Introduction

31

Note also
00—^^— (the so-called “Pherecratean”, aeolic base + abbreviated dodrans;
fr. 175)

lambo-choriambic

(1) —— (alternatively understood as —
-; frr. 42.3; 172; 395; cf. Ar. frr. 30-1)
(2) —<-<— (the so-called “Aristophanean”, alternatively understood
as a pendent dodrans —; fr. 176, where followed by — <>—,
alternatively understood as a single dodrans — )

Other lyric meters
Fr. 173 is paeano-cretic, fr. 207 ionic.
Prose
Eupolis’ occasional use of prose within his plays is attested at fr. 401 (n.).

Form
Platonius (test. 34) describes Eupolis as “extremely imaginative in his
plot-structures”. The basis for this judgment is uncertain, and it remains a
reasonable hypothesis that the major structural components of Aristophanes’
eleven surviving complete comedies—prologue; parodos; various scenes pri-
marily in iambic trimeter and divided by choral songs (including iambic abuse
songs), parabasis and on occasion second parabasis; agon; exodos—were the
same as those of Eupolis’ plays.34 The best evidence in this regard is fr. 99
(from Demoi), which appears to preserve part of the parabasis antode and
the end of the antepirrhema, followed by a scene mostly in iambic trimeter
although punctuated by choral(?) interjections in trochees(?). Even here,
however, divergence from Aristophanic practice as we know it is apparent,
iambic dimeter abuse songs (fr. 99.1-22) not being a component of any of
Aristophanes’ preserved parabases. Of the remaining fragments
- Frr. 245-7 (iambic tetrameter catalectic; from Poleis) are most economically
understood as part of a single scene, reminiscent of Ar. Av. 268-93, in which
a series of elaborately costumed figures (specialized dancers?) closely asso-

34 The fundamental discussion is Whittaker 1935.