THE TANGLED WAYS OF ZEUS This page intentionally left blank The Tangled Ways of Zeus and other studies in and around Greek Tragedy ALAN H. SOMMERSTEIN 1 3 GreatClarendonStreet,Oxfordox26dp OxfordUniversityPressisadepartmentoftheUniversityofOxford. ItfurtherstheUniversity’sobjectiveofexcellenceinresearch,scholarship, andeducationbypublishingworldwidein Oxford NewYork Auckland CapeTown DaresSalaam HongKong Karachi KualaLumpur Madrid Melbourne MexicoCity Nairobi NewDelhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto Withofficesin Argentina Austria Brazil Chile CzechRepublic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore SouthKorea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam OxfordisaregisteredtrademarkofOxfordUniversityPress intheUKandincertainothercountries PublishedintheUnitedStates byOxfordUniversityPressInc.,NewYork #AlanH.Sommerstein2010 Themoralrightsoftheauthorhavebeenasserted DatabaserightOxfordUniversityPress(maker) Firstpublished2010 Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthispublicationmaybereproduced, storedinaretrievalsystem,ortransmitted,inanyformorbyanymeans, withoutthepriorpermissioninwritingofOxfordUniversityPress, orasexpresslypermittedbylaw,orundertermsagreedwiththeappropriate reprographicsrightsorganization.Enquiriesconcerningreproduction outsidethescopeoftheaboveshouldbesenttotheRightsDepartment, OxfordUniversityPress,attheaddressabove Youmustnotcirculatethisbookinanyotherbindingorcover andyoumustimposethesameconditiononanyacquirer BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationData Dataavailable LibraryofCongressCataloginginPublicationData Dataavailable TypesetbySPIPublisherServices,Pondicherry,India PrintedinGreatBritain onacid-freepaperbythe MPGBooks,BodminandKing’sLynn ISBN 978–0–19–956831–4 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 Preface This book is the ‘further volume mainly consisting of articles on tragedy’ that was foreshadowed in the preface to my previous collection Talking about Laughterand other studies in Greek Comedy (Oxford, 2009). The ‘mainly’, and the ‘in and around’ in the title of the present volume, refer to Chapters 1 and 2, which areconcerned withissuesrelevanttoallvarietiesofGreekdrama. Mostoftheessaysinthisvolume,asinthepreviousone,havebeen published before—all of them, like all but one of those in the pre- vious volume, within the last twenty years. With one exception, as before, I have excluded papers which first appeared in books or periodicals likely to be widely accessible in academic libraries in the English-speakingworld,orine-journalsaccessiblewithoutsubscrip- tion; the exception, included at the special request of OUP’s editor and referee, is Chapter 7. Five of the chapters have not appeared previously: Chapters 3 and 17 are papers presented at Classical Association conferences, Chapter 4 is the Gaisford Lecture which I had the honour of delivering at Oxford in 2007, Chapter 15 is a semi-popularlecture,andChapter18wastohavebeendeliveredata LondonmeetingoftheSocietyforthePromotionofHellenicStudies (seethefinalnotetothatchapter). Allpapersappearhereessentiallyastheywereoriginallypublished orpresented,withtheoriginalpagination(ifany)inserted(insquare brackets and in boldface) at the point where each new page of the original began (in Ch. 8 the same has been done in the footnotes, sincethesewereoriginallyendnotes).Ingeneral,theonlychangesin the text have been those of style, referencing, brief explanatory additions,andthecorrectionoferrorsthatshouldhavebeenspotted inproof,specifiedintheprefacetoTalkingaboutLaughter;butthose chapters which have not previously appeared in print (3, 4, 15, 17, and18)orwhichappearedinpublicationswheretheusualscholarly apparatus would havebeen inappropriate (9, 12, and 19) have been provided with the footnotes which they would have had originally if that had been possible. Most of the chapters are followed by an vi Preface addenda section drawing attention to significant subsequent devel- opments in the relevant scholarship, or to points where my own thinking haschangedsincethetimeoftheoriginalpaper. For a second time I express my gratitude to Hilary O’Shea and her colleagues at Oxford University Press; to the British Academy, the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies, and especially the University of Nottingham, for the support they have given me in attending many conferences; and to those who invited me to write or present so many of these papers—Guillermo De Santis, H. D. Jocelyn, Ben Jourdain, Manfred Lossau, Benedetto Marzullo, Pantelis Michelakis, Duncan Murdoch, Christopher Pelling, David Stuttard,IsabelleTorrance,and(onceagain)BernhardZimmermann. alanh.sommerstein Nottingham Contents Abbreviations ix Introduction 1 1.ThetitlesofGreekdramas 11 2.ViolenceinGreekdrama 30 3.Adolescence,ephebeia,andAtheniandrama 47 4.Sherlockismusandthestudyoffragmentary tragedies 61 5.TheseniorityofPolyneikesinAeschylus’Seven 82 6.ThebeginningandtheendofAeschylus’Danaidtrilogy 89 7.Thetheatreaudience,theDemos,andtheSuppliants ofAeschylus 118 8.Sleepingsafeinour beds:stasis,assassination,and theOresteia 143 9.ThetangledwaysofZeus 164 10.TheomenofAulisor theomenofArgos? 171 11.PathosandmathosbeforeZeus 178 12.OresteiaActII:twomisconceptions 189 13.Aeschylus’epitaph 195 14.DearestHaimon 202 15.‘Theyallknewhow itwasgoingtoend’:tragedy,myth, andthespectator 209 16.AlternativescenariosinSophocles’Electra 224 17.Sophocles’PalamedesandNaupliusplays:notrilogyhere 250 viii Contents 18.‘TheruggedPyrrhus’:thesonofAchillesintragedy 259 19.WhatoughttheThebanstohavedone? 277 References 288 Indexlocorum 307 Generalindex 331 Abbreviations This list includes only abbreviations not listed in the Liddell-Scott-Jones Lexicon(Oxford,1940),initsRevisedSupplement(Oxford,1996),orinthe revised third edition of the Oxford Classical Dictionary (Oxford, 2003). In somecasesabbreviationsofancientauthornamesortexttitlesmaybeless drastic than those used in these works, or maydiffer from them owing to transliterationconventions(e.g.byusingkratherthanc).Wherethenumber of a fragment, hypothesis, etc., is followed by the name of a scholar, the referenceistothatscholar’seditionoftheauthorortextinquestion;where theremightbeambiguityaboutthemeaningofsuchareference,theeditor’s nameislistedbelow. AJP AmericanJournalofPhilology CA ClassicalAntiquity CAG CommentariainAristotelemGraeca(Berlin,1882–1909) Davies M.Davies,EpicorumGraecorumFragmenta(Go¨ttingen,1988) Fowler R.L.Fowler,EarlyGreekMythography,i.Texts(Oxford,2000) h.Herm. HomericHymntoHermes HSCP HarvardStudiesinClassicalPhilology Hypoth. Hypothesis(headnoteto,orsynopsisof,aliterarytext) IGUR Inscriptiones Graecae Urbis Romae, ed. L. Moretti (Rome, 1968–90) Mu¨ller C.Mu¨ller,FragmentaHistoricorumGraecorum(Paris,1841–84) NAWG Nachrichten der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Go¨ttingen, Philologisch-historischeKlasse PdP ParoladelPassato Proleg. Prolegomena QSt QuadernidiStoria RhM RheinischesMuseumfu¨rPhilologie SemRom SeminariRomanidiCulturaGreca UCPCP UniversityofCaliforniaPublicationsinClassicalPhilology West (forepic)M.L.West,GreekEpicFragments(Cambridge,Mass., 2003) (for iambus and elegy) M. L. West, Iambi et Elegi Graeci (Oxford,1971–2) YCS YaleClassicalStudies (cid:1) scholium # number