Introduction

13

when Aristophanes’ Peace took third (test. 13c). But other evidence leaves little
doubt that Eupolis and Aristophanes were active and aggressive rivals (see
Section 8, below), and they likely competed against one another repeatedly
for as long as Eupolis was alive.
The Suda credits Eupolis with seventeen comedies, whereas Anon, de Com.
Ill gives him fourteen. Seventeen titles are known, two of them (Hybristodikai
and Lakdnes) dubious. The figures offered by the Suda and Anon, de Com. Ill
can be reconciled if Hybristodikai and Lakönes are removed from the count
and one assumes that Autolykos I and Autolykos II were not consistently distin-
guished (as the sources that cite the fragments of those plays make clear was
the case). But alternative titles or the like might be the source of the problem
instead—Müller-Strübing, for example, believed that Autolykos II and Philoi
were the same play—and the question is today beyond solution. Assuming
sixteen authentic plays, a death in 411 BCE and seven victories, Eupolis took
the prize at one festival or the other on an almost every-other-year basis
throughout the course of his career and over 40% of the time when he pre-
sented a comedy, more than twice as good as what ought to have been an
average record, if five poets competed at every festival, and better than the
most distinguished comic playwright of the previous generation, Cratinus
(nine victories with twenty-four? plays = 37.5%).
Only four of Eupolis’ comedies are securely dated:2 Noumeniai (Lenaea 425
BCE), Marikas (Lenaea 421 BCE), Kolakes (City Dionysia 421 BCE) and one of
the Autolykos comedies, probably Autolykos I(420 BCE, festival uncertain). Of
the other plays, internal evidence suggests that Taxiarchoi belongs to the early
420s BCE, Chrysoun genos to 422 BCE or earlier and Poleis to the late 420s BCE.
Heilotes and Aiges are generally taken to belong to the 420s BCE as well and
so to the first half of Eupolis’ career, to which at least nine plays can thus be
alloted. Baptai is generally dated to around 416 BCE, Demoi to 412 BCE, and
Autolykos II to sometime in the 410s BCE and so to the second half of Eupolis’
career, to which at least three plays are thus alloted. Astrateutoi, Philoi and
Prospaltioi are best regarded as undated, but need not all be assigned to the
410s BCE simply because this balances out the count offered above; perhaps
Eupolis began his career writing very rapidly and then, for reasons we cannot
know and need not speculate regarding, abruptly reduced his dramatic output.
For Eupolis’ use of a theatrical producer—an ill-documented but probably
common practice for late 5th-century comic poets—when he put on one of the
Autolykos plays in 420 BCE, see test. 15 with n.

2

For detailed discussion, see Date in the introductions to the individual comedies.