16

Eupolis

Text As transmitted, 2 and 3 are unmetrical—i. e. they disagree with the
pattern established by 1 and 4, as well as with the other comic passages cited
in Meter—but are printed thus without obels by Kassel-Austin, who merely
observe “numeri in v. 2 et 3 incerti”. Cf. Prauscello 2006. 64 n. 66, who argues
that 2 and 3 are simply in a different meter from 1 and 4.
Assuming that γν makes position, as at e.g. Ar. Nu. 169 πρώην δέ ye
γνώμην μεγάλην άφηρέθη, 2 can be corrected by printing the aorist active
infinitive άεΐσαι for the paradosis present active infinitive άείδειν (presumably
written under the influence of άκούειν at the end of the line).
In 3, Hermann’s δς for the hypermetrical paradosis κείνος solves the
problem at the head of the line. Inscriptional evidence shows that verbs in ευ-
normally augment to ηυ- in the classical period (Threatte 1996. 482-3), hence
Herwerden’s ηύρε for the paradosis εύρε. Herwerden proposed μυχοΐς for
μοιχοΐς, but the word is difficult to construe without a preposition, and μοιχοΐς
is likely a superlinear gloss that drove out the more obscure vocabulary item
beneath it (e. g. λαγνοΐς or μυχλοΐς (the latter defined μοιχός at Hsch. μ 2004)).
In 4, Herwerden proposed έχουσιν for the paradosis έχοντας in Ath.A, the
antecedent of which must be dative t μοιχοΐς f in 3. But the word has simply
been drawn into the normal case of a noun that serves as the subject of an
infinitive (3 έκκαλεΐσθαι), and no emendation is required.
Interpretation A lament over an alleged decline in musical tastes, most likely
at symposia (see below) but perhaps in the contemporary city generally. For
the theme, cf. fr. 398 with n.; Pl. Com. fr. 138 (on a similar supposed decline in
standards for dance); Antiph. fr. 207 (from a different generation and thus with
a different sense of what appropriate “classics” are). Of the poets listed and
implicitly approved of in 1, the first was from the Greek West and composed
in Doric; the second was a Spartan; and the third was associated above all
else with commemoration of the Greek victories of the Persian War period.
The argument is thus perhaps as much political as poetic, in that it recalls
an idealized Panhellenic past and contrasts it with a much less satisfactory
present; cf. Ar. Lys. 1128-34, 1137-46, 1149-56.
The meter and content suggest direct address of the audience, most likely
in a parabasis; cf. Prauscello 2006. 64-5. If so, it is striking that the Helots who
made up the chorus do not use Doric dialect.4
Nothing is known of Gnesippus (PAA 279680; TrGF 27; Stephanis 1988
#556) beyond what the fragments preserved by Athenaeus and his com-

4 Prauscello 2006. 65 suggests that this may be “part of a broader strategy of [the
chorus] rejecting its own ethnic and cultural identity”, which is too subtle by half.