92

Eupolis

of female goats and the education of rustics can plainly be brought together
somehow in the same play, but how exactly were they brought together by
Eupolis? What was the ‘plot’ of the play? What character was the protagonist?
Was it the ‘teacher’? Did the goats ‘take over’ rural Attica and try to improve
their quality of life by having their boorish herdsmen educated?” The only
appropriate answer to each of these questions is “We do not know and can-
not know”, and there is little point in pretending otherwise; see Introduction
Section 4. POxy. 5160 is tentatively identified by the original editors as part of
a commentary on Aiges, but clarifies none of the issues touched on above and
in fact complicates matters further by suggesting a sexual intrigue between
the goatherd and the innkeeper-woman mentioned in fr. 9, and by perhaps
adding a shepherd to the list of characters (see POxy. 5160 frr. d-e with nn.).
The following have also been assigned to Aiges: frr. 326 (Bergk); 367
(Storey); 388 (Bergk); 392 (Storey); 395 (Storey); 459 K. = E. fr. 13 (Valckenaer).
Date Fr. 20 is said to be a reference to Hipponicus, presumably meaning
Hipponicus II son of Callias II, who is supposed to have died shortly before
the staging of Kolakes in 421 BCE (test. ii). Perhaps Hipponicus was mentioned
posthumously, but the standard modern assumption is that Aiges was staged
before he passed. The reference to Nicias son of Niceratus in POxy. 5160 fr. b (if
properly assigned to this play) is of no help in further narrowing the possible
dates of performance. For discussion, see Meineke 1839 11.435; Wilamowitz
1870. 35; Kaibel 1907 p. 1234.50-63; Geissler 1925. 29; Schiassi 1944. 50-1;
Storey 1990. 15; Storey 2003. 67; Kyriakidi 2007. 18-20.
Fragments
O’Oxy. 5160
(not in Kassel-Austin)
POxy. 5160 consists of substantial portions of two columns of text and a single
letter from a third column, and is dated by Henry and Trojahn, the original
editors, to the 2nd or 3rd century CE. The papyrus is the remains of a learned
commentary on a comedy that refers to Nicias as if he were alive and thus
likely belongs to the mid-420s to mid-410s BCE. References to an αιπολός
(goatherd) and a πανδοκεύτρια (innkeeper-woman) as characters led Henry
and Trojahn to identify the play in question as Eupolis’ Aiges.
Col. ii contains 40 lines and its bottom margin is preserved, making it clear
that seven lines have been lost from the bottom of col. i. The top margin of the