254

Eupolis

Meter lambic trimeter.
- -I— —-
Discussion Fritzsche 1835. 234; Fritzsche 1845. 197; Bothe 1855. 160-1;
Herwerden 1855. 22; Hoffmann 1910. 9; Delneri 2006. 290-1
Citation context A note on Ar. Ra. 417-18 Άρχέδημον, / δς έπτέτης ών ούκ
έφυσε φράτερας (“Archedemos, who when he was seven years old had no
adult teeth”, but punningly “no phratry brothers”); presumably drawn from a
catalogue of kdmdidoumenoi.
Text First punctuated as a question by Dindorf in his edition of the Aristo-
phanic scholia (followed by Kock and Kassel-Austin).
The first word was likely abbreviated έπιχώρ' or the like in the common
ancestor of all these notes, leaving the individual scribes to guess at the proper
case.
δ’ εστ ή is Dindorf’s version of scriptio plena δε εστι ή in ZR. (Moveable
nu was added to the verb in Σν to avoid what looked to be hiatus.) Fritzsche,
comparing Ar. Nu. 692 οϋκουν δικαίως, ήτις ού στρατεύεται; (of Amynias,
mockingly treated as feminine because of his supposed failure to do hoplite
service) opted for ή from Σν rather than ή from Σκ—the manuscripts have in
any case no authority in such matters—and read δ’ έσθ’ ή. But “Is the woman
from a foreign land a native?” is far more difficult sense, and Dindorf’s inter-
pretation is to be preferred. ΣΕ mistook ή for an abbreviated κ(αί), while Σ®
omitted what may have seemed like an unnecessary word.
Interpretation This reads like a legitimate question, as if the speaker were
simply confused about the origins of the individual in question, whom he or
she has never met or heard of before; cf. Ar. Th. 136 ποδαπός ό γύννις; τις
πάτρα; τις ή στολή; (“Where is the sissy from? What is his fatherland? What
is he wearing?”; Inlaw mockingly to and of Agathon) = A. fr. 61 (presum-
ably Lycurgus to and/or of the captive Dionysus). The line was nonetheless
clearly read by later commentators—presumably relying on the larger, now-
lost dramatic context—as hinting at or setting up an attack on the subject’s
citizenship-status; cf. fr. 61 n.
For the Athenian politician Archedemos (PA 2326; PAA 208855), see fr. 9
n. If Dindorf’s emendation is rejected there, this is the earliest reference to
the man in our sources except for the undated anecdote at X. Mem. 2.9 that
describes him, seemingly in his youth, as rhetorically gifted but poor and thus
in need of a wealthy patron. Even here, we have it only on the authority of
the scholion, drawing in turn on some older source, that Archedemos—next
mentioned at Ar. Ra. 417, in 405 BCE (although see fr. 99.23-34 n.)—is the
individual under discussion. If he is, the characterizations in Aristophanes