Studies in Comedy, I: Alexis and the Parasite's Name Arnott, W Geoffrey Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies; Summer 1968; 9, 2; ProQuest pg. 161 Studies in Comedy, I: Alexis and the Parasite's Name w. Geoffrey Arnott "THE PARASITE has a history which goes back to Epicharmus but as far as we know he only becomes a stock character in the fourth century." So with his usual pithy acumen writes T. B. L. Webster.1 But there is a pretty little problem connected with this standardisation of the parasite2 as a type figure in fourth-century in­ trigue comedies. Before this standardisation the parasite in real life and on the comic stage seems to have been called K6>..at. The word 1Tapa.cn'TOS appears not to have been applied to him before the earlier half of the fourth century.3 What accounts for the rise of the new name? The investigation inevitably starts from our main source of informa­ tion about ancient parasite lore: Athenaeus' long and richly enter- 1 See p.64 of Studies in Later Greek Comedy (Manchester 1953)-that vade-mecum of all students of the history of Greek drama. I The starting point for modern study of ancient parasites is still O. Ribbeck's magisterial Kolax. Eine ethologische Studie (AbhLeipzig 9.1 [1883] 1-113). Four other works are of direct relevance to the topics discussed in this paper: A. Giese, De parasiti persona capita selecta (Diss. Kiell908); L. Ziehen / Ernst Wiist / A. Hug in RE 18 (1949) 1377-1405 s.w. IIap&.­ a'TO' I PARASITOS; J. M. Brinkhoeff, "De Parasiet op het romeinsche Tooneel," Neophilo­ logus 32 (1948) 127ff; and Webster, op.cit. (supra n.1). Cf also J. o. Lofberg, CP 15 (1920) 61ff (on the Phormio type of parasite; with a postscript in CW22 [1928-9] 183ft); and V. Ehren­ berg, The People of Ariswphanes (Oxford 1951) 242 (on fifth-century parasites). In the course of this paper works listed here will be referred to by name of author alone. 8 KOAa, (in the more general sense of 'flatterer') was in common Athenian use from at least the last quarter of the fifth century B.C. onwards (it appears in Aristophanes, Eupolis, Crates fr.212 Kock: see LS] and Ribbeck, Iff). 71'ap&.a'To~ was apparently confined in the fifth and early fourth centuries to its ritual sense; its secondary, more general sense of 'parasite' did not develop until ca. 360-50 (see below). This lexical history is clearly reflected in a pontification by Phrynichus (Eel. 114, p.139 Lobeck, p.214 Rutherford), 71'apaa[Tov~ O?)I( l>'eyov ot apxCt'io, J71" ov£loovS', wS' vVv, &>.>.0: KO>'CtKCtS'. The relationship between the corresponding verbs KOAaK€VW and 71'apau'Ttw seems to have been the same; KOACtK€la, how­ ever, did sole duty as the abstract noun throughout the classical period; the form 71'apa­ ULTla does not occur until Lucian. Cf D. B. Durham, The Vocabulary of Menander (Diss. Princeton 1913) 85; and Starkie's note on Ar. Vesp. 45. 5-G.R.B.S. 161 162 ALEXIS AND THE PARASITE'S NAME taining chapter (6.234c-262A). One sentence of that chapter runs as follows (6.235E): 'TOV 8£ vVV Aey6J.LEVOV 7TapaCTLTov Kap";CT'TLO~ 0 JIEpya- , , ~ \ ~ ~ ,~ • f)~ '.l. ., I 'A' Ii; ~ J.L7JVO~ EV 'TqJ 7TEP' OLOaCTKa/UWV EVPE 7JvaL 'f'7JCTLV V7TO 7TPW'TOV I\E~ LOO~. , , f) I "'E ' , 'E'\ ,~ "n"' , " , , EKl\a 0J.LEVO~ on 7T'XapJ.L0~ EV I\7TLOL 7J 1\0V'TqJ 7Tapa 7TO'TOV aVTOV EZ.aKEla has some points in common with Theophrastus' description of his Ko>.at; if. Ribbeck, op.cit. (supra n.2) 54 n.2, 57 n.10. w. GEOFFREY ARNOTT 163 tion of the sacred grain for use in particular festivals. We hear of such 7TCtpd.ULToL in the shrine of Heracles at Cynosarges in Attica and else­ where in Greece. A suitable translation of 7TCtpd.ULTO!> in this applica­ tion is from its cloistered world of religious ritual to its later, more general sense of 7TLXCtpJLO!> TOV 7TCtPCtULTOV WVOJLCtU€V, €rTCt "A'\€gL!>; and the Towneley scholiast on Iliad 17.577, saying T6 c;, , " ~ 1 " "E" 1<;:' "E 1 E . D€ OVOJLCt TOV 7TCtpCtaLTDV €LpTJTCtL €V I\7TLOL 7TCtp 7TLXCtpJLCfJ. Pl- charmus' Elpis or Ploutos was the play in which his parasite appeared, but these two allegations that Epicharmus used the term 7TCtpd.Ut'To!> presumably as a designation of that parasite must be dismissed as a careless and false inference by Pollux and the scholiast. So judicious scholars9 have recognised ever since Isaac Casaubon wrote in his Animaduersiones in Athenaeum (co1.417), "Ego non dubito lapsum Pol­ lucem incogitantia et a7TpOU€gtq.: quod ei facillimum fuit, Epicharmi et Alexidis uersus de quibus quaeritur, ob oculos non habenti. Athenaeus uero qui potuit, cum locum integrum Siculi poetae des­ criberet? Falsum igitur est quod ait Pollux ... Lege uersiculos Epi­ charmi: nus quam in iis nomen 7TCtpd.UL'TO!>; at res eo nomine signifi­ cat a graphice ibi describitur; hoc uoluit Athenaeus cum ait de Epicharmo, 'T6V 7Tapd.UL'TOV 7Tapd: 7TO'TOV Ela~yaYEv. Ipsum quidem nomen et Epicharmo fuit incognitum, et iis qui proxime illum sunt insecuti." The arguments of Casaubon are conclusive enough. A question may be added to them as a corollary. If the assertion of Pol­ lux and the scholiast were true, why does Athenaeus take such care to 8 On such priestly parasites see Ribbeck, op.cit. (supra n.2) 18ff, and L. Ziehen, RE S.v. IIapaatTot (supra n.2). 8 E.g. Meineke, PCG 1.377; Wilamowitz in Kaibe1, CGP 1.97 (on fr.36). 164 ALEXIS AND THE PARASITE'S NAME avoid saying precisely that Epicharmus used the word 7TapaUt'Tos? It is wise to conclude that Pollux and the scholiast were summarising inaccurately substantially the same material that Athenaeus quotes at full length. Certainly, everything else that Pollux records about parasites can be found at greater length in Athenaeus. And it is notable that the statements of Pollux and the scholiast are not supported by any citation. The second obstacle to our previously mentioned assumption about Alexis' priority occurs in Athenaeus' own chapter about parasites. At 6 237 h ~ ~ \ , , ~, "A \ , • A e says, 'TOV OE OVOfLa'TOS 'TOV 7TapaUt'TOV fLVTJfLOVEVEt papws EV 'YfLEvalcp 8t(x 'TOV'TWV (fr.16 Kock)· , "0'" 'l ' .I.. '\ OVK EU 07TWS OVK E 7TapaU£'TOS. 'fJtl\'Ta'TE· • ~, • T' '~\'.I.. ' o 0 luxofLaxos 00£ 'TpE'fJWV UE roYXaVE£. Directly before this lemma and fragment there appears in Athenaeus the quotation from Eupolis' Kolakes in which the chorus of K6'\aKES describe their characteristics (fr.159 Kock), and which Athenaeus has cited as evidence for his statement that fifth-century parasites were called K6'\aKES, not 7TapaUt'Tot. This juxtaposition of lemmata led Casaubon and his successors lO to the belief that Araros, according to Athenaeus, was the first comic poet to use the word 7TapaUt'Tos in its new sense. But Athenaeus does not say precisely that; he says simply that Araros used the word, in a play that cannot now be dated. Athenaeus' statement about Araros, therefore, cannot fitly be used as an argument for Araros' alleged priority over Alexis in the new use of 7TapaUt'Tos. Although Araros may have begun producing plays at least a quarter of a century before Alexis,11 he was still writing and produc­ ing them at the time when Alexis produced his own play entitled Parasitos (about which we shall have more to say in a moment). Of that we can be sure. In the Parasitos Alexis (fr.179 Kock) refers to a well that was ifroxp6'TEPOV ' Apap6'Tos; this withering remark implies that Araros' comedies were still being produced in competition against Alexis' own. On the basis of this evidence, therefore, it is quite possible that the play from which Athenaeus quotes Araros' use of the word 7TapaUt'Tos was written later than Alexis' Parasitos; that possibil- 10 E.g. Meineke, loc.cit. 11 Araros may have produced a comedy (of Aristophanes' 7) in 388-7 B.C. (if. A. Pickard­ Cambridge, The Dramatic Festivals of Athens [Oxford 1953] 109); he certainly produced his father's Kokalos and Aiolosikon soon after 388 (cf the hypothesis to Ar. Plut.). The Suda gives the WIst Olympiad as the date of Araros' first production (of one of his own plays 7). W. GEOFFREY ARNOTT 165 ity will be transformed into near certainty when the remaining pieces of evidence are inserted into the puzzle. And with the priority of Alexis then established, it will occasion no surprise to observe the way in which the word 7TapaaLTos is employed in the quoted fragment of Araros-a way which suggests that its new general use was already well established in colloquial speech. If Alexis was the first comic writer to use 7I"apaaLTos in its later sense, Carystius' statement becomes intelligible as a slightly garbled version of the true fact.We may now advance a little further, on two fronts. First, Carystius' statement appeared in a work entitled IIEp'i o£OaaKaAtlVv. Carystius' subject, therefore, was the information to be gleaned from didascalic records.12 It would be concerned to some con­ siderable extent with the recorded titles of plays. It seems reasonable to suppose from this that Carystius' words have a further implication -that Alexis' Parasitos was the first play to be produced with that title,I3 antedating other homonymous plays, including one by Anti­ phanes.14 What then was the date of Alexis' Parasitos?We cannot be sure. Alexis' first plays seem to date from shortly after 360 B.C.1S His Parasitos, as we have seen, contained an allusion to Araros' continuing dramatic activity. Although the date of Araros' death is unknown, it is unlikely that his dramatic activity went on into the second half of the fourth century.16 Webster's suggested dating of Alexis' Parasitos to ca. 360-50 B.C. is thus hardly contestable. Partial confirmation of it is given by a further fragment (fr.180 Kock) extant from the play which refers to plato in terms implying that the philosopher was still alive. We may now move to our second point of advance, by examining the opening lines of the main surviving fragment (fr.178 Kock) of Alexis' Parasitos. They run as follows: \ - ~, ", ~, Kal\OVat u aVTOV 7I"aV'TES Ot V€WT€PO£ n I • , apaa£TOV V7I"OKopWfLa. 12 Cf. n.4. 13 Cf. Kock, CAF II.363f, and Kaibel, RE 1 (1894) 1470 s.v. ALEXIS 9. It would be foolish to reject Carystius' statement (as Athenaeus does) as a contemptibly careless error. To judge from Carystius' other remarks (cf. Jacoby, up.cit. [supra n.4]), he must have studied the didascalic records with some care. 14 So first Meineke, op.cit. (supra n.9). 16 See the present writer's summary of the facts in RhM 102 (1959) 256 n.ll. 16 Cf. Webster, CQ N.s.2 (1952) 17f(the date of Alexis' Parasites), 23 (Araros' bottom date). 166 ALEXIS AND THE PARASITE'S NAME Leo17 was, I believe, the first to realise that these verses contained a formula of introduction which is repeated elsewhere in Graeco­ Roman comedy. This same formula recurs in the opening words of two Plautine parasites: in Menaechmi 77, Iuuentus nomen fecit Peniculo mihi, and in Captiui 69, Iuuentus nomen indidit Scorto mihi.18 The fragments of Greek comedy reveal two further parallels. These come from Antiphanes' Progonoi (fr.195 Kock, vv.lO-11): , ~_ \ _ , 'f , Kcn KaI1.0va/, I-" o/, VfEWTfEPOL \:" ~ I 'P I OLa TaVTa 71'aVTa ~K"f}7I'TOV, and from Anaxippus' Keraunos (fr.3 Kock): • ~ \ • __ \ I ~ ,/,. 1\ opw yap fEK 71'aI1.aLUTpas TWV -y""WV , A' ~ ~ \1 71'poa£OVTa I-"OL ~aI-"L7I'7I'0v'-'1 TOVTOV I\EyfELS t ' I ~ t · ,/,.!\ \ ~ I TOV 71'fETptvOV; TOVTOV O/, -y""0£ Kal\Ova/, aOL '\:"'t" U , VVV(, 0(, aVOpfELaV .fi.fEpavvov. All these passages use an identical formula for introducing a parasite to the audience by his nickname. For all we know, this formula may have been as standardised for the purpose as certain other dramatic formulae were, like those employed in satyr plays and in new comedy for the introduction of their respective choruses. The inventor of the parasite formula mayor may not have been Alexis. The passage quoted here from his Parasitos is, however, one of the two earliest of the five parallel quotations. The fragment of Antiphanes may per­ haps have antedated that of Alexis, but there is simply no means of dating the play from which the Antiphanes fragment is derived, nor even for deciding whether its author was the elder of the two Anti­ phanes who produced comedies. 17 F. Leo, Plautinische Forschungen zur Kritik and Geschichte der Komildiel (Berlin 1912) 106. Cf Brinkhoeff, op.cit. (supra n.2) 131. 18 The similarity between the two Plautine passages led nineteenth-century scholarship, immersed as it was in its theories of post-Plautine retractatio, to feel that one of these two 'Plautine' instances of this formula was rather the work of a post-Plautine remanieur (e.g. P. E. Sonnenburg, De Menaechmis Plautina retractata libel/us [Diss. Bonn 1882] 2; Ribbeck, RhM 37 [1882] 532). It is in fact far more likely that both these passages come from the hand of Plautus and were adapted from Greek models which contained the paraSite's introduction formula in words basically similar to those of the Antiphanes fragment here quoted. Cf especially Leo, op.cit. (supra n.17) 106; K. Abel, Die Plautusprologe (Diss. Frankfurt 1955) 53f. w. GEOFFREY ARNOTT 167 In all these passages-and this is the crucial point-the audience is told the parasite's nickname, which had been given to him by the group of young men with whom he had been associating. Sometimes the parasite reveals this information himself; sometimes the inform­ ant is another person talking about the parasite. But in each case the nickname is one that by a vivid image illustrates an aspect of the para­ site's character, such as his voracity. What Alexis did was to take the stock character, which at that time was still known as the K6Aa~, and to trick him out with the newfangled nickname napaaLTo~, a nomen proprium here to be spelled with an initial capital for modern readers, as Kaibel first saw.19 Other comic poets used metaphors like 'Sponge' and Thunderbolt' to symbolise their parasites' voracity; Alexis with greater felicity chose his parasite's metaphorical nickname from the world of religious ritual. Up to the moment when Alexis produced his Parasitos, we may be sure, the term 1TapaaLTos was still reserved for the priestly dignitary who received free meals in the sanctuary of his god or hero. Alexis' originality lay in decking out his parasite with a nickname that evoked for his audience a picture of priestly gormand­ isers, and especially doubtless those at Cynosarges in the service of Heracles, the archetypal glutton and patron of comic parasites.20 And we may guess that what began as a colourful nickname for one stage parasite so impressed the audience by its aptness that they began to use it themselves as the mot juste for the type as a whole. Certainly already by the middle of the fourth century there are signs that the word 1TapaaLTo~ was now in normal use in its later, more general sense. This study is dedicated to a modest end, a minor but attractive de­ tail in the history of Greek comedy. If a small addition to our knowl­ edge is thereby achieved, it will have been achieved by the one means possible, given the very limited and fragmentary material that the historian of mid-fourth-century comedy has at his disposal. That means is the careful study of the comic fragments of the period. As K. J. Dover has written,21 "The attempt to trace through the frag- 18 In his edition of Athenaeus, ad loe. (10.4210). The nickname gives the play its title, as does that of the similarly introduced parasite in Anaxippus' Keraunos. 20 Hence the words of the parasite in Plaut. Cure. 358 when he relates the story of his gambling adventure, inuoco almam meam nutricem Herculem. 21 See p.1l8 of Dover's incisive, stimulating chapter in Fifty Years of Classical Scholarship, ed. Platnauer1 (Oxford 1954). 168 ALEXIS AND THE PARASITE'S NAME ments of the fourth-century comic poets the development of ele­ ments common to Old and New Comedy and the origins of elements characteristic of New Comedy constitutes the true study of Middle Comedy."22 UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS January, 1968 IS This paper is an expanded and revised version of some work-notes that have engaged my attention sporadically for several years. Cf BICS 6 (1959) 78f.