182

Eupolis

test. dub. iii
Valerius Apsines, Ars rhetorica 1.85 Dilts-Kennedy = 1.87 Patillon
έν ταϊς προσαγγελίαις αρμόσει σοι εκείνο τό θεώρημα, όταν δ βούλει ώς
άναιρών τιθής. οίον ώς έπ’ έκείνης τής ύποθέσεως· Εύπολις άλούς ξενίας
δημοσία έπράθη· πριάμενος αύτόν ό Λύκων εγχειρίζει τον παϊδα (codd. : τω
παιδί Meineke), ό δέ εαυτόν προσαγγέλλει. έν γάρ τοϊς τοιούτοις τω θεω-
ρήματι τούτω χρηστέον ω προειρήκαμεν, οΰτω λέγοντα· “ούτε έλευθερίαν
πράξων έμαυτω, ούθ’ όπως αν άπαλλαγείην τής παρούσης ταύτης δουλείας,
ώς τις ϊσως τών άκουόντων υμών ύπολαμβάνει, παρελήλυθα, άλλα θανάτου
δεόμενος”
In your self-denunciations, the following scheme will be useful for you,
when you put forward what you want as if you were renouncing it. As in
the following case: Eupolis was convicted on a charge of falsely claiming
Athenian citizenship and was sold. Lykon buys him and turns over his child
(codd.: “to his child” Meineke) (to him), and (Eupolis) denounces himself. For
in such situations, one must make use of this scheme we described previously,
putting it thus: “I am here neither to gain freedom for myself, nor with an eye
to getting myself released from my current condition of slavery, as some of
you who are listening might suspect, but requesting death”

Discussion Kaibel 1889. 41-2; Storey 2003. 86-8; Totaro 2007. 579
Context From a rhetorical handbook by—or at least attributed to—the 3rd-
century CE orator Apsines of Gadara; for the various problems of authorship,
interpolation and the like, see Dilts and Kennedy 1997. xv-xix; Heath 1998a;
Kennedy 2004. 306-7. Apsines’ point is that the petitioner in his imaginary,
Eupolis-like speech does not actually want to die; what he wants is instead to
be released from slavery, but he claims that he desires death in order to make
his desperation clear and thus inspire pity. For a more complete account of
the rhetorical strategy of self-denunciation (not simply “denunciation”, sc.
of others, as in the translations of Storey 2011. 73 and Rusten 2011. 224), see
Apsines Ars rhet. 10.35 with Russell 1983. 35-7.
Text As the manuscripts have it, Eupolis is given Autolykos, sc. to tutor,
as if the comic poet were a typical well-educated Greek slave and Lykon a
typical wealthy Roman father determined to get his son an education. Meineke
emended the paradosis τον παϊδα to τω παιδί (“entrusted (him) to his son”),
allowing for the assumption that Eupolis made the speech he did because he
was cruelly handled by Autolykos, sc. out of revenge for the content of his
comedy or comedies. But this is to twist the text to make it say what we think
it should, and what Eupolis complains about is in fact not how he is treated
but simply the fact that he is a slave.