484

Eupolis

Ath. 14.658d
τό γάρ λείψανον των τραγημάτων καί τρωξίμων άποτράγημα ε’ίρηκεν Εϋπολις·
σκώπτων γάρ Διδυμίαν τινά άποτράγημα αύτόν ε’ίρηκεν άλώπεκος ήτοι ώς μικρόν
τό σώμα ή ώς κακοήθη καί πανοϋργον, ώς φησιν ό Άσκαλωνίτης Δωρόθεος
Because Eupolis refers to what is left over from snacks and dainties as an apotragema·,
for he makes fun of a certain Didymias by referring to him as a fox’s apotragema,
meaning either that he is physically tiny or that he is nasty and unscrupulous, accord-
ing to Dorotheus of Ascalon
Meter lambic trimeter.
Discussion Meineke 1839 11.542—3; Kock 1880 1.335-6; Edmonds 1957. 413;
Rapke 1974. 332
Citation context Et.Gen. etc. is drawn from the common lexicographic source
generally referred to as Σ'; Cratin. fr. 53 follows. Phot, a 2602 must origi-
nally have been the same note, but everything after Εϋπολις has been lost.
Athenaeus, by contrast, traces his material direct to the lst-c. BCE/The. CE
grammarian Dorotheus of Ascalon (RE Dorotheus (20)) and thus presumably
to Dorotheus’ Λέξεων συναγωγή (“Collection of words”) or Άττικαί λέξεις (“Attic
glossary”).
Text Either άποπάτημ’ (Et.Gen. etc.) or άποτράγημ’ (Ath.) would do met-
rically. But the latter is not obviously funny, whereas the former is, and the
reading in Athenaeus presumably originated as a majuscule error in his source
(Γ written or read for T), after which the text was miscorrected.
Interpretation The first speaker requests further information about someone
already referred to (εκείνος), and the second speaker offers a—most likely
unexpected—reply.
At Ar. Av. 17, a certain Tharreleides (PA 6583; PAA 501030) is referred to
as father of a jackdaw. Whatever that may mean, Suda Θ 52 (cf. ΣνΕΓ) appears
to assert that the Roman-era commentator Symmachus identified the son of
this Tharreleides with a man named Asopodorus (PA 2672; PAA 223810), and
that Asopodorus and his brother Didymachias έπί σμικρότητι διεβέβληντο τού
σώματος (“were slandered for being physically small”); Σ' ΕΓ adds a reference to
Telecl. fr. 50, but mentions only Asopodorus. The name Didymachias is other-
wise unattested, and Meineke proposed emending to Διδυμίας and associating
the diminutive individual mentioned by Symmachus with the Didymias whom
Eupolis called “fox-dung” (PAA 323582).
Progressive γάρ, part of a request for additional information but not for an
explanation (Denniston 1950. 82-5; cf. e. g. Ar. Nu. 191; Av. 1501; Alex. fr. 15.9).