44

Eupolis

while tragic choruses were supposedly performed there already in the first
half of the 6th century BCE (Hdt. 5.67.1). See Griffin 1982. 158-64, esp. 162-3,
and more generally Lolos 2011.
For the various traditions having to do with Eupolis’ death (including test.
3; 5), see in general Storey 1990. 4-7; Storey 2003. 56-60.

test. 5 K.-A. (= test, xii Storey)
Aelian NA 10.41
Εύπόλιδι τω τής κωμωδίας ποιητή δίδωσι δώρον Αύγέας ό Έλευσίνιος
σκύλακα ίδεΐν ώραϊον, Μολοττόν τό γένος, καί καλεΐ τούτον ό Εΰπολις
όμωνύμως τω δωρησαμένω αύτόν. κολακευθείς ούν ταϊς τροφαϊς καί έκ τής
συνήθειας υπαχθείς τής μακροτέρας, έφίλει τον δεσπότην ό Αύγέας ό κύων.
καί ποτέ όμόδουλος αύτω νεανίας, όνομα ’Εφιάλτης, ύφαιρεΐται δράματά
τινα τού Εύπόλιδος· ά ούκ έλαθε κλέπτων, άλλα είδεν αύτόν ό κύων, καί
έμπεσών άφειδέστατα δάκνων άπέκτεινε. χρόνω δέ ύστερον έν Αίγίνη τον
βίον ό Εϋπολις κατέστρεψε καί έτάφη ένταύθα· ό δέ κύων ώρυόμενός τε καί
θρήνων τον των κυνών θρήνον, είτα μέντοι λύπη καί λιμω εαυτόν έκτήξας
άπέθανεν, μισήσας τον βίον. καί ό γε τόπος καλείται μνήμη τού τότε πάθους
Κυνός Θρήνος
Augeas of Eleusis gave the comic poet Eupolis a nice-looking puppy, Molossian
in breed, as a gift, and Eupolis named it after the man who presented it to him.
Coaxed by food and led on by their extended intimacy, the dog Augeas came
to love his master. At some point a fellow slave of his, a young man named
Ephialtes, stole a number of Eupolis’ plays; he did not get away with the theft,
but the dog saw him, fell upon him and killed him by biting him mercilessly.
Later on, Eupolis died on Aegina and was buried there; and the dog, howling
and lamenting in the way dogs do, eventually wasted away from grief and
hunger and died, since it hated its life. And in memory of its suffering at that
time, the place is called Kynos Threnos (“Dog’s Lamentation”)
Citation context Similar material about the loyalty of dogs to their masters
is preserved in Aelian at NA 1.8; 6.25, 62; 7.10, 29, 38, 40; 11.13; 12.35. Not all
this material necessarily comes from the same source. It nonetheless seems
more likely that Aelian is drawing on a pre-existing literary miscellany than
on local Aeginetan tradition (Kyriakidi 2007. 147).
Discussion Kaibel 1889. 40-2; Kaibel 1907 p. 1230.37-57; Storey 2003. 56-7,
87-9; Kyriakidi 2007. 137-49; Grassl 2009
Interpretation Augeas of Eleusis is PA 2695; PAA 229355. The name is other-
wise attested in Attica only as that of a comic poet (PA 2694; PAA 229350) said