Eubulus

This paper aims to reconsider Lycurgus and his work, in response to the diminishing interpretation of his political role by Patrice Brun. Through a complete analysis of the evidence (especially of epigraphical nature) at our disposal, I emphasize the activism of Lycurgus in domestic policy, aimed to ensure the survival of Athens in the years following the defeat of Chaeronea; I also call attention to his marked moderation in foreign policy, aimed at not compromising the city on the international level. Moreover, the policy of Lycurgus bares some similarities to that which Eubulos developed earlier: the implementation of such a political program became necessary during the 4th century BC in the aftermath of the Social War. Thus, with no intent of minimizing and denying the importance of the action of Lycurgus in Athens, we might imagine a young Lycurgus, molded inside the political group of Eubulus, developing the measures started by Eubulus himself and his entourage in the previous two decades.

Full text (in Greek) is also available here: http://hdl.handle.net/10889/16141 .
Through close reading of numerous comic fragments, the paper analyzes the dramaturgic technique of prosopographic satire that becomes dominant during the fourth century BC.

The book is structured in three chapters. The first one is dedicated to the biography and political activity of the Athenian Euboulos, on the basis of literary and epigraphic sources: the chapters reconsiders the aspects of the vulgata that do not seem to rest on a solid documentary basis and values some elements of the tradition so far not adequately considered; it is completed by an appendix that includes the main testimonia discussed in the essay. The second chapter focuses on the Xenophon’s Poroi, written in the aftermath of the Social war, and examines the economic measures proposed by this treatise, which aims to ensure to Athens an ethically correct way of support. Finally, the third chapter attempts to include both the political activity of Euboulos and the theorization of Xenophon in the overall panorama of contemporary publicistic, to highlight the theoretical and practical aspects of the socio-economic perspectives of the Fourth century Athen. Finally the concluding considerations underline the relationship between the aimed economic rebirth of the city and the issue of hegemony.

In the period of Middle Comedy a rich repertoire of stereotypical characters was developed in Greek comic theatre. These characters recurred in play after play, retaining a permanent dramatic identity, and performed a standard range of roles in the action. Most of them were connected with the love plot, which was also established as a core ingredient of comic plays. The evidence from the textual fragments of Middle Comedy is complemented by archaeological finds, such as the widespread terracotta figurines that portray stock comic types. Another related dramaturgical tendency of the same period was the exploration of peculiar character idiosyncrasies and moral flaws. A personage dominated by an overriding obsession (e.g. misanthropy, miserliness, or superstition) was placed at the centre of the plot and generated the dramatic action and the comic effect. Antiphanes in particular took a keen interest in this kind of figure. Antiphanes, Eubulus, and other playwrights of Middle Comedy evolved several techniques for the portrayal of obsessive characters, which were then taken up by Menander. One of the most interesting specimens was the misanthrope in Antiphanes’ Misoponeros. In fr. 157 from this play comic language is artfully employed in order to intensify the misanthrope’s ludicrous portrait and bring out the compulsive elements of his behaviour.

Among the surviving works of the comic poet Eubolus is a comedy entitled Antiope, a parody of Euripides’ tragedy bearing the same name. Edmonds identifies in the protagonists of this comedy as representations of the politicians Epaminondas and Pelopidas. This study examines this hypothesis, never previously analysed in detail and almost ignored by the critics. Given the chronology of Eubolus, a contemporary of these politicians, an interpretation of the comic Antiope like that suggested by Edmonds, in which the politicians are to be identified with a pair of twins, would impose dating the literary construction of the “inseparable couple” to a period contemporary with the actions of Pelopidas and Epaminondas. This would lend support to the hypothesis that the image of the “inseparable couple” Pelopidas-Epaminondas started in the IV century as an artificial construction, for the purposes of Athenian propaganda.

At the end of the Peloponnesian war all the belligerents were exhausted. Athens had to destroy its fleet and give away its overseas settlements. Public treasury and all the economic resources, described by Pericles and Aristophanes, were used up and the citizenry was on the verge of a breakdown. A whole generation started to question the relationship between polis, imperialism, prosperity and peace. This post war mood brought to a new and more balanced definition of the connection between society and economy, peace and freedom, and provoked an intensification with the changes in the finance and budgetary policy context. The result of this reform was the merismos. This new government spending rested on the idea that the polis should be still led by whole its citizens, but advised by specialized experts. Isocrates, Xenophon and Eubulus were ones of the most representatives of this new social and economic policy. The project of new financial reform covered the following programmes: establishment of a welfare state, partition of duties, structured management of public bodies and treasuries to specialists, annual organisation of the budgetary policy, the co-ordination of foreign policy. This ambitious programme invited the traditional polis to re-think the old concepts like autarchy, blood ties and virtue as only requisites to success, wealth as prelude to social and political chaos. In a period of strong social tensions, pistis become the necessary start point. Athens needed the trust of its citizenry, metics, foreigns and other cities. Citizens needed to trust each other’s again and a guide to help them to understand the new reform and recognize it as a natural evolution, instead of a radical change. Isocrates and Xenophon, just to mention two of the main characters of this period, were able to explain this new need of an efficient management. With their pragmatic approach to policy and its economic results, they became the natural publicists of this new vision. The first one with his dream of a revival of material prosperity and freedom without a recourse to innovation, but with a return to the ancestral democratic constitution; Xenophon, who should have had sympathy for Eubulus’ programme, with his realism, pragmatic models and characters. Both of them with the praise of moderation and the blame of hoarding and opulence. Eubulus gave an old dress to new customs and even if he had been a great reformer, his work was so perfectly blend with previous democratic traditions, that it is really hard for us to call him an innovator, feeling more comfortable with the word nomothetes. After all, Athenians needed a new objective, new and good laws, a new balance. In this work we will try to present and analyse the main elements of this promote, pragmatic and theoretical, designed to find a link between past and present and to bring back trust in the midst of the citizenry, and the new ethics of wealth, where the “too much” it was not given by the amount but by its mode of use.

A dramatic fragment is a piece of theatre history and may encapsulate an important plot motif or theme of the corresponding dramatic genre. Tragic and comic fragments must constantly be viewed in correlation with other fragments and with the fully preserved plays. They thus find a place in the complex network of intertextual relations, mutual influences, and creative borrowings between the authors of ancient drama.

A good example of this process is the theme of “Heracles at the inn”, traceable in a number of fragments and testimonia from different periods in the history of Attic comedy (Plato Comicus’ Zeus Kakoumenos, Eubulus’ Amaltheia, perhaps Antiphanes’ Omphale). Heracles is shown putting up as a guest at an inn or a similar establishment and undergoing amusing adventures which bring out his typical comic traits. The situation is developed through a series of recurrent motifs; Heracles displays his impetuous sensuality and keen appetites for food or sex, declares his culinary preferences or comments on the menu, and has problematic financial transactions with the host. Possibly this routine arose as a popular variation of the traditional theme of “Heracles at the symposion”. The low-brow inn replaced the aristocratic banquet, and Heracles’ marginal position as an uninvited guest was reflected in his troubled monetary dealings with the landlord.

The scene in Frogs 549–578, in which Dionysus, disguised as Heracles, confronts two angry innkeepers in the underworld, can be read against this background. The familiar ingredients of “Heracles at the inn” are present, but the comic situation is acted out with theatrical self-consciousness; “Heracles” is a role performed by Dionysus, the god of drama, in theatrical disguise. Aristophanes offers a meta-version of the routine of “Heracles at the inn”, inserted as a miniature comic play within Dionysus’ dramatic adventures.

Στις 16 Δεκεμβρίου 2020 παρουσίασα μια μικρή διάλεξη για τη μυθολογική κωμωδία στο αρχαίο θέατρο, στο πλαίσιο του μεταπτυχιακού σεμιναρίου αρχαίου δράματος του καθηγητή Σταύρου Τσιτσιρίδη στο Τμήμα Θεατρικών Σπουδών του Πανεπιστημίου Πατρών. Μαγνητοσκόπηση της ομιλίας, καθώς και της συζήτησης που ακολούθησε, είναι ελεύθερα διαθέσιμη στο youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jue3DtofiD0&feature=youtu.be&ab_channel=GiorgosVarelas

Αναρτώ εδώ ένα φυλλάδιο με κείμενα και εικόνες αγγειογραφιών, το οποίο χρησιμοποιήσαμε κατά τη διάρκεια της ομιλίας. Είμαι ευγνώμων στον Σταύρο Τσιτσιρίδη, που οργάνωσε την εκδήλωση, καθώς και σε όλους τους συναδέλφους που παρακολούθησαν και συνεισέφεραν παρατηρήσεις και σχόλια κατά τη συζήτηση.

The Fourth-Century is rich of sources and data about the appointment of the officers, their duties and powers, the revocation of the mandate and  the supervision of their behaviour, on the contrary we don’t know much about the appointment’s duration and its reiteration. This work intends to understand if, around the middle of the century, before Hegemon’s law, the officers of the Theorikon and Stratiotika had an annual and repeatable mandate, especially when Eubulus reached the most prominent position of the athenian financial administration. During this period,  the polis started to demand to his officers a certain level of competence and professionalism. Through the investigation of the epigraphic and literaly sources, I will try to demonstrate that the highest financial office of Athens was annual, and an eventual four-year mandate appointed to Eubulus was only due to a special trust that athenian citizens chose to give him.

Through a thorough examination of the aspects associated with Athenian Democracy, the present paper aims at highlighting the motives as well as the consequences of the reforms of Eubulos from the deme Probalinthos, mainly regarding the theoric fund, and of Lycurgus from the deme Boutadai. The Athenian citizens, after 338 BCE 1 , experience a new promising era for their state under Lycurgus as ὁ ἐπί τῇ διοικήσει τῶν χρημάτων (in charge of the financial administration), who, through his extensive building policy in Attica, revives the political and military morale of the Athenian citizens, preparing them to defend once more the Greeks' autonomy-by opposing the Macedonians, who were conceived as barbarians, and to reclaim consequently their lost hegemony in the Greek world. INTRODUCTION Ἄρξομαι δὲ ἀπὸ τῶν προγόνων πρῶτον· δίκαιον γὰρ αὐτοῖς καὶ πρέπον δὲ ἅμα ἐν τῷ τοιῷδε τὴν τιμὴν ταύτην τῆς μνήμης δίδοσθαι. τὴν γὰρ χώραν οἱ αὐτοὶ αἰεὶ οἰκοῦντες διαδοχῇ τῶν ἐπιγιγνομένων μέχρι τοῦδε ἐλευθέραν δι' ἀρετὴν παρέδοσαν. καὶ ἐκεῖνοί τε ἄξιοι ἐπαίνου καὶ ἔτι μᾶλλον οἱ πατέρες ἡμῶν· κτησάμενοι γὰρ πρὸς οἷς ἐδέξαντο ὅσην ἔχομεν ἀρχὴν οὐκ ἀπόνως ἡμῖν τοῖς νῦν προσκατέλιπον. τὰ δὲ πλείω αὐτῆς αὐτοὶ ἡμεῖς οἵδε οἱ νῦν ἔτι ὄντες μάλιστα ἐν τῇ καθεστηκυίᾳ ἡλικίᾳ ἐπηυξήσαμεν καὶ τὴν πόλιν τοῖς πᾶσι παρεσκευάσαμεν καὶ ἐς πόλεμον καὶ ἐς εἰρήνην αὐταρ-κεστάτην. ὧν ἐγὼ τὰ μὲν κατὰ πολέμους ἔργα, οἷς ἕκαστα ἐκτήθη, ἢ εἴ τι αὐτοὶ ἢ οἱ πατέρες ἡμῶν βάρβαρον ἢ Ἕλληνα πολέμιον ἐπιόντα προθύμως ἠμυνάμεθα, μακρηγορεῖν ἐν εἰδόσιν οὐ βουλόμενος ἐάσω 2

A dramatic fragment is not merely a string of dislocated words but a piece of theatre history which may encapsulate an important plot motif or a recurrent theme of the corresponding dramatic genre. Tragic or comic fragments cannot be properly appreciated if examined in isolation. They must constantly be viewed in correlation and comparison with other fragments and with the fully preserved plays. Thus they find a place in the complex (though only partially reconstructed) network of intertextual relations, mutual influences, and creative borrowings among the authors of ancient drama. Instead of puzzling scraps, fragments become materials for the construction of literary history.

A good example of this process of “conversation” between fragments and extant plays will be investigated in the present paper. In a number of comic fragments and testimonia, from different periods in the history of Attic comedy, Heracles is shown putting up as a guest at an inn or a similar establishment and undergoing amusing adventures there, which bring out his typical comic traits. In the "Zeus Kakoumenos" by Plato Comicus (probably late 5th or early 4th century) the hero was lured into playing a game of kottabos with a pretty wench, while the crafty innkeeper strove to relieve Heracles of his valuable possessions. Later, in Middle Comedy, Eubulus’ "Amaltheia" was also set in an inn, with the title heroine in the role of the tight-fisted publican. This time it was Heracles who stole the innkeeper’s savings — a reversal of the scenario of Plato’s comedy. In Antiphanes’ "Omphale" the household of the mythical queen of Lydia may also have been comically presented as an inn or a tavern, to which Heracles was attracted because of the quality of the food.

The remains of all three comedies indicate a series of common motifs by means of which the main situation was developed: Heracles displayed his impetuous sensuality and keen appetites for food or sex, declared his culinary preferences or commented on the menu, and had problematic financial transactions with the host. Comparative study of these fragments thus helps to trace a comic theme (“Heracles at the inn”) which must have been operative in the Attic theatre for decades. Perhaps this theme arose as a more popular variation of the standard routine of “Heracles at the symposion”, which was very common both in myth and in drama. The low-brow tavern or inn replaced the aristocratic symposion, and Heracles’ marginal position as an uninvited or parasitic guest was reflected in his troubled monetary dealings with the landlord.

It is against this background that the side-splitting scene of Frogs 549–578 can be read: Dionysus, in the guise of Heracles, comes upon an inn in the underworld and confronts two angry female innkeepers, who blame the supposed “Heracles” for the havoc he wreaked during an earlier visit to their establishment. The familiar ingredients of “Heracles at the inn” are again present: Heracles’ unrestrained appetite, a long list of foodstuffs he consumed, and the hero’s financial problems. But this time the comic situation is acted out with theatrical self-consciousness, as though a play within the play; the standard motifs are narrated as incidents of a past occasion, and “Heracles” is a role performed by Dionysus, the god of drama, in theatrical disguise. Aristophanes offers a meta-version of the “Heracles at the inn” routine, inserted as a miniature comic play within Dionysus’ adventures. As in other scenes of the first part of the Frogs (e.g. 503ff., developing the stock theme of “Heracles cheated of his meal”), Dionysus, in performing Heracles’ part, experiences the typical situations which the character of Heracles encountered on the Attic comic stage. In this case, the study of fragments is crucial for the proper interpretation and appreciation of a scene in a canonical play.

Among the surviving works of the comic poet Eubolus is a comedy entitled Antiope, a parody of Euripides’ tragedy bearing the same name. Edmonds identifies in the protagonists of this comedy as representations of the politicians Epaminondas and Pelopidas. This study examines this hypothesis, never previously analysed in detail and almost ignored by the critics. Given the chronology of Eubolus, a contemporary of these politicians, an interpretation of the comic Antiope like that suggested by Edmonds, in which the politicians are to be identified with a pair of twins, would impose dating the literary construction of the “inseparable couple” to a period contemporary with the actions of Pelopidas and Epaminondas. This would lend support to the hypothesis that the image of the “inseparable couple” Pelopidas-Epaminondas started in the IV century as an artificial construction, for the purposes of Athenian propaganda.