Δήμοι (Introduction)

297

moment when the two groups first encounter one another. Fr. 99.1-34 (from
PCair. 43227 fr. 1) represent the final portion of a choral section that consists
of an iambic abuse song (fr. 99.1-22, with additional lines lost at the end)
followed by trochaic tetrameters catalectic (fr. 99.23-34, with additional lines
lost at the beginning). Since Körte 1912, this has generally been understood
to represent the antode and antepirrhema of the parabasis.184 Immediately
after this choral section, a character enters and hails the land (fr. 99.35-6),
from which he has seemingly been long absent; on the basis of a problematic
marginal note and the content of his words, this character is normally taken
to be Aristides returning to Athens from the Underworld. Fr. 99.41-59 (from
PCair. 43227 fr. 2) preserve portions of a conversation in which a group of
individuals are promised that they will meet “the demes/Demes” and will have
an opportunity to assess the difference between their condition now and how
matters stood “when you and Solon were in office” (fr. 99.45-7, with a plural
verb in 45 but a dual in 47). Fr. 99.60-77 (also from PCair. 43227 fr. 2) seem to
represent the promised meeting between the chorus and another character
(?), on the one hand, and the dead statesmen and Pyronides, on the other.
The dead thus arrive in Athens, are promised an interview with the demes,
and receive it; and on this basis PCair. 43227 fr. 1 is taken to precede PCair.
43227 fr. 2, and fr. 99.41-59 are taken to represent the recto of PCair. 43227 fr.
2, fr. 99.60-77 the verso (with a gap of 10-12 lines between Kassel-Austin’s
continuously numbered fr. 99.59 and fr. 99.60).
This otherwise convincing reconstruction poses a serious problem of inter-
pretation. If fr. 99.1-34 comes from the parabasis, which in Eupolis’ contem-
porary Aristophanes is always located at least a third of the way into the play
and often much further on than that,185 it is difficult to explain why the chorus
has not already met Pyronides and the dead statesmen. Keil 1912. 247-9 dealt
with this issue by postulating that the chorus of Demoi had different identities
in the two halves of the play, being dead in the first half (which was set in
the Underworld) but alive and perhaps differently costumed in the second
(which was set in the upper world). Keil’s suggestion was taken for granted
in most early discussion of the material, but is today generally dismissed on
the ground that it is difficult to understand how demes can be dead. Of the
two most recent attempts to come to terms with the issue, Storey proposes
that fr. 99.1-34 represents the end not of the parabasis but of the parodos. To
make this reconstruction more plausible, Storey also shortens the prologue

184 For parabasis abuse songs, cf. Ar. Pax 775-818; Ra. 674-85, 706-818.
185 Cf. test. 34.8-9 τάς γάρ εισηγήσεις ρεγάλας των δραμάτων ποιείται, perhaps re-
ferring specifically to Demoi and putting the parabasis relatively late in the action.