This paper provides a statistical survey of the incidence of elision at the penthemimeral caesura in the iambic trimeters of Greek tragedy. It updates and builds on the work of Descroix by considering the rates of elision of different types of words: lexicals, nonlexical polysyllables, and nonlexical monosyllables. While all tragedians elide less at the caesura than throughout the line, in Aeschylus the rate of this reduction is far greater for lexicals and polysyllabic nonlexicals than it is for monosyllabic nonlexicals. (...) On this evidence, and the evidence of interlinear elision, it is tentatively suggested that lexicals and nonlexical polysyllables should together be considered as the more constrained elisions. When the rates of constrained elision are examined, the difference between Aeschylus and later Euripides is revealed to be twice that obtained when bulk figures are used. This difference is attributed to a combination of Euripides’ adoption of more fluent phrasing towards the end of his career and the tragedians’ different approaches to compositional constraints. (shrink)

Greek tragedy shows a serious preoccupation with family concerns. Some of these concerns seem beyond the scope of ordinary family experience, particularly in the matter of the behaviour of women. The apparent discrepancy between historical evidence and the literary presentation of women has long been noted and variously explained. I want to suggest that this discrepancy reflects a way of distinguishing between the objectives and behaviour of the great aristocratic clans and of those families which were neither so wealthy nor (...) so politically influential. A dichotomy is thus presented between dynastic interests and the interests of the ordinary family as a well-regulated part of the Athenian city state. (shrink)

A scholiast's note on Lysistrata mentions that there was an alternative title to the play: Adôniazousai. A close reading of the play with this title in mind reveals that Lysistrata and her allies metaphorically hold an Adonis festival atop the Acropolis. The Adonia, a festival that is typically regarded as “marginal” and “private” by modern scholars, thus becomes symbolically central and public as the sex-strike held by the women halts the Peloponnesian war. The public space of the Acropolis becomes, notionally, (...) a private rooftop, and Adonia-like activity proliferates; boars, myrrh, Aphrodite, “gardens of Adonis,” and lamentation all play important roles. The notion that the women of Lysistrata hold an unexpected Adonis festival on the Acropolis, at the very heart of the Athenian polis, provides a more nuanced reading of the play and forces us to rethink the place of the Adonia at Athens as well as, more generally, the distinction between public and private festivals. (shrink)

This essay explains the appearance of tragic narrative patterns and motifs in the Croesus logos not as a passive manifestation of "tragic influence," but as a self-conscious textual strategy whereby Herodotus makes his narratives familiar and engaging while also demonstrating the distinctive traits of his own innovative discourse, historie. Herodotus' purposive appropriation and modification of tragic technique manifests the critical engagement with other authors and literary genres that is one of the defining features of the Histories. Herodotus embellishes the story (...) of Atys and Adrastus with numerous formal and thematic features of Attic tragedy. Uniquely in the Histories, the story traces the full arc of a tragic drama, from the king's ominous dream of Atys' death to catastrophe, lament, and burial. The celebrated climactic description of Adrastus' suicide, however, transcends Herodotus' dramatic model. In describing Adrastus as the most unfortunate man "of all that he himself knew," Herodotus introduces an idiom used elsewhere in the Histories to portray the activity of the histor, and thus places the unmistakable stamp of his own genre upon tragic narrative. In a fully mimetic episode that lacks the author's characteristically intrusive "voiceprint," Herodotus seems to suggest that he could beat the dramatists at their own game if he chose to play it. Two other episodes make similar use of tragic motifs on a smaller scale. In the story of Gyges and Candaules Herodotus adapts the Aeschylean motif of the decision made under duress to focus attention on human causation and socio-political issues of fundamental interest to him. Finally, the tragic stylization of Croesus' pyre scene allows Herodotus to manipulate audience expectations while subtly demonstrating, through the use of indirect discourse, the interest in source criticism that sets Herodotean historie apart from the poetic tradition. (shrink)

Any attempt to grapple with the issue of divine behaviour towards men in Aischylos or any other Greek thinker must begin with the question of expectations: what do the gods expect from men, and what, if anything, may men expect in return from the gods? A. W. H. Adkins has I think demonstrated clearly that in Homer at least the defining barrier between mortal and immortal is one of degree, not kind; the gods are gods not because of moral excellences (...) or all-encompassing wisdom, but simply by virtue of their greater power. This power, and the capacity to defend it, is the essence of their τιμή, which they guard as jealously as any mortal γαθός. What is expected of men, therefore, is a healthy respect for divine τιμή, and an avoidance of any action, however innocent, which might seem to lessen divine status. Thus when Hermes in the first book of the Odyssey tells Aigisthos not to kill Agamemnon or to take his wife, he does so qua god, not moral adviser, and Aigisthos' transgression lies foremost in his rejection of that command. In the same way Hesiod's Prometheus offends against the prerogatives and τιμή of Zeus, and is appropriately punished; that he meant well is irrelevant to Hesiod, nor is there any interest in his rehabilitation. Examples in the lyric poets are by the nature of the genre less abundant, but we may certainly note Stesichoros 223 PMG, where Tyndareos' accidental slight of Aphrodite draws down the anger of the goddess on his daughters. Similar too is the fate of the daughters of Proitos, whose boast in Bakchylides 11 that their father is wealthier than Hera brings about their subsequent madness. (shrink)

It has been acknowledged ever since H. T. Becker's dissertation on Aeschylus in Greek comedy that Aristophanes' plays can provide us with a terminus ante quern for the composition of the Prometheus Bound. The evidence is clearly presented by Becker and shows that there are a large number of echoes, particularly in the Knights and later in the Birds. Of these latter the most interesting occurs at Birds 1547, a line spoken by Prometheus himself, μισ δ' πατντας τω θεō ς (...) ōσθα ς which is certainly meant to parody PV 975, πλΏ λγ τōς πντας χθα ρω θεōς a line also spoken by Prometheus. It makes explicit what is surely implicit in all Aristophanic imitation, that what we have here is not just a play but a particular context that is so well known that the reference is meant to be picked up not just by the fictional ‘you’ to whom it is addressed but by the audience, too; in short we may infer that the line of the Prometheus Bound was already a classic quotation. (shrink)

The conflict between Prometheus and Zeus has long dominated critical discussion of the play and diverted attention from the only mortal to appear onstage. Prometheus is widely applauded as humanity's saviour and Zeus condemned as an oppressive tyrant, but the fate of the maiden Io is largely discounted. Her encounter with Prometheus, however, is the longest and most complex episode in the play, and it provides a very different perspective on events. The elaborate forecast of her journeys delivered by Prometheus (...) deploys the ‘discourse of barbarism’ to picture a primitive world ravaged by savage violence and hostile monsters. The lands through which Io is to travel are devoid of the civil and religious institutions of the classical Greek polis and oikos. Yet the episode also foretells how this barbaric world will evolve under the aegis of Zeus. Argive Io, as ‘wife’ of Zeus, will found a ‘new family’ of mortals who will introduce and champion the norms of Greek civic culture in his and her name alike. Prophecy, allusion and foreshadowing thus reveal the Zeus of this play to be not the harsh and destructive despot imagined by most today, but the benevolent source and ultimate arbiter of justice for both gods and humanity. (shrink)

So Pearson. The strange series of hypodochmiacs here and atO.T.1207 ff., with brevis in longo without pause atAj.421 andO.T.1208, seems metrically self-contained, despite their syntactical interdependence (esp.Aj.421–2οὐκέτ' ἄνδρα μὴ | τόνδ' ἴδητ', so that the word-overlap ofοἷονinto iambics in Pearson's text is unlikely.ἑξερῶ μέγαshould therefore be writtenplena scriptura. Thenοἷον οὔτιν' ἁ Τροί|α στρατοῦ…is possible, but the ithyphallic with word-overlap, sometimes found in the syncopated iambics of Aeschylus, is foreign to Sophocles. Divideἐξερῶ μέγα, | οἷον οὔτινα | Τροία…Thenϕίλοι τοῖσδ' ὁμοῦ = (...) οἷον οὔτινα, i.e.δ= hyp., which is not certainly found, and the antistrophe has two syllables extra. (shrink)