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The arrival of Aristeides, Miltiades, Solon and Perikles in Eupolis' Demes was arguably one of the most celebrated scenes of Attic Old Comedy.1 Platonios (diff. char. 13-4) praises Eupolis for 'being capable of resurrecting (...) from Hades the characters of lawgivers and through them to discuss the establishment or the repeal of laws.'2 Aelius Aristides (3.365) observes that 'a certain comic poet depicted four of the Athenian leaders as coming back to life (...).' Platonios uses the verb anj avgw to refer to the ascent of the four statesmen to the upper world, whereas Aelius Aristides chooses .... Both ... and ... thmi describe an upwards movement, and suggest a return to the world of the living. Neither of them, however, specifies the nature of this journey.
Scholarship3 of the last century tended to favour the hypothesis that Eupolis' Demes featured an underworld setting and that only in the second part of the play were the four statesmen brought back to the upper world. In recent times, this established assumption has been challenged by Storey, who has suggested that Aristeides, Miltiades, Solon and Perikles were summoned up through necromancy.4 Conversely, Telò in his recent commentary on the Demes 5 has returned to the traditional view that the play must have contained a set of post-katabatic scenes.
This paper re-examines this thorny question through a detailed textual analysis, as well as through a discussion of the most significant scholarly opinions. The second part of this work makes some suggestions for a possible staging of this scene, on the basis of the stage directions, which are implicit in the text, and in the light of what we can infer of fifth-century theatre practice. I shall argue that the success of Eupolis' Demes was achieved not only through a captivating plotline, but also thanks to an intelligent use of theatrical devices.
THE UNDERWORLD SETTING
In the last century it was opinio communis within Eupolidean scholarship that the first part of the Demes was set in the underworld, that a dokimasia or assessment of politicians from the past resolved into sending back to earth Aristeides, Miltiades, Solon and Perikles, and that right after the parabasis the scene was moved to Athens.6 Early twentieth-century...