302

Eupolis

in his History, was not a novelty in Athens in late summer 412 BCE. Instead,
proposals of this sort must already have been making their way around the
city, presented as a clever if bold way to deal with a deteriorating political
and military situation that normal democratic institutions were incapable of
handling. The comic poets appear to have been fond of presenting themselves
as wise counselors of the Athenian people (e. g. Ar. Ach. 633-58, esp. 633, 656),
a claim there is little reason to accept except in the most general terms. The ap-
pointment of the πρόβουλοι in late summer 413 BCE, at any rate, had no very
happy outcome, even if the verdict on their service might still have appeared
open in the first few months of 412 BCE, when Demoi was staged. By the time
of Aristophanes’ Lysistrata one year later, at any rate, they could be presented
as officious bumblers incapable of taking the decisive steps needed to rescue
the situation. More disturbing precisely because these actions suggest that the
πρόβουλοι were not unwilling to act when their duty as they understood it
called them to do so, they appear to have been directly involved in the formal
overthrow of the democracy later that year (Th. 8.67.1 with Hornblower 2008
on 8.1.3; Rhodes 1981 on [Arist.] Ath. 29.2). Eupolis was not directly responsi-
ble for any of this unhappy story, and one might even imagine (as noted above)
that his play was designed to point out in advance how bad an idea turning
Athens over to the πρόβουλοι or another group like them really was. But that
is a highly generous and optimistic reading of the play, and one that seems
contrary to the traces of an at least partially happy ending perhaps preserved
in fr. 131. To the limited extent that a political ideology can be recovered from
what remains of the text, therefore, Demoi should more likely be read as a
faithful if fantastic illustration of the blind and wishful popular thinking that
in short order turned control of democratic Athens over to a small group of
violent, anti-democratic conspirators.191
Of the four men Pyronides brings back from the Underworld, Solon son
of Exekestides (PA 12806; PAA 827640), born in 625 BCE or a little earlier, was
chosen as archon for 594/3 BCE and given power to reform Athens’ laws (esp.
Isoc. 7.16; 15.231-2; [Arist.] Ath. 5.2); he was remembered in particular for
putting an end to the enslavement of Athenian citizens for debt (e. g. [Arist.]
Ath. 6.1; 9.1; 12.4). Solon supposedly opposed the first tyranny of Pisistratos, to
whom he was somehow related, and denounced the Athenians as either fools
or cowards for failing to speak out against him ([Arist.] Ath. 14.2). He died
shortly thereafter and was eventually honored with a statue in the Agora (D.
19.251). Comedy refers to Solon almost exclusively as a lawgiver; cf. Cratin. frr.

191 For related discussion of the relationship between the political agendas latent in
Aristophanes’ Lysistrata and the oligarchic coup later that year, see Olson 2012.