On the oratory of Demosthenes

This fragment of Eratosthenes (fr. 19 in A. Bagordo’s collection) presents a series of problems linked to the incomplete state of its source, a papyrus from Oxyrhynchus (PSI 2.144) preserving part of a column of writing from a work that is difficult to define. Eratosthenes, quoted in this work, reported a series of humorous anecdotes about the orator Demosthenes: this material appears to be drawn from the fourth-century comic poets Antiphanes and Timocles and from the Athenian Peripatetic philosopher and statesman Demetrius of Phalerum (fourth/third century BC). At the end of the column the papyrus mentions the fifth-century Athenian comic poet Crates.