The New International Encyclopædia/Eupolis

EU′POLIS (Lat., from Gk. Εὔπολις) (c.446–411 B.C.). An Athenian poel of the Old Comedy, ranking with Cratinus and Aristophanes. His first play was produced in B.C. 429, when he was but seventeen years old. He produced in all fourteen, or, according to Suidas, seventeen pieces, of which seven won the first prize. In the early part of his career he was on terms of close friendship and collaborated with Aristophanes, but later the relation was changed so that each accused the other of plagiarizing from his dramas. Eupolis died apparently in B.C. 411 in a naval battle, in consequence of which misfortune it is said the Athenians thereafter exempted poets from military service. The fragments are collected in Meineke, Fragmenta Comicorum Græcorum, vols. i., ii. (Berlin, 1839–57); Kock, Comicorum Atticorum Fragmenta, vol. i. (Leipzig, 1880).