The problem of the genuineness of Antigone's lines Ant. 904–20 has never been satisfactorily resolved. The passage has been vehemently impugned for more than a century and a half; yet the majority of editors print it without brackets, and probably the majority of scholars accept it. This stalemate is aggravated by the manner in which the argument has traditionally been conducted.

This essay attempts a reevaluation of the use of Greek tragedy in Vergil's Aeneid, drawing on recent advances in the study of literary allusion and on current approaches to Greek drama which emphasize the importance of social context. I argue that extensive allusions to the figure of Ajax in the Aeneid serve as a subtext for the construction of the personae of Dido and Turnus. The allusive presence of Ajax attests to the existence of a tragic register in the epic, (...) which intersects with and complicates the multiple allusive registers within the poem. Moreover, I propose that a detailed examination of Vergil's manipulation of tragedy's articulation of socio-political and ideological problems may in turn illuminate the Aeneid as a national epic and its much-contested relationship with Augustan ideology. More specifically, I argue that issues of identity and moral action explored in Sophocles' Ajax are crucial in the cases of Dido and Turnus, who similarly find themselves in conflict with and unable to adapt to the new social and political structure of Aeneas' new order. Like Ajax, Dido and Turnus define themselves through constant reference to their relationship with their people. All three, however, engage in action which pits them against the interests of their communities and which results in their complete isolation. Unable to adjust their behavioral code to ensure their survival, Dido and Turnus embody a heroic ideal which, though laudable, can have no place in Aeneas' Roman future. Vergil thus mobilizes a tragic allusive register in order to illustrate the tension between the celebration of this ideal and the realization that social change has rendered it obsolete. At the same time, the loss of the ideals that Dido and Turnus represent necessitates the articulation of a comparable, if not superior, ethical code which Aeneas is called on to embody. Allusive evidence linking Aeneas to the tragic Ajax, however, seems to indicate Aeneas' failure to emerge as a superior moral force in the poem. (shrink)

The paper analyses the formal features of the characters of Oresteia in Greek tragedy. The protagonists and the minor characters are compared, for which the rhythmical liveliness and variability of the personages’ utterances, the length and number of utterances, and the number of dialogue verses in the metrical repertoire of the corresponding personage are taken into account. The analysis revealed that the data of Sophocles and Euripides are more close to each other both in the respect of general “liveliness” and (...) the “liveliness” of characters’ utterances. Certain differences in the metrics and rhythmics of the main and minor characters’ verses become most obvious when we compare Electra’s part with minor characters (e. g., in Electra’s part there is always the biggest proportion of lyrical parts, more unstandard settlements, more verses with splits than any other character). The index of liveliness of Electra’s part is almost the same in all the authors. Although the same tendencies in Orestes are more schematical, the metrics and rhythmics of his utterances are rather similar to those of Electra. Thus, in respect of the proportion of lyrical verses, he always comes second after Electra; he also has quite many split verses. The parts of minor characters are usually made up entirely of iambic trimesters, the rhythmical variety of their speeches is higher than average, but there are no splits in their parts (except for Aegisthus). However, there are characters which parts have unstandard rhythm, e.g., the pedagogue in Sophocles or Chrysothemis, who is a contrast to Electra by her nature as well as her rhythmics. The contrast with other minor characters is even bigger. Clytaemnestra’s part is both rhythmically and metrically intermediate: inAeschylus her utterances consist entirely of iambic trimeters, but in Sophocles and Euripides she pronounces also a couple of lyrical verses. There are alsosome splits in her verses which usually do not occur in minor persons. (shrink)

In hisLives of Eminent Philosophers Diogenes Laertius mentions, among the various traditions of how Diogenes the Cynic met his end, the belief that he committed suicide by retention of the breath. He cites as his authority for this the poet Cercidas of Megalopolis, who, between some fifty and a hundred years after the death of the Cynic, celebrated his ascent to heaven in the following verses.

Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus has traditionally been regarded as the poet's primary tragedy involving hero cult; this essay explores the more subtle but no less ritually explicit hero cult of the Aias first outlined by Burian. The passage, as Burian saw, occurs when the young Eurysakes kneels at his father's body and Teukros conducts an unusual combination of rites: supplication, curse, offering of hair, and magic . One crucial direction to the child, kai phulasse , however, is here not understood (...) to be a paradox of the suppliant who "protects" what he seizes but rather his physical attachment to the locus where he abides as well as his ritual dependence on the source of protection . By saying a curse and obtaining protection, Teukros and Eurysakes indicate how the still-warm body of the dead hero has already acquired special powers after death: specifically, the power to bestow both blessings and curses on mortals. The argument turns from the body to the tomb, the physical and lasting monument of hero cult, which the Sophoclean audience would know. The preceding scene ends with a pivotal choral passage where the hero's burial and cult are prescribed in highly Homeric terms . This passage forms an important link between the opposing views of the fate of the corpse and also between the hero's death and burial. This choral celebration of the hero's future status is cast in traditional Homeric language, but with some revealing inversions. One is the reversal of the verb whereby the earth "holds" or possesses heroes in Homer, while Aias occupies and possesses his tomb . The evolution of Homeric views of death is traced . In Sophocles' Aias the chorus performs the burial as a ritual act establishing a cult, long before it happens at the end of the play. The article concludes with a discussion of the historical cults of Aias known to the Athenians and of the more significant way that Aias becomes a hero: not self-consciously, as Oedipus did, but through rituals performed by his family and community. In the Aias, the poet's sense of hero cult lies closer to Homer and the epic tradition than it does, for instance, to Aeschylus. (shrink)