300

Eupolis

in false accusations and the blackmail of foreigners. The just man is generally
taken to be Aristides, and as he is now operating openly in Athens, the scene
seems to come from later in the action than fr. 99.1-77. When “Aristides” and
his slaves and/or allies turn on and bind “the Sycophant”, the latter protests
that he has been summoned (fr. 99.104). The remark “I would have liked to
have caught Diognetus as well” at fr. 99.114 (spoken by “Aristides”? or by a
character allied with him?) leaves little doubt that a trap has been sprung,
although whether “the Sycophant” has come to complain (sc. that he has not
received the money his victim or victims were supposed to pay?; cf. fr. 99.94)
or to boast and justify himself is unclear. In any case, the action is reminis-
cent of the exemplary scenes that routinely fill much of the second half of
Aristophanic comedies, and the moralizing address to the world at large (i. e.
the audience) at fr. 99.118-19 suggests that “Aristides” is in the process of
carrying out the project for which Pyronides recruited him and the other dead
statesmen from the Underworld. That all four statesmen had similar scenes is
possible, or perhaps one or more of them remained mostly in the background
(a less schematic and thus potentially more interesting arrangement—which
once again does not mean that this is how Eupolis structured his comedy).
Fr. 131 is generally taken to come from very near the end of the play and
to show that the dead statesmen were ultimately settled in Athens as tutelary
heroes or the like. There also appears to have been an agon, in which one
speaker (Pyronides?) complained that good citizenship was not appreciated
and rewarded as it should be (fr. 129). Whether the agon took place in the
first part of the play and thus most likely in the Underworld (in which case
there was perhaps a dispute reminiscent of the second half of Frogs about
who ought to be fetched back to Athens from the land of the Dead) or the
argument took place in the upper world (in which case Pyronides must have
faced active local resistance, with the Demes asked to decide between the two
parties) is impossible to say. Beyond this, we know that someone (perhaps in
the Underworld) offered an assessment of Pericles’ abilities as an orator and
compared him to contemporary politicians (frr. 102-3); that Aristides spoke
and told part of his own story (fr. *105); that Pericles spoke (fr. 110); and that
Miltiades most likely did as well (fr. *106).
The Four Statesmen and the Larger Implications of the Plot
Our ability to understand why Eupolis (or Pyronides) chose to fetch specif-
ically Solon, Aristides, Miltiades and Pericles back from the Underworld is
hindered in the first instance by the fact that we do not know why any of the
Dead were fetched at all. That Pyronides’ goal was to rescue and restore his