Abstract

Recent discussions of Aristophanes' early career raise again the question who was recognized as a victor with the Babylonians and the Acharnians and his name officially recorded, Aristophanes the poet or Kallistratos his didaskalos. This old-new controversy has brought back into focus the City Victors' list and the reconstruction of' API [in the second column of the comic poets. The inscription itself has not been studied anew and the reader is referred to earlier examinations of it, especially to two articles of E. Capps and to the verdict of A. Pickard-Cambridge, who maintains that it is needless to follow the controversy in detail: ‘For the fifth century, the name of Aristophanes is restored with practical certainty in the list of victors at the Dionysia, between those of Hermippus and Eupolis, it now being proved that the first victory of Aristomenes, the other candidate for the place, fell much later. One can hardly blame Pickard-Cambridge and others for evading the intricate calculations and boring details. Yet, it seems that they deserve, or rather require a re-examination, for Capps, although a meticulous and distinguished epigraphist, had the tendency to jump easily to rash conclusions. Indeed, his frankness in readily admitting his mistakes and recanting untenable positions evokes admiration, but, since his work belongs to a period in which hypotheses were more easily advanced and less rigorously defended than today, an attempt should be made to take a look at his argumentations and see whether they are still valid.