Fourth Century Tragedy and the Poetics

Author(s): T. B. L. Webster
Source: Hermes , 1954, 82. Bd., H. 3 (1954), pp. 294-308
Published by: Franz Steiner Verlag

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4474852

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Hermes

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 294 T. B. L. WEBSTER

anderes, aber in dieselbe Richtung Weisendes als wichtig heraus. Was Heraklit
Anaximander und Pythagoras entgegensetzt, ist die Vorstellung von einer
unsichtbaren Harmonie der augenfailligen Gegensatze, vermoge deren sie
allein zusammen je etwas Ganzes ergeben, das mit Hilfe einer Ratselrede, die
die Gegensatze zusammenstellt, erratbar ist. Es ist eine sinndeutende Be-
trachtungsweise, wohl eine Weiterbildung des Orakelwesens zu einer Art
))physiognomischer(( Auslegung. Deren Gefahr ist es, im bloB Geistreichen
stecken zu bleiben. Hingegen Parmenides, von denselben Schwierigkeiten be-
driickt wie Heraklit, hat einen Weg gefunden, der auch heute in der exakten
Forschung mit Erfolg begangen wird. Er treibt seine Darlegung der Welt-
struktur der Welt vor bis zur Versinnlichung in einem anschaulichen Modell,
das ein fulr die Naturerklarung brauchbares Prinzip an sich ablesen laBt
(8, 42149 kombiniert mit 9, 3/4).

Marburg/Lahn KLAUS REICH

FOURTH CENTURY TRAGEDY AND THE POETICS

Tragedy was still immensely popular in the fourth century and spread
beyond Greece itself to the Greek cities of South Italy as the many vases with
pictures of tragic scenes testify; tragic poets, when they had made their name in
Athens, made large sums of money by touring other Greek cities' and tragic
actors of the fourth century were great personages who might take a part in
politics, were painted by the best painters, and amassed considerable fortunes2;
they seem also to have had their own protected organisation at least by the
middle of the century3. It is therefore worth considering what we know about
revivals and new tragedy.
Plato in the Republic, when he quoted Aeschylus or referred to Euripides,
was not attacking something which was already out of date when he wrote.
Revivals of Aeschylus had begun at least as early as the Acharnians (io), and
from 386 an old tragedy was revived at every festival. Can we form any idea of
1 Plato, Laches I83 a.
2 PICKARD-CAMBRIDGE, Dramatic Festivals of Athens, 287 f; for relations of tragic
actors with Philip and Alexander; and for actors' fortunes. Add however TOD, GHI, ii,
no. I40, 1. 67: in 363 B. C. the actor Theodoros subscribed 70 dr. to the rebuilding of the
temple of Apollo at Delphi. Gorgosthenes was painted by Apelles (Pliny, NH, 35, 93);
Aristides painted a tragic actor and a boy (Pliny, NH, 35, ioo); Protogenes painted the
tragic poet Philiskos.
3 'Artists of Dionysus' is an established name by the time of Demosthenes' False
Embassy (ig, i92) and Aristotle's Rhetoric (P2, 14o0a 23). Theodoros' subscription (see
above note) perhaps implies an organisation protected by Delphi as early as 363.

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 Fourth Century Tragedy and the Poetics 295

these revivals? We have various kinds of evidence: very rare inscriptions, a few
mentions in literature', comedy, and vases. The first two sorts of evidence are
clear, but a word must be said about the last two. One of the favourite kinds of
comedy in the early fourth century is the parody of tragedy. These comedies are
evidence for knowledge of the tragedies that they parody and after 386 B. C. are
likely to have been inspired by recent productions. Attic vases with pictures
inspired by tragedy are rare, but South Italian vases often have pictures which
not only illustrate the themes of tragedy but sometimes were inspired by actual
productions, as is suggested by the costume of the figures or the architecture of
the buildings2. At least these pictures show us what tragedies were popular in
the Greek theatres of South Italy; but they may have a closer connection with
Athens. It is possible that the tragedies were taken there by Athenian actors
after recent production in Athens. We have not, as far as I know, direct evi-
dence of this; on the other hand, the following facts are relevant - the in-
tellectual intercourse between the West and Athens (Plato's journeys, the
Athenian tragic poets at the court of Dionysios of Syracuse, the western origin
of the comic poets Alexis and Philemon), the known travels of Athenian actors,
and the very large contribution of Theodoros to the rebuilding of the temple of
Apollo at Delphi, which perhaps implies already an international organisation
for the protection of actors 3.
In this evidence Aeschylus4 is represented by the Oresteia, Europe, Bassarai,
Nereids, Niobe, Amymone. Thus in the early years of the fourth century at any
rate Aeschylus was still a live force. The plays which lasted on until the later
fourth century were the Oresteia, Phrygians, Bassarai, and Niobe.

1 Literary reference to actors performing old tragedies in the fourth century are given
by PICKARD-CAMBRIDGE, Op. Cit., IOI.
2 On buildings, see my article in CQ. 42 (1948) i5f. 3 Cf. above p. 294 n. 3.
4 Plato quotes Niobe, Semele, Hoplon Krisis in the Republic (379e, 39Ie, 383b).
Comedy: Eumenides, Timocles, fr. 25 K. Vases: Bassarai, StCHAN, Etudes sur la Trag6die
Grecque, 72f. (Apulian, Lucanian, and Paestan: SACHAN'S C is A. D. TRENDALL, 'Paestan
Pottery: a Supplement' (= PPS), BSR, 20 (I952) No. 380, and probably represents Tereus
rather than Lycurgus; for D cp. TRENDALL, Nicholson Museum, 324; add TRENDALL,
'Choephoroi painter', Studies presented to D. M. ROBINSON, I24. Niobe, SfiCHAN 82 fig. 24
(Apulian). Choephoroi, SEICHAN 88f. (Lucanian, Paestan: see: TRENDALL, Op. cit., II6f;
PPS. no. i). Eumenides, S1CHAN 94f. (Apulian, incl. early S. Italian and Gnathia, Luca-
nian, Paestan, Campanian). SACHAN's E. is NEUGEBAUER, Fiihrer, pI. 72, BEAZLEY, JHS, 63
(I943), 95, no. i6; F. is Vatican W i, TRENDALL, Vasi Dipinti, I, pI. 3; G. is TRENDALL,
PPS, no. I47. Add TRENDALL, Op. cit., 124; Friihitaliotische Vasen (= FI), nos. B 42, 68.
Europe: Nereids, Early Apulian bell krater. TRENDALL, FI, B 88; PICARD, RA, 4I (I953),
20I. Amymone, Attic: SCHEFOLD, Untersuchungen zu den Kertschervasen, no. I89 =
METZGER, Repr6sentations, 302/II; SCHEFOLD, U., no. I63 = METZGER 302/I2; SCHEFOLD,
U., no. I30. Lucanian, TRENDALL, Choephoroi painter, II8. Phrygians, Apulian: SICHAN
ii8. Sphinx, Paestan, TRENDALL, PPS., no. I55. Danaides, Apulian, 0. Jh., 39 (I952) I7f.
(L. CURTIUS). Prometheus Pyrkaeus, some of the Attic vases quoted by J. D. BEAZLEY in
AJA., 43 (I939), 6i8f. date to the very end of the fifth century.

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296 T. B. L. WEBSTER

Sophocles is less well represented on vases', but we know that Aeschines,

whose dramatic career terminated about 357 B. C., acted in Antigone (which in
fact does appear on a South Italian vase of the early fourth century); Polos,
who is said to have taught Demosthenes, was famous for his rendering of
Oidipous in the Tyrannos and Coloneus and of Elektra in Sophocles' Elektra.
The comedy mentioned by Aristotle in which Orestes and Aigisthos went out as
friends at the end was probably a parody of Sophocles' Elektra. Aristophanes'
Kokalos was based on Sophocles' Kamikoi, and Euboulos (producing 380-330)
wrote a Nausikaa and an Oidipous, in which the hero appeared as a parasite.
The evidence is much better for Euripides who was the favorite of the three, and
Euripides interests us more because he bore the brunt of the criticism from
Aristophanes and Plato. Let us consider first the plays with undesirable hero-
ines2: Medeia, Alkestis, Hippolytos, Auge, Stheneboia, and Aiolos. Alkestis,
the least undesirable, appears twice in comedy - Admetos of Theopompos and
Admetos of Aristomenes. Medeia3 is the subject of a comedy by Euboulos, and
appears on early South Italian, Campanian, and Apulian vases dating from the
beginning of the century until after 330. The Hippolytos appears on an
Apulian vase of about 330 and possibly on an Attic vase of 37013604. Auge is the
title of a comedy by Euboulos. Stheneboia is extremely popular: Euboulos
wrote a Bellerophon and the story appears on three early South Italian vases,
two Apulian vases of about 350, and a Paestan vase of about 3305. Aiolos was
parodied by Aristophanes. Of these plays then Medeia and Stheneboia stand out
quite clearly as more popular than the others. Other plays of Euripides which
seem to have a quite remarkable popularity are Andromeda6, Hekabe7 (acted
by Aeschines and Theodoros), Hypsipyle8, Iphigeneia in Taurisg, Meleagros10

1 A possible Tereus above p. 295 n. 4. Antigone, SECHAN, I4I (South Italian, TRENDALL,
FI, no. A. 254; EHRENBERG, Sophocles and Pericles, pl. I). Elektra, SfiCHAN, I43 (Apulian.
Add a pelike in Exeter [Attic]). Lakainai, StCHAN I57, (Lucanian). Io (satyr play), Attic:
BEAZLEY, ARV. 87I/3: METZGER, 338/68; RUMPF, Malerei und Zeichnung, pl. 40/I. Perhaps
also parodied by Anaxandrides, Io.
2 Cf. Plato, Rep. 395d-e; Aristophanes, Frogs, I043, io8o.
3 SPECHAN, 398 ff. (His A. is TRENDALL, FI, no. A. 247. For C. cf. BEAZLEY, JHS, 63
[I943], 94 note 5 bis. D is BEAZLEY, Ioc. cit., no. 4. For F, see below p. 302).
4 Apulian, SECHAN 335, fig. 99. Attic, SECHAN 334, fig. 98 = SCHEFOLD, U., no. I44.
' SECHAN, 4g8f. His fig. 146 is TRENDALL, FI, no. A. 177; fig. I47 is TRENDALL, FL., no.
A. 2I7. Add TRENDALL, FI, no. B 43; PPS. no. 367.

6 SACHAN, 257f. His A is Attic (METZGER 340170). The rest are South Italian.
7 Apulian: S:CHAN, 32I, fig. 95; Paestan, TRENDALL, PPS. nos. 368, 437.
8 Apulian: SACHAN, 358f., fig. I02, 103, I04. Campanian: SEkCHAN, fig. I05. Pa
TRENDALL, PPS., no. 194.
9 Apulian: SACHAN, 38 if. Attic: BEAZLEY, ARV, 875/I; METZGER 287/39. Campanian:
BEAZLEY, JHS, 63 (I943), 82; BEAZLEY, Ioc. cit., 94/6.
10 Apulian: SECHAN, 429f. His fig. I23 = PICKARD-CAMBRIDGE, Theatre, fig. 22. Attic:
METZGER 3I2f. nos. 2I/5 = BEAZLEY, ARV., 87I/I9, 870/I, 872/20, 87I/8, 872/25.

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 Fourth Century Tragedy and the Poetics 297

(comedies by Strattis, Philyllios, Philetairos, Antiphanes, Alexis), Oenomaos'

(comedies by Nikochares, Antiphanes, Euboulos), Telephos2.
It does not look as if Plato's criticism had much effect on public taste, but
such evidence as we possess does not suggest that the fourth century was
primarily interested in Seelendrama. As a common denominator for these plays,
perhaps we should think rather in terms of excitement of story, scenic effects,
good speeches for actors, and what to-day we call 'theatre'. For three years
running (34I1339) 3 for which we have an inscriptional record, the old tragedy
produced at the Greater Dionysia was by Euripides, in 34I an Iphigeneia (in
Tauris on the evidence just given of its popularity), in 340 Orestes, another
exciting and spectacular play; for 339 we have only the name of the poet. On a
relief 4 which seems to go back to a memorial erected about 330, Euripides holds
the mask of Herakles; the Herakles was therefore also popular, a play which is
often criticised for its structure but is certainly not lacking in excitement.
We have then to consider whether such fragmentary information as we have
about the new tragedies produced in the fourth century agrees with this picture,
whether they too, as Aristotle certainly suggests in the Poetics5, were good plays
for acting with rhetorical speeches to give the actors their chance. The Rhesos
certainly has these merits with its clear structure, magnificent narratives of
Rhesos in glory, and Rhesos dying, and its three interesting variations of the
braggart soldier (Hektor, Dolon, Rhesos). I can add nothing to the arguments
for a fourth century date 6 except to note that whereas the Dolon story is known
from earlier vases, the death of Rhesos only appears on two Apulian vases of the
second half of the fourth century'.
For the rest we must turn to individual poets and ask what we know about
them. Meletos, the accuser of Sokrates, produced an Oidipodeia in the first ten
years of the fourth century. The comic poet Plato parodies a Laios8, in which
lokaste gives birth to Oidipous, encouraged by Laios, who has no fear of the
oracle; it seems likely that this is a parody of the first play of Meletos' trilogy9.
Then the question arises whether a papyrus fragment10 of a Septem may not
belong to the third play of the trilogy as no other play on this subject is known

1 Apulian: SA:CHAN, 450f., A-K (excluding H). Attic: S1CHAN, 454, H (METZGER
321/37; BEAZLEY, ARV, 879/I), L (= METZGER 32I/35; BEAZLEY, ARV, 793). Lucanian:
SACHAN, 458, M. Campanian: S1tCHAN, 459, N.
2 SACHAN, 509, A and C are Campanian (BEAZLEY, JHS 63 (I943), 95 and 73). Attic:
METZGER 287/38. 3 IG 23I8, 2320.
4 Istanbul. SCHEFOLD, Bildnisse, I62, I; POULSEN, From the Ny Carlsberg Glyptothek,
i, 8o. 5 Poetics I45i b 35.
6 Summarised up to I936 by GEFFCKEN, Hermes 71, I936, 394f, cp. later LESKY,
Gnomon, 22, I95I, I4I f. 7 RoSCHER, ML, IV, I03-6. 8 fr. 5. DEMIANCZUK.
9 Cf. MAZON, REA, 44 (I942), I77f.
10 VITELLI-NORSA, Annali Pisa, 2, 4 (I935), I4; D. L. PAGE, Greek Literary Papyr
NO. 33

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 298 T. B. L. WEBSTER

in the fourth century. D. L. PAGE concludes that 'though there are several
points (of language and metre) which forbid us to call this a fragment of 5th
century tragedy, there is nothing to prevent us assigning it to an author of the
fourth century or soon after': in fact the metrical licenses in the iambics point
rather to the early fourth century than later when versification seems to have
become exceedingly strict. In this fragment, as in Euripides' Phoinissai,
Polyneikes and Eteokles meet before Iokaste and debate their claims, but this
poet seems consciously to avoid coincidence of word and thought with Euripides
wherever possible. Instead of set speeches the debate proceeds in stichomyth.
Polyneikes when he arrives gives up his sword to lokaste, and she makes him
swear to abide by his mothers' verdict. These points are new.
Dikaiogenes, whom Aristophanes may parody in the first line of the
Ekklesiazousai1, in his Cyprians invented a type of recognition scene which
Aristotle2 calls recognition by memory: 'for he saw the picture and wept'. Per-
haps Teukros was so recognised in Cyprus when he saw a picture of the Trojan
war, but other situations can be imagined. The tyrant Dionysios I of Syracuse,
who won a victory at the Lenaia of 367, apparently with the Ransom of Hektor,
and died after celebrating it, was regarded by the Athenian comic poets as an
exceedingly bad dramatist, and the fragments3 with their mixture of pomposity
and flatness suggest that their criticism may not be purely political. It is
probable, however, that the line 'Alack, a useful wife I've lost' and the use of
'mysteria' to mean 'mouse-holes' are parodies rather than quotations4. Two
titles, Leda and Adonis, are only quoted for Dionysios and for no other tragic
poet. The birth of Helen from the egg occurs on a number of vases of the latter
part of the fifth and the early fourth century5. In Kratinos' Nemesis, written
about 43I, Leda was told to sit on the egg (io8 K); an Apulian vase6 of the early
fourth century gives a scene from a comedy - Leda looks on while Hephaistos
prepares to smash the egg with a hatchet and Helen leaps out - and the Attic
comic poet Euboulos, who wrote a Dionysios7, also wrote a Leda. The fifth
century vases are earlier than the tragedy of Dionysios and some contemporary
poem seems more likely to have inspired them than the Kypria. Similarly the
Adonis story became popular with painters of the late fifth century8 and the
comic poet Plato wrote a comedy with this title. For both stories, therefore,
Dionysios had a fairly recent work of high poetry before him when he wrote, but
he may have been the first to write tragedies on these themes.
The tragic poet Antiphon was put to death by Dionysios I, and his tragedies
must therefore have been written before 367. His Meleagros, like that of Euri-

1 cf. Schol. ad Ekkl. I. 2 Poetics I455 a i, cf. Virgil, Aeneid, I, 455. 3 e. g. I N, 3 N.

4 frs. IO, I2 N, cp. DIETERICH, RE, s. v. Dionysios, cp. also OLIVIERI, Dioniso, I3, 91.
5 Listed in BEAZLEY, Etruscan Vase-painting, 4o, and METZGER, Op. Cit., 277.
6 Ban 3899: BIEBER, HT, fig. 365. 7 Cf. my Studies in Later Greek Comedy, 28 f.
8 Examples are given by METZGER, 20 n. 4.

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 Fourth Century Tragedy and the Poetics 299

pides, covered the boarhunt and the quarrel between Meleagros and his uncles.
A play in which Andromache was a character is mentioned by Aristotle in the
Eudemian Ethics': 'a friend would choose, if both were possible, to know rather
than be known, as women do in the case of supposititious children and the
Andromache of Antiphon'. In the Nicomachean Ethics2, the reference to
Antiphon is omitted, but the passage is expanded and we hear that 'some
(mothers) give their children to others to bring up, and love them for they know
them but they do not seek love in return, if both are impossible, but it is enough
if they see the children prospering and they love them even if the children in
their ignorance can give their mothers none of their due'. This is a full explana-
tion of the brief allusion in the Eudemian Ethics. Antiphon's Andromache
therefore must have tried to save her child by giving him to someone else to
bring up. The play may, of course, have been an expansion and elaboration of
the early part of Euripides' Andromache and the child was then Molossos. But
Servius3 preserves a version in which Astyanax was hidden by his mother:
Calchas cecinit deiciendum ex muris Astyanacta... hunc Ulixes occultatum a
matre cum invenisset, praecipitat e muro. Accius' Astyanax4 seems to have had
this theme; it is possible that Kalchas' prophecy is mentioned and certain that
someone hiding among shepherds is discovered. This source may have been
Antiphon's play, which may in that case have been an Astyanax rather than an
Andromache. (We know nothing certain about the Sophoclean plays which
have been claimed as the originals of Accius5). There is, however, a further
problem. A papyrus 6, after a mutilated column of iambic lines, from which
however it appears that a woman and a child are warned away from a tomb,
continues with a lament in anapaests: the woman, who must almost be Andro-
mache, says that every possible suffering is hers; Hektor is dead and with him
the glory of Troy; their home has been fired; because of Helen's unholy mar-
riage cruel and unexpected news comes to the Trojan women where they lie
beside the Achaean ships; she has been weeping alone by Hektor's tomb; now
she tells her child to come away with her. MOREL7 pointed out correspondences
between this and the great lament in Ennius' Andromache Aichmalotis. It is, of
course, possible that Accius and Ennius adapted the same original. I am not
certain, however, that the correspondences between Ennius and the papyrus are

EE. I239a 37.

2 NE, II59a 32: this makes it certain that o5lopoAal; is the correct readin
3 adVerg. Aen. 3, 489.
4 Cp. RIBBECK, TRF, 157f., particularly V, IX-XI. The terracotta relief on the
monument of Numitorius (BIEBER, D, no. 46; HT. fig. 421) may illustrate this (or its
source) as it seems to represent Odysseus seizing a grown boy from his mother.
S Aichmalotides and Polyxena: see PEARSON, Sophocles Fragments, and ZIELINSKI,
Eos, 28 (I925), 43; 3I (I928), 2.
6 LOBEL, Greek Poetry and Life, 245; PAGE, op. cit., no. 30: add to his bibliography
KAMERBEEK, Mnemosyne, 1938, 335. 7 Ph. W. I937, 558

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300 T. B. L. WEBSTER

compelling: fr. XI quantis cum aerumnis illum exanclavi diem refers to the day

of Hektor's death and does not correspond to /t ya&e ' -rAquwv zaOog ovx
av[t.ACo --- 1 (pQeaiv; fr. X is not very near q0tjue'vov Mueae'a aeOev, 'Esxroe. There
is no evidence in the papyrus for the reference to Priam in fr. IX; other
restorations of H[ - ] are possible. Moreover quid petam praesidi etc.
precedes the description of Troy and there is no place for this in the papyrus.
The papyrus fragment itself is strongly reminiscent of Euripides' Trojan
Women, but un-Attic forms suggest that the fragment is post-Euripidean, and
MOREL thought of Antiphon since his play was well-known and an early fourth
century date suits (I know no evidence for a long run of anapaests in Hellenistic
tragedy where KAMERBEEK looks for the original). It is possible that we have
the end of an iambic scene in which Kalchas' prophecy was announced and it is
this cruel and unexpected news that moves Andromache and her child from
Hektor's tomb. Then it must have been a long and eventful play: Andromache
laments Hektor, the young Astyanax is smuggled away to the woods, he is dis-
covered by Odysseus and finally in the traditional manner is thrown from the
walls of Troy. This can only be regarded as a possibility.
The other Attic Tragedian connected with the Syracusan court was Karki-
nos, who visited the younger Dionysios1. He was the grandson of the Karkinos
ridiculed by Aristophanes in the Wasps, and won his first victory at the Diony-
sia shortly before 372. In the list of tragic victors2 he appears before Astydamas,
who is known to have won his first victory in 3723. Suidas gives his floruit as
380/76. Karkinos' Aerope4 is said to have moved Jason of Pherai to tears, and
therefore must have been produced before the tyrant's death in 370. Aristotle
mentions him a number of times and Menander quotes a couple of his lines 5. His
style as far as we can see is simple, smooth, and straightforward. In his Orestes,
Orestes was compelled to admit that he had killed his mother and answered in
riddles (we shall meet riddles again in Theodektes). Aristotle has notes on four
plays: in the Amphiaraos6 , 'Amphiaraos returned from the temple: if the
spectator had not seen it, this would have passed, but on the stage it was dis-
astrous for the spectators objected.' Evidently Amphiaraos came out of a
temple without having entered it. Perhaps Karkinos would have answered that
he went in by the backdoor (a technique which is found occasionally in New
Comedy) 7, but the audience was not prepared for this. Aristotle8 also says 'it is
not surprising if a man succumbs to excessively strong pleasures and griefs, and
this is pardonable if he goes down fighting like the Philoktetes of Theodektes

1 Diogenes Laertius, 2, 7, 63 (Aeschines of Sphettos).

2 IG 2325, PICKARD-CAMBRIDGE, Festivals, 1I4.
3 See WILAMOWITz, Aesch. Int., 237.
4 Aelian, VH, 14, 4o, Theodoros acted an Aerope, which was probably the Aerope of
Karkinos. 5 Com. Flor. 75. 6 Poet. I455 a 26.
7 cp. DALMAN, De aedibus scenicis, 92f. 8 NE. II50 b io.

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 Fourth Century Tragedy and the Poetics 30I

and Kerkyon in the Alope of Karkinos'. The scholiast explains that Kerkyon
committed suicide after learning that Poseidon had raped his daughter Alope.
This is completely different from the story told by Hyginus1, which is usually
believed to go back to Euripides; there Kerkyon puts Alope to death and is
finally killed by Theseus. A very obscure reference to Karkinos' Oidipous by
Aristotle2 also suggests a variation in the normal version of the story: Iokaste
continually makes professions (in support of an unlikely story) when the man
who is searching for the son asks questions. This sounds as if Iokaste exposed
the infant Oidipous and had to account for its disappearance to Laios who
wanted to kill it. In his Medeia, again according to Aristotle3, 'they accuse her
of killing the children as they cannot be found anywhere; Medeia made a
mistake in sending the children away; she answers that she would not have
killed the children but Jason: for it would have been a mistake to omit to kill
Jason if she had killed the children'. This version differs considerably from
Euripides, and Medea's self-defence that it would have been a mistake to omit
to kill Jason if she had killed the children is a direct criticism of Euripides. It
sounds as if she somehow sent the children away before she murdered Kreousa
and then was accused by Kreon and Jason (?) of also murdering her own
children. On this evidence we can at least say that Karkinos was an original
tragedian who introduced variations into the great fifth century versions of the
legends.
We know a little of two other fourth century plays on the Medeia story.
Four very tattered fragments of papyrus4 belong to a play about Medeia. Jason
is present in the first fragment and Aigeus is mentioned. In the second Medeia
discusses her wrongs with an older person, possibly Aigeus (the language of this
fragment suggests that the play is not fifth century). In the third after the note
Xoeov Medeia addresses the chorus of Corinthian women. It is noteworthy
that although the chorus has no song written for them5 they can nevertheless be
addressed by a speaker. Neophron6 has been suggested as an author because
Aigeus is mentioned, and the fragments of his Medeia, in which his dependence
on Euripides is as clear as his divergence, have nothing incompatible with the
papyrus fragments. The whole is intelligible as a vulgarisation of Euripides with
divergent details.

1 Fab. 187, 238. 2 Rhet. I4I7b i8; cp. L. A. MACKAY, AJP, 74 (I953), 283.
3 Rhet. I4oob 10.
4 MILNE, Catalogue of Literary Papyri in the British Museum, no. 77 (2 nd or 3 rd cent.
A. D.): PICKARD-CAMBRIDGE, New Chapters, iii, 152.
5 cf. Poetics, 1456a 29. On the parallel position in comedy see my Studies in Later
Greek Comedy, s8f. cp. also E. W. HANDLEY, CQ, 3 (I953), 58.
6 On the date of Neophron cp. besides the article on Neophron in RE and D. L.
PAGE, Euripides' Medea, xxxf., SCHMID-STAHLIN, III, 270; E. A. THOMPSON, CQ. 38, io;
COLONNA, Dioniso, 13, 36.

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302 T. B. L. WEBSTER

We have a picture of the other Med

fourth century, on an Apulian vase o
Euripides: (i) Kreousa's mother Merope and her brother Hippotes come to her
help and it seems unlikely that the painter invented them. (2) Medeia slays one
child but a young man hurries away with another (Diodoros has a version in
which one of three children was saved); (3) the ghost of Aetes stands on a rock
and surveys the scene; (4) Oistros, 'madness', is shown in a snaky chariot. This
is another version closely dependent on Euripides, but embroidering the death
of the princess and altering the murder of the children, introducing also the
spectacular figures of Madness and the Ghost of Aetes. We cannot tell the
author; Antiphon's Jason and Dikaiogenes' Medea are possibilities.
Chairemon, Theodektes, and the younger Astydamas were younger contem-
poraries of Karkinos. Chairemon was, according to Aristotle2, as accurate as a
speech writer, and it is clear from the context that he is thinking of panegyrics
and not of lawcourt speeches; he finds Chairemon's style more adapted to
reading than declaiming on the stage, and we can understand this from various
pretty fragments that have survived3. One of these fragments comes from an
Oineus: we have a papyrus fragment of an Oineus4, which should be fourth
century since it includes the note 'Song of the Chorus'; the smooth slightly
pompous style is certainly not impossible for Chairemon. His Achilles Thersi-
toktonos was produced well before 350 B. C.; this is proved by dated quota-
tions5 of a famous line: 'human life is chance not forethought'. The play is
illustrated on an Apulian vase of about 330 B. C.6 Achilles killed Thersites,
because Thersites taunted him with his alleged love for Penthesileia. The
Achaeans then quarrelled about the death of Thersites. The vase shows us
centrally Achilles springing up, I think, from his couch in spite of the protesta-
tions of Phoinix, and below, the body and severed head of Thersites lying
among a collection of overturned and broken pots and pans, watched by
Automedon, the charioteer of Achilles; a slave runs away presumably to tell the
news. On the right Diomedes, the cousin of Thersites, rushes up with an
Aetolian soldier to avenge him but is restrained by Menelaos; on the left
Agamemnon approaches with Phorbas, and above Poina broods over the scene.
This was evidently a play of camp life like the Rhesos.
The chronology of Astydamas, Theodektes, and Aphareus is difficult but can
to some extent be clarified. WILAMOWITZ7 has shown that the Astydamas who is
1 Munich 8io (JAHN); PICKARD-CAMBRIDGE, Theatre, fig. 2I; StCHAN p1. VIII. See for
latest summary of literature REGENBOGEN (Eranos, 48, 33f.), who suspects this tragedy
may be the source of Ovid and Seneca. 2 Rhet. I4I3b I2. 3 fr. I4 N.
4 B. M. Cat. no. 8o; PAGE, Greek Literary Papyri, no. 28.
5 References: Nikostratos I9 K; Demosthenes 2, 22; Plato, Laws 709 B.
6 Boston 03. 804: SJICHAN, 528, fig. I56; BEAZLEY, AJA, 54, 322; DRAGO, Iapigia, I934,
34I. The story is known from the Aithiopis, Proklos Chrestom. p. 458.
7 cf. above p. 300 n. 3.

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 Fourth Century Tragedy and the Poetics 303

recorded by the Parian marble as having won his first victory in 372 is the
younger Astydamas, the pupil of Isocrates, who was also victorious with the
Parthenopaios in 340. Thus Astydamas appears in the victor-list' immediately
after Karkinos, whose floruit according to Suidas was 380176, and before
Theodektes and Aphareus. Aphareus, as we know from another source2, started
to produce in 36918 and ended 342/I (this date is corroborated by a certain
restoration in the didaskaliai) 3. The average gap between victors for the whole
period between Aeschylus and Astydamas seems to have been between three
and four years. We should therefore expect Theodektes' first victory to have
been about 368 and Aphareus' about 364, and it seems impossible to pull
Theodektes' first victory down to 355 with SOLMSEN4. The only other certain
date that we have is his visit to Halikarnassos soon after the death of Mausolos
in 353. It is therefore almost impossible that he should have been younger than
Aristotle (born 384), and, in rhetorical theory at any rate, Aristotle seems to
have borrowed from him rather than he from Aristotle. If Suidas is correct in
saying that he died at the age of 4I (and this is supported by the further state-
ment that he died in the lifetime of his father), he cannot have been a fellow-
pupil of Aristotle with Alexander; it is, however, possible to understand
Plutarch's phrase 'his association with the man, which was due to Aristotle and
philosophy'5 to mean that Alexander had heard much of Theodektes from
Aristotle. Alternatively, it is possible, with RADERMACHER6 to transfer the
sentence in Suidas about Theodektes' immature death to the life of the younger
Theodektes, who will then have been the pupil of Aristotle. In any case, Theo-
dektes cannot have been born much after 390 and his tragedies were written in
the sixties and the fifties.
The surviving lines of Theodektes are pleasantly written with Euripidean
echoes and include a rustic's description of the letters that make up Theseus'
name, several moralising passages, and a nice account of the sun blackening the
Aithiopians' skin and twisting up their hair. The Oidipous contained a riddle in
hexameters propounded presumably by the sphinx; we have noted already that
Karkinos' Orestes spoke in riddles, and we have a number of riddles from
contemporary comedy. It is tempting to suggest that Euboulos' Sphingokarion,
which seems to have been produced in the late sixties, was a parody of Theo-
dektes' Oidipous in which a cook played the part of the sphinx 7. The Tydeus is

1 cf. above p. 300 n. 2. 2 Ps. Plutarch, Isocrates, 839d.

3 IG 2320; PICKARD-CAMBRIDGE, Festivals, iio.
4 RE. s. v. Theodektes; contrast CAPPS, AJP, I1900, 40. Note that Theodektes' tragedies
are quoted four times in Rhetoric B, 23-4, which SOLMSEN (N. Phil. Unt. 4 (I929) 208ff.)
dates, if I understand him rightly, in the middle of the fifties. C. DEL GRANDE, Dioniso, 4
(I933), igi accepts the later date.
5 Alexander, I7. 6 AAWW, 76 (I939), 62; Artium Scriptores, 2I9.
7 Cf. CQ. 2 (I952) I5. Probably fr. i8 N should be added as a fragment of the Oidipous.

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 304 T. B. L. WEBSTER

quoted by Aristotle' as an instance of recognition by reasoning. In both his

Alkmaion and Orestes judgment was passed in favour of the deed but against
the doer, a nice discrimination between the act and the personality of the actor.
His Philoktetes, who has been bitten in the hand instead of the foot, is an
instance of noble endurance against pain2; the wound in the hand is more
seemly (the contemporary artist Euphranor suppressed the lameness of
Hephaistos). His Mausolos may have been a historical play like the Persai on the
well-known Apulian vase3.
Aristotle twice mentions Theodoktes' Lynkeus4: he says that 'its desis is the
previous events and the seizure of the boy and again of them, its lysis begins
with the condemnation to death': secondly, he gives it as an instance of
peripeteia: the one is led off to die, the other (Danaos) follows to put him to
death; but as a result of what has happened the former is killed and the latter
saved. This was evidently an exciting play with a double plot. The 'boy' must be
Abas and 'them' Lynkeus and Hypermnestra. Whether iMAcotart is right or not,
it looks as if Danaos' discovery of Abas revealed Lynkeus and Hyperrmnestra
and led to Lynkeus' condemnation. The intervention which saved Lynkeus and
killed Danaos must have come from some other source but whence we cannot
tell; Hyginus5 says that Abas announced Danaos' death to Lynkeus and Lyn-
keus rewarded him with Danaos' shield. I think that a Lucanian vase6 may have
preserved a picture inspired by the Lynkeus: at a country sanctuary (column
surmounted by shield - for Danaos' column cf. Pausanias 2, I9, 7) an old man
is being killed; he has been thrown off his throne, which is being carried away in
pieces by a woman (Hypermnestra?) and a boy (Abas?) - Danaos had a throne
in the temple of Apollo (Pausanias 2, I9, 5).
The plot has a similarity with a curious version of the Antigone story, which
is preserved on an Apulian vase of 3301320 and by Hyginus7. Detailed com-

1 Poet. I455 a 9.
2 Aristotle, NE, I I 50 b 9 with commentator and scholiast. Neoptolemos was a chara
as in Sophocles.

3 Naples 3253; S1CHAN P1. IX; PICKARD-CAMBRIDGE, Festivals, fig. I9I; TRENDALL,
Handbook to the Nicholson Museum, 325. C. ANTI, Arch. Class, IV, 63 revives an old
suggestion that this is based on a picture dedicated by Themistokles after the production of
Phrynichos' Persai. The vase shows no sign of deriving from such an early classical picture
and we know nothing of Phrynichos' Persai. For historical tragedy cf. Aristotle, Poet.
I45I b 29. COPPOLA (RFIC, 1927, 463) suggested that the satyr play Lykourgos produced
in 340 (I. G. 2320) was by the comic poet Timokles, who exploited the identity of name
between the politician and the heroic king. On this note (I) that the evidence for a tragic
poet Timokles is extremely weak, (2) that Demetrios, who wrote the satyr play represented
on the Pronomos vase, may have been the contemporary comic poet of that name, (3) that
later in the fourth century and in the early third century political satyr plays like historical
tragedies are known. 4 Poet. I452a 27; I455b 29. 6 Fab. I70, 9; 273, 2.
6 I owe my knowledge of this to Professor A. D. TRENDALL.
7 Ruvo, Jatta 423;SACHAN, fig. 86 ;PIcKARD-CAMBRIDGE,Theatre, fig. I3,Hyginus,fab.72.

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 Fourth Century Tragedy and the Poetics 305

parison' of Hyginus and the vase picture with the fragments of Euripides'
Antigone prove that Euripides is not the author, but that this version continues
the Euripidean story in which Haimon married Antigone and had a son Maion.
The only other Antigone we know is Astydamas' victorious play of 34I 2. In this
version Haimon was ordered to kill Antigone for burying Polyneikes; instead he
hid her among shepherds and told his father that he had killed her: the play
opened when their son was old enough to come to Thebes for the games; there
Kreon recognised him by his birthmark3 and presumably ordered Haimon to be
put to death. Herakles intervened and begged pardon for Haimon. According to
Hyginus he did not succeed; but unsuccessful intervention by Herakles seems
unlikely, and perhaps memory of Sophocles diverted Hyginus here. If in Asty-
damas Herakles intervened successfully, the general lines of the play cannot
have been unlike Theodektes' Lynkeus and the prototype of the earlier part of
both - the discovery of an unknown royal boy because of his prowess at the
games - can be seen in Euripides' Alexandros.
We can say something of two other plays of Astydamas, Alkmaion and
Hektor. Aristotle4 quotes his Alkmaion as an instance of a man who performed
the tragic deed in ignorance and then recognised the relationship. The Ari-
stotelian formula5 would presumably cover the case of Agave in the Bacchae.
It seems therefore that in this version Alkmaion was driven mad by his father's
command to kill his mother and killed her in his madness; then we can also
suppose that Antiphanes6 was thinking of Astydamas' play when he spoke of
Alkmaion going mad and killing his mother. The straightforward version was
perhaps played out and the ethical and religious problem involved was no longer
so interesting; the new version gave both a naturalistic mad scene and a
terrible recognition afterwards.
When Aristotle said in the Poetics7 that only one or two tragedies could be
made out of the Iliad, he meant that the structure was too closely knit for
sections to be cut out and dramatised. This is not entirely true as the Rhesos
shows, but he might have pointed to the Aeschylean trilogy with its three
chapters based on the ninth, eighteenth to twenty-second, and twenty-fourth
books or to Astydamas' Hektor, if we may trust a reconstruction based on
papyrus finds. The separate papyri, one Amherst, one in Strasburg, and a group
from Hibeh (to be published by Professor E. G. TURNER)8 are all about Hektor;
the original of the Hibeh group was certainly of the fourth century because it
contains the indication 'Song of the chorus'. The certain fragment of the
1 SCICHAN 274f: SCHMID-STXHLIN, 3, 59I. 2 I. G. 2320.
3 Quoted by Aristotle, Poet. I454b 22. GUDEMANN ad loc. wrongly interprets Hyginus'
hunc as Haimon. 4 I453b 33.
5 cf. NE iiii a 6 where madness seems to be equated with ignorance, and I 147 a I2
where the madman is equated with the man who is drunk and the man who is asleep.
6 Antiphanes i9i K. 7 Poetics I459b 2.
8 PAGE, op. cit., no. 29 gives Amherst and Strasburg; Hibeh, II, no. I74.

Hermes 82 20

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306 T. B. L. WEBSTER

Hektor describes Hektor's parting from Andromache and Astyanax. The

Strasburg papyrus described the fatal duel with Achilles. In addition, the
Amherst papyrus gives us a messenger arriving at Hektor's palace with bad
news, Hektor cursing him for his cowardice (like Hektor in the Rhesos) and
sending him for Achilles' armour (one of the new Hibeh fragments describes
Thetis bringing the divine armour to Achilles, whether in a prologue speech or
how, we cannot say). In another Hibeh fragment after the 'Song of the Chorus'
some one, perhaps Priam, refers to a disturbing prophecy of Helenos; it will be
remembered that Helenos 1 persuaded Hektor to have the supplication made in
the sixth book of the Iliad and to propose single combat in the seventh book. In
yet another Hibeh fragment someone tells someone else not to fight if he is
afraid (perhaps Deiphobos and Hektor in the last duel?). We have here a plau-
sible single Hektor tragedy derived from the Iliad in which Hektor's farewell is
closely connected with his death (as some modern Homeric scholars have
wished) and in which Helenos' persuasiveness based on his prophetic powers is
evidently fatal. The insertion of a scene from Iliad Z into the context of Iliad X
may be an instance of what Aristotle 2 means by 'distorting the natural order' to
please the actors.
After the production of the Parthenopaios 3 in 340 it was decreed that Asty-
damas should be honoured by a portrait statue in the theatre. The verses which
he composed for the statue became a proverb for self-praise, but also show his
awareness that the modern tragedian has a hard battle to establish himself
against his great predecessors of the fifth century. As we have little evidence for
originality in tragedy after 3404, Astydamas' statue and epigram take on the
character of a manifesto. What we can see is so varied that it is difficult to bring
under a common denominator. We suggested that the qualities which made
certain tragedies of Euripides popular in the fourth century were exciting story,
scenic effects, good speeches, and what to-day we call 'theatre'. These qualities
we can apprehend in the Rhesos, Antiphon's Andromache play, Chairemon's
Achilles Thersitoktonos, Theodektes' Lynkeus, Astydamas' Alkmaion and
Antigone. In these plays we see not only dependence on Euripides but at the
same time the kind of reaction against him which proves dependence. Thus the
three versions of the Medeia of which we have spoken are unthinkable without
Euripides' Medeia. Moreover in four cases where we see a new treatment of a
story we find an original for the variation in a play of Euripides with another
story: Antiphon's Andromache sends Astyanax away to save him, as Euripides'
Andromache sends Molossos away; Astydamas' Alkmaion kills his mother in
madness and then recognises her, as Agave kills Pentheus in the Bacchae: the
arrival of the unrecognised prince to take part in the games in Euripides'

1 Iliad Z, 75; H, 44. 2 Poet. I45I b 39.

8 Perhaps reflected on an Apulian vase of the third quarter of the fourth cen
4 A good account of Hellenistic tragedy is given by P. VENINI, Dioniso, i6 (I953) 3.

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 Fourth Century Tragedy and the Poetics 307

Alexandros provided the model for an essential part of Theodektes' Lynkeus

and Astydamas' Antigone.
Ten years after Astydamas' manifesto Lykourgos rebuilt the theatre of
Dionysos in stone, erected in it the statues of the three great tragedians of the
fifth century and established their texts; there is also some evidence that the
masks were changed at this time by the introduction of the onkos, a tower of
formalised hair above the forehead, which emphasised the distinction between
the heroes of tragedy and ordinary men and women, and put them back into the
heroic pastl. All the influence of Lykourgos, therefore, goes to establishing the
fifth century tragedians as classics and producing them in a way worthy of
classics, and sounds the knell of new tragedy. To this effect I have long believed
the Poetics with its praise of classical tragedy on every page contributed. This is
undoubtedly true but a little more must be said. SOLMSEN 2 suggested that Chs.
i6-i8 of the Poetics with certain other portions are later additions; if, as we
have supposed, 'the spear which the earthborn wear' is a quotation from
Astydamas' Antigone, the only quotation in the Poetics which can be dated
after Aristotle's first Athenian residence belongs to these later additions. We
can also show that one essential idea of the earlier part of the Poetics had been
formulated before Aristotle left Athens: in a part of the Metaphysics3 which
JAEGER justifiably ascribes to the earliest stratum written at Assos Aristotle
says that Nature is not like an episodic tragedy, thus implying in his audience
acquaintance with the whole theory of organic composition developed in Ch.
7-9 of the Poetics.
I am not concerned here to ask either whether this was expounded in the
dialogue on the Poets or whether there survive other early hints of theories
which are essential to the Poetics4; nor I am concerned with the influence of
biological thought on the Poetics5 or with the Poetics as an answer to Plato.
The essential fact is that the theory of organic composition must have been
expounded before Aristotle left Athens (where else would a theory of poetry
have been relevant?) and within a few years of Plato's Phaidros, in which it is
foreshadowed6. The exciting tragedy of the years that Aristotle was in Athens
was the tragedy of Theodektes and Astydamas, the pupils of Isokrates. Theo-

1 The earliest mask with onkos seems to be that held by the Aeschylus of the Lycurgan
theatre (cf. JHS, 7I (I 95I), 229). The heroine on a painting recently said to be derived from
an original of about 340 (Naples 9563: PICKARD-CAMBRIDGE, Festivals, fig. 70; BIEBER,
HT. fig. 423; RUMPF, Malerei u. Zeichnung, I36) still wears a mask without onkos, which is
very like a fourth century mask in the small Acropolis Museum (WALTER, 2I0, no. 4I3;
PIcKARD-CAMBRIDGE, Festivals, fig. 37). I see no sign of high-soled boots under the heroine's
frock (LESKY, Rh.Mus. 95, (I952), 368).
2 CQ. 29 (I935), 192f. 8 IO90b i9, cf. JAEGER, Aristotle, 224ff.
4 e. g. frs. 72, 8i R with RoSTAGNI, RIFC 54 (I926), 464; ALFONSI, RIFC 70 (I942), 193.
5 Particularly I449a I4 cf. Symb. Osl., 29 (1952), 22.
6 On its date, cf. JAEGER, Paideia, 3, I46 n. IO9; REGENBOGEN, Misc. Ac. Ber. I950, 2I.

20*

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308 ADELMO BARIGAZZI

dektes may even have moved to the Acade

was written'. Their practice, as far as we c
to a theory which saw in tragedy a kind of rhetoric, an organic composition
directed to arousing pity and fear in the audience: this aim underlies the
discussion of the character of the tragic hero (formulated in terms based
ultimately on legal distinctions such as were made against Theodektes' Alk-
maion and Orestes), tragic scenes (peripeteia and anagnorisis, for both of which
the Lynkeus provides an example), and the tragic deed, for which Astydamas'
Alkmaion is quoted. Classical tragedy is seen in the light of modern practice and
for this reason Aristotle leaves out much that we think most valuable - 'the
apple-trees, the singing, and the gold'. Thus Aristotle's praise of classical
tragedy excludes choruses, poetry, moral stature of heroes and heroines,
comment on man's relation to the gods, while including all that was common to
the classical tragedians and the modemn tragedians. These views were formu-
lated and known before he left Athens in 347, and Lykourgos must have been
acquainted with them whether Aristotle had started lecturing again on dramatic
theory or not by the time that Lykourgos rebuilt the theatre in 330129. By then
the modem tragedy of the sixties and fifties had probably in its turn become
classical.

London T. B. L. WEBSTER

1 I hope to discuss this further elsewhere. It is just possible that Suidas' Te'Xvtv
roetXv iv dVTLoo ;a' a AAa tvad xaxaAoyad6qv should be interpreted as an Art of Poetry
and an Art of Rhetoric.

SULL' ECALE DI CALLIMACO

I. Teseo, eroe generoso (Jr. 238 PI.)

Numerosi sono stati i recenti papiri che hanno notevolmente aum

nostra conoscenza della poesia callimachea; ma delle nuove scopert
beneficiato specialmente gli Aitia, l'opera poetica piu vasta e piii im
del poeta, molto meno l'Ecale, il poemetto che fu il modello della nu
Questo, nel lasso di tempo che intercorre fra le due edizioni del PFEIFF
dal I923 al I950, Si e arricchito del primo verso, dato dalle Dieghese
col riassunto dell'intero poema (alcune righe di un riassunto, molto
anche in P. 0. XX, 2258, fr. A 9V e iif Pf. I, p. 226 e 506), del fr. 2
22I6) e dei pochi versi frammentari (P. 0. 22I7) del fr. 260, che integran
mente il famoso pezzo della tavola viennese. Poca cosa in tutto; tut

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