30

Eupolis

preserved in frr. 99.1-20 (from an abuse-song likely representing the parabasis
antepirrhema); 193.5, 7; 386 (another abuse song).30 Fr. 84 is choliambic.
Other standard non-lyric meters
Anapaestic tetrameter catalectic is preserved in frr. 13; 41; 60; 131; 205-6.
These fragments contain a total of 7 complete, textually sound lines, all of
which feature caesura between the second and third foot. Frr. 14-15; 66;
192hh—ii; 319; 393 may also be anapaestic.
Trochaic tetrameter catalectic is preserved in frr. 40; 86; 99.23-34; 293; 392,
which contain a total of 23 lines that are either complete or can be confidently
restored. All but one of these lines (fr. 293.1) feature caesura between the
second and third foot. Trochaic dimeter is preserved in fr. 88 and perhaps in
frr. 99.51-4, 58-63, 69-71; 313 as well. Fr. 87 may also be trochaic.
Dactylic hexameter is preserved in frr. 249; 315; 394.31 Two of these lines
feature masculine caesura (which tends to dominate in 5th-century texts), while
the third features feminine caesura.
Lyric meters
The fragments preserve a number of aeolo-choriambic or iambo-choriambic
15-syllable lines (generally divided 8 | 7) characterized as a group by West
as “comic dicola”. As Parker 1997. 70 observes, “Methods of variation are
numerous and nomenclature opulent”. In the case of comedy, the situation is
made even more difficult by the fact that many variants are ill-attested, making
description easier than analysis; in the aeolo-choriambic group, each colon
probably begins properly with an Aeolic base (^—, —or —) or half-base.
Aeolo-choriambic “comic dicola”
(1) OO—x—oo— 00—x—^— (the so-called “Eupolidean”, for which see test.
45-7 with test 45 n.; frr. 89; 13232 and most likely fr. 396)
(2) — -x—-o—o— (fr. 42.1-2, cf. Cratin. frr. 361-2)
(3) x-oo-oo- x-o-o-(frr. 148; 250; 317)
(4) x-x-oo— (fr 3i6)
(5) —o-o-o-o-x-o- (fr. 391)33

30 Perhaps add frr. 83; 193.5, 7; 280 (an abuse song?); 389. For the text of fr. 386, see
(in addition to the material cited ad loc.) Alfageme 2008.
31 Perhaps add frr. 150; 319.
32 Perhaps add fr. 174.
33 Mischaracterized in the commentary ad loc. as iambic dimeter + syncopated tro-
chaic dimeter.