298

Eupolis

scene by hypothesizing that Pyronides did not descend to the Underworld but
engaged instead in an act of necromancy (thus already Heath), summoning
up the dead in the same way that e. g. Darius is summoned up in Aeschylus’
Persians. Telo for his part imagines an initial scene in the Underworld; a paro-
dos set in the upper world, followed by an intermediary scene located there
that illustrates the contemporary city’s problems and covers the homeward
journey of Pyronides and the statesmen; and then the parabasis (the end of
which is, on this version of things, preserved in fr. 99).
Both arguments pose difficulties. lambic abuse songs and trochaic tetram-
eters catalectic are both found in Aristophanic parabases, but are absent from
Aristophanic parodoi, to which objection Storey responds that we are dealing
in fr. 99 with a different poet whose compositional practices may have differed
in this regard. This is a reasonable argument, as far as it goes, although the
parabasis in particular seems to have had something like a standard traditional
structure, making it a reasonable assumption that any partially preserved cho-
ral structure that resembles a parabasis in fact is one. Storey’s attempt to limit
the length of the opening action by converting it into an invocation scene,
meanwhile, must confront the even less easily evaded objection that Eupolis’
dead are not insubstantial, temporary apparitions like the shades in Odyssey
11 or Darius in Persians. Instead, they not only make their way about the city,
but ask to eat (fr. 99.43) and perhaps wrestle physically with other characters
(esp. fr. 99.103-6), and on a common interpretation of fr. 131 ultimately take
up permanent residence in Athens.186 As for Telo’s thesis, the parodos is used
to establish a new dramatic location in Aristophanes’ Acharnians, where the
place shifts with their entrance from the Pnyx to Dikaiopolis’ house in the
country, and Telo’s hypothetical post-parodos intermediary scene finds an
approximate parallel at Ar. Ec. 311-77, where Blepyros’ buffoonish encounters
with his Neighbor and Chremys cover Praxagora’s offstage Assembly scene.
Although Teld routinely bases his arguments on Aristophanic analogy, the
lack of better or more numerous parallels is not enough to falsify his proposal
regarding the structure of Demoi, given that—to build on the point Storey
makes in support of his own interpretation of the parodos/parabasis—Eupolis
must have been free to shape most aspects of his plays as he wanted and
cannot be taken to have been limited to the set of standard practices adopted

186 For what is known of Greek necromancy, see Ogden 2001. 95-112. For the distinc-
tion between a φάσμα of the sort a psychagogos might summon temporarily from
the Underworld and an individual genuinely brought back from the dead, see E.
Ale. 1123-8.