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 me Use of Myths to Create Suspense 
 in Extant Greek Tragedy 
 
 A DISSERTATION 
 presented to the 
 
 Faculty of Princeton University 
 
 in Candidacy for the Degree 
 
 of Doctor of Philosophy 
 
 BY 
 
 WLLLIAM W. FLINT Jr. 
 
£ m 
 
 & 
 
 
 
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 - - g 
 
 IF1 v 
 
The Use of Myths to Create Suspense 
 in Extant Greek Tragedy 
 
 A DISSERTATION 
 
 presented to the 
 
 Faculty of Princeton University 
 
 in Candidacy for the Degree 
 
 of Doctor of Philosophy 
 
 BY 
 
 WLLLIAM W. FLINT JR. 
 

 Accepted by the Department of Classics 
 June 1921. 
 
 /y-ca 
 

 FOREWORD. 
 
 The present study was originally intended to be part of a larger 
 treatment of all the specific means to secure suspense employed 
 by the Greek Tragic Poets. This, however, outgrew the scope of 
 a Doctoral Dissertation. The author hopes to publish separately 
 parts of the larger study. 
 
 The author's thanks are due to Professor Edward Capps of 
 Princeton University, and to Mr. A. W. Pickard-Cambridge of 
 Balliol College, Oxford, who have read the manuscript and gen- 
 erously given suggestions and assistance at every point. 
 
 St. Paul's School, 
 
 Concord, New Hampshire, 
 December 1, 1922. 
 
 49873 
 
THE USE OF MYTHS IN CREATING SUSPENSE. 
 
 By the word ' plot ' we mean nowadays the bare abstract of the 
 action of a play or story, like a summary of a game of chess. So 
 we speak of an 'elopement plot', a 'jealous husband plot', and so 
 on. The word /j.v6os in Aristotle's Poetics appears in the process 
 of change from the meaning it bears in Fifth Century prose, which 
 is 'story', to a later meaning identical with 'plot'. Now 'story' 
 means more than 'plot', for a story is about some one; there must 
 be a Red-Riding-Hood, a Guenevere, or an Odysseus. Thus 
 when Aristotle names /jlvOos as one of six elements of tragedy 
 (Poetics 1450 a 9), and says elsewhere that he intends to show 
 xcos Set ovvioTaodai. tovs fxWovs (ibid. 1447 a 9), the element of 
 p.Wos means more than an impersonal skeleton of hypothetical 
 events. It includes certain fictitious characters whose actions 
 and dispositions are already to a degree fixed by existing tradi- 
 tion. Concerning the same characters there may be several 
 traditions varying and even contradicting each other. A ju90os 
 has thus not the fixity of history. The duty of one who handles it 
 afresh is not that of the historian, to discover among the variants 
 one version and one only which is objectively true. So far from 
 being a source of confusion, a wealth of divergent stories about the 
 same characters is a clear advantage. From among them the 
 poet may select or combine with an eye solely to the artistic 
 worth of his creation, or to a moral which he wishes to illustrate. 
 
 The Greek tragic poets worked in a field of national legend, 
 with characters and events already familiar to all or part of their 
 hearers. Most of these myths were by the Fifth Century fairly 
 well fixed in their main lines. But within these existed an end- 
 less diversity of localization, chronology, and minor detail, so 
 that a poet, by combining different stories or by alluding to 
 variants in the course of the action, could create a semblance of 
 uncertainty as to the issue of his play. Occasionally, as in the 
 stories of the end of Oedipus or of the career of Helen, the vari- 
 ants assumed the importance of flat contradictions on essential 
 points. These variants may be divided into two main classes: 
 
 1) Variants due to artistic elaboration by earlier poets within the 
 recollection of the spectators. These affect our question of sus- 
 
6 
 
 pense to a limited degree, as will appear. In Aristophanes, Ach. 
 417 ff. Oeneus, Telephus, Phoenix, Philoctetes, Bellerophontes, 
 and Thyestes are mentioned, each with some familiar individual 
 characteristic. (See Demosthenes, De Cor. 180.) But in each 
 case the character is something less or more than the same 
 character in the saga. Here we have to do, not with the shad- 
 owy Philoctetes of a mysterious legend, but with the Philoctetes of 
 Euripides, known by sight and voice to the audience. As the 
 characters, so the play itself stood out in the mind of one who 
 had seen it as a clearly outlined picture against a nimbus of 
 poorly related incident and detail that was the ancient saga. 
 Thus a poet who rehandled a theme familiar in contempora- 
 neous literature had to guard against two things: a) following 
 his model too closely for originality, b) diverging from his model 
 where that model embodied a consensus of tradition, to depart 
 from which would be unconvincing or shocking. Similarly the 
 poets tended to avoid the stories of the Iliad and Odyssey, which 
 lay already at hand in a highly artistic form, contained few in- 
 cidents big enough for independent development (as Aristotle 
 remarks, Poetics 23), and were fixed in the minds of every Athe- 
 nian audience. Occasionally older literary variants are alluded 
 to in the course of a tragedy as matters of interest or as contribut- 
 ing to the fixing of a mood. As an example of this latter way, 
 the ax with which Clytaemestra killed Agamemnon in Stesichorus' 
 Oresteia figures impressively in Cassandra's prophecy along with 
 the sword which Aeschylus meant to be used in his play. The 
 ax was familiar to the audience through the contemporary tradi- 
 tion of painting, based as it was on Stesichorus. Literary vari- 
 ants could be thus alluded to, followed, or disregarded, in order 
 to produce suspense of doubtful issue, but only with great 
 caution. 
 
 2) Variants proceeding, from conflicting local versions of the 
 same myth. The element of uncertainty which could be pro- 
 duced by these means is perhaps the most important single fac- 
 tor in the suspense of any Greek play, a) Often a poet would 
 build up a strong rising action running directly counter to the 
 main lines of the received story (Philoctetes, Orestes); but when 
 the received story itself was honeycombed with contradictions 
 which the audience knew, who could be certain what dramatic 
 conclusion would be used to square all the facts? And who among 
 
the audience was so accomplished a mythologer as to be certain 
 the poet had no authority for the version adopted? b) Or 
 again, a poet by starting from an isolated and little known ver- 
 sion of a myth could develop with perfect logic a situation for 
 which no precedent existed at all (Helen), c) Again, the Euripi- 
 dean device of a concluding deus ex machina might or might 
 not affect importantly the conclusion of a play, and thus a plot 
 might be developed, humanly considered, on lines of absolute 
 heresy and be mechanically squared with tradition at the end. 
 (See Verrall's study of the Orestes.) Then minor variants of 
 the myth offered endless opportunities for temporary uncer- 
 tainties and surprises. 
 
 Thus we see that while to us a Greek tragedy is a region of 
 second-hand thrills and foregone conclusions, it was anything 
 but that to its proper audiences. Our own elementary knowl- 
 edge of mythology comes indirectly from writers of the Roman 
 period who formulated traditions fixed by the tragic poets them- 
 selves. In some cases, of course, notably the Oresteia, the 
 tradition was fixed beyond recall even before Aeschylus. But 
 this is not true of the greater part of the Theban Cycle, of the 
 Heracles stories, nor of most isolated plots like those of the 
 Medea or the Philoctetes. 
 
 An attempt will be made in what follows to examine the evi- 
 dence as to the forms of myths used by the tragic poets in their 
 extant works, with an eye to determining as far as possible how 
 far the use made of the received story contributed to real un- 
 certainty on the part of the audience as to the issue of the play. 
 Naturally the history of the stories will not concern us except in 
 so far as they affect this question. Such historical material will 
 naturally group itself, as we saw, into two heads: the literary 
 predecessors which limited a playwright's opportunities, and the 
 non-literary which enriched them. 
 
 I. Stories of the Trojan War. 
 
 1. Rhesus. 
 
 The only source we know for this story is Iliad X. The 
 dramatist has followed this closely, introducing a few conven- 
 tional dramatic devices. 
 
8 
 
 a) The point of view is shifted from the Greek to the Trojan, 
 and the two important incidents, the sending out of Dolon (149 
 ff.) and the arrival of Rhesus, are (264 ff.) introduced before anj r 
 Greeks appear. Consequently we feel the presence of Odysseus 
 and Diomedes as a menace hanging over the actors, which may 
 materialize at any moment. We are kept reminded of this theme 
 by the forebodings of Aeneas 128 el 8' h 86\ov tiv t?5' iiyei, 
 and of Hector 498-509. This passage is dragged in purely for 
 this purpose, because the event Hector describes suggests the 
 Doloneia. (The initial impulse of the Doloneia (II. X, 12 ff.) 
 was the burning of night-fires by the Trojans, not the Greeks. 
 Given the shift to the Trojan point of view, the author of the 
 Rhesus had to make some such change. The 4>pvKTupia is thus 
 poorly motivated in the play and serves merely to warn the 
 audience of what in general is to follow, through a vague recol- 
 lection of //. X, 12.) The plot initiated by Odysseus is strictly an 
 anachronism, for it comes from the Little Iliad. The passage ma}' 
 be a reminiscence of Hec. 239 ff. 
 
 b) Magnification of Rhesus, so that the whole war is made to 
 depend on this night. In II. X, 435 ff.,he is only a lay figure 
 who owns horses that may be stolen. In the play are introduced 
 his strength as an ally, 276-7, 290, 309-16; his personal impres- 
 siveness 301-8, 314-6; his confidence 391-2, 447-53, 467-73, 
 488-91. All this is ratified by Athena's prophecy 600-5, that if 
 Rhesus lives through the night he will win the war for the Tro- 
 jans. (Cf. Soph. Ai. 750-7.) Also may be noted the suspense 
 which is developed against Rhesus' entrance by the messenger's 
 awe-struck account 284-6, which helps animate the first half of 
 the play. 
 
 c) In the Iliad Rhesus had arrived the day before or at some 
 recent time, so that the Trojan camp knew all about him though 
 the Greeks did not; his force had not yet been coordinated with 
 the rest of the Trojans: //. X, 434 ver)\v8es, ea-xaroi aXKuv. In 
 the play he arrives after Dolon sets out. The result is that 
 when Odysseus and Diomedes appear (565) the keen listener 
 realizes that they can know nothing of Rhesus, since Dolon, from 
 whom in 27. X they learned about him, here knew nothing him- 
 self. In 575-6 it appears that they are still after Hector. The 
 possibility that they may get him is a real one, for he may at 
 any moment return to his tent and if so will be off his guard. 
 
9 
 
 Thus the issue of the Iliad is only made possible by the inter- 
 vention of Athena 595-607. This is the only example extant of 
 a god being introduced, in the middle of a play, to square tin- 
 action with tradition. 
 
 Dolon is mentioned by Diomedes in 573; we do not find out 
 that he has been killed till 591. This bit of information, which 
 leads us back to the tradition, follows on 507 90, during which 
 tradition seemed to be ignored. Similarly in 499 ff. the reminder 
 about Odysseus comes at the end of the episode of Rhesus' en- 
 trance, where again tradition was altered. 591-2 are followed 
 by Athena's directions to Odysseus and Diomedes which put 
 them on the right track; 499 ff. come at the end of the episode 
 preceding Odysseus' arrival. Both of these passages are evi- 
 dently pointers to the audience intimating that the familiar 
 vers 'on is shortly to be resumed. 
 
 d) The password in 573 would hardly be introduced unless it 
 was to be used later, and its use thus assures us that the spies will 
 be for a time at least in the hands of the Trojans. So 682-91. 
 
 e) 161-90. Dolon's stipulating for a reward. This, like the 
 circumstance attending Rhesus' arrival, is introduced to fill out 
 the first half of the play, for which no example already existed. 
 Similarly the dispute between Hector and Rhesus in 393-453, 
 which leads to nothing, and Hector's original unwillingness in 
 319-341 to accept his aid. 
 
 See Porter, Hermathena 1913, p. 348 ff., for a theory about a 
 literary version of the Doloneia between the Iliad and our play. 
 Also Overbeck, Gallerie Heroischer Bildwerke, 112 ff. ; Schreiber, 
 Annali 1875, 299; Robert, Arch. Ztg. 1882, 47; and cf. a late 
 Capuan vase in the Ashmolean Museum, which may have drawn 
 on the play, where the costume is clearly not a disguise. The 
 costume of Dolon on the vase at least does not establish what 
 Porter thinks it does, and the evidence is too vague to be of use 
 to us. 
 
 The poet of the Rhesus produces suspense through varying a 
 fixed literary form: 
 
 a) by the uncertainty of the meaning of the Greek watch-fires, 
 128; 
 
 b) by the importance given to Rhesus through a theme 
 borrowed from Soph. Aias; 
 
 c) by changing the order of events so that the paths of Rhesus 
 
10 
 
 and of Odysseus and Diomedes converge during the play before 
 our eyes; 
 
 d) by introducing suspense over the possible murder of Hector, 
 Aeneas, or Paris; 
 
 e) by additional detail: password; Dolon's claim for reward; 
 argument between Hector and Rhesus. 
 
 2. Aias. 
 
 The story of the madness and suicide of Aias following on the 
 award of the arms was common to the Aethiopis, the Little Iliad, 
 and the Iliupersis. The story seems to have been duplicated in the 
 first two epics and alluded to in the third. (Eustath. on II. XIII 
 515.) From the Little Iliad we get the essentials of the Sopho- 
 clean plot, the madness of Aias, the killing of the cattle, followed 
 by the suicide of Aias (Procl.). The suicide is also alluded to by 
 Pindar (A 7 , vii 25 ff. ; N. viii 23 ff. ; I. iv 35) with a possible refer- 
 ence to the madness (N. vii 24-5, el yap ?jv \ % rav akaOeiav Vbkufv) 
 and the madness and suicide are handled by Aeschylus in the 
 Threissae. (Schneidewin-Nauck, Intr. to Ai., p. 45 ff.) In the 
 last paragraph of the hypothesis to the Aias appear traces of a 
 story, probably older than ours, by which Aias was killed in 
 battle with the Trojans. To this Od. Ill 109 doubtless refers. 
 The story about the Trojans throwing mud over him might have 
 been a satyric perversion of this. For a death by stoning, such 
 as the Atreidae are made to threaten in 251-2 (the chorus are 
 reporting camp-rumor), there seems no precedent in the saga. It 
 can hardly be an allusion to the mud-throwing story, for this was 
 done by the Trojans in battle. We know nothing of the details 
 of the version in the Cycle, and so it is impossible to say with 
 certainty how much of Sophocles' handling is original. The 
 speech of Aias in 646-92, nominally disclaiming the intention of 
 suicide, really affirming it in veiled language: 
 
 654 dXX' etjut xpos re \ovrpa nal TapaKrlovs 
 
 Xtijucoj'as, cos av \vp.ad' dyplaas ep.a 
 
 p.rjvLv fiapelav e£aXi>£a)jutu Beds ' 
 
 juoXcoj/ re x&P 0V ivO' av aaTiflrj nixw, 
 
 xpui/'co t65' «7xos rovfiov, exdiVTOV (3e\oiv, 
 
 yaias 6pv£as evda fit] ris oi/'crat ' 
 
 dXX' avro vvi; "Al8t]$ t« gu^ovtwv koltco. 
 691 . . . Kai rax' o.v fx' ictcs 
 
 irvdoiade, Kti vvv 5v<ttvx&, ceaoocixevov. 
 
11 
 
 is thoroughly Sophoclean and can hardly be assumed to have 
 been paralleled in an earlier version. Nothing could be better 
 calculated to initiate a keen suspense lasting over the following 
 ode and episode leading to the actual suicide. On the other hand, 
 the prophecy alluded to by the messenger: 
 
 752 . . . et7re K(X7rea/crji/'e, iravTola Texvfl 
 
 elp^aL kclt' fjnap T0vp.4>aves to vZv rbbt 
 Aiaf#' U7ro aK-qvaiai fxriS' cufrkvT' kav, . . . 
 
 756 eXS yap avrbv rfjde drj/jikpa fxbvj) 
 
 8las 'Adapas p.fjvis . . . 
 
 probably comes from the Aethiopis or the Little Iliad. We know 
 that the time of Aias' suicide was noted in the Aethiopis as the 
 early morning (Sch. Pind. I. iii 53) ; cf. Pindar I. iv 35 kv b\piq. 
 wkt'l. The change to day time would be no more than was re- 
 quired in a daytime play. But, what is more important, 757 
 does not square with the rest of the Sophoclean version. Aias 
 is no longer suffering from the wrath of Athena but from the 
 shame consequent upon it; cf. 348-52, 367, 372-6, 460 ff., where 
 he passes from bewilderment and savage despair to the settled 
 conviction that life for him is no longer worth living (vid. 654 ff. 
 cited above). 752-7 is clearly a survival from an older version 
 which was not interested in real psychology, preserved here for 
 its obvious advantage as a means of quickening suspense in an 
 excited scene (cf. Rhesus 595-607). 
 
 The only reference to a previous handling of the burial theme 
 in the Aias is in Eustathius ad II., p. 285, 34 Rom. 6 r^v ftucpip 
 "IXid5a ypa\pas icrTope7 fJ.r)5e Kavdrjvat o-wqduis top A'lavra, Ttdfjpat. 5e 
 ovtus kp aop(jo 5id T-qu opyrjv tov /3acrtXea;s. In the Nckyia Aias is 
 with the other shades and so must have been properly buried. 
 There are references to an Aias-cult in Salamis (7. G. ii, 1, 594; 
 Hdt. viii, 64, 121; Paus. i, 35, 2); in Athens he was the epony- 
 mous hero of one of the tribes (Paus. i 5, 1; iii, 9, 9; Plut., Mor. 
 628 A ff.; Plut. Solon 10; Hdt, v 66), and the mythical ancestor 
 of the Eurysakidae and Philaidae (Marcell. Vit. Thuc. 3; Plut. 
 Ale. 1; Hdt, vi 35). In fact, the Athenians took special pains to 
 appropriate Aias as an ally through the settling in Attica of his 
 two sons (Sch. Pind. N. ii 19). The only reference I can find to 
 an actual tomb of Aias is Paus. i 35. This was in the Troad and, 
 like the barrow of Orestes at Tegea (Hdt. i 67-8), was connected 
 with a find of bones of fabulous size. But no hero who enjoyed 
 
12 
 
 the reputation of Aias in Athens could have been thought of as 
 cast out like Polyneices. Thus the suspense which is initiated in 
 1047 is purely that of a foregone conclusion. (Note also 1166-7 
 'ivda fipoTols tov a.dy.vr\GTOV \ tck^ov evpojevra Kadki-ei. The anapests 
 at the end of the scene between Teucer and Menelaus remind the 
 audience that the cult existed and that, therefore, Aias must 
 somehow be buried decently.) It is quite probable, however, 
 that the raising of the burial issue is new to the saga in this play 
 and that its novelty in part justified the use of a conclusion which 
 seems to us tame. In the passage from Eustathius cited above, 
 the phrase 5id ttjv bpyijv rod (SacuXews is tacked on at the end 
 and may be a reason supplied by the writer who had Sophocles' 
 play in his mind. Nowhere else do we find burial referred to as 
 a pis-aller for cremation; the two customs are parallel in the 
 period represented by the cyclic epics. And the word avv-qdus 
 bears the mark of a late scholar who was puzzled at finding a sim- 
 ple instance of burial and set about to account for it. 
 The myth is used for suspense : 
 
 a) by developing through suggestive passages the familiar 
 myth already well known, and excluding references to other 
 stories; 
 
 b) by over-emphasizing the function of Athena, foreign to the 
 original story, a detail useful for momentary suspense; 
 
 c) by developing uncertainty in the play over the burial issue, 
 which was a foregone conclusion to the audience, not from any 
 version of the myth, but from common knowledge of Aias' status 
 as hero. 
 
 3. Philoctetes. 
 
 Three possible endings to the Philoctetes are indicated in the 
 end of the episode at 1081. They are: 
 
 a) 1078: x°Stos tclx' o.v 4>pbv7)(nv kv tovtu) Xdj3cH 
 
 Xtoco riv r)pXv " vui p.ev ovv bpp.6iixeQov. 
 That is, Philoctetes may accept the situation and go to Troy; 
 
 b) 1054: acpere yap avrbv p.r)be Trpoaypavarjr' en ' 
 
 eare p.ipi>eiv. obbe gov irpocrxPy£ t xei '> 
 to. y' ott\' exovres raDr'. 
 
 c) 1069: rj/jLuv oxajs fj,rj T-qv tvxw bia4>depets. 
 1072: 65' eariv i]p.Giv vavKpaToip 6 ircus" 
 1074: a.Koba'op.ai fiev cos e<f>vv o'lktov rXews 
 
 Tpbs tov8'. 
 
13 
 
 Neoptolemus is independent of Odysseus and controls the situa- 
 tion. Odysseus fears that he may decide to take Philoctetes' 
 part and ruin the p'an. 
 
 The only one of these possibilities which receives any sanction 
 from the epic or lyric tradition is the first. Philoctetes is a hero 
 who is to be brought from his enforced habitation at Lemnos, by 
 whose help alone Troy can fall. 1 That no abstraction was 
 thought of between Philoctetes and his bow is shown by the 
 reference to Bacchylides, where the bow of Heracles first makes 
 its appearance. . . . oi "EWrjves t/c Arjppov //ercGrreiXai'ro tov 
 l \>CKoKTr]TT]u *E\evov pavrevaapkvov' e'ipapro yap ixvtv t&p 'HpaKXtLuv 
 to^wv prj wopdr)6rii>ai to "IXlov (schol. Pind. P. i 53. See Marx I.e. for 
 the relation of Heracles' bow to the rest of the story). Philoc- 
 tetes has been - slight ed by the Greeks, and the belated oracle 
 simply brings him into his own: rd%a 5e pvyaeaOat tpeWov 'Apydot 
 irapa vrjval ^CkoKT-qrao clvclktos (II. II 724-5). Of recalcitrancy on 
 his part there is naturally no question. 
 
 The tragic poets in handling this story had to make some sort 
 of a play out of it. They could not take it in extenso as did the 
 epic, and the incident which most appealed to the imagination 
 was the encounter of Philoctetes with the messenger of the 
 Atreidae after his exile. Obviously the dramatic value of a play 
 dealing with this scene would depend upon the success with which 
 the poet presented a possibility contrary to the received version. 
 Aeschylus naturally used the simplest means to this end. Philoc- 
 tetes is represented as nourishing a deep and implacable resent- 
 ment against the Greeks; he broods on his sufferings, and his 
 lamentations occupy a considerable part of the play (Dio Chrys. 
 Hi 4 ff.). Now that there is to be difficulty in bringing him around, 
 the function of king's agent is shifted from Diomedes (Was Parva 
 ap. Procl.) to Odysseus. Philoctetes fails to recognize him, and 
 he tells a long lie about the utter disaster and desolation of the 
 Greeks; the conclusion comes presumably after a simple process 
 of persuasion extending over the entire play, which finally 
 breaks down a vaguely stated conflict of will. Odysseus keeps 
 his Homeric character of keenness and cunning without being 
 
 1 II. II 724-5; Lit. II. ap. Procl.; Pindar P. i 50; Bacchyl. Fr. 7 Bl., 36 Jebb, 
 16 Bergk. See F. Marx, Neue Jahrb.f. </. Kl. Alt. xiii 1904, 679. Marx docs 
 not do violence to tradition in emphasizing the necessity of Philocteles' per- 
 sonal presence. His account of the source of the myths is uncertain. 
 
14 
 
 degraded ('OSuccea Spinvv icai 86\iou . . . tto\v 5e airkxovTa rrjs vvv 
 naKoriddas, Dio Chrys. Hi 4). What alternative to returning 
 with Odysseus Philoctetes may have had in mind we do not 
 know. In order to answer this question Euripides introduced 
 an embassy of the Trojans offering Philoctetes the throne of 
 Troy if he would come and help them. This gave an oppor- 
 tunity for an agon between Odysseus and the Trojan agent with 
 Philoctetes as umpire; it was this part of the play which most 
 impressed Dio Chrysostom and doubtless formed the kernel of it. 
 Odysseus tries to lure Philoctetes under false pretences; he is a 
 friend, forsooth, of Palamedes who, ruined by Odysseus, is 
 traveling back to Greece and is willing to take Philoctetes in his 
 ship. How this is brought into connection with the offer of the 
 Trojans — whether, that is, Philoctetes recognizes the disguised 
 Odysseus before the Trojans appear — is uncertain. It would 
 seem to make a better play if an anagnorisis came first and if in 
 the agon Philoctetes was faced with the clear-cut choice of cap- 
 turing or triumphantly defending Troy. 1 Sophocles made the 
 suggestion of Philoctetes' return to Greece, which with Euripides 
 had been merely a bait understood by the audience, into a real 
 possibility, a great advance in the creation of suspense. To do 
 this it was necessary to diminish the importance of Odysseus, 
 and to this end Neoptolemus is made the pin whereon the success 
 of the project turns, in violation of the epic source, which placed 
 Neoptolemus' arrival at Troy after that of Philoctetes. (Ilias 
 Parva ap. Procl.) Neoptolemus' youthful sympathy and com- 
 parative detachment from the interests of the Greek army make 
 him possible in such a role, as neither of the traditional figures 
 was. 
 
 The distinction which Philoctetes possessed by reasoD of his 
 bow opened a third possibility, namely, that Philoctetes should 
 be left on the island, and the bow — all that the Greeks needed — 
 should be taken. This theme of the bow had entered the Philoc- 
 tetes story independently of tragedy. In the Catalogue, to be 
 sure, he is only an archer-king from Thessaly destined by his 
 
 1 For the vases vid. Roscher iii 2 2337 ff. The evidence is late and seems to 
 conflict. Odysseus and Diomedes in the cave are robbing Philoctetes of his 
 bow and arrows. Philoctetes faces the Trojans with the bow in his hand, 
 Odysseus and Diomedes looking on from the other side. Evidence for Euripi- 
 des can hardly be derived from this source. 
 
15 
 
 prowess to end the war. But Philoctetes appeared independ- 
 ently in the Heracles-saga, 1 and when the inevitable conflation 
 took place, his archer's prowess was made to depend on a legacy 
 from Heracles and hence gradually became detachable from his 
 person. Nevertheless the tradition stuck that it was Philoctetes 
 himself and not this bow that should capture Troy, and Sophocles 
 in spite of the obvious disadvantage cannot ignore it. Compare 
 196 ff. and 839-42 with 1053-62. This third possibility owes 
 its full development to Sophocles. 
 
 In neither Aeschylus nor Euripides is Lemnos 2 represented as 
 deserted, since the chorus in both cases were Lemnians. It 
 does not matter whether or not they had attended him in the 
 past; Philoctetes, robbed of his bow, but left with a friendly 
 chorus on a populated island, does not constitute a tragic ending 
 to a play. So again, in violation both of the Iliad (VII, 467 ; XXI 
 40) and the Cypria (Procl. sub fin.: Patroclos sold Lycaon at 
 Lemnos), Sophocles makes Lemnos a desert island. Philoctetes 
 is not cut off by the cliffs, for his cave opens both on sea and land 
 (see Woodhouse, J.H.S. 1912, 239). In addition, Aeschylus 
 and Euripides make the coveted bow Philoctetes' sole means of 
 support, 287-9. The importance of the bow is kept in our 
 minds by the business with it during the play: 55, where the 
 stealing of the bow is the essential thing enjoined by Odysseus; 
 839—40, eyu 5' bpw ovvtna Q-qpav tt)v8' dXtws exop.ev to^cov, 8lx<x roOSe 
 ir\kovT€s. TObde yap 6 arecpauos, tovtov 8eos elwe kojj.'l'^€iv. Neoptolemus 
 here repudiates the purpose of Odysseus to carry off the bow 
 at any cost; 974, where Neoptolemus is stopped by Odysseus 
 from returning the bow to Philoctetes; 1292, where he succeeds 
 in doing so. 
 
 Thus in the Sophoclean play the three possibilities are fully 
 developed: a) Philoctetes' going to Troy has the sanction of 
 the consensus of the saga, b) The theft of the bow and the 
 
 1 References all late; see Roscher iii 2 2313; there cannot be any doubt, how- 
 ever, of the antiquity of the story. 
 
 2 The island Chryse docs not appear in the extant literature before Euripides. 
 Corssen, Pkilol. 1907, 346, endeavors to show that it was a desert island orig- 
 inally associated with Philoctetes. This may be true, but we must be quite 
 clear that it was not the Philoctetes of the Trojan saga but of the Heracles- 
 saga, as is shown by the vase, Reinach, Repertoire ii ISO, depicting Heracles 
 and two boys sacrificing to a goddess Chryse. The place of banishment is 
 Lemnos in every case. The desolation was added in literature tor effect. 
 
16 
 
 fresh abandonment of Philoctetes are developed out of the play 
 itself, from the seizure of the bow, from Philoctetes' refusal, even 
 in the face of starvation, to follow willingly, and from Odysseus' 
 contempt for the details of the prophecy. This is made a 
 thoroughly tragic possibility by the desolation of the island and 
 Philoctetes' dependence on his bow. (Cf. Serv. ad Aen. iii 402.) 
 c) Philoctetes' return to Greece with Neoptolemus again grows 
 naturally out of the latter's commanding position due to the 
 fact that he, of the two, is unknown to Philoctetes, and the 
 sailors owe their allegiance to him. Indeed, it is the only human 
 solution of the play. 
 
 Thus while no divergence from tradition occurs, divergent 
 mythical themes are used to the fullest degree to create suspense : 
 
 a) through emphasis on the Heracles myth in making Philoc- 
 tetes detachable from his bow; 
 
 b) by depopulating Lemnos in order to make the alternative 
 more tragic; 
 
 c) by tampering with the traditional chronology in order to 
 bring in Neoptolemus, and using him to strengthen a further 
 counter-possibility. 
 
 In the introduction of significant detail, the altering of chronol- 
 ogy, and the emphasis on the personal presence of one character, 
 the Philoctetes strikingly resembles the Rhesus. 
 
 4. Hecabe. 
 
 a) Polydorus and Polymestor. Polydorus in the Iliad (XX 
 407 ff.) is old enough to fight with Achilles; there he is not the 
 son of Hecabe but of "Laothoe" (XX 46). The story of his 
 being the child of Hecabe's old age, sent into Thrace out of the 
 war, has no earlier parallel extant and may well be Euripides' 
 invention. Of Polymestor there is no earlier mention at all. 1 
 
 b) Polyxena. The sacrifice of Polyxena on the grave of 
 Achilles by Neoptolemus appeared in the Iliupersis, and there is 
 
 1 Kaibel, Hermes, 1895, 71 ff. and R. H. Tanner, Trans. Amer. Philol. Assoc, 
 xlvi, 173 ff., point out parallels to the blinding scene in the Cyclops. Tanner 
 shows from the use of certain words in the Hecabe which are more appropriate 
 to the Cyclops that the former was written with the text of the latter in mind ; 
 therefore later. As the blinding in the Hecabe is a surprise, not otherwise led 
 up to, there is no reason to suppose that the memory of the Cyclops led the 
 audience to suspect it before the event. 
 
17 
 
 no variant as to the general course of proceedings (Ibycua apud 
 schol. Eur. Hec. 41; Iliup. apud Procl. sub fin.; vases in Roscher 
 iii 2 p. 2735). There is a difficulty about the connection between 
 the sacrifice and the resurrection of Achilles. This is not men- 
 tioned in the Iliupersis; but in the Nostoi Achilles appears (Frocl.) 
 to Agamemnon as he is sailing off and prophesies the evil things 
 that will happen to him. Sophocles brings the sacrifice of Poly- 
 xena into the same play with the resurrection (Longin. de Subl. 
 xv. 7), but a line remains from this play, obviously from the sort 
 of speech made by Achilles in the Nostoi, prophesying the murder 
 of Agamemnon in terms borrowed from Aeschylus: Fr. 483 
 Nauck: xItuv a' airupos hdvT-qpios kclkuv. This speech would fit 
 the end of a play better than the middle and would, if coupled 
 with a request for the death of Polyxena, dwarf the interest 
 in the sacrifice. It is not unreasonable to suppose that both 
 in Sophocles and the Iliupersis the sacrifice was motivated by a 
 prophecy from Calchas like that regarding Iphigeneia, 1 and that 
 the connection between it and the resurrection was first made by 
 Sophocles (so Weil, Introduction to Eur. Hec.) ; the conclusion 
 follows that in the latter dramatist the sacrifice performed the 
 function of the libations in the Persians 609 ff. and served to 
 call up the dead. 
 
 The interest in our play is pathetic, primarily relating to Hec- 
 abe, and thus the resurrection is not, as in Sophocles, represent ed 
 on the stage. The demand of Achilles is announced in the 
 prologue 40-4, and by Odysseus 305, and the result is a foregone 
 conclusion, as is always the case when events are predicted in 
 the prologue by a supernatural being. In 345 ff . Polyxena offers 
 herself a willing sacrifice. Judging from the analogy of Iphi- 
 geneia (cf. Iph. Aid. 1375 ff., 1552 ff. with Aesch. Ag. 228 ff.) we 
 should be inclined to ascribe this to Euripides' invention, but 
 there is nothing to prove it. (See the discussion of Iph. Aid. 
 in this dissertation.) In the oldest vase representing the scene 
 (Roscher iii 2 , p. 2737-8) there is no question of a willing sacrifice. 
 
 The only unexpected element in the handling of received 
 myths is Polyxena's willing sacrifice. Nevertheless, if w<> agree 
 that the Polymestor story was at least unfamiliar to an Athenian 
 
 1 Calchas appears as a spectator at the sacrifice in the Tabula Uiaca, Roscher 
 iii 2 , 2736, 65; and in Seneca Tro. 364, Calchas confirms a demand already made 
 by Achilles. 
 2 
 
18 
 
 audience, the whole play from 657 has all the suspense of an 
 entirely unknown matter. 
 
 5. Troades. 
 
 There is no confusion which could possibly affect suspense in 
 t his play. Our knowledge of the fate of Astyanax is presupposed 
 in 713-9, where Talthybius announces hesitatingly the sentence 
 of the Greeks. Cf. Iliad XXIV 735 ff. Andromache predicts 
 his death at the hands of the Greeks; Ilias Parva, fr. 18 Kinkel; 
 lliwp. ap. Procl. 
 
 Similarly we know in 860 ff. that Helen will not be murdered. 
 JNIenelaus' intention to punish Helen with death and his inability 
 to do it appear in Ilias Parva, fr. 16 Kinkel; Ibycus ap. schol. 
 Ay. Lys. 155; and schol. Ar. Vesp. 714; Eur. Andr. 628-31. In 
 lliwp. ap. Procl. he takes her to the ships. In the Odyssey they 
 are living happily together at Sparta. For Vases see Roscher i 2 
 1970. 
 
 These two incidents are not mentioned in the prologue. Ob- 
 serve, however, that the fate of Cassandra, where variants did 
 appear, is there settled, 41-4, 70, by reconciling the violation by 
 Aias, son of Ileus, 1 with her servitude to Agamemnon (Nekyia 
 422; Pind. P. xi, 20). An obscure variant which Euripides evi- 
 dently could ignore appears in Bias Parva, fr. 15 Kinkel (cf. the 
 description of a painting supposed to illustrate the Ilias Parva in 
 Paus. X 27), d0tK€ro iikv 8% kirl rov Kacrcra.i>8pas 6 K6pot/3os yafiov, 
 airtSave 8e, cos fxev 6 ifKdcov \6yos, inro NeoTTciXe/JLOV, Aecrxecos 8e bird 
 &io(jLr)8ovs tTToirjaev. All suspense of objective issue is thus re- 
 moved in the Troades, so that interest can be centered on the 
 effect upon Hecabe of one blow after another, which the audience 
 can, but she cannot, foresee. 
 
 II. Return of the Greeks from Troy. 
 
 1. Cyclops. 
 
 The Cyclops is a humorous dramatization of the ninth book of 
 the Odyssey with the addition of the satyrs. The satyrs seem to 
 have been brought into the story by Aristias the son of Pratinas, 
 
 1 Iliup. ap. Procl.; Overbeck Gal. Her., p. 635-55; vases, etc. in Roscher ii, 
 i, 979 ff. ; also the chest of Cypselus, Paus. v 19, 5; Polygnotus in Lesche, Paus 
 x 26, 3. 
 
19 
 
 who wrote a Cyclops, of which the only fragment thai makes 
 sense is airuiXecras rbv olvov eirixtas v8(*)p (cf. Eur. Cyc. 557-8, 
 which means, if anything, that Silenus is trying to fill up 
 the Cyclops' cup with water). That this connection of the 
 Cyclops with the satyrs is more ancient than Euripides seems 
 likely from a vase published with a reproduction by F. Winter, 
 Jahrb. Arch. Inst. 1891, 271 ff., dated about 415 B.C. (cf. Robert, 
 Bild und Lied, p. 35), on which Odysseus' companions are pre- 
 paring to put out the eye of the sleeping Cyclops whilst satyrs 
 frisk about. The same story, with or without the satyrs, was 
 handled by Cratinus in a comedy, probably soon after this play. 1 
 Nevertheless, Euripides follows Homer fairly closely. The 
 main variations arc these (see W. Schmid. Philol. 1896, 59-60) : 
 
 a) 445-6, 507 ff, 536 ff . The Cyclops sets out to join his com- 
 panions; this is merely a false lead to quicken suspense for the 
 time. 
 
 b) The blinding of the Cyclops is not necessary as in Homer, 
 because from the necessities of the stage the cave-mouth cannot 
 be closed. Therefore the motive becomes purely one of revenge 
 (422, 441, 693), and the act a tragic retribution for hybris 
 (605). The Cyclops' famous speech of calculated blasphemy, 
 316^6, thus becomes a necessary element in the mock-tragic 
 effect. The slaughter of the companions (397 ff.) has to be kept, 
 for the same reason. In Cratinus' comedy no one was killed 
 (shown by Kaibel, Herm. 1895, 71 ff.), but nothing needed to be 
 motivated in comedy. 
 
 c) 131-203. (See F. Hahne, Philol. 1907, 36 ff.) Odysseus has 
 no intention of meeting the Cyclops and only does so through 
 dawdling with Silenus. This is a necessary consequence of his 
 finding someone on the island who can tell him of the Cyclops 
 from a Greek point of view, but it none the less contributes to 
 suspense. 
 
 d) 437^0, 466-8, 619-23, 708-9. The freeing of the satyrs. 
 This motive appears also in the Ichneutae, possibly also in the 
 Busiris (Kaibel, I.e.), and might apparently be an element of any 
 satyr-plot. Suspense again appears only as the result of added 
 details: the Cyclops going to join his companions; Odysseus' 
 desire to escape the Cyclops, where the added suspense is short. 
 
 1 R. H. Tanner, Trans. Amer. Philol. Assoc, xlvi 173 ff. 
 
20 
 
 2. Agamemnon. 
 
 The story of the murder of Agamemnon passes through three 
 stages, of which our play is the third. 
 
 a ) Odyssey III 198, 235, 250, 303-5; IV 91-2, 519-37; XI 409- 
 10; XXIV 22, 97. This is a primitive version, in which Aegisthus 
 seduces Agamemnon's wife during his absence and murders him 
 over a banquet at his return. In IV 536-7 there is a free fight 
 between the followers of the respective rivals, in which everyone 
 is killed. Clytaemestra's part in the murder is secondary. 
 
 b) The beginnings of another story appear in Od. XI 410-29 
 (Ktcl avv ov\op.evji dXoxy, XXIV 97 Alyladov vtto xtpo~lv nal ov\op.evqs 
 aXoxoio. Here the deaths of Agamemnon and Cassandra at the 
 hands of Clytaemestra and Aegisthus are told in inextricable con- 
 fusion. Clytaemestra is certainly thought of as having planned 
 the business (429); what she did, beyond butchering Cassandra 
 over her already prostrate husband, is doubtful. XXIV 97 is a 
 mere doublet of the passage in XL We get nearer the familiar 
 version in III 309-10 which lv run tuv ktcdocrewv ovk rjoav (schol.) ; 
 
 rj tol 6 rbv Kreivas Baivv rafov WpyeioLCL 
 Hrjrpos re aTvyepr/s kcli ayaX/a5os Aiyladoio, 
 
 referring of course to Orestes. This is the earliest notice of 
 the mother-murder and implies that she had a more active 
 part in the death of Agamemnon than that of a contriver. 
 Lines of this type in Homer (see schol. to Od. I 300 ovk olbev 6 
 TroirjTris rbv KXvrai/z^crrpas bird rod wcudbs p.bpov) are generally in- 
 sertions from later epics (cf. schol. to Iliad XXIV 720; Iliad 
 XXIII 843; Od. VIII 192 etc.) Hesiod referred to Clytaemes- 
 tra's unfaithfulness (Kat. Gyn. fr. 67 Evelyn-White), and the 
 Nostoi told of the murder of Agamemnon by Aegisthus and 
 Clytaemestra (Procl. sub fin.). These literary references are, 
 however, too scanty for us to draw conclusions from as to the 
 form of the story in the later epic; we can only say that the 
 part of Clytaemestra grew in importance, and that her punish- 
 ment was thought necessary. 
 
 But the vases of the fifth century show a fairly consistent tradi- 
 tion evidently fixed by literary authority (Robert, Bild und Lied, 
 Ch. V), and the vase in this series (Robert I.e. No. 7) that deals 
 with the death of Agamemnon shows Clytaemestra approaching 
 an open door brandishing an ax. The one outstanding literary 
 
21 
 
 version known to us between Homer and Aeschylus was the 
 Oresteia of Stesichorus, and this we know from the quoting of 
 the opening lines in Ar. Pax 775 to have been current and familiar 
 in the fifth century. (Linos 1-2 of Stes. Or. are quoted as one 
 might quote: "Of man's first disobedience and the fruit ..." 
 or "Mrjviv aetSe 0ed." See schol. ad loc.) There is no evidence 
 that Cassandra figured here. The outlines of this version seem 
 harsh and savage. Clytaemestra steps into Aegisthus' place of 
 the Odyssey, and the ax typifies the unnatural brutality of her 
 deed; she kills Agamemnon merely to get him out of the way. 
 This had also been treated by a lyric poet Xanthus, used 
 extensively by Stesichorus and mentioned by Athenaeus, xii, 
 513A 7roXXd 5e tQsv "Eavdov irapaireTroLriKev 6 1,TT)aixopos chairep Kai 
 rr)v 'Opeareiav KaXovp-ku-qv. 
 
 c) The foreshadowing of the third and characteristically fifth- 
 century version appears in Pindar P. xi 22 ff. 
 
 iroTtpbv vlv dp' 'l^Lykvti ew' Evpiir^ 
 
 a^ax^tcrci rrjXe irarpas tuviaev fia.pvTrahaiJ.ov opaai y^oKov ; 
 
 i] erepw Aex et bap.a'^op.kvav 
 
 evvvxoi rrapayov Kolrat ; 
 
 With this begins the civilizing of the story by the study of motive. 
 Pindar merely mentions Cassandra (P. xi 33) as killed with 
 Agamemnon, while Aeschylus uses the Iphigeneia-theme 218-57, 
 1415, 1525-9, 1555-9; general dissatisfaction of the neglected 
 wife, 606-10; Aegisthus 1435-7; Chryseis 1439; Cassandra 1440- 
 7, 1263, as all vital in developing Clytaemestra's motive. 
 
 The story is thus made tragic because, with all its horror, it 
 exhibits a sequence of cause and effect, logical indeed, if not 
 inevitable, with its root in Agamemnon's history as well as in his 
 wife's. (See Hedwig .Ionian's article on the development of 
 'Das Tragische' in Aeschylus. Neue Jahrb. f. d. EX. Alt. 1908, 
 322.) 
 
 Other elements derived by Aeschylus from the story are: 
 
 a) Cassandra. There is no good reason to suppose that she 
 did not appear in Stesichorus, though we have no definite evi- 
 dence. Certainly the passage in Pindar proves that she was 
 part of the continuous tradition, and it is useless to talk about 
 her being taken from the Odyssey (Bild und Lied, p. 180). 
 
 b) The watchman is taken out of the Odyssey (Bild und Lied, 
 
22 
 
 p. 180 n.) whore, however, he was merely a picket of Aegisthus to 
 wat ch for Agamemnon's return (III 524-8). The chain of beacon 
 fires was suggested to Aeschylus by an incident of the Persian 
 war. Xerxes established a chain of such beacons through the 
 islands to announce the capture of Athens (Hdt. ix 3). Fischl, 
 Fernspreche u. Meldewesen in Allertum, Prog. Schweinfurt, 1904, 
 who collects the evidence for ancient telegraphy, fails to find any 
 other early parallel. The advantage to suspense in announcing 
 the approach of Agamemnon by these bizarre means is obvious; 
 it is explained to us 8-10. The light is seen, 20. The chorus 
 doubts Clytaemestra's word, 317-9; appears convinced, 351^, 
 but returns to its doubt, 475-87; the evidence is not sufficient 
 for it. 
 
 c) (From Robert, Bild und Lied, p. 164.) The herald, 503 
 ff., is a degraded Talthybius, like the Paedagogus in Soph. Electra. 
 Talthybius saved Orestes from Clytaemestra at the murder of 
 Aegisthus in Stesichorus (vases in Robert, Ch. V), and was later 
 the companion of Orestes' return (Melian relief, identified by 
 his herald's cap, Mittheil. d. Inst, vi, Taf. Ivii; Roscher, i, 1237-8). 
 Hence it seems to follow that he had early been represented as 
 present at the murder of Agamemnon and rescuing the young 
 Orestes, as he is said to do in Nic. Dam. ap. schol. Muller F.H.G. 
 iii fr. 34, p. 374. 
 
 d) The brutality of the Stesichorean story is softened by 
 Clytaemestra's use of a sword — that of Aegisthus — instead of an 
 ax. The strength of the tradition which associated an ax with 
 Clytaemestra both here and at the death of Aegisthus (vases 
 Robert I.e., Eur. Tro. 361) appears from Aeschylus' allusions to it. 
 There has been such confusion on this simple point (Robert 
 B. u. L., p. 176; Wilamowitz, Aesch. Interp., p. 173 n.; Hofer ap. 
 Roscher ii 1 1237) that it may be well to quote the relevant pas- 
 sages in full. They are: 
 
 Sword: Ag. 1262 kirevxtr cu 8r)yov(xa </>cori <$>aayavov 
 6/ztjs cryoryrjs avTiTiaaadai <\>bvov. 
 1528-9 firjhiv ev "\l8ov fxeyaKavx^'t-rco tji&SriKrjTcp 
 davoiTCj} t'igcls a7rep rjp&v. 
 Cho. 1011 . . . <£apos rob', cos e($a\pev Aiyladov £i<£os. 
 Ax: Ag. 1127 /xeXa7/cepa> Xa/3oDo-a fjirjxa.vrifAa.Ti. 
 
 Cho. 889 00177 tls avdpoKfxrjra irkXeKvv ws raxos. 
 
23 
 
 Besides these specific references to the sword, the language else- 
 where used of the murder can only be taken in one way: 
 
 Ag. 1343 . . . Kaiplav Tr\r]yr]v ex w - 
 
 Surely a remark verging on the obvious, from a man with his 
 skull broken in! 
 
 Ag. 1405 . . . vtKpos be, rrjcrbe be&as x e P°s 
 epyov, dmaias Tenrouos. 
 
 The only definite evidence for the ax in the Agamemnon is 
 Wilamowitz's emendation of 1116 (Aesch. Int., I.e.). 1262-3 is 
 implicitly ruled out of court, if I understand his argument, 
 because Cassandra only begins to visualize the murder in 1114 ff. 
 If so, why is she certain of the ax in 1116, but in 1127 can do no 
 better than ''black-horned engine"? As to the emendation, 
 surely the d\Xd expresses only a loose transition between ideas. 
 In 1115 she sees the net, and the 'net' suggests one aspect of the 
 situation as a whole. "Net! Nay, his own bedfellow is a snare!" 
 As to iipKvs in this loose sense, cf. Barnes on Eur. Electra 965, 
 'sunt autem haec proverbialia, in laqueos, casses, retia, incidere, 
 ets apKvs irl-KTtLv ubi quis in periculum aut malum aliquod impro- 
 viso cadiV , and see indices to Aeschylus and Euripides for 
 examples. 
 
 Nevertheless, neXaynepco ix-qxap^ixarL is a reference to the Ste- 
 sichorean ax. Taken with 1262-3 it stimulates a certain curiosity 
 as to how the murder will be consummated. 1343 and 1405 
 make it fairly clear to the audience that a sword was used and 
 this is settled definitely by 1528-9. 
 
 d) The complete obscuring of Aegisthus is peculiarly Aeschy- 
 lean. It follows naturally from his conception of the story. 
 The play is a study of Clytaemestra's feeling toward Agamemnon 
 and to this end the two are the only important figures to appear 
 before the murder. During this part of the play we study Cly- 
 taemestra's hatred toward her husband, expressed in intense 
 irony, legitimately interpreting it by subsequent events; the short 
 references she makes afterwards to the causes of the hatred serve 
 to fill in the impression we have already gathered. To have 
 brought in Aegisthus earlier would have blurred this impression 
 by making us dwell on the least worthy of all her motives, which 
 Aeschylus, like Pindar (/.c.), wishes to suppress. Nevertheless, 
 
24 
 
 he has to come in at the end in order to make him a real figure for 
 us, since in the next play he has to be killed. 
 
 Stesichorus' Oresteia had fixed the Agamemnon story too 
 securely for any suspense to be developed by Aeschylus as to 
 main issues. Mythological suspense appears only in details: a) 
 Will she use an ax or sword? and has she used an ax or sword? 
 b) Will Aegisthus have anything to do with the murder? c) 
 Delay over the uncertain announcement of victory by the fire 
 telegraph. 
 
 The main suspense lies in the unfolding, not of Clytaemestra's 
 purpose, but of her motive. 
 
 3. Choephoroe. Sophocles' Electra. Euripides' Electra. 
 The retribution story has two stages only: 
 
 a) Od. Ill 307-8. 
 
 . . . Kara 5' eKravt TarpcHpovrja 
 
 Myiadov 5o\6/jlt]tlv, 6 ol irarepa k\vtov tnro.. 
 
 So Od. I 30, 298; III 198. In XI 457 ff. Agamemnon asks about 
 
 his son, concluding significantly: 
 
 461 ov yap 7T03 Te9v7]nev eirl x® 0VL ^i°s 'OpecrTrjs. 1 
 
 b) Od. Ill 309-10. The death of Clytaemestra and Aegisthus 
 together is alluded to in the two late lines. This can only mean 
 that Clytaemestra had been killed by her son. The vengeance 
 of Orestes and Pylades is mentioned in the Nostoi (Procl.) ; it is 
 not said on whom it falls, but as Aegisthus and Clytaemestra are 
 both named as guilty, it is reasonable to suppose, on both. So 
 Pindar P. xi 37. In the Oresteia of Stesichorus, Orestes first 
 kills Aegisthus; Clytaemestra rushes up with the ax but is held 
 and disarmed by Taltlrybius (vases in Bild und Lied, Ch. V). 
 There is nothing to show whether or not he despatched her 
 afterwards. 
 
 The version of the Choephoroe does not differ materially from 
 this. Aegisthus is first killed (869). Clytaemestra appears, 
 attracted by the noise (885) and after a dispute with Orestes, 
 
 1 This strictly Homeric version seems to be the source of the relief from 
 Aricia in Arch. Zeit. 1849, taf. II; Baumeister, Denk., p. 1112. Clytaemestra 
 seeks to hinder Orestes, who is killing Aegisthus. There are no names on the 
 relief, but this identification of the scene (Welcker's) is probable. It is a good, 
 archaic Greek work. See O. Jahn in the original publication. 
 
25 
 
 serving to emphasize the justice of his design and Apollo's will. 
 is driven inside and killed (930). The scene represented on the 
 vases was impossible for Aeschylus, since killing was not allowed 
 on the stage. The settlement with Aegisthus needed no apology, 
 but the interval which is inserted between that and 930 gives a 
 chance to summarize at the supreme moment the leading ideas 
 of the tragedy, well epitomized in 923: 
 
 <tv tol (7eavTr]u, ovk tyo), KaraKTeuets- 
 
 Notable is the reference to an ax in 889. To the audience, for 
 whom the tradition of her rushing at him with an ax still lived, 
 this brings a keen thrill of excitement. 
 
 In Euripides' Electra the separation of the two victims is made 
 still greater. This springs naturally from Euripides' new con- 
 ception of the story. 1 Electra is removed to a peasant's cottage 
 in order that the hatred springing from her humiliation may be 
 the determining motive of the mother-murder. (Cf. Sheppard 
 in Class. Rev. 1918, 137 ff. for good psychological analysis.) 
 Aegisthus is not important enough to be brought to this retreat, 
 and so he is killed at a festival to the nymphs (625) ; his death is 
 the subject of the only proper angelia in this series of plays, 774- 
 858, which intervenes after the old man had been despatched to 
 lure Clytaemestra to her death (684). After Electra's speech 
 over Aegisthus' head, there follows the stichomythia, 962-87, 
 corresponding to Cho. 908-30, explaining the necessity for the 
 coming deed. Orestes' wavering is thus spread over a period (cf . 
 Sheppard, I.e.); it was only momentary in Cho. (899). Clytae- 
 mestra is ignorant of what is in store for her, while we see her on 
 the stage, and for the suspense of hearing her plead for her life is 
 substituted that of her ignorance as against the irony of her de- 
 stroyers in 1007, 1111, 1118, etc. Euripides makes the play. 
 in short, one of intrigue. In the Choephoroe, Orestes and Pylades 
 seize the palace once for all by a coup dc main, namely, the 
 death of Aegisthus. In Euripides, the chances of miscarriage 
 continue up to the end. Aegisthus is taken, not alone before his 
 house, but at a public festival surrounded by a body guard 798-9, 
 631-3, on whose favor, after the death of their master, all further 
 success depends (632); Orestes' mastery of this body guard, not 
 
 ■See Wilamowitz's convincing account of this play in Die beiden El 
 Herm. 1883, 214. 
 
26 
 
 the murder itself, is the real climax of the angelia (844-55); even 
 hero the forethought of the plotters penetrates, for it is the old 
 man himself (853, cf. 664-6) who starts the acclamation of 
 Agamemnon's heir. Again it is the old man's business (664-6) 
 to correlate this murder with Clytaemestra's journey to us and 
 to see that news is kept from her. The scene before the hut, 
 998 flf., is in its effects a doublet of Hecabe 953 ff. Physical force 
 is in each case kept concealed up to the crucial moment. 
 
 In literary form, the version of Sophocles returns to that of 
 the Choephoroe. Clytaemestra and Aegisthus are killed in the 
 palace within a few minutes of each other, the preparatory dia- 
 logue in each case taking place before us. The lesser importance 
 of Aegisthus is indicated, not by making his death preliminary 
 to the other, but by relegating it to the exodus. This enables 
 the poet to keep his actors in the excitement of action to the very 
 end; failing this, he would have had to end with moral reflexions, 
 and this is what he evidently wished to avoid. The sense of 
 danger and uncertainty which Aeschylus neglects to create, is 
 made to pervade the play, in Orestes' stealthy withdrawal (75), 
 in the emphasis on the false story told at length, in the paedagogus 
 mounting guard inside, 1326 ff., and in the remark ovtls avopuv 
 hbov 1369. Much of this may have been in Stesichorus and 
 been brushed aside by Aeschylus in his concentration on the 
 moral issue, but our evidence for the similarity of the two ver- 
 sions is only that Talthybius was Orestes' companion in the art 
 type. 
 
 Other incidents of the dramatic handling are: 
 
 a) Anagnorisis. The anagnorisis in Stesichorus between 
 Electra and the returning Orestes was, if we are to judge from 
 the Melian relief, a simple affair. 1 Talthybius accosts Electra; 
 Orestes remains in the background at first. Talthybius is known 
 to Electra and to the old nurse who accompanies her (Laod- 
 ameia in Stesichorus; schol. ad Cho. 733; Arsinoe in Pindar P. xi 
 17), and introduces himself and Orestes. 
 
 b) Dream. The dream of Clytaemestra was taken over from 
 Stesichorus, of whom the fragment remains (42 Bergk.) 
 
 ra 8e SpciKcov eSotcrice napa fiefipOToipevos ixupov' 
 en 5' apa tov fiaaikevs U\ei<jdevL8as etpavq. 
 
 1 Discussion in Robert, Bild und Lied, Ch. V. Picture in Roscher s.v. 
 Electra. 
 
27 
 
 The interpretation of these lines is uncertain. (Compare Robert 
 Bild unci Lied, p. 170-1; Wilam. Aesch. Interp., p. 191, for the 
 two interpretations.) A dream implies, however, most of the 
 earlier art ion, viz. the libations and anagnorisis at the tomb. 
 
 c) The price on Orestes' head. Eur. El. 33. The source is 
 uncertain. 
 
 d) Pylades as Orestes' companion in revenge dates from the 
 Nostoi (Procl.), where the story must have been expanded to 
 some degree. He does not appear in the fifth century art type 
 and hence probably not in Stesichorus, where, to judge from the 
 Melian relief, his part of assistant was played by Talthybius, as 
 by the paedagogus in Soph. El. (Cf. the passage from Nic. Dam. 
 quoted by Robert, p. 164, in which Pylades and Talthybius both 
 appear.) He is important for suspense only through his three 
 lines in Choephoroe 902 ff\, which give the effect of a divine oracle 
 fortifying Orestes' resolution. 
 
 e) Chrysothemis is borrowed from the list of Agamemnon's 
 daughters in II. IX 145, 287. Sophocles docs not dare violate 
 verisimilitude by placing Agamemnon's tomb on the stage, and 
 yet he wishes to use the dream and libations of Clytaemestra 
 and the offerings of Orestes. Electra must be kept on the stage 
 throughout, and Chrysothemis is requisitioned to carry the liba- 
 tions. She is useful as a foil to Electra and in character is merely 
 a doublet of Ismene, as was noted by Wilamowitz in Die beiden 
 Electren. That she had some part in the saga between Homer 
 and Sophocles is shown by the type-vase (Robert, p. L49a, p. 
 155), where she is present at the death of Aegisthus. 
 
 f) 379-84, the purpose of Clytaemestra and Aegisthus to im- 
 mure Electra is borrowed from the Antigone {rid. Wilamowitz, I.e.) 
 773-80, 885-90. 
 
 In both the Agamemnon and the plays dealing with Orestes' 
 revenge, the issue was fixed by tradition. Suspense could be 
 created cither by sheer illusion or by rousing curiosity as to the 
 means whereby the foregone conclusion would be reached. 
 
 Details worthy of note are: 
 
 a) suspense in Choephoroe as to whether Clytaemestra will 
 resist by force, 889; 
 
 b) variation in the three plays in means of creating suspense 
 over the killing of Aegisthus; 
 
 c) echo of the Hecabe in Eur. El. 998 ff. 
 
28 
 
 4. Orestes. 
 
 In 52-3 the fact that Menelaus is coming is noted by Electra 
 in the prologue. This expectation governs suspense till 356, 
 when he actually appears, and so all through the earlier part of 
 the play (243-4, 448, 634-5, 722) it is assumed that Menelaus 
 can save Orestes if he wishes. After the public trial it becomes 
 merely a question of punishing Menelaus (1099, 1105, 1143, 1171). 
 Later Electra returns to the first idea; if Menelaus cannot be 
 persuaded, he may be forced to save Orestes and herself, 1339 
 MevkXaov 17/iSs fir) davouras elcndelp. No doubt is cast on his abil- 
 ity to do this. In the final crazy scene Orestes returns to this 
 idea (1610-1). All this is suggested by Od. Ill 311-2, where 
 Menelaus appears the day when Clytaemestra is killed. In 
 Orestes the murder happened five days sooner (422) . Euripides' 
 play, so far as suspense goes, is built up around this suggestion 
 that Menelaus may save the murderers from the human conse- 
 quences of their deed. The counter-action is provided by a 
 public trial, an entire innovation. The conventional later his- 
 tory of Orestes, viz. the Dorian (1643-52), appears mechanically 
 at the end. Here the play is built around a mere suggestion in 
 Homer. Obviously in a situation created entirely by Euripides, 
 no matter what we may have read or heard about Orestes, the 
 suspense is as vivid as in a play dealing with new characters. 
 
 5. Eumenides. 
 
 Aeschylus said in the Choephoroe (1034 ff.) only that Orestes 
 would go to Delphi to seek atonement and release from the Furies. 
 The Eumenides opens before the Delphian temple. In Apollo's 
 first speech it appears that the atonement cannot be consum- 
 mated here (79 ff.), but that Orestes must go to Athens and put 
 himself under the protection of Athena. The only question for 
 us is whether or not Aeschylus had any precedent for the story 
 of Orestes' acquittal by the Areopagus and Athena. It has been 
 assumed by two groups of scholars (see Wilamowitz., Aesch. hit., 
 p. 189; Hirzel, Rh. Mus. xliii 631-5; Zielinski, Neue Jahrb. f. d. 
 Kl. Alt., II 1899, p. 169; Hofer ap. Roscher, s.v. Orestes) that 
 there was an old Athenian tradition that in some way or other 
 Orestes was acquitted in Athens. The first of these advance a 
 theory that the story represented an Athenian reaction against 
 the religious authority of Delphi; it is not the god that can ac- 
 
29 
 
 quit of murder, but the state. The second base their statement 
 on the argument that the Eupatrid family (distinct from the 
 social class) traced its descent and its name from someone who 
 was pious toward his father — who could be none oilier than 
 Orestes. Therefore Orestes must have settled in Athens, and 
 the story was a family legend. Beyond this, there is no evidence 
 that I can discover. In Eur. Or. 939 ff. the story of Orestes' 
 visit to Athens and the founding of the festival of the Chocs had 
 no bearing on Orestes' fate or later fortunes, as is seen by 1 he way 
 Euripides uses it in connection with another story. The art 
 representations (see Roscher iii 1 989 ff.) are too late to proceed 
 from a pre-dramatic source. For our purposes, then, we must 
 assume that the Athenian story of Orestes' acquittal was invented 
 whole and entire by Aeschylus. It contradicts: a) the Athenian 
 story of the founding of the Areopagus which Aeschylus tried to 
 explain away in 685 ff., but which Euripides reasserts in Electro, 
 1258 ff., where he endeavors to make peace between the Aeschy- 
 lean and the traditional versions; b) the previous literary tradi- 
 tion as established by the type vase (Roscher iii 1 , 979 ff.), in 
 which Orestes was purified finally by Apollo at Delphi by pig's 
 blood (cf. Eum. 282). There is no reason to suppose (Robert 
 Bild und Lied, p. 181) that this was not the version followed by 
 Stesichorus. It was obviously a Delphian story and Stesichorus 
 composed in the hey-day of Delphian influence. For its influence 
 on his Oresteia we have in schol. Eur. Or. 258 ( = Fr. 40 Bergk 5 ) 
 the bow given by Apollo to Orestes. This seems to imply the 
 Furies and is thus the first reference to them in this story. The 
 provincial story of the Oresteion in Parrhasia was dug up by the 
 logographers (the earliest source is Pherecydes ay. schol. Eur. Or. 
 1645) and inserted by Euripides into a speech by the god, like 
 other obscure local cults. Cf. Helen 1673-4, Phoen. 1707, Hip. 
 1424, etc. 
 
 In the Eumenides, then, after lines 79-80 Aeschylus is tapping 
 a new source. The audience, expecting the reconciliation to 
 take place at Delphi will be surprised at Apollo's words, 64 ff. 
 
 ov 70i 7rpo5co(Tco ' 5td reXoi's 5k aoi </>cXa£ . . . 
 66 tyfipoioi rots erots ov yevrjaofxai irkTruv. 
 
 These are not the words of confidence but of determination in 
 the face of difficulties. This is partially explained 79-80. The 
 
30 
 
 essential thing is that Orestes should put himself under the pro- 
 tection of the bretas of Athena; from then on we shall find some 
 way. No solution is indicated in 235-396, during the persecu- 
 tion by the Furies; in 290 Orestes heightens our interest by 
 proclaiming an alliance with Argos if Athena saves him. In 397 
 Athena appears and without any declaration of purpose holds a 
 preliminary hearing that ends with a profession of non-compe- 
 tence (470 ff .) parallel to Apollo's in 64 ff . In 480-9 she outlines 
 the form proceedings will take, without any mention of the 
 Areopagus or even of the number of jurors to be chosen — 487 
 Kpivaaa a'aorCov tup kfx&v to. fiekTioTa / r/£co. In 566 she suddenly 
 reappears with the jurors and proceedings begin at once. The 
 case is heard out; while thejurorsaredepositingtheirvotes (676ff.), 
 Athena explains who they are — that is, our familiar Areopagus; 
 to forestall objection the name is explained without recourse to 
 the Halirrhothios story. But it is quickly seen (710 ff.) that a 
 sinister cloud hangs over the establishment of this institution. 
 Either the dread divinities or the God of Light himself must 
 be slighted and alienated by the decision our Areopagus is to 
 make — the first in its history. We turn to await the decision 
 with suspense deepened by the intermingling of patriotism and 
 pious wonder. In this awful issue, Hades and Athens and Olym- 
 pus seem inextricably confused; and our wonder is enhanced by 
 the compelling force of novelty. 
 
 Once the decision is rendered, suspense turns on the appeasing 
 of the Erinyes. There is not a man in the audience who will not 
 sleep easier on his bed to-night if some means are found. 
 
 The play is thus a fine tour de force. For a long time it seems 
 to drag along inconclusively; but the hearing itself is quickfy over, 
 and the suspense of the announcement is intensified by the bit 
 of aetiology (681-710) which suddenly illuminates the issue by 
 aligning it with the politics and institutions of contemporary 
 Athens. Thus the nature of the court is itself made an element of 
 suspense that runs parallel and joins forces with the suspense 
 about Orestes' fate. 
 
 Mythological suspense proper lasts only to line 80. The 
 opening of the play at Delphi constitutes a strong false lead that 
 the play will be concluded here according to the legend. The 
 rest is new and uncertain. In the face of a new situation the 
 suspense rests on; a) the novel means of acquittal, b) the bearing 
 
31 
 
 on Athens of the proceedings. Except for the drama, Orestes 
 rather drops out of sight in the legend after the death of his 
 mother and even a condemnation is not inconceivable 
 
 6. Iphigeneia in Aulis. 
 
 There is no variation in the main lines of our play from the 
 story of the Cypria (Procl.). KaXxcuros be elirbvTos ttjv tt)s deov 
 firjviv kcli 'lcf>iyeveiav Ke\evaavTOs Oveiv rrj 'Aprepitu, ojs eirl yapov o.vrr)v 
 'AxiXXel peTawepxpapevoi dveiv e7rixeipof'(nj>' "Aprepis 5^ auTtjv e^apwa- 
 <raaa ets Tavpovs peraKopl'^ei Kal adavarov irotel, eXacJMv be avrl ttjs 
 Kop-qs irapio-Tricri tco /Scopco. The transference to the Tauri was 
 mentioned in the lost conclusion to our play (Aelian, H.A. vii 
 39). 
 
 Variations which give the peculiar character to this play must 
 be noted. The question of motivation, (cf. Iph. Taur. 20-4 with 
 Aesch. Ag. 192-215), though significant for the myth, does not 
 concern us (cf. Wilamowitz Herm. 1883, 249 ff.). We observe: 
 a) the willing self-sacrifice of Iphigeneia; b) Achilles as Iphige- 
 neia's chivalrous protector and later, lover; c) Menelaus as the 
 promoter of the sacrifice. The second of these requires the first, 
 for so only can Achilles be made to rise in her defense and then 
 withdraw without appearing a poltroon. 
 
 a) The self-sacrifice. 1 This was a stock theme with Euripides: 
 Macaria in Heracleidae, 474 ff. ; Polyxena in Hec. 345 ff. (cf. with 
 this the vases, which represent a forced sacrifice): Euadne, Eur. 
 SuppL 990 ff.; Menoeceus, Phoen. 991 ff. (cf. Eur. Erechtheus 
 (Nauck); cf. Phrixus fr. 829, fr. 833, and Hyg. Fab. 2; cf. also 
 Iph. Taur. 669-716). There seems to have been no parallel to 
 this in older versions: cf. Aesch. Ag. 228-38 where she is bundled 
 up in clothes, gagged, and butchered. Even the language of 
 Iph. Taur. 27 pteTapcrla \t]4>de7a' kKai.vbp.-qv £tc/>ei points to a forced 
 sacrifice. 
 
 The idea of a willing sacrifice existed already in cult myths, 
 and the one wliieh lay readiest to Euripides' hand was that of 
 Aglauros, the daughter of Cecrops, who freely offered herself as 
 a sacrifice during a long war (Philochoros ap. schol. Dem. xix 303; 
 schol. Arist. Panath. 119). In Paus. i, 18, 2. she and her sister 
 Her.se dash themselves to death from the Acropolis after disobey- 
 
 1 Since the above was written, this whole subject lias been made a Bpecial 
 study by Johanna Schmitt, Freiwilliger Opfertod bei Euripides, Giessen 1921. 
 
32 
 
 ing Athena in opening the receptacle containing the infant 
 Erichthonius. The ritual in her honor was the Plynteria. See 
 Phot. Lex. p. 127; Hcsych. s. v. Il\vpTripia: Bekk. A need, i 270, line 
 2. The origin of Aglauros is mysterious, but a sinister side of her 
 character appears in Porphyry, De Abst. ii 54; in Cyprus she 
 used to receive human sacrifices until these were taken over by 
 Diomedes. This means only that a divinity of this character, 
 called Aglauros, was in Cyprus. The "v Kkpo7ros" is a note 
 by the person who observed the usage, or by a mythographer. 
 In Athens she is associated with the Cecropian snake (Apollod., 
 iii 14, 6, 5; Paus. i 18, 2) she is in fact much the same sort of 
 goddess that Iphigeneia originally was (Harrison in Journal of 
 Hellenic Studies, 1891, 350-5), and the parallels between the two 
 are striking. Each was sacrificed in Greece for success in war; 
 each was connected with human sacrifice in a distant place. 
 With the Plynteria, during which the bretas of Athena was car- 
 ried to the sea and washed, compare the story of the bretas- 
 washing in Iph. Taur. Euripides handled this story in the 
 Erechtheus, where one of Erechtheus' daughters was sacrificed to 
 secure victory against Eumolpus. Her two sisters committed 
 suicide (Paradox, ed. Westermann 219), and the three became 
 afterwards Hyades (schol. to Aratus 172). The Hyades are 
 clearly the two dew-goddesses Herse and Pandrosos plus Aglauros. 
 Euripides hardly called them by these names, or they would have 
 appeared in the mythographers as daughters of Erechtheus, but 
 the suicide of Herse and Pandrosos, after Aglauros' death, is 
 mentioned in schol. Arist. Panath. 119. As to the names of 
 Erechtheus' daughters, there is no agreement among the mythog- 
 raphers. There is no evidence in the fragments as to a willing, 
 or unwilling, sacrifice. Emphasis is laid on the willingness of the 
 mother, Praxithea, to give up her daughter. Euripides' general 
 custom, plus the references to Aglauros quoted above, are enough 
 to make it probable that the maiden did not die unwillingly. See 
 Eur. Fragments 357, 360. It is of course possible that the girl 
 was only a child and had no speaking part. 
 
 A similar story, not used by Euripides so far as we know, comes 
 from Antoninus Liberalis 25 = Bergk Korinna fr. 7, cf . Ov. Met . 
 13, 681, ff. Lcrropel ~SiKav8pos eTepoiovfievoji> 8' kcll Koptwa iTepoicou 
 a' 'Qpicxivos tov 'Ypiews h Boicorta eyhovTO dvyarkpes Mt]tl6xv Kai 
 yievL-jnrr). 
 
33 
 
 A pestilence fell on the country and word was brought from 
 Gortynian Apollo ihaoaodai hvo tovs 'EpiowLovs 6eovs' e#7j 5^ 
 KarairavcreLV avrovs tt]v /j.rjviv ei 8vo bvoiv tKovaai irapOevot dvpara. 
 yevoLvro. These two girls volunteered and committed suicide, 
 /cat aural pev dp.c/>6repat Kareireaov es ttjv yr\v. $>epoe4>6vq be /cat "AiStjs 
 o'lKTelpavres to. p.ev atopara twv irapd'evuv ■q^ai'Laav' avri b' eKeivwv 
 aarepas avqveynav e/c tt)s 777s. (Cf. the Hyades in schol. Arat. 172 
 supr., which evidently is drawn from a speech by a god at the 
 end of Euripides' play.) oi be (pavevres b.vr]v'exQr[ao.v els ovpavov /cat 
 avrovs uvopaoav audpuiroi Koprjras ' Ibpvaavro be iravres "Aoves ev 
 'OpxofJ-evu rrjs Botwrtas lepbv eiriarjpov rdv irapQevuv rovrccv' /cat aurats 
 Kad' enaarov eros nopoi re /cat Kopat peihiy par a (pepovaLV ' rrpooayopev- 
 ovo~i 5' auras a-xpt- vvv AtoXets KopuvLbas rrapdevovs. 
 
 Korone and Koronis are names belonging to the cult of Ascle- 
 pius. 1 Koronis, the mother of Asclepius, was a goddess in her 
 own right in Pergamon (Num. Chron. 1882, p. 36, pi. I, 13) and 
 at Titane in Sikyonia (Paus. ii, 11, 7). These Koronides are 
 identical with the 'Epiovvcoi deoi to whom they are sacrificed, 
 and these are local earth-gods who must be appeased. The 
 analogy between the cults from which sacrifice-stories proceed is 
 thus striking. The same cult-names appear occasionally in more 
 than one of them; e.g. schol. Pind. P. iii 14; schol. II. IV 195; Hyg. 
 Fab. 97. Arsinoe is interchangeable with Koronis as mother or 
 wife of Asclepius. In Pind. P. xi 17 Arsinoe is the nurse of 
 Orestes. In the passage quoted from Porphyry Koronis is the 
 ancient name of Salamis, where Aglauros was worshiped with 
 human sacrifice. Further discussion of these matters would 
 take us too far afield. It is enough to point out the connec- 
 tion of these early stories of a willing sacrifice with a chthonian 
 worship analogous to the cult of Iphigeneia. Cf. the parallel 
 Orchomenian story of Androklca and Alkis, Paus. ix 17, 1. 
 Thus the theme of a willing sacrifice was secured by Euripides 
 from his studies of myths of various localities, not from litera- 
 ture. Where a willing sacrifice occurs in any play, the suppo- 
 sition is from the beginning that the sacrifice will be consum- 
 mated, always with the possibility of divine intervention. 
 
 b) Achilles' chivalrous conduct, though it was echoed and 
 developed in later literature, seems to have had no earlier parallel. 
 Achilles offers his services to help Iphigeneia (950), and the sus- 
 
 1 Full discussion in Roscher ii, 1, 1385 ff. 
 3 
 
34 
 
 pense of the next section of the play depends on what he may be 
 able to do. This is curiously crossed in 1368-1405. Iphigeneia 
 offers herself; which act at once takes the responsibility for her 
 off Achilles' shoulders and makes him really anxious to save her 
 and get her for himself. Cf. 959-60 with 1404-5. A com- 
 promise in the action is reached in 1424-9. He will ground 
 arms near the altar, ready to carry off his Guenevere through the 
 fire and the rest of the army if she but gives the word. 
 
 Achilles had not, except for the use of his name, appeared in 
 the story before. His appearance, and his vigorous taking of 
 sides, obscure the compulsion of the saga and give the impression 
 of a new story. 
 
 c) Soph. Iph. fr. 284 (see context in Phot. Lex. p. 410, 13) and 
 Iph. Tanr. 24-5 make Odysseus the king's agent as in the Philoc- 
 tetes. The fragment represents Odysseus talking to Clytaemestra. 
 Either, then, Clytaemestra came to Aulis as in Iph. Aul. or the 
 scene was Argos, where extraordinary means must have been 
 used to make a play out of it. In Iph. Taur. 24-5 Clytaemestra 
 clearly does not go to Aulis. Little is to be got from the other 
 fragments of Soph. Iph. Fr. 286 seems to be from Clytaemestra's 
 injunctions to Iphigeneia on the eve of her supposed marriage; 
 Fr. 287 a reference to the enforced waiting at Aulis. 
 
 Menelaus appears in the Iph. Aul. as the foil to Agamemnon's 
 wavering instead of the stock character for these roles, Odysseus. 
 This gave several openings for Euripides' special genius: 304 
 cowardly bullying of the old man; 317 ff. quarrel between two 
 brothers over the life of the daughter of one of them; 480 ff. 
 Menelaus faces about, and he and Agamemnon reverse their 
 positions of 317 ff. Menelaus thus furnishes the uncertainty of 
 the first half of the play exactly as Achilles does that of the 
 second. For neither does there appear an earlier parallel. 
 
 d) The chorus. Gellius, xix 10, says that the chorus in 
 Ennius' play was composed of warriors. Welcker thinks Soph. 
 Fr. 287 was spoken by the coryphaeus of such a chorus. In any 
 case the lines contain a suggestion of the reason why Euripides 
 introduced the chorus of sight-seeing girls. The play is one of 
 intrigue between two parties. Now the natural components of 
 the chorus would be a group of soldiers from the Greek army. 
 But the army are bound, in the nature of the case, to take sides 
 in the intrigue, namely, the side demanding that Iphigeneia shall 
 
35 
 
 be killed. Compare the references to them 412-4, 514-25. 
 Odysseus' power with the multitude, 1267-8, may recall incidents 
 in the Sophoclean play. Thus some indifferent group of spec- 
 tators must be brought in from elsewhere, and Euripides solves 
 the problem with the maids from Euboea. 
 
 Mythological suspense here arises from: a) the introduction 
 of Achilles and the love-story, and the emphasis on Menelaus; 
 
 b) the introduction of the willing sacrifice idea from the Aglauros 
 cult-story, new in drama, but carrying from its association with 
 the cult the supposition that the sacrifice would be consummated; 
 
 c) the bizarre chorus. 
 
 7. Iphigeneia in Tauris. 
 
 There are two clear early references for Iphigeneia's removal to 
 the Taurians (Cypr. ap. Procl.; Hdt. iv 103). The evidence for 
 the existence previous to Euripides of a story of her return thence 
 to Greece is scattered and inconclusive. So far as I have been 
 able to discover, it is: 
 
 a) Paus. iii 16, 7 (Sparta), to be x^piop ro kiropop-a'^bpepop 
 AipvaZop 'Opdias iepbp kariv 'Ap~ep.ibos. to £6avov be kutivo elvai 
 \'eyovcrip 6 xore 'Opecrrrjs Kai Icfriyepeia e.K tt)s TavpLKrjs eKKkeirTOvaiv ' 
 ks be ttjp (j(f)tT(.pav AaKebaipbpioi KOfjuodrjpaL 4>a<nv 'Opecrrou Kai evravda 
 ^aatXevoPTOs. Kai p.oi eiKora Xeyeip paWbp tl boKovcnp t; ' Adrjvaloi. 
 7roto) yap brj X670J KareKLirev clp ev Bpavp&vi 'Icfriyepeia to ayaXpa ; 
 77 ircos, yviKa 'AOrjvaloL rr\v \wpav eKKiirelp TrapecrKeva^oPTO, ovk eaedePTO 
 Kai tovto es rds pads ', Kairoi biapepeprjKep en Kai pvp ttjXlkovto opopa 
 rfj TavpLKrj 0ec3, ware ap.<i)io-&T]TOvo~i p.ep KaTiraboKaL oi top Ev^eipov 
 oiKovPTts to ayaXfxa elpat irapa cr<picrip, ap.<f>icrpT)TOV(Tt. be Kai Avb&p 
 ols earip 'ApTepabos iepop 'Apaunbos. 'Adypaiois be apa irapucfrdr) 
 yepbpevop Xa^vpop rc2 Mrjbai' to yap e/c Bpavp&pos eKopiadt] re es 
 ZoOaa, Kai varepop 'ZeXevKov bbpTOs 2upioi AaobiKels e<$> r)pwp exovcn. 
 He goes on to state reasons why the real bretas is in Lacedacnmn. 
 
 The real point is the story that the Tauric bretas was carried 
 off by the Persians. If this be taken at its face value, there was 
 in 480 at Brauron-Halai a bretas supposed to come from the 
 Tauri. Robert (Arch. Mar. ch. ix) argues against so taking it. 
 Clearly there was in Brauron in Euripides' day an ancient xoanon 
 as there was in Pausanias' day; on this hypothesis it must 
 have been a substitute. Where then did it come from, and how 
 would Euripides have dared to allude to a story which was only 
 
36 
 
 humiliating to the Athenians? Robert also shows that the older 
 cult stories and names at Lacedaemon connected with the shrine 
 of Iphigeneia do not square with the Taurian maiden but proceed 
 from an earlier cult of Lygodesma. The story of an image 
 carried off by the Persians was invented in Seleucus' time to give 
 value and antiquity to a new image presented to the Syrians 
 from whom Pausanias got the story he tells. In Euripides' time 
 everyone believed the image then at Brauron to be an original 
 cult-statue. Thus all the extant stories containing the return 
 of Iphigeneia from the Tauri can be traced to Euripides' play. 
 To this may be added the argumentum ex silentio, which is es- 
 pecially significant for Herodotus. 
 
 b) Hyg. Fab. 120 tells that Iphigeneia and Orestes after 
 leaving the Tauri went to Sminthe, an island near the Troad, 
 where they found old Chryses of the Iliad, Chryseis, and young 
 Chryses, her son by Agamemnon. Old Chryses tells his grand- 
 son who the strangers are and their relationship to him. Mean- 
 while Thoas pursues the fugitives and the half-brothers combine 
 to kill him. After that, Iphigeneia and Orestes proceed to 
 Lacedaemon. The fragments of the Chryses of Pacuvius indi- 
 cate that this was the subject of that play. Now there is also a 
 play, Chryses, of Sophocles (fragments insignificant), which 
 Welcker (G. T., i 212) is certain is the model for Pacuvius' play. 
 But he argues illegitimately from the unassigned Sophoclean 
 fragment, now Nauck 668, rots 'EKa.Ta.las nayidas bbpiroov. There 
 are also traces in Pacuvius' play of the contest of unselfishness 
 between Orestes and Pylades (Iph. Taur. 669-715), noticed by 
 Wilamowitz, Hermes 1883, 249 ff., and his cosmological frag- 
 ments are certainly Euripidean. Thus while we have definite 
 evidence for Euripidean influence on Pacuvius' Chryses, the 
 supposition of Sophoclean influence rests merely on the identity 
 of names. 
 
 A difficulty still remains in accounting for the connection of 
 Iphigeneia with Sminthe and Chryses, which must be of Greek 
 origin. A hint as to the source of this comes from the cults that 
 lie behind the myths. Chryse of the Troad (see Corssen in 
 Philol. 1907, 346 ff.; Roscher s.v. Chryse and Iphigeneia; Farnell, 
 Cults of the Greek States, s.v. Artemis Iphigeneia) and Iphigeneia 
 of Brauron-Halai are similar chthonian goddesses associated with 
 propitiatory sacrifices, and it is conceivable that Iphigeneia 
 
37 
 
 might become a visitant at Chryse or Sminthe (Hyg. Fab. 120; 
 cf. //. I 39) as she did in the Tauric Chersonese, to a kindred 
 foreign divinity. (Tzctzes on Lye. 183 makes Iphigeneia and 
 Chryses brother and sister, children of Agamemnon and Chry- 
 seis.) But there is no trace of this in early Greek literature; the 
 Cypria contained only the removal to the Taurians, and the 
 Catalogue of Women, the only other poem where such a tradition 
 would be likely to be perpetuated, gave a still more primitive 
 version (cf. Wilam. Herm. 1883, I.e.), which ignores the Taurian 
 story, and in which Iphigeneia's former divinity remains undis- 
 guised; — viz. by the will of Artemis, she (after the sacrifice) 
 became Hecate (Philodcm. de Vel. 24; Stes. Fr. 37 B, Bergk 8 ; 
 Paus. i 43). This version was followed by Stesichorus. On the 
 other hand, Iphigeneia's wanderings after leaving the Tauri were 
 by later writers variously elaborated out of local tales (Paus. iii 
 16, 6; i 33, 1 ; i 43, 1 ; Strab. xii 535), just as the chivalrous action 
 of Achilles in the Iph. Aul. initiated a cycle of romantic stories 
 about the pair (Ammian. xxii 8, 34 f. ; Tzetz. on Lye. 183; schol. 
 and Eustath. ad II. XIX 326; Eustath. ad Dionys. P. 306), and 
 our evidence would seem to put the story of Iphigeneia's visit to 
 the Troad in this class. 
 
 Thus until the first mention of Athens occurs (1083) there is 
 suspense as to: a) whether they will be saved; b) where they 
 will go if they are saved. 
 
 We may glance at certain elements in our play: 
 
 a) 669-716. The contest between Orestes and Pylades as to 
 which shall be sacrificed is an echo of the willing sacrifice theme, 
 the origin of which we have already examined. With 678-83 
 cf. Soph. At. 1012-20. Tcucer and Pylades each fear the accusa- 
 tion of having had a hand in a friend's death. 
 
 b) 727-826 is occupied with the anagnorisis; 904-1088 with a 
 planning scene. 
 
 c) In 1152 ff. the plan is put into execution. It consists of the 
 bretas-washing idea derived from some cult, probably the 
 Athenian one of the Plynteria. Aglauros, who was associated 
 with the Plynteria, influences Euripides elsewhere as we have 
 seen. 
 
 d) In 1391 ff. the escaping vessel is held up at the mouth of 
 the bay by a sea wind and driven on the rocks. This is natural 
 but unnecessary. In the Cyclops and the Helen escapes by sea 
 
38 
 
 occur without the help of a god. Obviously Euripides intended 
 to have a deus ex machina in the I ph. Taur., and the reverse (1391) 
 is inserted to keep up suspense until it began. The special pur- 
 pose with which this deus is introduced is to prove a connection 
 between two similar cults, those of Halai and Brauron. Halai 
 is located in the lines: 
 
 1450: x^pos tis 'i<JTLv '\t9'l8os irpos kaxo-TOis 
 
 opoiai, yeiTotv 5etpd5os Kapvarias 
 Upos. 'AXds viv oi'p.6s bvojia^ti Xecos. 
 
 Here the bretas of Artemis is to be settled under the name of 
 Tauropolos with a ceremony commemorative of the old Taurian 
 sacrifices. The Brauronian temple, however, where was the 
 tomb of Iphigeneia, was known to the audience, and it needs 
 onty an allusion: 
 
 ce 5' afKJjl aep.vas, 'I^L-ykveia, K\ip,aKas 
 Bpavpcavias del rfjSe kXtiSovx^ Ota. 
 
 (See Paus. i 33 and Fraser's notes for Brauron and Halai and 
 their probable location.) 
 
 The bear-dances are not mentioned because they are harder to 
 explain. Thus the suggestion for this speech and for the whole 
 play lay in the juxtaposition of these facts: the story of a cult 
 among the Tauri connected with both Iphigeneia and Artemis; 
 Artemis Tauropolos at Brauron; and a grave of Iphigeneia at 
 Brauron. The pains taken by Euripides to introduce and empha- 
 size the divine speech would indicate that the facts had not been 
 handled together before. 
 
 Suspense appears throughout the play, as in the Orestes and 
 the Helen, at its maximum through the handling of a brand new 
 situation. The grave of Iphigeneia at Brauron was not a suffi- 
 ciently conspicuous cult to give many of the audience any hint 
 about her fleeing there. As was noted under the Eumenides all 
 these characters have rather dropped out of the legend; Iphigeneia 
 since her removal to the Taurians; Orestes and Pylades since 
 the death of Clytaemestra. Euripides carefully includes all the 
 known later history of Orestes as occurring prior to the action 
 (939 ff.), so that the audience will have no lead as to the outcome 
 of this action. Thus the poet could elaborate or even conclude 
 the life of any one of them practically at will. In this con- 
 
39 
 
 nection is to be noted the poet's preference for ;t happy ending, 
 where one was not driven into the opposite by the saga. 
 
 Note the introduction of two cult themes, the bretas-washing 
 and the willing sacrifice. The latter theme in all the other 
 stories is consummated, a fact which leads one to suspect that it 
 will be consummated here and hence produces the suspense of 
 False Lead. The bretas-washing, being pure ritual, gave no 
 lead as to its results as a stratagem. 
 
 8. Helen. 
 
 The white-washing of Helen was developed by Stesichorus 
 from a suggestion in some Hesiodic poem. 1 For the content of 
 Stesichorus' ira\t.vu)8La see Tzetzes ad Lye, 113. \kyovtn yap otl 
 OLtpxoiikiHxi 'A\e$;av8pu) cV Alyvirrov 6 Upcorevs 'EXkvrjv dc/>eX6p€i>os, 
 e'lduiXov 'EXevrjs avrui 8e8ccKtv, kcll oiitlos eir\tvaev eis Tpoiav, cos c/>7?cu 
 wTjjo-ixopos. Schol. to Aristides, iii 150 . . . ZTrjaLxopov . . . 
 \eyei yap kxelvos otl eKd&v 6 ' A\e£av8pos eiri ravr-qs ttjs vqaov ttjs 
 $dpou, acfrypkdri irapa rov ITpcoTews ri\v 'EXevqv nai e'i8(i)\ov avrrjs 
 kSk^aro. Cf. Dio. Chrys., Or. xi 182. nai rov p.lv ^Trjalxopov kv 
 rr\ varepov co8y \eycLV on to irapairav oi<8k irXevcetev 77 'EXe^r? ov8apboe. 
 clWol 8k tlvcs otl dpvaadeir] p.ev 'EXei'Ti virb 'A\e%av8pov, 8evpo 8e irap' 
 T}p,as els Alyvirrov dc^iKero. 
 
 The second version is right, namely, that Helen did not sail at 
 all, for it alone exonerates Helen and comports with the second 
 line of the fragment (26 Bergk 3 ) : 
 
 OVK €<7t' tTVfXOS X67OS OVTOS 
 
 ov8' «j3as ev vavaiv ei/ereXpots 
 ov8' 'Ueo Hkpyapa Tpoias. 
 
 Stesichorus, however, did use the image (PI. Rep. 586 C) ; whore 
 Helen spent the intervening time herself is a question. Mayer-' 
 argues probably rightly that Stesichorus invented the story pre- 
 served in the prologue of our play, and that Helen was miracu- 
 lously transported to Egypt. She could not have stayed at home, 
 and the only other place associated with her, Leuke (supposed 
 by Welcker and Duhn to have been used by Stesichorus), appears 
 
 1 Schol. LijC. 822 tp&tos 'UaioSos irtpl ttjs 'EXtvrjs to tlSuXov iraprryayi. May r 
 changes 'llalooos to Sr^ixopoj. The manuscript reading is defended by von 
 Premerstein. 
 
 2 Max Mayer, De Euripidis Mythopoeia, 1883. 
 
40 
 
 only in late stories, while even in the Odyssey she is said to have 
 gone to Egypt (IV, 125; 228). Cf. //. VI, 289, where she went to 
 Sidon, which was confused by the ancients with Egypt. Cf. Od. 
 IV, 83; V, 282-3. If she went to Egypt and did not board a ship, 
 there was probablj r something miraculous about it, and whether 
 or not Hermes was the agent does not much matter. 
 
 The play thus begins where Stesichorus left the story, for we 
 have no certain evidence for an earlier tale of Menelaus' recovery 
 of Helen that fits on to the iraXivudia, but from Stesichorus 
 may proceed the version in Apollodorus, p. 226 Wagner, where 
 Menelaus finds Helen with Proteus. In this passage two sources 
 are implicitly quoted. According to 1) he reached Egypt with 
 five ships; in 2) he finds Proteus living. Thus we have two vari- 
 ants from Euripides, not one. It is hence unmethodic to clap 
 these two together and father them on Stesichorus without 
 further ado, as is done by von Premerstein, Philol. 1896, 642. 
 The Helen is an original story pieced together out of the poet's 
 fancy and a quaint conflation of Od. IV, 351-586; the rationalist 
 account in Hdt. ii 113 ff.; the plot of the Iph. Taur., and very 
 likely obscure legends now lost. According to Lye. 820 ff. the 
 eidolon left Menelaus shortly after he had put out from the Troad, 
 and his search for her occasions his wanderings. Von Premer- 
 stein (I.e.) supposes this to have been the Stesichorean version, 
 and that Euripides retained the eidolon till the middle of his play 
 to create suspense. Euripides' handling of this is undoubtedly 
 effective, but we are not entitled to posit an earlier version as 
 certain. 
 
 Another conventional theme, the hero in rags, appears here, 
 but its contribution to suspense is doubtful. The best discussion 
 of this is in Ar. Ach. 412-70. 
 
 From Herodotus, Euripides got the location, a palace (a temple 
 in Herodotus) on the Canobic mouth of the Nile, overlooking 
 the river but near the sea (Hdt. ii 113, 2; Hel. 1), and the germ 
 of the sanctuary idea (Hdt. ii 113, 2-3; Hel. 64). Proteus is 
 made a king as in Herodotus, not a sea-god as in the Odyssey, 
 but the story (Hdt. ii 119, 2-3) of a righteous barbarian and a 
 rascally Greek, though dramatically possible, would have been 
 an offence to Greek taste. Thus the son of Proteus becomes the 
 central figure with a disposition modeled on that of Thoas — 
 the conventional barbarian king. In Herodotus the temple 
 
41 
 
 where Helen was cast up and the king's palace arc kept separate. 
 In a play they must be run together or one of them discarded. So 
 the temple sanctuary becomes a tomb only (cf. Ar. Thesm. 886- 
 8), no longer that of Heracles, but that of Proteus himself, in 
 order to give a palpable basis to the arguments used by Helen 
 and Menelaus against Theonoe. In place of the Herodotean 
 warden of the temple named Thonis (cf. Od. IV, 228), the Ho- 
 meric daughter of Proteus is humanized and her name Eidothea l 
 translated into Theonoe, perhaps by the similarity of sound to 
 Thonis. She is naturally, being the daughter of Proteus, the 
 sister of the king's son, but the omniscience of her Homeric father 
 is bestowed upon her as a device to create suspense. Much of 
 the play is pure humor, e.g. 386-475. The mock-burial of 
 Menelaus occupies the place of the bretas- washing in the Iph. 
 Taur. involving the suspense of persuasion by a very thin story. 
 The previous stage of planning suggests the earlier play. With 
 Eel. 1043-6 compare Iph. Taur. 1020-3. 
 
 Teucer is introduced in the prologue; 1) to give us the Greek 
 point of view, 71 ff., and thus quicken curiosity as to how Men- 
 elaus will react at first towards his re-discovered wife; and 2) to 
 acquaint us of the danger to any Greek who appears on these 
 shores (151-7), at the same time suggesting that Menelaus may 
 possibly appear. There was no improbability in his appearing 
 in Egypt on the way from Salamis to Cyprus. The idea of sac- 
 rificing all Greeks, copied from the Iph. Taur., is weakly moti- 
 vated in lines 468-70. 
 
 Thus the play contains three principal themes: 1) anagnorisis, 
 a stock in trade; 2) the omniscient Theonoe and the winning of 
 her support, developed as was seen out of the Odyssey and Herodo- 
 tus; 3) the escape, an adaptation of one of the poet's own pre- 
 vious works. 
 
 The only real indications which the audience had as to the out- 
 come of this play from the beginning were: a) the general (latum 
 that Menelaus and Helen ended their days in peace at Sparta; b) 
 the general similarity to the situation in t he I ph. Taur., a probably 
 earlier play (Bruhn, ed. Helen, p. 11 ff.). The other themes, 
 Theonoe, Teucer, the sanctuary of Proteus, the eidolon, were 
 
 1 Cf. schol. Od. IV 3GG. kcu Alcrxv^os if Ilpu'rel Eii5c0*ar a&n}p KaXet, Etytn. 
 Gud., p. 310, 30. vTroKopiariKois cos irap' Ai<r\0^U} t] Kioto. 
 
42 
 
 picked up from sources too scattered and obscure to give the 
 audience any lead as to their outcome. Thus the suspense, as in 
 the Iph. Taw., is practically complete from the beginning. 
 
 9. Andromache. 
 
 Except for the murder of Neoptolemus at Delphi, the plot of 
 the Andromache is practically new. In it Euripides tries the 
 effect of combining elements already given independently of one 
 another in the history of Neoptolemus. The chief elements are: 
 
 a) Andromache as Neoptolemus' captive; Nostoi and Iliup. 
 ap. Procl.; Bias Parva Fr. 18 K.; cf. Paus. i, 11, 1; 
 
 b) The marriage of Hermione to Neoptolemus is in Od. IV, 4 
 ff., where Menelaus sends Hermione to Neoptolemus in fulfilment 
 of a promise made at Troy. There is no mention of Neoptolemus' 
 death. Compare also Pherecydes ap. schol. Eur. Or. 1655. QepeavSris 
 8e c^rjcn xept tclLSoov xPV^P'bv airovvra tov NeoTrToXepop avaipedrjvat.. 
 kirel Neo7rToXepos 'Ep/xibvrjv yapLel ttjv MeveXaov /cat epx erat £ fc AeXc/>ot;s 
 irepl iraldcov xP 7 l a bp,evos, ov yap eyevovro e£ 'EppLOvrjs. . . . 
 
 c) The death of Neoptolemus at Delphi. 
 
 Pherec. I.e. . . . /cat bpa Kara xPyvTVPi-ov K P'ta- biapira^ovras 
 tovs Ae\<t>ovs, a^aipelTai ra upka avrovs, avrbv oe urdvei Maxatpeus 
 6 tovtujv Upevs /cat Karopvaaei. 1 avrbv vtto tov ovbbv tov ve&. raOra 
 7ej^eaXo7et /cat So^okXtjs. 
 Pind. N. vii 40 ff. 
 
 [Neo7TToXe/xos] #X CT0 ^ 7rpos debv, 
 KTtav' aycov TpteiaOev anpodivLiov 
 Iva Kpeojv viv inrep pdxas eXacrev 
 
 o.vtltvxoi't' avrjp paxatpa. 
 fiapvvdev 8e 7repto"crd AeXc/>ot ^evaykrai 
 dXXd to p.bpcnp.ov airkboiKtv ' exPW $* Tlv ' '^vdov aXact 7raXatrdTco 
 
 AlaKiSav nptbvrwv to Xoltov eppevat 
 deov Trap' euretxea 8bp,ov. 77pcotats 8e 7rop7rats BepiaKO-Kov ointiv. 
 Pind. Paean, vi 105 ff. 
 
 dXX' ovre piaTtp' €7retra Kthvav 
 e'ibev ovre 7rarpco- 
 tats ev apovpats 
 Itttovs Mvppudbvuv 
 
 1 Leopardus for ms. kavrov 8e Krdvet ixax^ipq.' 6 5e tovtlov upevs naropvaau. 
 Cf. Eust. ad Od., p. 1479-80. 
 
43 
 
 Xa\KOKopv(iTap 
 
 6(jli\ov tyeipojv . . . 
 
 ufioae yap Oeos, 
 
 yepaiov os \\p'iap\ov 
 
 irpos epKtiov r\vape fi<jj/j.di> e- 
 
 ■KtvdopbvTa jiT] vlv ev(f>pov' es ot[/cW 
 
 fiyr' kiri yrjpas i'£e- 
 
 p.ev filov a/jufriiroKois 5e 
 
 [K]i , p[tai'] irepi TL/iav 
 
 [dr]pi]a.£6iJ.evov uravev 
 
 [< kv~>Ttp.k\v€i 4>L\co yas 
 
 Trap' dfxcpaKov evpvv. 
 
 The last reference indicates the source of the story of Neop- 
 tolemus' death. It was one circulated by the Delphian priests, 
 to whom the murder of Priam was repugnant (Iliup. ap. Procl.). 
 The order will thus probably be: 1) death-story as above; 2) 
 a grave of Neoptolemus shown at Delphi to confirm the story; 
 3) legend of an Aeacid buried at Delphi, partially whitewash- 
 ing Neoptolemus (N. vii 44). Neoptolemus is here only rjpwicus 
 wofxirals 6e/j.l(TKOTros, a vague office. He is not in receipt of offerings, 
 and this shows that the grave is a late thing, not the relic of an 
 ancient cult (cf. Paus. x, 24, 6). The motivation in the Delphian 
 story is impossible. Neoptolemus goes to Delphi because Apollo 
 wishes him to do so; Pherecydes, or his source, saw the explana- 
 tion for this in the lack of any genealogy ascribing offspring to 
 his union with Hermione and brings in the familiar theme of 
 consulting the oracle about children. The important innovation 
 we find in the drama is the marriage of Orestes with Hermione. 
 That this rested on an earlier story of some sort seems probable 
 from the fact that the Sophoclean version is apparently the ear- 
 lier, and radical innovations in the plot are not in the manner 
 of the Sophocles known to us. 1 But in any case the direct par- 
 
 1 Eust. ad Od., p. 1479, 10. In Soph. Herm., Hermione was given by Tynda- 
 reus to Orestes. But Menelaus promised her to Neoptolemus at Troy, ni.l 
 after the war she was taken away from Orestes ami given to him. After the tat- 
 ter's death she reverted to Orestes. There are no sure means of telling w hether 
 this or Euripides' version is the older; a radical innovation in th<- legend ifi more 
 after the manner of Euripides. But the story in Sophocles seem- a less closely 
 knit one: — Neoptolemus killed as in Pindar; Hermione already married to 
 Orestes when the war ends — and therefore presumably earlier. 
 
44 
 
 ticipation of Orestes in the murder of Achilles' son is almost 
 certainly Euripides' invention. This incident deserves a mo- 
 ment's notice. The character of Orestes in this play is one 
 familiar to us from Soph. El. and Eur. Or. — harsh, fanatical and 
 vindictive. This character is not developed in our play but 
 assumed from some earlier treatment, which could only rest upon 
 the mother-murder. No such treatment appears in Aeschylus 
 or in Eur. El. In the first, Orestes is the passive instrument of 
 Apollo; in the other, wavering and soft-hearted, requiring to be 
 pushed at every step. Our play can hardly be later than 408 
 B.C., and the conclusion follows that it must be later than the 
 undated Sophoclean Electra unless Euripides was influenced by 
 a now unknown work of some minor dramatist. The parallels 
 between the two plays are inconclusive. The scene 881 ff. 
 vaguely suggests an anagnorisis with Electra. Cf. Andr. 896-7 
 with Soph. El. 80; Andr. 881-2 with Soph. El. 660-1 (both 
 conventional tags). 
 
 The action of Andromache (1-546) as a suppliant is quite new; 
 it is a development of the common suppliant-theme, which could 
 be brought in wherever there was a clash between a weaker and 
 stronger party (see later; also Dieterich, Pulcinella, p. 9 ff.) . The 
 clash between two women was the sort of thing Euripides would 
 naturally think of; the datum of Pherecydes that Hermione had 
 no children appears as motivation 32-5, 157-8. Menelaus ap- 
 pears in order to strengthen Hermione's hand and make a sup- 
 pliant-play plausible; there is no earlier reference for his appear- 
 ance here. Similarly Peleus, like Heracles, is the rescuer which 
 a suppliant-play demands. In the Iliad Peleus is merely Achilles' 
 father; Achilles does not even know whether or not he is alive 
 (II. XIX, 334). But in the Nostoi (Procl.) Peleus meets Neop- 
 tolemus on his return, and there is no difficulty about bringing 
 him in here. The attempted suicide of Hermione, a momentary 
 false lead (811 ff.) and new to this play, like the attack on An- 
 dromache, springs from Hermione's vile disposition. This dis- 
 position is created for the play and made additionally plausible 
 by its appropriateness as an attack on Sparta. The murder of 
 Neoptolemus by Orestes is new in Euripides and is introduced to 
 knit the threads of the play more closely together. Neoptole- 
 mus' errand is noted in the prologue (49-55) with a new motiva- 
 
45 
 
 tion; after this his absence is noted only as bearing on Androm- 
 ache. We do not expect his return, for in 79 ff. Andromache 
 sends for Peleus; this means that the grandfather will be the 
 rescuer, not Neoptolemus himself. Orestes' connivance enables 
 him (995 ff.) to predict the murder and thus bring it into the 
 main action of our play. 
 
 There is thus a high probability that things would end about 
 as they did: i.e. that Neoptolemus would perish; that Hermione 
 would go off with Orestes; and that Andromache would be res- 
 cued into some vague "lived-happily-ever-after" arrangement 
 and drop out of the saga. The suspense rises from the novelty 
 of the situations: Menelaus and Peleus; Andromache and 
 Hermione, quarreling; Orestes appearing in Thessaly, estab- 
 lishing an unheroic and clandestine understanding with Hermione, 
 and departing with veiled menaces against his rival. The sus- 
 pense of these scenes arises and progresses from their own content 
 and thus gets clear of the saga-compulsion, which is lost to view 
 as the play proceeds. It should be kept in mind that treatment 
 of this kind was only possible with myths that were weak in 
 detail and less current than the Oresteia. 
 
 III. The Theban Stories. 
 
 The history of this set of myths has been so thoroughly investi- 
 gated and admirably presented by Robert in his Oedipus that 
 little need be done here bej^ond fitting his results to our study. 
 The use of his book will be assumed throughout this section. 
 
 1. Oedipus Tyrannus. 
 
 This play is entirely devoted to an anagnorisis. In such a 
 unique plot incidents have to be crowded in from other sources 
 or invented, and these we shall summarize: 
 
 a) The herdsmen and the double anagnorisis. The only pre- 
 vious form of the anagnorisis known to us is the simple one 
 sketched in Od. XI, 274. In addition to this, Robert believes 
 that 0. T. 1032, irodolv iiu iipdpa p.apTi>pr]aeuv to. era, points to a 
 version where this was the only means of the anagnorisis. It 
 is the only evidence we have, and as it is unnecessary here, it is 
 
46 
 
 probably a reference to some earlier story. In the Thebais, 
 time was allowed for Oedipus to have children, 1 and it is hard to 
 see how this could have been done if the swollen feet were alone 
 used. Probably the oracle or Teiresias entered as well, or recog- 
 nition was effected by exchange of confidences as in the Pisander 
 schol. to Phoen. 1760. 
 
 The entry of herdsmen into the play is perhaps Sophoclean. 
 Robert argues that Oedipus was reared among the shepherds of 
 Cithaeron in the Aeschylean trilogy, but the only pre-tragic 
 source for his early history is the Euphorbus vase (p. 73), which 
 represents him carried in the arms of a young nobleman, could fit 
 only his rearing at some court, and would exclude the shepherds 
 altogether. This is, however, too uncertain ground to be profit- 
 able for us. We do not even know whether or not Aeschylus 
 handled the anagnorisis; Robert's reconstruction of the trilogy, 
 excluding it, is built around the a priori statement (p. 274 ff.) 
 that Aeschylus must have handled Oedipus' death in a play. But 
 surely, on his own showing, this is a most hazy feature, which 
 admits the greatest variation in the earlier stories. Both Sopho- 
 cles in the Oedipus Tyrannus and Euripides in the Phoenissae 
 seem uncertain about the death, while the anagnorisis idea is the 
 most obvious theme for a tragedy in this whole "cycle". Thus 
 the suspense on the appearance of the first shepherd rises, as 
 throughout Euripides' Andromache, from the situation itself and 
 frees itself from the data of the saga. 
 
 b) The plague. There is no earlier source for this, 2 and it 
 was probably invented by Sophocles. It furnishes the initial im- 
 pulse that disturbs the status quo. Observe that the initial scene 
 does not contain the initial impulse, which lies before the play 
 opens. Oedipus has sent to Delphi, and hence the prologue is 
 merely exposition. This is to save time. From the plague 
 spring the appeals to Delphi and to Teiresias, who is also new in 
 this connection. In the ancient story Teiresias probably figured 
 alone; Delphi substituted itself for him at the time when it re- 
 modeled many of the ancient myths. 3 The Teiresias scene is 
 
 1 For the various names of Oedipus' wife see Robert, p. 109. Robert 
 maintains that thej r are all variants for the same person and that in no story 
 was Oedipus married more than once. 
 
 2 Robert, p. 69, suggests that the idea was borrowed from Iliad, I 48-83. 
 
 3 See Robert, p. 68 ff. 
 
47 
 
 remarkable in that it contains the whole content of the anagno- 
 risis, even to Oedipus' subsequent wandering. (Robert, p. 290. 
 Note lines 35(M, 3G2, 366-7, 413-23, 449-60.) This in a play 
 where the issue is bound to be foreknown, so far from diminishing 
 suspense, actually stimulates it, for it puts Oedipus in big in- 
 credulity under a cloud of arrj that adds a horror and wonder 
 to the general effect. As the Teiresias scene follows on the 
 plague, so the quarrel with Creon springs inevitably out of 
 Teiresias' statements. For Oedipus to hear this clear speaking 
 and remain absolutely confident of his own position, it is neces- 
 sary to make him pitch on some particularly violent line of 
 reasoning, 1 which by a single basic assumption sweeps Teiresias 
 out of consideration. This line is supplied by the notion that 
 the seer is party to a plot (346-9; 385 ff.; cf. 124). This mis- 
 guided theme supplies suspense for a certain distance. Note 
 that it, like the investigation into the murder of Laius, is never 
 expressly concluded. Both are swallowed up from 1016 in the 
 supreme issue of Oedipus' birth. The function of the plague is 
 to start the suspense along new lines, foreign to the old story, 
 and, as we shall see in a moment, to introduce the sentence on 
 the murderer of Laius, upon which Oedipus' fate is made to 
 depend. 
 
 c) Iocaste. In Od. XI, 277-8 Iocaste hangs herself after the 
 anagnorisis; she is not present in the Seven against Thebes (see 
 Robert, p. 263), and therefore she must have died at this time in 
 the Aeschylean trilogy. But in some version prevalent before 
 the dramatists, which one naturally infers to be the Thebais, she 
 was present at the war and mourned the conflict of her sons. 
 (Paus. ix 4, 2; IX 5, 11 /ecu 'Ovaalas IlXaTcuacnv 'iypa\f>e Karrjcprj tt\v 
 Evpvyav€iav kirl rfj p,axv twv 7rauW. This is assuming the iden- 
 tity of Iocaste and Euryganeia. See Robert, p. 180 ff.) 
 
 Sophocles had this choice. The manner of her going strongly 
 suggests the suicide, 1072-5. Note the cryptic a\\o 5' ovwod' 
 vortpov. The chorus then utters a conventional warning (cf. 
 Ant. 1244-5; 766-7; Trach. 813^). Suspense about Iocaste <;ets 
 no clear lead from the saga, because there were two conflicting 
 stories. Thus it develops out of the play itself, like the Buspense 
 concerning Oedipus' fate. 
 
 1 See Robert's keen analysis of Oedipus' reasoning, p. 293 ff. 
 
48 
 
 d) Future of Oedipus. In the earliest version, which lay back 
 of 7/. XXIII, 678; Od. XI, 279-80; Hes. Erg. 161-5; Eoiae, frr. 
 99 A and 99 Evelyn-White, Oedipus had a long and stormy career 
 as King of Thebes after the anagnorisis and the death of his wife, 
 fell in battle against the Minyae, and was buried with appropriate 
 magnificence (Robert, p. 112 ff.). 
 
 The dramatists preserve two versions which exclude the 
 former: 
 
 1. Soph., 0. T. 421, 454, 1451^, 1436-9; cf. 236 ff., 816 ff., 
 1340, 1381 ff., 0. C, 3 ff. Oedipus goes, a blind, wandering 
 beggar, first over Cithaeron, later throughout Hellas. 
 
 2. Euripides, Phoen. 64 ff.; cf. 0. T. 1424. Oedipus is kept a 
 prisoner in the house as being too polluted for the light of the sun 
 to look upon. 
 
 Robert believes both of these to be echoes of "eine uralte, 
 liber das Epos zuruckreichende Sagenform" (p. 17). This he 
 bases on the necessity of perpetuating in the human successor 
 the sufferings of the old year-god. This only concerns us in so 
 far as variants to this effect existed at the time the Oedipus 
 Tyr -annus appeared. For the wandering, there seems to be no 
 earlier evidence, although Robert (p. 17) believes it to have been 
 a part of the earliest saga. The Thebais fragments (2 and 3 
 Evelyn- White) present the same picture as the Phoenissae, a blind 
 (cf. (ppaaOrj fr. 2; tv6-q<j€ fr. 3) old man living on in the palace 
 dependent on his sons and impotent except for his power to 
 curse. The blindness was kept by Aeschylus (Sept. 783 f.). Of 
 the two curses in the Thebais, Aeschylus kept only the first and 
 milder one (Robert, p. 264 ff .) ; this may argue a curtailment of 
 his life, but there is no evidence as to when or where he died. 
 
 Now if we examine the passages in the Oedipus Tyrannus 
 bearing on Oedipus' wandering, three things appear: 
 
 1. Oedipus' banishment is the consequence of the sentence 
 already passed on the unknown murderer of Laius, 236 ff.; 816 
 ff.; 1381 ff. 350-3. This sentence grows out of the plague theme, 
 which, as we saw, was Sophocles' own peculiar way of initiating 
 the action. 
 
 2. It is also a projection of Oedipus' exposure in youth, 1452^: 
 
 ovfxds Kidcupuiv ovtos, bv pr\Tt\p re not 
 ttclttip t' edeaOrjv ^oovtl nvptov tol^ov, 
 IV e£ tKtivwv, o'i p,' airuiWvTrjv davo). 
 
49 
 
 3. Further it is a fulfilment of part of the purpose with which 
 Oedipus was incarcerated in the Thebais and Phoenissae, 1430 f. : 
 
 fii\pov fit yfjs «k TT\ob' baov raxt-crQ' , 6irov 
 dvqTdv <f>avov pat (irjotvos irpoo-qyopos. 
 
 Thus there is no mention after the anagnorisis of beggary in 
 populated Hellas. Before that, the only mention made is in 455 
 tttcoxos avrl ir\ovaiov, where the former word is chiefly for con- 
 trast to the latter. Cf. 1451 ea p,e vaieiv optoiv. Cf. 248 kclkov 
 nanus viv dfiopov kuTplxpciL (ttov, and Kvpiov Tcicpov above, of Cithaeron. 
 In fact, the exile, as implied in the Oedipus Tyrannus, means a 
 desolate wandering in the wilderness, ending inevitably in a 
 lonely death within a few days. Compare Ant. 50-1. 
 
 . . . iraTrjp 
 <hs v<2v airexdys 8v(Tk\€7]s t* airaiXtro, 
 irpbs a.VTO<p<j)puv ap.ir\a.KrifiaTWV, 5i7rXas 
 oxptLs dpa£as avrbs avrovpyui xtp' L - 
 
 This version would fit neither into any cult story nor into any 
 consecutive treatment of the whole saga, of which we have 
 evidence. Therefore the probability is that Sophocles invented 
 it. Thus while Oedipus may have been represented, before this 
 play, as a blind wanderer, there is no solid evidence for it and the 
 theme in the Oedipus Tyrannus is developed purely out of the 
 play itself. The bearing on suspense is obvious. At the outset 
 our minds are directed to the coming fate of Oedipus by a 
 new motive, viz., the anonymous condemnation to exile of the 
 murderer. Teiresias fixes this on the king. Cithaeron is men- 
 tioned first in a vague suggestion, after the manner of Aeschylus 
 (421). Thus a suspense of real uncertainty is kept up over the 
 anagnorisis and angelia. We wonder how, after the blinding, 
 this banishment sentence can be carried out, until we discover 
 (1451 ff.) that Oedipus intends to visit it on himself strictly and 
 literally; of its full hideousness he only leaves us to imagine — 
 
 ov yap av irore 
 dvrfaKoiv k<j6>Qr)v, fxi] 'vl to; 8eii>u} kclkw. 
 
 Creon's scruple in 1518 roD Otov p.' airtTs 66<nv, does not weigh 
 against Teiresias' prophecy. 
 
 The best comment on this exodus is 0. C, 431 ff., 765 ff., 
 from which it appears that Oedipus is indeed sent into banish- 
 
 4 
 
50 
 
 ment after the anagnorisis, but not immediately; that is, not in 
 the mood in which he was exhibited to us when 
 
 rjBiaTOU 8e p.01 
 to na.Tda.veiv y)v nal to XevaOfjvai weTpois, 
 
 and when death would have been the inevitable consequence of 
 his departure. What is almost certainly a criticism of the 
 exodus of the Oedipus Tyr annus appears in Eur. Phoen. 1620 f., 
 
 t'l fi' 6.p8i]v w5' aironTeiveis, Kpeov ; 
 awoKTeveis yap, el jue 777s e£co jSaXets. 
 
 Euripides finds his way out of the difficulty here by inventing 
 Antigone's part as that of guide and help in place of Iocaste — 
 a ir68a obv tv4>\6ttovv OepaTev/xaaLv aiev tfioxOeu (Phoen. 1549). 
 Similarly for Euripides' Oedipus Robert makes out a strong 
 probability that Iocaste there followed him into exile (p. 314 ff.). 
 But Antigone has not yet announced her intention (1679) of going 
 with her father when Phoen. 1620-1 are spoken, so that the words 
 of those lines have their full force. The passages quoted in the 
 Oedipus Cohneus as well as the introduction of Antigone and 
 Ismene as caring for and accompanying Oedipus show that 
 Sophocles accepted this criticism. 
 
 In the Oedipus Tyrannus the suspense regarding the fate of 
 Oedipus naturally falls between three lines: imprisonment, exile, 
 or suicide; and exile is the least obvious of the three. The issue 
 is quite uncertain, and the actual conclusion develops by suc- 
 cessive hints, none of them very obvious, out of the action itself. 
 The suspense is acute on this point during the entire play and is 
 admirably sustained by vague hints, not by any clear plan or 
 prediction. 
 
 2. Seven against Thebes. 
 
 The story of an attack on Thebes instigated by Polyneices and 
 led by Adrastus was handled in the Thebais and alluded to in II. 
 IV, 365 ff. and V, 800 ff., ending in the defeat of the attackers 
 and the death of most of their champions (Theb., fr. 4, 5, 7 
 Evelyn- White). Oedipus condemned his sons to death at each 
 other's hands in a curse (fr. 3), which was certainly fulfilled. 
 There is thus no novelty as regards essentials in the Aeschylean 
 play. A few incidents may be noted: 
 
51 
 
 a) Form of the curse. Theb. fr. 3 — 
 
 evKTO Ad ^acn\rJL nai dXXots aBavaToiai 
 Xtpviv vtt' aXK-qXoov naTafi-qntvai "Ai5os etcrw. 
 
 Robert (p. 264 ff.) believes that Aeschylus suppressed, in the 
 preceding plays of the Theban triology, this second and grimmer 
 form of the curse, keeping only the first, ibid. fr. 2. 
 
 cos ov ol irarput.' ev rjdeiy 4>l\6tt]tl 
 
 60.000.^7' , a/icfroTepoicn 5'aei ir6\ep.oi re /zdxcu re . . . 
 
 cf. Sept. 785 ff. 
 
 t€Kvols 5' aypias 
 
 6<f>rJK€l> tTTlKOTOVS TpO(j)OLS, 
 
 cuat, TrinpoyXuaaovs apas, 
 /ecu acf>e aibapovofico 
 5td x e P L iroTt \ax*i-v 
 
 KTY]/j.aTa, 
 
 and cites Eteocles' words in going out to battle, which clearly 
 indicate that the issue of the duel was in doubt, to him at least; 
 cf. 69 ff., 659 ff., 683 ff. This is thoroughly in the manner of the 
 Oresteia and would make a much better play, for it introduces an 
 element of uncertainty as to the outcome of the brother-duel and 
 at the same time makes the play more impressive ethically by 
 emphasizing human motive at each step. At best, however, it 
 is only an attractive possibility. Robert has to explain away 
 (pp. 266-7) the lines 689-91 
 
 eirei to irpay/j.a napr' eiriaTrepxti- Oeos, 
 lto) kclt' ovpov KVfia Kookvtov \axbv 
 4>otj3cjj arvyqdev irav to Aatov yevos, 
 and 819-20 
 
 eijoucu 5' 771/ XafiuicTLv tv racpfj x®bva 
 irarpos /car' evxo-s dvairorpovs 4>opovp.evot.. 
 
 The first line sounds like an echo of the text of an actual curse; 
 cf. 0. C. 789-90. 
 
 b) The pairing of the combatants. The exact pairing of 
 champion with champion was introduced by Aeschylus (Robert, 
 p. 244 ff.; cf. the story of Tydeus, p. 130 ff.), obviously f<> lead up 
 to the announcement of the duel between the brothers. It was 
 the natural mechanical means to let 1 his lie known to the audience 
 before the battle. Otherwise the brothers would only quietly 
 
52 
 
 seek each other out in the melee and we should know nothing till 
 after the event. Note the shift of Polyneices from fourth place, 
 which he had in the row of statues dedicated at Delphi by the 
 Argives after the battle of Oenoe (Paus. x 10, 3), to the dramatic 
 place of honor, namely the last. Robert discusses this list on p. 
 237 ff. and p. 244, and gives what he believes to be the true list 
 for the Thebais. They do not differ materially so far as Poly- 
 neices is concerned. In Robert's list he is placed fifth. In the 
 statues of the Epigoni at Argos (Paus. ii 20, 7) the sons of Poly- 
 neices come last. These statues are undated; Pausanias says in 
 a parenthesis "for the Argives followed Aeschylus' poetry," but 
 the list given is not that of Aeschylus' Seven. 
 
 c) 587-9. Amphiaraus predicts his own death. A different 
 version appears in Pindar N. ix, 16 ff. The sons of Talaus lead 
 an army against Thebes. Zeus tried to deter them by an ill- 
 omened thunderbolt as they were setting out. All the heroes 
 were killed; Amphiaraus was saved from death at the hands of 
 Periclymenus by being swallowed up in the earth; but there is no 
 mention of his having predicted his own death. In Od. VI 13, 
 Amphiaraus is a prophet. In Od. XI, 326-7; XV, 246-7 allusion 
 is made to the story of Eriphyle, who was bribed into betraying 
 her husband (cf. schol. ad loc; Apollod. iii 6, 2, 4; Diodor. iv 65, 
 6). It is likely enough that the story of Amphiaraus' prediction 
 of his own death was not part of the Odyssey 1 version, although 
 there is no reference to it that I can find earlier than our plaj^. 
 Eriphyle in the act of being bribed by Polyneices appears on a 
 vase (Robert, p. 209). On the Cypselus chest (Paus. v 17, 7) 
 she appears with the necklace, at the departure of Amphiaraus, 
 and a similar scene is on an archaic vase reproduced in Roscher 
 s.v. Amphiaraus. Of the other Argive heroes, Tydeus was 
 familiar from II. IV, 365 and VII, 800. The exact names of the 
 seven in the Thebais are uncertain, but the more individualized, 
 Tydeus, Capaneus, Amphiaraus, Polyneices, were certainly there, 
 and their boasts and appearance might suggest to the audience 
 their exploits and fate in the last battle. But for all this, Aeschy- 
 lus is our earliest source. Robert believes that the series of Etrus- 
 can urns (p. 228 ff.) represents a tradition that can be traced 
 
 1 Hes. Cat. fr. 99 Evelyn-White is too fragmentary to be certain evidence, 
 though it seems to contain this story. 
 
53 
 
 indirectly to the Thebais, but this is too uncertain to be of use 
 to us. 
 
 For the spurious closing scene of this play, see Robert , p. \\~~) IT. 
 
 The results from this play are not satisfactory. The only 
 mythological suspense that could arise would concern: a) the 
 fate of the city which, as all stories agreed and everyone knew, 
 was saved; b) the fate of Eteocles and Polyneices. If Aeschylus 
 disregarded earlier in the trilogy the full curse-form of the Thebais 
 and made Oedipus pray only that his sons might divide their 
 inheritance by the sword, not that they kill each other; also if a 
 story was current, independent of the Thebais, in which they 
 survived this battle, then considerable suspense might arise over 
 this issue. But we cannot even hazard a guess on either of these 
 points. There can hardly have been much intrinsic interest or 
 suspense over the other pairs of combatants; their function is to 
 lead up to the brother-duel, making this battle dignified and 
 noble as well as terrible. To allow the brothers to seek each 
 other out in the press and glut their mutual hatred with common 
 disregard of the common weal would have offended Aeschylus' 
 sense of order. 
 
 Hence the only means of suspense we can be sure of here is the 
 development of the anticipation of a certain end. 
 
 3. Phoenissae. 
 
 In this curious play nearly all the elements of the Theban saga 
 are introduced in one form or another, and we may discuss briefly 
 each one in so far as it contributes to the general suspense. 
 
 a) Iocaste. By making her present at the attack of the Seven, 
 Euripides goes back over Sophocles and Aeschylus to the Thebais. 1 
 Her inclusion, though justifiable dramatically, was partly 
 motivated by Euripides' desire to present every important per- 
 sonage in the saga that could possibly be dragged into a single 
 play; the same is true of Oedipus and Polyneices. Iocaste's 
 usefulness appears throughout: 1) She is the obvious person to 
 speak the prologue, having played a leading part in all the events 
 since the exposure of Oedipus; 2) she is also the most convincing 
 link possible between the two brothers if they are to be brought 
 
 1 Cf. painting of Onasias ap. Pans, ix 4, 2. See Robert, p. L80 
 
54 
 
 together. Note 452-68, 528-85, her speeches to Eteocles and 
 Polyneices. In 559 ff. she states well the futility of their joining 
 battle, whatever the issue. Note also that in 469 ff. Polyneices' 
 speech follows on his mother's; his demands are just and mod- 
 erate (484-91), based on the former arrangement of alternating 
 kingship 1 (473-80; 69-76), which appears here for the first time. 
 In putting Polyneices in the right, Euripides follows Pherecydes 
 and probably the Thebais, which was written from the Argive 
 point of view (Powell, Intro, to Phoenissae, p. 61). Thus by 
 introducing Iocaste and justifying Polyneices, Euripides fixes 
 our sympathies and creates a livelier suspense as to the outcome 
 of the meeting. Eteocles has to take refuge in sophistry (504- 
 10) and pure self-will (510-20), so that the story may take its 
 course; 3) there is a second attempt by Iocaste, probably quite 
 new in this play, to prevent the conflict of the brothers at the 
 last moment; to this end the angelia is made more elaborate and 
 the proceedings divided into three stages, so as to be quite under- 
 standable. The third stage is the truce initiated by Eteocles' 
 proclamation from the tower (1223 ff.), under cover of which 
 Iocaste rushes out with Antigone (1264-82). Thus the suspense 
 of the second angelia (1339, 1349) is highly complicated. Not 
 only the success or failure of Iocaste's errand but her actual fate 
 is clearly a question after 1282. Quite conceivably her death 
 followed here in the Thebais (see Robert, p. 415), but whether or 
 not the audience had this or another lead as to her fate we cannot 
 say. 
 
 b) Form of the curse. As in the Septem only the first of the 
 two Thebais curses is kept (67-8), 
 
 apas dparcu waiaiv avoa lut ar as 
 Bt)kt& atdrjpu} 5ojp,a dLaXax&v rode. 
 So, except for the compulsion of the saga, the conclusion is not 
 foregone. On the other hand, more is made of the abiding effect 
 of the original oracle to Laius than in the Septem (19-20), 
 
 el yap Tenvcoaeis xcu5', aTOKrevei a' 6 4>vs, 
 
 Kal iras ads olkos firjaeTaL dl aiparos. 
 To this clearly refers 624 epperio ■wpbwas 56/xos, which is an answer 
 to Iocaste's irarpos oh (frev^ead' 'Epivvs; Not only the father's curse, 
 
 1 For another story of a contract, see Hellanicus ap. schol. Phoen. 71, and 
 Robert, p. 271 with note 41. 
 
55 
 
 but an older blight, is destroying us, a blight which affects the 
 whole family. Note the suggestion of Iocaste's suicide and also 
 her reference to Polyncices' marriage (341-3) as 
 
 aXaara parpl rade Aatco re tQ> Trakaiytvt'i, 
 yapcov (iraKTOv arav. 
 
 The word akaara and the mention of Laius show that more is 
 meant than that " a foreign wife is no blessing". Clearly it was 
 art] to marry at all. This thought is pursued in the antistrophe 
 (801 ff.). Would that Cithaeron had never taken up Oedipus! 
 —814 ff. 
 
 ov yap o /jlti Kakbv ovttot' e<t>v tcaXov, 
 
 01)8' OL /JLTj VOp.ljJ.OL 
 
 7ratdes /xarpi /\6xtvp,a, plaapa irarpds. 
 A curse lay on the boys from the manner of their birth, from 
 which ill was bound to come; — 867-9 
 
 vooti yap r)5e yrj iraXai, Kpeov, 
 e£ ov 'TtKvcoOr] Aaios fiia deoou, 
 Tocriv t' e<f)vo~e prjrpl pekeov QibLirovv. 
 Yet, though the explicit death-curse is omitted, there is no doubl 
 as to the coming death of the brothers. This is settled by Teire- 
 sias (880). This theme appears in the Septem, but too late to 
 affect suspense (844, 902 ff. ; cf. 748 dvq.aKovra yewas arep aw^tLv 
 ■koKlv, the counterpart of Phoen. 20-1). In the Oedipus Tyran- 
 nies the oracle states simply that any son Laius begets will kill 
 him (713-4, 1176), and this was undoubtedly the original form 
 of the prediction when the story of Laius and Oedipus was 
 still personal and independent of the wars with Argos and the 
 Minyae. (See Robert, p. 62, 66-7, 119 ff.) Here, in an unavoida- 
 ble issue, suspense is produced, not by trying to bring up alterna- 
 tives, but by alluding constantly to the end which everyone knows 
 is coming, and thus inducing a mood of nervous expectation. 
 This need brings about the extension of the prophecy uttered to 
 Laius over the fortunes of the whole house until the family is 
 extinct. 
 
 c) Menoeceus. Robert (p. 416) following Wilamowitz (De 
 Eur. Heraclidis; Pr. Greifswald, 1882) believes this episode to be 
 a free invention of Euripides (so also Powell, Introduction t<> 
 Phoenissae, p. 82, and Weeklein quoted there). His argument 
 is "die dramatische Okonomie der Phoinisscn . . . allein den 
 
56 
 
 Schliisscl fur diese Erfindung gibt", which amounts to saying 
 that the episode as it appears in the play is decently motivated. 
 The reference to a grave and legend of Menoeceus in Pausanias 1 
 (ix 25, 1), which diverges from Euripides, and the dance 
 Mej/oiKecos d7rd>\eia in Luc. de Salt. 43 (surely a strange by-product 
 of literature! Cf. Hdt. v, 67), constitute a certain presumption 
 in favor of an independent legend. 
 
 The incident, however, as critics agree, is appropriate and 
 effective. It is introduced (867-9) as a means to do away with 
 the curse on the land due to Laius' disobedience and the resulting 
 abominations. He goes on: 
 
 880 e77i>s 8e davaros avrox^-P avrois, Kpkop. 
 
 884 ah t', Si TaXaiva, avynaTaaKairTfl ttoXl, 
 
 ei jii] \6yotai rots kfiois ris ireiaeTai. 
 Then the halt (S91). As in Oedipus Tyr annus he whets our 
 curiosity by refusing to speak. The suspense here works back- 
 wards in a curious way. We know the city was saved, and here 
 Teiresias makes this event depend on some intermediate step 
 which his reticence shows to be disagreeable, — 
 892 Triupbv re roiai rr\v tvxv v K€KTr]fxkvoLs. 
 
 In 905-7 he asks that Menoeceus be removed. The story was too 
 obscure to be known to many of the audience, and our curiosity 
 is not satisfied till 913 o-#d£cu Mepomka. Objective suspense is 
 now over, all around, and interest shifts to the means and details 
 of accomplishment. The delay is complicated by Creon's appeal 
 to Teiresias 919-29, followed by the reason for the sacrifice, 931-59 
 — Ares and Ge must be satisfied by the human blood of a Cad- 
 meian. These details are clear, and in themselves not relevant 
 to the story; very likely the legend was originally connected 
 with some other early war. 
 
 d) Polyneices. He appears in person in order: 1) to give his 
 side of the exposition, which includes an intimate statement of 
 his feeling and point of view 389 ff . ; 2) to make a reconciliation 
 seem possible for a while; 3) to give the contrast of character 
 
 1 Delphi, not Teiresias, is responsible for the sacrifice in Pausanias. Cf . 
 Phoen., lines 852-7, which almost certainly show that the "oracle" in the 
 Erechtheus to sacrifice the maiden proceeded from Teiresias. How else could he 
 have made the Cecropidae victorious? But the mythological source, which 
 also mentions Euripides, says els AeX^ow lui>. Lycurgus schol. Leoc. 98; see 
 Xauck s.v. Erechtheus. Cf. Stob. 39, 33; Paradox. 219 Westermann. 
 
57 
 
 between himself, his mother, and his brother. The introduction 
 
 of Polyneiccs into Thebes here is doubtless quite new wit h Kurip- 
 ides. The suggestion of such a visit lay already in the story of 
 Tydeus' entry into Thebes: 
 
 tous 5' ap' 67r' 'Aacoircp Xi7re xaXKOxifwas Axcuous, 
 
 avrdp 6 fj.el\t.xov p-vOov 4>epe Ka!)p.tLoi.cni> 
 
 Keta' ' drdp a\j/ airiwv p.a\a p.kpp.epa prjaaTo tpya (II. X, 287-9). 
 
 For the relation of this passage to the Thebais see Robert, p. 
 186 ff. 
 
 Like Polyneiccs in the Phoenissae, Tydeus brought a proposal 
 for an agreement, was rejected, and on his return p.a\a nep/xepa 
 Hrjcraro (pya. Cf. Phoen. 625. Pol. cos rax' ovkW alp.aTr\pbv Tovp.6v 
 apyriaei £t0os. There is no trace in the Phoenissae of the 
 story of the athletic contest between Tydeus and the young 
 Thebans (II. IV, 806-7; VII, 385-90). But Polyneices' fear of 
 an ambush 263-73, 361-6 seems meant to suggest the passage in 
 II. VII, 391-8. Polyneices fears the ambush as he enters the 
 city; Tydeus fell into one on his return, presumably outside the 
 walls. Robert (p. 193) compares the story, which appears only 
 in pictures, of Achilles, Troilus, and Polyxena. See Roscher iii 
 2, 2723 ff. But in the Phoenissae the mention of an ambush at 
 Polyneices' departure would have been a jarring note after the 
 subtle psychological interests of the foregoing scene, and the play 
 begins at a stage in the war when the besieged were tightly en- 
 closed inside the citadel. Cf. the first part of the angelia 1090- 
 1186, and the change 1190. An ambush story like that about 
 Tydeus, the Doloneia, or, apparently, that about Troilus and 
 Polyxena, implies a state of open warfare in which the besieged 
 are encamped outside their gates. The Tydeus story would 
 probably not occur to any of the audience, nor did it occur to 
 anyone that Polyneices, since he was fated to fight with his 
 brother, would fall into an ambush. He is brought in merely 
 for the interest in the moral and pathetic side of his relations to 
 his mother and brother. 
 
 e) Burial of Polyneices. The command to leave Polyneices 
 unburied is put in the mouth of Eteoclea (774-7); these are al- 
 most his last words, and hence emphatic (cf. Soph. .1///. 515). 
 The suspense about this carries on through the angelia. where 
 it is re-aroused by Polyneices' dying requesl for burial I 1117 IT.). 
 
58 
 
 Antigone announces her decision to bury her brother (1657), and 
 Creon threatens her with death (1658). The suspense as to this 
 is taken up into the quite novel theme which follows (1679 ff.): 
 Antigone will follow her father into exile. She actually bullies 
 Creon into agreeing to this by threatening to murder her bride- 
 groom if she is forced to marry Creon's son (1673-5), so that he 
 is only too glad to be rid of her (1682). There is no definite 
 conclusion of the burial issue, but the impression we carry away 
 is that Creon is cowed by 1673-5 and ready to let her out of the 
 country on her own terms, which would naturally include the 
 burial. The point Robert raises (p. 425), that the prohibition of 
 Eteocles only refers to Theban earth, is hence different from the 
 version of the Antigone, and, further, refers to the casting out of 
 the bones of Phrynichus in 412 B.C. (Lycurgus Leoc. 113), is 
 too subtle a distinction to have any value for suspense. Nor is 
 there any essential difference between the various versions of 
 Creon's proclamation, which is the definitive thing: 
 Ant. 26 ff. tov o' a6\l(j:s davbvra Uo\vp€lkovs v'tKvv 
 
 aoTolai 4>aaiv eKneKrjpvxda.1. to p.rj 
 
 Tacf)cp KaKvxj/aL fj.r]8e KoinvaaL tlvo., 
 
 eav 5' anXavTOV, aracfrop, oioovols y\vicvv 
 
 drjaavpov. 
 Ant. 203 ff. tovtov wokei Trfi' eKK€K7]pvKTai tclcJ)co 
 
 fxrjre Krepi^eLv p.r}re KCOKvaai tlvo. 
 
 eav 5' adairrov nal irpbs oiwvcov <5e/xas 
 
 Kal irpbs Kvvdv kdearop aiKiaOevr' idelp. 
 
 Phoen. 1632 ff. os a.v veupbv tovo" f\ KaTaaTetpccv a\<2 
 
 r) yfj koKvtttwv, davarov avTaWa^erai. 
 The source of this incident lies, not in Phrynichus' bones, but in 
 the Antigone of Sophocles. As to the fate of Antigone, previous 
 stories gave no clear lead, as the matter was only taken up into 
 the drama by Sophocles. Whether Euripides' Antigone, which 
 flatly contradicted the Sophoclean issue, 1 preceded the Phoenissae 
 or not, we do not know. But in an unfamiliar story like this, a 
 dramatist was not bound by the arrangements of a predecessor, 
 and Euripides cuts loose from both his own and the Sophoclean 
 Antigone in 1673-8. As at the end of the Oedipus Coloneus, her 
 future is simply left uncertain. This part of the play is so- 
 
 1 See Robert's convincing reconstruction, p. 381 ff. 
 
59 
 
 crowded that the audience probably became confused from 1583 
 on. After 1588 and 1632-3 they would naturally expect to end 
 with a summary of the Antigone of Sophocles. Lines L673 5 
 shake them roughly out of this belief, and the answer comes in 
 1679, with her resolve to follow her father into exile, a criticism 
 of Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannus, as we saw. The burial issue is 
 then dropped, and the suspense trails off rather lamely. 
 
 f) The future of Oedipus. As we saw above, both Euripides 
 and Sophocles felt that in any dramatization of Oedipus' history 
 subsequent to the blinding, Oedipus needed some companion. 
 Here Antigone steps into the place of her mother (1549) as his 
 protector (1679). His going forth is made necessary by the fact 
 that Euripides wishes to account for the local Colonus legend 
 (1707-9), which requires that he go forth from Thebes, and thus 
 Antigone's accompanying him is a corollary of that. For the 
 sources for the Colonus-story, see Robert, p. 18 ff., and for his 
 ingenious theory as to its origin see p. 36 ff. That this story went 
 beyond a legend vaguely associating Oedipus with the locality is 
 improbable, for it appears from the Oedipus Coloneus that there 
 was no visible grave or shrine. This is significant, for it suggests 
 that the close of the Oedipus Tyrannus, implying the inevitable 
 death of Oedipus, had been noticed and discussed in cultivated 
 circles. Euripides had already contradicted this by keeping 
 Oedipus shut up in Thebes through the war. Thus 1679 is to 
 show that, in sending Oedipus into exile, Euripides is not leaving 
 him to the fate of the Oedipus Tyrannus even at this time. The 
 Colonus legend might naturally occur here to many of the audi- 
 ence, and keep up suspense till it was mentioned. 
 
 Thus from 1679 on, the arrangements which close the play and 
 the history of the Labdacid house are in drama quite new. They 
 have a patriotic interest parallel to that of the Eumenidcs, as 
 sketching a history associating Attica with the final reconciliation 
 of a foreign house long at enmity with the gods. 
 
 4. Oedipus Coloneus. 
 
 The suggestion for this play lay already ;it hand in the Pi 
 issae (Robert, p. 457) 1703 ff. 
 
 vvv xp7?0"MOs, d) 7raT, Ao£ioi' Trepaiver ai . 
 1705 kv reus Wdrjuais Kardavtiv p.'a\<!oixtvov. 
 
 1707 iepos KoKccpos, biciiad' iinriov 9tov. 
 
60 
 
 What was the form of the legend that lay behind this, we can- 
 not tell. Robert's ingenious theory (see Ch. 1 of his book) that 
 it grew out of an apparition to one of the soldiers in a hypothetical 
 battle with the Thebans in 506 B.C., an identification of this 
 with Oedipus, and a vaticinatio post eventum, deserves attention, 
 but there are many missing links in the evidence. However, 
 most of what is vital to suspense in our play was put together out 
 of the elements in the literary saga, or invented to supplement it. 
 
 a) The oracle. 1) Cf. Phoen. 1703-7 above. Sophocles uses 
 this oracle to bind together the varied action of his play. The 
 first intimation is in 44-5; he knows Colonus by the presence of 
 a shrine to the Eumenides, and he intends to stay. He wishes 
 (70) to send a message to the King, and states the meaning of the 
 oracle (88-95). He is to end his life at a place which is evidently, 
 by its description, the one where he now is. This sets the main 
 suspense of the play as suspense of anticipation, not of uncer- 
 tainty. 
 
 2) Another oracle appears in 1331-2: 
 
 el yap tl ■klctov kariv en xPV (TTr IP' LUV > 
 ols av crv irpocrdri, roLab' ec/xxc/c' elvai Kparos. 
 This, curiously, appears first in the scene with Polyneices and 
 causes a sham suspense of uncertainty as to the event of the 
 Theban war, until it is clear that Oedipus will join neither side. 
 
 3) Also 409-11 
 
 eorcu 7tot' apa tovto Ka8p.elois (3apos . . . 
 
 Trjs arjs vtt' opyrjs, cols orav ot&oiv racpois. 
 These last two oracles were evidently delivered to the Thebans 
 (possibly also the first, cf. 353-6), and made known to Oedipus 
 only by accident. It is impossible to win any coherent view as to 
 the occasions of these pronouncements. Oedipus speaks of a 
 body of oracles delivered about him (353-5) and spoken at 
 different times; in 87 they appear to have been delivered all at 
 once. Of the three oracles, 1) was taken from Phoen. 1703-5; 
 2) was invented for this play, for there is nothing to indicate 
 that in any previous story Oedipus was even potentially an 
 arbiter in the quarrel between his sons, except as damning both; 
 and 3) was presumably suggested by some element in the local 
 legend (cf. the oracle in schol. to 0. C. 57). Thus an element of 
 patriotic expectation would go into the suspense which this 
 
61 
 
 arouses. Beside this, it serves to motivate the scene with Creon, 
 an action, that is, which tends against Oedipus' settlement here 
 and thus makes a play. If we could suppose that Creon knew 
 about the oracle (1332-3), it would serve as a further explanal ion 
 of his conduct. But Ismene has the latest information from 
 Thebes (387-90), and 1332-3 are doubtless meant for a separate 
 oracle to Polyneices and his allies. It quickens suspense at the 
 close of this scene and adds dignity to the conclusion, because it 
 makes this an alternative to Oedipus' returning to Thebes and 
 his home with full honors (1342). This causes a real suspense 
 of uncertainty till 1100, when the children are rescued and it is 
 clear that Oedipus will not go to Thebes. This oracle makes one 
 think for a while that he will go, because we know the city was 
 saved. But the oracle says "hard on the Cad?neians", not the 
 Thebans in general, and this must be taken as referring to the 
 reigning house. Robert (p. 469 ff.) believes the Polyneices scene 
 to be an addition unessential to, and here contradicting, the rest 
 of the play. But there is nothing to show that the two oracles 
 are incompatible. Cf. 422-3. 
 
 ev 5' kfiol tcXos 
 ainolv y'tvoiro rrjade rrjs naws irkpi. 
 1332-3 seem like a fulfilment of this. Did Sophocles think of 
 that oracle as delivered after Oedipus had uttered those very 
 words? 
 
 b) Oracle 2), as we saw, brought Oedipus into connection with 
 the expedition of the Seven and so, conformably, the impending 
 battle, which is perfectly familiar to the audience, is kept in the 
 back of their minds. Preparations are described in 365-81. and 
 continued in 1301-45. The progress extends to the action (13 1 I 
 2); the invaders are already camped before Thebes. Parallel 
 to this runs the development of the curse-theme: 1) 421-54; 
 neither son will ever get any benefit from his mother city. This 
 is changed from the simple curse of the earlier stories to a state- 
 ment of something which Oedipus knows from the oracles (452-4) ; 
 hence the strife is fated. 2) In 789 f. in answer to Creon, ( tedipus 
 says that both sons will get enough Theban land to die in (cf. 
 Sept. 819 f.). 3) From 1372 ff. it appears thai they will die at 
 each other's hands; this is confirmed by 1383-8. This last pre- 
 diction, made directly to Polyneices' face, is taken from the 
 second curse of the Thebais and possibly from the Aeschylean 
 
62 
 
 trilogy. But the disastrous results of the war are really a fore- 
 gone conclusion from the beginning, and thus the curse is not the 
 cause of it, although Polyneices, less documented with oracles, 
 believes it so to be (1432-4). 
 
 The curse is thus in its form similar to the Thebais. 421-54 
 corresponds inexactly to fr. 2 Evelyn-White, and 1372-88 
 exactly to fr. 3. Only, the curse is not the cause, and this trait 
 is new. The actual issue of the fight is left unconcluded though 
 certain, and we are reminded of it once before the end (1769-70). 
 It should be noted that the curse theme, and the suspense of 
 anticipation it involves, run along independent of and parallel 
 to, the suspense of uncertainty caused by the oracle in 409-11. 
 They are confusing, but would contradict each other only in 
 case Oedipus went to Thebes. 
 
 c) Robert (p. 8 ff.) sees in 389-407, 784-6 a reference to the 
 legend and location of the original grave of Oedipus at Eteonus. 
 Thus the play represents the conflict between two local legends. 
 To Sophocles' mind this conflict was probably present, but the 
 fact of the Eteonus cult was hardly well known to his audience, 
 and the lines hence have no more than their face value. The 
 theme of a Theban embassy trying to fetch back Oedipus for the 
 sake of his grave, after he had gone on his wanderings, is unknown 
 to previous literature so far as we know it. The determining 
 factor in suspense here is the question whether Colonus will in 
 fact be the place of Oedipus' death. Once Sophocles has raised 
 this issue, we are keen to see it carried through and the Colonus 
 story justified. 
 
 5. Antigone. 
 
 The suggestion of this play seems to come from two sources : 
 a) The Eleusinian story (Hdt. ix 27, 3; Aesch. Eleusinioi 
 ap. Plut. Thes. 29: See Nauck.). According to this version, 
 after the expedition of the Seven, the Thebans refused burial to 
 their dead enemies, but the Athenians persuaded or compelled 
 the Thebans to allow burial. The corpses were then buried at 
 Eleusis or Eleutherae; ra^al 8e t&v ttoXXcov h 'EXevdepais Selnvvv- 
 tcu, tQiv 8' riyefjiovuv irepl 'EXevalva, Plutarch. Polyneices appears 
 in Eur. Suppl. His name is mentioned last, and by Theseus 1 
 
 1 The connection of this passage is curious. Does it mean that his body was 
 not there? 
 
63 
 
 (928 ff.). There is no allusion to Antigone, (iron figures in 
 Eur. Suppl. through the mouth of his herald. But there was 
 no question of a formal forbidding of burial, addressed to the 
 the Thebans, who might be presumed to stand together in this 
 matter. There was no Antigone and no Haemon. This story 
 contradicts the Thebais, in which the seven heroes, who did not 
 include Adrastus, were burned in greal state after the battle! 
 (Pind. N. ix 24; vi 15 ff., and Asclcpiades ad loc. in schol.) 
 
 b) Robert finds traces of a more personal story than this in t he 
 reference to Ion of Chios 1 in the Salustian hypothesis to the 
 Antigone: 6 p.tv yap "Iwv kv tols 5i0updyu/3ois KaraTprjadriuai 4>t]<tii> 
 aiJL(f)OTfpas (i.e., Antigone and Ismene) ei> t<2 Upu> 7-775 "Upas viro 
 Aaoda/jiavTos tov 'EreoKXeous. This is supposed to be a punishment 
 for something. A story can be traced back as far as Callima- 
 chus 2 to the effect that Antigone buried Polyneices by dragging 
 his body to the already burning pyre of his brother. The diffi- 
 culty lies in connecting this story with the curious event in Ion, 
 and precisely here, the evidence fails. Robert connects the two 
 without hesitation and finds in the reference to the temple of Hera 
 in Ion a trace of the temple legend that started the whole story. 
 If that is the case, we have a curious phenomenon, viz., two 
 parallel legends appearing in literary form about the same time, 
 dealing roughly with the same event but with the widest diver- 
 gence of detail and consequences, and each story securing, more- 
 over, a following amongst later writers. Nevertheless, there is 
 much to be said in favor of this theory. The incident in Ion is 
 otherwise hard to motivate, and the proposed inclusion of 
 Ismene in Antigone's punishment (Robert, p. 364 ff.) seems like 
 an echo of a story where both were equally guilty. Cf. Ant. 488 
 ff.; 534 ff.; 576 ff.; 779 ff. Robert compares also Polyneices' 
 appeal to both his sisters (0. C. 1407 ff.); also the tomb where 
 Antigone was immured, with the burned temple of Sera. Cf. 
 the Brazen House of Pausanias in Sparta (Thuc. i 134). The 
 inevitable conflation of a) and b) appears in Apollod. iii 7, 1. 
 
 If such a story was extant before Sophocles' Antigone, it would 
 create a strong presumption in favor of the disastrous endii 
 the play. But it would give no lead as to the precise event, vie., 
 
 1 See Robert, p. 362 ff. for discussion: Inn's literary activity a1 Athens fall- 
 between B.C. 152 21. 
 
 2 See Robert, vol. ii, p. 126, n. 53 for refs. 
 
64 
 
 her hanging of herself. Note also that the suspense is kept up 
 without any general recourse to foreknown saga. In 944 ff. 
 Creon has shown no sign of relenting, and disaster will follow in 
 the natural course. In 988, that certain harbinger of evil, 
 Teiresias, appears and (1064 ff.) proclaims disaster: Creon will 
 lose someone from his own family. Then Creon changes his 
 mind (1095-1110). But now we know from Teiresias that the 
 disaster is coming, and Creon's change of heart only adds to the 
 dramatic irony, but causes no uncertainty. This sequence is 
 only made possible by the fact that it takes Teiresias till 1064-71 
 to make Creon see what we, and even the chorus, saw in 762-7. 
 
 No traces of the romantic story of Haemon, nor of Eurydice,. 
 appear in earlier literature so far as we can trace it. Line 2 
 Toiv cur' 015'urov kclk&p is a general reference to the evils connected 
 with the birth and history of Oedipus, and this theme is elaborated 
 in an ode (583 ff.), but it finds no part in the dialogue, which is 
 vividly human and bears little relation to anything outside itself. 
 
 The story in Ion may therefore be taken as creating suspense 
 of anticipation of a disaster, while the precise nature of the dis- 
 aster is clearly a matter of doubt owing to the shift of chronology, 
 by which Eteocles is already buried. This is the same method 
 we saw in the Rhesus and Philoctetes. 
 
 6. Supplices. 
 
 For the old story, which is probably that of the Thebais, see 
 Pind. 0. vi 15 and Asclepiades ap. schol. ad loc; N. ix 22 ff. There 
 is here no question of the Thebans refusing burial to their dead 
 enemies. This story proceeded from Eleusis or Attica (Hdt. ix 
 27). Cf. Aeschylus and Philochorus ap. Plut. Thes. 29 (see 
 Nauck 2 , p. 18-9). There is no variant in its general course or 
 issue, except for the version less discreditable to themselves, in- 
 vented by the Thebans, according to which they gave up the 
 bodies willingly instead of under compulsion (Paus. i 39, 2). 
 There is no earlier reference for Euadne as daughter of Iphis and 
 wife of Capaneus; hence one is free to believe that her self-sacri- 
 fice was quite new to the audience, and that there was no lead 
 given by any previous story as to what she would do when she 
 appeared (990). There is no trace of a self-sacrifice story other- 
 
65 
 
 wise in the legends of the burial of the seven heroes. The fad 
 that she is a sister of the shadow-figure, Eteoclus, who appears 
 first in Sept. 457, without parentage, and is here given a father by 
 Euripides (1036-7), would go to show thai she is, like him, only 
 the creature of a dramatic emergency. Iphis has a small history 
 of his own in later authors (see Roscher s.v.), but his connection 
 with Eteoclus seems to rest on this play. There is thus suspense 
 of anticipation regarding the burial theme from the beginning 
 and of uncertainty regarding Euadne from 980 to 1072. 
 
 IV. Athenian Legends. 
 
 1. Medea. 
 
 This play is drawn partly from an Athenian, partly from a 
 Corinthian, source. How much of the story existed before 
 Euripides it is impossible to say, for there is not one single trait 
 of his play beyond the localization of Iason and Medea in Corinth 
 for which uncontested earlier evidence exists. Without attempt- 
 ing an exhaustive review of the evidence, we may try to reach a 
 point of view regarding each important incident. 
 
 a) Murder of the children. Did anything in the earlier saga 
 lead the audience to expect this? 
 
 1) Pausanias, ii 3, 10, purporting to summarize Eumelus, a 
 Corinthian epic poet of the last half of the eighth century, tells 
 us that Medea hid her children in the temple of Hera, hoping to 
 make them immortal; she was deceived of her hope and left 
 Corinth; it is implied that her children died. But it appears 
 from Paus. ii 1, 1, that he had no direct knowledge of Eumelus, 
 but used a prose history 1 which he thought was by Eumelus: 
 
 Ei'yurjXos ... 6s kclI to. e-n-q \eyerai TOLtjaat, (prjalu kv rjj KopwdLq. 
 avyy pa(f)fj, el drj Eu/^Aou ye -q <rvyypa<pr). . . . This history used 
 Eumelus, at least in the genealogies; cf. Paus. ii 3, 10, witli 
 Eum. fr. 2 K. The scholiast to Pind. 0. xiii 74, win. had a 
 text of Eumelus, supplements this story: 'etceX (i.e., in Corinth) 5t 
 avTTJs (Medea) 6 Zeus -qpaadrj, ovk eireldeTO 8e rj M^Saa, top ttjs 'Ilpas 
 eKK^ivovaa x°^ov Oib nai t) "Ilpa vireo-x eTO a VTr} adavaTOVs Troirjaat. 
 
 1 See E. G. Wilisch, Ucber die Fragmente dea Epikera Eum* los, Leipzig, l s 7">. 
 
66 
 
 tovs ircudas. airodavovTas 8e tovtovs Tip.wcn KopLvdioi, Kakovvres 
 HL%of3ap(3apovs. Much is lacking for a complete understanding of 
 what happened, e.g., why Hera went back on her promise, but 
 there ought to be no doubt that these two passages come from 
 the same source, viz., Eumelus' Corinthiaca. (Cf. the Scholiast 
 to Ap. Rh., i 146; hi 1372, who also had a text.) Thus we have 
 clear earlier evidence for a story of an involuntaiy murder, as 
 Seeliger rightly observes (Roscher s.v. Medea, col. 2493). This 
 however was probably not connected with an action on Iason's 
 part until Euripides, and would not figure in suspense until 
 Medea mentions it (792), with a new motivation. This issue 
 would then be certain, though the murder is here voluntary. 
 
 2) Medea, in lines 1378-83, proposes to bury her children in 
 the precinct of Hera Akraia, where the Corinthians will perform 
 aefxpriv eopriiv /ecu reXrj. To this passage may be traced schol. Med. 
 1379 and Zenodotus i 27, according to which Medea founded the 
 cult of Hera Akraia. Pausanias saw in Corinth (ii 3, 6) the graves 
 of Medea's children, at which propitiatory offerings had been 
 made yearly until the Roman conquest : ovk€tl kneivai KadecrrrjKacnv 
 avrols ai dvaicu irapa tuiv eTro'iKwv, ovde aironeLpovTaL (jfyiaiv ol 7rcu5es, 
 ov8e fxekaivav (popovatv kadrjra Paus., ii, 3, 7. With these offerings 
 he connects a legend contradicting the Eumelus story, which he 
 tells a few lines further on, to the effect that the Corinthians had 
 stoned to death Medea's children in revenge for the murder of 
 Glauce. Their own children then began to die, until, at the be- 
 hest of an oracle, they established the sacrifices. Parmeniscus 
 (schol. Med. 273) and Didymus (schol. Med. 273), quoting one 
 Creophylus, presumably the historian of Ephesus, give two 
 variants of this: 
 
67 
 
 Parm. 
 
 rds 8e Kopivdlas ov fiovXopepas 
 virb fiapftapov Kal (pappaKtbos 
 yvpaiKos apxtoOai, avrrju re eirt- 
 /3oiAePcrcu Kal to. reKpa avTrjs 
 
 Creoph. ap. Did. 
 
 ttji> yap N-nbetap \eyti 5iarpi- 
 flovaav ep KopivOco top apxoura 
 Tore ttjs 7r6Xews Kpeopra airoKTel- 
 vo.1 4>app.aKois. beiaaoav be tovs 
 
 apeXelp, eirra pep appepa, tirra be <f)L\ovs Kal tovs avyyepels avrov, 
 
 (pvyelp eis 'Ad-qpas, tovs be viovs, 
 kirel veojTepoL ovres ovk rjbvpaPTo 
 anokovdelv, KaOielp eirl rbv fiwpbp 
 ttjs d/cpaias "Upas, popiaacrap top 
 warepa avrcjp (ppoPTtelp T7js 
 aojTT]pias avT&p. tovs be KpeoPTOS 
 oUelovs airoKTeivavras avrovs 6ia- 
 bovvai \byovs otl 77 Mr/beta ov 
 pbpop rbv Kpeovra dXXd nai tovs 
 eavTrjs iralbas airknTeive. 
 
 BrfKea. ravra be biuiKopepa Kara- 
 4>vye?v eis to ttjs d/cpaias "Upas 
 lepbv Kal eirl to lepbv KadiaaL, 
 Kopivdiovs be avrdv ovbe ovtus 
 airexto-dai. dXX' eirl tov /3copou 
 ivavTa ravra airoacpa^ai. Xotpou 
 be yevop.'evov eis tyjp itoXlp 7roXXd 
 (jdcpaTa virb ttjs vbaov bia^Qeip- 
 eadaL, pavTevopevois be avTols 
 Xpycrpcobr) a at top Bebv iKaaKeaOat 
 to ttjs M-qbeias TeKPoop 0.70s. bdev 
 KopipdioLs pexpi- tcjv KatpCiv twp 
 Kad' rjpas Kad' eKao~Tov evtavTOv 
 eiTTa Kovpovs Kal eirTa Kovpas tup 
 einaripoTaTOiP apbpup epairepiav- 
 Ttfciv tu ttjs Beds Tepkvei, Kal 
 peTa dvo~LU)p IXacrKecrdaL ttjp eKeipcop 
 prjpip Kal tt]v 81 eKelpovs yepop'ep-qp 
 ttjs Beds bpy-qp. 
 
 In the schol. to Med. 10 Parmeniscus is credited with the story 
 that Euripides received five talents for shifting the blame of the 
 murder from the Corinthians to Medea. 
 
 Clearly the same base underlies Paus. ii 3, 6 and the two quota- 
 tions in the scholium to Med. 273. Of these versions, thai of 
 Creophylus motivates the murder of the children through the 
 murder of Creon by Medea; that of Pausanias with the murder 
 of Glauce. 1 Both these incidents are themselves unmotivated in 
 the context and the inference is that they were borrowed from 
 Euripides. The story of Parmeniscus, however, shows no trace 
 of Euripidean influence. The act of the Corinthians is motivated 
 simply by their irritation at Medea, whom they fell to be B 
 
 1 Her name is not in the text of Eur. Med. hut is associated later with 
 Euripides' story. Schol. Med. 19; Hyg. Fab. 25. 
 
68 
 
 barbarian. As in the other versions, the murder is connected 
 closely with the fact of the cult and with the puzzling detail of 
 the seven youths and the seven maidens. On this ground Seeliger 
 (Rosch. s.v. Medea; col. 2494) says that the seven youths and 
 seven maidens have nothing to do with the children of Medea — 
 quite wrongly, as I believe. 
 
 The key to these passages lies in the end of the schol. Pind. 
 0. xiii 74 quoted above, airodavovTas 8e tovtovs Tip&ai Koplvdtoi, 
 KaKovvTts /jLL&fiapfiapovs. Here the sacrifices appear in connection 
 with a story that made no one responsible for the death of the 
 children. Now the word nL%0f3a.pP6.povs obviously comes from 
 the formulae of the cult itself. Hence the word may be, and 
 very likely is, older than any story we have. Thus the story 
 in Parmeniscus appears as a legend composed to account for 
 a particular ceremony, and the first part is an explanation of 
 the cult- word. It is not likely that this tale arose later than the 
 Euripidean play, which fixed the dominant tradition and even 
 took the cult into account. Thus we are left with the conclusion 
 that the two stories: 1) that of the unwitting murder; and 2) 
 that of a murder by the Corinthians, both preceded Euripides. 
 The five-talent story is thus a malicious allusion to the fact that 
 Euripides swept the older stories out of currency. That either 
 of these stories was known to many of the audience is very doubt- 
 ful, and therefore, so far as the children went, Euripides was vir- 
 tually working new material. To anyone, however, who knew the 
 story of the stoning, 792-3 would have a new significance. The 
 employment of the children in the murder of Creon's daughter 
 would make him think that the stoning-story would follow as a 
 result of Creon's anger. Thus Medea's purpose to kill them 
 needs to be expressed here to forestall the expectation of this. 
 This purpose was not likely to fall through unless her whole plan 
 failed, and the audience knew from the Athenian legend that it 
 did not fail. Hence in any case from 792 on the suspense as to 
 the fate of the children is purely that of anticipation. 
 
 b) The murder of Creon and his daughter. There is nothing 
 that I can find in previous stories about this, nor about the 
 second marriage of Iason. The only suggestions of a clash be- 
 tween Iason and Medea lie in the feeling of the Corinthians 
 against a barbarian woman and her children, which might easily 
 be carried over to her husband; and in the stories of her going to 
 
09 
 
 Athens, or back to Asia. The suspense as to the marriage and 
 
 the murder is developed entirely out of the lines of I he play. 
 
 c) Medea and Athens. That a previous Legend existed con- 
 necting Medea with Athens we can hardly doubt, in view of the 
 unrelated appearance of Aegeus in this play, criticized in Aj. Poet. 
 61 b 19; cf. 54 b 1. A strong, though not conclusive, piece of 
 evidence for such a legend is Hdt. vii 62, 1, airiKofxhris Mrj5«iT/s 
 rfjs KoAx^os c£ ' 'AOrjvecov es tovs 'ApLovs. For the details of this we 
 are dependent on Euripides' Aegeus. 1 Wilamowitz (Herm. xv 
 1880, 482) believes this to have preceded the Medea; certainly, 
 if that was true, it would have made the appearance of Aegeus 
 in Medea seem less violent, and directed our minds before line 
 663 to this conclusion; but there is no evidence for this. In 
 any case the existence of an Athenian legend would give the 
 audience a clue to Medea's method of escape. 
 
 Euripides' play is throughout one of character, and the sus- 
 pense as to particular events is little influenced by outside stories 
 except in so far as they allowed a presumption that, whatever 
 else happened, Medea herself would escape. (For the play of 
 Neophron, see Christ, Gr. Littgesch. i 357-8. I find ii impossible 
 to believe that the fragments of this work antedated the Medea.) 
 
 2. Hippolytus. 
 
 This was written partly as an apologia (Arg. Eur. Hip.) for an 
 earlier play on the same subject, and hence the variations of the 
 myth that affect us will be variations from the earlier version. 
 It seems pretty clear that in the earlier play Phaedra made her 
 addresses to Hippolytus directly. 2 Phaedra also calls upon the 
 moon (Schol. Theoc, ii 10), not necessarily in magic rites. She 
 also blames Theseus for his previous misdeeds (Plut., De and. 
 poet, p. 28 A). Two passages in Apollod. Sabbait., p. 180, 
 
 line 9 ff., <rx'i-o~ao-a. tcls tov 6a\ap.ov dvpas /cat rds ea07jras enrapa^acra. 
 Karexpevaaro 'linroXvTov (5'ia.v, and line 24, ytvop.kvov 5e rod epedros 
 
 irepi4>ai>ovs tavr-qv avqpT-qae (f?ai5pa, are referred by Wagner with 
 some probability to this play. On the other hand, it is going 
 
 1 Fit. ap. Nauckj cf. schol. Med. 167. The story in schol. to //. XI, 711 is 
 probably an hypothesis of the Aegeus. 
 
 2 Hyp. Eur. Hip., p. 5, 6.irprrch nal Karriyopias l£un> Ar. Ran. L043 o\V ov 
 fia Ai ov <I>at5pas kwolovv wopvas. Cf. frr. 135-6 N. Tins trait appears also in 
 Seneca's Phaedra. 
 
70 
 
 too far to suppose that Theseus was absent in the underworld 
 during the greater part of the play, or that this was the third 
 member in a trilogy of matter, preceded by the Aegeus and 
 Theseus (Wilamowitz, Inlr. to Hip. 1891). 
 
 The earlier play will thus have been coarser in its lines. (See 
 A. Kalkmann, Quaestiones Novae de Euripidis Hippolyto, p. 24 ff.) 
 Phaedra presumably announces her intentions when she addresses 
 the moon; the center of the play will contain her attempt to 
 persuade Hippolytus. The suspense of this is split up in the 
 extant play: 198-352 Phaedra declares herself; 401-2 she resolves 
 to die; 435 ff. the nurse proposes a remedy for disease (479); 
 this is explained in 491 and meets with violent opposition from 
 Phaedra; in 524 ff. we are uncertain as to what the nurse will do; 
 in 600 ff. we are uncertain whether Hippolytus will be won over; 
 in 680 the suspense reverts to Phaedra's proposal to die. (With 
 401-2 cf. 599-600.) There is no suspense springing from vari- 
 ants, because the fundamental data of the love-story were con- 
 stant and came down from the cult-song (1428-30). For the 
 origin of this and the cult of Hippolytus at Troezen and Athens, 
 see Wilamowitz, Intr. to Hipp., p. 30 ff. 
 
 There is, however, an important variant at the end of the play 
 in lines 1462-6: 
 
 kolvov r65' iixos 7ra<n 7ro\ircus 
 
 TJhdtV de\7TTCOS. 
 
 iroKKdv baupvwv earai tt'ltv\os ' 
 tcov yap ixeyahoiv a^LOirevdets 
 4>rjfxcu fxaWov Karexovcriv. 
 
 Fortunately Stobaeus preserves the corresponding bit from the 
 Hippolytus Veiled (Fr. 446 N) : 
 
 co naxap, olas ekaxts rip.as, 
 'Itt6\v6' rjpcos, 5td aaxfrpoavvrjp ' 
 ovirore dvrjTOLS 
 
 aperijs aXKr] 5vvap,LS pieLfav ' 
 rj\de yap fj irpoad' rj ^eroTTLadev 
 rrjs evaefiias x^pts ea6\r]. 
 
 This latter must refer to some more substantial benefit than the 
 hero-cult promised by Artemis in 11. 1423-30. Cf. Carmen 
 Naupactium Fr. 11 K. 'IttoKvtov {avkcr-qcxev 6 'Ao-kA^os), cbs 6 
 ra NaviranTLKa avyypa\j/as \kya. Paus. ii 27, 4, ravrrjs rrjs ari]\y]s 
 
71 
 
 t<2 tTnypaidfiaTi (record of twenty horses dedicated to Asclepius 
 by Hippolytus on a stele in the precinct of Asclepius a1 Epi- 
 
 daUTUs) dp-oXoyovvra Xtyovaiv 'Apuueis ws reOvtcoTa 'IwkoXvtoi' kit rdv 
 Qrjaews apQ>v auearrjcreu 'AcrKXrjirios. A version which fits better to 
 1 he end of a play and docs not mention Asclepius is Paus. ii 32, 
 1. airodavetv 5e avrov ovu WeXovai avpeura bird t&v 'littvlcv ovdi tov 
 racfrov aTrocfMxivovGiv eldores. tov 5e tv ovpavu) KaXoiiptvov -qvloxov, 
 tovtov eivai vop.i£ovo~t.v tKtivov \ttttoKvtov, Tipriv irapa Oeoou TavTT)v'ixovTa. 
 
 Pausanias does not make it clear how this story fitted with the 
 grave of Hippolytus near his precinct at Troezcn. Scarcely any- 
 one will doubt that this, if it does not refer to the end of the 
 Hippolytus Veiled, at least refers to the legend there preserved. 
 Wilamowitz (Intr. to Hipp., p. 43 ff.) believes that Asclepius 
 restored Hippolytus to a superhuman life. This, however, will 
 be a Troezenian cult legend and probably not include Asclepius. 
 Asclepius, if he appeared at all, would restore only to life on 
 earth, as appears in the Epidaurian story of the dedication of 
 twenty horses. It is curious, however, that this Epidaurian 
 version of a Troezenian legend should turn up in the ^SaviraKTia. 
 Cf. Paus. x 38, 11, on the provenance of this epic. For 1 he ( ransla- 
 tion to stars, cf. Eur. Or. 1636-7; Hec. 1265-7; also the Hyades 
 and Coronides discussed above in connection with Iph. Aul. 
 
 A consequence of this would be that there was no death-scene 
 on the stage; it would be too much to ask of an audience to be- 
 lieve that a visible corpse was later to become a constellation. 
 The place of the death-scene would be taken by a long speech 
 from some divinity. 
 
 This bears on our play. If there were two earlier legends of 
 Hippolytus' recovery, one of which was certainly known to the 
 greater part of the audience through the Hippolytus Veiled, the 
 presumption would be that here too he would be rescued in some 
 miraculous way, at the last moment. This accounts for the 
 unusual way in which Artemis behaves. After Artemis bas ex- 
 plained the situation to Theseus, we expect I ll.it she will aniinlllirr 
 Hippolytus' translation and that the play will end. Hut instead 
 she explains her inability to interfere, 1328 34. Then Bippoly- 
 tus is brought in dying, and the converse he enjoys with Artemis 
 is a faint shadow of the blessings given to the deified Bippolytus 
 of the old Troezenian story. 
 
 Here mythological suspense appears at its highest, because it 
 
72 
 
 sets us definitely on a false scent from the moment Hippolytus' 
 disaster is announced. 
 
 3. Ion. 
 
 There is an indication in the Ion that an old Attic legend was 
 being followed in the details as to localities, 11-3, 17; but in- 
 formation as to the sources of this plot is entirely lacking. Of 
 the two Sophoclean plays that may deal with this theme, the Ion 
 and the Creusa, the first has no fragments, and those of the 
 second offer nothing. The evidence as to the Ion-saga, together 
 with an attempt to account for the elements of this play, is well 
 put together by E. Ermatinger, Attische Autochthonensage; Thesis, 
 Zurich 1897, pp. 112-42. 
 
 One observation should be made, namely, that Ion here is a 
 young man, and later became eponymous hero of a race (Hdt. v 
 66; vii 94; viii 44; Eur. Ion 74-5). Therefore it is a foregone 
 conclusion that nothing serious can happen to him, even if both 
 Creusa and Xuthus go to the ground. In an Attic legend, this 
 means that suspense tends from 971 to discount the effectiveness 
 of Creusa's plotting and go beyond it to its recoil on herself. 
 
 V. Legends of Heracles. 
 
 1. Heracles. 
 
 Here as in the case of the Oedipus plays, the groundwork has 
 been laid for an understanding of the myth (Wilamowitz, Intro- 
 duction to Heracles) . The story of Heracles' murder of his chil- 
 dren is, according to Wilamowitz (Intr. I 2 86-8), in the Theban 
 story a reason for his later absence from Thebes and his associa- 
 tion with Argos, which could not be done away. There is no 
 allusion in the Iliad or Odyssey to the child-murder; the Cypria 
 (Procl.) mention the madness of Heracles, presumably this event ; 
 Stesichorus and Panyasis (Paus. ix 11) dealt with the event; how, 
 we do not know; Pausanias (I.e.) gives the legend as current in 
 his own day. Heracles killed his children in a fit of madness and 
 was about to kill Amphitryon when Athena appeared (cf. Eur. 
 Her. 1001-9) and stunned him with a huge stone. Pherecydes 
 (fr. 30) relates that Heracles threw his children into a fire (cf. 
 Apollod. 2, 4, 12, 1), and an illustration of this appears in a vase- 
 
73 
 
 painting by Assteas of Paestum in Alexander's time I Roscher s.v. 
 Megara, for picture; Wilam., I.e., p. 85). Pindar /. iv G3-4 
 diverges from, or, as Wilamowitz thinks (I.e., 82-3) directly 
 polemicizes against, this version in speaking of 
 Xa.\Koapap oktu davbvruv 
 tovs Meyapa reKe oi Kpttovrls viovs, 
 without saying that their father killed them. 
 
 This is the substance of the evidence for an earlier handling. 
 
 The first half of the play seems a pure invention by Euripides. 
 Lycus is, in this connection, unparalleled (lines 26-31; Wilam., 
 I.e., p. 112). This part of the play is a variation of the suppliant- 
 theme, which could be introduced anywhere; cf. the Andromache, 
 which is similarly padded at the beginning. Dieterich (Pulcin- 
 ella, p. 9 ff.) points out striking parallels between the structure 
 of Herac. 1-522 and Andr. 1-543. The suppliant-theme in 
 extant plays implies a deliverer, 1 and thus the presumption is 
 that someone, obviously Heracles, will appear. At the beginning 
 of the play the hero is in Hades, 25 IvQtv ovx v&i- ttoKlv. This is 
 no presumption against his appearing, because it is said 22-3 
 that this is the last of the twelve labors, which we know were 
 completed. Another resurrection was handled in Soph. Phaedra 
 (frr. 624-5); possibly in Eur. Hipp. Veiled. 
 
 Lycus orders servants to build a pyre to burn the children, 
 240-6. This is clearly a reference to another existing story, I hat 
 the children were burned by Heracles (cf. Wilam.; I.e., p. 85). 
 Here the pyre is to be reasonably built of firewood. In the 
 Assteas vase, it consists of household furniture. Hence it quick- 
 ens suspense to bring the present play into connection with 
 stories of the madness of Heracles, which has so far not been 
 mentioned. 
 
 The most important innovation is the introduction of Theseus 
 (Wilam., I.e., p. 109-12). Suspense is perhaps at its keenest at 
 the end of the scene with Amphitryon, where Heracles is con- 
 templating suicide (1146 ff.). In 1151-2 he ends his review of 
 possible deaths by aapKa ttju inqpev + epTrp-qaas irvpL a reference 
 to the fire-death on Mt. Oeta which, like 240 6, quickens sus- 
 pense by alignment with a known saga. Theseus one-; not 
 broach his suggestion that Heracles go to At hen- until L322 ff. 
 
 1 Cf . Aesch. Suppl., where tin- deliverance Lb contra licted la the m «ri play. 
 
74 
 
 That this suggestion is to be followed, we are at once informed 
 by 1328-9 Travraxov 8k p.oi xdovbs \ Ttp.kvr\ bkhaarai. 1 These precincts 
 existed and were called after Heracles, as we know. If their 
 existence is made conditional on Heracles' going, then obviously 
 he will have to go. 
 
 The end of Heracles' life is thus made similar to that of Oedipus. 
 That there was no legend already in Attica about this end of 
 Heracles, no one would be so rash as to assert. On the contrary, 
 it may be objected that Heracles is localized in no particular 
 spot. 1216-7: 
 
 ovdels <tkotos yap <£5' exet p.k\av vkcfros, 
 ocms kclkoov owv (TVfjLcfropav npv\J/ei.ev av, 
 and 1231-2: 
 
 Up. t£ 8rJTa jxov upar' apeKa\v\{/as rj\Lu>; 
 
 Qr]. t'l 6"; ov (jLiaiveis 6vt]t6s &v to. t&v dewv, 
 
 are a flat contradiction of the ideas expressed by Creon in Oed- 
 Tyr. 1424-8, and may well be a conscious criticism of that version 
 of the Oedipus legend which enclosed the blinded old man in the 
 house. 
 
 In 1406-8 Heracles' desire to embrace the corpses of his chil- 
 dren, whom he has murdered, seems a transference from Oed. Tyr. 
 1521-2. Cf. Her. 1414 6 Kkeivbs 'Hpa/cXTjs, with Oed. Tyr. 1524-5 
 018'ltovs 68e I os to. n\tiv' aivLyp-aT' f?5tt, and Oed. Tyr. 8 6 wacn 
 nXeivos Oldiirovs naXovpievos. Note also Her. 1402 8l8ov 8kpr\ or\v 
 xetp', b8r\yi]<j<s> 5' kyu>. There is no specific mention, but in the 
 exodus of the Oed. Tyr. Oedipus is evidently led by Creon 1515, 
 1521. On the. whole, the exodus of the Heracles seems written 
 with that of the Oedipus Tyrannus in mind; note the broken 
 lines Her. 1418-2; Oed. Tyr. 1516-22. It is not unlikely that 
 Euripides had already heard of the Colonus story of Oedipus 
 (Phoen. 1703 ff.) and invented a similar one for Heracles. The 
 interest in the embracing of the children is pathetic and does 
 not stimulate suspense. But the parallel to the final fortunes 
 of Oedipus suggests that this is an imitation of the Oedipus 
 Tyrannus exodus, with an echo of the Colonus story. But the 
 Colonus story had not yet figured in tragedy, unless this play 
 followed the Phoenissae, which is unlikely. The theme of Hera- 
 
 1 Cf. Wilamowitz, p. 110, for the transference of the precincts from Theseus 
 to Heracles. 
 
75 
 
 cles' removal to Athens had already been secured by the mention 
 of the precincts (1328), before the embracing of the children is 
 spoken of, and therefore the suspense from this source is nil. 
 
 To sum up the results for mythological suspense, then- is do 
 reason to believe that the audience expected anything but the 
 deliverance by Heracles of the harassed family, until 822. Up 
 to this point the suspense of anticipation rests, as we saw, on the 
 familiar sequence of the suppliant motive: sanctuary, violence, 
 rescue. 
 
 At 822 Iris and Lyssa appear, to create suspense of anticipa- 
 tion, through the murder. The children are to be killed (835); 
 how, is not said. Knowing that Lycus has built :t pyre, the 
 audience will suppose, until the angelia, that Heracles will throw 
 the children upon it. 
 
 2. Trachiniae. 
 
 There is no detailed earlier reference to the content of this 
 play, and until the later sources have been more fully analyzed, 
 it is impossible to form much of an idea as to the nature of what 
 Sophocles and his audience had to go by. (So Wilamowitz, p. 
 71 ff.) The principal question is whether in any earlier version 
 the marriage with Dcianeira and the Nessus poison were asso- 
 ciated with the fiery death on Mt. Oeta. If that was the case, 
 the audience's mind would travel directly to the end of the play 
 from 555 ff., or perhaps from the mention of Iole in 476 ff. The 
 Nessus 1 story must have been familiar to many, and the audience 
 can actually jump from 555 ff. through 1173. This, however, 
 was certainly an old independent version of the death of Heracles. 
 So likewise was the burning on Mt. Oeta, and different versions 
 of that appear (Soph. Phil. 670, 802, 1432; Apollo. 1. ii 7, 7. 11; 
 Tzet. on Lye. 50). Whether or not the conflation of the two thai 
 appears here, and, with still another addition, in Apollod. I.e., is 
 older than this play, is simply a non liquet. 
 
 Similarly, if the capture of Oechalia 2 had been previously asso- 
 ciated with the Nessus shirt and a jealousy theme in which Iole 
 figured, we should suspect from 7 1 5 the course the story would 
 
 1 The earliest source is Archiloehus in schol. to Ap. Rh., i 1212. F<W later 
 references see Roscher s.v. Nessus. 
 
 2 We know from the epigram in Strabo xiv, 1, is that tins in Creophylus 1 
 version contained the story of Iole; see Kinkel, p. 60. 
 
76 
 
 take. Fahlnberg 1 sees in Hyllus' steadfast refusal to light the 
 fire, that only breaks down (1249) under a conditional curse 
 (1239^40), an allusion to the stoiy that Poeas or Philoctetes lit 
 the pyre (Soph. Phil. 802, etc.). However, it is inevitable from 
 1195-9 that Heracles will be burned, and who touches him off 
 does not much matter. 
 
 3. Alcestis. 
 
 For the Alcestis, as for the Trachiniae, no earlier story exists 
 that amounts to anything. Reconstructions are therefore the- 
 oretical and too uncertain to serve us as data. The evidence is 
 presented, mixed with a good deal of speculation, by L. Bloch, 
 Neue Jahrb. f. d. Kl. Alt, 1901, 40 ff., 113 ff . See also in Wilam- 
 owitz, Isyllos, p. 65 ff., an attempt to trace the story of Alcestis 
 to Hesiod's Eoiae; the evidence is very scanty. Compare Robert, 
 Thanatos, p. 25 ff. It seems probable that the story was a whole 
 and did not vary in its main lines throughout its history (so 
 Bloch, I.e.) : Alcestis dies in place of her husband and is won back 
 from death or Hades by a hero. The question whether she was 
 won back by force or persuasion (see Bloch, p. 41, n. 1) does not 
 here affect suspense, as it is a matter of angelia after the event. 
 
 The only reference with any bearing on the story is Servius 
 to Aen. iv 694, " alii dicunt Euripidem Orcum in scaenam inducere 
 gladium ferentem quo crinem Alcesti abscindat; Euripidem hoc a 
 Phrynicho (0. Jahn for poenia F., phenico T.) antiquo tragico 
 mutuatum." 
 
 4. Heracleidae. 
 
 Three points in the Heracleidae demand attention: 
 1) The sacrifice of Macaria. There is no earlier story of a 
 willing sacrifice in connection with this plot. Macaria herself 
 appears as present at the death of Heracles (Duris Sam. ap. schol. 
 Plat. Hipp. Mai., p. 293 A), but this need be no more than a 
 conflation of Euripides with some story which mentioned Her- 
 acles' children as present at his death upon a pyre. For the will- 
 ing sacrifice theme, see the discussion above under Iph. Aul. 
 The issue of the play itself was a foregone conclusion to every 
 
 1 The early references to the story of the Trachiniae are well presented by A. 
 Fahlnberg, De Hercule Tragico Graecorum, p. 10 ff. See also Jebb's Intr. to 
 Trachiniae. 
 
77 
 
 Athenian, and therefore after 403-9 it was certain thai someone 
 would have to be sacrificed; similarly after 502, thai ii will be 
 Macaria. 
 
 2) The rescuing of the Heracleidae from Eurystheus was told 
 in Hdt. ix 26-7, together with the expedition of the Argive 
 suppliants. Compare Ar. Plut. 385 and schol. for a painting by 
 Pamphilus, which must have been familiar to the audience then; 
 also Thuc. i 9; Isoc. Pan., p. 51; Plut. de Mai. Hdt., p. 872a; 
 Aristides Panath., p. 201. The story was common amongsl 
 panegyrists of the fourth century, and there could be no doubl of 
 the issue. The incident of Macaria is thus introduced to add 
 interest. The mythological suspense, so far as it occurs, is purely 
 that of anticipation. 
 
 3) The Aristeia of Iolaus and the fate of Eurystheus. Iolaus 
 was famous in the Theban legend as the great charioteer of 
 Heracles. (Hesiod Scut. 74 ff.; Archil, fr. 118 B 2 ; Pind. /. i 16; 
 v 32; vii 9; P. xi, 60.) He also killed Eurystheus (P. ix 79). 
 On the other hand, he had a tomb at Eleusis (0. ix 98) with a 
 legend attached. Whether or not he appeared as an old man in 
 the pre-Euripidean stoiy, it is hard to tell. Pindar (P. xi 79) 
 mentions him simply as a hero, 1 but this is a different legend from 
 ours, for there he is buried beside Amphitryon. The death of 
 Eurystheus, in some way or other, was an inevitable part of the 
 Athenian legend, for his grave existed on the battlefield (Paus. i 
 44, 10). Here it is postponed, in order to include the address 
 1026 ff., which bears on current events. 
 
 The compulsion of the saga is clearly seen from 966 to the 
 end. Both Herodotus (I.e.) and Thucydides (I.e.) agree thai 
 Eurystheus was killed. Euripides brings him into the play, 
 partly from interest, partly from the lack of other greal charac- 
 ters, and then is embarrassed by the question of what to do with 
 him. The saga said, "Kill him," but this was not a sporting 
 thing to do, and was repugnant to his patriotic Athenian feeling. 
 So the responsibility for the death is "put up" to Alcmene and 
 to her alone. There is keen suspense as to whether he will be 
 killed or not, from 958 to the end of what we have of the play. 
 
 1 The version in the scholium, that he rose from the dead on this occasion, ifl 
 probably only an elaboration of the Euripidean metamoiphoe 
 
78 
 VI. Miscellaneous. 
 
 1. Bacchae. 
 
 The myth of Pcntheus was well fixed in its main outlines by- 
 Aeschylus' Pentheus. 17 8 e pvdoiroua KeTrcu Trap' AurxuXw h Uevdei. 
 Ar. Byz. in Arg. to Bacchae. The play will here be considered in 
 relation to the Athenian audience (cf. Schol. Ar. Ran. 64). It may 
 have been originally brought out in Macedonia. See H. Weil 
 Etudes, p. 110. Aeschylus' Xantriae may have also dealt with 
 the same story (Schol. Eum. 26; see Nauck 2 , s.v., p 55). It is also 
 one of the few tragic stories for which we have a vase-painting 
 of the severe type (Hartwig Jahrb. Arch. Inst, vii, p. 157; Taf. 
 5. Picture in Roscher hi 2, 1931-2). Pentheus (named) is being 
 torn to pieces by two female figures, one of whom is labeled 
 /Al> EN E. The completeness of the tearing — all the lower part 
 of his body is gone — and the few Maenads actually engaged in 
 pulling at the remains, suggest that the artist or his predecessor 
 had in mind a version like that of Bac. 1127-8: 
 aveenrapa^ev up,ov, ovx U7r6 adkvovs 
 d\X' 6 debs evp,apeiav kireblbov xcpotJ'. 
 Hartwig (I.e.) supposes that in this version Pentheus was torn in 
 pieces by Maenads accompanying Dionysus, not by his own 
 mother and aunts. Cf. Aesch. Eum. 25-6: 
 
 e£ ovre fianxcus karpar^yriadv deos 
 Xcryco 8Lkt]v HevdeZ Karappa\f/as p.bpov. 
 In the Xantriae Erinyes seem to have been present: 
 as ovre 7rep.0i£ 17X101; TrpocrSep/cerai 
 ovt' a(TTepo}Tr6v 6p.fxa AT/rwas /coprys. 
 Cf. P. V. 796 (the Phorcides); Eum. 71-2. Compare with this 
 the two late Italian vase-paintings, representing an Erinys (Bull. 
 Nap. iv, tav. 2, 3: Dilthey, Arch. Zeit., 31, taf. 7, 3). Nonnus 
 (Dionys. 44-6) represents Dionysus as calling to his aid Lyssa, 
 Mene, and Oestrus, but only to drive insane Pentheus, his mother 
 and his aunts. The murder is performed by Agaue. In one of 
 the Fury vases (Bull. Nap., I.e.) this creature (here I have only 
 the description in Roscher) stands over Pentheus while a Maenad 
 attacks him; this might fit with the Nonnus story. But in the 
 other (Dilthey) she conducts the attack herself, with a panther. 
 On both these vases she is dressed in hunting costume. Com- 
 pare the language of Aesch. Eum. 25-6. 
 
79 
 
 Thus we seem to have these possibilities: 
 
 1) Pentheus was killed by Maenads (Attic vase 6-5 cent.) ; 
 
 2) Pentheus was killed by Agaue, etc. (Euripides and later 
 literature generally) ; 
 
 3) Pentheus was killed by a Huntress Fury (?) (vase ap. 
 Dilthey). Acsch. Eum. 25-6 seems to have followed fche firsl 
 version, and in none of the vases, so far as I can find, are the 
 Maenads named. In support of the second possibility, a fury 
 seems to be mentioned in Xantriae (Fr. 170 N.) 
 
 However, it is very unlikely that in neither the Xantriae nor 
 the Pentheus was the murder committed by Agaue. The diver- 
 gence is far too important to be overlooked by Aristophanes of 
 Byzantium even in a brief note (v. supr.), and the Bacchar ap- 
 pears throughout to be an echo of an Aeschylean crime and 
 punishment cycle; cf. Bac. 25 ff. If the Semele occurred in the 
 same trilogy, as is likely (Welcker, Aesch. Tril. 327 ff. ; Sandys 
 Intr. Batch, xxvi ff.) the hybris of Semele's sisters would occur 
 there and be punished later. Thus, again, if the murder of 
 Pentheus was a punishment for Agaue as well as for the mur- 
 dered man, an anagnorisis must follow as in Bac. 1277 ff. This 
 is the only issue beside the murder that calls forth objective 
 suspense. The death of Pentheus is quite certain; the legend 
 cannot exist without it. For the anagnorisis, as we see, an 
 earlier parallel is likely. 
 
 Euripides appears to play upon the uncertainty as to who ac- 
 tually will murder Pentheus. In 32 Dionysus mentions Agaue 
 and her sisters as roaming mad through the mountains. But 
 compare 52 — in the event of trouble, £vi>a\pu nat.v6.aL arpaTrjXaTtiv — 
 an echo of the very language of Eum. 25-6. The economy of 
 the play makes it increasingly clear that Pentheus will be mur- 
 dered by his relatives, as is in fact inevitable. The real Bac- 
 chanals are the chorus; such a scene could not be enacted en 
 the stage, and that the chorus should leave to do it is almost as 
 unthinkable. When Pentheus (810 ff.) is persuaded to go and 
 seek out the mad women on the mountain the issue can no Longer 
 be in doubt. 
 
 There is thus suspense of uncertainty rising from the double 
 tradition, as to who will actually kill Pentheus, and this i- grad- 
 ually cleared away by the lines themselves. 
 
80 
 
 2. Supplices (Aeschylus). 
 
 Reconstructions of previous versions are based mainly on this 
 play. (See Wilam. Interp., p. 12 ff.) 
 
 The suppliant-theme presupposed, as was noted under Eur. 
 Andr. (cf. Dieterich, I.e.), a rescuer. Thus in this play there 
 has to be a rescuer to complete the motive, although this ran 
 counter to the saga, which is resumed in the succeeding play of 
 the trilogy, where the Danaids, in some way, fall into the hands 
 of the Aegyptids. If we accept this as a pre-existing tradition, 
 the suppliancy of the Danaids and their reception by a Pelasgic 
 king runs counter to the legend. It was probably inserted here 
 simply to make a play. Thus the compulsion of the saga and 
 the compulsion of religious feeling (later developed, as we saw, 
 into a stock dramatic motive), contradict each other, and this 
 issue doubtless caused lively suspense of uncertainty through 965. 
 The compromise is effected by giving the play to the suppliant 
 motive and the trilogy to the saga. Notice the title of this play 
 and the vague name of the rescuer king, merely a lay figure with 
 no footing in the legend; cf. Euadne in Eur. Sup. and Macaria 
 in the Heracleidae. 
 
 3. Prometheus. 
 
 What suspense there is in this play depends almost entirely 
 upon allusions to already known myths. These are: 
 
 1) A further punishment for Prometheus than the one he is 
 already undergoing; 311-3, 992 ff., 1015 ff., 1080 ff., 992 ff. 
 This is spoken of only in terms of a terrible storm, together with 
 an earthquake or volcanic eruption. Prometheus is, however, 
 immortal and indestructible. Nothing is said of a long period 
 of punishment of another kind. At the same time, this seems to 
 indicate something more radically different than the addition to 
 his present pains caused by the eagle feeding upon his liver 
 (Theogony 523-5), which would have been a legitimate inference 
 from 311-3. A further punishment of Prometheus would prob- 
 ably take the line explained in 347 ff., in the description (without 
 strict external connection) of the burden of Atlas in the west and 
 of Typhos buried under Aetna. Bapp (Roscher iii 2, 3042) 
 points the illuminating parallel between Typhos under Aetna and 
 Prometheus under a Caucasus believed volcanic. Atlas is Pro- 
 metheus' brother in the Theogony (1. 509), and his other brother, 
 
81 
 
 Menoetius, was there sent down to Erebus (1. 515). Compare 
 the fate of the Titans in general w ] 10 warred od ( Hympus | Ttu og. 
 617 ff.; 729 ff.; 814). Hesiod docs not say where Prometheus 
 was confined, except that he gives the story of the eagle feeding 
 on his liver (Theog. 523 ff.). This would be conceivable in misty 
 Tartarus; hardly under a mountain. Hcsiod's uncertainty 
 probably accounts for Aeschylus' inclusion of the suggestive 
 passage 347-76. Thus both from the Theogony and from \< 
 chylus himself we get the answer to the question of what furl her 
 punishment can be meted out to Prometheus. As to a distinc- 
 tion between being buried under a mountain, and confined in 
 Tartarus, both Aeschylus and Hesiod are undoubtedly hazy 
 (note especially P. V. 1043-53), but the hearers would derive no 
 confusion from these poems that did not already exist in their 
 own minds. 
 
 2) A possible deliverance of Prometheus far in the future. No 
 less than three quite independent myths are brought to bear on 
 this point. All are presented in fragmentary, allusive form and 
 would have no point at all unless they referred to stories already 
 known. 
 
 a) The oracle about Thetis and Zeus. This is the most mud- 
 dled of the three. The gist of it appears (764) : 
 
 yaptl yap.ov tolovtov a> ttot' a.o'xa.Xa ' 
 768 r) re£ercu yt 7raZ5a (frtprepov 7rarpos. 
 
 So 909-10 
 
 yapov yaptlv 6s avrov en TvpavviSos 
 dpbvmv t* aiorov tK^aXtl. 
 
 This is explained in Pind. /. viii 28 ff. Zeus and Poseidon con- 
 tend for the hand of Thetis, but are deterred by Themis, who tells 
 them that Thetis is fated to bear a son — (peprtpov ybvov avaKra 
 ■n-arpos. These two references point, if not to a single epic poem, 
 at least to a widely current tradition of the early fifth century. 
 The pronouncement in Aeschylus affects both Thetis and Zeus; 
 that in Pindar merely says that Thetis will bear a son greater 
 than his father. But Aeschylus, or Prometheus, is not con- 
 sistent here. 755-6: 
 
 vvv ovdtv ton Tepp.a pot ivpoK.tip.tvov 
 poxOoov Tplv av Zers tKirtafl rvpavviSos. 
 
 The predictions following are in the uncompromising future tense. 
 
 6 
 
82 
 
 Prometheus, that is, knows that Zeus will be overthrown and 
 trusts to come into his rights in the general revolution. And 
 yet, a little later — 769 — we read: 
 
 "Ico, ov8' toriv avr<2 Trj<r8' awoGT po(j>i) tvxvs > 
 Up. ov brJTa, ir\ijv €7^7' av tn btcfxuiv \vdeis. 
 and in 913 (Cf . 167 ff.) : 
 
 Toicovde ixbxQoiv eKTpoirfjv ovdels de&v 
 bvvair' av avrCo ir\rjv ep.ov 5e?£cu cameos. 
 This means that, taken strictly, the decree of fate is identical 
 with that in Pindar; it concerns primarily Thetis, and Zeus is at 
 liberty to put himself under it or not. Thus there are two strata 
 to the corpus of inside information which Prometheus has re- 
 ceived from his mother: 1) the unalterable degree that Thetis' 
 son will be better than his father; 2) the incomplete foreknowl- 
 edge that Zeus will one day seek Thetis, in marriage, and will get 
 her if he fails to find out about the fate of her offspring. This 
 situation is absurd, and unthinkable in any one connected 
 mythological account. Thus it shows clearly that, as Wilam- 
 owitz says (Aesch. Inter., p. 134; cf. Weil, Etudes, p. 74 ff.), the 
 connection between the marriage of Thetis and Prometheus 
 was invented by Aeschylus and is purely for dramatic purposes. 
 It is necessary, because some such device alone can give Prome- 
 theus a real hold on Zeus and make a counter-action. 
 
 b) Liberation by Heracles. This was part of the Heracles 
 saga (Bapp ay. Roscher, hi 2 3043; Wilam., I.e., p. 132), a bit of 
 which found its way into the Theogony, 526-34, where it is incon- 
 sistent with Theog. 616, which leaves Prometheus bound. The 
 motive given is Zeus' desire to glorify his son (530 ff.), and 
 Prometheus is pardoned. An echo of this appears in P. V. 259: 
 Xo. ov8' eaTLv txd\ov repfxa 001 irpoKelfievov ', 
 Tip. ovk aXKo 7' ovbkv, ir\i]v orav Ke'ivco dour), 
 before the real themes of the play have been more than alluded 
 to (101-3, 167 ff.). In 772 ff., 871 ff., Prometheus refers to his 
 own actual deliverer. He will be of the thirteenth generation 
 from Io in direct descent, and will be a famous archer. The 
 audience knew from the first reference who the deliverer would 
 be, not perhaps because they knew that Heracles appeared in the 
 thirteenth generation from Io in some non-Attic epos, but be- 
 cause he was the only deliverer of Prometheus. This is fairly 
 well settled by the t6£oi<u k\€lv6s 872. 
 
83 
 
 c) Cheiron. Up to line 1006, Prometheus has beei threatening, 
 and declaring his own conditions of peace with Zeus. In L026 9 
 Hermes imposes a counter condition from the constituted 
 
 authority: 
 
 TOiovdc ijloxOov Tepfxa fj.rj tl irpoaSoKa, 
 irplv av decov rts 8'.a8oxos tuv cdv ttoplov 
 <t>avfj, 6e\riay t' els avavyqTov fxoXetu 
 "Ai8r)i> Kvetpcua t' ap.cpl Taprdpov fiadr). 
 
 For an explanation of this we have to lake refuge in Apollodorus, 
 (a), ii 5, 4, 5; (b) ii 5, 11, 10; in (a) the centaur Cheiron, wounded 
 incurably, descends into Hades and gives up his immortality to 
 Prometheus; in (b) a formal transfer takes place on the ( Caucasus 
 under circumstances corresponding to those of the fragmei 
 Prometheus Lyomenos. Cheiron need not have been present . but 
 Heracles irapeax^ tcc Ail Xeipccva OvqaKtiv . . . dekovra. The 
 olive wreath, which, teste Athenaeo 674 D, appeared in the 
 Prometheus Lyomenos, appears here. For lack of other evidence 
 we must refer Cheiron (as Wilamowitz, Inter., p. 132), to the 
 Heracles saga, from which Aeschylus drew the freeing of Prome- 
 theus. This was of Thessalian origin, like the story of t lie death 
 on Mt. Oeta. Note the places mentioned by Apollodorus, ii 5, 4; 
 also the Centaurs; Heracles armed with bow and arrows instead 
 of a club, in P. V. 872 and Theog. 526-34, a version current when 
 Aeschylus wrote. Possibly it was followed by Pherecydes, who 
 told of the shooting of the eagle. See Schol. Ap. Ph. ii 1249; iv 
 1346. 
 
 A further question suggested by a review of the source- is 
 whether or not Prometheus was represented as chained on the 
 top of a mountain, where he could converse with divinities of the 
 air and sea, in any version previous to Aeschylus' plays. The 
 Theogony leaves the place of confinement obscure; of the two 
 Apollodorus passages about Cheiron, the one representing the act 
 of Heracles is clearly drawn from the Prometheus I. 
 Horace (Odes, ii 13, 37), speaks of Prometheus suffering with 
 Tantalus in the underworld, and (Epodes, xvii 67) oames him, 
 beside Tantalus and Sisyphus, as Prometheus "obligatus aliti." 
 This seems at least a parallel for a Prometheus sui in the 
 
 underworld, with the bird of prey. An answer to this question 
 would require, beside a thorough review of the later sources for 
 
84 
 
 Prometheus, a reconstruction of the contents of the Heracles epic 
 or epics from which Stesichorus in the Geryoneis, Pherecydes, 
 Aeschylus, and possibly even Hesiod, drew. 
 
 The Prometheus is interesting as being a primitive attempt at 
 suspense of objective issue by means of several different possibili- 
 ties. Thus the further punishment for Prometheus, the possible 
 marriage between Thetis and Zeus, the rescue by Heracles, and 
 the substitution of Cheiron, are severally presented without any 
 considerable attempt to correlate them with each other. The 
 mind, therefore, of the reader or hearer is reduced to a state of 
 inextricable confusion. The work to a degree resembles some 
 early Flemish painting, which combines almost preternatural 
 insight and splendor of detail with imperfect composition and 
 perspective. 
 
 SUMMARY. 
 
 It will be seen from the foregoing that too detailed a classifica- 
 tion of the methods used to produce suspense from mythological 
 confusion or certainty, is impracticable. Methods spring naturally 
 out of individual plots and connect themselves with literary 
 and dramatic devices, such as delays, stage business, conflicts 
 of will, and so forth. 
 
 It appears, however, that mythological suspense tends rather 
 clearly to divide into two classes, that of anticipation and that of 
 uncertainty. 
 
 In suspense of anticipation the issue is known beforehand 
 either through something said in the prologue or by the unanimity 
 of familiar tradition. Here the poet's duty is to complicate the 
 means to the end so that it seems remote and difficult, however 
 inevitable (as in Eur. EL), or to lead up to it by a series of powerful 
 suggestions (as in Oed. Tyr.), so that the paradox of inevitabil- 
 ity and unfulfilment dangles momently before our eyes. Some- 
 times suspense of anticipation as to the one issue may be rein- 
 forced by suspense of uncertainty as to: a) another secondary 
 issue, as in Agamemnon, where there is certainty as to the death, 
 uncertainty as to the weapon; or in Choephoroe, which shows 
 certainty as to the death of Clytaemestra and Aegisthus, uncer- 
 tainty as to order and relative importance of the two deaths; or, 
 
85 
 
 b) a subsequent issue, as in Iph. Taur., where there is certainty 
 as to the anagnorisis, uncertainty as to the fate of the cap- 
 tives. 
 
 That suspense of anticipation was not considered simply a 
 disagreeable makeshift is shown by the treatment of the /<>/<. In 
 the Ion, the content of the anagnorisis is given, in a divinely ut- 
 tered prologue, and the recognition of Ion by Xuthus as his heir 
 is there predicted. This makes a foregone conclusion of the en- 
 tire play down through 675, but leaves suspense (with the reser- 
 vation noted s.v. Ion) of Creusa's attempt on the lives of 
 Xuthus and Ion, and of her immediate recognition of her boy. 
 Greek tragedies began with one simple episode and expanded 
 later into two or several simple, successive episodes. We have 
 not extant, until the Iph. Aul., a modern drama of intrigue, in 
 which one complicated issue makes an entire play. In the Ion, 
 therefore, suspense of anticipation appears side by side with that 
 of uncertainty, as a recognized dramatic device. 
 
 We have seen suspense of anticipation developed by the 
 following means: 
 
 1) Delaying the introduction of a theme known to be part 
 of the story : Rhesus. 
 
 2) Increasing the emphasis on some one character: Athena 
 in Aias. 
 
 3) Developing by suggestion and a progressive, uninterrupted 
 action the expectation of a certain event known from the saga: 
 Bacchae, Heracleidae, Phoenissae, Septem, Euripides' Supplices, 
 Aias, Agamemnon, Sophocles' Electra, Euripides' Electra, Choe- 
 phoroe, Cyclops, Troiades, Oedipus Tyrannus, Persae, Andromache. 
 
 4) Introducing a matter of common belief, like the burial of 
 a hero: Heracles (Heracles at Athens), Heracleidae, Aias (burial 
 of Aias), Medea (Medea at Athens), Orestes, Eumenides (survival 
 of Orestes), Ion (Ion as eponymous hero), Helen (Helen and 
 Menelaus at Sparta), Oedipus Coloneus, Phoenissae (Oedipus at 
 At hens) . 
 
 5) Using a conventional theme not peculiar to the Btory in 
 hand, with a certain stock conclusion: Suppliancy — Aeschylus' 
 Supplices, Andromache, Heracles, Helen, Heracleidae, Euripides' 
 Supplices: Willing sacrifice — Iphigeneia Aulidensis, Heeabe, 
 Phoenissae, Alcestis, Heracleidae, Euripides' Supplies; Stupid 
 barbarian and clever Greek — Helen, Iphigeneia Taurica. 
 
86 
 
 6) Echoes of other plays: Heracles, Andromache, Euripides' 
 Electra, (Polymestor in the Hecabe) , Helen, (Iphigeneia Taurica) . 
 
 Suspense of uncertainty is assumed to be the normal form of 
 modern dramatic suspense, and in the Greek tragedies we see it 
 in process of development. In the extant plays we can watch 
 it growing from a simple ritual motive like Aeschylus' Supplices 
 or from an historical pageant like the Persae, where every con- 
 clusion is foregone, through stages like the Eumenides and Oedipus 
 Tyrannus, where a simple uncertainty is stated and worked out, 
 to a complicated drama of intrigue like the Iphigeneia Taurica 
 or Orestes, where the audience could be sure of nothing. When 
 the methods of these latter plays were transferred to manufac- 
 tured middle class characters, there arose New Comedy, where 
 the audience had no clue to the outcome. But suspense of 
 uncertainty in New Comedy labored under two disadvantages: 
 1) the compulsion of the situation, where the hero had to marry 
 the heroine, and the stray girl had to be recognized as the pluto- 
 crat's long-lost daughter; 2) the demand for a happy ending. 
 This is seen, for example, in Plautus' Captivi and Rudens, where 
 the author thinks so little of suspense of uncertainty as to outline 
 his whole plot in the prologue with more fulness than appears in 
 any extant play of Euripides. 
 
 A moment's reflexion will show us that so far from being un- 
 usual in modern and contemporary drama, this lack of real un- 
 certainty characterizes a large type of comedy-melodramas from 
 As You Like It and Minna von Barnhelm to 'Way Down East. 
 In fact it is often only by some rather forced and not always con- 
 vincing development of alternatives, that real uncertainty can be 
 brought into a play at all. If the compulsion of the saga was 
 strong in the ancient drama, the compulsion of mood is strong in 
 ours. The conclusion is that in the developed Greek tragedy of 
 415-400 B.C. there was very little, if any, less suspense of ob- 
 jective issue than in our stage. 
 
 The following means were noted of creating suspense of un- 
 certainty : 
 
 1) Changing the order of events so that a known situation 
 points to an unknown outcome: Odysseus and Diomedes in 
 Rhesus; burial of Polyneices in Antigone. 
 
87 
 
 2) Altering or introducing details of incidenl or description: 
 
 Rhesus; Philoctetes (Lemnos :i desert), Cyclops, Agamemnon 
 (sword or ax, fire-beacon), Choephoroe, Sophocles' Electra, i limp- 
 ides' Electra. 
 
 3) Altering emphasis on a character so as to make his rdle in 
 
 the story seem to differ from the accepted saga: Rhesus (Rh< 
 Agamemnon (Aegisthus), Iphigeneia Aulidensis (Achill. 
 
 4) Working in a story new or unfamiliar: Hecabe, Eumen 
 Orestes, Iphigeneia Taurica, Helen, Antigone (Haemon), Euripides' 
 Supplices (Euadne), Ion. 
 
 5) Giving a special function to the chorus: Philoctetes, Iphi- 
 geneia Aulidensis. 
 
 6) Introducing a non-dramatic theme: Iphigeneia Taurica 
 (willing sacrifice). Usually this presupposes the end, bu1 here 
 the end is the opposite of what we expect of the willing-sacrifice 
 theme. 
 
 7) Developing a novel situation with inner suspense of its 
 own: Oedipus Tyrannus, Andromache, Oedipus Coloneus. 
 
 8) Combining two or more previously unconflatcd myths 
 about the same characters: Philoctetes, Prometheus, and probably 
 the Trachiniae and Heracles. 
 
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