Φίλοι (Introduction)

439

a courtroom speech on him (Ar. Eq. 349); and who will come to one’s funeral
and remember one affectionately and wistfully after one passes or moves
away (Ar. Ra. 83-4; fr. 649; Antiph. fr. 54.1). See in general Konstan 1997.
53-92 (although with no attention to the comic evidence and an emphasis
instead on tragedy and especially Aristotle). Crates’ Geitones (“Neighbors”) and
Aristomenes’ Boethoi (“Helpers’), and perhaps Philonides’ Philetairos (“Friendly
Companion”), are thus further potential parallels for the title. The other activity
in which friends routinely engage in comedy is group dining (e.g. fr. 374;
Cratin. fr. 62.2; Pherecr. fr. 162.1, 13; Ar. Pax 1131-2; Av. 129-32; Ec. 348-9;
Eub. frr. 72.3-4; 117.5-6), and one might accordingly (with Schwarze 1971. 124)
alternatively compare the choruses of Kolakes and of Aristophanes’ Daitales
(“Banqueters”; see test, ii.3-4).
Content Obscure; cf. Storey 2003. 263 “the great mystery play among the
remains of Eupolis ... it is easier to reject the theories of others than to say
with any confidence what this comedy was about”. Storey 2003. 264, 265-6
nonetheless attempts to use fr. 293 to argue that the action featured a wealthy
old man who attempted to enter the cavalry despite not having learned to
ride, and who was thus presumably forced to take lessons (like Dionysus in
Taxiarchoi supposedly learning to row). But the content of the fragment (n.)
does not support this conclusion.
Date Unknown. The reference to Aspasia in fr. 294 seems most at home in
the 420s BCE, before she had time to fade from popular memory, but fr. 110.2
shows that Eupolis might have referred to her in retrospect at any point. So
too, although Autolykos’ victory in the boy’s pancration in 422 BCE (see
Autolykos I and Π introductory n.) must have brought particular attention to
his father Lykon at that time (frr. 232; 295 with n.), there is no reason to think
that the family was obscure either in the decade before that date or in the one
after it. Miiller-Strubing took Philoi to be an alternative title for Autolykos II,
which would put the play after 421 BCE. That there is no positive evidence
for the thesis does not make it impossible.
The following have also been assigned to Philoi: frr. 346; 357; 373 (all wild
guesses by Wilamowitz).