18

Eupolis

1356 (PMG 507), 1362; V. 1410-11; Pax 697-9 with Olson 1998 ad loc., 736-7
(lEGfr. 86); and perhaps Av. 682 (PMG 947b; see Dunbar 1995 ad loc.).5
2 άρχαίον Also used in a pejorative sense at e.g. Pherecr. fr. 228; Ar.
Nu. 915, 984, 1357 (of singing at a symposium), 1469; V. 1336; Pl. 323; fr. 30;
Isoc. 4.30; Pl. Euthyd. 295c.
ό ... Γνήσιππος έστ’ άκούειν Literally “Gnesippus is [available] to hear”,
i. e. “for hearing”;6 cf. Ar. Th. 800 βάσανός τε πάρεστιν ίδέσθαι; Ephipp. fr. 15.5
καν κάραβός τις rj λαβεΐν; A. Pers. 419 θάλασσα δ’ ούκέτ’ ήν ίδεϊν; Rose 1942.
3-4 A slanderous expansion of the mention of Gnesippus in 2, the point
being that such dubious material is now sung in place of the classics listed
in 1-2. The idea is apparently that adulterers stand in the street outside in-
dividual houses, individually holding either an iambuke or a trigdnon, and
entice women to come outside to them. The passage thus combines more or
less realistic fears about wives and daughters sneaking into the street to meet
their boyfriends (cf. Ar. Pax 979-85 with Olson 1998 ad loc.) with the artistic
representation of such events in paraclausithyra (for which, cf. Ar. Ec. 952-75
with Olson 1988; Cummings 2001; Cummings 2006; Prauscello 2006)—which
are likely what Gnesippus wrote.
3 νυκτερίν(α) “(appropriate for) night-time”; colloquial late 5 h-century
vocabulary, attested in comedy (also Ar. Ach. 1163; Eq. 477; V. 2) and prose
(e. g. Hp. Epid. 14 = 2.618.8 Littre; Th. 4.128.4; X. HG 5.4.10; Pl. Sph. 220ά), but
absent from elevated poetry. Rutherford 1881. 124-5 discusses the formation
and compares the even more emphatically prosaic ήμερινός and χειμερινός.
ηΰρε For the theme of the πρώτος εύρετής (“inventor”), see fr. 385.3 n.
άείσματ(α) First attested in this form here and at Hdt. 2.79.1, where
the word is used of the Einos-song and similarly suggests sub-literary work
(contrast the elevated άοιδή); in the contracted form άσμα at Ar. Nu. 333 in
the compound άσματοκάμπτας (contemptuous); Alex. fr. 19.2 (dismissive);
and common in Plato (e.g. Prt. 339c, 342a).
έκκαλεΐσθαι is middle, “to call forth to themselves”.
4 An ίαμβύκη is a harp of some sort; cf. Maas and Snyder 1989. 184; West
1992a. 75-7. According to Phillis of Delos (undated) in his On Music (fr. 2, FHG
iv.476 ap. Ath. 14.636b), “they referred to the instruments played when they
sang iambic poetry as iambukes”. In fact, this a loan word from some Eastern
language, an alternative form of which is σαμβύκη, as at e. g. Arist. Pol. 1341b1;
Aristox. fr. 97 Wehrli (in both cases mentioned along with the τρίγωνον). Cf.
σαμβυκίστρια (“girl who plays a sambuke”, sc. as hired entertainment at a

5 The Simonides mentioned at Pherecr. fr. 162.12 (quoting Theognis) is not the poet.
6 Not “Gnesippus is the one / want to hear!” (Rusten 2011. 244).