I OLDCOMEDY 3 £
no water-drinker's work is worth a penny'.1 Eupolls com-
plained to the public that they preferred 'foreign poets', and
though the Greeks did not know the reproach of plagiarism,
Hermippos said that Phrymchos put other people's poetry in
his plays.3 In a sense, the quarrels between the comedians are
more relevant to the discussion of purely literary matters,
which will be referred to later.3 The same is true of the
innumerable attacks on Euripides. Occasionally, however,
something might be said against tragedy which reflected the
envy of a competitor:
Truly to be clad in feather is the very best of things.
Only fancy, dear spectators, had you each a brace of wings,
Never need you, tired and hungry, at a tragic chorus stay,
You would lightly, when it bored you, spread your wings
and fly away,
Back returning, after luncheon, to enjoy our comic play 4
Naturally, every comedian aimed at displaying new and
original theatrical ideas, and their competition might be par-
ticularly concerned with the agon which played such an impor-
tant part in almost every comedy.5 The spirit of competition
indeed permeated the work of all the comic poets, culminating
in their agon for the prizes, for 'Nike, companion of the
choruses' 6 The agon within the comedy and that between
certain poets are sometimes welded into one The Frogs pro-
1 Kratinos iSifF, 198, 199
2 Eupolis 357 Cf above, p 20, note 2 Eupolis and Aristophanes had been
friends at first, and some part of the Knights was written by Eupolis (78) —
Hermipp 64
3 See ch X
4 B 785^" There were periods, then, when comedies had no special reserved
days, but were performed after the tragic trilogies It might, in fact, have been
'shortly after noon' (B 1499) when the performance was coming to its end
The exact extent of this arrangement is, however, unknown, and as long as
five poets competed (and not three, as at least during the Peloponnesian War),
comedy probably had a day of its own Xen. oik 3, 7 refers to people getting up
early in the morning to see a comedy. Generally, cf Haigh, 236", Flickmger,
199, 363, Schneider, P -W III A, 498, 503, 508
5 frg 528-9 Cf J Duchemm, U AF60N dans la tragldie grecque (1945).
The book contains a short chapter (p. 31 if) on the dycov in Old Comedy
6 K 589. xopiKoov §Tcdpoc I take xopixoov as neuter, including everything
which relates to the performance, I do not think there is any allusion m this phrase
to the oligarchic eToctpioa.