Eupolis
- a celebrated comic poet in Athens, contemporary with Aristophanes, Hor. S. 1, 4, 1; Vell. 1, 16; Quint. 1, 10, 18; 10, 1, 66; 12, 10, 65 al.; acc. Eupolin, Hor. S. 2, 3, 12: Eupolidem, Pers. 1, 124; Cic. Brut. 9, 15.
➳ acc. -in Hor. S. 2, 3, 12 ; -idem Pers. 1, 124.
(Εὔπολις), son of Sosipolis, an Athenian comic poet of the old comedy, and one of the three who are distinguished by Horace, in his well-known line, Eupolis, atque Cratinus, Aristophanesque poetae above all the alii quorum prisca comoedia virorum est a judgment which is confirmed by all we know of the works of the Attic comoedians.
Eupolis is said to have exhibited his first drama in the fourth year of the 87th Olympiad, B. C. 429/8, two years before Aristophanes, who was nearly of the same age as Eupolis. (Anon. de (Com p. xxix.; Cyrill. c. Julian. i. p. 13b.; Syncell. Chron. p. 257c.) According to Suidas (s. v.), Eupolis was then only in the seventeenth year of his age; he was therefore born in B. C. 446/5. (Respecting the supposed legal minimum of the age at which a person could produce a drama on the stage, see Clinton, Fast. Hell. vol. ii. Introd. pp. lvi.--lviii.) The date of his death cannot be so easily fixed. The common story was, that Alcibiades, when sailing to Sicily, threw Eupolis into the sea, in revenge for an attack which he had made upon him in his Βάπται. But, to say nothing of the improbability of even Alcibiades venturing on such an outrage, or the still stranger fact of its not being alluded to by Thucydides or any other trustworthy historian, the answer of Cicero is conclusive, that Eratosthenes mentioned plays produced by Eupolis after the Sicilian expedition. (Ad Att. 6.1.) There is still a fragment extant, in which the poet applies the title στρατηγόν to Aristarchus, whom we know to have been στρατηγός in the year B. C. 412/1, that is, four years later than the date at which the common story fixed the death of Eupolis. (Schol. Victor. ad Iliad. 13.353.) The only discoverable foundation for this story, and probably the true account of the poet's death, is the statement of Suidas, that he perished at the Hellespont in the war against the Lacedaemonnians, which, as Meineke observes, must refer either to the battle of Cynossema (B. C. 411), or to that of Aegospotami (B. C. 405). That he died in the former battle is not improbable, since we never hear of his exhibiting after B. C. 412; and if so, it is very likely that the enemies of Alcibiades might charge him with taking advantage of the confusion of the battle to gratify his revenge. Meineke throws out a conjecture that the story may have arisen from a misunderstanding of what Lysias says about the young Alcibiades (i. p. 541). There are, however, other accounts of the poet's death, which are altogether different. Aelian (Ael. NA 10.41) and Tzetzes (Chil. 4.245) relate, that he died and was buried in Aegina, and Pausanias (2.7.4) says, that he saw his tomb in the territory of Sicyon. Of the personal history of Eupolis nothing more is known. Aelian (l.c.) tells a pleasant tale of his faithful dog, Augeas, and his slave Ephialtes.
The chief characteristic of the poetry of Eupolis seems to have been the liveliness of his fancy, and the power which he possessed of imparting its images to the audience. This characteristic of his genius influenced his choice of subjects, as well as his mode of treating them, so that he not only appears to have chosen subjects which other poets might have despaired of dramatizing, but we are expressly told that he wrought into the body of his plays those serious political views which other poets expounded in their parabases, as in the Δήμοι, in which he represented the legislators of other times conferring on the administration of the state. To do this in a genuine Attic old comedy, without converting the comedy into a serious philosophic dialogue, must have been a great triumph of dramatic art. (Platon. de Div. Char. p. xxvi.) This introduction of deceased persons on the stage appears to have given to the plays of Eupolis a certain dignity, which would have been inconsistent with the comic spirit had it not been relieved by the most graceful and clever merriment. (Platon. l.c.) In elegance he is said to have even surpassed Aristophanes (Ibid. ; Macr. 7.5), while in bitter jesting and personal abuse he emulated Cratinus. (Anon. de Com. p. xxix. ; Pers. Sat. 1.124; Lucian. Jov. Acc. vol. ii. p. 832.) Among the objects of his satire was Socrates, on whom he made a bitter, though less elaborate attack than that in the Clouds of Aristophanes. (Schol. ad Aristoph. Nub. 97, 180; Etym. Mag. p.18. 10; Lucian. Pisc. vol. i. p. 595.) Innocence seems to have afforded no shelter, for he attacked Autolycus, who is said to have been guilty of no crime, and is only known as having been distinguished for his beauty, and as a victor in the pancratium, as vehemently as Callias, Alcibiades, Melanthius, and others. Nor were the dead exempt from his abuse, for there are still extant some lines of his, in which Cimon is most unmercifully treated. (Plut. Cim. 15; Schol. ad Aristeid. p. 515.) It is hardly necessary to observe that these attacks were mingled with much obscenity. (Schol. ad Aristoph. Pac. 741, 1142, Nub. 296, 541.)
A close relation subsisted between Eupolis and Aristophanes, not only as rivals, but as imitators of each other Cratinus attacked Aristophanes for borrowing from Eupolis, and Eupolis in his Βάπται made the same charge, especially with reference to the Knights, of which he says, κἀκείνους τους Ἱππέας ξυνεποίησα τῷ φαλακρῷ τούτῳ κἀδωρησάμην. The Scholiasts specify the last Parabasis of the Knights as borrowed from Eupolis. (Schol. ad Aristoph. Equit. 528, 1288, Nub. 544, foll.) On the other hand, Aristophanes, in the second (or third) edition of the Clouds, retorts upon Eupolis the charge of imitating the Knights in his Maricas (Nub. l.c.), and taunts him with the further indignity of jesting on his rival's baldness. There are other examples of the attacks of the two poets upon one another. (Aristoph. Peace 762, and Schol.; Schol. ad Vesp. 1020; Schol. ad Platon. p. 331, Bekker; Stobaeus, Serm. iv. p. 53.) Works
The number of the plays of Eupolis is stated by Suidas at seventeen, and by the anonymous writer at fourteen. The extant titles exceed the greater of these numbers, but some of them are very doubtful. The following fifteen are considered by Meineke to be genuine : Αἶγες, Ἀστράτευτοι ἢ Ἀνδρογύναι, Αὐτόλυκος, Βάπται, Δήμοι, Διαιτῶν, Εἵλωτες, Κόλακες, Μαρικᾶς, Νουμηνίαι, Πόλεις, Προστάλτιοι, Ταξίαρχοι, Ὑβριοστοδίκαι, Χρυσουν Προσπάλτιοι, Ὑβριστοδίκαι, Χρυσουν γένος.
An analysis of these plays, so far as their subjects can be ascertained, will be found in the works quoted below, and especially in that of Meineke. The following are the plays of Eupolis, the dates of which are known :-- B. C. 425. At the Lenaea. Νουμηνίαι.Third Prize. 1st. Aristophanes, Ἀ.χαρνεῖς. 2nd. Cratinus, Χειμαξομένοι. " 423 or 422. Ἀστράτευτοι. " 421. Μαρικᾶς. Probably at the Lenaea. " " Κόλακες. At the great Dionysia. First Prize. 2nd. Aristoph. Εἰρήνη. 420. Αὐτόλυκος.
Eupolis, like Aristophanes and other comic poets, brought some of his plays on the stage in the name of another person, Apollodorus. (Athen. 5.216d.)
Hephaestion (p. 109, ed. Gaisf.) mentions a peculiar choriambic metre, which was called Eupolidean, and which was also used by the poets of the middle and of the new comedy. Confusion with Eubulus
The names of Eupolis and Eubulus are often confounded. Editions
Meineke, Frag. Com. Graec. vol. i. pp. 104-146, vol. ii. pp. 426-579; Bergk, Commment. de Reliq. Com. Att. Ant. pp. 332-366. Further Information
Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vol. ii. pp. 445-448; Clinton, Fast. Hellen. vol. ii. sub annis. [P.S]
(Εὔπολις). A writer of the Old Comedy, who was born at Athens about the year B.C. 446. He was therefore a contemporary of Aristophanes, who, in all probability, was born a year or two after. Eupolis is supposed to have exhibited plays for the first time in B.C. 429. In B.C. 425 he was third with his Νουμηνίαι, when Cratinus was second and Aristophanes first. In B.C. 421 he brought out his Μαρικᾶς and his Κόλακες, and his Αὐτόλυκος and Ἀστρατευτοί the following year (Schol. on Nub. 552, 592; Schol. on Pac. 803). The titles of more than twenty of his comedies have been collected. A few fragments remain. Eupolis was a bold and severe satirist on the vices of his day and city. Persius (i. 124) terms him iratus (cf. Hor. Sat. i. 4. 1 foll.). In the Μαρικᾶς he attacked Hyperbolus (Aristoph. Nub. 551); in the Αὐτόλυκος he ridiculed the handsome pancratiast of that name; in the Ἀστράτευτοι he lashed the useless and cowardly citizens of Athens, and denounced Melanthus as an epicure. In the Βάπται he inveighed against the effeminacy of his countrymen. In his Λακεδαίμονες he assailed Cimon, accusing him, among other charges, of an unpatriotic bias towards everything Spartan. (See Plut. Cim. 16, who says that this play had a great influence on the public feeling.) Aristophanes seems to have been on bad terms with Eupolis, whom he charges with having pillaged the materials for his Μαρικᾶς from the Ἱππῆς (Nubes, 551 foll.), and with making scurrilous jokes on his premature baldness (Schol. Ad Nub. 532). Eupolis appears to have been a warm admirer of Pericles as a statesman and a man, as it was reasonable that such a comedian should be, if it be true that he owed his unrestrained license of speech to the patronage of that celebrated statesman. His death was generally ascribed to the vengeance of Alcibiades, whom he had lampooned, probably in the Βάπται (Cic. Ad Att. vi. 1). By his orders, according to the common account, Eupolis was thrown overboard during the passage of the Athenian armament to Sicily (B.C. 415). Cicero, however, calls this story a popular error; since Eratosthenes, the Alexandrian librarian, had shown that several comedies were composed by Eupolis some time after the date assigned to this pseudoassassination. His tomb, too, according to Pausanias, was erected on the banks of the Asopus by the Sicyonians, which makes it most probable that this was the place of his death. The fragments of Eupolis will be found in Meineke's Fragmenta Com. Graec. i. pp. 104-146; and ii. pp. 426-579 (Berlin, 1839-47); and are separately edited by Runkel (Leipzig, 1829). A Latin translation of them will be found in Bothe, Frag. Com. Graec. (Paris, 1855).
- his grave at Sicyon: Paus. 2.7.3