William Watson Goodwin, Commentary on Demosthenes: On the Crown

3. Σιμύκκᾳ (so Σ): Theophrastus (Athen. VIII. 348 A) mentions Σιμμύκαν τὸν ὑποκριτήν.—ἐτριταγωνίστεις: a company of strolling actors, such as performed at the country festivals, was probably composed of two men, who played the first and second parts and hired another to play the third parts.

4. σῦκα...χωρίων: the meaning of these much disputed words seems to be, that the band of players subsisted chiefly on the fruit which Aeschines, as their hired servant, collected from the neighbouring farms by begging, stealing, or buying, as he found most convenient. He is compared to a small fruiterer (ὀπωρώνης), who each morning collects his load of fruit from farms which he has hired, or wherever else he can get it cheapest. Pollux (VI. 128) includes ὀπωρώνης (with πορνοβοσκός and ἀλλαντοπώλης) in his long list of βίοι ἐφ᾽ οἷς ἄν τις ὀνειδισθείη.

5. πλείω...ἀγώνων, getting more (profit) from these than from your plays (contests).

6. οὓς (cogn. acc.)...ἠγωνίζεσθε, which you played at the risk of your lives (or in which you fought for your lives), with a pun on the two meanings of ἀγών and ἀγωνίζομαι, fight and play: see IV. 47 τῶν στρατηγῶν ἕκαστος δὶς καὶ τρὶς κρίνεται παρ᾽ ὑμῖν περὶ θανάτου, πρὸς δὲ τοὺς ἐχθροὺς οὐδεὶς οὐδὲ ἅπαξ αὐτῶν ἀγωνίσασθαι περὶ θανάτου τολμᾷ, where there is a similar pun on beingtried (ἀγωνίζεσθαι) for their lives in court and in battle.

7. ἄσπονδος καὶ ἀκήρυκτος, with- out truce or herald, i.e. implacable, without even the common decencies of civilized warfare.

9. τραύματ᾽ εἰληφὼς: see XIX. 337, ὅτε μὲν τὰ Θυέστου καὶ τῶν ἐπὶ Τροίᾳ κακὰ ἠγωνίζετο, ἐξεβάλλετε αὐτὸν καὶ ἐξεσυρίττετε ἐκ τῶν θεάτρων, καὶ μόνον οὐ κατελεύετε οὕτως ὥστε τελευτῶντα τοῦ τριταγωνιστεῖν ἀποστῆναι. This account of the πόλεμος makes τραύματ̓ here perfectly intelligible; but the reading τούτων τραύματα in 6 (which all MSS. except Σ have) makes endless difficulty and confusion. If τραύματα in 6 is referred to wounds received in stealing fruit, compared with those received on the stage or after the play, there is a strange repetition of the latter; if there is a reference (as Westermann suggests) to fruit used in pelting the actors, it is hard to see how figs, grapes, and olives could endanger the lives of the “heavy groaners.”

10. ὡς δειλοὺς σκώπτεις: see § 245.2.

Demosthenes (XIX. 246, 247) says that Aeschines was a τριταγωνιστής also to actors of high repute, as Theodorus and Aristodemus; and he reminds him of the time when he used to play the part of Creon in the Antigone with these actors. He adds the following: ἐν ἅπασι τοῖς δράμασι τοῖς τραγικοῖς ἐξαίρετόν ἐστιν ὥσπερ γέρας τοῖς τριταγωνισταῖς τὸ τοὺς τυράννους καὶ τοὺς τὰ σκῆπτρ᾽ ἔχοντας εἰσιέναι.