248

Eupolis

fr. 487 K.-A. (450 K.)
St.Byz. p. 630.6-10
Τραγία, νήσος προς ταϊς Κυκλάσιν, δθεν ήν Θεογείτων ό περιπατητικός, Άριστοτέλους
γνώριμος, έστι <καΙ> πόλις έν Νάξω, έν ή Τράγιος Απόλλων τιμάται. Εϋπολις διά τοΰ
ε γράφει καί πληθυντικώς Τ ρ α γ έ α ι
Tragia, an island near the Cyclades; the Peripatetic scholar Theogeiton, Aristotle’s
pupil, was from there. It is also a city on Naxos, where Apollo Tragios is worshipped.
Eupolis writes it with epsilon and in the plural, T r a g e a i
Discussion Kock 1880 i.368
Citation Context έστι... τιμάται appears to be drawn from a different source
than what precedes and follows it, meaning that Eupolis referred to the island
(or island group) rather than the city. Theogeiton is otherwise unknown and
thus of no help in dating the material.
Interpretation Thucydides (1.116.1) refers to a naval battle won by Pericles
off Tragia (modern Agathonisi, actually the northernmost of the inhabited
Dodecanese islands and the largest of a small local group) during the Samian
Revolt in 440 BCE, to which Eupolis was probably referring, given that nothing
else significant seems to have happened in the place; cf. the passing refer-
ences to Pericles’ role in subduing Euboea in 446 BCE at Ar. Nu. 211-13, 859.
Plutarch in his parallel account of the battle (Per. 25.5) calls the island Tragias,
and Str. 14.635 explicitly treats the name as plural (περί τάς Τραγαίας νησιά),
presumably because he—like Eupolis—is referring not just to the central island
but to the whole cluster. Kock, by contrast, took Eupolis’ plural to be word-
play of some sort, as in frr. 439 and (on his interpretation) 475. The city on
Naxos is otherwise unknown.

fr. 488 K.-A. (451 K.)
Phot, τ 419
τ ρ α σ ι ά· ού τά σύκα ψύχεται, ούτως Εϋπολις
trasia: where figs are dried. Thus Eupolis
Citation Context Virtually identical material, but without reference to
Eupolis, is preserved at ^RVE0NMMatr Ar. 59 ~ Suda τ 913 τρασιά· ό τόπος
έν ώ ψύγεται τά σύκα (“trasia: the place where figs are dried”; ή οί τυροί (“or