244

Eupolis

originality of one of Eupolis’ most important rivals,140 and all the reference in
Knights makes certain is that Baptai dates to City Dionysia 424 BCE or later.
That the play actually dates to 416 BCE or so is suggested by the fact that
it mounted a fierce attack of some sort on Alcibiades, who was criticized
already in Aristophanes’ Daitales (frr. 205.5-6; 244) in 427 BCE as a clever
speaker and a sexual pervert, and who supposedly served as general in 420/19
BCE (Plu. Ale. 15.1), but who seems to have been particularly influential in
Athenian politics in 416 and early 415 BCE, after the ostracism of Hyperbolos
but before he himself went into exile shortly after the Sicilian Expedition
was launched. Further support for this date comes from the anecdote about
Alcibiades drowning Eupolis on the way to Sicily in reaction to the play (test.
3; Baptai test, iii-vi), even if the story itself appears fanciful.141 Storey 2003.
109 adds as an argument against a date later than this that “one wonders how
well the humour aimed at a man no longer in Athens, a declared anathema,
and now residing with the enemy would have gone over”. The question does
not answer itself quite as easily as posing it thus implies, since one can assume
that Alcibiades remained very much on the Athenians’ minds, particularly
once he began to offer the Spartans and the Persians effective advice about
how to conduct the war, and it is not difficult to imagine a comic plot in which
e. g. he returned to Athens to further disrupt (or save?) the city. On balance,
however, Storey is right that ca. 416 seems the most likely date for Baptai. By
407 BCE, at any rate, when Alcibiades really did return to Athens, Eupolis had
likely been dead for several years. The other kdmoidoumenoi (frr. 80; 90-1) are
of no help in establishing a date.
For further discussion of the date of Baptai, see Geissler 1925. 52; Storey
1990. 20-2; Storey 2003. 108-10; Kyriakidi 2007. 22-4.
The following have also been assigned to Baptai: frr. 363 (Hemsterhuis); 367
(Fritzsche); 368 (Fritzsche); 385 (Wilamowitz); 399 (Runkel); 434 (Fritzsche);
447 (Delneri); 464 (anonymous).

140 Storey 1990. 20 suggests (following Fritzsche 1835. 144) that the Aristophanic play
in question was actually Anagyros (cf. Ar. fr. 58).
141 Storey 2003. 108-10 thus tentatively puts Baptai at the Lenaia of 415 BCE.