Ίκάριοι Σάτυροι

137

Apart from the title, some external testimonies would seem to support the sugges-
tion that Ikarioi Satyroi is a satyr play. In didaskaliai of the Dionysia (ca 341-340
BC) a certain Timocles appears as the author of the satyr play Lykurgos, which
opened the festival and won first prize (ZG II2 2320 col. 11.19; Millis-Olson 2012,
67). In an inscription from the 330-329 BC Dionysia (IGII2 2318, col. xiii), the sur-
viving text ]κλής έδίδασκεν, according to Koerte, should be restored as Τιμοκλής
έ.* * 152 Furthermore, the vague formulation of Athenaeus (9.407d) Τιμοκλής ό τής
κωμωδίας ποιητής (ήν δέ και τραγωδίας)... has been interpreted by some scholars
as evidence that this poet wrote both tragedies and comedies, following the (ideal)
model of Plato (Smp. 223d; see on test. 2).153 Finally, Alex. fr. 77 οϋς και Τιμοκλής I
ίδών έπι των ϊππων δύο σκόμβρους έφη / έν τοΐς σατύροις είναι was taken by
Bergk and Hirschig as a reference to Timocles’ play as a satyr play (see on fr. 15).
It seems that there is a clear borderline between Old Comedy and Satyr Play
during the fifth century. In Aristotle’s Ars Poetica (1449a 19-20) there is no con-
nection between the two genres, since the satyr play is included in the genre of
tragedy.154 Nevertheless, it seems that sometimes in plays containing Dionysiac
material, such as Dionysalexandros and comic titles including satyrs, the boundari-
es of the two genres come very close and an overlap should not be totally excluded;
cf. Bakola 2005, 58, who speaks of‘hybrid’ satyr comedies; Bagordo 2014, 189.
In the course of the fourth century, however, the situation seems to change. In
the Dionysia, by 340 BC satyr plays were performed separately from tragedies.155
Moreover, references to notable personalities also occur in contemporary satyr
plays; in Python’s Agen, which was staged at the banks of the river Hydaspes,
Harpalus and his mistresses are satirized; moreover, in Lycophron’s Menedemos the
well-known philosopher is the main target of satire.156 The courtesan Pythionice is
satirized in both Ikarioi Satyroi and Agen: in Ikarioi Satyroi she is satirized in the
context of a prophecy, but in Agen she is dead and appears through necromancy.
Furthermore, there is a notable tendency of the fourth-century satyr play to admit
a greater licence and variety of metres - even comic ones (e. g. Eupolidean metre in
Astydamas’ Herakles'). The question, therefore, unavoidably arises, whether comic
poets could write satyr plays.157

written a satyr play such as Icarians. For more details on the history of the debate, see
Constantinides 1969, esp. 50-53 and Cipolla 2003, 326-7.
152 See Pickard-Cambridge 1968, 71-2 and 110-1.
153 A similar puzzle might be the case of a playwright named Demetrius, who appears on
the Pronomus Vase (ca 400 BC) as the author of a satyr play; since the only known poet
from this period is the namesake comedian, Storey 2011, 435 wonders if this could be
a case of a poet who wrote both tragedy and comedy.
154 See Dobrov 2007, 251-65.
155 See Storey-Allan 2005, 163-8.
156 See Constantinides 1969, 51.
157 For possible overlaps between comedy and satyr play already in the fifth century see
Storey 2005,203-5. For the relationship between Middle Comedy and satyr play cf. van