Δήμοι (test. dub. vii)

289

[test. *vi] (= Demoi test. 7 Teld)
Arg. S. OC p. 2.1-5 de Marco (S. test. 41.1-5 Radt)
τον επί Κολωνω Οΐδίπουν επί τετελευτηκότι τω πάππω Σοφοκλής ό ύιδοϋς
έδίδαξεν ... επί άρχοντας Μίκωνος, δς έστι τέταρτος άπό Καλλίου, έφ’ οΰ
φασιν οί πλείους τον Σοφοκλέα τελευτήσαι. σαφές δε τοϋτ’ έστίν έξ ών ό
μεν Αριστοφάνης έν τοϊς Βατράχοις έπί Καλλίου ανάγει τούς στρατηγούς
(cod. : τούς τραγικούς Clinton) ύπέρ γής
His grandson Sophocles staged the Oedipus at Colonus after his grandfather
was deceased in the archonship of Mikon, who is the fourth (archon) after
Callias, in whose year the majority of authorities claim that Sophocles died.
This is clear from the fact that Aristophanes, on the one hand, in his Frogs in
the archonship of Callias brings the generals (thus the ms.: “the tragedians”
Clinton) up above ground

Context From a hypothesis to Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus, attempting to
show that the play must have been staged posthumously, Sophocles having
died in 406/5 BCE, before Aristophanes’ Frogs was put on at the Lenaea festival
in mid-winter. Phryn. Com. fr. 32 (from Mousai) is offered in what follows as
additional evidence for the date of Sophocles’ death.
Interpretation Elmsley 1823. 84 took this to be a confused reference to the
plot of Demoi, since Frogs involves an attempt to rescue not dead generals
but dead tragic poets from the Underworld. Cf. test. dub. vii n. But both
Aristophanes and Phrynichus are cited because they refer to Sophocles as
dead (cf. Ar. Ra. 76-7, 786-90, 1515-19), which he was not at the time Demoi
was staged sometime in the 410s BCE (see the general introduction to the play,
Date). A reference to Eupolis’ play would therefore have been irrelevant here,
and the paradosis τούς στρατηγούς must be an error (hence Clinton’s τούς
τραγικούς, which editors generally accept). The most that can be posited is
that this error somehow reflects a scribe’s awareness of one basic element of
the plot of Demoi—which is very weak ground for treating this as a testimo-
nium to the play.

test. dub. vii (= Demoi test. 8 Telo)
Vai. Max. 7.2 ext. 7
Aristophanis quoque altioris est prudentiae praeceptum, qui in comoedia
introduxit remissum ab inferis j" Atheniensium (ducem Atheniensium cod.
Γ : Atheniensium principem Kapp : Atheniensium populo Gertz) Periclen