Κόλακες (test, iii)

29

the house, to the extent that he has cleared out a space that Hipponicus once
used as a storeroom to house Prodicus (Prt. 315d), while Protagoras claims to
have seen Pherecrates’ Agrioi (test, ii; Prt. 327d), which we know—once again
from Herodicus, citing what look to be official didascalic records—was staged
in 420 BCE (Agrioi test. i). Hippocrates (Socrates’ initial interlocutor in the
dialogue) mentions another visit of Protagoras to Athens, seemingly 10-15
years earlier, when Hippocrates was a boy (Prt. 310e), and the only possible
solution appears to be that there were in fact two visits, one in the late 430s
BCE and another in the late 420s BCE; that Protagoras came to Callias’ house
on his second visit; and that Plato has deliberately run the two together, in
the process getting the date of Agrioi (which Protagoras could not in fact have
seen onstage yet) slightly wrong. See Walsh 1984, esp. 104.
The most natural reading of εισάγει would seem to be that Protagoras
was a character in Eupolis’ play and not just someone mentioned in it (frr.
157a/b-8), but the verb need not imply so much and may simply mean “intro-
duce, refer to”, as at e.g. ZR Ar. Eq. 150 άλλαντοπώλην Αγοράκριτον εισάγει
κατά παιδιάν (“he refers to the Sausage-seller as Agorakritos as a joke”); cf.
fr. 137 with n.; Napolitano 2012. 110-12 (who is a priori disposed to accept
the thesis that Protagoras was a character in Kolakes, even as he concedes the
fragility of the evidence).

test, iii
Zvm9™ Ar. Av. 283
ό Ίππονίκου Καλλίας έδόκει τά πατρώα διεσπαρκέναι [εις ασέλγειαν add.
codd.: del. Renkemaj. κωμωδεϊται δε εις ασέλγειαν καί ώς ληφθείς μοιχεύων
άπέτισε χρήματα, κεκωμώδηκε δε αύτόν ίκανώς Ευπολις έν τοϊς Κόλαξι
Callias the son of Hipponicus seemed to have dissipated his inheritance [“on
wanton behavior” add. manuscripts : del. Renkema]. And he is mocked for
his wantonness and for the fact that he was caught in adultery and had to
pay money to get himself off. And Eupolis makes considerable fun of him
in his Kolakes

Discussion Dunbar 1995. 235-6
Context A gloss on Ar. Av. 283-4, where the Hoopoe’s reference to “Hip-
ponicus the son of Callias, and Callias the son of Hipponicus” leads Euelpides
to comment “This Callias is actually a bird; since he’s losing his feathers”. Σ
Luc. p. 83.25-7 (part of test, vi, where see n.) is a more specific version of some
of the same material.