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II. Aeschylus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2016

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The papyrus fragments of lost plays which do not belong to the same productions as the preserved plays add a little information about the poet’s technique. It is sad that the Niobe passage (277) has lost the beginnings of the lines, so that it is still impossible to say whether the speaker is Niobe or another, or indeed whether the twenty-one lines should be divided between two speakers. It is, however, certain that they are addressed to the chorus (described in another fragment as exotic in appearance), that they announce the future arrival of Tantalos, and that the words to which Plato objected, ‘god plants a cause in men when he wants to ruin a house’, are only the prelude to the normal Aeschylean view of the dangers of prosperity, which Niobe had demonstrated by boasting of her children’s beauty. Aristophanes in the Frogs (911) implies that Niobe was present silent from the beginning (the ekkyklema must have been used to bring her on, seated on her children’s tomb) and remained silent while the chorus sang a long song. It is therefore possible that this is Niobe’s first speech to the chorus.

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Research Article
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New Surveys in the Classics , Volume 5: Greek Tragedy , 1971 , pp. 7 - 18
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1971

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References

page no 7 note 1 H. Lloyd-Jones has added an appendix to Loeb Classical Library, Aeschylus II (London, 1957), with the papyrus fragments of Aeschylus, bibliography, text, commentary, and translation. References in brackets are to numbers in this. Mette, H. J., Die Fragmente der Tragödien des Aischylos (Berlin, 1959)Google Scholar contains all the fragments. (Additions, Lustrum xiii (1968), 513). On Aeschylus in general, besides Lesky, A., History of Greek Literature (London, 1966)Google Scholar; Greek Tragedy (London, 1966); Tragische Dichtung der Hellenen (Göttingen, third edition, forthcoming), see his article in Anzeiger der Altertumswissenschaft xx (1967), 65 ff. Much work has been done recently on imagery, e.g. Haldane, J. A., JHS lxxxv (1965), 33 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ole-Smith, , Classica et Mediaevalia xxvi (1965), 10 Google Scholar; Peradotto, J. J., AJP lxxxv (1964), 378 Google Scholar; Zeitlin, F. I., TAPA xcvi (1965), 463 Google Scholar; Scott, W. C., TAPA xcvii (1966), 459 Google Scholar; Lebeck, A., CP lxii (1967), 182 Google Scholar. (Note that the works of Lesky cited at the beginning of this note give a full bibliography; I have limited myself to what concerns more particularly the problems here discussed and have added some of the most recent articles and books.)

page no 8 note 1 Cf.Bruno, Snell, Scenes from Greek Drama (Berkeley, 1965), 1 ffGoogle Scholar.

page no 8 note 2 Cf. MTS 141 ff. for the vase and the relief.

page no 8 note 3 Add, since the Loeb, Reinhardt, K., Hermes lxxxv (1957), 123 Google Scholar. Possibly a columnkrater by the Harrow painter with satyrs as smiths should be considered with Lloyd-Jones’s interpretation of the play as the Return of Hephaistos (Antike Kunst xii (1969), 16).

page no 8 note 4 MTS, AV 10, pl. 1a; PCF, fig. 33.

page no 8 note 5 Herington, C. J., JHS lxxxvii (1967), 78 f.Google Scholar, notes Sicilian words which would presumably date this and the Phorkides late, but I doubt if this criterion is valid.

page no 9 note 1 MTS, AV 22 and pp. 116, 144; The Greek Chorus, 28, 118 f.

page no 9 note 2 Cf. Pickard-Cambridge, Dithyramb, Tragedy, and Comedy 2, 267, for possible influence on Epicharmos. (I have discussed the Epicharmos fragments in Serta Aenipontana, 7-8, 1961, 85.)

page no 9 note 3 MTS, p. 144, particularly Copenhagen, N. M., Chr. VIII, 8, CV, pl. 150, 2.

page no 10 note 1 There is an excellent large edition of the Persae by Broadhead, H. D. (Cambridge, 1960)Google Scholar. On ‘dramatic devices’, see Avery, H., AJP lxxxv (1964), 173 Google Scholar. On political references, cf. now Podlecki, A. J., Political Background of Aeschylean Tragedy (Ann Arbor, 1966)Google Scholar. On Dareios, see Alexanderson, B., Eranos lxv (1967), 1 Google Scholar. The evocation of Dareios may be illustrated by MTS, AV 13; PCF, fig. 36.

page no 10 note 2 Kakridis, Ph., Eranos lx (1962), 111 Google Scholar.

page no 11 note 1 Lloyd-Jones, H., CQ xii (1962), 187 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hammond, N. G. L., JHS lxxxv (1965), 42 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lesky, A., JHS lxxxvi (1966), 78 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

page no 11 note 2 Lloyd-Jones, H., CQ ix (1959), 80 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Fraenkel, E., MH xxi (1964), 58 Google Scholar; Dawe, R. D., CQ xvii (1967), 17 Google Scholar.

page no 11 note 3 All the problems connected with the trilogy have been very fully and sensibly discussed (with complete bibliography) by Garvie, A. F., Aeschylus’ Supplices: Play and Trilogy (Cambridge, 1969)Google Scholar. On the dating, cf.Lloyd-Jones, H., AC xxxiii (1964), 356 Google Scholar; on the politics, Forrest, W. G., CQ x (1960), 235 ff.Google Scholar, and A. J. Podlecki, op. cit.; Cunningham, M. L., BICS xv (1968), 130 Google Scholar, notes a parallel with Athenian procedure; on the trilogy, Winnington-Ingram, R. P., JHS lxxxi (1961), 141 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

page no 12 note 1 Cf.Cunningham, M. L., Rh Mus xcvi (1953), 223 Google Scholar; cv (1962), 189.

page no 12 note 2 Cf.Friis-Johansen, H., Classica et Mediaevalia xxvii (1966), 61 Google Scholar, and now his text, Copenhagen, 1970.

page no 12 note 3 See A. J. Podlecki, op. cit., and on the Argive alliance, Quincey, J. H., CQ xiv (1964), 190 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

page no 13 note 1 Cf.Page, D. L., Aeschylus’ Agamemnon (Oxford, 1957)Google Scholar; Lloyd-Jones, H., JHS lxxvi (1956), 55 ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

page no 13 note 2 Cf.Stanford, W. B., Aeschylus in his Style (Dublin, 1942)Google Scholar.

page no 13 note 3 Lloyd-Jones, H., CQ xii (1962), 187 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar; cf. also Rivier, A., REG lxxxi (1968), 5 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the omen of the eagles and the hare, see the recent good article of Peradotto, J. J., Phoenix xxiii (1969), 243 ffGoogle Scholar.

page no 14 note 1 Hermes lxxxv (1957), 12, 105.

page no 15 note 1 Solmsen, F., Heesiod and Aeschylus (Ithaca, 1949)Google Scholar.

page no 15 note 2 Reinhardt, K., Aischylos: Theologe und Regisseur (Bern, 1949)Google Scholar.

page no 15 note 3 Lloyd-Jones, H., JHS lxxvi (1956), 55 ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

page no 16 note 1 Herington, C. J., Phoenix xvii (1963), 180, 236 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; CR xiii (1963), 6; TAPA xciv (1963), 113; Arion, 1965, 387; JHS lxxxvii (1967), 74; The Author of the Prometheus Bound (Austin, 1970).

page no 16 note 2 Beazley, J. D., JHS lxviii (1948), 27 Google Scholar.

page no 17 note 1 Cf. above, p. 2 n. 2.

page no 18 note 1 Cf. above, p. 10. If the fragment comes from the Pyrphoros the ‘wild boy’ cannot be Herakles since in the P.V. he is a descendant of Io. Mr. Lloyd-Jones Dioniso, xliii (1969), 211, suggests that the Aitnaiai was the third play of the Prometheus trilogy.