Βάπται (Introduction)

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The suggestion at Meineke 18391.121 that Kotyto herself appeared onstage
in Baptai is based on a combination of Juvenal’s characterization of the play
(test, ii), the description by the scholia there of the goddess as a harp-player
(psaltrid), and Hesychius’ comment (fr. *93) that Eupolis διατίθεται her as a
debased deity. The source of the scholia s claim that Kotyto played the harp
is unclear; Srebrny 1930-1931. 515-17 thought that she was in fact originally
characterized as a saltria (“dancer”), an idea more easily extracted from the
text of Satire 2. But Juvenal is unlikely in any case to have known much about
Eupolis’ play except that it featured transvestite men celebrating the goddess’
rites, and Hesychius’ verb more likely means “presents” than “brings onstage”,
all of which is to say that Meineke’s thesis has little solid support in the evi-
dence.139 Beyond this, all we know of the action of Baptai is that dancing and
music-making seemingly reminiscent of that of Kotyto’s celebrants performed
by a male character was sarcastically praised by another person (fr. 88); that
a pipe-girl was given orders to strike up a song (fr. 81) and a character told
to move forward (fr. 87); that complaints were twice registered about the bad
treatment an individual was receiving, in one case eliciting a hostile, mocking
response (frr. 79; 84); and that there was a parabasis (fr. 89).
Date The most secure indication of the date of Baptai is a terminus post
quem, the reference to Aristophanes’ Knights (Lenaia 424 BCE) in fr. 89 (where
see n.). If Eupolis is there responding to the charge of plagiarism involving
Marikas preserved in the revised Clouds (553-4), Baptai belongs in the mid-
4105 or later. But this might just as well be an independent attack on the

139 Storey 2003.101 nonetheless pushes further on in the same direction, positing a plot
in which “Kotyto comes to Athens, disguised as a flute-girl (as Dionysus to Thrace
or Thebes in a tragedy) to investigate whether her rites are being practised there,
and is received by a crowd of rowdy transvestites, perhaps involving Alcibiades.
For revealing or perverting her rites Kotyto may, like the Clouds, have inflicted
some punishment or humiliation on the Baptai or Alkibiades. Fr. 84 might be part
of such a retribution.” (Cf. Storey 2011. 79, where the “flute-girl” ’’—seemingly a
product of accidentally running the scholia together with fr. 81—has been replaced
by a Tyre player”) As Meineke 18391.122 comments in regard to Fritzsche’s equally
fabulous reconstruction of the play’s action, “Sed tales coniecturas quamquam non
damno equidem, non ita tarnen Us utendum censeo ut deperditarum fabularum ar-
gumenta Us superstruantur”. Delneri 2006. 342 characterizes the thesis that Kotyto
appeared onstage in Baptai “se non certa, decisamente interessante”. But “non
certa” in such a context means “only a guess”, and Meineke’s cautions apply once
again.