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Greece & Rome, Vol. 48, No.

1, April 2001
EURIPIDES IN MEGALE HELLAS:
SOME ASPECTS OF THE EARLY RECEPTION
OF TRAGEDY
By wi lli am allan
One of the dominant trends in the criticism of tragedy over the past
thirty years or so has been both historicist and Athenocentric. Numer-
ous scholars have emphasized the importance of seeing tragedy within
its specic cultural context, and their readings of Greek, or rather Attic,
tragedy have illuminated the plays in new and important ways. How-
ever, the temptation to reduce tragedy almost exclusively to reection on
Athenian civic ideology has been indulged too far, and scholars are
beginning to see that the huge popularity of tragedy beyond Athens
oers a way out of this well-trodden Athenian path, which was in danger
of becoming a cul-de-sac.
1
In this article I will look at the reception of
tragedy in Sicily and southern Italy, and will focus on Euripides' The
Children of Heracles as a test case. I shall argue that this play was
performed in southern Italy towards the end of the fth century B.C.,
and that its reperformance encourages us not only to appreciate The
Children of Heracles as more than a lifeless exercise in Athenian
propaganda, but also to view tragedy generally in less Athenocentric
terms.
2
As Pat Easterling has observed, the texts of the plays themselves hint
at potential audiences outside Athens, from Sicily and southern Italy to
Macedonia, Magnesia, and Delos.
3
Although, with the exception of
Aeschylus' Women of Aetna and Euripides' Archelaus, we cannot be
certain that any tragedy was written specically for a rst performance
outside Athens,
4
there is much evidence to suggest that Euripides wrote
with potential non-Athenian audiences in mind. In other words, we
should be open to the possibility that tragedy becomes a panhellenic
genre much earlier than is often supposed and that by the late fth
century there is already a market for the reperformance of tragedy
throughout the Greek-speaking world.
When we focus on the western Greeks, there is much to suggest their
intense interest in tragedy from an early date (and we should not forget
the comedies of Epicharmus of Syracuse from the very start of the fth
century).
5
I have already mentioned Aeschylus' Women of Aetna,
produced in Sicily in the mid 470s to celebrate Hieron's new colony.
Between the rebuilding of the theatre of Syracuse around 460
6
and the
victory of the Syracusan tyrant Dionysius at the Athenian Lenaea of
367,
7
tragedy's popularity in Megale Hellas no doubt ensured its
continued performance there. Several successful actors and playwrights
of the early fourth century came to Athens from the West, and it seems
reasonable to suppose that their interest was aroused by dramatic
performances in their native cities.
8
Later sources point to the particular popularity of Euripides in Sicily,
9
and this is conrmed by the number of vases from the region which
seem to show the inuence of his work from around 420 onwards.
However, it must be recognized that these vases, one of our most
important pieces of evidence for the performance of tragedy in the
region, are deeply controversial. Some scholars have disputed the
impact of tragedy on South Italian vase-painting.
10
Luca Giuliani, for
example, has argued that the vase-painters' focus is simply on `the
myth', not on a particular literary treatment of it.
11
Yet his denial of any
inuence from tragedy seems extreme, especially if we consider
examples of myths such as that of Iphigeneia at Tauris, where the
iconographers are depicting a myth that was invented in a particular
tragedy.
12
The relationship between the plays and the images is certainly
both more complex and less direct than was formerly assumed, but the
South Italian vases are still valuable evidence for the early reception of
tragedy by non-Athenian audiences.
13
The Children of Heracles is a good play to test this claim precisely
because of its strong Athenian focus. There is no allusion in the text to
potential audiences elsewhere and the localizations are exclusively Attic:
Heracles' family have taken refuge at the altar of Zeus Agoraios in
Marathon (70), Eurystheus is captured by Iolaus near the Scironian
Rocks (860), and he is to be buried before the temple of Athena at
Pallene (1031). The play evokes not only the topography of Attica, but
also the festival of the Panathenaea in Athens itself (77783). There can
be no doubt then that the play was written primarily with an Athenian
audience in mind. Nevertheless, as I shall argue, this did not prevent it
from being enjoyed elsewhere and even being performed in Heraclea in
southern Italy towards the end of the fth century.
As we look in detail at the Heraclidae vases, it is important that we see
them against the background of a developing tradition of theatrical
painting a tradition which seems to have been much stronger in
EURIPIDES IN MEGALE HELLAS 68
Megale Hellas than in Athens itself.
14
From around 460 the inuence of
tragedy is evident in the choice and depiction of myth on Attic pottery,
but as Eric Csapo and William Slater point out, around 440 the Greeks
of South Italy begin to develop `a distinctive local style with an even
greater interest in Attic theater and a stronger taste for dramatic eects',
and they go on: `Attic drama continues to exerts its inuence on South
Italian vase painting for nearly a century after Attic vase painters lose
interest in it (ca. 390 B.C.).'
15
The more overtly theatrical references in South Italian vase-painting
have been linked by Oliver Taplin to tragedy's status there as
`an ``import'', a form of narrative and spectacle pioneered by another polis back in
mainland Hellas. Somehow this ``released'' it for incorporation in the decoration of
pottery . . . in a way which was not acceptable at Athens, at least not in the fth
century.'
16
He goes on to suggest that such decoration was unacceptable because
(90)
`tragedy (and comedy) was perceived as part of the ``political'' life of Athens, political in
the same sense as the lawcourts and executive meetings'.
By contrast, I shall argue here that tragedy and comedy were political in
southern Italy and Sicily as well, but in a signicantly dierent sense
from that of `lawcourts and executive meetings', and in a way which
made theatrical decoration not only acceptable there but also popular.
For the crucial factor in Megale Hellas was theatre's role in arming
Greek identity. Patrons like Hieron in the west (and Archelaus in the
north) recognized and exploited both the panhellenic appeal of tragedy
and its potential as a vehicle of Hellenization.
17
Before his death at Gela
in 456, Aeschylus is said to have produced a revival of the Persians in
Syracuse.
18
If this were the rst Athenian tragedy to be reperformed in
the West, it is both tting and signicant that the play chosen was one
with a strong panhellenic impact. As Leslie Kurke points out, the
commissioning of epinikia as well as tragedy by the Greek tyrants of
Sicily sprang from `the desire of colonials to assert their Greekness'.
19
The especial strength of the western market for theatre and theatrical
vases was thus promoted not only by the region's material wealth and its
ourishing urban cultures, but also by the distinctive political and
geographical context of the Greek settlers. For the western Greeks
saw themselves as both culturally and ethnically superior to the
surrounding Etruscans, Romans, Carthaginians, Phoenicians, and
EURIPIDES IN MEGALE HELLAS 69
Sicels.
20
If we ask what made tragedy in particular such a suitable
medium for the maintenance of Hellenism, the crucial factor, I would
suggest, was its status in the classical period as a public performance art
(as opposed to a private reader's text), which made the experience of
tragedy an essentially communal activity and therefore one ideally suited
to the creation and conrmation of a shared cultural and ethnic identity.
Let us now focus on some particular images. We have already seen
that Megale Hellas enjoyed theatre from an early date, and the vases
suggest that this interest grew throughout the fth and fourth centuries.
The Pronomos vase, probably the most famous of all theatrical images,
was produced in Athens around 400, but was found in Ruvo in northern
Apulia.
21
[Figure 1] Some scholars think it came to Italy via the second-
hand market,
22
but it is also possible that a wealthy Apulian had the vase
painted to remind him of a production he had seen in Athens.
23
A. D.
Trendall has suggested the possibility of an Athenian artist working in
Apulia,
24
and one might go further and envisage a performance of the
satyr play in Taras, which was a major venue for theatre and close to
Ruvo. It must be admitted, however, that the latter suggestion is not
rmly supported by this painting: for the members of the satyr chorus
EURIPIDES IN MEGALE HELLAS 70
Fig. 1
on the vase have Athenian names, and choruses for performance outside
Athens were probably recruited locally.
25
Nevertheless, whether specif-
ically commissioned in Athens as a memento or acquired second-hand,
the vase certainly points to the appreciation of Athenian drama in the
West.
The question of how quickly Athenian plays travelled is raised
tantalizingly by the name vase of the Cyclops Painter.
26
[Figure 2]
The scene is certainly indebted to a satyric version of the Polyphemus
story and none apart from Euripides' is recorded. Strikingly, the satyrs
on the right take no part in the blinding but dance excitedly on the
sidelines, as they do in Euripides' play when their cowardice prevents
them from helping Odysseus directly (Cycl. 63062). So if the vase is
dated to within a few years of 410 and Euripides' play was performed
EURIPIDES IN MEGALE HELLAS 71
Fig. 2
around 408, the image suggests that the play travelled west very quickly.
Pat Easterling has even raised the possibility that the play, with its
unHomeric setting near Mt. Etna, was composed for performance at
Syracuse or Catane.
27
However, we need not believe this to recognize
the vase's signicance for the western Greeks' eager reception of
Athenian drama.
28
Before discussing the Heraclidae vase found in Heraclea (modern
Policoro), I would like to consider briey another vase from the same
site, painted by the so-called Policoro Painter around 400.
29
[Figure 3] It
shows Amphion and Zethus, twin sons of Antiope, preparing to tie
Dirce, their mother's tormentor, to the horns of a bull. Since Euripides
probably invented this version of the myth in his Antiope, which was
produced in Athens after 412,
30
the vase again suggests the rapid
diusion of a particular tragic treatment.
31
Dirce's violent death,
which was narrated in a messenger speech, has been visualized by the
artist.
32
The inuence of Euripides' play is even clearer on a Sicilian vase
decorated by the Dirce Painter around 380.
33
[Figure 4] Here, as vase-
painters often do in their depiction of tragedy, the artist has mixed
together various scenes of the play to create a collage of tragic narrative:
EURIPIDES IN MEGALE HELLAS 72
Fig. 3
the killing of Dirce by the bull, the near execution of Lycus, and the
saving appearance of Hermes as deus ex machina.
34
The Heraclea tomb, excavated in 1963, contained three vases with
strong links to Euripidean tragedy. We have already noted the Policoro
Painter's response to Euripides' Antiope. The second vase (by the same
painter) shows the inuence of the Medea.
35
[Figure 5] It is worth
mentioning here that the dragon-drawn chariot, which appears in all the
South Italian Medea vases, is absent from the text of Euripides. Taplin
suggests that the chariot may derive from staging
36
but Athenian or
EURIPIDES IN MEGALE HELLAS 73
Fig. 4
South Italian? Since nobody mentions the dragons in the play, they are
unlikely to have featured in the rst production (unless they were in the
original text and we have a later actors' copy). So are they a theatrical
embellishment for a western audience or the invention of a particular
painter (even this one)?
37
Of course, they could derive from a version of
the myth that is now lost. In any case, the inuence of the vases has
meant that the presence of the dragons in Euripides' play is often
assumed. In his recent Penguin translation, for example, John Davie
writes `Medea suddenly appears above the stage in a chariot drawn by
dragons'.
38
The third vase (by a dierent painter) reects The Children of
Heracles.
39
[Figure 6] Trendall observes that it is similar to the Policoro
Painter in both style and decoration.
40
The artist certainly shares the
Policoro Painter's interest in theatrical costume, as is evident, for
example, from the drapery of the bearded gure in the centre of the
image. This is Iolaus, who, as guardian of Heracles' persecuted children,
has sought asylum at the sanctuary of Zeus Agoraios in Marathon. To
the right stands the goddess Athena, symbolizing both the Attic location
EURIPIDES IN MEGALE HELLAS 74
Fig. 5
and the concern of her city for the suppliants' welfare. Iolaus stands on a
low wide altar, holding a suppliant branch and sta, and leaning against
an Ionic column topped by a statue. He is surrounded by four young
boys; two carry suppliant branches and two hold on to his robes for
protection. On the left stands a bearded man, wearing stage costume
and a petasos, indicating that he has travelled to be there. His distinctive
herald's sta makes it clear that this is the confrontation between Iolaus
and the Herald of Eurystheus which Euripides presents in the opening
scene of his play.
41
However, the painting is not merely a direct illustration of the scene,
as it contains elements from other parts of the play. Behind Iolaus is a
fth young man, who appears almost to spring from his head. Both
Trendall and John Wilkins think him to be another son of Heracles,
though he has no wreath or suppliant branch.
42
Yet, as David Wiles has
argued, the gure may evoke the rejuvenation of Iolaus which is
reported in the play in a thrilling messenger speech (84958).
43
In
this case, the painter is encouraging the viewer to set the scene within the
wider context of the play and the Heraclidae's eventual victory over
Eurystheus.
EURIPIDES IN MEGALE HELLAS 75
Fig. 6
A second, related puzzle is the identity and signicance of the statue
that stands on top of the column holding a spear. The play is set at a
sanctuary of Zeus, but Zeus is not normally portrayed so young or
beardless.
44
Trendall and Webster remark that the gure `looks more
like Apollo than Zeus, though this may be the vase-painter's fault'!
45
However, if we assume, as we should, that the image is properly drawn,
even Apollo seems an unsatisfactory choice. For the god is absent from
the play and from all known versions of the myth.
46
So if, as argued
earlier, our knowledge of a play can in certain cases greatly enhance our
appreciation of an image, what does it suggest here? Wiles proposes that
the gure represents Heracles and this seems persuasive.
47
For in the
play the safety of the Heraclidae is nally secured when Iolaus' battle-
eld prayer is answered by the deied Heracles and his wife Hebe,
goddess of youth, who together rejuvenate the old man (8518). Thus
knowledge of the play would help the viewer not only to identify
Heracles but also to appreciate his signicance in the painting.
But why is Heracles shown standing on a column? The column plus
statue may simply be read as a victory monument, marking the
Heraclidae's eventual success. However, other factors might suggest a
more complex reading. For a Greek viewer would know that the myth of
the Heraclidae was associated with Marathon, and the play itself makes
the Marathon setting clear (e.g., 314, 6972). Moreover, the Ionic
column with statue is exactly the form of the famous Marathon
monument set up by the Athenians in the mid-fth century.
48
Yet,
one might object, if the battle of Marathon and the monument were
particularly Athenian achievements,
49
is it not surprising to see them
used on a vase in the mainly Doric Heraclea? However, such tensions
disappear if we imagine the monument from the perspective of a
Heraclean audience: whether the column and statue were actually
used in a south Italian production or are merely iconographic shorthand
for the Attic location, Heraclean viewers, I would suggest, will have been
more likely to interpret the monument as a celebration of their town's
eponymous hero, Heracles, than as a tribute to Athens. The extent to
which western Greeks reacted like the original Athenian audience to a
play's ideological issues is an important and complex question to which
we shall later return.
The second Heraclidae vase is also dated to the end of the fth
century and is from the same area as the rst.
50
[Figure 7] In fact, the
two vases are so similar in style that Trendall and Webster suggested
they might come from the same workshop.
51
Here the Ionic column has
EURIPIDES IN MEGALE HELLAS 76
no statue, but it is again a suciently unusual addition to an altar to
suggest reference to Marathon.
52
Iolaus' old age is here much more
emphatic (as it is in the play), and both his age and his stage costume
contrast strongly with the youth and nakedness of the Herald, who is not
only identied by his sta but also by his aggressive grabbing of Iolaus'
throat. This gesture evokes the extreme and, for surviving tragedy,
uncommon violence of Euripides' opening scene, where the Herald
pulls Iolaus fromthe altar and throws him to the ground (6778, 1279).
Like the rst vase then, this one shows the confrontation between Iolaus
and the Herald of Eurystheus, but the painter has also focused on other
elements.
53
For besides the physical violence of the Herald there are two
more details which point to the inuence of Euripides' play: namely, the
gure of Alcmene and the arrival of Demophon and Acamas.
54
Alcmene's identity and her role within the play are both signalled by
the bearded cult statue on her lap, which is clearly a representation of
Zeus with his thunderbolt.
55
In the play Alcmene seeks refuge with the
daughters of Heracles inside the temple of Zeus represented by the
EURIPIDES IN MEGALE HELLAS 77
Fig. 7
skene. As John Wilkins observes, both the statue and her position facing
away from the altar suggest `her presence o-stage in the temple'.
56
In
the Hcld. Demophon and Acamas enter hurriedly, but on foot (118).
Here they are on horseback. While it is not impossible that such an
entrance featured in a South Italian production, it is probably due to the
vase-painter.
57
The horses are a visual symbol of the speed, force, and
timeliness of the arrival,
58
while the commotion of the scene highlights
the danger facing the suppliants.
The Heraclidae are a rare subject in South Italian vase-painting, and it
is striking that they occur on vases made in or near Heraclea. While this
does not guarantee performance there, I would argue that this is the
most likely explanation.
59
What are the alternatives? First, one might
think of a text of Euripides' play circulating in the area, but this was not a
book-dominated culture,
60
and a painter is more likely to respond to a
play that is known to many through performance than to one that is
known to a select few through a private text. Second, one could argue
that these are simply local copies of Athenian iconography. While this is
perhaps more plausible than purely textual transmission, it does not
explain why a demand for specically theatrical vases should exist in
Megale Hellas, and it neglects the evidence in favour of a fth-century
performance tradition in the region.
61
In Aristotle's time some drama existed that was meant to be read
(Arist. Rhet. 1413b12), but fth-century tragedians wrote for perform-
ance and with a single competitive performance at a particular festival
in mind. Nevertheless, the idea of reperformance is not totally alien to
the fth century: revivals of Aeschylus were permitted by public decree
sometime after his death and probably before 425,
62
while in his own
lifetime the Persae may have been reperformed in Syracuse.
63
Moreover,
the evidence of a Sicilian market for tragedy in the 470s is complemen-
ted by references to performances in the theatres of the Attic demes by
the end of the fth century: Euripides competed at the Peiraeus (Aelian,
V.H. 2.13),
64
Sophocles and Aristophanes at Eleusis (IG II
2
3090, an
inscription dated to the last decade of the fth century). While it is
possible that the Peiraeus and Eleusis enjoyed premieres by such major
dramatists,
65
the smaller rural demes are more likely to have seen
revivals of works rst shown at the City Dionysia or Lenaea.
66
Both the theatrical circuit in Attica and the wider international market
required actors. The earliest performances abroad were probably by
Athenian actors, since it is not until the fourth century that we hear of
foreign actors, including some from southern Italy, winning prizes in
EURIPIDES IN MEGALE HELLAS 78
Athens. (However, foreign actors may well have been active in their
home cities long before they made it big in Athens.) It is usually thought
that actors did not begin touring the Greek world until the fourth
century, but the Hcld. vases (among others) suggest that this was
happening earlier; the prizes for actors instituted at the City Dionysia
in 449 and at the Lenaea c.432 will have encouraged their professional-
ization.
67
Although an organized choregic system functioned only in
Athens, wealthy patrons from southern Italy (for example) could no
doubt hire the services of Athenian actors (as Archelaus did with poets
like Euripides and Agathon). Such a patron's generosity would enhance
his prestige in the community, especially if, as in the Hcld., there was a
attering genealogical link between the dramatic characters and the local
audience.
However, someone might object: can we really believe that Athenian
actors were able to perform in Doric Heraclea during the Peloponnesian
War or just after it? (The vases are dated to the end of the fth century.)
Various factors suggest that they could: theatre, though developed in
Athens, was highly prized by the western Greeks, and had been
enthusiastically embraced by Syracuse and Taras, for example, who
were never particularly friendly to Athens. Moreover, actors, as servants
of Dionysus, could claim sacred protection (they were employed on
diplomatic missions by various cities in the fourth century). But the
most important factor was a wider cultural one: namely, that artistic
transmission between Greek poleis generally continued despite political,
ideological, or military conict between them.
68
If we accept then that these vases are evidence for a performance of
Euripides' Children of Heracles in Heraclea towards the end of the fth
century, what does this reveal about the play itself or about the wider
reception of tragedy? Here one must briey consider the history of
Heraclea itself. Heraclea was established in 433/2 partly on the site of
the archaic colony of Siris. It lay midway between the old Spartan
colony of Taras (founded in the late eighth century) and the new
Athenian colony of Thurii (founded in 444/3). Shortly before
Heraclea's foundation, Taras and Thurii had been at war, with Taras
emerging victorious against her new rival. The two cities united briey
to found Heraclea as a joint colony, but Heraclea's dominant ali-
ations were with Doric Taras.
69
During the Peloponnesian War Taras
was resolutely pro-Spartan and this must have inuenced her satellite
Heraclea.
70
However, given the praise of Athens in the play (e.g., 193201,
EURIPIDES IN MEGALE HELLAS 79
5036), and Eurystheus' prediction that the Spartans who are des-
cended from the children of Heracles will be thwarted in their invasion
of Attica (10326, 10424), will the play really have been welcome to a
largely pro-Spartan Heraclean audience? Perhaps not, but only if the
ancient audience reacted as many modern critics have done and saw the
action as pure pro-Athenian propaganda. Yet these vases, I would
argue, point to the play's popularity in Heraclea and show that it
could be appreciated by non-Athenians and apart from Athenian
politics at the start of the Peloponnesian War.
71
Of course, one cannot
deny that there is an anti-Spartan element to the play and that this will
have been a factor in Athenian or Heraclean reactions to it during the
Peloponnesian War.
72
But this is only a small part of the story and is far
from being the goal of the action.
73
In short, the (political) impact of tragedy is aected by the place of its
performance. While it would be obtuse to deny the pro-Athenian factor
in such plays as The Children of Heracles, their transplantation to Greek
communities well beyond Attica will have brought dierent dramatic
(and ideological) elements to the fore. A late fth-century Heraclean
audience may have cared less for the minutiae of contemporary
allegiances, whether pro-Athenian or pro-Spartan,
74
than for the repre-
sentation of their heroic ancestors. This is not to say that the play's
political content is eaced or overshadowed by its representation of
myth, but rather to stress that the play's political impact in Megale
Hellas will be dierent from its impact in Athens. As tragedy spreads
beyond Athens it remains a political genre, but its specically Athenian
elements lose their importance and are superseded by other ways of
viewing the action. To judge from the present case,
75
the performative
function of tragedy in Megale Hellas is non-partisan, and one of its aims
is to arm Greek identity through the dramatization of a shared body of
heroic myth.
76
The Heracleans no doubt enjoyed seeing their eponymous ancestors
courageously repelling Eurystheus' attacks even with Athenian assist-
ance. The vases, despite being produced in or near Heraclea, do not
elide the pro-Athenian aspects of the myth as dramatized by Euripides.
Indeed, the strong Athenian elements in the vases (the protecting gure
of Athena, the evocation of Marathon, Acamas and Demophon) suggest
that the Heraclean audience appreciated the play primarily as a drama-
tization of heroic myth and not as a political allegory, whether pro-
Athenian or anti-Spartan.
77
And if they did so, this should encourage us
to re-evaluate the response of the play's original Athenian audience in
EURIPIDES IN MEGALE HELLAS 80
more than purely political terms, and so open our eyes to the play's more
interesting and universal aspects.
78
Indeed, given the play's powerful scenes of conict, its skilled use of
surprise, the moving self-sacrice of Heracles' daughter, and the
pathetic comedy of old Iolaus' arming-scene, it would reward perform-
ance anywhere. Despite the narrow Athenian focus of much modern
criticism, tragedy was able to survive, indeed to ourish, outside the
democratic Athenian polis,
79
and even among Athens' ercest enemies.
And like the other plays, The Children of Heracles could be successfully
performed outside Athens, since even this most `Attic' and `political' of
tragedies confronted issues, such as the conict between self-interest
and justice or the proper treatment of refugees, which were of interest to
audiences well beyond Athens, and which remain so today, transforming
tragedy from a panhellenic genre into the vigorously international art-
form of our own time.
80
NOTES
The following abbreviations are used: IGD = A. D. Trendall and T. B. L. Webster, Illustrations of
Greek Drama (London, 1971); ARV
2
= J. D. Beazley, Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters (2nd edn.,
Oxford, 1963); LIMC = H. Ackermann and J.-R. Gisler (edd.), Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae
Classicae (Zurich, 198197); LCS = A. D. Trendall, The Red-Figured Vases of Lucania, Campania
and Sicily (Oxford, 1967). All dates are B.C., unless indicated otherwise.
1. J. Grin, `Sophocles and the Democratic City' in J. Grin (ed.), Sophocles Revisited (Oxford,
1999), 7394, page 76 notes that the interpretation of tragedy in terms of a specically Athenian
`democratic moment' now `shows signs of having hardened from a consensus almost into an
orthodoxy'. The importance of performance to the fth-century experience of drama has also been
overlooked by much recent criticism in the `textuality' style: cf. J. R. Green, `On Seeing and
Depicting the Theatre in Classical Athens', GRBS 32 (1991), 1552, pages 1617 with n. 4.
2. Oliver Taplin, Comic Angels (Oxford, 1993) has shown the vitality of Old Comedy in South
Italy. If such topical Athenian comedies could travel, why not Attic tragedies like the Hcld.?
3. P. E. Easterling, `Euripides Outside Athens: a Speculative Note', ICS 19 (1994), 7380.
4. A scholiast on Euripides' Andromache 445 says that the play was not produced in Athens, but
this evidence is problematic: see P. T. Stevens (ed.), Euripides, Andromache (Oxford, 1971), 1921,
M. Lloyd (ed.), Euripides, Andromache (Warminster, 1994), 1112, W. Allan, The Andromache and
Euripidean Tragedy (Oxford, 2000), 14951.
5. On Epicharmus see A. W. Pickard-Cambridge, Dithyramb, Tragedy and Comedy, 2nd edn. rev.
(Oxford, 1962), 23088.
6. Designed by Democopus: cf. P. C. Rossetto and G. P. Sartorio (edd.), Teatri greci e romani
(Rome, 1994), III.334.
7. With The Ransom of Hector. On Dionysius as both tyrant and playwright (and the hostility of
the sources for his career) see C. W. Dearden, `Fourth-Century Tragedy in Sicily: Athenian or
Sicilian?' in J.-P. Descoeudres (ed.), Greek Colonists and Native Populations (Oxford, 1990), 231
42, pages 2346.
8. e.g., Aristodemus of Metapontum (tragic actor), Alexis of Thurii (writer of Middle Comedy),
Philemon of Syracuse (writer of New Comedy).
9. Cf. Easterling (n. 3), 77 n. 15 and Taplin, `Spreading the Word through Performance' in
S. Goldhill and R. Osborne (edd.), Performance Culture and Athenian Democracy (Cambridge,
1999), 3357, pages 423 on the anecdotes about Athenian prisoners in Sicily being saved by their
EURIPIDES IN MEGALE HELLAS 81
knowledge of Euripides (Satyrus, Life fr. 39 XIX, Plut. Nic. 29).Both scholars defend the possibility
that Euripides was actually sent as an ambassador to the Syracusans on behalf of the Athenian
prisoners (Aristotle, Rhet. 1384b1617 with schol.). Whether true or not, this latter story is clearly
connected to (if it does not derive from) Euripides' exceptional popularity in Sicily.
10. On the relationship of Athenian vase-painting to tragedy see Green (n. 1), 389, who
describes the range of possible views from Sechan's naive `illustrations' approach to that of the
modern `iconographic autonomists'.
11. L. Giuliani, `Rhesus between Dream and Death: on the Relation of Image to Literature in
Apulian Vase-Painting', BICS 41 (1996), 7186, page 85.
12. Cf. Taplin, `The Pictorial Record' in Easterling (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Greek
Tragedy (Cambridge, 1997), 6990, pages 768.
13. As Taplin (n. 12), 76 points out, the paintings show a wide range of dramatic reference `all
the way from slight and distant inuence to essential references without which the painting loses
much of its point for the viewer.'
14. On the rarity of tragic performance on fth-century Athenian vases see Green (n. 1), 337.
Green (423) discusses the possible inuence of Sophocles' Andromeda on ve vases from the 440s.
On one of them (IGD III.2, 1) `Euaeon is handsome, son of Aeschylus' is written above the gure of
Perseus. This strongly suggests that the vase represents a play in which Euaeon played the role of
Perseus. For the theatrical careers of Aeschylus' two sons see B. Snell and R. Kannicht, TrGF Vol. 1
(Gottingen, 1986), sub nom. Euphorion I, Euaeon.
15. E. Csapo and W. J. Slater, The Context of Ancient Drama (Ann Arbor, 1995), 54.
16. Taplin (n. 12), 89.
17. For Tharyps' possible Hellenizing use of Euripides' Andromache in Molossia see Allan (n. 4),
1525.
18. Life of Aeschylus, 18; cf. schol. Aristophanes, Frogs 1028.
19. `The Strangeness of ``Song Culture'': Archaic Greek Poetry' in Taplin (ed.), Literature in the
Greek and Roman Worlds (Oxford, 2000), 5887, page 84.
20. Cf. Aristoxenus fr. 124 Wehrli on the `barbarized' Greeks of Paestum: even their theatres
have been aected! Aristoxenus, born c.370, hailed from Taras.
21. Athenian red-gure volute-krater (Museo Nazionale, Naples 3240): ARV
2
1336; LIMC
`Dionysos' no. 834; IGD II, 1; Csapo and Slater (n. 15), pl. 8.
22. IGD, 34.
23. In discussing these vases we must always consider the relationship between the patron, the
painter, and the play. For example, did the patron specify the scene to be painted? Did he have to
outline the play or had the artist seen the performance himself? Cf. n. 61 below.
24. A. D. Trendall, `Farce and Tragedy in South Italian Vase-Painting' in T. Rasmussen and
N. Spivey (edd.), Looking at Greek Vases (Cambridge, 1991), 15182, page 152 with n. 6. The
prominence of Dionysus on the vase and in South Italian painting generally (ibid., 1538) may
support the idea of local production.
25. Cf. Taplin (n. 9), 38.
26. Early Lucanian calyx-krater (British Museum 1947.714.8): LIMC `Kyklops' no. 27; IGD
II, 11; LCS 27, no. 85, pl. 8, 1; R. Seaford (ed.), Euripides, Cyclops (Oxford, 1984), pl. II.
27. Easterling (n. 3), 7980. But in the absence of good external evidence one cannot posit a rst
performance outside Athens solely on references to other places in the play. Moreover, as Seaford
(n. 26), 55 has suggested, the frequent references to Sicily in the play have a particular point for an
Athenian audience, since the Greeks trapped in Polyphemus' cave might evoke the Athenian
captives in Syracuse.
28. Such swift transmission is remarkable but not impossible. Trendall (n. 24), 161 notes that a
performance c.408 `would not allow for the normal time-lag'. But given the small number of
relevant vases that have survived, it is dicult to be sure how long the `normal' period was or how
common departures were from it.
29. Early Lucanian pelike (Museo Nazionale della Siritide, Policoro): LIMC `Dirke' no. 4; IGD
III.3, 14; LCS 58, no. 288, pl. 27, 4.
30. Cf. schol. on Aristophanes, Frogs 53, J. Kambitsis (ed.), L'Antiope d'Euripide (Athens, 1972),
xxxixxxiv, D. J. Mastronarde (ed.), Euripides, Phoenissae (Cambridge, 1994), 1114.
31. However, diusion is rather less rapid if we date the play by the internal evidence of
resolutions to 42619, as do M. Cropp and G. Fick, Resolutions and Chronology in Euripides, BICS
EURIPIDES IN MEGALE HELLAS 82
Suppl. 43 (London, 1985), 22, 69, 746, who suggest (page 76) reading Antigone instead of Antiope
in the scholion to Frogs 53.
32. O-stage events from Euripides' Medea have inuenced another Lucanian vase of the same
period (c.400380): LIMC `Kreousa II' no. 1; IGD III.3, 35; LCS 100, no. 517.
33. Early Sicilian calyx-krater (Staatliche Museen, Berlin F 3296): LIMC `Dirke' no. 5; IGD
III.3, 15; LCS 203, no. 27; Csapo and Slater (n. 15), pl. 3A.
34. For other theatrical elements added by the painter see Csapo and Slater (n. 15), 62. Taplin,
`Narrative Variation in Vase-painting and Tragedy: the Example of Dirke', Antike Kunst 41 (1998),
339 discusses these two vases in terms of a developing stye of South Italian painting which placed
increasing emphasis on theatrical markers.
35. Early Lucanian hydria (Museo Nazionale della Siritide, Policoro): LIMC `Medeia' no. 35;
IGD III.3, 34; LCS 58 no. 286, pls. 26, 3 and 27, 3.
36. Taplin (n. 2), 23.
37. Trendall (LCS 58) thinks the Policoro painting to be the earliest (c.400).
38. Euripides, Alcestis and Other Plays (London, 1996), 81.
39. Early Lucanian pelike (Museo Nazionale della Siritide, Policoro): LIMC `Herakleidai' no. 2;
IGD III.3, 20; LCS 55, no. 283, pl. 25, 5.
40. LCS 56.
41. Trendall, Red Figure Vases of South Italy and Sicily (London, 1989), 22 remarks that `the
scene would t in well with lines 4850 of the Herakleidai of Euripides'.
42. Trendall (n. 41), 22, Wilkins (ed.), Euripides, Heraclidae (Oxford, 1993), xxxi. The gure is
too young to represent the aged Marathonian Chorus.
43. Tragedy in Athens: Performance Space and Theatrical Meaning (Cambridge, 1997), 192.
44. In the play Iolaus and Hyllus set up a victory statue of Zeus Tropaios after the defeat of
Eurystheus (9367), and we know from an inscription that the Athenians instituted a cult of Zeus
Tropaios at Marathon to commemorate their own victory: IG I
3
.255.11; cf. R. Parker, Athenian
Religion: a History (Oxford, 1996), 153. Nevertheless, the gure on the vase still seems too young to
be Zeus.
45. IGD, 86. Also for Apollo: Trendall (n. 41), 22, Wilkins (n. 42), xxxi, M. Schmidt, LIMC
IV.1.7236, page 725.
46. Wiles (n . 43), 192 points out that the gure's muscular build and spear also tell against
Apollo.
47. Wiles (n. 43), 194.
48. As E. Vanderpool, `A Monument to the Battle of Marathon', Hesperia 35 (1966), 93106,
page 102 n. 20 points out, the Greek victory at Salamis seems also to have been commemorated
with a marble column. So even if a viewer of the vase failed to detect a specic reference to
Marathon, the standard use of a column (and statue?) for victory monuments will have encouraged
a reading of the scene in terms of the Heraclidae's triumph. However, the presence of a column on
the other Hcld. vase (discussed below) suggests that both painters are exploiting the column's role as
a symbol of Marathon. Of course, this does not entail that the real monument at Marathon featured
a statue of Heracles. Vanderpool (106) suggests a gure of Nike `preparing or crowning the trophy
such as is sometimes represented on vases, reliefs, and coins'. But in view of Heracles' famous
assistance both before and after the battle, recorded by Herodotus (6.108, 116), his statue cannot be
ruled out. Nevertheless, the structure on the vase need not have an exact historical equivalent; it
functions rather as artistic shorthand for a particular locality and for an atmosphere of victory that
will please the painter's Heraclean patron.
49. Cf. Aristophanes, Knights 1334, Wasps 711, Lys. 285.
50. An early Lucanian column-krater, late fth century (Staatliche Museen, Berlin, 1969.6):
LIMC `Herakleidai' no. 3; IGD III.3, 21; LCS Suppl. 2 (BICS Suppl. 31, 1973), 158, 291a.
51. IGD, 87.
52. For the standard form of a Greek altar (simple stone blocks) see W. Burkert, Greek Religion
(Cambridge, Mass., 1985), 878.
53. Neither of the Hcld. vases reects a specic moment in performance like the famous scene
from the Oedipus Tyrannus on a fragmentary vase by the Capodarso Painter, made in Sicily around
330 (LIMC `Oidipous' no. 83; IGD III.2, 8). Csapo and Slater (n. 15), 63 observe that on the O.T.
vase ` ``theater'' may safely be designated the primary frame', and they note that it is `without the
layered or oating references to other characters or further events in the narrative that we nd on
EURIPIDES IN MEGALE HELLAS 83
many earlier south Italian and Attic vases'. This is exactly what we nd in the Hcld. scenes (e.g.,
Alcmene `inside' the temple). Nevertheless, the absence of overtly theatrical references (stage
platform, mask-like faces, etc.) does not undermine the fact that these vases reect the Heraclidae
myth as dramatized by Euripides and that performance is the most likely explanation of the
similarities.
54. As Wilkins (n. 42), xxxii points out, the violent gesture, the herald's sta, and the arrival of
Demophon and Acamas all tell against Greifenhagen's suggestion that the central gure is not the
Herald but rather the Servant who enters at 630 to tell Iolaus that Hyllus has returned with an allied
force.
55. A. P. Burnett, Revenge in Attic and Later Tragedy (Berkeley, 1998), 149 n. 34 identies the
gure as `Macaria', the daughter of Heracles, because she is `distinctively young, in contrast to the
white-haired Iolaus'. However, she is in fact presented as a mature woman and is far from being
the unmarried girl seen in the play (cf. 57980, 5912).
56. Wilkins (n. 42), xxxii. Alcmene is absent from the opening scene and does not appear until
line 646, but during the prologue Iolaus mentions her presence within the temple of Zeus (413).
57. Compare Medea's dragon-chariot (nn. 358).
58. The elevated position of Demophon and Acamas may also communicate their superiority
over the Herald, both morally and physically.
59. No archaeological remains of a stone theatre have been found at Heraclea, but this is also true
of Taras, whose theatre is referred to by many authors (cf. Rossetto and Sartorio [n. 6], III.54). In
any case, no permanent stone structure was required: Plato, for example, speaks of travelling tragic
poets setting up temporary stages in the marketplace (Laws 817bc).
60. Cf. B. A. Sparkes, The Red and the Black: Studies in Greek Pottery (London, 1996), 123: `We
must beware of assuming that painters, even if they could read, had access to written texts.'
61. The choice of striking theatrical moments (e.g., suppliants being assaulted at an altar, Medea
escaping vengeance on a ying chariot) and the combination of various dramatic details in a single
painting suggest the inuence of live performance. But even if we accept that tragedies were
performed in southern Italy in the fth century, two key questions arise: Who had access to the
plays and who were buying the vases? While it is possible that semi-private productions took place
at the courts of tyrants, e.g., before Hieron and his select guests, places like Heraclea in the later fth
century were not tyrannies, and public performances sponsored by wealthy individuals will have
been politically advantageous; one thinks of the political capital derived by Athenian choregoi from
their own civic largesse. (Indeed, a similar line of thought suggests that Hieron may have had The
Women of Aetna performed publicly as well, either in Syracuse or in the newly settled colony itself.)
On the other hand, these large high-quality painted vases were expensive, and so unlike the theatre
itself, they were probably always restricted to the wealthiest members of the community. Never-
theless, the vases that survive do so because they were buried in the tombs of the rich, and one
should not ignore the possibility that painters produced many lower quality theatrical vases for
general sale which have not been preserved as grave goods.
62. Cf. Aristophanes, Ach. 911, Frogs 8689, Life of Aeschylus 12.
63. See n. 18 above.
64. Aelian says that Socrates rarely attended `the theatres' except when Euripides was competing
`with new tragedies', implying that repeat performances took place in some local theatres if not in
Athens itself. Aelian's connection of Socrates and Euripides seems suspiciously Aristophanic.
Nevertheless, there is no reason to assume that old plays could be reperformed in Attica (or
elsewhere) only after they had been readmitted for competition at the City Dionysia, a practice rst
recorded in 386 (cf. IG II
2
2320).
65. The dramatic festivals at Peiraeus and Eleusis were two of the most important outside
Athens: cf. Pickard-Cambridge, The Dramatic Festivals of Athens, 2nd edn. rev. (Oxford, 1968),
468, and D. M. MacDowell (ed.), Demosthenes: Against Meidias (Oxford, 1990), 231 on the law of
Euegoros (from the rst half of the fourth century): `the fact that the Dionysia in Peiraieus are
included in this law shows that they were regarded as a festival of national, not merely local,
importance.'
66. Nevertheless, the deme festivals would be important venues for less established dramatists to
gain experience. There is good evidence for theatres in at least fourteen of the Attic demes: see
D. Whitehead, The Demes of Attica 508/7 ca. 250 B.C. (Princeton, 1986), 21213, 21920, Csapo
and Slater (n. 15), 12132, Wiles (n. 43), 2334.
EURIPIDES IN MEGALE HELLAS 84
67. A process that is itself linked to the increasing professionalization of music, on which see
Kurke (n. 19), 86.
68. In fact, such conicts often functioned as catalysts for cultural interaction. For foreign artistic
and intellectual inuences on Athens in the fth century, its strongest period of imperial expansion,
see M. Ostwald's excellent discussion, `Athens as a Cultural Centre' in CAH 5
2
(Cambridge, 1992),
30669. As C. W. Dearden, `Plays for Export', Phoenix 53 (1999), 22248, page 235 remarks: `it is
curious that when enmity between Athens and the Dorian world was at its height, Attic drama still
seems to have been exported and that to mainly Dorian colonies.'
69. Cf. G. C. Brauer, Taras: its History and Coinage (Bari, 1986), 301, I. Malkin, Myth and
Territory in the Spartan Mediterranean (Cambridge, 1994), 62 n. 56, N. Purcell, `South Italy in the
Fourth Century B.C.' in CAH 6
2
(Cambridge, 1994), 381403, pages 3878, F. van Keuren, The
Coinage of Heraclea Lucaniae (Rome, 1994), 14. Heraclea's joint foundation is attested by the fth-
century historian Antiochus of Syracuse: FGrH 555 F 11. Nevertheless, many scholars write as if it
were solely a colony of Taras: e.g., J. Boardman, The Greeks Overseas (4th edn., London, 1999),
184. Taras' particularly strong interest in theatre (cf. J. R. Green, Theatre in Ancient Greek Society
[London, 1994], 56, 70) makes it a possible alternative venue, though the peculiar importance of
Heracles and the Heraclidae to Heraclea, and the discovery of one of the vases there, favour
performance in Heraclea itself. In any case, both Taras and Heraclea were pro-Spartan during this
period. Compare the Spartan foundation of Heraclea in Trachis in 427/6: Thuc. 3.923.
70. Cf. Thuc. 6.34, 6.44, 6.104, 8.91. However, I do not mean to suggest that Heraclea was a
monolithic pro-Spartan community. Colonies could be complex places: Thurii, for example, was a
mixed (panhellenic) foundation, whose strongest anities were with Athens. However, it took the
expulsion of the anti-Athenian party in 413 to force Thurii into the war on Athens' side (Thuc.
7.33, 57; cf. [Plut.] Mor. 835d: 300 pro-Athenians, one of them Lysias, expelled from Thurii in the
same year), while in 411 ten Thurian ships fought o the Ionian coast on behalf of the Spartans
(Thuc. 8.35, 61). Nevertheless, there is no evidence that the kind of factional stasis found in Thurii
was experienced in Heraclea: its strong links to pro-Spartan Taras were decisive. Thus it seems
unlikely that the Hcld. could have been performed in Heraclea to boost a pro-Athenian faction. Nor
can it easily be seen as encouraging AthenianHeraclean cooperation: the Heraclids are linked to
Athens' enemies, the Spartans, at the end of the play (10346). This suggests that a Heraclean
audience did not experience (even this) tragedy in a monochrome `political' manner. They must
have linked the world of the play to their own in some fashion, but not so simply as to deliver a blunt
`message' about the war.
71. Also, if choruses were recruited locally (cf. n. 25), non-Athenian choruses will have sung
songs praising Athens (e.g., Hcld. 353 ., 770., 901., Med. 824.). Again, this is a strong
indication of the non-partisan reception of tragedy outside Athens.
72. However, it should be stressed that the end of the play itself makes a narrow pro-Athenian
interpretation impossible (even in Athens), as the Marathonian Chorus collaborate with Alcmene to
contravene the nomos that protects prisoners of war (101821).
73. There might have been some in the Heraclean audience whose anti-Athenian feelings were
so strong that their reaction to the play was guided solely by contemporary political alliances. But if
Eurystheus' prophecy (10346) had already been annulled by Athens' defeat in the Peloponnesian
War before the play was performed in Heraclea, then even they might enjoy Eurystheus' (and
Athens') failure!
74. Indeed, some may have been glad to put such conicts between the mother-cities well behind
them.
75. One might compare Euripides' use of Metapontion (midway between Taras and Heraclea)
as the setting for his Captive Melanippe (c.42012). Thucydides says that Metapontion, like Thurii,
was compelled by internal revolution into joining Athens' Sicilian Expedition (7.57). As Martin
Cropp observes in his commentary on the play (C. Collard, M. J. Cropp, K. H. Lee [edd.],
Euripides: Selected Fragmentary Plays, Vol. 1 [Warminster, 1995], 24080, page 245), various
scholars have suggested a connection between `Euripides' use of this Metapontine legend and
Athenian strategic interest in the area in his time'. Interestingly, it is likely that at the end of the play
Poseidon gave an aetiology of Siris (the future site of Heraclea) as named after the dead wife of
Metapontus (fr. 496 N
2
). Cropp well remarks (245): `Tragedies were probably performed at
Heraclea by the end of the 5th C. . . ., and Euripides could have envisaged a production there.' (Of
course, this does not mean it was the rst performance of the play; cf. n. 27 above.) Wilhelm
EURIPIDES IN MEGALE HELLAS 85
Schmid, Geschichte der griechischen Literatur, Part 1, Vol. 3 (Munich, 1940), 416 mentions the
possibility of a politically motivated production at the court of the Messapian king, Artas, who
renewed an old alliance with Athens in 413 (cf. Thuc. 7.33). But it is dicult to discern a
specically pro-Athenian bias either in the reports of the myth or in the surviving fragments of the
play. Nevertheless, someone might argue that a local audience would be positively orientated
towards Athens by the very fact that an Athenian author and Athenian actors were presenting a pro-
Metapontine myth. However, in view of tragedy's early popularity in the West, can we be sure that it
was perceived by western Greeks in the late fth century as a peculiarly Athenian possession or that
a performance of a local myth would have such an eect? While the play contains much local
interest and would certainly repay performance in the Metapontine region, there is no sign of pro-
Athenian politicking. Signicantly, however, as Cropp implies (425), there is a panhellenic aspect to
the Melanippe myth dramatized by Euripides: `The birth and adoption of her sons there provided a
link between colony and homeland, albeit entailing the oddity that Boeotus must now return to
Greece to settle Boeotia.' That is, Melanippe's twin sons, Aeolus and Boeotus, are made to return
from the West to establish their kingdoms in Greece, thereby emphasizing the ties between the
communities of Megale Hellas and their mother cities. (Incidentally, it is hard to see how these
Boeotian and Aeolian details could support a pro-Athenian reading.)
76. However, one should also stress that the armation of Greek identity is not the whole story
of tragedy in southern Italy: we need only consider the popularity of tragic myth in non-Greek
communities. T. P. Wiseman, `Liber: Myth, Drama and Ideology in Republican Rome' in C. Bruun
(ed.), The Roman Middle Republic: Politics, Religion and Historiography c. 400133 B.C. (Rome,
2000), 26599 discusses various scenes of dramatic performance on non-Greek artefacts; he nds
(286) `a common fourth-century culture of mimetic representation extending far beyond the Greek
cities of southern Italy into Latium and Etruria', and concludes: `There is no reason to imagine that
Rome was in any way immune to this culture of Dionysiac mimesis, or that it had been somehow lost
before literary drama was introduced there by Livius Andronicus three or four generations later.'
77. An Apulian volute-krater by the Iliupersis Painter, dated c.370 (IGD III.3, 9), implies
something similar in the case of another (undervalued) play: the vase shows the strong inuence of
Euripides' Andromache (1085.), a tragedy that modern critics have often reduced to anti-Spartan
invective. Yet the Andromache was obviously more highly valued in the ancient world, being one of
the `select' plays of Euripides.
78. Even the play's political `message' was applicable far beyond Greece: in Philostratus' Life of
Apollonius of Tyana, written in the second century A.D., Apollonius meets a young Indian ruler
exiled in Parthia, who recalls that he was reading The Children of Heracles when he was advised to
return to regain his kingdom (2.32).
79. Cf. Grin, `The Social Function of Attic Tragedy', CQ 48 (1998), 3961, page 61: `That is
why Attic tragedy, not parochial in time or place, so long survived the passing of the Attic
democracy.'
80. The phrase `international art-form' is borrowed from Pat Easterling, `From Repertoire to
Canon' in The Cambridge Companion to Greek Tragedy, 21127, page 211, who gives a stimulating
account of tragedy's development and dissemination throughout the Graeco-Roman world. I would
like to thank Adrian Kelly, Oliver Taplin, Peter Walcot, and Peter Wiseman for their helpful
criticism and advice. I am also grateful to the British Museum, the Staatliche Museen, Berlin, the
Museo Nazionale, Naples, and the Museo Nazionale della Siritide, Policoro, for permission to
reproduce the illustrations.
EURIPIDES IN MEGALE HELLAS 86

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