Aristotle, Eratosthenes and the beginnings of Alexandrian scholarship on the Archaia

In his work On the Ancient Comedy, fr. 25 Strecker, Eratosthenes of Cyrene gives a positive appraisal of a play on words by the comic poet Cratinus, describing it as οὐκ ἀρύθμως παίζειν. In this paper I will argue that what the ancient scholar had in mind was Aristotle’s view according
to which the poets of the Archaia had very little idea of how ἐμμελῶς παίζειν (EN 4.14, 1128a 9). Several ancient scholia to Aristophanes’ comedies seem to testify to the influence of Eratosthenes’ attitude in this regard.