Chapter 5. A River Shouting with Tears: Euripides’ Trojan Women The Trojan Women, first produced in 416 BC, is both the easiest and most difficult of the plays under discussion to interpret, and indeed it is this deceptive ease that prompted the writing of this book. The play is an unrelenting portrait of suffering, and has had a great deal of success in modern productions as… Read more
Chapter 6. The Captive Woman in the House: Euripides’ Andromache Euripides’ Andromache may not have been originally produced in Athens, if we may trust the comment of a scholiast at line 445 of the play, nor can we be certain of the date of its production, which is generally assumed to be the mid-420s. [1] It is, moreover, a complicated drama that… Read more
Conclusion. The Tears of Pity λόγος δυνάστης μέγας ἐστίν, ὃς σμικροτάτωι σώματι καὶ ἀφανεστάτωι θειότατα ἔργα ἀποτελεῖ· δύναται γὰρ καὶ φόβον παῦσαι καὶ λύπην ἀφελεῖν καὶ χαρὰν ἐνεργάσασθαι καὶ ἔλεον ἐπαυξῆσαι… τὴν ποίησιν ἅπασαν καὶ νομίζω καὶ ὀνομάζω λόγον ἔχοντα μέτρον· ἧς τοὺς ἀκούοντας εἰσῆλθε καὶ φρίκη περίφοβος καὶ ἔλεος πολύδακρυς καὶ πόθος φιλοπενθής, ἐπ’ ἀλλοτρίων τε πραγμάτων καὶ σωμάτων εὐτυχίαις καὶ δυσπραγίαις ἴδιόν τι… Read more
Bibliography LIMC Ackermann, H. C., and J.-R. Gisler, eds. Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae. Zurich: Artemis Verlag, 1981-1997 RE Pauly, A., G. Wissowa, and W. Kroll, eds. Realenzyklopädie der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft. Stuttgart, 1893- Abrahamson, E. L. 1952. “Euripides’ Tragedy of Hecuba.” TAPA 83: 120-129. Abu-Lughod, L. 1999. Veiled Sentiments: Honor and Poetry in a Bedouin Society. 2nd ed. Read more
Introduction 1. Herodotus and Myth[1] In the first book of his Histories, Herodotus describes how a Median cowherd receives a child and a message from King Astyages: κελεύει σε Ἀστυάγης τὸ παιδίον τοῦτο λαβόντα θεῖναι ἐς τὸ ἐρημότατον τῶν ὀρέων, ὅκως ἂν τάχιστα διαφθαρείη. καὶ τάδε τοι ἐκέλευσε εἰπεῖν, ἢν μὴ ἀποκτείνῃς αὐτό, ἀλλὰ τεῳ τρόπῳ περιποιήσῃ, ὀλέθρῳ τῷ κακίστῳ σε διαχρήσεσθαι·… Read more
6. Epic, Praise, and the Possession of Poetry §1. It has been argued that the athlete follows the ritual paradigm of the hero not only through an ordeal at the Games but also through a reintegration, by way of epinician lyric poetry, with the community at home. In what follows, I extend the argument: just as the Games, as ritual, momentarily collapse the distinction between hero and… Read more
7. Pindar and Homer, Athlete and Hero §1. Having observed how epic and the ainos of praise poetry can converge as well as diverge, we have begun to appreciate how the convergent kleos of Pindar’s epinician lyric poetry may momentarily collapse the distinction between hero and victorious athlete. Perhaps the clearest example that we have seen so far is Nemean 9.39–42, where the kleos of the hero… Read more
8. The Authoritative Speech of Prose, Poetry, and Song: Pindar and Herodotus I §1. The historiā ‘inquiry’ of Herodotus, like the ainos of epinician poets like Pindar, claims to extend from the epic of heroes. Like the ainos of Pindar, the historiā of Herodotus is a form of discourse that claims the authority to possess and control the epic of heroes. I propose to support these assertions… Read more
9. The Authority of Historiā and the Sign of the Hero §1. The juridical aspect of Herodotean narrative—that it can establish who is aitios ‘responsible’ for the ultimate struggle between Hellenes and Persians—is articulated already in the prooemium of the Histories, in that the purpose of the entire narrative is said to be an inquiry into the aitiā ‘cause’ of that struggle. [1]… Read more
10. The Charms of Tyranny: Pindar and Herodotus II §1. The paradigm of the tyrant in Herodotus is clearly a negative concept, serving as a foil for the moral message of historiā. Yet in the case of the archetypal tyrant figure, Croesus the Lydian, the perspective is not exclusively negative. There are positive sides to the traditional concept of Croesus the Tyrant, and the balancing of his… Read more
