Eupolis

Abstract

Eupolis, the son of Sosipolis of Athens (ca. 449–411 bce; <i>PAA</i> 442535), was a poet of Old Comedy. As is common with ancient authors, details of his life are scanty and often unreliable. Two short biographies of Eupolis are preserved by two late sources (Suda ε3657 and an anonymous treatise <i>On Comedy = Prolegomena</i> III 33–35). The latter (henceforth C) places his first production in 429 bce; the <i>Suda</i> (henceforth S) states that he started his career at the age of seventeen, which would imply a birth date ca. 447, but so very early a debut is unlikely (Storey <i>Eupolis</i> 56). As to his death, S says that he was shipwrecked during the Peloponnesian War and died in the Hellespont, and the name of a Eupolis from Athens, who might be identified with the comic poet, appears among the casualties of the battle of Cynossema listed in an inscription of 411 (<i>IG</i> i³ 1190.52). A clearly fabricated account of his death narrates that he was drowned in retaliation for mocking Alcibiades in <i>Baptai</i> (Tzetzes in <i>Prolegomena</i> XIa1.88–96 = <i>Baptai</i> test. iv K–A).