat
grapes in the fields.
The ‘knowing’ Sausage Seller is trying to confuse Demos, who is indeed
bewildered by his use of animal allegory. When the Sausage Seller explains
that the dog-fox is Cleon, Demos thinks he means that the dog-fox
is a trireme! Finally, the Sausage-Seller ends up completely inverting the
original allegory by equating foxes, seeking grapes like the fox in the
 As E. L. Brown  showed, there are of course several other reverberations in the canine imagery
which surrounded Cleon and which reached a climax in the trial scene of Wasps (see also below
pp. –).
The Aesopic in Aristophanes 
famous Aesopic fable ( Hausrath) which is certainly already portrayed
on a fifth-century vase-painting, with the sailors in the Athenian navy.
The effect of this interchange is to show how a manipulative orator
could invent extempore and radically reinterpret animal allegories, lend-
ing them a sheen of oracular profundity at will, in order to gain political
leverage.
Another individual aspiring to political influence who finds Aesop useful
is Peisetaerus in Aristophanes’ Birds. The Athenian defector is attempting,
in a formal and oratorical manner, to persuade the birds to rise up against
the Olympian gods, and he elaborates an argument that the birds had once
been rulers of the universe (–).
peisetaerus I feel great pain on your behalf, because you were once kings.
chorus We were kings? Who were our subjects?
peisetaerus Everything that exists – first me, then this man here, and Zeus
himself. You birds are more ancient than Cronus and the Titans and Earth,
and prior to them.
chorus Even prior to Earth?
peisetaerus Yes, by Apollo,
chorus By Zeus, I never knew that!
peisetaerus That’s because you are so undereducated (!) and unquestion-
ing and have never studied your Aesop (
*) \j
). He is
the one who tells us that the lark was the first creature to be born, even before
Earth. His father died of disease, but Earth did not exist then, and so he lay
unburied for five days. The lark, at a loss for a solution, gave his father a
grave in his own head.
Peisetaerus elaborates an aetiological story about the origins of the universe
which sounds like a parody of theogonic poetry, in order to flatter the
birds’ sense of their historic importance. Manipulating myth in order
to buttress the contingent political claims of a particular city-state or
ethnic group was of course customary in classical Greek diplomacy, and
Aristophanes is certainly here creating humour out of the absurd lengths
to which such argumentation could go. But in order to impress these
undereducated birds, the authority he chooses to cite is an Aesopic fable,
rather than Homer or Pindar (or, like the Sausage Seller in Knights, an
Apolline oracle). The implication is that the birds are without learning
(!) to such a remarkable degree that they do not know their Aesop.
The verb used here, , may conceivably be a joke referring to
the birds’ lack of hands and fingers with which to handle a papyrus, since
 See the jug reproduced as the frontispiece to Daly . The photograph belongs to the University
Museum, Philadelphia, but the vase is in a private collection.
 edith hall
the primary meaning of " is ‘tread’. Many translators choose to retain
here the idea of physically handling a text, by translating as,
for example, ‘thumbed’. But there is a direct parallel, indeed a Platonic
one, for a purely metaphorical meaning of ", ‘to study’ a book: in the
Phaedrus, Socrates remarks to Phaedrus that he has studied his Teisias very
carefully ( , _ *6 /@, a).
The birds are so very uneducated, the implication seems to be, that
they have not ‘even’ studied Aesop, which in turn suggests strongly that
Aesop may have been regarded as an element in rudimentary education,
even perhaps (as he was in later antiquity and remains today) an author
to whom little children were introduced at the same time as they learned
their alphabet. If this is the case, then the reasons become obvious for the
popularity of Aesop amongst the least educated of the Athenian citizenry –
the ones who were perhaps only just functionally literate; the ‘default’ or
bottom-line text to which orators, oracle-mongers or comic poets alike
could refer, because they could assume their audience were familiar with
it, was the Aesopic fables, in whatever form they were available in the fifth
century bc. Indeed, having established Aesop as an authority by reference
to whom he can persuade the birds to do what he wants, Peisetaerus repeats
the strategy a little later, when he needs Epops to enable him, although a
human, to fly (–): Peisetaerus reminds the hoopoe that Aesop’s fable of
the fox and the eagle ( Hausrath), in which the fox came off badly, shows
that alliances between dissimilar species can be hazardous, and the hoopoe
reassures him that he will be enabled to grow wings after eating a particular
root.
On the question of the date at which written collections of Aesop became
available, further illumination has often been sought once again in Plato,
this time in the section of the Phaedo which I have already mentioned
in connection with Aesopic aetiology. When Cebes is prompted by the
imprisoned Socrates’ proposed ‘Aesopic’ aetiology for pleasure and pain
(see above) to ask him about his recent poetic compositions – versions of
Aesop’s fables and a hymn to Apollo – Socrates answers (b):
 See Perry : . The earliest certain recension and collection was made by Demetrius of Phalerum
(perhaps during his regency at Athens of – bc), according to Diogenes Laertius’ biography
of Demetrius (.). This collection, which has not survived, may have been a repertory of fables
designed for consultation by rhetoricians (see Arist. Rh. .). The Athenian local colour to some
Aesopic fables may also be attributable to the Demetrian recension (so Keller : –). But
most scholars accept, on the evidence of Hdt. ., that there had been very specific information
circulating about Aesop in the fifth century (so M. L. West : ), and indeed many assume on
the strength of this passage in Birds that there was a book on Aesopic wisdom of some kind available
at Athens in the late fifth century (M. L. West : –).
The Aesopic in Aristophanes 
So first I composed a hymn to the god whose festival it was; and after the god,
considering that a poet, if he is really to be a poet, must compose myths and not
speeches, since I was not a maker of myths, I took those of Aesop, which I had at
hand and knew, and turned into verse the first I came upon ( ( ,

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).
My interpretation of this passage is not that Socrates has a papyrus text of
Aesop available to him in prison, like a bible in a Mormon hotel, but that
Socrates uses Aesop because these are stories which he, like everyone else,
knew off by heart, and this is something which Cebes would immediately
understand. Christopher Rowe translates, ‘I just took the stories that I had
to hand and actually knew, which were Aesop’s, and turned into verse the
first ones that happened to occur to me’, and he has confirmed that he
interprets the passage as I do. Although ‘the first ones that occurred to me’
(
; $
"2#
) could just mean ‘the first ones I lighted on in my
text’, this interpretation of the Greek seems quite unlikely since one would
naturally come across the first items in the text, and
; $
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is not the obvious way of saying ‘I started at the beginning’. But it is much
more telling that the evidence for Plato’s use of #
(‘at hand’) shows
that this adjective for him has no tendency to imply physical proximity: for
example, at Theaetetus c, something is metaphorically ‘at hand’ because
it is available in the intellect (
). But the fact that Socrates knows
some Aesopic fables off by heart, as I would imagine almost all of his fellow
citizens did, does not mean that there was no written collection of the
fables available in late fifth-century Athens (see below). On the contrary, I
would imagine that the one cultural phenomenon would very likely go in
tandem with the other, at least as soon as writing technologies had become
accessible and used in elementary education.
In Wasps is to be found the most extended Aristophanic engagement with
Aesop, and the emphasis is slightly different, although the association of
knowledge of Aesop with rudimentary cultural awareness remains the same.
Philocleon, as representative of the common Athenians who supported the
demagogue Cleon, enjoys his Aesop. When he delivers his pseudo-legal
speech in defence of jury attendance, he lists the types of entertaining
performances he can expect to witness in court (–):
I can listen to the defendants letting forth every manner of voice in order to get
acquitted . . . Some bewail their poverty and exaggerate their plight . . . Others tell
us stories or a funny Aesopic fable; others crack jokes to make me laugh and put
 Rowe : .  Email of Monday,  October .
 edith hall
me in a good mood. And if these means don’t persuade me, they drag in their little
children by the hand forthwith, girls and boys, who cower together and bleat in
chorus . . .
Aesopic fables subsequently play a significant part in the formation of the
contrast of class politics and their cultural expression during the scenes
just before and after the symposium. Bdelycleon is rehearsing his father
in the role of refined symposiast. He has dressed him in soft Persian
clothes and Laconian slippers and shown him how to adopt an elegant gait.
Now he must train him in elevated conversational strategies for dining in
the presence of well-educated and clever men (
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Philocleon suggests he could tell the story of Lamia farting, or ‘Cardo-
pion and his mother’ (–); Bdelycleon protests that such mythoi are
not appropriate to the occasion; what is needed is stories connected with
reality – ‘stories with human beings’ in them, which have a connection
with the life of the household. Philocleon ignores the reference to humans,
and launches into a ‘household’ story about a mouse and a weasel, which
(if it were not cut short by Bdelycleon’s protests) looks distinctly Aesopic
in potential (see e.g.  Hausrath). But Bdelycleon does object that, in the
company of gentlemen at a symposium, ‘mice and weasels’ play no part
in the conversation, any contribution to which should be a reminiscence
about participating in a state pilgrimage, or an athletics event, or some-
thing distinguished achieved in one’s youth. Philocleon jumps on the third
alternative, saying that his own most brilliant feat was the distinctively
agricultural exploit when he stole some vine-props (): Bdelycleon is
exasperated and says that a tale of a hunt or deed of daring would be much
more suitable than a peasant’s tale about petty theft of vine-props.
Yet even Bdelycleon admits that there is a place for the Aesopic fable in
the social life of the educated gentleman. His father is concerned that if he
goes out and becomes inebriated, then he will start fighting and damaging
property and end up financially liable to his victims. Bdelycleon reassures
him that this is not a problem (–):
. . . if you are with fine and refined gentlemen (
!
).
Either they undertake to appease the offended person or, better still, you say
something witty, you tell some comic story, perhaps one of those you have yourself
heard at table, either in Aesop’s style or in that of Sybaris; everyone laughs and the
trouble is ended.
Here Bdelycleon admits not only that fables are indeed told at the drinking
parties held by refined elite gentlemen, but that they can come in useful
when you need to avoid paying damages for the sort of crimes of violence
The Aesopic in Aristophanes 
which heavy drinking can provoke. The class politics here are complicated:
if you want to impress other people at an upper-class symposium, then you
avoid anecdotes of the Aesopic or Sybaritic type (whatever the latter may
mean). Such fables can, however, prove helpful to upper-class gentlemen
when manipulating and indeed exploiting those less well educated.
Philocleon takes his son’s advice to heart and after the symposium tells
four fables in quick succession: one to the female bread-seller who has a
grievance against him (–), two to a man he has assaulted (–),
and finally, when picked up and hauled inside, the story of the eagle and the
dung-beetle to his son (–). In the case of the bread-seller, Philocleon
announces that he will use one of those ‘clever stories’ (
. . . 5
,
), a ‘charming fable’ (
. . . # , –), to avoid being
prosecuted for damages to her stock of loaves. But rather than tell a well-
known fable, he invents an episode in Aesop’s own life, in which Aesop
corresponds to himself and ‘a drunken bitch’ to the bread-seller (–):
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One evening when Aesop went out to dinner, a drunken bitch had the
effrontery to bark at him. So Aesop said to her, ‘Oh, bitch, bitch, if by Zeus
you sold your evil tongue and bought some wheat, I would say you were
acting sensibly.’
Philocleon compounds his display of knowingness, at the expense of the

bewildered bread-wife, by alluding to another, non-Aesopic story about a
singing competition, and to Euripides’ heroine Ino. He figures himself as
the joke-teller and thus aligns himself not only with Aesop but with the
comic dramatist; this generic alignment is counterpoised to the suggestion
that the bread-seller might end up suffering the fate of a tragic heroine, or
rather, to be more specific, a famous Euripidean one. But the Aesop joke
 According to 8 on Vesp.  and Av. , the distinction between Sybaritic and Aesopic fables was
simply that animals featured in one and humans in another. But these statements, as MacDowell
:  points out, look like little more than ancient scholastic guesswork.
 On this scene see Rothwell a: –.
 I am not sure that the same generic contrast would have worked so well between Aesopic fable,
and, for example, Aeschylean tragedy, with its rich zoological imagery. The story of the pet lion
cub which grew up to savage its master’s flocks is almost certainly related to a fable (Ag. –), as
is the passage on the nestlings in Cho. – (see Janko :  n. ). A fragment of Aeschylus’
Myrmidons (TrGF  F ) involves the fable of an eagle killed by an arrow made with its own
feathers.
 edith hall
has been even more complicated than this. It shows Philocleon extemporiz-
ing an Aesopic fable which describes a situation almost identical to his own
(he has gone out to dinner and is being addressed by a female), but in which
the female has turned into an animal or at least is signified metaphorically
by a she-dog, who does not use speech but merely barks. As MacDowell put
it, the application of the fable to the bread-seller ‘becomes more and more
obvious as it goes on. Dogs do not have any use for wheat, but bakers do’.
This image of the prosecuting she-dog of course also creates a link with
Cleon, the prosecuting dog in the trial scene earlier in the play. Philocleon
is using his grasp of the principles of Aesopica in order to reveal how he
has in fact distanced himself from his previous admiration of Cleon and
demagogue-led litigation in order to move culturally ‘up-market’.
To the man who accuses him of physical assault, Philocleon tells two
‘Sybaritic’ tales, both involving inhabitants of Sybaris who decided to solve
their problems practically, one by taking his injured head to a doctor, and
the other by mending her broken box with a piece of string (–).
There are no animals here, nor eating, nor other somatic function; the
outlook is not even specifically connected with the countryside or peasant
farming. But the moral of both fables, it is implied, is that people with a
problem need to go away and sort it out for themselves rather than blame
someone else.
Bdelycleon, exasperated, decides that the time has come to get his
talkative father off the streets and safely inside. Philocleon responds with
his final fable, or rather fable within a fable: the account of Aesop telling the
fable of the eagle and the dung-beetle ( Hausrath) when he was framed for
a crime of robbery at Delphi. The Delphians hid a sacred cup in Aesop’s
baggage, accused him of stealing it and condemned him to death. But
before his death he told them the fable, the implication of which is that
they would be no more likely to escape revenge than anyone else. Refer-
ring to this part of Aesop’s biography therefore amounts to a prediction by
Philocleon that any outrage Bdelycleon commits against him will one day
be avenged (–):
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 See further the Vit. Aesop. – and the exhaustive discussions of Wiechers .
The Aesopic in Aristophanes 
(Philocleon) One day at Delphi, Aesop . . . (Bdelycleon) I could not care less
about that! (Philocleon) . . . was accused of having stolen a sacred cup. But
he said to them that one day the dung-beetle . . . (Bdelycleon) Oh no! You
will be the death of me, you and those beetles of yours!
An Aristophanic chorus, the angry old women of Lysistrata, also refers to
the fable of the eagle and the dung-beetle (). So does the discussion
in Peace –, where the very stage presence of the beetle, a substitute
for Bellerophon’s winged horse, Pegasus, is inspired by the stock dramatis
personae of Aesopic fable. A scholion on this passage in Peace (8 Pax )
related the fable in full: the eagle stole the young of the beetle, and the
beetle in revenge rolled away the eagle’s eggs. The eagle appealed to Zeus
and was invited to nest in his bosom, but the beetle came and flew round
Zeus’s head, causing him to jump up and break the eggs. This meant that
the beetle successfully extracted revenge from the eagle. But in this, the
earliest surviving Aristophanic use of the fable, merely the words ‘one day
the dung-beetle’ seem already to be quite sufficient to let the audience see
the point.
In ‘reading’ himself as the dung-beetle within the fable of the eagle and
the dung-beetle, Philocleon is demonstrating the art of decoding animal
allegory in a personal way. Aristophanes’ audiences could clearly understand
the identification of specific figures in animal stories with themselves and
their acquaintances, and moreover the identification of specific figures who
‘stood’ for a particular position in class politics. But Philocleon’s allegorical
exercise has another twist: he knows something at least of the biography of
the fabulist Aesop himself and can identify himself with the storyteller when
the storyteller identified himself with the dung-beetle. As in the Aesopic
scenario he dreamed up in order to deal with the baker-woman, Philocleon
here likens himself to Aesop, who had himself likened himself at Delphi
to the dung-beetle, who had subverted both the eagle and Zeus. There
are therefore no fewer than three parallel stories of subversion of superior
authority going on here – Philocleon is challenging his upwardly mobile
son, as Aesop challenged the Delphians, and the dung-beetle challenged
both the eagle and Zeus. Moreover, all three narratives are readable as
allegories for a potential (although ill-defined) rebellion of the followers of
Cleon within the Athenian political sphere. Aesop, as ever, is an important
signifier that something allegorical is going on.
It is the same fable, the eagle and the dung-beetle, with which Aristo-
phanes encourages his audience to think about the correspondences
 MacDowell : .
 edith hall
between the characters of his comedy Peace and real-life figures in the
contemporary political world – indeed, the correspondences, once again,
with Cleon. Here is the relevant part of the dialogue between Trygaeus’
two slaves which opens the comedy (–):
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(First Slave) Who was it then? [sc. who afflicted the household with the
dung-beetle] (Second Slave) No doubt Zeus, the God of the Thundercrap.
(First Slave) But perhaps some spectator, some beardless youth, who thinks
himself a sage, will say, ‘What is this? What does the beetle mean?’ And then
an Ionian, sitting next him, will add, ‘I think it’s an allusion to Cleon, who
in the Underworld feeds on filth all by himself.’ –
The first slave imagines a dialogue between two spectators going on simul-
taneously with his own conversation. Before the beetle has even been seen
by the audience, they are wondering what it will signify. The second slave
has used the audience’s knowledge of the fable of the eagle and the dung-
beetle to introduce the idea that Zeus must lie behind the presence of the
household’s strange new pet, but the first slave knows that people in comic
audiences are expecting a political allegory. The young philosopher is clear
that the dung-beetle must signify something more than a dung-beetle, but
the Ionian (whose provenance suggests the genre of iambic invective,
which, as I have already noted, itself drew on Aesopic fable) is equally
clear that the correspondence is insulting and is with Cleon. The slave,
himself very knowing about theatre audiences, imagines a hyper-knowing
spectator who can decode both fables and staged comic allegory. The intro-
duction of the animal allegory, and its explicit discussion, thus functions as a
prompt to the audience to start thinking allegorically: ‘what does the beetle
mean’?
The intergeneric dialogue conducted in Aristophanes’ Peace, as I have
discussed elsewhere, is simultaneously an aural battle between genres which
are fighting for peace and those which fight to prolong the war. On the
 I follow here the distribution of lines adopted by Olson .
 See Rosen .
The Aesopic in Aristophanes 
side of peace are ranged drama, Hesiod’s Works and Days, and choral lyric,
while martial epic and (to an extent) elegy signify Athenian and wider
Greek militarism. But in the opening dung-beetle stunt, Aesopic fable is
simultaneously both allied with tragedy in terms of the play’s overarching
narrative (that is, Trygaeus’ effort to bring about peace) and also tonally
contrasted with it in a manner similar to the contrast between on the one
hand Philocleon’s identification of himself with Aesop and the Aesopic
dung-beetle, and on the other the baker-woman’s potential identification
with the tragic heroine Ino.
Trygaeus’ daughter protests that it is a strange idea to harness a beetle
to travel to heaven (–), to which he responds, ‘In Aesop’s fables the
dung-beetle has been revealed as the only creature that can fly to the gods’,
adding the information that it went ‘to take vengeance on the eagle and
to break its eggs’ (–, –). The girl suggests that Trygaeus would
cut a more impressive, tragic figure if he rode Pegasus instead (–), as
Aristophanes’ audience knew that the hero of Euripides’ Bellerophon had
done. Trygaeus responds that the dung-beetle is easier to feed since it can
recycle Trygaeus’ own excrement (–). What we are seeing here is the
specifically Aesopic parody of a tragic episode – its ‘Aesopification’. For the
winged horse of mythology is substituted the bathetic dung-beetle of fable.
This intergeneric counterpoint is wrapped up, at the end of the stunt, with
the daughter’s warning that if her father falls off and becomes disabled,
he will cut quite another tragic figure – one of Euripides’ ragged heroes
(–, such as Bellerophon, Telephus or Philoctetes: see also Ach. ,
–; Ran. ). Even within tragedy, it is implied, heroes can be more
or less déclassé.
The precise significance of the functions of Aesop in Aristophanes
depends to an extent on the ideological import of the Fables in antiquity
more widely, a question that is notoriously fraught. The two most domi-
nant types of moral to be drawn from the fables are () the inevitability of
force majeure (the hawk is simply bigger and stronger than the nightingale),
and () the notion that smaller or weaker entities can, through favours or
superior intelligence, ameliorate to some extent the unfairness created by
the naturally superior power of other creatures (the mouse controls the
lion through reciprocal favours; the hare is vanquished by the pluck and
persistence of the tortoise). Both of these moral lessons seem to me to
be entirely compatible with the worldview of either rich or poor, free or
slave, in ancient Mediterranean society. There seems, however, to be little
 Hall : ch. . Cf. also Revermann and Telò, in this volume.
 See Finke :  and Hall . Unfortunately Kurke’s excellent  book was published too late
for it to be considered in detail.
 edith hall
doubt amongst classical scholars that the fables reflect at some level their
origins as ‘low’ or ‘popular’ culture, oral stories generated and circulated by
slaves and lower-class individuals in antiquity. This line of argument can
be traced to the classical Greek prose writers themselves. The point at
which agreement ceases is when the question is asked as to how ‘progressive’
or truly subversive the ideology of the fables is. Some, such as Kenneth
Rothwell, have identified Aesop’s Fables, especially in the classical period
and markedly in Aristophanes, as the literature of the underdog, with a
healthy rebellious and subversive content. But Page DuBois has argued
persuasively that the fables operated in antiquity in a rather reactionary way.
She thinks that in ‘naturalizing’ what are actually human social inequities by
comparing them with inherent biological and natural differences between
animals, they suggest that human inequities are immutable and unchal-
lengeable as well. My own view is that the Fables actually worked in
both ways – they are indeed expressions of the tensions that underpinned a
deeply hierarchical society but they expressed that tension dialectically in
ways that spoke with an equally loud voice to people on both sides of the
power divide and created an ‘epistemic community’ in the process. I would
argue that the socially ‘low’ knowingness of stance in which this tension is
expressed is the greatest debt ancient comedy owes Aesop and is moreover
one of the greatest debts it owes to any genre.
The knowing Aesopic stance may even take us into an intergeneric
dialogue of a far more ancient and transcultural kind. Long before Hesiod’s
allusion to the fable of the hawk and the nightingale, fables in what seems
to be similar to an Aesopic form appear in Sumerian, Akkadian, Egyptian
and Aramaic texts from the third millennium onwards. Once Edmund
Gordon began to publish his collections of Sumerian proverbs and fables,
hundreds of which refer to animals, classical scholars including Ben Perry
became convinced that the Aesopic fable came to the Greeks by way of the
neo-Babylonian and Assyrian wisdom tradition. One example is Hierocles’
proverb about she-dogs in a hurry giving birth to blind puppies (Pax
–), which is partially preserved in a collection of Sumerian proverbs
published in : ‘The bitch is weakened . . . the puppies’ eyes will not
 On the role of the Aesopic in the birth of Greek prose cf. Kurke . For another example of
Aristophanic reception of ‘popular’ culture cf. Rusten in this volume.
 Rothwell a. For further bibliography see Heath :  with n. .
 See DuBois : –.
 For a fascinating discussion of pre-Aesopic mouse fables in ancient Egyptian sources see Dawson
.
 On this scene see above.
The Aesopic in Aristophanes 
open.’ The fable of the eagle and the fox in Birds – has also been
traced to an archetype in Mesopotamia.
Much closer to Aristophanes’ time, fables similar to those associated
with Aesop also appear in the Aramaic papyrus of about  bc recording
the story and sayings of Ahikar. The papyrus was found in  or 
in the Jewish temple at Elephantine, Aswan. The dialect in which the say-
ings themselves are expressed is, however, of greater antiquity, belonging
to southern Syria in the eighth to seventh century bc. The very antiquity
of this papyrus makes it more likely that at least some truth lies behind
Clement of Alexandria’s claim that sayings from the story of Ahikar were
known, from a stele in Babylon, to none other than the philosopher Dem-
ocritus (Strom. ... = [Democr.]  b  D–K). Ahikar’s stance is
that of adviser to his nephew, whom he has adopted having been unable to
beget a son himself. The boy, according to the story, did not take kindly to
being hectored by his adoptive father. I would like to conclude with a recent
description, by Ingo Kottsieper, of the social world implied in the tone and
content of the sayings of Ahikar, a world, tone and content which bear
many resemblances to those in Aristophanes. My reason is not, of course,
to claim any direct relationship between specific passages of Syrian wisdom
literature and Aristophanes, but to emphasize the importance of taking
psychosocial stance into consideration when we are not only defining genre
but attempting to identify more subtle forms of intergeneric dialogue:
Most of the admonitions address free men, who are adult and occupy a social
position that allows them not only children but also servants. In addition, they own
weapons . . . Their economic situation is typical for free members of a rural society
in which one could easily procure wealth through a bountiful harvest, but also
could lose it again by a bad year . . . The economic situation of the addressees . . . is
also shown, where both the danger of borrowing and the advantages of giving
out loans are mentioned . . . That the addressees belong to the ‘middle class’ is
illustrated by the admonitions against desiring sizeable possessions, which are
beyond their reach, or power . . . in political or social arenas.
 Gordon : ; see especially Moran .  Williams .

 Kottsieper : –.
c h ap t er 1 2
The mirror of Aristophanes

The winged ethnographers of Birds
(1470–93, 1553–64, 1694–1705)
Jeffrey Rusten
The propelling force and central metaphor of Birds is wings, which enable
suspension, superiority and sublimity. Wings and flight sustain Birds’ plot
but also offer a stream of felicitous associations with sexuality, art and
especially poetry. Among these flights are four trochaic strophes late in the
action (–, –, –, –), which the chorus of birds
opens by announcing (–):

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.
We have flown over many novelties and marvels, and
seen strange things.
They go on to relate the thaumata that they have seen in four distant
lands. These four ‘voyages,’ separated into three different locations to
mark scene changes between the sycophant, Prometheus, the Poseidon
embassy, and the final messenger, and receiving only passing attention from
commentators, not only form a metrical unity but evoke and impersonate
a hybrid poetic-geographic genre of fabulous ethnography, of which wings
are both the means of transport and the recognizable generic marker.
But its specific placement here, as we will see, marks the completion of
Birds’ distinctive two-stage movement: evidently like other comic utopias,
For some new insights and refinements to the original version of this chapter I am indebted to an
audience in the Classics Department at Columbia University in , as well as to this volume’s
editors.
 See in general Luck-Huyse .
 For wings and sexuality, see especially Arrowsmith ; for wings in Birds see Taillardat : –
and Dobrov : –; on the connection between wings and poets in the play, see Martin .
 Here and elsewhere, unless otherwise indicated, the translations are mine.
 In addition to Dunbar  ad locc., cf. Wüst : –; Hofmann : –; Moulton :
–; and Silk .
 Crates’ Beasts (frr. –), Pherecrates’ Savages, Krapataloi and Mine-workers (frr. –, –,
–): see Ruffell .

The mirror of Aristophanes 
it is a process of crossing over, imagining the breakdown of existing bound-
aries between civilization and the wild, human and avian, land and sky;
but unlike them (as far as we know), it proceeds to establish a new mid-
air imperial city, which sidelines men and gods, earth and heaven alike.
From this brand-new Nephelokokkygian centre, the bird-chorus’s ethno-
graphic reports of its voyages will display a new periphery to wonder at
and speculate on and, in more than one sense, will take us back to where
we began.
poetry, wings, hyperboreans and laughter

When ancient poets speak of themselves or their work as winged, they
conventionally express one of two ideas. First, poetry can be thought of as
something that flies because it is above the level of daily life, somehow loftier
and therefore more meaningful than ordinary speech. The famous ‘winged
words’ in Homer perhaps belonged to this category once, although Milman
Parry showed that the phrase is used in the Iliad and Odyssey without regard
to the sort of speech which follows. Later lyric poets, especially Pindar,
come to use wings all too often in describing their own work, so that
Aristophanes never tires (in Birds and elsewhere) of ridiculing the bombast
of the ‘winged dithyrambs’ and their authors.
Opposed to these winged lyrics are the ‘earthbound’ words not only of
prose, but also of less elevated poetry such as iambics, and it is from this
metaphor that in ancient as well as modern times the word ‘pedestrian’ came
to be applied to everyday, uninspired language. Sophocles can therefore
speak of ‘pedestrian songs as well as lyrics’ ( 1 -
, TrGF
 F ), and an unknown comic poet has a character exclaim ‘stop singing
lyrics, and tell it to me on foot’ ((
(’, 1

-
). Callimachus closes the four books of his Aitia with the promise
that he will now ‘proceed to the pedestrian pasture of the Muses’ (*
g M
2" 16. [%]
, fr. . Pf.), that is, exchange the
divinely inspired elegy of that poem for the Iambi. Finally, Horace speaks of
his satires as ‘creeping along the ground’ (sermones . . . repentes per humum,
Epist. ..–).
 Parry .  See the list of passages in Köhnken : – n. .
 See Dover  on Ar. Nub. . On poets’ occasional self-characterization as birds D. Steiner .
 Kassel and Austin have dubitatively assigned this fragment to Aristophanes (fr. dub. ).
 Norden  i:  n.  collects passages contrasting 16
not with wings but with travel by
chariot; yet the chariot in which poets travel is that of the Muses (Kassel : ), and it is winged
(Pind. Pae. b.– M = C Rutherford), cf. the wings of the Muses in Isthm. .; the winged
chariot of the soul in Pl. Phdr. a is possibly an adaptation of the idea.
 jeffrey rusten
The other use of wings concerns not the height but the extent of flight –
the great distances it can cover – and it is primarily this that poets have
in mind when they explain how widespread their fame can be. Ennius
(Varia – V.) had commanded his posterity in an epigram:
nemo me lacrimis decoret nec funera fletu
faxit. cur? volito vivos per ora virum.
Let no one adorn me with tears, nor bury me with weeping.
Why? Because I am flying, still alive, through men’s mouths.
And Theognis had boasted to the boy Cyrnus, to whom he had addressed
so much advice in verse (– W ):

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I have given you wings, with which you will fly aloft with ease over the
boundless sea and all the earth; and at all the feasts and banquets you shall
be there, in many men’s voices etc.
But the exceptional fate Horace predicts for himself in the sky, escaping
death, is no mere poetic metaphor (Carm. ..–):
non usitata nec tenui ferar
pinna biformis per liquidum aethera
vates neque in terris morabor
longius invidiaque maior
urbis relinquam. non ego, pauperum
sanguis parentum, non ego, quem vocas,
dilecte Maecenas, obibo
nec Stygia cohibebor unda.
iam iam residunt cruribus asperae
pelles et album mutor in alitem
superne nascunturque leves
per digitos umeros plumae
iam Daedaleo notior Pcar
visam canentis litora Bosphori

Syrtisque Gaetulas canorus
ales Hyperboreosque campos . . .
 For an interesting contrast between the ‘bird’s-eye’ or cartographic view (also in Pl. Phd. b–c:
see Nightingale ) and the ‘pedestrian’ or touring approach to ethnography see Purves : ch.
 (and see n.  below).
 Stewart .
The mirror of Aristophanes 
No common or fragile feather will carry me aloft through the clear air, a
singer with two shapes; nor shall I delay further on earth, but leave the cities
behind, triumphant over envy. Not I, though the offspring of poor parents,
not I, whom you invite, beloved Maecenas, shall die, nor be confined by
the waters of the Styx. Even now the rough skin is settling on my legs, and
I am being changed into a white bird above, and light feathers are growing
on my fingers and shoulders. Soon, more well-known than Daedalic Icarus,
I shall inspect the shores of the resounding Bosporus, as a melodious bird I
shall visit the Gaetulian Syrtes, and the Hyperborean plains . . .
In an almost Birds-like metamorphosis, Horace feels his legs become rugged

skin, his fingers bonded with feathers; he will leave humanity behind
(urbis relinquam), but his flight will place before his view (visam) the
distant places of East and South and, to the north, even the land of the
Hyperboreans.
Now claims of visits to the Hyperboreans had occasioned Herodotus’
famous comment on imaginary ethnography (.):
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And let that be the end of discussion about the Hyperboreans. For I do not
repeat the story about Abaris, who was said to be a Hyperborean, which tells
that he carried an arrow all around the earth and ate nothing. If there are
some men beyond the north, then there are also men beyond the south.
When I survey the already numerous authors of [

, not a one of
whom has related anything that makes any sense, I can only laugh.
Herodotus’ laughter can help lead us to the specifically winged sub-branch

of ethnography in which the birds are engaged.
fabulous ethnography
The task of describing distant lands and peoples was one which the earliest
Greek prose writers undertook with enthusiasm. The first accounts of
this kind to survive complete are the numerous ethnographical digressions
in Herodotus, and the shorter notices in the Hippocratic work On Airs,
Waters, and Places, but there are enough citations preserved from earlier
authors, in particular from Hecataeus of Miletus, to show that ethnography
 Cf. Romm .
 jeffrey rusten
was a completely developed literary form long before Herodotus wrote on
the Egyptians and Scythians.
If we cannot always know precisely what the earliest ethnographers had
to say about the places they discussed, it is nonetheless clear that they
tended to follow certain categories about each people they examined. A
brief list of these would include, in a consideration of the land itself, its
location and topography, plant and animal life; and on its inhabitants, their
physical appearance and their social, political and religious customs.
Serious ethnography of this kind might seem to offer limited oppor-
tunities for parody. But there existed a separate department of this genre
that was given over to entertainment or anthropological speculation in the
guise of ethnography. Here sensationalism was the rule, and the peoples
described were as often as not freely invented. A comprehensive introduc-
tion to this literature is provided by some remarks in Strabo, taken from
the preface to the second book of On the Homeric Catalogue of Ships by
Apollodorus of Athens of the second century bc, one of the most well
read of Hellenistic literary scholars. He is commenting on the puzzling fact
that, whereas in the Catalogue of Ships in the second book of the Iliad
the geographical information seems mostly accurate, Homer has also men-
tioned fantastic tribes such as the

(‘horse milkers’, Il. .).
On this question Apollodorus agrees with Eratosthenes that Homer had
no real geographical knowledge of distant lands but was content in these
cases to invent fabulous peoples whom the gods could visit, and that such
inventions are perfectly natural and excusable. At one point he adds an
additional argument from the practice of later writers (Str. .. = FGrH
 [Apollodorus of Athens] F a):

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 See Schroeder , the list of topoi in Trüdinger :  and the index of Thomas .
The mirror of Aristophanes 
And (Apollodorus says) that it is not surprising about Homer; for even those
still later than he are in many cases ignorant and tell monster stories, Hesiod
speaking of Half-dogs and Big-heads and Pygmies, Alcman of Narrow-
feet, Aeschylus of Dog-heads, and Breast-eyes, and One-eyes and countless
others. And from these Apollodorus moves on to those who talk about
the Rhipaean Mountains and Mount Ogyion, and the settlement of the
Gorgons and Hesperides, and the Land of Merops in Theopompus, and the
Crimea in Hecataeus, and the land of Panchaea in Euhemerus, and river
stones made from sand in Aristotle that melt in the rain, and that in Libya
there is a city of Dionysus, but that it is not possible for the same man to
find this twice.
From the list we can see how popular this other sort of ethnography was –
it began with Homer and continued to Apollodorus’ own day, and beyond.
To find the precise connection between works of this kind and the reports
by the chorus of birds in Aristophanes, we should examine briefly two of
the earliest examples of fabulous ethnography, both of them poetic.
winged ethnography
Apollodorus’ list begins with Hesiod, and there can be little doubt about
the Hesiodic work that is meant, for it was one of the most popular sections
of the Catalogue of Women. In Book  of that work, the story of Phineus
and the Harpies was told: Helios had sought to punish the blind prophet
by sending these birdlike creatures to steal or befoul his food, so that he was
on the point of starvation. The Argonauts desperately needed directions
from Phineus for the voyage to Colchis, and these could be obtained only
if they rid him of his affliction. So the sons of Boreas, Zetes and Calais,
began to pursue the Harpies. This chase, which reached to every corner
of the world, was described at great length within the Catalogue, and the
account was famous enough to warrant a separate title – Ephorus called
it the [

, ‘circuit of the world’. We need not, however, rely
entirely on Strabo and Ephorus for a description of this work, since POxy.
 (fr.  col. ) preserves a substantial part of the very section in which
the Boreadae pursue the Harpies (fr.  M–W =  Most); the poet
places considerably less emphasis on the principal characters than on the
places and peoples they reached during their chase, and almost all the tribes
mentioned are the half-legendary sort which Apollodorus also noted:
 ‘Aristotle’ here is probably an interpolation, since all the other citations are in chronological order,
see Radt in TrGF . ad fr.  and Rusten a: Appendix .
 Str. .. = FGrH  (Ephorus) F  = Hes. fr.  M–W = fr.  Most.
 Translation by Most .
 jeffrey rusten
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of the Subterranean Men and of the Pygmies [

] of the countless Black Men [
] monstrous Earth bore [
] and all-oracular Zeus’s [
] so that they be subject to the gods [
] whose mind is superior to their tongue,
Ethiopians and Libyans and mare-milking Scythians.
Hephaestus] was born, son of Cronus’ very strong son,
and his grandsons,] the Black Men and the great–spirited Ethiopians
and the Subterranean Men] and the strengthless Pygmies:
they all] belong to the lineage of the sovereign Loud-Sounder.
Around [them all] in a circle they kept going, rushing
] the peoples [] of the well-horsed Hyperboreans.
] bounteous, pasturing the widely dispersed
beside the steep streams of the deep-flowing [Eridanus
The mirror of Aristophanes 
] of amber.
Atlas’] steep [mountain] and rugged [Aetna
] Ortygia and the Laestrygonian race.
He] was born the son of mighty Poseidon.
Around it] they ranged twice, around and about they circled
eager] to catch them, but they [scil. were eager] to flee and run off.
To the] tribe of the lordly [Cephallenians] they hastened,
whom Calypso, queenly nymph, [bore to Hermes;
and to the land of lord [Nisus], Aretiades’ son;
and they heard the [Sirens’ piercing] voice; but them too
]with their feet high in the air
]through the barren air . . .
They see the Pygmies, M" and c
2
(‘underground-dwellers’),
the Aethiopians, Libyans, and horse-milking Scythians and finally the
Hyperboreans. Like the birds of Aristophanes’ chorus, the Boreadae in the
Catalogue of Women visit the distant lands where these fabulous peoples
lived and, like them, they could do so because they had wings.
Wings become ubiquitous in the accounts of the Hyperboreans. Of all
the distant peoples known to the Greeks these were the most difficult to
reach, for they lived far to the north and were separated from the rest of
the world by an impassable mountain range – the Rhipaean mountains,
which we have already encountered in Apollodorus’ list, and which were
known as early as Alcman. The means of transportation to this tribe is
the subject of a famous assertion by Pindar, who begins his account of the
visit of Perseus to them in Pythian .– with the statement:
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Neither by ship nor going on foot could you find
the marvellous road to the assembly of Hyperboreans.
Pindar tells us only that we cannot reach the Hyperboreans in any normal
way, which has left some readers wondering just how one could in fact
cross the mountains and find them. The answer to this question would
 See especially the last two lines, and for the traditional iconography of the Boreadae LIMC iii.
–.
 Alcm.  PMGF; Soph. OC ; FGrH  (Hellanicus) F b;  (Damastes) F . Cf. Desautels .
 2 . . . 1 is meant to encompass all the normal modes of transport, cf. Od. .–, .,
., .. That 1 merely means ‘by land’ (or even ‘without a ship’) is shown by Od. .–
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b
(which Page a:  called one of the ‘silliest lines in Greek epic’), ., Il. .–; cf.
also Theoc. Id. .–.
 jeffrey rusten
probably not have puzzled anyone in antiquity who was familiar with
the various visits made to the Hyperboreans in legend. To begin with,
Perseus himself managed to get there on his way to the Gorgons, and it is
known that for this entire adventure he had the use of winged sandals.
The mythical Hyperborean Abaris, on the other hand, who made several
crossings from his home across the mountains to Greece and back again,
travelled around the world on a winged arrow. Even Apollo first reached
this land in a special chariot given to him by Zeus, which was drawn by
swans according to a story ascribed to Alcaeus. We are told by Pausanias
that one of the first temples built at Delphi, which is also mentioned in
a fragment of Aristotle, was built from honeycombs and feathers, but the
temple is no longer to be seen there, because Apollo had it sent to the
Hyperboreans.
Ovid (Met. .–) mentions Hyperboreans who cover themselves with
feathers, Lucian refers to them flying (Philops. ), Iamblichus (VP .)
calls them .!
/ , and Herodotus (.) tells of a region in these same
Rhipaean Mountains which is pure white – not from snow, but because
the peaks are covered with feathers. When told that one can reach the
Hyperboreans ‘neither by land nor sea’ we are clearly meant to think of the
air. For the same reasons, we can see the plausibility of an emendation
in a passage where Pausanias tells us of a poem in which Musaeus is made
to fly followed by the senseless words 6 d
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and Willy Morel suggested that Musaeus actually flew . ~/
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The man who is best known in connection with Hyperboreans, Aristeas
of Proconnesus, did not in fact ever reach that tribe himself. All the infor-
mation on the Hyperboreans which he recorded in the Arimaspea came,
as he himself admitted, from neighbouring tribes. But Aristeas’ poem
stood nonetheless just as firmly in the tradition of fabulous ethnography as
Hesiod’s [

; in fact the reason why the Arimaspea is not included
in Apollodorus’ list is probably that the authors cited there employed mar-
vellous stories only in parts of their works, whereas Aristeas’ narrative
consisted solely of fabulous places and tribes. The Arimaspea is therefore
especially suitable for comparison with the stories told by Aristophanes’
chorus.
 See [Hes.] Sc. ; Eur. El. ; Apollod. Bibl. .. (); and Preller, Robert et al. :  n. .
 See Meuli : –.  Alc. fr.  L-P; cf. Page b: –.
 See Paus. . and Arist. fr.  Rose.  See Fränkel :  and Köhnken : , .
 See Paus. .. = Musae. T  Bernabé.
The mirror of Aristophanes 
Although the entire tradition on Aristeas is filled with uncertainties,
the testimonia all agree on one point, his method of travel. His ability
to reach distant parts of the world to perform his wonders came from
Apollo, and he journeyed in the form of Apollo’s special bird, the crow, as
Herodotus (..) and Pliny the Elder (HN .) both attest. As Maximus
of Tyre describes these journeys (. = Bolton, Aristeas T  = Aristeas T
 Bernabé):
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His soul was separated from his body and wandered in the sky like a bird,
observing everything to be seen below, Earth, the sea, the rivers, cities, and
tribes of men, and their sufferings, and all sorts of features; and when it
had entered back into his body and he had awakened, using the body as a
tool, he explained whatever he had seen and heard, different things among
different peoples.
the birds ’

So we have seen that one of the basic requirements of this early fabu-
lous ethnography was a correspondingly fabulous means of transportation,
namely wings; it is obvious from the introduction to these four strophes
that Aristophanes invokes this genre. In the four narrations of the birds,
Aristophanes has composed his own [

, adapting material from
ethnographical works of all kinds; yet to look for an actual location for
these various places and tribes would be a great mistake, since he has chosen
them not for their real properties, but for the names and associations he
 As with Abaris, the earliest preserved source mention of Aristeas’ Arimaspea is Herodotus, who gives
a rationalized account, turning an originally fabulous flight into a normal journey of exploration:
see especially S. West , also Meuli  and Dodds :  n. .
 This and other descriptions of the flight of the soul are probably influenced by the ‘soul-bird’ in
representations of the dead or dying: see Vermeule : ; Weicker : ; Dodds : 
n. ; Peifer . The soul’s progress out of the body is described as a flight already in Hom. Il.
. = ..
 There were of course more sober ethnographers such as Hecataeus, who did not claim they could fly
but still willingly recorded and commented on the accounts of their winged predecessors. Herodotus
may have suggested the theme, but his resolutely rationalistic treatment of Abaris and others shows
he is not Aristophanes’ direct target here, though indeed some of his marvels may have resembled
those in Birds in suggesting points of resemblance to his audience (Munson : chs.  and ).
 jeffrey rusten
can give them. As is hinted at in their closing comments, there is only one
place that the birds are really describing.
The first report deals with Cleonymus (–):

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We have flown over many novelties and marvels, and seen strange things.
There exists a strange tree that grows further away than Kardia, a Cleony-
mus, in no way useful, but otherwise large and cowardly. In the spring, this
tree blossoms and produces figs, but in the winter it alternates and sheds its
shields.
It was customary for ethnographers to describe the plant life of any coun-
try they visited – even Xenophon, whose concern with ethnography was
limited, thought it worthwhile to include the tree whose fruit gave his
men such headaches. Aristophanes has turned Cleonymus into such a
tree located ‘further away than Kardia’ not because he is connected with
this town in the Thracian Chersonnese, but because Cleonymus’
(courage) is notoriously wanting.
The fourth-century comic poet Timocles found a similar means of
mocking Hyperides; in an apparent parody of a passage from [Aesch.]
Prometheus Bound , he made him into a river which ‘bubbles with
boasts and wheedling cleverness . . . and irrigates the fields of the highest
bidder’.
 All four descriptions begin with the % + noun (here an attested place-name involving a pun),
followed by a relative clause or the equivalent, an epic method of opening a narrative topographically
(Fraenkel : –): cf. e.g. Hdt. . and Thuc. .. Note that despite the initial ‘cartographic’
(above n. ) or ‘aerial’ (S. West : –) perspective, the four subsequent vignettes are narrated
from an Earth-based point of view.
 An. ..–. Cf. Herodotus’ descriptions of the plants of Babylon (..–) and Scythia (..,
–.).
 Storey .
 Timocl. fr. . For the ethnographic

@ cf. Hdt. .–.
The mirror of Aristophanes 
The second strophe introduces another distant curiosity (–):
% ) I #$ 6 *

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There is a certain land far away, near the very darkness, in the desert of
lamps, where men dine and keep company with heroes, except at night. At
that time however, one could no longer associate with them safely. For if
any mortal encountered the hero Orestes at night, he wound up naked, and
soundly thrashed by him over all his right side.
Commentators here have usually been content to refer to popular super-
stitions about Greek heroes and their powers; but it is possible that this
description was inspired by a particular legend.
Everyone has heard of the Isles of the Blessed, which lay in the West,
and to which selected heroes were transported after their deaths, but there
was another such island in the East as well, called Y2, ^
or ‘White
Island’. This island belongs especially to Achilles and is already mentioned
as his in the Aethiopis, by Pindar and by Euripides, but other heroes,
including Helen and Ajax, lived there as well. The Isles of the Blessed were
located vaguely to the west; the White Island, on the other hand, is always
placed in the Black Sea (already by Pindar), and though it is very distant,
men claimed to have sailed there and used the altar and oracle; but there
were important limitations to the presence of mortals on Y2, ^
. In
the third-century ad second sophistic dialogue Heroicus Philostratus has
given a full account of the island and its formation, which is of course
long after Aristophanes but appropriates and adapts the brief references in
Pindar and Euripides; according to him no men were allowed to live on
 Aethiopis, Procl. Arg. . Bernabé; Pind. Nem. .; Eur. Andr. –, IT –. Cf. Rohde
: ii. n.  and Preller, Robert et al. : –.
 In addition to Rohde (see above, n. ) see Hedreen ; compare especially the epithet
2 !

in Eur. Andr.  with Philostr. Her. . (cf. Weicker : –). On Heroicus see especially
Grossardt  and Whitmarsh .
 jeffrey rusten
the island, and any sailors who used the altar had to depart by sunset, for
the night belonged to the heroes, especially to Achilles and Helen.
Aristophanes has made use of the fact that Athens could be dangerous
at night for one without a torch, and that a thief nicknamed Orestes was
one of the chief dangers; the heroically named Orestes is transported to the
White Island with the other heroes but men leave at sunset for a different
reason: Orestes can not only inflict paralysis on men like other heroes
but will steal their cloaks as well. The only reason that Aristophanes has
not made this particular land of the heroes an island like Y2, ^
is
that he was too fond of the night-time puns in 6 , and the
‘desert of lamps,’ which is modelled after the 82!@ (Ach. ).
Needless to say, neither phrase should be interpreted as a real indication of
place.
The third story is inspired by the double meaning of the word
42#, which Aristophanes finds in the metaphorical meaning
‘persuade, entice’, and applies literally (‘conjure souls’) to Socrates (–
):
6 '
8
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2

Q
42# 8A 
%! [
N!

42#, . f
1@’

` ,
- ’ %#
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W $, F- 
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6 6
2
< -@ & 2 .
Near the Shadowfeet there is a certain unwashed lake, where Socrates con-
jures up souls. It is there that Peisander came, since he wished to see the
spirit which had left him while he was still alive. He had a camel lamb to
sacrifice, and he cut its throat as Odysseus once did, and moved away. Then
from below to the abyss of the camel Chaerephon the bat came to him.
 Chamael. fr.  Wehrli. Compare the blinding by a hero in Hdt . and Helen’s punishment of
Stesichorus, and Heracles in FGrH  (Istros) F .
 Used of Socrates in Pl. Phdr. a (cf. Süss : ); 42#! is said of the listener to tragedy
in Timocl. fr. . (cf. de Romilly ).
 The translation of line  conforms to Wilson’s choice of the reading over , offered
by part of the manuscript tradition: on this controversial textual problem see Montana .
The mirror of Aristophanes 
Once again there is an ethnographical frame; the 8
were men-
tioned already by Hecataeus and Antiphon and are said to have lived
in Libya, but Aristophanes has used them here because also means
‘soul’. The surroundings of Peisander’s sacrifice may be taken from ethno-
graphic literature also, since there were a number of places in Greece which
claimed to be entrances to the Underworld, and 2
, centres for
speaking with the souls of the dead, were maintained there still in classical
times.
Of course the sacrifice described here, apart from novel details like the
introduction of a camel and the appearance of Chaerephon, is based on
the often imitated Nekyia in Book  of the Odyssey. But it is probably
not derived solely from that text. In anapaestic lines copied as a school
exercise on P.Köln iii. (= Aesch. TrGF  F a), plausibly ascribed by
Bärbel Kramer to Aeschylus’ known play entitled Psychagogoi, a stranger is
being given directions for the performance of a sacrifice to the dead. She
conjectured that the man addressed is Odysseus, and the speakers are the
chorus of 42#
, conjurers of souls:
V (, X 5’,

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6

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Come, stranger, stand on the grassy precincts of the fearful lake, and once
you have cut the throat of this sacrificial animal, let drop the blood, for the
soulless ones to drink, into the dim depths of the reeds. Invoking ancient
earth, and Hermes of the Underworld, conveyer of the dead, beg the Zeus of
the Underworld to send up the swarm of night-wanderers from the mouths
of the river, of which a branch, this miserable water, with which the hands
are not washed, has been sent forth with the streams of the Styx.
 Od. .. Cf. Vermeule :  n. .

 Hdt. .. (Peisander’s wife). See Rusten b.
 Chaerephon was nicknamed ‘the bat’, and dead souls are compared to 2 in Od. ..
 jeffrey rusten
There are many interesting features in these lines, but one new word,
#"
in line , is especially meaningful in the current context: it
seems to denote that the water in this lake, which was one of the branches of
the Styx, must not be used for washing, and Bärbel Kramer aptly compared
the word V
2
in Aristophanes. The adjective has always been taken to
refer only to Socrates (which is certainly possible despite the word order)
but in the light of the papyrus text, it is also possible that it is applied to both
nominative nouns. In its normal passive sense, it designates the unwashed
philosopher, but in an active sense it refers to the lake whose water cannot
be used for washing and is exactly parallel to H #"
, so that
an Aristophanic double meaning is finally revealed.
The last of these four narratives has the greatest concentration of ethno-
graphic tropes (–):
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In Phanai near Klepsydra, there lives a villainous race of Englottogastores

(‘tongue bellies’), who reap and sow and gather fruit and pluck figs with
their tongues. They are of barbarian stock, the Gorgiai and the Philippoi.
And on account of these tongue-bellied horse-lovers, everywhere in Attica
the tongue (of a sacrificial animal) is cut off separately.
Phanai and Clepsydra seem to have been real places, the former a harbour
in Chios, the latter a spring in Athens; here they evoke the water clock
of the Athenian court and the verb - , in the sense ‘denounce’. The
)0

are furthermore one of Aristophanes’ most felici-
tous inventions. They are based on a mythical tribe of )0#

,
‘hand bellies’, who were originally viewed as creatures with hands directly
attached to their stomachs but had by the fifth century been rationalistically
explained as ‘those who fill their bellies with their hands’, that is, men who
The mirror of Aristophanes 
lived from manual labour. (No one had of course ever seen them, only
heard their name.) This revision was probably found in Hecataeus’ ethno-
graphic work, since he was in general fond of rationalistic explanations and
is known to have mentioned this people under the name <

,
which is more suitable for the new meaning.
This explanation was obviously known to Aristophanes as well, but his
tribes, the Gorgiai and Philippoi, work not with their hands but with
their tongues. And from the supreme importance of the tongue to these
people, the birds, as astute ethnographers, can explain one of their peculiar
religious customs: the tongues are kept separate during sacrifices. This
was, however, the custom not only in Attica, but throughout Greece, so
that with the words #
( r what we might have been
suspecting is finally stated openly: the birds, as outsiders, have in each of
these four strophes voyaged to four places (beyond Kardia, the Desert of
lamps, the Shadowfeet, and Phanai) behind which lies that most strange
and distant land, Athens, and described some of its residents in some of the
different modes (plant life, the supernatural, religious ritual, and privileged
occupations) which the Athenians themselves were accustomed to apply in
ethnographic analysis.
the mirror of aristophanes: centre and periphery

in birds
Aristophanes’ ethnographic parody inaugurates a long literary tradition.
Just as Herodotus’ earnest but sensational ethnography continues through
Ctesias and Pliny to Sir John Mandeville, the reports of the birds are the
seed of satiric travel-narrative that grows into Lucian’s True Histories and
Antonius Diogenes’ Wonders Beyond Thule; and the final unmasking of
the birds’ objects as, in each case, identical to the audience, prefigures the
four voyages to the Lilliputians, Brobdignagians, the Laputans, and the
Houyhnhnms and Yahoos in Gulliver’s Travels.
 Knaack ; see K–A on Nicophon’s comedy of this title and Supplementum Hellenisticum fr. 
(Antimachus).
 Nestle :  n.  with further bibliography.
 See Od. .. Cf. Stengel , : –, Jacoby on FGrH  (Philochorus) F .
 For the growth of this tradition in the fourth century see Magnani .
 Antonius Diogenes once calls himself (somewhat mysteriously) an exponent of ‘Old Comedy,’ on
which see Swain  and E. Bowie .
 ‘I thought about how Jonathan Swift could talk about insane kings in Gulliver’s Travels. Maybe if I
set my ideas on far-off planets with polka-dot people, I could too’, Gene Roddenberry (New York
Times  November , ) on the creation of StarTrek.
 jeffrey rusten
But there is an important difference, in that the voyages of the birds
are not a free-standing satire; rather, they are the logical end result of the
revision of spatial perspective to which Peisetaerus introduced the birds
in the play’s transformational scene (–): he asked them to look up,
then look down and agree that below them they saw clouds (beneath which
live humans), and above, heaven (where live the gods). Where the birds
exist is a hub (
), a place that is central, and through which everything
passes; if they settle it and fortify it, instead of a hub (
) it will be
called a city ( ), and they will control human beings as easily as locusts
and destroy (but
with the implied sense of ‘un-citify’) the gods
with Melian starvation. How? Obviously, air (birds’ territory) is between
them (gods) and the land. And so, just like Peisetaerus’ home of Athens
depends on Boeotian permission to go to Delphi to sacrifice to the gods, so
the birds can extract tribute as a condition of any sacrificial traffic between
earth and heaven.
Up to this point, the birds’ ‘spatial vagueness functions as a sign of
primitive lack of differentiation, like the Aethiopians . . . who live near the
rising and the setting of the sun’. But the work of the play is to establish
this new perspective on space, not the horizontal one that put Greece at the
centre, and imagined hyper-peripheral peoples like Aethiopians on east and
west or, to the north and south, the Hyperboreans or even Hypernotians
Herodotus found so ridiculous; the new Nephelokokkygian centre looks
not horizontally east and west but vertically, up and down as the stage-
directions of Peisetaerus (V/ , –) make clear.
The conclusion of Birds puts the finishing touches on the depiction
of this new centre, by showing its relation to the new periphery. From
one side, heaven, it naturally receives ambassadors (–) who would
never before have stooped to such a visit; the final indignity for human
beings comes in these four strophes, as they become the destination of
cultured tourists ready to be amazed at their odd customs. In the new
vertically based world Athens, like the Hyperboreans before, is relegated to
 Birds –, on which see especially Konstan : .
 Aptly compared to the treaty clause in Thuc. . and the Second Sacred War by Sarah Hitch in
a conference paper at the Classical Association meeting of . Strategically, what the birds do
resembles much less the Sicilian expedition than the Spartan colonization of Heraclea Trachinia in
 or (as Vickers  notes) the fortification of Decelea in  (the year following Birds) – and
Peisetaerus seems closer to the Alcibiades who advises Athens’ enemies to do the latter (Thuc. .).
But that resemblance does not seem to me to be the foundation of an entire allegorical system as
Vickers would take it.
 Konstan : .
 See Redfield ; in this aspect the birds’ reports somewhat resemble parts of Montesquieu’s Persian
Letters.
The mirror of Aristophanes 
the hyper-periphery, a place whose nomoi, initially so repellent, now evoke
ethnographic amazement, and the implausibility of their very existence
invites Herodotean-style laughter.
To return to the mirror: it is well recognized that Herodotus’ vision
of the Scythian ‘other’ is also a mirror reflective of himself, his Greek
audience and the posterity of his readership. Aristophanes, by giving
Birds’ utopia an engagement with ethnographic discourse, makes generic
otherness central to the construction of utopian alterity and flips the terms
of the identity-alterity dialectic through which this generic tradition defines
itself. Unmasking the audience of his discourse of the other as not only
its destination but also its source is possible only through the transgressive
force of comedy.
 Hartog : xxii–xxiv.
part iii
The reception of comedy and comic
discourse
ch a p te r 1 3
Comedy and comic discourse in Plato’s Laws

Lucia Prauscello
According to the anonymous Life of Aristophanes, when Dionysius the

tyrant of Syracuse wanted to learn ‘the ways of the Athenians’ public
life’ (, r!
), Plato answered by sending him Aristo-
phanes’ works and advising him to peruse them ( *
(
!"). Anecdotal as this piece of evidence may be, it is not an
altogether unfitting reception of some of Plato’s long-standing concerns,
in his dialogues, with laughter, and especially comic laughter, as a power-
ful social and political medium. In particular, Plato’s uneasy relationship
with comedy is one of the most intriguing aspects of what Monoson has
called his ‘democratic entanglements’. In classical Athens comedy was a
festival sponsored by the state and performed by citizens for the citizens
themselves: with all its marked distortion of everyday reality, its appeal to
‘free speech’ ( ) and ‘equality’ (.) nevertheless contributed
My sincerest thanks to M. Schofield, G. Lloyd and the anonymous Cambridge referees for improving
substantially an earlier version of this chapter. I alone am responsible for any mistakes and/or
misunderstandings.
 Ar. T  ll. – K–A (= Prolegom. de com. i, ia, xxviiii, ll. – Koster).
 On its possible pro-Athenian origin, see Riginos : . Riginos dates the anecdote as ‘no later
than the sixth century ad’ (: ).
 The bibliography on the subject is endless; I quote here only what I found most relevant for my
present argument. Comedy as a form of ritually institutionalized laughter: Halliwell : –,
, a and b: –; Rosen : –. On Plato and laughter: McCabe ; Halliwell
: – and : –; Rosen : –; Jouët-Pastré  and : –; Rowe ;
P. M. Steiner ; Mader  (esp. – on comedy). On Plato’s engagement with comedy as
a competing ‘civic’ discourse: Nightingale : –, –; on Plato’s redeployment of comic
tropes of speech, see Brock . On the alleged fondness of the historical Plato for Aristophanes,
Epicharmus and Sophron, see Riginos : –.
 Monoson . Plato’s moral interpretation of comedy as a public, if not overtly political, vehicle of
communication is, of course, determined by his own philosophical agenda. That is, Plato’s response
is only one of the possible audience responses to the complexities of Aristophanes’ self-presentation
as a ‘civic voice’ (see Silk a: ). I share here the moderate scepticism expressed by Heath 
and now Olson  (esp. –) on the unambiguous seriousness of comic discourse qua political
discourse (vs. Jeffrey Henderson  and ).

 lucia prauscello
to the city’s identity as the archetypal democratic polis. Comedy, espe-
cially Aristophanic comedy, tends to present itself as a public ‘dispenser
of blame and praise – a social critic that claims to speak the unvarnished
truth’. My present aim is to explore how comedy and the comic discourse
of abuse and ridicule are absorbed, metabolized and redefined within the
‘communicational utopia’ of Magnesia. In doing so, I shall try to show
how in the Laws Plato’s revisionist account of comedy and its psychology
of emotions, while coherently integrated into his previous reflections on
comic laughter and ridicule, draws extensively on rhetorical strategies of
self-representation actively advertised by comedy itself.
magnesia, the law and its communicative strategies

Before treating the passages of the Laws where the Athenian Stranger
directly engages with comedy as one of the forms of public utterances
allowed in the ‘second best city’ (d–a; c–b), it may be
useful to sketch briefly the network of discursive practices mobilized by
the divinely inspired lawgiver in order to persuade the citizens of Magnesia
that the ‘best’ (V
) life is also the ‘most pleasant’ (Z
, b). A
fundamental premise for the success of this exercise in mass persuasion is the
unity and ‘self-likeness’ of Magnesia’s social body. Its citizens must willingly
embrace not only shared thoughts and feelings but even shared perceptions
(c–d). In order to achieve this result, a ‘correct education’ (+!,
) must first of all infuse into individuals the experience of a ‘correct’
physiology of pleasure and pain (c–; cf. also a–c). A ‘correct’
way of perceiving pleasure and pain must be activated already through
play ( ), before the full development of rational faculties (c–
). The resulting harmony between emotions and reason requires a form
of control that must be situated beyond the strictly individual sphere: it
 So Carey : ; cf. also Goldhill : .
 Nightingale : . On Plato’s appropriation of the democratic rhetoric of frank speech beneficial
to the whole community, as attested in oratory and comedy, see Monoson : –, and Van
Raalte : –. On (‘bravery’) as ‘a metaphor for comic mockery and satire’ in
Aristophanes, see Rosen : ; and Rosen and Sluiter : –.
 I owe this definition of Plato’s ‘second best’ city to Laks : .
 For the (prescriptive) notion of ‘comic’ as non coextensive with ‘the laughable’, in both Plato and
Aristotle, see Held : – ( on the semantics of and

).
 For convenience’s sake I understand here the Athenian Stranger as Plato’s mouthpiece.
 On the ‘homogenization of citizenship’ in Plato’s Laws, see recently Sassi : –.
 On the importance in the Laws of a correct physiology of pleasure for leading a happy life, see
Russell : –.
 On ‘play’ as a mode of existence in the Laws, see Jouët-Pastré , ; for a survey of ‘play’ and
‘childishness’ in Plato, see Morgan : –.
Comedy and comic discourse in Plato’s Laws 
is here that the socializing and educative role of choral performances, a
divine gift, becomes an essential tool. Social solidarity and cohesion is
grounded in the collective experience of dancing and singing together:
rhythmic bodily agreement generates affective bonds, a shared perception
of life and its ‘social time’. In Magnesia the performers and recipients of
the performance are the same: citizens performing qua citizens by endlessly
re-enacting their own self-likeness.
In an ideal city where persuasion exercised through public utterances (be
they speeches, songs or myths: a–) is the primary form of political
communication (c–), the most powerful educative tool, in Plato’s
eyes, is to make the discourse of praise and blame, reward and censure,
the organizing principle of private and public life. Praise and blame
in Magnesia are viewed as exerting equal social power on their intended
recipients. They must be ‘correctly bestowed through the laws’ (a,
4" +!@ ) *@ @ ). The voice of the
law in Magnesia is a manifestation of the divine mind (c–): ‘the
writings of the lawgiver’ (
(

!"
2 , d) must be
the ‘clear touchstone’ (/
. . . -, d–) of all other ‘public
discourses’ (
) of praise and blame (%
4
) prompted by
‘emulation’ (-
), be they in verse or prose, written or oral (d–).
The discourse of the law will be thus like an ‘antidote to the other speeches’
(! 5 - @ V , d), helping to ‘correct’
(+!
() the good judges and the city itself (d–).
Yet, given the limitedness of human nature and its compromising liaison
with pleasure, praise and blame are also represented at the same time as a
more powerful educational tool than the law itself (and somehow prior to it
as well): ‘ . . . (after that) we must say that what makes each more obedient
and well-disposed to the laws that will be laid down is not the law itself
but praise and blame in their educative function (%
>
4
)’ (b–). It is the fiction of spontaneity that is such an integral
element to the discourse of praise and blame that determines their enhanced
educative value within Magnesia’s society. Magnesia’s utopianism is thus
highly agonistic: public praise and blame (for, among other activities,
choral and athletic performances as well) are positively encouraged within
 Kowalzig forthcoming.
 Cf. e.g. Laws bc, d, a–e d–d, c–d, a; see Bertrand : – and also
Laks :  and – (on preambles as ‘speeches of praise and blame’).
 On this passage see Bertrand : –.
 Cf. e–a. On whether or not this formulation allows for some form of radical psychological
hedonism, see Annas : –; for a different view, see Russell : –.
 On e–a see Laks : –.
 lucia prauscello
certain limits by the law. Of course, collective performances may be
competitive without utterly undermining social solidarity: if the prize to
be won is a prize in civic excellence and communal ideals, the overall unity
of a community may be thus reinforced (a–, -
' &
6 , -!, ‘let any one of us contend in virtue without
envy’). Yet the balance between ‘correct’ forms of blame, civic unity and the
latent danger of individual -!
is clearly a sensitive issue in Magnesia.
The citizens of the second best city must ‘praise and blame unanimously’
( ) I 4" !) G) on the basis of their capacity to ‘rejoice
and feel pain at the same things’ (d–). How does comedy fit within
this network of collective performances oriented to promote and at the
same time enact civic virtue?
the psychology of comic laughter in the republic and

philebus : some observations
To laugh at someone/something is at the same time an act that is socially
inclusive and exclusive, depending on the expected allegiances between
the agent/prompter of laughter, its recipient (audience) and its object (the
target of ridicule). In Old Comedy (and especially in Aristophanes) comic
ridicule allows for an active form of co-operation and participation, on the
part of the audience, in the actual performance. The comic author tends
to construct an ‘ideology of exclusiveness’ for his implied audience: ‘[t]he
poet addresses the spectators as if they belonged to his friends’ group,
he appeals to their complicity’. Thus, for example, in the Acharnians
Dicaeopolis, vetriloquizing the poet’s voice, can appeal to ‘the spectators’
(, V
!$
) as ‘his own philoi’ (, -

). Like the iambic poet, Aristophanes tends ‘to present the comic
performance as if it were addressed to a narrow circle of people’: comedy
as public dispenser of blame (and praise) ‘particularly requires that the
listeners be mentally close to the poet, that they be his friends’. This
 Cf. e.g. d–d, e–a, c–e, a. On public performances of iambi at e, see Rotstein
: –.
 See Halliwell : –, : ; N. W. Slater , Dobrov b (esp. ). According to
Ruffell , the self-reflexive stance of comedy helps to bridge (and not to enlarge) the gap, both
emotionally and intellectually, between audience and performers.
 Zanetto : .
 On this expression, see Olson :  ad loc. The semantic spectrum covered in ancient Greece by
the word -
/- is broader than the modern one, applying to a vast range of human attitudes
and relationships. For my purpose let it suffice to point out the well-known fact that -
often
refers to kith and kin and political allies rather than individual for whom one might feel affection.
 Zanetto : , .
Comedy and comic discourse in Plato’s Laws 
attitude strongly supports the view, advocated by Halliwell, that the comic
audience, at least within the ritual frame of the City Dionysia, is ‘an
audience psychologically implicated in the shamelessness of the event’.
How can a citizen of Magnesia come beneficially to terms, either in
his capacity as viewer or performer, with this psychological profile? What
about the verbal vilification (
), mockery (), foul lan-
guage (.#

) of comedy, in sum what a fifth-/fourth-century bc
theatre-goer may be expected to subsume under the label of ‘the comic
experience’?
Before tackling Plato’s response at Laws d–a, let us survey briefly
some passages where the philosopher has already addressed the moral and
cognitive value of laughter, comic laughter included: () Republic d–
e (cf. also c), and () Philebus a–b. A first observation can
be made: in all these passages the notion of ‘comic ridicule’ extends far
beyond the world of the stage. Com(ed)ic laughter can be (and is) used as
an exemplification of the broader psychological process activated by human
response towards ‘the laughable’ (6

) but is never limited to it.
The ‘comic’, like the ‘tragic,’ is for Plato a universal concept, a modality of
perceiving and being that is not limited to the dramatic world. Our first
passage (Resp. d–e) closely follows Socrates’ exposure of the negative
models of behaviour offered by comic mimesis (e–a). This is the
text of d–e:
' R2
( 5
,
* !
2
1 R26 #
, . , V /#>, #6

, ’ .#2! , D ' >
i
( !
W

>
2, D ' 2# 6
.
W @ >
2, 1
, ,
# .
 Halliwell :  (author’s italics); cf. also Halliwell : . This of course does not exclude
but indeed encourages the ‘comic loop whereby the audience is expected to laugh at a gibe against
its own “shamefulness” ’ (Halliwell :  with reference to Nub. –).
 At Resp. e–a verbal abuse (

(), reciprocal mockery (
(

2) and use of obscene/foul language ( .#

() ‘stand[s] as a kind of synec-
doche for comic drama (Halliwell :  (= : )). For the persistence of invective, personal
satire and abusive language well into the fourth century bc, see Halliwell a: –.
 This selection is necessarily partial and my treatment of it will cover only the points that are more
relevant to the present argument.
 This is routinely observed for the Philebus but, to the best of my knowledge, hardly so for the
passages of the Republic; most telling is the second alternative at c–: '
T .
> (‘at a comic performance or in private life’); cf. Halliwell :  n. .
 Halliwell :  rightly qualifies that in e Plato’s argumentation about mimetic ‘imprinting’
does not mean a condemnation of comedy per se.
 lucia prauscello
When [the decent man] comes [i.e. in the course of his narrative: cf. c–
] to someone who is unworthy of him, he will not be willing to liken himself
in earnest to that man who is his inferior, unless perhaps briefly when [the
inferior character] is doing something good, but he will be ashamed, both
because he is untrained in imitating such characters and because he resents
shaping and fitting himself to the moulds of inferior people, despising it in
his thoughts unless it is for the sake of play.
The focus of the whole section is mainly oriented to the psychology
of the actor/performer, yet the scope of reflection is broader. Several
commentators have rightly noticed that this passage represents a condi-
tional overture to comedy and have emphasized how the terms of the
condition are best summed up in the expression # (that is,
a decent man can imitate someone his inferior as long as it is ‘for play’s
sake’). Comedy’s self-consciousness of its ‘fictional status’ ( ) and
the self-contained, ‘inconsequential’ dimension of comic mimesis allow
for ‘a marginal acknowledgment that role playing can sometimes be sep-
arated from psychological internalization’. This is certainly true and is
surely part of what Plato meant. But there is also another equally impor-
tant qualification to the (conditional) propriety of some forms of comic
mimesis that has often passed unnoticed. This qualification is
#6
(‘when [the inferior character] is doing something good’)
at d. This is as close as Plato ever gets to acknowledging that an
inferior/comic character may find itself, after all, doing ‘something good’
(#). In Old Comedy the adjective # is almost a catch-
word for Aristophanes’ repeated claim, be it serious or not, that comedy is
socially useful. The ‘comic hero’ defines his identity by aligning himself
with the #
(of which the audience is meant to be part) against the
‘morally bad’ (

). It is thus difficult to resist the temptation to see
in the Platonic #6
an echo of the slogan so obsessively
advertised by Aristophanic comedy: namely that (his) comedy says what
 Halliwell :  n.  observes that at e ‘need not refer exclusively to
comedy . . . though comedy seems the most obvious outlet’.
 Cf. e.g. Rosen : ; P. Murray : .
 For this rendering of # , see Halliwell :  with n. .
 The accountability of comic laughter to legal curbs is a highly controversial subject. I side here with
Halliwell in believing that Old Comedy enjoyed licensed performance conditions that removed
the consequential effect of comic abuse that would have otherwise applied in everyday reality (see
Halliwell : –, –, , a). For a very different reading, see Sommerstein 
(with previous bibliography).
 Halliwell : .  On the value of #, see Giuliano : .
 See e.g. Eccl. , Ach. –, Eq. – and Ran. – (cf. also – and  but with reference
to tragedy).
 For the semantics of # vs.
in Aristophanes, see Storey : –.
Comedy and comic discourse in Plato’s Laws 
is # for the citizens and the polis. Even in Kallipolis, where the
ethics of mimesis for the guardians has been argued to be stricter than in
Magnesia, there is some qualified and cautious concession to comedy.
At Philebus a–b the psychology of laughter, on and off the stage
(b–), is introduced as an instance of the ‘mixed pleasures’ of the soul,
that is, of pleasures inextricably linked to pain (d–). The ‘laughable’
(

) springs from the sense of ‘childish/playful resentment’ ( 6
-!
, a) towards our ‘neighbours/friends’ (
", b–; -
,
d, d–e, a–) who exhibit ‘self-ignorance’ (V
, c)
about the true state of affairs of their inner and outer qualities. In so doing,
they are ‘weak and unable to revenge themselves when laughed at’ (b–
, !) !

(
>
$
! ).
Halliwell has perceptively observed that ‘the notion of comic characters as
“friends” in the Philebus . . . points towards a sense . . . that at some level we
are (partly) “on their side”, at least for the duration of the play’. What
has not been observed is that the degree of implicit attraction that the
spectator is supposed to feel towards comic characters (inasmuch as they
are our -
) finds a fitting comparandum in the projected image of the
comic audience as ‘friends’ that we have already found, for instance, at
Acharnians .
The qualification of the ‘envy’ (-!
) experienced by the agent and
beholder of the comic situation as is also interesting. Its pri-
mary meaning may well be ‘playful’ inasmuch as ‘it conveys a form of
amusement or pleasure’: this is why 6

is both a pain (>)
for the soul (as an expression of -!
) but also a pleasure (&
). Yet
also conveys the dimension of , ‘play’, as the ‘proper’,
prescribed sphere of 6

. Feelings of envy that prompt laughter,
though a mild version of Schadenfreude, are something ‘not taken in earnest’
not even by their own practitioners, so to speak. Once again, in this
 On this most famous passage, see Halliwell : –; Delcomminette : –; Frede :
–; Cerasuolo .
 V
is Cornarius’ emendation: the reading of the MSS is V
.  Halliwell : .
 This aspect has often puzzled modern interpreters. In particular the exact sense of -
in the
Philebus passage has been highly disputed. For a minimalist reading of -
as ‘someone who is
harmless with regard to ourselves’, see Delcomminette : –. See also Frede : .
 See above, p. .
 For a subtle analysis of how the agent/prompter of laughter and the receiver of it (the spectator)
tend to collapse into a single psychological profile from e onwards (esp. a–), see Cerasuolo
: .
 I am deeply grateful to Malcolm Schofield for an illuminating discussion on this issue.
 See Delcomminette :  n. . Frede translates it as ‘comic malice’ (Frede : ).
 Cf. above the expression # at e.  See also Benardete : .
 lucia prauscello
passage of the Philebus there seems to be, on Plato’s part, a marginal
acknowledgement of the ‘self-contained’ and inconsequential nature of
laughter directed towards innocuous friends. That Plato in this way erases a
priori the possibility of thoroughly nasty laughter (comic laughter included)
directed against ‘friends’ reveals the extent to which he offers here a pre-
scriptive (and not descriptive) notion of 6

(and this even taking
into consideration the archaic ethos of ‘helping your friends and harming
your enemies’). Comic laughter has often been understood, by ancient and
modern interpreters alike, as an outlet for ‘social’ envy (-!
). Plato was
doubtless aware of this aspect but in the Philebus he has chosen to ‘intro-
ject’ the social dimension of this phenomenon into the individual soul ‘in
communion with itself’ (d, *, , 42#, ). And yet this
critique of our enjoyment of 6

does not lead to a straightfor-
ward condemnation of comedy: as already observed, in the Philebus Plato’s
‘diagnosis leaves open the question whether we can do without them [that
is, the mixed pleasures activated by tragedy and comedy] or whether the
emotions created by the arts might not on occasion be quite therapeutic’.
comedy at magnesia (i): the spectacle of otherness

What, then, is the answer of Magnesia’s god-inspired lawgiver to the moral-
cum-psychological problems raised by comedy? The first passage where the
issue is directly tackled is at d–a:
' @ .#@
@
(
"
", "5 ,
3#
> ",
' !! 1 A V2

2 9
@ ! '
* 2, . "
-
%! ,
'
* I 26 -, j I "
6 !"5 , *@ G
> !
* ,
(
) V
T "
, '
"
,
>
'
( 5"
!

! ,

2, ' * L "
’ &
(, " 9
!
* ! -6 @ 2!", 2
V, 6 ' * - ! @ . '

I " , ? , "
,
H
!A .
 For a survey of this topic, see Carey : – and –.
 On the continuity of Plato’s reflections on laughter between Philebus and Republic, allowing for the
different contexts and perspectives, see Halliwell : .
 Frede : liii. See also McCabe : –.
Comedy and comic discourse in Plato’s Laws 
As to what pertains to the shameful bodies and thoughts and those who turn
themselves to laughter-provoking comic performances through speech,
song, dance and the comic imitations of all these, it is necessary to observe
and get to know them. For, if someone is going to be one who understands,
it is not possible for him to understand what is serious without what is
laughable, nor to get a grasp that way of any of two opposites without the
other. But it is not possible for someone to practise both things, if he is going
to partake of even a small part of virtue, and indeed it is just for this very
reason that he must learn the laughable, so that he may avoid ever doing
or saying through ignorance what is laughable, if he does not have to. The
imitation of such things must be imposed upon slaves and hired strangers
and there should never be any seriousness whatsoever about these things,
nor should any free person, either woman or man, be seen learning [i.e.
to practise] these things, and something kainon must always be manifest in
these imitations. As far as laughter-provoking amusements, which we all
call comedy, are concerned, let this be established by law and argument, etc.
Before addressing its content in detail, it may be worth noting that this
discussion of the function of comedy in Magnesia takes place within a
broader section (d–e) specifically devoted to those bodily move-
ments that may be ‘correctly’ (+!@) categorized as ‘dance’ (3# ,
de). The Athenian Stranger has just acknowledged the existence of
two ‘forms’ of dance (j, e). The first consists in the imitation of
‘beautiful bodies’ moving ‘in a solemn way’ (e–), the other in the imi-
tation of ‘shameful bodies engaged in low behaviour’ (e, , ' @
.# 6 -(
). It is as representative of this latter L
of
dance that comedy (together with other kinds of comic representations)
is introduced at dff.
Plato’s aetiology of dance at a– represents the movements of the
body as a natural extension of the voice. Its immediate consequence is
that bodily figures (#) are never ‘autonomous with reference to
the content of the song’. Hence the easy shift of focus the Athenian
 I follow Schöpsdau :  (with parallels) in understanding @ . . . " as masculine

participle instead of neuter.
 I take
> as objective genitive of : see again Schöpsdau :  for the
text.
 For * at e acting as descriptive genitive and closely linked to the ensuing ,
see England : ii. ad loc.
 For their further subdivisions, see Schöpsdau : –. I cannot treat here in any detail the
problematic "
of dances labelled as
*
; for the present let it suffice to say that I side
with Schöpsdau : – in not identifying them with satyr-play (cf. Morrow : –, ).
 This inclusive aspect of the phrasing at d– is clearly emphasized by Morrow : –.
 The ‘moral problem of comic dancing’ is acknowledged en passant by Wiles : .
 Peponi : .
 lucia prauscello
Stranger can bring in almost immediately in his digression on comedy
by extending his argument to every kind of comic representation ‘with
regard to speech, song, and dance, and the comic imitations they all entail’
(d–). What then is the actual content of this digression on laughter-
provoking performances? In the reformed world of Magnesia its citizens
must observe (!! d) and become intellectually acquainted
( 1 ) with them, since the knowledge (e, !; e, 9
! ) of what is ‘serious’ (
2
) necessitates also the knowledge,
but not the practice (cf.
at e), of what is ‘laughable’ (

).
Slaves (
(
) and hired strangers (5"
% !
) must then be ordered
(
) to be the performers of the otherness at Magnesia: the purity
of the civic body must not be contaminated. And even in this case of per-
formances enacted by slaves and strangers any ‘seriousness’ (
2) must
be avoided: what we call comedy belongs to the dimension of
(e) and its performances ( ) must always reveal something
that is .
At least three aspects are most interesting here. First, the idea that
comedy (and comic performances: '
I ", e)
are . Once again, as in the Republic and Philebus, we have a
prescriptive notion of what ‘the laughable’ should be: 6

must
be exercised and contained within the realm of what is ‘safely’ playful
(and, therefore, not socially divisive) if it has to have any positive social
effect on its recipients. Old Comedy constantly exploits its dramatic
‘playful’ dimension by paradoxically exposing it while at the same time
claiming (more or less disingenuously) some seriousness of purpose.
 The metaphorical sense of the verb !! for ‘theoretical reflection’ is doubtless meant to evoke
also the language of the ! as physical spectacle (something we should watch).
 For the citizens and not the lawgiver as the implied subject of !! 1 at d–,
see Morrow :  n. .
 !
at e– must refer to ‘learning how to enact’ the laughable, not to mere intellectual
comprehension. For the contrast ‘intellectual knowledge’ vs. ‘practice’ of bad behavioural models,
cf. e.g. Resp. a– and d–e.
 The analogies with the conditions of the Spartan helots, obliged to perform humiliating dancing
and songs in front of the homoioi have often been noted: see e.g. Schöpsdau : .
 That the Athenian Stranger is striving here to give us a ‘persuasive definition’ of comic laughter is
confirmed by his attempts to make his definition pass as generally and unproblematically shared:
cf. a, ? , "
.
 On comedy as ‘play’ in the Laws, see Jouët-Pastré :  and ; : –; : –. This
aspect is explicitly restated at c–a (see below).
 Examples could be multiplied: see e.g. Ran. –, Plut. , Ach. . For a survey of Aristophanic
passages where the comic poet is presented as striving to speak out ‘what is just’ ( ) on
the behalf of its fellow citizens, see Bakola :  with nn. –. On the purposely elusive and
ambiguous nature of Old Comedy’s advertised ‘seriousness’, see Silk a: – (esp. –);
Heath  and Halliwell : –.
Comedy and comic discourse in Plato’s Laws 
Plato, on the other hand, has no doubt that the only civically ‘useful’ form
of comedy for Magnesia is that which abdicates a priori all ‘seriousness’, at
least on the part of its author(s)/performers. What is more interesting is
that this impermeable distinction between serious and playful repeatedly
advocated in Magnesia when it comes to comedy is potentially at variance
with the otherwise pervasive notion, in the Laws, of play ( ) as
the most ‘serious’ and divine mode of existence. In the Laws ‘play’ is
the most serious activity by means of which human beings can assimilate
themselves to the divine (b–c): of ‘true’, ‘blessed seriousness’ only god
is worthy (c–, -> ' L !6 '
2
2
V5
). ‘Human’ forms of seriousness must be commensurable (b,
>
) to our limited mortal nature: the self-absorbed dimension of
is the ‘fitting medium’ (b,

) through
which human seriousness can be expressed. It is ‘by adopting this mode
of being (playfulness) that every man and woman must live out his/her
life playing the most beautiful plays’ (c–). With the exception of
comedy, in the Laws and
2 are constantly presented by
the Athenian Stranger as false alternatives: they are not only compatible
and complementary but actually interchangeable modalities of being.
Comedy as mirror of the ‘otherness’ with which to confront oneself finds
its place in the ‘second best city’ at a very heavy cost: that of opening a
breach into Magnesia’s theology of play.
A second interesting aspect, strictly linked to the distancing effect (from
an audience perspective) implicit in the acknowledgement of as the
‘proper’ sphere of comedy, is the split identity of performers versus spec-
tators. We have already seen how the stability and cohesion of the social
body in Magnesia finds its surest foundation in the identity of performers
and spectators. The loop whereby citizens performing qua citizens are at
the same time also the recipients of their own performance is temporarily
suspended (only to be ultimately reinforced in its validity) by the introduc-
tion of slaves and strangers as actors of an otherness that must be rationally
but not emotionally processed. This, as we have seen, is perhaps the most
marked distortion, in terms of psychology of emotion, of what a comic
audience was encouraged and repeatedly invited to experience at the theatre
 Comedy as something distinct from other ‘serious’ forms of poetry: apart from the already mentioned
c–a, see also e– and c–.
 Jouët-Pastré :  (with n. ) perceptibly undermines this tension.
 On this passage see Jouët-Pastré : –.  See also e–.
 Cf. c, b, a. See Jouët-Pastré :  and –; see also Ardley . This of course is a
contextually motivated idiosyncrasy of the Laws.
 lucia prauscello
in Plato’s time. So what kind of laughter, if any, does Magnesia’s comedy
envisage for its spectators? In the Philebus, where the psychological profile
of the promoter (author/actor) of laughter and its recipient (spectator) are
brought to overlap sensibly and merge into each other, the natural result
was the mixed pleasure of a laughter prompted by 6 -!
. In
the Laws, by severing the psychology of performers (a body external to the
city) and audience, Plato is able to purge comic laughter of the ‘playful
envy’: the disposition of mind of the beholder towards the actor will be
such that he/she will not be able any longer to consider the ridiculed as
his/her ‘neighbour’ or ‘friend.’
In the Philebus (d–) we were told by Socrates that ‘to rejoice’
(# ) at one’s enemies’ misfortunes (if we can call ‘enemies’ the repre-
sentatives of bad moral behaviour) with laughter is neither ‘unjust’ (V
)
nor ‘resentful’ (-!
) conduct, and as such not a pain for the soul of the
good citizen. Slaves and hired strangers are physically and metaphorically
considered as neutral vehicles of the ‘enemy within’: a dangerous otherness
that can be kept under control only by avoiding contamination. The
‘distancing’ laughter that the citizens of Magnesia will experience watch-
ing comic performances will morally absolve them from their potential
complicity with the shamefulness of the event itself.
Comedy is then the social space in which the citizenship as such can
and must become vicariously acquainted, at a rational level, with a form of
otherness with respect to its collective identity. In this sense the function of
comedy in Magnesia is partially similar to that envisaged for the symposium
(wine as a vehicle for personally experiencing otherness with respect to
oneself ), with the fundamental difference that citizens at the symposium are
also the performers. This relationship, in Magnesia, between symposium
and comedy as places, respectively, for experiencing otherness with respect
to oneself and otherness with respect to a communal sense of shared identity
represents another significant distortion of comic rhetoric, where sympotic
and komastic moments, with a varying degree of inclusiveness, tend to be
fully integrated into comedy’s triumphal narrative pattern.
Thirdly, at e– we are told that ‘something must always be
manifest in comic imitations’. The phrasing of this line has often caused
 The same tendency to blur any precise boundary between the psychology of the promoter and
enjoyer of laughter can be seen also in Resp. cff.: see esp. Halliwell : –.
 For the purely ‘instrumental’ role of the slaves in Magnesia’s society, see Panno : –.
 On the relationship between symposium and comedy in Magnesia, see Jouët-Pastré  and Panno
: –.
 Aristophanic comedies often end with some kind of ‘komastic’ or ‘sympotic’ triumph (be it either
wedding komos or epinician); symposium and komos often appear in a combined form in comedy:
see Pütz : . For the rhetoric of comic nike in the exodoi, see Calame  and Wilson b.
Comedy and comic discourse in Plato’s Laws 
trouble to interpreters, and emendations of have been proposed to
correct what may look like an unexpected and unmotivated afterthought.
Why should comic representations always exhibit something ? And
what is the exact meaning of ' . . . - ! ? The adjective
has usually been interpreted in two different ways: either in the
sense that ‘there ought always to be felt to be something unfamiliar and
strange’ about all comic representations or in the sense that ‘such comic
representations should be constantly changed, for fear that familiarity might
give them too strong a hold on the public mind.’ The semantics of
allows, of course, for either possibility, and if we look at the spreading of
the word in a work so obsessively concerned with stability and negation
of change,
-related word formations usually carry a negative moral
evaluation.
The two possible interpretations mentioned above are not, I believe,
mutually exclusive. Something constantly changing in its nature necessar-
ily becomes ‘unfamiliar’, ‘extraneous’ as a result of its precarious relation
with us. In particular, with reference to the dominion of the arts, Egypt
is repeatedly praised by the Athenian Strangers for having ‘sacred’ and
thus unalterable laws that do not allow for innovation (

).
Yet change leading to improvement is not totally banned in Magnesia (see
c–d) and there are occasions, isolated though they are, where the
positive nature of change is advocated. In particular at c– we are told
that ‘the whole city’ (c–, , *) must ‘never cease to
enchant itself’ (c–, . . .
2 , >! )
with an incessantly changing variety of songs (c–, /9
#
), so that they can infuse in the
singers an ‘insatiable eagerness and pleasure for singing’ (c–, F
L @ H . . . &
). In this passage the
word does not appear, yet the ‘variety’ and ‘changing nature’ of songs
 See e.g. Post’s conjecture ‘humiliating’ (Post : ).
 England : ii.. For the first interpretation, see e.g. Bertrand : ; Jouët-Pastré : ;
: –; and : ; for the second, see e.g. Stallbaum –: ii.; Morrow : ;
Schöpsdau : ; Panno : .
 With the exception of those passages where
- words refer to the ‘newly’ founded city of
Magnesia (b, d, b, c, c, d). A lexical search on the Irvine TLG E has
revealed thirty-eight attestations of in the corpus Platonicum and ten for

- stem.
Nineteen out of these forty-eight occurrences are in the Laws alone.
 e, on which see Nightingale .  See Panno : –.
 Variation and diversity (
) in songs have been explained by Kowalzig :  as mainly
referring to the necessity of distinguishing, through dance and song, different types of worship
within a polytheistic society, and this may well be part of what is going on. Yet the necessity to
generate an ‘inexhaustible eagerness and pleasure for songs’ in the performers (who are also the
recipients of the songs themselves) seems more directly linked to the ‘correct’ physiology of pleasure
and pain exposed at a–c.
 lucia prauscello
become a positive medium when linked to fostering a correct physiology
of pain and pleasure. My contention is that at e– Plato, by empha-
sizing that the comic representations must always exhibit some element of
‘novelty’ ( ), is at the same time drawing on his own reflections on
the physiology of pleasure and deliberately exploiting (or better exposing)
a recognizably ‘comic’ rhetoric of speech. Variously interpreted either as
a mere rhetorical exercise pointing to the existence of ‘a common pool
or repertoire of comic material’ accessible to everyone or as a vehicle of
an ideological avant-guard, the rhetoric of and its self-reflexive
character are one of the most conspicuous features of Old Comedy.
Aristophanes in particular ‘regularly claims to be a comic innovator and
does his best to shape his audience into one prepared to value comic
innovation’. The comic ‘seriousness’, both literary and ethical, of poetics
of is indeed at best elusive and ambiguous: yet it is a brand
to which Aristophanes constantly returns, with more or less pronounced
irony. The audience’s taste and propensity for innovative ‘originality’ is
what Aristophanes constantly seeks to control in his parabases, where the
comic poet presents his own persona as endorsing both ‘old’ traditional
values and ‘new’ sophistic . No doubt the self-fashioning of the
comic persona around key concepts such as is deeply indebted to
its obsessive relationship with tragic practice. In particular, Aristophanes
repeatedly tries ‘to negotiate and relate innovation and satire’, with spe-
cial emphasis on a satire which purports to be civically beneficial to the
community. Yet the poetics of comic has its own anxieties: it
is a double-edged weapon, inasmuch as it might turn out to be a device dis-
tancing the audience from the comic poet. Aristophanes is perfectly aware
of this but at the same time strives to use the rhetoric of innovation as a
further element for drawing the audience to his side. In the Laws Plato
exploits the inner ambiguity of the poetics of comic for his own
 Heath a: .  See e.g. Bakola : –; Ruffell ; N. W. Slater : –.
 See Silk a: –; Slater ; Sommerstein ; Bremer . Sommerstein  provides a
thorough collection of passages from Old and Middle Comedy.
 N. W. Slater : .
 Cf. the caveats of Wright at p.  n.  in this volume and Biles : –, –.
 Bakola : –.
 See esp. Thesm. – on which cf. Silk a: –. For self-conscious as part of
Euripides’ self-definition, see McDermott .
 Cf. Ruffell : . Vesp. – (cf. also –), Nub. –, Eccl. –.
 See Bremer : –.
 See Ach. – (the Athenian audience as unstable in its tastes and ‘quick to change its mind’), Eq.
 (the audience is prone by nature to change taste every year), Vesp. – (the audience failed
the poet by not being able to understand his ‘brand-new ideas’), Eccl. – (Praxagora worries
about the tastes of the spectators: they may look down at novelty and prefer what is stale).
Comedy and comic discourse in Plato’s Laws 
pedagogic goals. The trumpeted ‘comic brand’ of will be part
of Magnesia’s comedy but at the same time will expose itself for what it
is to the eye of the philosopher: the only ‘novelty’ possible will be one
denouncing its own unsuitability to a true spirit of shared comradeship.
comedy at magnesia (part ii): comic mania and bad speech

In Kallipolis the manipulation of language and state censure extended to
the acts both of speaking and of listening: the speaker of false speeches
(specifically about the gods) and his listener were both equally subject to
reproach and censure (Resp. b–). This collapsing of the distinction
between the two poles of the verbal exchange does not take place in
Magnesia: its citizens not only can but must attend comic spectacles in
order to acquire a (merely) rational apprehension of morally bad models of
behaviour. This brings us close to another interesting feature of Magnesia’s
policy towards its own citizens: the necessity to exert control, quite literally,
over citizens’ modes of speech. Comedy must provide a negative foil to what
has to be avoided not only in terms of experiential and representational
mimesis but also in terms of specific speech-acts. The second passage in
the Laws where the Athenian Stranger dwells at some length on comedy
(c–b) is in fact framed within a broader reflection on the absolute
necessity, at Magnesia, of avoiding any form of improper, abusive and foul
language.
This passage is most interesting for various reasons and has already been
the object of a thorough analysis with regard to what, for lack of a better
word, I shall call the ‘licensed, fictional’ nature of comedy (that is, its being
a form of 1 ‘without animosity’ (V2 !2
()) and its role within
Magnesia’s society. In Magnesia, even if the status of is fully
acknowledged for comedy, still no form of 1 , either with !2 or
without, will be allowed if addressed against its citizens (e–). Those
allowed to practise it (that is, the slaves and hired foreigners of d)
must do so by limiting the target of ridicule to themselves (a–,

 On aischrology as ‘a special kind of speech-act . . . not reducible to the status of its subject-matter’,
see Halliwell :  (= : ).
 For the text and the train of thought of this much-discussed passage, see above all Saunders :
–. For a historical contextualization of the legal measures proposed here by the Athenian
Stranger, see Halliwell a: – (and : –).
 For the exact meaning of in this context, see Rotstein : .
 For
of a referring to dff. rather than to c (as, for instance, England has), see
the detailed arguments of Saunders : .
 lucia prauscello

2) and by adopting a tone of mockery which must be V2
!2
( and (a–).
I would like to dwell on a different aspect of our passage that has so far
been neglected: the larger frame informing the ways in which the comic
character and poet are represented with specific reference to the forms of
expression. Secondly, I would like to show how the psychological profile
of the promoter/agent of comic abuse as described in c–b, while
finding significant resonances in Plato’s physiology of psychic vices, is also
exploiting a well-identifiable comic trope, that of the ‘comic’ hero and/or
poet as ‘madman’.
We have already observed that this second extended discussion of com-
edy and comic representations (comedy, iambi and lyrics: e–) is
part of a broader legal section on the necessity, at Magnesia, of avoid-
ing any form of improper, abusive and foul language. In the ‘second best
city’ there must be only one law about verbal abuse (e–, ; ,

%
) and this must apply to everyone ( ):
"
(e–, ‘let no one insult anyone’). ‘Irrever-
ent speech’ (/- ), ‘vituperation’ (
), ‘abuse’ (

)
and ‘ridicule’ () are used throughout almost interchangeably to
define the most representative speech-acts of comic representations (com-
edy included). If we read this passage bearing in mind d–e, we are
led to conclude that not only must the content of comic representa-
tions be, in itself, something inherently extraneous to the civic body of
Magnesia (comic imitations must always exhibit something ) but
also the comic language as language must be something alien to the citizens
of the ‘second best city’. Here Plato anticipates Aristotle very literally, so
 For not punctuating with a comma after
, see again Saunders :  ad loc.
 Cf. also a. Morgan : – with n.  traces back this attitude to epinician tradition.
 The overlapping between the two roles is most explicit at d–.

, S
./ T
2@ , 5" . (‘a poet of comedy
or of some of the iamboi or of the Muses’ song must not be allowed . . . ’): I take the phrase as a
disjunction between three different literary genres, that is, comedy, iambos and melos: cf. Rotstein
: – for a detailed discussion of the passage and its textual difficulties.
 /- , d–e;
, e–, e;

, c, c, d; , d,
e. It may be interesting to observe the absence of /

#-related formations. /

#
with specific reference to the bad moral effects of ‘ridicule’ is mentioned at Resp. c–: the Laws’
obsession with religious purity (cf. e.g. the criticism against the perverted sacrificial and choral
practices of contemporary Greek cities at c–e: a crowd standing not far from the altars, but
at times right beside, pours every kind of blasphemy on the sacred offerings ( /-
@ @ #"
2 )) may be part of this linguistic taboo.
 For the poetics of ‘bad’ language in Aristophanes, see Storey .
 Cf. Rotstein : – with a perceptive discussion of the whole passage (esp.  ‘[Plato] . . . is
not strictly concerned with false allegations as such, but with the use of abusive language for the
sake of humour and derision’).
Comedy and comic discourse in Plato’s Laws 
to speak:
and .#

are de facto reduced to a verbal
medium that coincides with a distinct socio-ethical category (slaves; hired
strangers).
Again, this picture is clearly prescriptive and in no way a faithful reflec-
tion of what we know of ancient comedy: at least as far as Aristophanes
goes, ‘there is no clear evidence that the language of slaves differs in any
systematic way from that of free persons of the same gender’. What I
find worthy of further consideration in this systematic alignment of good
behaviour/good speech-acts (and, conversely, bad behaviour/bad speech-
acts) is its visible intersection with the ways in which the Pindaric epinician
tradition thematizes the problem of moral badness and blame at the level
of expression. As recently put by Morgan, ‘the struggle between good and
evil in Pindar plays out most insistently not in the realm of deeds but in the
realm of words. His focus is on speech acts . . . In the epinician world virtue
often tends towards poetic virtue and vice towards poetic vice . . . all char-
acterize the good citizen as well as the good poet.’ In Magnesia’s world,
actions count as much as words (and vice versa). Yet, to borrow once again
Morgan’s words, we can see reflected in the background the same idea that
‘a continuum stretches between private, public and poetic speech and these
realms enjoy a reciprocal relationship’. Of course, the authorial voice
has its own licences: even if the practice of

must be avoided by
citizens, at d– we hear the Athenian Stranger directly engaging in
his own performance of verbal abuse: ‘this [i.e. form of ridicule] we revile
(
(

(), when it entails animosity’ (B !2 9

Nh). This form of performative utterance by the Athenian Stranger is
not very different, in terms of rhetorical discourse, from what the chorus,
in its authorial mood, states at Knights –:

W

W
*" ) -!

, | ,
#
, I
1
(‘there is nothing invidious in insulting bad people, but rather honourable
for good people, if you think about it carefully’). This paradoxical rhetori-
cal gesture by the Athenian Stranger nicely dovetails with the comic irony
of an Aristophanes who constantly accuses his rivals of vulgar jokes while
doing just the same himself.
But let us go back to my second point, and pay attention to the specific
context within which the psychological profile of the promoter/agent of
 For .#

as the archetypically servile form of speech, see Arist. Pol. . (= a–b).
 Sommerstein : .  Morgan : .  Morgan : .
 For the historical Plato as an ‘iambic’, Archilochean satirist according to his own contemporaries,
see the passages quoted by Worman : –. For Plato’s use of figures of speech of the iambic
traditions and of the mood associated with iambos, see Worman : ch. .
 lucia prauscello
comic abuse is introduced at c–b. This section of Book  of
the Laws comes immediately after the exposition of the legal measures
to be taken in the case of theft or violence (" T / 1
at
e; @
/ at c–) and before
those concerning beggars (b–c, #
). The broader frame is thus
strictly legal: Book  contains what comes close to what we could call a full
exposition of Plato’s ideal penal code. Yet in Magnesia punishment, and
especially state-sanctioned punishment, aims to reform the wrongdoer by
curing his/her soul’s disease (
), when it is curable. The criminal’s
state of mind, that is, his predisposition to ‘injustice’ ( ), is repeatedly
treated as if it were a disease of the soul. In Book  at a–a
the Athenian Stranger identified three main causes leading to forms of
‘psychic injustice’: !2 (anger, b–), &
(pleasure, b–)
and V
(ignorance, c). What is interesting in this pathography of
vice is that crimes are classified according to the psychology of the offender.
This is also the case for our passage c–b. We have already seen
that the psychology of the promoter/agent of laughter of d–b is
subsumed within a broader category: that of a person who verbally abuses
others. Yet what has passed entirely unnoticed is that also the portrait of
the ‘verbal abuser’ is only a subset, in its turn, of a larger psychological
profile, that of the ‘madman’ (c,
).
In fact at c a new kind of psychic offender is introduced: the

. The ritual purity of Magnesia requires that ‘if someone
should be mad, he must not appear openly in the city’ (c,

' V Nh, , -6 % ). His relatives must guard the
 On Plato’s medical penology in the Laws, see Saunders  (esp. ch. ); Lloyd : –; and
Mackenzie  ad loc. Cf. also Stalley  (arguing for a ‘communicative theory’ of punishment
in Plato’s Laws).
 See e.g. c– (about unjust injuries and gains): the cases that are curable (.) we must cure
(.! ) as if they were diseases of the soul (:
*@ 42# ). On the whole passage,
see Saunders : –.
 Cf. Saunders : .
 See Saunders : –. For V
denoting moral ignorance and not merely ‘non-moral
technical ’ ignorance, cf. Saunders : – (vs. Schöpsdau).
 Saunders  and Mackenzie  both neglect this aspect. Velardi’s analysis of the language of
in Plato also omits d (Velardi ).
 In Plato’s works the term covers a wide range of heterogeneous concepts, from that of
vehicle of a higher, god-sent knowledge to that of physical disease: see e.g. Dodds : –;
Casertano  (on the link between and politics); Velardi ; Panno : –. In a
wider sense, ‘since “sickness of the soul” is equated with the basic conflictual nature of the human
soul, we are all, to one degree or another, mad’ (B. Simon : ). In this passage of the
Laws is narrowly conceived of as a pathological behaviour determined by physiological and
ethical-cum-social causes.
 On this passage see Panno : .
Comedy and comic discourse in Plato’s Laws 
person in their homes or, otherwise, pay a penalty proportionate to their
census (c–d). At this point we are told that there are many forms of
madness (d–e). The text is worth quoting in full:

'
I

W
2A
' ( j
, 6
, . '
p !2
( , -> D
-,
",

p , %#!
",
, -, " @
2
/-
( "
2 ,
* "
* !

(9

*'
*
*@. ; ,
%

A "
.
Now many men are mad in many different ways. Those whom we just
mentioned are mad because of diseases, but there are some who are such
because of the bad nature of their temper and the bad upbringing [they
received]. When there is a minor quarrel they loudly abuse each other with
slanders and no such conduct is in any way or on any occasion becoming in
a well-governed city. So let there be a single law for all about abusive talk:
no one shall abuse anyone.
The connection between verbal abuse and madness is explicit: the person
who pours abusive language over others with loud cries (
, -,
") is nothing but a ‘madman’. His madness has a double cause: a bad
natural disposition of temper ( !2
( , -> ) and a defective
education (D
-,
"). Yielding to anger, he feeds his
+ with bad food (a, +, @ R ). By
making the part of his soul that had been tamed by education (a, 6
&$!) savage again ( 5 @), he becomes a beast
living in ill-humour (a–, !
>
2
1@ ).
It seems to me hardly coincidental that this portrait of the ‘verbal abuser’
exhibits detailed verbal resonances with the portrait of the democratic
populace, the Big Beast (!" " .#2) shouting and
indulging its + at Republic a–c. The ‘verbal abuser’, its comic
version included, is implicitly cast as the product of democracy: a further
consonance with its comic counterpart. This passage of the Laws clearly
identifies in the indulgence of the !2 and + the primary cause of
this form of madness: the comic abuser is an uneducated, foul-mouthed
person who yields to his passions.
 On Resp. aff., see Rosen and Sluiter : –.

 For the mostly negative role played by the !2 within the psychology of the Laws, see now
Sassi . On the complex dynamics of !2- and +-related emotions within the reforming
punishment system of Plato’s ideal city (both Callipolis and Magnesia), see Allen : – and
–.
 lucia prauscello
This link between verbal abuse, madness and comedy is not, I believe,
a chance element in Plato’s thought, nor indeed is Plato’s stance a
unique one in this respect. But let us first look at Plato. It seems
to me significant that in Republic e–a Socrates, immediately
after describing the bad behavioural models proposed by comic mimesis
(V
> . . .

(
(
2
.#

(), adds that Kallipolis’ guardians must not assimilate
themselves to madmen either (a,
*'
"
! "
-
9

(
>). The behaviour of mad and bad men/women must be
rationally known but must not be the object of experiential mimesis
(a–, "
'
"
2

W V
2,
"
'
*'
>
*' "
). ‘Tragic’
madness is what commentators have usually thought of in relation to this
passage. This may well be, but it is worth noticing that the theme of mad-
ness is brought in as an addendum to Socrates’ criticism specifically to comic
mimesis (a,
L "). It seems thus to me reductive to label madness
here as only ‘tragic’ madness: comedy clearly plays an equal role as well.
The prohibition to ‘become mad’ ( ! ) or to ‘assimilate themselves
to madmen’ (
"
-

(! ) occurs again at b–, with
reference to onomatopoeic mimesis and vocal mimicry (b–, horses
whinnying, bulls bellowing, rivers/sea flowing noisily, thunders thunder-
ing, etc.). On the basis of a linguistic analysis, this passage (b–) has
been usually interpreted as referring mainly to tragic and Homeric ono-
matopoeic diction. Yet this again is disputable. In the wake of Stanford,
Murray argues that Iliad . ( ' #" 1
, ‘and [the horses]
whinnied loudly’) is ‘the only occurrence of # 1 in Greek poetry
before P[lato].’ This is only partly correct; between Homer and Plato
we find, if not # 1, the deverbative # in Aristophanes
Knights –: #
b >
| # (‘the din
and the whinnying of brazen-hooved horses’: a lyric, sung section: musical
mimesis must have played a role here). Imitation of bellowing is found
in comedy as well, and, more to the point, is strictly linked to ‘madness’: in
 The shift from tragedy to comedy is already perceptible at e, where the banned object of
mimesis is ‘female and male slaves doing what is proper of slaves’.
 See e.g. Adam : i. ad loc.  On ‘comic’ madness, see below.
 Cf. Stanford  and P. Murray : –. In addition to the Homeric passages quoted by
Stanford, Giuliano : – interestingly observes that Plutarch in De audiendis poetis .e–e
has in mind as referent not only Homer but also dramatic poetry (tragic and comic poetry: see the
mention of Parmenon, a comic actor, at c).
 P. Murray : .
 Stanford :  n.  records the Aristophanic occurrence but does not attribute any significance
to it.
Comedy and comic discourse in Plato’s Laws 
Wasps  (
;
2, 2 , ‘how the snout bellows’) Philocleon’s
dance, one of the symptoms of his insanity (cf. , #, ‘the
onset of madness’), is accompanied by snorting and bellowing. In Frogs
 ‘bellowing like a bull’ (2
) is again a manifest sign of madness
(, !
@). The rushing noise of rivers and sea is evoked,
for instance, at Clouds – (another lyric part). Furthermore at Knights
– one of the hallmarks of Magnes’ comic ars is that of being able to
make his characters ‘vocalize[s] all kinds of sounds, strumming, flapping,
singing Lydian, buzzing, dyeing himself green as a frog’ ( )
- 4 2 1 2 1 4 1
/
/#
). Comedy, in terms of both onomatopoeic
mimesis and vocal mimicry, is as much a part of the play as are tragedy and
Homer.
A most interesting passage where the nexus /disease/bad
speech/bad political institutions resurfaces is Timaeus b–c. The con-
text is, of course, markedly different: in the Laws the language of medicine
and cure is applied to vice only at a figurative level, whereas in the Timaeus
‘vice is an effect of physical disorder; thus, “vice is disease” literally’. In
the Timaeus all psychic illnesses as such are due to the condition of the
body (b–, ' 42# [that is,
] $
G5
[that is, 2/ ]). Folly (V
) must be considered a disease
of the soul (
' , 42# 2#"
) and we can distinguish
two kinds (") of folly: one is madness, the other is ignorance (6 '
, 6 ' ! , b–), both deriving from excesses of pleasures
and pains (b–). Differently, at Laws d– we have just seen that
only some forms of madness are due to ‘physical’ illnesses (6 ),
whereas others (for instance verbal abuse) do not have a strictly physiolog-
ical cause but are ascribable to both a bad natural disposition ( !2
(
, -> ) and a defective education (D
-,
"). Yet
the position of the Timaeus is not totally incompatible with that of our
 Bellowing like a bull is symptomatic of mental derangement in tragedy too: cf. Lyssa’s description
of Heracles as a bull about to charge, bellowing frightfully ( 2 ) in Eur. HF –.
 Henderson’s translation. For this reading of the passage, see Sommerstein :  and Imperio
: –.
 For the legitimacy of studying the treatment of a given theme such as psychic illness ( )
across dialogues, see Gill  (with Morgan’s  response) and Gill : ‘localized’ readings
(that is highly contextual-specific interpretations) are not incompatible with but complementary
to ‘systematic’ readings as long as differences are not levelled.
 Mackenzie : . For the pathology of vice offered in the Timaeus as not incompatible with
certain recurrent lines of Platonic thought, see Gill .
 For this strong reading of the passage (all the diseases of the soul arise because of the condition of
the body), see Gill :  and Mackenzie :  n. .
 lucia prauscello
passage. At the end of the section concerning the diseases of the soul
we find a telling acknowledgement, framed as an afterthought (cf. b–,
( '
I ,
V
, ‘that, however, is another story’),
that social and political circumstances can contribute as well to madness
and ignorance (a–b):
6 '
>
,
H @ "

.
#!@ , % ' !

> . " ! , >

>

2 $ !A m . "
'
W -2>

@ -22
"

W "-
@ -
",
9
!2"
, > ,
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! -2 ' ,
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' R.
Furthermore, when men whose natural constitution is badly fixed in this
way have bad forms of government and bad civic speeches are uttered,
both in public and in private, and when besides they cannot learn from
their youth onwards any study that could cure this situation, all of us who
become bad, become so most of all against our own will for two reasons.
For this the begetters must always be considered responsible far more than
the begotten and the educators far more than the educated. And one should
try as much as one can to avoid badness and pursue the opposite through
both upbringing and pursuits and studies.
Bad political institutions (among which no doubt democracy must be
implied) and bad speaking habits, both private and public, if not counter-
balanced by a proper upbringing and education, also contribute to causing
diseases of the soul. This is very close to what we find at Timaeus e–:
the ‘mad’ or ‘ignorant’ is such unwillingly and should not be blamed as
responsible for being as he is. He becomes bad () ‘because of some
faulty condition of the body’ ( '
G5
( $
)
and ‘an upbringing that does not educate’ ( 2

-). If
we allow for the different notion of ‘health’ in the Timaeus (health as pro-
portion between body and soul; illness as the disruption of such structure
by the body), this last passage (e–) is very similar to the aetiology
 Gill has persuasively demonstrated how the apparently bigger role Plato is willing to concede
to the body in the Timaeus does not contradict Plato’s account of psychic illnesses in his other
dialogues. What emerges from an integrated reading of the Timaeus ‘is not so much . . . that psychic
illness derives from bodily defects, implying that we are, fundamentally, bodies, but rather that we
are integrated combinations of psyche and body, and that sickness and health, body and psyche,
depend on maintaining a proportionate relationship between them’ (Gill : ).
 On this passage as ‘compound[ing] the effect of “bad” physical constitutions . . . rather than as
being an independent source of psychic disease’, see Gill :  with n. . Cf. also Lloyd :
–.
 On the soul-body interaction in the Timaeus, see Johansen  (esp. –).
Comedy and comic discourse in Plato’s Laws 
proposed at Laws d– for the ‘verbal offender’: !2
( , ->
D
-,
".
Both in the Laws and in the Timaeus we find a similar aetiology of
insanity: it is a form of ‘illness’ (even if not directly a physical one in the
Laws) attributable to both physiological and environmental conditions.
Plato’s socio-physiology of the ‘verbal offender’ as
in the Laws
has thus deep roots in Plato’s thought, as the passage of the Timaeus shows.
But this is only one aspect of the question. If the Athenian Stranger’s
analysis of comic verbal abuse in the Laws is compatible with and fully
integrated within Plato’s broader psychological reflections, it is very difficult
not to see in his portrait of the
also a consciously witty resonance
of a well-identifiable comic trope, that of the ‘comic’ hero and/or poet as
‘madman’. If we limit ourselves to Aristophanes, we can see that the
‘comic hero’ before, during or after the conception and implementation of
the ‘Great Idea’ is often cast as a madman. In the initial scene of Peace one
of Trygaeus’ slaves explains to the audience that his master ‘is mad in a new
kind of way’ (, 6
): he wants to go up to heaven to
persuade Zeus to stop the war. His madness is of an altogether new type
(,
*# , ) G
6
): it manifests itself in his
spending the days looking up at the heaven and verbally reviling Zeus (–
, ) &" . 6
*6 /" | : #g
] | - .). Trygaeus’ delusion (, 6
@ @) has been caused by an excess of his #
. Madness/verbal
abuse/choleric temper is exactly the nexus of associations we find in our
passage of the Laws.
Similarly, in the Wasps Philocleon too is presented from the prologue
onwards as affected by a strange illness (,
B ,

*
(
) which turns out to be a (–,
; ) ) ).
His ‘cure’ from his obsession with lawcourts will be in the end another form
of madness as well (cf. , #; , ).
In the prologue of Birds Euelpides and Peisetaerus present themselves
to the Athenian audience as ‘ill’ (–, & , X

,|

(). Their illness is their desire to escape from
 See Casertano : – (but he misquotes Laws cd inasmuch as he omits !2
( at d–).
 See the seminal article by F. D. Harvey . Of course, the ‘madness’ of the comic hero and/or
poet is exploited by Aristophanes for its comic potential of laughter and subversion; Plato’s literal
re-semantization of the comic trope is part of his own philosophical agenda.
 Cf. also  : (‘how deranged you are’) and 
*# ; (‘why are
you mad ineffectively?’).
 Cf. also ll. , , , .
 See recently Ruffell :  on Philocleon’s madness. See also Sidwell .
 lucia prauscello
Athens (–). Subsequently, when Peisetaerus comes up with his Great
Idea, the coryphaeus refers to his plan of unspeakable prosperity as if it
were the plan of a madman (,
;). In Wealth Car-
ion complains about the deranged mental state of his master Chremylus
(, -

(

2; , #
@) . . . 6 ),
and this already before his master conceives of his utopian plot to cure
Wealth of blindness. Doubtless, behind this ‘mania/sickness’ motif there
is a blatant, parodic appropriation by Aristophanic comedy of what was
perceived as the archetypically ‘tragic’ theme. Comedy has its madmen
too. But there is more than that. Cratinus in his Pytine used his trumpeted
intoxicated mania ‘as the vehicle for self-defence as a political comedian’
according to a well-established iambic cliché of the satirical poet as a
madman. Plato’s psychological assimilation of the comic poet/actor to a
madman under the broader category of ‘psychic offender’ is another expo-
sure of the inadequate moral basis of abusive comic ridicule: Aristophanes’
Heraclean + (Vesp. , J}"
2 + ) %#) has a dark side
too and is taken by Plato for what it really is: the illness of a deranged
soul.
Magnesia’s citizens will enact ‘the best’, ‘most beautiful’ and ‘truest
tragedy’ (b–; b) as a mimesis of ‘the most beautiful and virtu-
ous life’ (b,
(
2
2 /
2). Comedy,
though allowed, will always remain an extraneous body within the second
best city.
 On the equivalence #

= ! , see Padel : .
 See already F. D. Harvey ; Sidwell ; Dobrov : . Cf. also Beta b.
 Ruffell : . On Cratinus’ dionysiac poetics, see Ruffell : –; Bakola : –.
Iambic poet as a madman: see Callim. Iamb. .– (Hipponax as Alkmeon).
 See Beta b on it.
 On Plato’s careful negotiation of the mimetic status of Magnesia’s choruses and his mediation
between dramatic (tragic mimesis) and non-dramatic (lyric mimesis) mode of performance, see
Prauscello .
c h a pt er 1 4
Comedy and the Pleiad

Alexandrian tragedians and the birth of comic scholarship
Nick Lowe
The safest general characterization of the European critical tradition is that

it consists of a series of footnotes to the Frogs. Notwithstanding the deeper
roots of literary criticism in epic and lyric metapoetics, in early Homeric
allegoresis, and in the various forms of sophistic and Socratic engagement
with language and its effects, it was comedy’s uniquely potent combi-
nation of heightened metapoetic consciousness with a strongly agonistic
poetic drive that gave rise to the first systematic exploration and syncri-
sis of the different ways in which literature works on its audiences and
how its effects should be judged, both in practice (through close reading,
performance criticism, biographical interpretation, or audience-response
analysis) and in principle (morally, aesthetically, pedagogically, politically,
technically). The major premise of the fourth-century quest for a philo-
sophically coherent view of how literature should be valued, a debate that
runs through Isocrates and Plato to Aristotle and the first generation of
his pupils, is the one principle agreed on by the Aristophanic Aeschylus,
Euripides, and Dionysus alike: that the ultimate function of and critical
yardstick for poetry is that it should make its audience ‘better in their
poleis’. The contest in Frogs itself already constitutes a series of agonistic
explorations of how this admirable-sounding mission of educating poetry’s
consumers into more effective citizens might be imagined to work in prac-
tice, showing the consequences of attempting to apply a series of possible
models to the seemingly minimal problem of the evaluation and canoniza-
tion of two tragedians from different generations, and demonstrating the
difficulty of achieving a decisive empirical verdict from any of the critical
models canvassed.
 Whitehead :  wrote ‘philosophical’ and ‘Plato’; on the centrality of the Frogs to the narrative
of ancient literary criticism see especially Hunter a.
 For the interaction of these elements see especially Ford  (in whose discussion, however, comedy
itself has a purposely marginal presence; it is sidelined in Ledbetter ).

 nick lowe
The moment would come, however, when tragedians finally wrote back.
This chapter tells the neglected story of the emergence of scholarly dis-
courses about comedy itself in the transition from Athens to Alexandria,
and the curious part played by early Hellenistic dramatists in forging a
new kind of critical practice which would determine how comedy would
be canonized, studied and received for the rest of antiquity. Though the
history of scholarly work on comedy in the period from Eratosthenes to
Didymus, which is essentially the phase represented in the scholia com-
piled by Phaeinus and Symmachus under the empire, is comparatively well
understood, the Philadelphan era tends to be either skipped over or dis-
missed as a generation of dwarfs whose shoulders were merely a convenient
perch for the giants that followed. Yet it was the age of Lycophron that
initiated a distinctively Alexandrian project of literary scholarship, different
in fundamental ways from everything that had preceded, and which would
decisively displace the previous century’s rival models of what writing about
poetry had been and should be; and comedy and its intergeneric relations
were central to this pivotal moment in the history of criticism in ways that
would ultimately affect the very survival of comedy itself.
Key to this story is the fact that, up until the Philadelphan era, schol-
arly writing on comedy had been a monopoly of the early Peripatetics,
who established their own gallery of models for how comedy might be
illuminated by philosophically informed modes of inquiry. Aristotle’s own
seminal treatises already engaged with the genre in two distinct ways: the
Didascaliae and Dionysiac Victories were the foundational texts of the pina-
cological tradition of chronology and canon establishment from archival
sources, while Poetics and the exoteric On Poets were primarily theoreti-
cal, though with an empirical element of formalist practical criticism, and
even a kind of synthesis with the archival approach in the brief historical
discussions of the origins of comedy at Poetics –. None of these works,
however, was a treatise specifically on comedy, and even the Baskervillean
hypothesis of a dedicated book on comedy in the Poetics itself, which has
some compelling arguments in its favour, would still merely locate comedy
within a larger critical system whose primary engagement (as generally in
the critical writings of the early Peripatetics) was with epic, tragedy and
lyric, and whose direct impact in antiquity was in any case negligible, since
 The otherwise very useful accounts of the history of comic scholarship in A. Körte : –
and Nesselrath :  both pass straight from the early Peripatetics to Callimachus (himself
comparatively insignificant in the history of comic scholarship), with barely a word on the comic
specialists prior to Eratosthenes; Rusten b:  elides them entirely.
 Podlecki  remains a useful survey; for Theophrastus see now Fortenbaugh : –.
Comedy and the Pleiad 
the Poetics itself seems effectively to have disappeared from circulation for
the next three centuries and even thereafter goes uncited until Themistius.
The early dialogue On Poets did circulate, and is now identified by Janko as
the target of Philodemus’ On Poems ; but the very few citations from that
work that concern comedy suggest that the genre was neither prominent
in it nor as deeply thought about as it would become by the time of the
Poetics, perhaps some twenty years later.
It is instead with Theophrastus that we first meet with specialist treatises
on comedy, but the actual scope and content of his On Comedy and On
the Laughable are mysterious, as is the relationship of the extant Characters
to these works and to comedy in general. Little light is shed by the single
attributed fragment preserved from each treatise: from the former, the tale
of the Tirynthians’ endemic philogely; from the second, a contribution to
the interpretation of a widely debated mot by the citharist Stratonicus.
Diomedes’ unattributed definition of comedy as ‘a non-threatening encap-
sulation of private affairs’ mirrors his explicitly Theophrastean definition of
tragedy; these perhaps occurred as a pair in one of the two treatises entitled
Poetics, of which nothing else is known. But none of these Theophrastean
works seems to have rivalled the scale of Chamaeleon’s treatise, in at least
six books, from which Athenaeus preserves a couple of biographical anec-
dotes typical of their author’s distinctive gossipy interests, and which he
cites under the variant titles On Comedy and On Old Comedy, if these
were the same work at all. The latter’s early use of the term and peri-
odization is suspicious, though an On Old Comedy in at least three books
is attested by our solitary reference to an undatable ‘Eumelus the Peri-
patetic’, from whom the scholia to the In Timarchum culled their historical
snippet on Nicomenes’ citizenship decree of / bc. We should also
note Dicaearchus’ On Musical Contests, sometimes cited as On Dionysiac
Contests, which included some material on comedy; but the preserved
 Or. .b (citing Poet. b, on the Sicilian origin of comedy with a storyline).
 See especially Fortenbaugh ; the concise survey of the status quaestionis in Diggle :  with
n.  is supplemented now by a consideration of non-literary contexts in Millett .
 Ath. .d = Theophr. fr. . Fortenbaugh; Ath. .a = .– Fortenbaugh.
 Diomedes, Ars grammatica  (xxiv. Koster); on the fragments of all these works see Janko :
–; Fortenbaugh : – and –.
 Chamaeleon frr. – Wehrli = Ath. .a–b (two anecdotes of Anaxandrides, cited as from
Book  of On Comedy) and .e–d (four tales of the parodist Hegemon, from Book  of what
is here On Old Comedy). If these really were the same work, it is not easy to see how the two figures
could readily have been the subject of a connected treatment, or indeed how either might fit into a
discussion of ‘Old Comedy’.
 8 Aeschin. In Tim. . (, p. .– Dilts) = Eumelus, FGrH  F ; this Eumelus is generally
identified with the author of a Histories whose fifth book is cited by Diog. Laert. . for an erroneous
version of Aristotle’s death.
 nick lowe
citations suggest that its treatment of that genre was limited to historical
realia.
Alongside these generally titled works with their mixture of theory, anec-
dote and historical inquiry, we also find the first specialized monographs
on individual named comedians. Of tantalizing interest and significance
are the two or more books On Menander by the comedian and light essay-
ist Lynceus of Samos, one of whose plays defeated Menander himself,
and whose Suda entry describes him as a grammatikos and associate of
Theophrastus. Lynceus was brother to the Peripatetic tyrant-historian
Duris, who himself was sufficiently interested in comedy, but also suffi-
ciently distant from the evidence and uncritical of the anecdotal tradition,
to recount the story of Eupolis’ supposed drowning by Alcibiades. It is
remarkable to see Lynceus devoting at least two books to Menander a good
century before he makes it into the Alexandrian canon, and Sebastiana
Nervegna has used this as part of a larger argument against the received
wisdom on Menander’s supposed unpopularity during his lifetime –
though Lynceus’ treatise was perhaps written after Menander’s death in
 bc, monographs on living authors being otherwise unknown outside
the specialist field of philosophical polemic. The one fragment specifically
attributed to the On Menander looks much like the kind of thing Athenaeus
quotes from Lynceus’ other essays and letters: a biographical comparison
between two of the celebrity parasites of fourth-century Athens which
gives frustratingly little sense of what Lynceus might actually have said or
thought about Menander. But it seems to have been broadly in character
with other early Peripatetic treatises on named poets in being primarily
anecdotal, prosopographical and historical; and it has an intriguing part-
ner, perhaps even a model, in the one other author monograph on comedy
 The only two fragments specifically to concern comedy (frr. – Wehrli) deal with the name of
Aristophanes’ third son and the re-performance of Frogs.
 n
-
2 $
also at Ath. .e. For Lynceus’ oeuvre and extant fragments see Dalby
.
 Cic. Att. .. = Duris, FGrH  F ; on the tradition and its refutation by Eratosthenes see
Nesselrath ; Storey a: –. Rusten a:  uses this fragment as part of a wider
argument that Old Comedy’s very survival in the century before Lycophron was due principally to
historiographic interest, particularly from the Peripatetic literary historians.
 Nervegna , arguing principally from monumental evidence plausibly datable to Menander’s
lifetime.
 One of Lynceus’ collected letters was addressed to the comedian Posidippus (Ath. .c–d).
 Ath. .b–c.
 Momigliano summed up the general character of these treatises as ‘historical interpretations of
selected passages from one classical author’, and as such representing a distinctive but preliminary
step on the road to Hellenistic forms of literary biography (: ; for Peripatetic protobiography
generally, –).
Comedy and the Pleiad 
attested for this period, which comes from Menander’s most controver-
sial friend and Lynceus’ brother’s most notorious enemy. Demetrius of
Phalerum’s On Antiphanes is known only as a title in Diogenes’ list; we
have absolutely no idea of the content, or whether it was written in Athens
before  bc or in exile after. To fill the evidential void, Wehrli conjectured
that some of the material in Antiphanes’ Suda entry and in the Anony-
mous De comoedia might derive from Demetrius, and Montanari makes
what he over-modestly calls ‘a very hazardous suggestion, not to be taken
seriously’ that Demetrius’ discussion, which Plutarch and Photius quote,
of Demosthenes’ notorious metrical oath ‘by land, by springs, by rivers, by
floods’ was in this work, since it seems from a passage in the Lives of the Ten
Orators to have been made fun of by Antiphanes as well as by Timocles.
Demetrius’ appearance in this narrative is of particular interest, since
Demetrius was a, perhaps the, key figure in the transmigration of schol-
arship from Athens to Alexandria. Within a decade of his ejection from
Athens and political life, he settled into a new role as the major literary
scholar at the court of Ptolemy I, and some sources credit him with the very
conception of the Museum and Library, which is certainly a very Peripatetic
kind of project. After backing the wrong horse over the succession, how-
ever, Demetrius fell precipitously from favour under the new reign, and it is
plausible to see, with Pfeiffer and others, an overtly anti-Peripatetic impetus
in both the literary poetics and the scholarly practice that emerge in the age
of Callimachus, with only the pinacological project of archival cataloguing
and chronology surviving into the scholarly agenda of the Philadelphan
Museum. The new philologists were, if anything, even more obsessed with
comedy than their Peripatetic forerunners – but in a quite different way,
and from a completely different kind of background. It is not just that
we find ourselves plunged overnight into the world of the scholar-poets
who would be the dominant force in the foundational century of Alexan-
drian literary research that culminates in Eratosthenes, Aristophanes and
Aristarchus. What is truly remarkable about the Philadelphan scholars on
 There are no compelling grounds to doubt the tradition linking Menander with Demetrius; but
Demetrius’ fall came only at the midpoint of Menander’s career, which evidently managed to
decontaminate itself from the association. Demetrius had an impressive flair for making enemies,
and Duris would prove to be one of the most lingeringly effective, as author of the famous poison-pen
portrait of Demetrius’ hedonic excesses quoted by Athenaeus (.b–e).
 Montanari :  n. , collating Plut. Dem. .– and Phot. Bibl. .b– (= Demetrius
frr. – Wehrli, a–b Stork–Ophuijsen–Dorandi) with Lives of the Ten Orators b.
 L. O’Sullivan  offers a partly revisionist account of Demetrius’ regime.
 The literature is large; for sources and earlier discussion see now the valuable treatment in Too 
(and on Demetrius especially –).
 nick lowe
comedy in particular is that they were all practising tragedians, with first-
hand experience of Athenian dramatic culture and competitions; whereas
there are no writers of comedy attested in Alexandria before Machon in
the mid third century, and no trace at all of scholarly activity by practising
comedians. The tale in Alciphron (.–) of an attempt by Ptolemy
Soter to lure Menander to Alexandria is taken seriously by some, but the
striking fact is that not one comic poet seems to have succumbed to any such
invitation – in notable contrast to the roll of tragedians, who were drawn
in from all over the Greek world to constellate the so-called Pleiad with
its variable cluster of seven stars, some of whom settled there permanently
and developed second careers in the Museum and Library.
The most important – and, as we shall see, the most systematically mis-
understood – of the pioneer comic scholars was also the most distinguished
of the Pleiad tragedians, though nowadays he finds himself discussed pri-
marily in connection with a work to which the very attachment of his
name is intensely disputed. So used are we to talking about a Lycophron
who, as putative author of the Alexandra, may or may not have existed,
at any time from the s bc to the Augustan period, that it is refreshing
to be able to talk for once about the historical Lycophron of Chalcis, who
on any reckoning was a fascinating figure in his own right. Lycophron
 ‘It does seem a little odd that all three of them were tragedians’ (Pfeiffer : ).
 Fraser : II. n. ; for Machon’s date and career, Gow : –. Machon himself is cryptically
credited by Athenaeus (.f, cf. .a) with having been Aristophanes’ teacher @
@, and Pfeiffer :  wondered whether this might suggest that Machon actually
published a monograph under that title, whatever it might mean; Pfeiffer himself renders it not
altogether helpfully as ‘the parts of the comedy’ (sic), while Olson in his note ad loc. suggests ‘the
divisions within comedy’ and relates it to the emerging periodization of Old, Middle and New.
Meineke’s @ would make for more plausible Greek, but still less plausible literary history. At
any rate neither passage in Athenaeus suggests that he imagined Machon as engaging in actual
research.
 The permanent members are Homerus of Byzantium, Sositheus of Alexandria Troas, Lycophron
of Chalcis, Alexander of Aetolia and Phili[s]cus of Corcyra; the canonical number of seven is
variously made by co-opting two from the remaining four candidates Aeantides, Sosiphanes of
Syracuse, Dionysiades of Mallus or Tarsus, and Euphronius of Chersonesus. It is unclear whether
any of these was actively writing tragedy during the Alexandrian phase of his career; the victor list
from the Athenian Dionysia may preserve the beginnings of the names Ai[antides, Hom[erus and
Di[onysiades (IG ii .–), but Sositheus is the only Pleiadist specifically attested as having
produced tragedies in the s, though Philicus was priest of Dionysus in Alexandria and led the
Technitae in the procession recorded by Callixinus (in Ath. .bc; this is the earliest evidence for
the Technitae in Alexandria). Lycophron and Alexander would become Zenodotus’ key colleagues
in the Library; see further n.  below.
 The fragments of Lycophron on comedy have proved to be generally unhelpful for the notorious
‘Lycophron question’: the authorship and attribution of the Alexandra. Hölzinger : – tried
to argue that some of the non-tragic lexical items, particularly in the sphere of the sexually risqué,
argued for the comic glossographer as the poem’s author, though sceptics were quick to point out
that these are accountable for in terms simply of the subject matter, and there is a notable absence of
compellingly comic glosses. More recently André Hurst () has tried to make the case on wider
grounds, such as a connection between the poem’s use of riddles and the role of riddles in comic
Comedy and the Pleiad 
was probably a dramatist before he was a scholar, and indeed his career
as a tragedian may have been entirely behind him before he ever arrived
in Alexandria: since the Suda speaks of a family feud with Demetrius of
Phalerum, it is more likely that Lycophron’s Alexandrian phase only began
after Demetrius’ house arrest in  bc, and the biographical tradition asso-
ciates Lycophron’s Alexandrian career specifically with Philadelphus and
Arsinoe. Tzetzes tells us the number of his plays was attested as either forty-
six or sixty-four, and we have twenty titles listed in the Suda of which three
or four seem to be historical. His best-attested play is the contemporary
satyr drama Menedemus, about the lifestyle and circle of the colourful Ere-
trian philosopher politician of that name who was exiled to Pella in  bc,
so the play probably belongs to the Euboean phase of Lycophron’s career.
Of particular interest is the contemporary-historical tragedy Cassandreis,
whose title must refer to the inhabitants of Cassandreia, the former Poti-
daea resettled in  bc, and which Niebuhr attractively argued to have
dealt with the overthrow by Antigonus Gonatas of the tyrant Apollodorus
in / bc.
repartee, the characterization of Cassandra as a narrator, and the superiority relationships between
the author and the characters in the text, but though the exercise is a useful one the cumulative
weight of proof is disappointingly light. Evidence in the other direction is even thinner: the extant
fragments of Lycophron on comedy not only offer no positive support for Lycophronian authorship
of the Alexandra but are mutely antithetical to such an identification, at least inasmuch as we find no
mythographic entries, no interest in ethno-history, and no sign at all of the Alexandra poet’s dazzling
flights of learning and recherché reading in all genres of verse and prose. Fraser rightly saw that
the strongest argument for Lycophronian authorship was the tradition that the tragedian’s father or
stepfather was the local historian of the West Lycus of Rhegium, which accords peculiarly well with
the Alexandra’s remarkable command of western Greek aetiological traditions. But this only takes
us further still from Lycophron’s qualities as a scholar of comedy, and even Fraser would famously
unconvince himself on the matter a few years later (Fraser ); it seems safest to conclude that
nothing can be safely concluded.
 Aeolus, Andromeda, Aletes, Aeolides, Chrysippus, Elephenor, Heracles, Hicetae, Hippolytus, Cassandreis,
Laius, Marathonii, Nauplius (known in the form of a diaskeue or revised version), Oedipus (two
versions), Orphanus, Pentheus, Pelopidae, Symmachi, Telegonus. The subjects of the Orphan and Allies
are notably mysterious; Xanthakis-Karamanos (, ) regards them as possible neo-myths in
the tradition of Agathon’s Antheus/Anthos. On the apparently choral titles, and the indication of a
satyr chorus in the Menedemus fragments, see Sifakis : –. Menedemus is the only attested
satyr-play; Sinko (–) and Steffen (:  and : ), who accept Lycophronian authorship
of the Alexandra, audaciously wondered whether the Menedemus too might have been a play-length
monologue. No didascalic information is preserved, and we are at liberty to wonder how many
of these plays were actually performed; the relative abundance of titles preserved, particularly in
comparison with the other Pleiad poets, may simply be due to Lycophron’s opportune professional
proximity to the archival hub of the Library.
 Text, German translation, and commentary in Günther ; on topical satyr-play in the fourth
and third centuries, Sutton : –.
 See now Cameron : . Given Lycophron’s association with Arsinoe (whose name he famously
anagrammatized alongside that of Ptolemy), it is tempting to seek a role for her own association
with the city and her disastrous marriage there to Ptolemy Ceraunus; but there seems no easy way
to make this and Apollodorus’ subsequent tyranny part of a single narrative.
 nick lowe
Lycophron’s role in the Museum is clear in outline, murky in detail. The
famous opening of the various versions of Tzetzes’ prolegomena to Aristo-
phanes tells us that Ptolemy II charged Zenodotus, Alexander of Aetolia
and Lycophron with the diorthosis respectively of Homer, the tragedians
and the comic poets. Many scholars have been sceptical about the verb
!$
, which asserts fairly unambiguously that Lycophron pro-
duced an actual edition, and they take refuge in the formulation of the
Latin version of the passage in the Vatican Plautus, which merely refers
to collecting and organizing texts for the Library. But pace Pfeiffer and
Fraser, we need not assume that Lycophron made an edition as such; it
is likelier that Tzetzes, his source, or his source’s source was insufficiently
informed about the early history of Alexandrian textual scholarship to
assume otherwise.
What we do know with certainty is that, in addition to this practical and
archival aspect to Lycophron’s work in the Library, he also wrote discursively
about comedy, in a work of at least nine books and possibly many more
which would be the first of the monumental Alexandrian projects on
comedy – a genre with which the scholars of the Library were obsessed
second only to Homeric epic. Yet the actual evidence for Lycophron’s On
Comedy has been extremely difficult to access. The only edition is the one
made by the young Karl Strecker in , in a remarkable dissertation
that until its recent digitizations was not widely accessible for first-hand
consultation; and though Strecker’s edition has been the basis for all
modern discussion of these authors, both its editorial judgement and
 Tzetzes Prooim. II init. (XIaII Koster): r"5

B \.6 Y2- B < >,
o

B )0-"
"- [
2!!" / @ B '
, Y2- ' / /
2 $!, o

' B
2
@
@
@. Similarly Prooeim. I (XIaI Koster); also Anon. Crameri I–II (XIbc), and
cf. the Scholium Plautinum (XId, preserved between the end of Poenulus and start of Mostellaria
in Vat. Lat. .): ‘Alexander Aetolus et Lycophron Chalcidensis et Zenodotus Ephesius impulsu
regis Ptolemai Philadelphi cognomento, qui mirum in modum favebat ingeniis et famae doctorum
hominum, graecos artis poeticae libros in unum collegerunt et in ordinem redegerunt, Alexan-
der tragoedias, Lycophron comoedias, Zenodotus vero Homeri poemata et reliquorum illustrium
poetarum.’
 For those who know Strecker only as the titan of medieval Latin studies in the first half of the
twentieth century, it is fascinating to encounter him as a brashly brilliant -year-old. A foretaste
of things to come appears in the Sententiae controversae included in the back after the style of the
day: a collection of a dozen textual-critical animadversiunculae offered as part of the disputation
ritual, where the last four of Strecker’s dozen are on medieval German texts, in a fascinating early
declaration of independence from the kind of philology for which he had been trained up by his
mentors Wilamowitz and Kaibel.
 The Bodleian Library’s copy appears to be the last physical copy publicly accessible in the United
Kingdom.
 There is a short but useful account in Ziegler , and brief discussions in Pfeiffer : –
and Fraser : i.– (but note Pfeiffer’s warning on Strecker’s edition at  n. : ‘should be
Comedy and the Pleiad 
its evaluative assessment have dated badly in ways that have never been
properly faced.
It should be said that establishing a corpus of the fragments of the first
Alexandrian scholars of comedy was an unusually challenging undertak-
ing. Since their work was subsumed early on into the work of Aristophanes
of Byzantium and his successors, and probably was not read at all after
Didymus except by a few diehard comedy bibliophiles like Athenaeus, the
fragments have to be painstakingly strained out of the glossographic soup
of the scholia and lexicographers, where attribution notoriously tends to be
an afterthought at best; and already in the third century these figures were
writing monographs Philodemus-style demolishing one another’s mono-
graphs, so that by the time the material enters the scholia it is often nigh
impossible to tell who is citing whom. Eratosthenes, for example, seems
to have spent a good deal of his time disagreeing with Lycophron, so that
when Eratosthenes is cited as correcting an unascribed earlier view it is
a plausible suspicion, if no more, that the unattributed opinion is that
of Lycophron. For this reason Strecker’s edition is organized as a single
sequence of  numbered fragments encompassing all three authors, of
which over a third are anonyma attributed to one or more of these figures
on more or less persuasive grounds of attributional patterns and intellectual
style.
This, however, is where the treatment of Lycophron is especially prob-
lematic. Strecker has a set view of Lycophron’s scholarship as distinctively
flimsy and irresponsible, and he duly trawls through the Aristophanic
scholia for unattributed examples of such wildness that can be added to
the meagre collection of fragments propter temeritatem and thereby double
the size of the corpus at a stroke. Though only nineteen fragments name
Lycophron as their source, Strecker manages by an assortment of question-
able means to muster a further eighteen fragments which he conjecturally
attributes to Lycophron. By far the largest group of these are glosses in the
Aristophanic scholia of a particularly stupid kind of wrongness, where it
looks as if the author of the gloss not only was making it up off the top of
his head but had not even read the text before him properly. Yet none of
used with great caution, as the author is very generous in assigning anonymous glosses to these three
grammarians’).
 A few examples will serve to give the flavour: (i) fr.  = 8 Eq.  [glossing , as
,
, , ]. ‘Interpres dubius de natura vocabuli diaskandikizein ex ipso
loco significationem concludere conatus est. Cum autem praecederet vers. .
* %
6 !",
de timore aliquid proferri putavit et temere interpretatus est
, . A quo potius
tale quid admissum esse putemus quam a Lycophrone?’; (ii) fr.  = 8 Nub. . -> –
6 ' 1@
(
2
2 S
2. ‘Putat interpres 1@ et & opposita
esse. Strepsiades autem est pauper agricola, igitur 1@ est
2
2. Quae ineptiae prorsus
 nick lowe
the attributed Lycophronian fragments is anything like as witless as this;
Strecker’s attribution of all such glosses to Lycophron is based on a subjec-
tive characterization of Lycophron as a scholar which lacks all evidential
foundation and yet has been largely accepted in the influential discussions
of Ziegler, Pfeiffer and Fraser. Scarcely less problematic is Strecker’s view
of the form of Lycophron’s work, which he wants to have comprised nine
or more books of mere glosses – despite the fact that this flies directly in
the face of the evidence of the most substantial fragment, the politically
charged anecdote about Antiphanes and Alexander with which Athenaeus
chooses to open his thirteenth book. Strecker dismisses this by the some-
what desperate recourse of attributing it to a preface of more general scope;
Lycophronem redolent’; (iii) fr.  = 8 Eq. 
– ' ' + @

@
6
(
j
2 "!. @. ‘Lycophroni tribuo propter temeritatem interpretationis.
Posivit enim quod ex antecedentibus coniecit, non quod vocabulum significabat’; (iv) fr.  = 8
Av.  2
%# – K
6 & 2 . ‘Lycophronem intellego ex temeritate
interpretationis, quippe qui inde, quod dicitur 2 , coniecerit avem esse 2 ;
quod autem dicitur 2
, parvam avem esse.’
 The sole egregious case is on Vesp. , where Lycophron glossed 6

( as ‘after breakfast’
(Strecker fr. ) rather than ‘after dinner’ as the joke and context require. Otherwise, such errors
as we find in the attributed glosses are venal. On Vesp.  (Strecker fr. ) Lycophron seems to
have understood the sense but not to have known the word , and on  he wrongly
glossed

as a kind of fish, for which he was corrected by Eratosthenes. On Plut. 
Eratosthenes rebutted a claim by Lycophron that this was the earliest occurrence of the motif of
calling for torches (Strecker fr. ); but Eratosthenes’ correction is also badly wrong and something
seems garbled in transmission. The - /
-
of Cratinus’ Drapetides fr.  were
differently interpreted by Lycophron and Eratosthenes (Ath. .d–e = Strecker fr. ), but
later sources sided as much with Lycophron as with Eratosthenes on the matter; similarly on the
meaning and derivation of 1! (fr.  Str.), 21 ( Str.), and at Pax 
( Str.), while on Epilycus’ / Athenaeus (.a = Strecker fr. ) asserts that Lycophron
and Eratosthenes were both wrong. On Lys.  2" Lycophron’s gloss is wrong,
but so is Eratosthenes’ etymology ( Str.). On >
at Pax  Eratosthenes took issue with
Lycophron’s gloss ( Str.), but more likely both are correct (see Olson  ad loc.). Strecker’s fr.
 shows Lycophron to have regarded the exclamation //5 as an older synonym for >5,
for which a later writer (probably Eratosthenes) rebuked him for missing the former’s ironic usage;
but Lycophron was still more right than wrong on the matter. Finally, Strecker’s fr.  supposes
Lycophron to have misunderstood a use of 1 in an unknown comedy, but without a context
we have little to go on.
 Thus the passage memorably singled out by both Pfeiffer (: ) and Fraser (: i.) to
illustrate Lycophron’s incompetence as a commentator is not in fact Lycophronian at all. One of
the alternative glosses offered by the scholia on the word
$ at Av.  is the clueless
suggestion 5 L
+"
2, ‘pinax is a kind of bird’; this becomes Strecker’s fr.  on the sole
grounds that ‘videtur mihi haec levitas solo inter comicorum enarratores Lycophrone digna esse.’
 ‘Antiphanes the comedian, my friend Timocrates, was reading one of his comedies to King Alexander,
who was clearly not entirely appreciative. “Ah, well, your majesty,” he said: “to appreciate this stuff
you need to have had plenty of bring-your-own dinners and to have got into a lot of punch-ups over
party-girls.” So says Lycophron of Chalcis in his On Comedy.’ (r - B

, R
_ , : " / r5 @ R2
( @, x '

N
* 2
#
, “ ,” %-, “X / (, 6 (
5
6
2/
" R
.-" "
,” F - Y2- B < W
c .)
Comedy and the Pleiad 
yet it looks very much like the kind of thing one might find in, for example,
Demetrius’ On Antiphanes, which may well have been Lycophron’s imme-
diate source here. Something more than bald glossography is also suggested
by the intriguing fragment commending a comic twist on a Homeric line
as an improvement on the original.
It is hard to resist the conclusion that Strecker’s entire notion of the
nature of Lycophron’s work was misconceived from the start, though one
can see how such a view might naturally arise from Strecker’s project of
editing the sparse and often second-hand fragments of Lycophron along-
side those of his critics. Even among the nineteen attributed fragments,
the majority are citations of Lycophron by someone who disagrees with
him, which will inevitably pre-select his less felicitous suggestions. Yet
Strecker himself has to concede that sometimes Lycophron is quite correct,
and that a good deal of sound Lycophronian material must have been
absorbed acephalously into Aristophanes of Byzantium and thence into
the scholia; and that Lycophron appears to have read extremely widely
in Old Comedy, with even our small collection of attributable fragments
showing knowledge not just of the Aristophanic corpus but of Cratinus’
Drapetides, Pherecrates’ Krapataloi, Archestratus’ Gastrologia and even the
very obscure Epilycus’ Koraliskos. It remains true that, despite this appar-
ently wide reading, Lycophron shows no sign of actually researching his
glosses or adducing parallels, and his explanations appear to be largely
impromptu; he was, of course, writing at a time when the philological
rhetoric of parallelography was still developing. Nevertheless, he was still
felt worth reading two centuries later; Didymus quotes him at apparent
first hand, and Diodorus of Tarsus took him seriously enough to write a
whole work entitled Against Lycophron.
The strangest thing about the tragedian Lycophron’s engagement with
comedy is that it was part of a significant wider pattern. Two of Lycophron’s
fellow Pleiadists also wrote on comedy, at least one of them also in the
context of the Museum, and both seem to have attempted more sustained
kinds of reading than we have evidence for in the fragments of Lycophron.
One was Dionysiades, an elusive figure from whom we have no actual
tragic titles preserved but who is credited by the Suda with a work entitled
< T
$
, in which ‘he describes the styles/characters
of the poets’. Körte took this to be the ultimate source of Platonius’
[ -
# (II Koster) comparing the styles of Cratinus,
Eupolis and Aristophanes, though there are some difficulties with this
 Porphyry in Euseb. Praep. evang. a–b = Lycophron fr.  Strecker.  A. Körte : .
 nick lowe
otherwise attractive suggestion: the naked title < for such a
work is odd, and the alternate title (which Meineke surmised should be
singular) may indicate that the work was in dialogue form. In the absence
of attributed fragments, its scale and scope are matters of conjecture, but
it was clearly more than a work of pedestrian glossography, and if the Suda
is to be trusted it appears to have been the earliest attested attempt at
some form of overall evaluation and syncrisis of the distinctive qualities of
different comedians.
A little more can be said about Euphronius, himself a somewhat shadowy
figure whose name tends to be garbled or confused with Euphorion and
others, but whom the Suda credits as a (or the!) teacher of Aristophanes
of Byzantium. Euphronius was already looking impressive in Strecker’s
edition, with an interest in dialect forms and questions of ascription, and
wide-ranging supporting references to Homeric, lyric and tragic glosses.
But Strecker failed to weigh the significance in the facts that (i) there are
no named notes on poets other than Aristophanes, and (ii) no book title
was attested in his fragments, the scholia speaking merely of

9
, which Strecker was inclined to understand as a loose collection
of Lesefrüchte like that imagined for Lycophron. Fatefully, Strecker himself
had moved on by the time the bombshell detonated in , with Rabe’s
publication of the Lexicon Messanense crediting a hypomnema by Euphro-
nius on Wealth – showing that the hypomnemata referred to in the scholia
were not collections of disject notes but, as Strecker had considered but
hesitated to endorse, a series of handbooks to individual plays, the very
first such works attested in the Alexandrian tradition. It is not clear how
many plays were the subject of these monographs, but Cohn notes that the
scholia tend to cite Euphronius especially on the Wasps and Birds. A strik-
ing observation of Pfeiffer’s is that Euphronius is the only source credited
in the Wealth scholia to refer specifically to the first version of the play –
suggesting that his contribution to later understanding of the history of
the text was in some respects never surpassed.
Even on the sketchy evidence available to us, then, the Pleiad tragedi-
ans seem to have played a much more substantial part than is generally
recognized in the development of a distinctively Alexandrian brand of
scholarship; to have pioneered in the study of comedy what would become
some of the most influential techniques and forms of Hellenistic literary
 ‘A work entitled < advertises nothing more specific than “types”, “marks”, “distinctive
features”, or “styles” ’ (Diggle : , arguing for the restoration of <U!
> to Theophrastus’
title from Diogenes Laertius).
 r– (Rabe : ).
Comedy and the Pleiad 
scholarship; and to have directed critical attention firmly back to the poets
of Old Comedy, at a time when New Comedy was still very much a living
tradition, Philemon still active, and the canon still open. There are clearly
a number of factors at work here, which do not readily lend themselves
to weighted ranking. The return to Old Comedy is sufficiently intelligible
within the context of the early Museum and Library, where literary schol-
arship was embedded in an essentially archival and archaeological project
of encyclopaedic collection and bibliothecography which prioritized at-
risk earlier texts for preservation and attention, and in which theoretical
models had no essential role to play. Old Comedy was also philologically
and prosopographically dense in ways quite unlike other genres, and called
for massively more glossographic and historical exegesis in order to be rea-
sonably understandable by a Philadelphan reader. Even here, though, it is
hard not to see some significance in the professional background of the
Pleiad scholars themselves, who not only floated free of obvious attachment
to philosophical schools and methods, but as tragedians with competitive
experience of the living Attic theatre of their own day had been hands-on
with the post-classical phase of satyr-play – which appears to have been
closer to Old Comedy than was the comedy of their own day and would
presumably have stimulated interest in the fantastic and satiric aspects of
comedy’s earlier phases.
And the political environment must surely have played a part. In Alexan-
dria as in Pella, the court poets of the Philadelphan generation were deeply
engaged with the construction, across the whole range of traditional and
experimental genres, of an ideologically robust image of kingship; and
tragedy, with its repertoire of mythological prototypes for kingship and
its longstanding concern with problems of authority and accountability in
the hierarchy of god, ruler and city, was able to talk about post-democratic
structures of power in ways much less readily available to comedy. Thus
Lycophron’s own Cassandreians seems to have dramatized an ideological
tussle between rival models of autocracy, with enlightened Macedonian
monarchy successfully deposing brutal authoritarian tyranny. Comedy,
in contrast, remained ideologically fixated on the polis. Not only does
Aristophanic comedy pervasively assert its own democratic credentials and
bouleutic role in a polis-based civic order, but even Menandrean comedy
elides the unsettling realities of Macedonian control and its repeated, vio-
lent and ultimately vain contestation, and builds its world model instead
around an image of the polis that smoothes out hierarchy, denies class
divisions and celebrates the order of the citizen community as the ulti-
mate dissolver of all obstacles to humane living. In reclaiming comedy for
 nick lowe
a way of reading that renounced the premise of polis-based civic utility
in favour of a programme of scholarly inquiry which would neutralize
comedy politically and subordinate it to the courtly project of ordering
the literary universe under a divine monarch, the Pleiad tragedians made
what would turn out to be a decisive contribution to the generational
struggle of poetry and philosophy, comedy and tragedy, and finally Athens
and Alexandria for ownership of the discourses of criticism: asserting an
anti-Peripatetic model of how comedy should be read which deprecated
anecdote, prosopography, and rhetorical and formalist theory in favour
of a new kind of philologically informed close reading of the texts, and
canonizing the comedians of tragedy’s own golden age as the masters of
the genre, in defiance of contemporary taste and practice. The absence
of practising comedians from the early Museum may itself have been an
essentially political fact; at any rate it left the field free for tragedians to
claim critical ownership and canonization rights over comedy, after a cen-
tury and a half of one-sided dialogue in which comedy had asserted its
own unchallengeable entitlement to discursive mastery of other genres and
tragedy in particular. It seems clear enough that what we thought we knew
about Lycophron is as wrong as what we once thought we knew about
Euphronius, and that the real story of the founding fathers of scholarship
on comedy is still waiting to be told. But their ultimate triumph in the
contest to determine which comedies would be read and how was not
merely a decisive episode in the history of literary scholarship and critical
practice: it was also tragedy’s final revenge for the Frogs.
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Index locorum
Achaeus frr. –, 

fr. ,  fr. , 
Aeschines fr. a, 
On the False Embassy [Aeschylus]
, ,  Prometheus Bound
Aeschylus , 
Agamemnon fr. , 
,  Aesop
–,  Fables (Hausrath)
–,  , 
–,  , 
,  , 
–, – , 
–,  , 
, ,  Alcaeus
–,  fr. , 
–,  Alciphron
–, – .–, 
–, – Alcman
–, ,  fr. .–, 
–,  fr. .–, 
,  fr. .–, 
–,  fr. .–, 
,  Alexis
–,  fr. , 
Choephori Anaxandrides
–,  fr. , 
–,  Anthologia Palatina
,  ., 
–,  Apollodorus of Athens
,  fr. a, 
–,  Archilochus
–,  fr. , , , 
–,  fr. , 
Eumenides Aristophanes
–,  Acharnians
–, – –, 
–,  , 
–,  –, , , 
–,  –, 
fr. ,  –, 

Index locorum 
–,  , 
–, – , 
–,  –, 
–,  –, 
–,  –, 
,  , 
,  –, 
–,  –, 
–,  –, 
–,  , 
–,  , , 
–,  , 
–, ,  –, 
–,  , 
Birds Knights
–,  –, 
–,  –, 
,  , 
–,  , 
–,  –, 
–,  –, 
,  –, 
,  –, , 
,  –, 
–, – –, 
–,  –, , 
–, – Lysistrata
–,  –, 
Clouds –, 
–,  , 
–,  Peace
–,  –, 
–, – –, 
–,  , 
,  –, 
,  , 
–,  –, 
,  –, 
–,  –, 
–,  , 
–,  –, 
–,  –, 
–, – –, 
,  –, , –
,  –, 
–, – –, 
–,  , 
–,  , 
,  –, 
–, ,  , 
Frogs –, 
–, – –, 
–,  –, , 
,  , 
,  , , 
 Index locorum
Aristophanes (cont.) –, 
–,  , , 
–, – –, 
–,  –, 
–,  –, 
,  –, 
,  –, 
–,  –, 
–,  , 
,  , 
–,  –, 
–, ,  –, 
–,  –, 
,  –, 
–,  –, 
Wasps –, 
–,  –, 
–,  , 
–,  , , 
,  , 
–,  , 
,  –, 
,  –, 
,  –, 
–, , – Wealth
–,  , 
–, ,  , 
–,  Women at the Assembly
–,  –, 
–,  , 
–,  –, 
–, ,  Women at the Thesmophoria
–,  –, 
–,  , 
–,  –, 
,  –, 
,  –, 
–,  –, 
–,  –, 
–,  fr. , 
–,  fr. , 
–,  fr. , 
,  fr. , 
–,  fr. , 
–,  fr. , 
–,  fr. , 
–,  Aristotle
–, , ,  Poetics
,  b, 
–, – , 
,  a, , , , 
–,  b, , , 
,  b–a, –
–,  a, , , , ,
–,  
Index locorum 
b, , , , fr. , , , 
 fr. , 
b–a,  fr. , 
b,  fr. , 
a, 
b,  Damoxenus
a,  fr. , 
b–a,  [Demetrius]
Rhetoric On Style
.,  , , 
Athenaeus , 
.d,  Demochares
fr. , , , 
Bacchylides [Democritus]
.–,  fr. , 
Demosthenes
Callias Against Conon
fr. ,  –, , 
fr. ,  Against Meidias
Callimachus –, 
Hymn .–,  , 
Certamen Homeri et On the False Embassy
Hesiodi , 
,  , 
, ,  Dicaearchus
Chamaeleon frr. –, 
frr. –,  Diogenes Laertes
Cicero ., 
De finibus Diomedes
..,  Ars grammatica
Clemens Alex. , 
Protrepticus .,  Duris
Cratinus fr. , , 
fr. ,  fr. , 
fr. , , 
fr. ,  Ennius
fr. ,  Varia
fr. ,  –, 
fr. ,  Epic Cycle
fr. ,  Epigonoi
fr. ,  fr. , 
fr. ,  Epicharmus
fr. ,  fr. , 
fr. .–, –, fr. , –
– fr. , 
fr. .–, –, –, , fr. , 
,  fr. , 
fr. .–,  fr. , 
fr. ,  test. , 
fr. , ,  Eriphus
fr. ,  fr. , , 
fr. , , , Eubulus
 fr. , 
fr. , ,  Eumelus
fr. ,  fr. , 
 Index locorum
Eupolis ., 
fr. , ,  ., 
fr. ,  ., 
fr. ,  .., 
fr. ,  ., 
fr. ,  ., 
Euripides .., 
Alcestis Hesiod
–,  Theogony
–,  –, 
,  –, 
–,  Works and Days
hypothesis (a) , , 
 –, 
Bacchae –, , 
–,  –, 
,  , 
Hecuba , 
–,  –, 
Heracles –, 
–,  fr. , –
Hippolytus Homer
–,  Iliad
Medea ., 
–,  ., 
,  .–, 
fr. , ,  ., 
fr. ,  ., 
fr. ,  .–, –
fr. ,  .–, 
fr. ,  .–, 
fr. ,  ., 
fr. ,  .–, 
frr. –,  ., 
frr. –,  .–, 
[Euripides] ., 
Rhesus .–, 
,  .–, 
–,  ., 
,  .–, 
,  ., 
,  .–, 
,  ., 
–,  .–, 
–,  .–, , 
,  .–, , 
., 
Hermippus .–, 
fr. , ,  .–, 
fr. ,  .–, 
Herodotus ., 
Histories .–, 
.,  ., 
.,  ., 
.,  ., 
Index locorum 
Odyssey –, 
.,  fr. , 
.–, 
.–,  Ovid
.–, ,  Metamorphoses
.,  .–, 
.–, 
Horace Panyassis
Ars Poetica fr. , 
–,  Pherecrates
Carmina fr. , 
..–,  Philippides
Satirae fr. , 
.,  Philochorus
Hyperides fr. , 
fr. , , ,  Philomnestos
fr. , 
Ibycus Phrynichus (trag.)
fr. S,  frr. –, 
IG i .–,  fr. , 
IG ii .–, fr. , 
 Pindar
IG ii , ,  Nemean Odes
IG ii ,  ., 
IG ii ,  ., 
IG ii ,  Olympian Odes
IG ii ,  ., 
IG ii ,  .–, 
IG ii ,  Pythian Odes
IG ii .,  .–, , 
IG ii ,  .–, , 
IG ii .–,  ., 
IG xii , .–,  .–, 
IG xii , .–,  ., 
IG xii , ,  .–, 
IG xii , , –,  fr. b.–, 
fr. b.–, 
Life of Aeschylus fr. d, 
,  fr. f.–, 
Life of Aesop fr. k, 
–,  fr. , 
,  fr. , –
,  fr. , 
Lucian fr. a, 
The Lover of Lies fr. b., 
,  fr. b.–, 
fr. , 
Menander Plato
Aspis Laws
b–a,  a, 
Dyskolos c, 
–,  c–, 
Perikeiromene c–, 
–, – a–, 
–,  c–d, 
 Index locorum
Plato (cont.) Scholia
b–c,  Aristophanes
d–a, – Acharnians
d–e, – , 
d–a,  Clouds
d–a, – a and b, 
e–,  , 
a–a,  Knights
c,  a, 
c–b,  Peace
d–e,  , 
e–,  , 
c–b, ,  Wasps
e–,  , 
a–,  Euripides
c,  Andromache
d,  , 
Phaedo Homer
b–c,  Iliad
Phaedrus ., 
b,  .–, 
a,  ., 
Philebus Sophocles
a–b, , – Ajax
d–,  , 
Republic Semos of Delos
e–a,  fr. , –, –,
a–,  
d–e, – Simonides
a–c,  frr. – W , 
c,  frr. – W , 
Symposium fr.  W , , 
d–b,  fr.  FGE, 
–,  fr.  FGE, 
–,  fr.  FGE, 
Theaetetus fr.  W , –,
c,  
Timaeus fr.  PMG, ,
b–c,  –
e–,  fr.  fr. a PMG, 
a–b,  fr.  PMG, , 
Plutarch fr.  PMG, ,
How to Study Poetry 
.e–e,  fr.  PMG, 
Life of Demosthenes test.  Campbell, 
.–,  Sophocles
Life of Nicias test. –, 
.,  Sosibius
Life of Pericles fr. , 
.–,  fr. , 
Life of Themistocles Stesichorus
.–,  fr. , 
.–,  fr. a, 
Pollux Strabo
.,  .., 
Index locorum 
Strato Theophrastus
fr. , – fr. , 
Strattis fr. , 
fr. ,  fr. , 
Theopompus
Telecleides fr. , , 
fr. ,  Thucydides
frr. –,  .–, 
Themistius Timocreon
Orations fr. , 
.b,  Tzetzes
Theognis Proem I, 
frr. –,  Proem II init., 
General index
Acestor,  and Archilochus, , , , , –, –,
Achilles, , , , , , , , ,  –
Aegina, , – and choral lyric, –
Aeschylus, see Aristophanes and Aeschylus; and dithyramb, 
comedy and Aeschylus; Cratinus and and epic, –, –; see also Homer
Aeschylus and Euripides, –, –, , , –,
Agamemnon, – –
Choephori, – and Herodotus, –
Eumenides, –, ; trial scene of,  and Hesiod, –, –, –, –
Oresteia, – and kainotes, –, –, –, –
Persians, , ,  and Pindar, –
Psychagogoi, – and Simonides, –
Seven Against Thebes,  and the fable tradition, –
Suppliants,  and the poetics of praise and blame,
Theoroi or Isthmiastai,  –
Women of Etna,  and tragedy, –, –, –, –
[Aeschylus] authorial self-definition of, , , , ,
Prometheus Unbound, , –,  –, –, –, –, –, ,
Prometheus plays, ,  –, –
Aesop, , – Acharnians, , , –, –, , –,
Agamemnon, –,  –, 
agora, as performance space,  Babylonians, 
Alcaeus,  Banqueters, 
Alcman, , , , , ,  Birds, –, –
Alexandria, Museum and Library, – Clouds, , –, –, , –, –,
Alexis, ,  
Ameipsias,  Frogs, , –, , –, , , ,
Anaxandrides, ,  –, , 
Anonymus, De comoedia,  Knights, –, –, 
Antimachus of Teos,  Lemnian Women, 
Antiphanes, –, ,  Lysistrata, 
Antonius Diogenes,  Peace, , –, –, –, –, , ,
Apollodorus of Athens, , , ,  –, 
Archilochus, , , , , , , , ; see Proagon, , , 
also Aristophanes and Archilochus; Seasons, 
Cratinus and Archilochus; Cratinus’ Wasps, , , –, –, –, ,
Archilochoi –
Aristeas of Proconnesus, – Wealth, , , 
Aristophanes Women at the Thesmophoria, , , –,
and Aeschylus, –, ,  
and Aesop, – Aristophanes of Byzantium, 

General index 
Aristotle and epic, –, –, –; see also
Didascaliae,  Aristophanes and epic; Epicharmus; epic
Dionysiac Victories,  poetry; Homer
Metaphysics,  and ethnography, , –
On Poets, ,  and Euripides, –, –, , –,
Poetics, , , , , –, , –, , –, –
–, , ,  and hymns, –
Artemidorus of Daldis,  and iambos, –, –, –, –,
Artists of Dionysus,  –
audience, , –, , , , , , , and iconography, –, 
, –, – and ideology, –, , –
Autocrates,  and kainotes, –
and ‘knowingness’, –
Bacchylides, , ; see also Simonides and the and komoi, –
epinician tradition and lyric, –, –
Bakhtin, M., , , ,  and madness, –
and partheneia, , , 
Callias,  and performance, see performance
Callimachus,  and ritual, –, , , –
Certamen Homeri et Hesiodi, , ,  and Roman satire, –
Chamaeleon,  and satyr-play, , , 
chorus, – and ‘seriousness’, , 
centrality in drama, ,  and social class, , , –, –
code switching in tragedy and comedy,  and the Dionysia, –
comic chorus and audience, –, – and the fable tradition, , –
comic chorus and choral lyric, –, –, and the victory ode, –
–, – and tragedy, –, –, –, –, –, ,
comic chorus and partheneia, , ,  , , , , , , , , –,
comic chorus and the polis (civic identity), –, –; see also individual poets
–, – and victory, , 
comic chorus and the victory ode, – and wedding songs, –
comic chorus and wedding songs, – anti-hegemonic discourse in, –
comic vs. tragic chorus, ,  authorial self-definition in, –, –,
dithyrambic, – , , –
non-dramatic chorus and civic cult, , closures, –, , –
–, – competitiveness of, –, –, –,
self-presentation of, –, – –
voice, – contests in, –, –, , , –,
chthonic deities, –; see also Erinyes 
ambivalent nature of, – dancing in, –
and wealth, – Dionysiac character of, –, –
as guardians of the Earth, , , , , Doric tradition, 
 early history of, –
Cinesias,  ‘high’ vs. ‘low’ rhetoric in, , –, , ,
City Dionysia , , 
reorganization of,  influence by Dionysiac processions, –,
class, see comedy, anti-hegemonic discourse in; –
fable; social class influence on Dionysiac processions, –
comedy ‘kinship vs. otherness’ dialectic, –, –,
and Aeschylus, , , –, , , –, 
– middle-brow type, –
and Aesop, – ‘old’ vs. ‘new’ in, , –
and Athenian religion, –, – opening scenes in, –, –, –,
and blame, , –,  –
and dithyramb,  populist stance of, , , –
 General index
comedy (cont.) Ephorus, 
reception of, –, –, – epic poetry, –; see also Aristophanes and
self-consciousness of, –, , –, –, epic; comedy and epic; Homer
–, –, –, , , –, and authority, –, , –
–, – and intergenerational conflict, , –
social benefit of, –, –, – as martial poetry, –
survival and canonization of, – Epic Cycle, , , , , , , 
‘trugedic’ stance of, –, –, –, , hexameter, , , , , , , , ,
–, – , 
costume, see comedy, influence by Dionysiac Homer vs. Hesiod, –, , –
processions; phallic processions, Homeric Kunstsprache, , –, , ,
costumes and props in , , , 
Crates, ,  Iliad vs. Odyssey, –, –
Cratinus, –, , , , – Epicharmus, , –, , , , , 
and Aeschylus, – epigram, , , , , –, , 
and Archilochus, , , – Eratosthenes, , , 
and iambos, – Erinyes, –
and the komastic tradition, – association with wealth, , 
authorial self-definition, , – Eriphus, 
Archilochoi, , , –, , ,  ethnography, , –
Boukoloi,  Eubulus, , 
Cheirones, ,  Euphronius, , 
Dionysalexandros, , , ,  Eupolis, , , , 
Dionysoi,  Euripides, , ; see also Aristophanes and
Drapetides, ,  Euripides; comedy and Euripides
Eumenides,  Alcestis, –, , 
Euneidae,  Andromache, 
Malthakoi,  Bellerophon, , 
Odysseis, , , ,  Cyclops, 
Plutoi, – Helen, –
Pytine,  Heracles, 
Satyroi,  Hippolytus, 
Thracians,  Medea, 
Crius of Aegina, – Phoenician Women, , 
Stheneboea, , 
Damoxenus,  [Euripides]
dancing, –, –, –,  Rhesus, –
in Dionysiac processions, –, 
Demetrius of Phalerum, , –,  fable
Democritus,  and aetiology, –
dialogism, –, –,  and allegory, 
Dicaearchus,  and animal allegory, –
Didymus, , ,  and Dionysus, –
dike, in archaic thought, – and non-Greek traditions, –
Diodorus of Tarsus,  and Plato, –, –
Diomedes, – and social class, –
Dionysiades,  and tragedy, 
Dolon, – of the eagle and the beetle, –
Duris,  Fasti, 
fourth-century comedy
Earth, – and epic, –, 
semantics of, ,  and tragedy, –
Ecphantides, 
Ennius,  genre
Ephippus, ,  and affiliation, –, –, –, –
General index 
and context, –, – Lucilius, 
and ‘do-it-yourself literary history’, –, Lycophron of Chalcis, , –, ,
– 
and ideology, – author of Alexandra?, 
and psychosocial stance,  on comedy, –
and sub-literary forms, –, – Lynceus of Samos, , 
and text, , , –, , , –,
– Machon, 
theoretical approaches to, –, , madness, , , , –
– and verbal abuse, –
guessing game, – mageiros, –
in Aristophanes, – Magnes, 
in Euripides,  Maximus of Tyre, 
in Menander, – Menander
in Rhesus, – Dyskolos, 
Perikeiromene, , –; and Rhesus,
Hagnon, –, –, ,  –
Hecataeus, , , 
Helen,  Nestor, , 
Hermippus, 
Herodotus, , , , , , , , , Odysseus, –, –, 
– Orestes, , 
Hesiod, –, , , , 
and satiric discourse, – Panyassis of Halicarnassus, 
and the Odyssey, – paratragedy, see Aristophanes and Aeschylus;
persona of, –, –, ,  Aristophanes and Euripides;
Catalogue of Women,  Aristophanes and tragedy; comedy and
Works and Days –, –, , , , Aeschylus; comedy and Euripides;
, , –, , , ,  comedy and tragedy; comedy, ‘trugedic’
Hipponax, , ,  stance of; Cratinus and Aeschylus
Homer, see Aristophanes and epic; comedy and Pausanias, 
epic; epic poetry performance, –, , , , ,
Iliad, and comedy, , , , , , 
– Pericles, , 
Margites, ,  Peripatetic school, 
Odyssey, and comedy, –, –, , , persona, see comedy, authorial self-definition in;
–, –, – see also individual authors
Horace, – phallic processions
Hyperboreans, –, –,  character of, –
costumes and props in, –, –; belts, ,
iambos, , –, –, , , , , ; boots, , , ; comic costume
 elements, , , , ; ivy decoration,
iconography , , , , , , , ; kothornoi,
‘animal rider’ vases, , ,  , ; long garments, , , , ;
of Dionysiac processions (komoi), –, masks, , , , , , , ; obel
– bread, ; phalloi, , , ;
of first theatrical events, – phallos-sticks, , , , , , , ,
Isocrates,  , –, , , ; ribbons, , , ,
, ; torches, 
komoi, – dancing in, –, , –
in the Athenian theatre, – epimeletai, 
koros,  exarchoi, , , 
in the theatre of Dionysus, –
Lasos of Hermione,  phallos-bearers in, –, , 
Lucian, ,  phallos-stick bearers in, –, , , 
 General index
phallic processions (cont.) and Themistocles, , , , 
pipers in, , , , ,  and Timocreon, –
satyric elements in, , , , ,  Plataea elegy, –
Pherecrates,  social class, , , , –; see also comedy
Philemo,  and social class; comedy, anti-hegemonic
Philocles,  discourse in; fable and social class;
Philodemus wealth and social class
On Poems,  Socrates, , , , 
Philostratus,  Solon, , , , , , , , , ,
Phrynichus (com.),  , 
Phrynichus (trag.), –, – Sophocles, , , , 
Pindar, , , –, , –, , –, Stesichorus, , 
, ,  Sthenelus, –, , 
Plato, –,  Strabo, 
and comedy, ,  Strato
and comic abuse, – Phoenicides, –
and comic performance, – Strattis, 
and kainotes, –, – Symmachus, 
and psychology of laughter, –, symposium, , , , , 

on blame and praise, – Telecleides, , 
on law and persuasion, – Themistocles, , , , 
on seriousness and play, – Theognis, , 
Laws, , – Theophrastus, , 
Philebus, – Theopompus, , 
Republic, –, – Timocles, 
Symposium, – Timocreon, –
Timaeus, – tragedy, see Aristophanes and Aeschylus;
Platonius,  Aristophanes and Euripides;
‘Pleiad’, members of,  Aristophanes and tragedy; comedy and
Pompe, see phallic processions Aeschylus; comedy and Euripides;
Ptolemy Philadelphus comedy and tragedy; comedy, ‘trugedic’
and scholarship, – stance of; Cratinus and Aeschylus
as genre, –, –
Salamis, ,  narrative prologues in, –
satire (as poetic mockery), –,  Tydeus, , –
satyr-play, , , –, ; see also comedy and
satyr-play Underworld, –, –
scholarship, ancient,  utopia, , , 
and political ideology, –
on comedy, – wealth, –
Semos of Delos, –, , , ,  Aeschylean notion of, 
Simonides,  ancestral vs. newly acquired,
and democratic praise, , –,  –
and elegiac ‘battle poems’, – and social class, –
and the epinician tradition, –, , –, ‘White Island’, –
–
and the poetics of praise and blame, – Xenophon, 

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Cambridge University Press

978-1-107-03331-3 - Greek Comedy and the Discourse of Genres

Recent scholarship has acknowledged that the intertextual discourse of ancient

em m a n uel a bak ola is Leverhulme EC Fellow at King’s College London.

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GREEK COMEDY AND THE

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List of figures page vii

Introduction: Greek comedy as a fabric of

part i: comedy and genre: self-definition

part ii: comedy and genres in dialogue

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comedy and tragedy

comedy, the fable and the ethnographic tradition

part iii: the reception of comedy and

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2.1 Attic red-figure fragments by the Berlin Painter, c. 480 bc;

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emmanuela bakola is Leverhulme EC Fellow at King’s College London.

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© in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org

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Most of the chapters in this volume are based on papers presented at

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Note to the reader

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Addend.2 T. H. Carpenter, Beazley Addenda: Additional Refer-

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xvi List of abbreviations

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Tragedy is a lucky kind of poetry in every respect (makrion . . .

 Segal in Conte : xiii.

 Martindale : .  Skoie : , referring to Jauss’ Rezeptiontheorie.

 Braund : .

The Greek dramatic genres: theoretical perspectives

Hence such expansive formulae as ‘genre classifications . . . have an organ-

 Frow : –, citing Freadman : .

 This phrase comes from Shklovsky :  (= : ).

generic text and context

 See below, pp. , .

 Pace a misstatement at Silk a: .

 Hypothesis (a)  in Diggle, OCT, vol. i.  Seidensticker : .

 Craig : .

. ) . ,

. , and then sophistic 

genre theory and the clouds

 Translation by Jeffrey Henderson (but with ‘verses’ for Henderson’s ‘poetry’).

Comedy and the Pompe

Figure . Attic red-figure fragments by the Berlin Painter, c.  bc

phallic choruses in fifth-century attic vase-painting

 Pickard-Cambridge : –; E. Simon : –.

Figure . Attic red-figure cup fragments, Antiphon Group, – bc

 See Pipili : –.

Tragedy is a lucky kind of poetry in every respect (makrion . . .

. ) .,

. , and then sophistic

. S!’, their ‘individual characters’. By suggesting that poets are

 In this line, #2 '

 Differently from Wilson, OCT I follow the MS reading "

 This depends on the reading )

) 2!

Cf. Suda  (s.v. 2-

From the use of the line quoted as a kind of title (6 8