¹ I am very grateful for the suggestive criticisms of a draft of this article that I received from Sir Kenneth Dover and Mrs. Barbara Mitchell.

² Aristotle, Ath. Pol. 4. 15 gives thirty as the minimum age for bouleutai and for those who hold – which includes dicasts (cf. 63. 3.), Cf. Xen. Mem. 1. 2. 35.Google Scholar

³ Pace, K. J. Dover on Clouds 530–2.Google ScholarXen. Mem. 3. 6. 1Google Scholar does not suggest a statutory age for speaking in the assembly, just a general assumption that an essential qualification was age and experience: cf. Aeschines i. 23, and see Wyse, W. on Isaeus 7. 41. 4.Google Scholar

⁴ is not “it was impossible” but “it was contrary to the rules”’ (Dover, ad loc.). I should prefer ‘circumstances did not allow it’, a vague insinuation of propriety. For my interpretation of this whole passage see n. 23 below. s e.g. Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, U. von, ‘Über die Wespen des Aristophanes’, Sitzungsberichte der königlich Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (1911), p. 461Google Scholar (reprinted in Kleine Schriften (1935), i.284 ff.Google Scholar, where the pagination of the original article is given in the margin); Steffen, V., ‘De Aristophane a Cleone in ius vocato’, Eos 47 (1954), 9 f.Google Scholar; Coulon, V., Bude edn. of Aristophanes, tome i, p. II.Google Scholar

⁶ e.g. Kaibel, G., RE ii. 972–3;Google ScholarMurray, G., Aristophanes (Oxford, 1933), p. 14;Google ScholarNeil, R. A., edn. of Knights, p. V n. 2;Google ScholarDover, K. J. on Clouds 530–2;Google ScholarGelzer, T., RE Supp.-Band xii. 1396.Google Scholar

⁷ See Schmid, W. and Stählin, O., Geschichte der griechischen Literatur i. 4 (1946), 177 and n. 7Google Scholar there; Lesky, A., A History of Greek Literature (Eng. trans., 1965), p. 427;Google ScholarPickard-Cambridge, A. W., Dramatic Festivals of Athens, 2nd edn., revised by J. Gould and D. M. Lewis (Oxford, 1968) (hereafter DFA ²), 84 f.Google Scholar

⁸ In the course of composing this article I have noticed three references, then selves obviously disregarded in recent times to this implication of Kn. 512 ff.: Leeuwen, J. van, Prolegomena ad Aristopbanem, p. 39 n. 4;Google ScholarRogers, B. B., edn. of Acharnians p. vii;Google ScholarKent, R. G., CR 19 (1905), 153 f.Google Scholar

⁹ For the possibilities, or some of them, see Kent, , art. cit., pp. 153–5,Google ScholarGelzer, , op. cit. 1396,Google Scholar and the apt caution of Dover, , edn. of Clouds, p. xix n. 1.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Dover, , Maia 15 (1963), 15;Google Scholar but cf. his Aristophanic Comedy, p. 13.Google Scholar For details of the controversy in earlier days see Excursus V (pp. 274 f.) in W. Starkie's, J. M. edn. of Achamians. See also n. 30 below.Google Scholar

¹¹ The nature of the clash between Aristophanes and Cleon remains a subject for speculation: cf. Gelzer, , op. cit. 1398 f.Google Scholar That Cleon brought a against Aristophanes at any point, as schol. Ach. 378 asserts and as many have believed, seems t o me highly improbable. I believe that the idea arose from an amalgamation of two things: the attack on Aristophanes after Babylonians, and the notion, inferred from Ach. 654, that Aristophanes was an Aeginetan. But the poet's citizenship seems proved by the information about his father in the lives and elsewhere, and by IG ii². 1740 line 40: cf. The Athenian Agora, vol. xv, p. 33.Google Scholar Nor do I believe that Wasps 1284 ff. refer to a clash with Cleon later than Knights. MacDowell's reason for taking it this way is the word vvv in 1291: D. MacDowell, M., edn. of Wasps, p. 299.Google Scholar But we must consider the whole unique phrase , and also the fact that (1291) is aorist, not perfect as we should expect if MacDowell were right. On in 1286 MacDowell comments: ‘The aorist perhaps implies that there was one occasion …’ There is an equivalent implication in , and its past reference rules out the possibility that Wasps itself is meant. Consequently I take in 1291 in its atemporal sense (‘after all’: cf. LSJ s.v. 1.4) and translate the whole line: ‘But then, after all, the pole (Ar.) deceived the vine (Cleon).’ The reference is to Knights. I think that the caution of Ach. 502 ff. squares with the allusion at Wasps 1284 to some sort of concession by Ar. after the trouble over Babylonians.

¹² Edn. of Wasps, p. 124.

¹³ Hypothesis I, line 32.

¹⁴ See Capps, E., AJP 28 (1907), 179Google Scholar ff., and Hesperia 12 (1943), 3 n. 5.Google Scholar There is, as Capps shows, a strong possibility that the formula is an ancient one: cf. IG xiv. 1098 line 9.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Op. cit., p. 124.

¹⁶ Most likely at the Proagon, for it appears from Plato, , Symp. 194Google Scholar a that each poet made an appearance with his unmaske actors on that occasion. Cf. DFA ² 67 f.

¹⁷ Edn. of Clouds, p. xix. See also his Aristophanic Comedy, p. 14 n. 5.Google Scholar

¹⁸ It starts with the scholion on Wasps 1018 and was subscribed to by, among others, Kock, Wilamowitz, Merry, Starkie, Rogers, and van Leeuwen.

¹⁹ See MacDowell ad loc.

²⁰ MacDowell, p. 124.

²¹ Edn. of Clouds, p. xvii n.

²² See n. 16 above.

²³ Clouds 530–2 is patently the basis of the scholiast's assertion on Frogs 501 that Aristophanes was still a in 427, and of the scholion on Clouds 518 (discusse. in the text above) regarding a law on , though the scholiast on Clouds 530–2 itself more sensibly talks in terms of . My own view is that by , which it is vital to realize refers only to 427 and the circumstances in which Banqueters was produced, Aristophanes means to signify his newness as a dramatist and his consequent lack of status in the eyes of the archon, but that he is not necessarily saying anything about his practical involvement in the production. I would not accept that implies that Banqueters was passed off as Callistratos's own play. We have to decide how strictly to understand Aristophanic metaphors on the basis of all the available evidence. If we took Clouds 531 really strictly, we should be bound to believe not just that Banqueters was presented as Callistratos's own, but that the production of the play was accidental — for the play was a ‘foundling’ — and that in no sense was it on behalf of or for Aristophanes.

²⁴ Cf. Clouds 524 f.

²⁵ Wilamowitz, , art. cit., pp. 465 ff.Google Scholar

²⁶ Dover ad loc, working with Blaydes's very necessary emendation.

²⁷ Contrary to what is sometimes asserted: see e.g. Ghiron-Bistagne, P., Recherches sur les acteurs dans la Grece antique (Paris, 1976), p. 129,Google Scholar with a reference to Kirchner, PA 8127, where it is admitted that no evidence exists for this belief. Poor old Callistratos was divined to be a ‘wretched poetaster’ by Starkie, , edn. of Acharnians, p. 248.Google Scholar See AJP 28 (1907), 89Google Scholar together with IG ii ²2318 col. 5Google Scholar and DFA ² p. 118 for the better restoration in IG ii ². 2325.Google Scholar

²⁸ See Neil's note ad loc.

²⁹ About the details we can only guess, but it seems an attractive possibility that Philonides was involved. We know him to have been a comic poet in his own right: see PA 14904 and IG ii ². 2325Google Scholar (DFA ² p. 112). He seems also to have belonged to a circle which contained a number of well-to-do friends of Aristophanes: see Sterling Dow, , AJA 73 (1969), 234 f.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³⁰ I have discovered a number of scholars who have noticed the implications of Kn. 541–4 and dissented from the orthodoxy on Wasps 1018 ff., but none of them puts the full case against the orthodoxy or gives more than a hint at an alternative reading. Most confuse the matter, in my view, by introducing reference to Eupolis fr. 78 (see the following note): cf. Kaibel, , RE ii. 973;Google ScholarKent, , art. cit., p. 154Google Scholar; Schmid und Stählin, op. cit., p. 179.Google Scholar I am very grateful to CQ's referee for alerting me to the review-article by Hiller, E. in Phil. Anzeig. 17 (1887), 361 ff.Google Scholar Hiller suggests a reading of Wasps 1018 very similar to my own: see pp. 366 f.

He also discusses many of the other points raised in my article and reaches some similar conclusions, though he differs from me notably on . 513 and on Wasps 1029. I have made no changes in my text since reading Hiller.

³¹ See Clouds 554 with Dover's note, and Eupolis fr. 78, which is a reply to the Aristophanic gibe. I can see no evidence regarding a collaboration between these two poets which cannot be traced back to these jokes, and no reason at all for taking the Eupolis fr. as itself evidence of collaboration. As for the jokes made by Ar.'s rivals involving the proverb ;, which are sometimes treated as confirming the view that the authorship of Ar.'s early plays was not known, and that the prize for a play did not go to its author when he was not full , I must protest that the frs. in question, in their unspecific and contentless form, tell us next to nothing about anything. See Gelzer 1396 f. for the references and a statement of the customary interpretation. It may be significant that Sannyrion fr. 5 is to be dated to 410 or later; Geissler, P., Cbronologie des altattiscken Komödie (1925), p. 67. I hope to discuss Plato Com. frs. 99 and 100 elsewhere.Google Scholar

³² Cf. the romanticizing speculations of van Leeuwen, , Prolegomena etc., pp. 19 ff.Google Scholar

³³ See e.g. DFA ² pp. 84 f., Gelzer 1517.

³⁴ Antiphon 6. 11–14.

³⁵ On the relation between the stage of and the time of performance see the remarks of Gelzer 1517 f.

³⁶ The case is put best by Wilamowitz, , Einleitung in die grie chische Tragödie (1910), pp. 2 f.Google Scholar, and Dover, , Aristophanic Comedy, pp. 180 f.Google Scholar For arguments against see Radermacher's, L. edn. of Frogs, pp. 254 f.Google Scholar

³⁷ See DFA ² p. 84.

³⁸ I should perhaps note that by ‘patronage’ I mean mainly to suggest forms of support other than financial.

³⁹ Even fourth-century practice may no tell us anything about the fifth century; Dem. Meid. 58 proves little, for by that date a greater separation of the roles of poet and producer seems probable. There is a reference in P. Oxy. 2737 fr. 1 col. II lines 21 f. (= Austin, C., Comicorum Graecorum Fragmenta in Papyris Reperta, fr. 56*, lines 55 f.Google Scholar) to . It follows closely on a reference to poets’ having their plays produced by others, but I can see no compelling reasc not to take in the standard sense of ‘poet’ here.

⁴⁰ e.g. Russo, C. F., Aristofane Autore di Teatro (Florence, 1962), p. 26Google Scholar; Gelzer, , op. cit. 1408.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Maia 15(p), 23.Google Scholar

⁴² Politics 3, 1275^b18 fGoogle Scholar