408

Eupolis

Meter lambic trimeter.

Discussion Toup 1790 1.31-2; Meineke 1839 11.531; Bothe 1855. 189; Kock
1880 1.329; Norwood 1931. 197; Kaibel ap. K.-A.; Kassel-Austin 1986. 461;
Storey 2003. 254-5; Storey 2011. 208
Citation context From a note on the verb άλφάνω, drawn from the common
source of Photius, the Suda and the Synagoge generally referred to as Σ', and
also citing Men. fr. 263; Ar. fr. 339; II. 21.79. A much-condensed version of the
same material appears at Hsch. a 3323.
For the confusion regarding the play’s title and its possible implications,
see fr. 278 n.
Text Although Pl. Com. fr. 129 has άπεκήρυξ’ έκφέρων, the aorist participle
is expected, as at Men. fr. 422 ψ άπεκήρυξεν αυτήν άγαγών ή (“he took her
and auctioned her off’), and the error is so easy (ΑΓΩΝ written for ΑΓΑΓΩΝ
via haplography) that there is little reason not to emend the paradosis άγων
to άγαγών.
Interpretation An order (cast in question form, as often; see below) regarding
a previously referenced girl or woman now to be sold at auction. Cf. Ar. fr.
339 ο’ίμοι κακοδαίμων τής τόθ’ ήμέρας, δτε / είπέν μ’ ό κήρυξ· ούτος άλφάνει
(“Miserable me, alas for that day long ago, when the herald said about me:
‘This fellow finds [a price(?)]”’; also quoted here by Phot. = Suda = Synag.,
and seemingly a slave’s lament). Kock suggested that the person being sold
might have been brought onstage by Dionysus (cf. Pentheus’ threats against the
chorus of Bacchants at E. Ba. 511-14; but why only one woman here?), while
Kaibel proposed that the reference (whether mocking or confused) was to the
effeminately dressed Dionysus (see frr. 272 with n.; 280.1 with n.) himself.232
άγαγών, at any rate, shows that a person—or at least a creature that can move
under its own power—rather than an inanimate object is in question, since
for an object λαβών is used (frr. 167; 300.1; contrast e. g. fr. 172.16 έξαγαγών;
Ar. Ach. 91; V. 170 (a donkey); Pax 882; Av. 658; Ph. 1120; Ra. 617; Men. Dysc.
359-60). Whoever this is, moreover, she/“she” is not Athenian, or at least not
thought to be Athenian, because no Athenian could be sold as a slave in Athens.
Elsewhere, bowmen are consistently depicted as under the authority of
the prytaneis, who use them to control meetings of the Assembly (Ar. Ach.

232 Cf. Bothe 1855. 189, who took the reference to be to the στρατιώτις—actually,
however, a man—in fr. 272.2.