Δήμοι (Introduction)

307

2003. 114 proposes that the play might better be assigned to 417 (or perhaps
416) BCE, “principally because [this dating] allows the demagogue of fr. 99.
23-34 to be Hyperbolos ... and the reference to Mantineia to be an allusion
to something recent and topical, rather than an event over five years in the
past”. In addition, Storey notes that on his hypothesis fr. *104 can be taken
to point to Alcibiades, who by 412 BCE, by contrast, had been absent from
Athens for years and was quite unlikely—at least as far as anyone could tell
at the time—to be a candidate for future generalships.
Storey thus effectively eliminates the reference to the Long Walls residents
in fr. 99.12-14 as a dating criterion for Demoi. The rest of his case is less
convincing. It is circular argument, first of all, to put Eupolis’ play in 417 or
416 BCE on the ground that this allows fr. 99.23-34 (n.) to refer to Hyperbolos
and fr. *104 to refer to Alcibiades, for if the comedy is later than this, numerous
other candidates for the anonymous individuals referenced in the passages
present themselves. This does not mean that Demoi cannot date to 417 or 416
BCE, only that Storey has offered no reason to believe that it does. Second,
as Telo-Porciani 2002. 26-7 point out, what the chorus do at fr. 99.30-2 is
reproach the audience for seemingly forgetting (ού μέμ[νησθ’;], “don’t you
remember?”) the unidentified politician’s behavior in the debate regarding
Mantinea. What is wanted here is thus seemingly not Storey’s immediate
relevance but a few years’ distance between the assembly and the subsequent
battle, on the one hand, and the staging of Demoi, on the other—which argues
for putting the play later in the war rather than earlier. Above all else, the
question of topicality emerges again and again in connection with Storey’s
interpretations of the historical and social background to the action in fr. 99
in particular. Storey observes that comedy—or at least what survives of the
genre from this period—does not refer expressly to the alleged defamation of
the Mysteries in 415 BCE or the associated legal processes, and he takes this to
be a reason for believing that Demoi as well ought not to allude to such events
in fr. 99.81-9. But comedy does twice refer directly to the closely associated
incident of the mutilation of the Herms (Ar. Lys. 1093-4; Phryn. Com. fr. 61)
and repeatedly mentions Alcibiades, the most important social and political
figure targeted in the investigations; and fr. 99.81-9 is not in any case a direct
mention of the events of 415 BCE, but merely plays with the idea that similarly
malicious prosecutions remain possible (or even the norm) in contemporary
Athens. And although the defamation of the Mysteries and the associated
accusations and trials need not lie behind the Sycophant’s nasty story of his
abuse of the foreigner at fr. 99.81-9, that remains the easiest and most obvious
context in which to set his tale. So too in the case of the inhabitants of the Long
Wall area: fr. 99.12-14 suggests a stark and unhappy contrast between the