Testimonia (test. 2)

41

the results have been combined, giving the names in the order in which the po-
ets took the prize at one festival or the other and adding Epicharmus from the
Syracusan tradition. If so, the source of the material in the second part of test.
2a (Hesychius?) used a different system of reckoning, since both Phrynichus
and Eupolis are assigned to 429 BCE, although we know they were not both
victorious that year.45 If these references are to the poet’s initial appearance at
a festival, Clinton’s emendation of Suda φ 763 = Phryn. Com. test. 1.2 putting
Phrynichus’ first comedy in Olympiad 432/28 (rather than Olympiad 436/2)
must be right.
For the remarks about Eupolis’ poetic tendencies, compare what is said
just before this about e. g. Cratinus (= his test. 2a. 10) γέγονε δέ ποιητικότατος,
κατασκευάζων εις τον Αισχύλου χαρακτήρα (“he was extremely poetic, con-
structing [his plays] in the Aeschylean style”) and Crates (= his test. 2a.6-7)
πάνυ γελοίος και ιλαρός γενόμενος (“being quite funny and amusing”).
According to the individual biographical notices preserved in the Suda, a
total of 163 plays were assigned to the eight poets listed in test. 2a.46 Another
111 plays are assigned in lists of titles to poets who certainly belong to the
so-called “Old Comedy”,47 while an additional 83 titles are known from other
late 5th-/early 4th-century poets who can reasonably be thus classified,48 for
an overall total of 367 plays. This number is close enough to the one provided
by test. 2a—and far enough away from the number of comedies actually per-
formed in Athens between the institution of the contests at the City Dionysia
in the early 480s BCE or so and the death of Aristophanes around 388 BCE,
which ought to be about 80049—to raise the possibility that we are dealing with

45 Both Eupolis and Phrynichus appear after Aristophanes in the City Dionysia list,
with initial victories sometime in the second half of the 420s BCE. Regardless of
who was victorious at the Lenaea in 429 BCE, therefore, neither man could have
taken the prize at the City Dionysia that year. Apollodorus, eponymous archon for
430/29 BCE, is PA 1375; PAA 141805.
46 Epicharmus 40; Magnes 9; Cratinus 21; Crates 6; Pherecrates 16; Phrynichus 11 (in
the form of a list of titles); Eupolis 16; Aristophanes 44.
47 Alcaeus Comicus 10; Apollophanes 5; Autocrates 1; Callias* 6; Cantharus* 4;
Cephisodorus 4; Chionides 3; Diodes 5; Hermippus 40; Leuco 2; Myrtilus* 2;
Nicochares* 9; Nicophon* 4; Philonides 3; Philyllius 10; Teleclides 3. All of these
in lists of titles in the relevant Suda entry; * indicates that the specific designation
“an Old Comic poet” is not provided.
48 Amipsias 7; Archippus 6; Aristomenes 5; Lysippus 2; Plato Comicus 28; Poliochus
1; Polyzelus 5; Theopompus Comicus 20; Sannyrio 4; Strattis 15.
49 Assuming 5 plays per year for approximately 40 years until the Lenaea contests
were added ~ 200 plays, and 10 plays per year thereafter ~ 600 plays.