416

Eupolis

For the question of whether a comma (omitted by Kassel-Austin) should
be placed after οϋκ, see Interpretation.
Interpretation The addressee (a man; note masculine εχων) has apparently
put forward some worried objection to a plan involving hoplite combat (“But
they’ll hurt me if I try to do that” vel sim.; cf. fr. 281 with n.), and the speaker
reassures him by demonstrating how to use his shield to defend himself. The
position of the caesura and presence of the particle γ(ε) place the emphasis
on the need for vigilance, which is then defined in the second half of the line
as involving how one holds one’s shield. Cf. the similar use of οϋκ, ήν (...)
γ(ε) to counter an objection at Ar. V. 1256 οϋκ, ήν ξυνής γ’ άνδράσι καλοΐς
τε κάγαθοΐς (“Not if you hang out with men from the upper class”); Ec. 668
οϋκ, ήν οϊκοι γε καθεύδης (“Not if you sleep at home”), 1078 οϋκ, ήν έτέρα
γε γραϋς ετ’ οάσχίων φανή (“Not if an even uglier old woman appears); Pl.
221 οϋκ, ήν γε πλουτήσωσιν έξ άρχής πάλιν (“Not if they’re rich again from
the start!”),238 as well as the stage action at Ar. V. 1168-73, where Bdelycleon
tries to instruct Philocleon in walking in a sophisticated fashion. Meineke and
Kock suggested that the speaker was Phormio modeling for Dionysus how to
handle himself in battle.
The average ancient Greek male was shorter and lighter than the aver-
age modern European or American male; shields were heavy and difficult
to handle in any case; and the 5th-century city offered its soldiers no official
training in how to fight (X. Mem. 3.12.5; cf. fr. 340 on the peripoloi, adding
Sommerstein 1997 to the bibliography cited there; and see in general Schwartz
2013), although family members, tribal unit commanders and the like must
have offered informal instruction of the sort that takes place onstage here. If
the addressee was in fact Dionysus, he doubtless made an amusingly complete
hash of the lesson, much as Philocleon does with his symposium-training in
the second half of Aristophanes’ Wasps (above).
φυλάττη Aorist middle φυλάξη would have done just as well metrically,
and the use of the present must be deliberate (“stay on guard, remain vigilant”,
not simply “protect yourself”).
ώδ’ έχων την ασπίδα The Greek hoplite shield was circular and about
a meter in diameter; constructed of wood with a bronze band about the edge
and generally with bronze plating covering its surface; and normally decorated
with a device of some sort (cf. fr. 394 n.). For the shield itself and how it was

238 Wilson 2007 punctuates these passages inconsistently, offering sometimes οϋκ, ήν
and sometimes ούκ ήν. οϋκ clearly goes with an unexpressed apodosis, however,
so adding the comma makes the syntax clearer.