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The Decree of Syrakosios*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Alan H. Sommerstein
Alan H. Sommerstein
Affiliation:
University of Nottingham
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Extract

Our information about the Athenian politician Syrakosios is entirely derived from Ar. Birds 1297 and the scholia thereon. Syrakosios here figures among a long list of Athenians who are said to be nicknamed after various birds:

δοκεῖ δ⋯ κα⋯ ψήɸισμα τεθεικέναι μ⋯ κωμῳδεῖσθαι ⋯νομαστί τινα, ὡς Φρύνιχος ⋯ν Μονοτρόπῳ ɸησί [fr. 26 Kock]· “ψ⋯ρ' ἔχοι Συρακόσιον. ⋯πιɸαν⋯ς γ⋯ρ αὐτῷ κα⋯ μέγα τύχοι. ⋯ɸείλετο γ⋯ρ κωμῳδεῖν οὕς ⋯πεθύμουν.” δι⋯ πικρότερον αὐτῷ προσɸέρονται, ὡς λάλῳ δ⋯ τ⋯ν “ κίτταν” παρέθηκεν

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 36 , Issue 1 , May 1986 , pp. 101 - 108
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1986

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References

1 Bats (1296) being evidently classified by Ar. among the birds, whereas Aristotle (HA 490a7–13) excluded them from that class.

2 The text of the scholion as here given is based on codd. RVMΓE, of which, however, only the last two preserve it in its entirety. The critical apparatus is selective; for fuller information see White, J. W., The Scholia on the Ayes of Aristophanes (Boston, 1914)Google Scholar, from which the information here given is derived.

3 There are three remotely conceivable alternatives: (i) the decree was almost immediately repealed; (ii) it remained a dead letter; (iii) by κωμῳδεῖσθαι ⋯νομαστί is here meant ‘be presented by name as a character in a comedy’. Of these (i) and (ii) are hardly consistent with Phrynichos' complaint and curse, and (iii) is even more decisively excluded by the appearance of Meton and Kinesias as characters in Birds.

4 Cf. Birds Hypothesis I Hall–Geldart, Coulon = III White. In view of the simultaneity of the two plays, the CQ referee is surprised that, if Syrakosios really had carried a decree ‘aimed specifically at comedy…Aristophanes managed to refer to [him] without making any mention of it’; but Aristophanes' silence on the matter is explicable from the structure and theme of Birds 1290–9, which could no more accommodate Syrakosios' decree than it could accommodate Philokles' tragedies or Chairephon's friendship with Socrates.

5 (Aristokrates) son of Skellias (126), a son of Tharreleides (17–18), and a son of Peisias (766).

6 ‘Sakas’ (31), ‘Orestes’ (712, 1491) and ‘Partridge’ (1292).

7 CQ 34 (1984), 87Google Scholar.

8 So the main tradition of the scholia (codd. ΓEL) with minor variations; cod. R drastically abbreviates. For details see Wilson, N. G., Scholia in Aristophanem: Pars I Fasc. I.B., Scholia in Acharnenses (Groningen, 1975)Google Scholar, ad loc.

9 Halliwell loc. cit.

10 κωμῳδεῖν, in classical Greek normally governs an accusative of the person or institution satirized, occasionally (Ar. Ach. 655; cf. Pl. Laws 816d) an internal accusative. Once (Ar. Wealth 557) it seems to be used intransitively, coupled, however, with σκώπτειν, whose intransitive use is well established. On this evidence, κωμῳδεῖν ὡς ⋯πεθύμουν, if possible at all, would most likely mean not ‘satirize people in the way I wanted to’ but ‘compose comedy, which was what I wanted to do’. The transmitted reading, on the other hand, gives κωμῳδεῖν its normal construction and makes excellent sense, even if not a sense that justifies the scholiast's deduction from it.

11 AJPh 48 (1927), 215–30Google Scholar.

12 The Law in Classical Athens (London, 1978), 128–9Google Scholar.

13 MacDowell loc. cit.

14 Two individuals are mentioned three times each in Birds, Exekestides (11, 764, 1526–7) and Theogenes (822, 1127, 1295), but all the references to them are brief. Ten men in addition to Kleonymos are mentioned twice each, and several of them, like Kleonymos, are spoken of once briefly and a second time at greater length: Philokrates (13–14, 1077–83), ‘Orestes’ (712, 1482–93), Socrates (1282, 1553ff.). No one receives more extensive treatment than this.

15 See MacDowell's note ad loc., and also mine (Aristophanes: Wasps [Warminster, 1983], 207Google Scholar).

16 It is interesting to note that a similar degree of ‘obliquity’ also characterises the numerous passages in which the speaker of Lysias 10, while evidently taking care to remain technically within the law, mischievously insinuates that his opponent Theomnestos is guilty of having thrown away his shield, a charge of which two juries had in effect declared Theomnestos innocent: cf. Lys. 10.1, 9, 12, 14, 22 bis, 23, 24–5, 26, 28, 30. In several of these passages (especially 22 and 30) the speaker sails very near the wind indeed, and this strongly suggests that the law of slander, even in the 380s, applied only to allegations that were plain, direct and specific. It is likely that of all Aristophanes' gibes against Kleonymos, , only Clouds 353Google Scholar was in violation of the law of slander, and it may be significant that this comes from a play that was never produced in the form in which we have it. The possibility is worth considering that comedy as such never enjoyed any special exemption from the law of slander, either before or after 415/14.

17 This point is made by Halliwell, S., Yearbook of English Studies 14 (1984), 13CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For the disqualification from speaking in the assembly cf. Lys. 10.1, Aischines 1.28–9.

18 We have no further mention of him as a public figure after the date of Birds: he may have died soon after (so MacDowell on Wasps 19)–or he may have been convicted, been made ἄτιμος, and gone into exile.

19 Aischines, in the course of his speech prosecuting Ktesiphon, brings up the matter against Demosthenes at least eleven times (Aischines 3.148, 151, 152, 155, 159, 175–6, 181, 187, 226, 244, 253); and damaging though the charge is, Demosthenes in his defence speech nowhere denies its truth.

20 It is likely enough that he was prosecuted (presumably λιποταξίον) during the period between 338 and 336, when he says he was ‘put on trial every day’ (Dem. 18.249), but if so he was evidently acquitted(⋯ν … τούτοις π⋯σι…⋯σῳζόμην [ibid.]).

21 The taxiarchs are collectively called ῥιψ⋯σπιδες at Peace 1186.

22 Ar. Birds 1556ff.; Eupolis fr. 31; Xen. Symp. 2.14; Aelian, NA 4.1; Suda δ319, π1467; Apostolios 14.14 (Πεισ⋯νδρον δειλότερος).

23 It probably was. The first clear reference to the incident is in Clouds 353; Knights 1372, which has often been seen as an allusion to it, is in a context which is concerned not with cowardice or desertion but with exemptions from active service obtained through the exercise of improper personal or political influence. Cf. also Birds 1480–1 το⋯ δ⋯ χειμ⋯νος π⋯λιν τ⋯ς ⋯σπίδας ɸυλλορροεῖ: the Delion campaign took place χειμ⋯νος εὐθὺς ⋯ρχομένου, (Thuc. 4.89.1).

24 Ach. 88; Wasps 16 μέγαν π⋯νυ; Birds 289, 1477 μέγα.

25 RhM 3 (1835), 161–208, at p. 161Google Scholar.

26 See the list of 65 persons in (Gomme–Andrewes–)Dover, , A Historical Commentary on Thucydides, iv (Oxford, 1970), 276ffGoogle Scholar. Two of the ⋯σεβεῖς bore the name Panaitios (Andok. 1.13 with MacDowell's note, and 1.52, 67; one of them is now more precisely identifiable as Παναίτιος φιλοχ⋯ρους Ἀɸιδναῖος – see IG i3 422.204–5), and according to ΣrvtmBirds 440 the πίθηκος μαχαιροποιός of Birds 441–2 is ‘apparently’ a man named Panaitios whom Aristophanes elsewhere satirized as ‘ape’ and ‘son of a cook’ (Ar. fr. 394 Kock = 409 Kassel-Austin). The style of satire, however, strongly suggests that Panaitios the ‘ape’ is more likely to have had links with the ‘new politicians’ than with the jeunesse dorée. It would be much more plausible to identify one or other of the two ⋯σεβεῖς with the Panaitios, of Knights 243Google Scholar (cf. my Aristophanes: Knights [Warminster, 1981], 155–6Google Scholar, where, however, I wrongly implied that there was only one ⋯σεβ⋯ς of this name).

27 RhM 4 (1836), 27–62, at pp. 59–60Google Scholar.

28 Zschr. f Geschiehtswissenschaft 2 (1844), 211–13Google Scholar = Kleine Schriften (Halle, 1884–1886), 458–61Google Scholar.

29 Cf., however, Maidment, K. J., CQ 29 (1935), 10CrossRefGoogle Scholar (‘doubtless in connection with the Hermocopids’).

30 Ph. Kakridis, in his edition of Birds (Athens, 1974Google Scholar) rightly rejected on chronological grounds the common identification of this man with the kitharode Meles son of Peisias, the father of Kinesias the dithyrambist; it had earlier been pointed out by van Leeuwen that among all the hostile comment on Kinesias in comedy there is no reference to any alleged treason on the part of his father. Van Leeuwen suggested, not implausibly, that the man of Birds 766–7, who is advised πέρδιξ γενέσθω, το⋯ πατρ⋯ς νεοττίον, might be the Kleombrotos (a suspiciously Laconoid name!) who is called ‘son of Partridge’ by Phrynichos fr. 53.

31 Andok. 1.66.

32 Andok. 1.15, 34.

33 οὐχ ⋯ρᾷς τ⋯ν οἰκίαν, τ⋯ν Πουλυτίωνος κειμένην ἰπώβολον;

34 Andok. 1.12; Isokr. 16.6; Paus. 1.2.5.

35 His name does not appear on the list of those denounced in connexion with it (Andok. 1.13); MacDowell tentatively suggests that it may have been lost in transmission (e.g. before Πολύστρατον).

36 Plut. Alk. 22.4.

37 I am indebted to CQ's referee for several points in what follows.

38 As may well have been the case, if he was a metic rather than a citizen and had not been granted the privilege of ἔγκτησις. On the possibility that Poulytion was a metic, see Hatzfeld, J., Alcibiade (Paris, 1951), 112Google Scholar n. 5.

39 Cf. Körte, A., RE xix (1938)Google Scholar, col. 1987, who concludes that the play is most likely to have been produced early in 415.

40 Ar. Birds 284–6 with scholia, Ekkl. 810; Kratinos, fr. 333 Kock = 81 Kassel–Austin (which shows that Kallias was already in deep waters financially at about the age of twenty); Andok. 1.131; Lys. 19.48; Arist. Rhet. 1405a19–20; for other evidence and discussion see Davies, J. K., Athenian Propertied Families 600–300 B.C. (Oxford, 1971), 259–62Google Scholar. Megakles (PA 9697) was another owner of a grand house (Ar. Clouds 815) who fell badly into debt at one time, if, as is likely, he is the ‘son of Koisyra’ mentioned in Ar. Ach. 614–17.

41 Cf. e.g. Ar. Frogs 447; Men. Dysk. 855–7, Epitr. 452, Samia 46. The only surviving fragment of Euboulos' Παννυχίς (Eub. fr. 84) is about hetairai, and Alexis' Παννυχίς had the alternative title Ἔριθοι ‘Spinning-women’.

42 Pherekr. fr. 64, which is in eupolideans and therefore probably from the parabasis, seems to be a complaint against men who sell perfume; the speakers argue that women do not practise men's trades and men ought not to practise women's.

43 For the vehement oratory for which Syrakosios was noted, cf. Eupolis, fr. 207 (cited in Σ Birds 1297 above).

44 The plays known to belong to this period are Ar. Birds, Lys., Thesm. (together 4317 lines); Eupolis, Demes (nearly 200 surviving lines); Ar, Amphiaraos; Ameipsias/Phrynichos, Komastai; Phrynichos, Monotropos (together about 45 surviving lines).

45 Certain allusion: Birds 145–7. Probable allusions: Birds 766 (of all Athenian ἄτιμοι Alkibiades, now at Sparta, was the most likely to be thought of as attempting to seize Athens by surprise with the help of treachery within the gates); Lys. 390–7, 512–14; Thesm. 338–9, 1143–4. On the latter four passages cf. JHS 97 (1977), 120–4Google Scholar: the interpretation there proposed for the Lys. passages is rejected by Westlake, H. D., Phoenix 34 (1980), 49 n. 36CrossRefGoogle Scholar, but not on adequate grounds. It would have been impossible to recall to memory the decision to despatch the Sicilian expedition (Lys. 390–7) without recalling the part Alkibiades played in that decision; and when Westlake suggests that ‘the mention of a decision by the assembly to make an addition to a peace treaty (507–515) could well refer…to an occasion other than one recorded by Thucydides when Alcibiades was involved (5.56.3)’, one must ask how common it was for the Athenian assembly unilaterally to alter the text of a treaty, and whether ‘the peace-treaty’ (τ⋯ν σπονδ⋯ν Lys. 513), in the context of a play whose whole subject is the ending of the war between Athens and the Peloponnesians, and without any indication in the more immediate context that any other conflict or enemy is being thought of, could be taken as referring to any treaty other than the Peace of Nikias. I would not, however, wish now to lay as much stress as in 1977 on the less extended allusions to events of the year 415 in Lys. 589f. and 1093f.

46 If MacDowell (in Appendix N of his edition of On the Mysteries) is right to suggest that two comic dramatists, Archippos and Aristomenes, were among those denounced for attending a mock celebration of the Mysteries in which Alkibiades took a leading part (Andok. 1.12–13), this could help to explain why Syrakosios and others might be afraid that other comic dramatists might seek to propagandize in Alkibiades' favour.

47 Whereas another exiled ⋯σεβ⋯ς, Diagoras of Melos, who had not been involved in the scandals of 415, is mentioned by name (Birds 1073–4).

48 See n. 45 above.

49 Σ Ar. Ach. 67; in the view of Halliwell (cf. n. 7) this is ‘the one decree of this kind which… may reasonably be regarded as genuine’. One may well imagine this decree being cited as a justifying precedent by the proponents of the decree of 415.

50 Thuc. 8.97.3; on the relationship between this decree and that referred to by Plut. Alk. 33.1 (citing Kritias fr. 5 West) see Andrewes, A., JHS 73 (1953), 3 n. 7CrossRefGoogle Scholar.