Incertarum fabularum fragmenta (fr. 490)

251

(1) Immediately after the citation of Anaxilas (undated, but the contents of
some of his fragments and his titles suggest the first half of the 4th c.),
Eupolis is described as “one of the even more recent poets”.
(2) Διαίτων (“The Arbitrator”) is not attested among the titles of Eupolis’
plays—all seemingly known—and does not resemble any of them formally
(but cf. fr. 492).
(3) ζηλοτυπέω is not attested elsewhere before the beginning of the 4th century
and normally has a different sense (see below).
(4) The compound συνεμβαίνω is not attested elsewhere before Polybius.
(5) μάκρα is not a classical form (μάκτρα being used in the 5th century), and
the word is used in the sense “bath tub” elsewhere only in the Hellenistic
period and later (see LSJ s. v., and note especially Ar. Ra. 1159, where the
point is that μάκτρα and κάρδοπος are synonyms, both meaning “knead-
ing tray”; X. Oec. 9.7, where “equipment having to do with washing” is
specifically distinguished from “equipment having to do with a μάκτρα”).
“Eupolis” is thus probably an error for the name of some less well-known—for
us most likely entirely unknown—comic poet of the Hellenistic period.
εις βαλανεΐον εΐσιών For other references to bathhouses in comedy,
Pherecr. fr. 75.1; Ar. Eq. 1060, 1401; Nu. 837, 991, 1053-4; Ra. 1279; Pl. 535,
615-16, 952-3; Strattis fr. 37.1; cf. e. g. Hermipp. fr. 68 (“By Zeus, a good man
shouldn’t get drunk or take hot baths, as you do”); Amphis fr. 7 (“he shouts
(for someone) to bring hot water, another man (calls for) lukewarm”; from a
play entitled Βαλανεΐον); Antiph. fr. 239; Alex. fr. 106; carm. conv. PMG 905
(“A whore and a bathman behave in precisely the same way: they wash the
good man and the bad in the same tub”; one of the Attic skolia); [X.] Ath.
2.10 (numerous public λουτρώνες (“bathing facilities”) as characteristic of
late 5th-century democratic Athens); Plb. 30.29.3 (a Hellenistic bathhouse that
contains both κοιναΐ μάκτραι (sic) and πύελοι next to them, “into which the
more genteel people used to go individually”); and see in general Ginouves
1962. 183-224; Hoffmann 1999. Timocles also wrote a Βαλανεΐον. For other
examples of bad behavior in the bathhouse, cf. Thphr. Char. 4.12 (singing)
with Diggle 2004 ad loc.·, 9.8 (pouring water over oneself and then refusing
to pay the bathman); 19.5 (using rancid oil to anoint oneself); 30.8 (using
oil belonging to someone else); Ariston fr. 141.17-19 Wehrli = fr. 21g.35-8
Fortenbaugh-White “in the makra to request warm or cold water without
asking one’s fellow-bather ahead of time whether he agrees” (an example of
inconsiderate behavior; cited by Kassel-Austin). Some people bathed at home
instead (e. g. Ar. Pax 843), although that meant paying for the fuel to heat the
water, so the savings may have been minimal.