Alexei Alexeev (University of Ottawa)
In his Kolakes (“Spongers”), Eupolis (c. 446-411 BCE) describes Cecrops as “human as far down as the crotch, then a tunny-fish from there on down” (F 159). This peculiar portrayal of the first king of Athens differs radically from the enduring convention depicting theriomorphic Cecrops as a serpent-legged creature (Gantz 1993; Kron 1976).
What was Eupolis’s motivation for choosing this particular imagery? Was this unorthodox iconography the author’s pure invention, or was it a smart allusion to the prototype, well-known to the contemporaries? If the latter is the case, what was its likely source?
Gourmelen (2004: 42) interprets this unusual representation of Cecrops as a mockery of the famous culture hero, while Ogden (2013: 261) sees it as a possible reference to general drakontes-kētē affinity. This paper seeks to provide an alternative interpretation, informed by the theoretical concept of transtextuality (Genette 1997a, 1997b) and the general semiotic view of material artefacts as “readable texts” (Eco 1976; Lotman 1990). The understanding of iconographic expressions as a type of “language” is a common notion in the study of numismatic artefacts (Elkins and Krmnicek 2014; Howgego 1995). The corpus’s fragmentary nature and brevity make a careful application of close reading techniques, focusing on seemingly insignificant details and textual “oddities”, particularly beneficial (Brooks 1947; Wimsatt 1954).
The Kolakes was staged in 421 BCE, taking the first prize while defeating Aristophanes’s Peace. The relationship between Eupolis and Aristophanes is described as ranging from friendly collaboration to accusations of plagiarism (Halliwell 1989; Sidwell 1993; Storey 2003). Eupolis’s fragment could be plausibly interpreted as a smart parody of Aristophanes’s depiction of Cecrops as “Dracontides below the waist” (Wasps 438). The Dracontides was a prominent family mentioned repeatedly in the context of legal machinations (Wasps 157; Plutarch Pericles 32). Thus, the verse could be interpreted as a satirical commentary on the practices of political demagoguery, corruption, and embezzlement among the Athenian elites.
A careful examination of the contemporary numismatic material has identified the Cecrops-type electrum cyzicenes, which circulated widely in the fifth century BCE, as the most-likely source of Eupolis’s inspiration. They are easily recognisable through the mint’s badge, a tunny-fish (Alexeev 2018; Greenwell 1887). Eupolis’s reference to “Cyzicus, full of staters” in the Poleis (F 247) confirms the city’s reputation as a prolific coin-producing center and indicates that its coins were well-known to the author and his contemporaries.
A close reading in combination with the historicocritical method of textual analysis provides vital interpretive clues that help to elucidate authorial intent and characterize the context of the fragment’s reception. The investigation reveals a sophisticated transtextual construction, wherein Eupolis’s “tunny-fish” fragment emerges as a double hypertextual reference: first, as a smart parody of Aristophanes’s “Dracontides” hypotextual source, and second, as a numismatically inspired verbal caricature devised through the clever application of deliberate distortion. Concurrently, the Cecrops-type coin plays a double role: first, as an autonomous iconic paratextual illustration in contemporary cultural discourse, and second, as the hypotextual source in a witty dialogue between the two leading Old Comedy masters.