PERFORMING OATHS IN CLASSICAL GREEK DRAMA OathswereubiquitousritualsinancientAthenianlegal,commercial, civicandinternationalspheres.Theirimportanceisreflectedbythe factthatmuchofsurvivingGreekdramafeaturesaformaloathsworn before the audience. This is the first comprehensive study of that phenomenon.Thebookexploreshowtheoathcanmarkorstructure a dramatic plot, at times compelling characters such as Euripides’ Hippolytus to act contrary to their best interests. It demonstrates howdramaticoathsresonatewithoathritualsfamiliartotheAthenian audiences.Aristophanes’Lysistrataandheraccomplices,forexample, swear an oath that blends protocols of international treaties with priestesses’vowsofsexualabstinence.Byemployingtheprinciplesof speechacttheory,thisbookexamineshowtheperformativepowerof thedramaticoathcanmirrorthestatusquo,butalsodisturbcategories ofgender,socialstatusandcivicidentityinwaysthatredistributeand confoundsocialauthority. judith fletcher is Associate Professor in the Department of HistoryatWilfridLaurierUniversity.Sheistheauthorofnumerous articlesandchaptersonancientGreekpoetry,drama,religionandlaw, andhasco-editedVirginityRevisited:ConfigurationsoftheUnpossessed Body(withBonnieMacLachlan,2007)andHorkos:TheOathinGreek Society(withAlanH.Sommerstein,2007). PERFORMING OATHS IN CLASSICAL GREEK DRAMA JUDITH FLETCHER cambridge university press Cambridge,NewYork,Melbourne,Madrid,CapeTown, Singapore,Sa˜oPaulo,Delhi,Tokyo,MexicoCity CambridgeUniversityPress TheEdinburghBuilding,Cambridgecb28ru,UK PublishedintheUnitedStatesofAmericabyCambridgeUniversityPress,NewYork www.cambridge.org Informationonthistitle:www.cambridge.org/9780521762731 (cid:2)c JudithFletcher2012 Thispublicationisincopyright.Subjecttostatutoryexception andtotheprovisionsofrelevantcollectivelicensingagreements, noreproductionofanypartmaytakeplacewithoutthewritten permissionofCambridgeUniversityPress. Firstpublished2012 PrintedintheUnitedKingdomattheUniversityPress,Cambridge AcataloguerecordforthispublicationisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary LibraryofCongressCataloguinginPublicationdata Fletcher,Judith. PerformingoathsinclassicalGreekdrama/JudithFletcher. p. cm. Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindexes. isbn978-0-521-76273-1 1.Greekdrama–Historyandcriticism. 2.Oathsinliterature. 3.Speechacts(Linguistics)inliterature. 4.Aeschylus–Criticismandinterpretation. 5.Sophocles–Criticismandinterpretation. 6.Euripides–Criticismandinterpretation. 7.Aristophanes–Criticismandinterpretation. I.Title. pa3136.f58 2011 882(cid:3).0109–dc23 2011029382 isbn978-0-521-76273-1Hardback CambridgeUniversityPresshasnoresponsibilityforthepersistenceor accuracyofURLsforexternalorthird-partyinternetwebsitesreferredto inthispublication,anddoesnotguaranteethatanycontentonsuch websitesis,orwillremain,accurateorappropriate. For Rick Nixon,amanofhisword Contents Acknowledgments pageviii Anoteonabbreviations xi Introduction 1 1 Fromcursestoblessings:horkosintheOresteia 35 2 Speakinglikeaman:oathsinSophocles’Trachiniaeand Philoctetes 70 3 Horkosinthepolis:Athens,ThebesandSophocles 102 4 Perjuryandotherperversions:Euripides’Phoenissae, OrestesandCyclops 123 5 TwistedjusticeinAristophanes’Clouds 158 6 WomenandoathsinEuripides 177 7 HowtodothingswithEuripides:Aristophanes’ Thesmophoriazusae 203 8 Swearingoffsex:thewomen’soathinAristophanes’ Lysistrata 220 Conclusion 241 Bibliography 249 Indexlocorum 270 Generalindex 275 vii Acknowledgments This project came into being when I taught Lysistrata in a small, upper- level Greek seminar at Wilfrid Laurier University. My pupils and I were struck by the power and humor of the women’s oath in the prologue of the play. Our discussions led to my article published in 1999, “Sacrificial bodies and the body of the text in Aristophanes’ Lysistrata,” Ramus 28: 108–25, which has been revised for the last chapter of this book. I am grateful to Aureal Publications for permission to use it. I also presented a version of that paper at a conference on personification at the University of London in 2000, where I met Alan Sommerstein, with whom I began an ongoing and fruitful conversation about the Greek oath. I am deeply gratefulforhisgenerosity,wisdom,humor,hospitalityandencouragement over the past decade. At his invitation I became an honorary research fel- lowin2001attheCenterforAncientDramaandItsReception(CADRE) at the University of Nottingham where I spent a productive summer in the city of my birth. In 2004 Professor Sommerstein and I organized an international conference on the Greek oath at the University of Notting- ham, which resulted in our co-edited volume, Horkos: The Oath in Greek Society (Exeter, 2007). The first chapter of this book is a much expanded and reconsidered version of my contribution to that volume. My own projecthasbeengreatlyenriched bythediversescholarswhocontributed to the conference and the volume. With funding from the Leverhulme Trust and the assistance of two postdoctoral fellows, Alan Sommerstein subsequentlybegantoassembleanonlinedatabankofoathsandreferences to oaths in Greek literature and inscriptions from the earliest records to 322bce.Thatdatabank,whichisnowfreelyavailabletoallscholars(www. nottingham.ac.uk/classics/research/projects/oaths/database.aspx),hasbeen invaluable for this project. I am grateful to Isabelle Torrance and Andrew Baylessforgivingmeearlyaccesstoit. viii