Only one third of Sikyonioi survives, and many lines are only partially preserved. The reconstruction of the plot is therefore very uncertain, especially in the first three acts. But although the state of the text invites caution, attempts at reconstructing the staging of the play are far from otiose, since they may have an influence on other textual and interpretative choices. With these caveats in mind, the present article addresses a specific question in the staging of Menander's Sikyonioi: to where does Eleusinios, the character who makes the ῥῆσις in the fourth act, depart at line 271? In order to address this point, a re-examination of entrances and exits in lines 150–271 is necessary. A number of mutually alternative reconstructions have been suggested; I shall argue that Anna Maria Belardinelli's view, although still a minority one, is likely to be the most satisfactory solution so far proposed. In particular, I shall then show how the identification of the likely direction towards which Eleusinios leaves the stage at line 271 complements and supports Belardinelli's reconstruction, with important consequences for the reconstruction of the staging of the whole play. Finally, I shall consider the question regarding the number of stage doors active in Sikyonioi; contrary to the commonly held view, I shall argue that, although certainty is clearly unattainable, the play seems to require three stage doors, and the third stage door is likely to be the entrance to a shrine.

The most convincing identification of the speakers in the first ca 120 lines of the fourth act of Sikyonioi is the one suggested by Belardinelli.Footnote ¹ The stage movements can be reconstructed as follows:

1. (1) Two characters, Smicrines and Eleusinios, enter the stage in mid-conversation at line 150.Footnote ²

2. (2) Smicrines leaves at line 168 and enters his house.

3. (3) Eleusinios too is about to leave, but he is asked by a character, Malthaké, who comes out from a stage building, to report the events which took place at the sanctuary (lines 169–75).

4. (4) Eleusinios remains onstage until line 271 to deliver his monologue, then he leaves the stage (and Malthaké arguably does so too).

5. (5) At line 272, Stratophanes, who is probably accompanied by Pyrrhias, enters upon returning from the sanctuary. The two are being chased by Moschion, who enters immediately after them.

This reconstruction has met with surprisingly limited agreement. Yet, it proves more likely than all concurrent ones on several counts. I shall therefore revisit here the more compelling evidence in support of it.

First, it has been argued that Eleusinios may not remain onstage after being insulted by Smicrines on account of the convention that the insulted character is normally the first to leave; hence, some take it that in the passage of Sikyonioi the character who is being insulted must go offstage first. However, Belardinelli does not only show why such a convention does not entirely fit with the passage of Sikyonioi (both characters exchange reciprocal insults), but she also identifies a good Menandrean parallel for her reconstruction: in Sam. 294–5, the cook and Parmenon first trade insults, then the cook enters the house and when Parmenon too is about to enter, he is stopped by Demeas.Footnote ³ To my mind, one should take this comparison a little further. In Sam. 294–5 the cook and Parmenon exchange insults, and the latter replies to the cook's οἴμωζε with καὶ σύ, τοῦτό γε | παντὸς ἕνεκ’. ἀλλὰ παράγετ’ εἴσω. Along the same lines, I believe that in the passage of Sikyonioi the uacat which occurs after καὶ σύ in the Sorbonne papyrus is a mistake influenced by the uacat before καὶ σύ, and that, like in the passage of Samia, the violent comment which follows καὶ σύ (νοῦν ἔχεις φ[εύγων⋅ σκάφης | ἐγὼ γὰρ ἄν σ’ ἐποίησα συστο[μώτερον, 167–8) should be attributed to the same character who replies with καὶ σύ. To sum up, Smicrines says οἴμωζε (cf. the cook's οἴμωζε in Samia), and Eleusinios replies with καὶ σύ. νοῦν ἔχεις φ[εύγων⋅ σκάφης | ἐγὼ γὰρ ἄν σ’ ἐποίησα συστο[μώτερον (cf. Parmenon's καὶ σύ, τοῦτό γε | παντὸς ἕνεκ’. ἀλλὰ παράγετ’ εἴσω in Samia). This distribution of the speakers’ words in lines 167–8 places our passage of Sikyonioi more in line with other parallels, in Menander and other authors, where characters exchange insults; Eleusinios would thus be the last one to insult the other and he also remains onstage after Smicrines leaves.Footnote ⁴

Second, only this reconstruction proves compatible with a three-actor troupe (plus a small part by an extra).Footnote ⁵ Actor 1, who plays Smicrines, leaves the stage at line 168. Actor 2, who plays Eleusinios, remains onstage to deliver the report to Malthaké. Actor 1 will then reappear onstage at line 272, when Actor 1 and Actor 3 play Moschion and Stratophanes, respectively. According to such a reconstruction, in this scene Malthaké is played by an extra. This is very plausible. Malthaké only speaks a handful of lines (169, 171–3, 175); contrast this with the tour de force of Actor 2 (Eleusinios), who speaks lines 170 and 174 and then delivers the lively, uninterrupted monologue which covers lines 176–271.Footnote ⁶ The meagre price to be paid for accepting this reconstruction is that the παράγραφος at 171 in the Sorbonne papyrus would need to be deemed a mistake due to the influence of the παράγραφοι at lines 168, 169, 170, 173 and 174 (the same mistake occurs at lines 142, 143 and 156).Footnote ⁷ Besides, although the context is fragmentary, it is quite plausible that the final clause in line 171 may well go with the sentence which begins with βουλόμεθ’ ἀκοῦσαι at line 172, as these lines together provide an answer to the question posed by Eleusinios at line 170:

Malthaké never cuts into Eleusinios’ monologue to comment on his report, as it is otherwise usual in comic ῥήσεις: this feature not only imitates the Messenger's monologue in Euripides’ Orestes,Footnote ⁹ but also allows Menander to limit as much as possible the extra actor's lines.Footnote ¹⁰

Other reconstructions of the staging are far more problematic as far as the use of three actors is concerned. If the report of the events at the sanctuary had really been requested by one of the two actors who had entered at line 150 (Actor 1 and Actor 2) from a new character who enters at line 168 (Actor 3), it would then follow that from 169 to 271 two actors are onstage (Actor 1 and Actor 3), and consequently one of these would then have had very little time after the end of the report to get indoors, change costume and move to the εἴσοδος from which he reappears at line 272 together with Actor 2.Footnote ¹¹

Third, as Eleusinios delivers the monologue, he presents himself not just as being from Eleusis, but also as a democrat and a man of the people:

This perfectly suits the profile of the character who has the heated exchange with Smicrines at the opening of the fourth act:

The profile of the person who defines himself as δημο]τικός at line 182 evidently suits the same one who is derogatively called ὄχλος at line 150. Further, during the report of the events at the sanctuary, Eleusinios constantly identifies himself with the crowd and its opinions:

These elements, that is, Eleusinios’ democratic views and his self-identification with the people of Eleusis who assist in the events at the sanctuary, strongly suggest that he is the democrat who enters the stage in mid-conversation with Smicrines, the oligarch, at line 150.

Likewise, the oligarchic who enters at line 150 is clearly aware of what happened at the sanctuary. One may easily compare lines 150–5 with the description of Stratophanes bursting into tears at 218–22 and the wide support the soldier receives from the crowd, as narrated by Eleusinios, e.g. at 243–5 and 257:

On the basis of this compelling evidence, it would be plainly illogical that starting from line 169 Smicrines would be asking someone else to report the events at the sanctuary, since he has evidently witnessed them first-hand.Footnote ¹⁶

Finally, Belardinelli's suggestion, that Malthaké is the character who stops Eleusinios at line 169 asking him to report about the events at the sanctuary, proves most reasonable.Footnote ¹⁷ Support comes initially from the parallel with Euripides’ Orestes, as in both cases a messenger figure reports the outcome of an assembly to a female character who is deeply involved in the events.Footnote ¹⁸ Like Electra in Orestes, Malthaké has an obvious interest in what happens to Philoumena: she is fully aware of the risk of her ending up married to Theron, should Stratophanes marry Philoumena. Not only can there be relatively little doubt that the fragmentary dialogue in lines 36–52 is about this matter,Footnote ¹⁹ but conclusive evidence is provided by Theron's words at lines 144–5:

Clearly, Malthaké ending up married to Theron is already a possible outcome at that point of the play, and so it is only natural to infer that in act 4 she may have every reason to ask eagerly for more detailed information about the outcome of the events at the sanctuary, since her future marital life depends on it, rather than waiting for Stratophanes to come back and bring her up to date.Footnote ²¹

Belardinelli's is thus the most likely solution regarding the identification of the speakers in lines 150–271. Yet, one can improve on her reconstruction with reference to Eleusinios’ exit movement first at line 169, when the man is held back by Malthaké, and then at line 271. This detail has far-reaching consequences. Conclusive evidence in response to the question where Eleusinios is going to when he is about leave occurs at line 169:

According to Belardinelli, Eleusinios is heading towards one of the εἴσοδοι.Footnote ²² However, there is one fundamental objection to this suggestion.

At line 169, although the supplement δόμων inevitably remains uncertain, the supplement παραστά[σιν is virtually beyond doubt;Footnote ²³ and since the παραστάδες are the doorposts and Eleusinios is asked to stop ἐν παραστά[σιν, the only plausible inference we can make is that Eleusinios is about to enter a stage building. Such an interpretation is entirely consistent with Eleusinios’ words at line 271, when he finally takes his leave with the words ἀλλ’ ἀπέ[ρχομαι.Footnote ²⁴ Further, if Eleusinios really were now moving towards one of the εἴσοδοι, it would be very odd that he is asked to stop beside the entrance of one of the stage buildings. Finally, one may also note that all other scholars, although (wrongly) identifying the character to whom this line is addressed as Smicrines, agree that the character to whom line 169 is addressed is about to enter a stage building.Footnote ²⁵

To conclude, since Eleusinios does eventually enter a stage building, and since this building can be neither Smicrines’ house (where Smicrines has entered before) nor the building where Stratophanes lodges (from which Malthaké comes out), it follows that a third stage door must be present, and that this is the door through which Eleusinios will eventually enter. Due to the fragmentary state of preservation of Sikyonioi the identification of the building to which this door belongs remains hypothetical. However, there is scope for arguing in favour of a possibility which I consider more convincing than the others.

The staging of Sikyonioi is commonly thought of as requiring only two stage doors which represent two households:Footnote ²⁶ one of these is where Smicrines, his wife and their son Moschion live; the other is where Stratophanes lodges and his goods are stored (see lines 385–96), though the extant parts of the play do not explain to whom it belongs.Footnote ²⁷ That a shrine appeared between the buildings is deemed likely by Alain Blanchard;Footnote ²⁸ if, as is commonly argued by many scholars, the prologue was spoken by a deity,Footnote ²⁹ at the end of the prologue this god or goddess may retreat inside the shrine (the obvious parallel being Pan in Dyskolos). Yet, beside the fact that the two households of Smicrines and Stratophanes would seem to be abutting each other,Footnote ³⁰ the presence of a shrine onstage is not supported by Blanchard with reference to any explicit piece of evidence in the text.

In light of the revised reconstruction of the staging which has been defended above, one now needs to find a role for the third stage door where Eleusinios finally enters at line 272. The first option is that this building is, indeed, a shrine, the obvious Menandrean parallel being Dyskolos, although a temple also appears onstage in Leukadia.Footnote ³¹ This shrine is where Eleusinios was going to in the first place upon coming back to Eleusis from Athens, in order to take part in the sacrifice organised by a friend of his, one of the δημόται, as he explains at lines 183–8:

The use of παραστάδες at line 169 to describe the entrance of the building is entirely compatible with the idea that it is a shrine, as demonstrated by the use of παραστάδες in Eur. IT 1059 ἄναξ, ἔχ’ αὐτοῦ πόδα σὸν ἐν παραστάσιν (someone is entering a temple and being held back). Further, it has been aptly pointed out that the use of παραστάδες is elevated language.Footnote ³⁴ However, what has escaped notice is that παραστάδες can hardly refer to a private house; in extant literary texts, the παραστάδες are those of a temple (as in Eur. IT 1059 and Andr. 1121) or of a mythological king's house (as in Eur. Phoen. 415 and, though in a parodic context, in Crat. fr. 42 K–A),Footnote ³⁵ and in documentary texts too this word is exclusively used of temples and major public buildings.Footnote ³⁶ Thus, ἐν παραστά[σιν is quite likely to be concrete evidence that the door through which Eleusinios is about to enter belongs to a temple (or at the very least to a public building), rather than being the porch of a private house as scholars regularly maintain. On this new reading, one would not necessarily need to disregard the widely accepted supplement ἐν παραστά[σιν δόμων, an example of δόμος ‘temple’ in a context where παραστάδες too are mentioned being Eur. IT 1060 τί δ’ ἔστιν, Ἰφιγένεια, καινὸν ἐν δόμοις; As an alternative, I would suggest ἐν παραστά[σιν νεώ (but in this case the tone would be less paratragic).Footnote ³⁷

The day on which Sikyonioi takes place seems to be a festive day at Eleusis,Footnote ³⁸ and so it would not be at all odd if a private celebration is organised in a shrine. There is no evidence in the fragments of Sikyonioi which derive from, or are commonly attributed to, the earlier parts of the play that anyone is organising any such thing as a sacrifice. Yet, since the remnants of the first half of this play are particularly meagre, it is not at all inconceivable that something of that sort may have been the case. A possible difference from Dyskolos is that while in Diskyolos the shine occupies the central door,Footnote ³⁹ this is uncertain in Sikyonioi. Stratophanes says that the building where he lodges is adjacent to Smicrines’ house,Footnote ⁴⁰ and the stage door which functions as the entrance to the shrine could be one of the side doors rather than the central one. An explanation for such a disposition might be that while the nymphaeum occupying the central door in Dyskolos is a famous one (and one which Menander's audience could probably have recognised),Footnote ⁴¹ the shrine in Sikyonioi might be a smaller one;Footnote ⁴² or perhaps, while in Dyskolos the shrine plays a key role in the plot, this was not the case in Sikyonioi. In Roman comedy, too, the shrine onstage can be a smaller one rather than a sanctuary.Footnote ⁴³ However, one need not take Stratophanes’ words in lines 386–7 too literally. In addition to the inferences deriving from the use of εἰς γειτόνων without the definite article,Footnote ⁴⁴ two households which are separated by a shrine may still be said to be adjacent to one another, a clear case being Simiche's words in Dysk. 594 τὸν Δᾶον ἐκ τῶν γειτόνων ἐγὼ καλῶ; (note the use of the definite article, despite the presence of the nymphaeum between the two doors).

The alternative for identifying the door through which Eleusinios enters is that this is the door of Eleusinios’ house, which would then be one of the stage buildings. The use of three stage doors to represent three private households is a possibility already suggested for other plays by Menander, but their poor state of preservation regularly makes it impossible to verify this.Footnote ⁴⁵ It is commonly held that the use of three households onstage in Roman comedy is automatically a proof of Roman innovation, and that this was not an option in New Comedy.Footnote ⁴⁶ Be that as it may, an evaluation of this possibility can be attempted for Sikyonioi.

To start with, Eleusinios says that he is from Eleusis,Footnote ⁴⁷ so it is not inconceivable that his house may be onstage. Further, during the heated exchange in lines 150–69 Smicrines and Eleusinios appear to be quite familiar to each other. Particularly interesting is Eleusinios’ invective against Smicrines in lines 163–6. While earlier in their dispute Eleusinios criticises Smicrines’ political views, of which he could have become aware while the two were walking back from the sanctuary, in lines 162–6 Eleusinios concentrates on Smicrines’ greediness:

Some scholars have made tentative inferences from this passage in an attempt to reconstruct lost stages of the plot.Footnote ⁴⁹ At any rate, if Eleusinios is Smicrines’ neighbour, this would explain why he is familiar with the latter's greedy nature, which seems to be the focal point of his critique of Smicrines in the fragmentary lines above.

However, things are not straightforward; there are two main problems with this hypothesis. The first is that Eleusinios introduces himself to Malthaké at lines 187–8; they thus do not seem to know each other. A possible justification could be that Malthaké had only recently arrived at Eleusis with Stratophanes, and so they simply did not know the people around there (all the more so since Eleusinios was busy in Athens). Eleusinios is also very vague in describing Stratophanes,Footnote ⁵⁰ and this could be due to the same reason. However, in order to suggest this, one would need to postulate that Stratophanes and Malthaké have arrived in Eleusis on the very day on which the play is set; although this is not implausible,Footnote ⁵¹ no concrete evidence for it can be adduced.Footnote ⁵² Besides, that Malthaké is not an Athenian seems quite unlikely, all the more so if at the end of the play she and Theron do marry.Footnote ⁵³ The second problem is that Eleusinios not only does not name Moschion during his report, but he is very vague about who he is, and this would be undoubtedly odd if the two were neighbours.Footnote ⁵⁴ Such a counter-intuitive choice on Menander's part may be due to the imitation of his tragic model, but, again, this seems like an unnecessarily complicated explanation.

We may now try and provide a summary of the main results of this research on the staging of Menander's Sikyonioi.

First, Belardinelli's reconstruction of the stage movement in the opening of act 4 proves to be by far the most convincing one: not only does it fully comply with the conventions of Menandrean stagecraft, but it likewise fits in well with the paratragic features of this passage; adopting it also results in the content of the remarks of the characters onstage suiting their profile. On the textual level, the παράγραφος at line 172 should be deemed an easily explainable mistake on the scribe's part, due to the presence of many παράγραφοι in these lines. To my mind, in light of a parallel passage in Samia, lines 167b–8 should also be attributed to the same speaker (Eleusinios), on the assumption that the scribe erroneously added a second, unnecessary uacat at line 167 after καὶ σύ, probably influenced by the one right before καὶ σύ.

Second, one can improve on Belardinelli's reconstruction in one important detail, namely that Eleusinios does not leave the stage by one of the εἴσοδοι after his report is over, but rather enters one of the stage buildings. Sikyonioi thus requires three stage doors to be present, rather than two as is regularly maintained. Such a conclusion is explicitly supported by the order to stop ἐν παραστά[σιν that he is given at line 169; the use of the term παραστάδες presupposes that this is the entrance of a building. The best option we have is to suggest that the building that Eleusinios is about to enter at line 169, and which he eventually enters at line 271, is a shrine, which is likely to be the place where Eleusinios was going to in order to take part in the sacrifice offered by a friend of his (see lines 183–7); providing this information in his report would otherwise look somewhat pointless.