Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/328

Rh 816 PHTLONIDES. the scholiast on the passage from the Clouds, above quoted, in which the Daetaleis is referred to, ex- plains the phrase trais irepa as meaning ^iXwvlSrjs hat KaAAicrT/joTos, and Dindorf, by putting toge- ther this passage and the above inference, imagines that the Daetaleis was brought out in the name of Philonides {Frag. Arist. Daet.) ; but the scholiast is evidently referring, not so much to the bringing out of this particular play (for ttoCis hipa cannot mean two persons, nor were dramas ever brought out in more than one name) as to the practice of Aristophanes with respect to several of his plays. There is, therefore, no reason for the violent and arbitrary alteration of the words of the grammarian, who, as above quoted, expressly says that the play was exhibited 8<^ KaXXiarpaTou. There is, there- fore, no evidence that Aristophanes exhibited under the name of Philonides previous to the date of the Knights ; but that lie did so afterwards we know on the clearest evidence. His next play, the Clouds (b. c. 423), we might suppose to have been brought out in the name of Philonides, on account of the statement of the grammarian, that Aristo- phanes assigned to him the plays against Socrates and Euripides, coupled with the known fact that the Frogs were exhibited in the name of Philo- nides ; but, however this may be, we find that, in the following year, b. c. 422, Aristophanes brought out two plays, the Proagon and the Wasps, both in the name of Philonides, and gained with them the first and second prize. This statement rests on the authority of the difficult and certainly cor- rupted passage in the Didascalia of the Wasps, into the critical discussion of which we cannot here enter, further than to give, as the result, the fol- lowing amended reading, which is founded on the Ravenna MS., adopted both by Dindorf and Bergk, and of the correctness of which there can now hardly be a doubt : — ^"EStSax^T? cttI dpxovros 'A/xv- PLov Sioi ^ia)vidov €U T^ 7r0' dXvfjLTrid^i : j8' (i, e. Sevrepos) "^v. els Arivaia : Koi tv'iKa irparos 4>jA.co- vih-qs Tlpoayuvi, AevKwu Upea-Seai y' (i.e. rpiTos) ; from which we learn that the Wasps was exhibited at the Lenaea, in the 89 th Olympiad, in the year of the Archon Amynias, under the name of Philo- nides, and that it gained the second place, the first being assigned to the Upodyiov, which was also ex- hibited in the name of Philonides, and which we know from other sources to have been a play of Aristophanes (see the Fragments), and the third to the TlpeaSeis of Leucon.* In the year B. c. 41 4 we again find Aristophanes exhibiting two plays (though at different festivals), the Ampliiaraus, in the name of Philonides, and the Birds, in that of Callistratus {A7-g. wi Av.) ; and, lastly, we learn from the Didascalia to the Frogs, that that play also was brought out in the name of Philonides. We thus see that Aristo- phanes used the name of Philonides, probably, for the Clouds (see Bergk, l.c. pp. 913, 914), and cer- tainly for the WaspS) the Proagon, the Amphia- ratis, and the Frogs. The Daetaleis, the Babylo- very good account of the extraordinary errors which have been founded on this passage ; to which must be added his own, for, on the strength of a reading which cannot, be sustained, he makes the passage mean that Aristophanes gained the first prize with the Wasps, and some poet, whose name is not men- tioned, the second with the Proagon, PHILONIDES. nians, the Acliarnians, the Birds, and the Lpsis- trata, were brought out, as we have seen, in the name of Callistratus. Of the extant plays of Aris- tophanes, the only ones which he is known to have brought out in his own name are the Knights, the Peace, and the Plutus. His two last plays, the Cocalus and Aeolosicon, he gave to his son A raros. The Thesmophoriazusae and the Ecclesia- zusae have no name attached to them in the Di- dascaliae. These views are further supported by Bergk, in an elaborate discussion of all the passages in Aris- tophanes and his scholiasts, which bear upon the matter ; which must be read by all who wish to master this important question in the literary history of Aristophanes. There still remain, however, one or two questions which must not be passed over. Supposing it established, that Aristophanes brought out many of his phi^ys in the names of Callistratus and Philo- nides, might they not also be the chief actors in those plays, and, if not, who and what were they ? From what has been said in the early part of this article, a strong presumption may be gathered that the persons in whose names the dramas of others were exhibited were themselves poets, who had already gained a certain degree of reputation, but who, from advancing years, or for other reasons, might prefer this sort of literary partnership to the risk and trouble of original composition. Indeed, it would appear, on the face of the thing, an absurd- ity for a person, who did not profess to be a poet, to enrol his name with the archon as the author of a drama, and to undertake the all-important office of training the performers. But we have the evi- dence of Aristophanes himself, that those in whose names he exhibited his dramas, were poets, like himself, irepoKTi Troi-nrais {Fesp. 1016; com p. Schol.) : we have already seen that Philonides was a poet of the Old Comedy ; and with reference to Callistratus, we have no other information to throw doubt on that contained in the above and other passages of Aristophanes and the grammarians. The fact, that we have onj,y three titles of plays by Philonides, and none by Callistratus, accords with the view that they were chiefly employed as StSctcr- KoKoi of the plays of Aristophanes. We have seen, indeed, that one or two of the grammarians state that they were actors ; but, with all the evi- dence on the other side, there can be little doubt that this statement has merely arisen from a mis- take as to the meaning of the word Sioi in the Di- dascaliae. That word has its recognized meaning in this connection, and no one hesitates to give it that meaning in the Didascaliae of the earlier plays : there is no good authority for supposing it to desig- nate the actor : the Didascaliae were not designed to record the name of the actor, but that of the poet, whether real or professed ; the terms diMa- KoXos, xopo5iSdaKaos, KWfjLcijSodiSdaKaXos, are used as precisely equivalent to ttojtjttjs and Kw/mcpdo- TToirjTT^s : and the notion that the xopoSi5d(TKaos and the chief actor could be the same person involves the almost absurd idea of the chief actor's training himself. The common story about Aristophanes taking upon himself the part of the chief actor in the Knights is shown by Bergk to be, in all proba- bility, a mere fabrication of some grammarian, who mistook the meaning of iSiSdxBr) Si avroD to3 'Api<TTO<pdvovs in the Didascalia ; and there is no clear case, after the regular establishment of the
 * Clinton {F. H. vol. ii. p. xxxviii. n. i.) gives a