No consensus has been reached about the reconstruction of Euripides' fragmentary tragedy Bellerophon, but two suggestions have not received the serious attention they deserve. The first is that Stheneboea is a character in the play,Footnote 1 and the second that Euripides does not depict Bellerophon as an atheist or an impious hero.Footnote 2 In this paper, I shall reconsider both of these suggestions. In fact, the addition of Stheneboea to the dramatis personae allows us to correct the second problem, as I shall propose that Stheneboea, not Bellerophon, speaks the infamous atheistic fragment.
The myth is treated by various sources, the most important of which are Homer (Iliad 6.155–202), Pindar (Olympian 13.84–92 and Isthmian 7.43–8), Euripides (Bellerophon and Stheneboea), Apollodorus (Bibliotheca 2.3), and Hyginus (Fabulae 57). There are many differences in the various treatments but the basic structure of the myth can be summarized briefly.Footnote 3 Bellerophon visits Proetus, king of Lycia, seeking purification for a murder.Footnote 4 Proetus' wife, Stheneboea, falls in love with Bellerophon and tries to seduce him, but he rebuffs her advances. Stheneboea lies to her husband, claiming that Bellerophon tried to seduce her, and so Proetus sends his guest-friend to Stheneboea's father Iobates to be killed. Iobates forces Bellerophon to confront many deadly foes, including the Chimaera, but the hero defeats them all. Impressed by these accomplishments, Iobates awards the hero half of his kingdom and allows Bellerophon to marry his daughter Philonoë. This is the story up to this point as told by Apollodorus and Hyginus, but Euripides' Stheneboea diverges from this version of the myth. Instead of marrying Philonoë, Bellerophon returns to Proetus' kingdom to get revenge, woos Stheneboea, convinces her to fly off on Pegasus, and then throws her into the sea. Later in life, Bellerophon becomes hateful to the gods, and he wanders around the Alean plain (Iliad 6.200–2). He tries to fly to Mount Olympus, but is critically injured when he falls from Pegasus (Isthmian 7.43–8).Footnote 5 Most scholars believe that Euripides' Bellerophon depicts this last part of the hero's life.
Wilamowitz's suggestion that Euripides' Bellerophon is a sequel to his Stheneboea has become the communis opinio among students of the play.Footnote 6 The surviving hypothesis of the Stheneboea informs us that Bellerophon kills her, and so, according to Wilamowitz, she cannot appear in the Bellerophon. He offers two primary reasons for believing that the Bellerophon was produced after the Stheneboea and continued its action. First, Euripides has taken many liberties with the myth, especially in changing the queen's name from Antea, as in Homer, to Stheneboea,Footnote 7 and in inventing the deception, abduction, and murder. Secondly, Bellerophon's melancholy at the beginning of the tragedy has probably resulted from the gods punishing him for killing Stheneboea. Generally, Willamowitz argues, the bold innovation (inveniendi audaciam) found primarily in the Stheneboea would be more typical of a young Euripides, and the Stheneboea betrays the very felicitous art (felicissimam artem) of a young poet, while the Bellerophon is more bitter (acerbitatem propius accedit), like his Cretans and Medea.
Neither of these arguments, however, conclusively shows that Euripides produced the Stheneboea before the Bellerophon, let alone that the latter is a sequel. The first argument, concerning the innovations, indicates only that the poet introduced typically Euripidean innovations to the myth. The second argument is founded upon an inconclusive suggestion about the content of the Bellerophon, but the fragments themselves do not indicate the cause of the hero's misfortune.Footnote 8 Although it is possible that the gods are punishing Bellerophon for murdering Stheneboea, to suggest that this reveals the bitterness of an older Euripides – itself an untenable assumption – and that this proves the priority of the Stheneboea is suspect.
Even using other evidence, we cannot, in fact, date either play with much precision. Comic parody gives a terminus ante quem for both plays: 425 b.c.e. for the Bellerophon, based on parody in Aristophanes' Acharnians; 422 b.c.e. for the Stheneboea, based on Wasps.Footnote 9 An analysis of metrical resolutions supports these dates but offers no more accuracy.Footnote 10 Thus, based on the available evidence that does not rely on an interpretation of the fragments, it is just as likely that the Bellerophon was produced before the Stheneboea. Even if we were to admit, however, that the Bellerophon was produced later, this admission in no way requires that it be a sequel to the Stheneboea.Footnote 11
Nevertheless, most scholars accept Wilamowitz's hypothesis and reconstruct the Bellerophon as if it directly followed the plot of the Stheneboea. Webster's important and generally conservative study of the fragments follows Wilamowitz.Footnote 12 Di Gregorio reconstructs the play as a revenge plot against Bellerophon by Stheneboea's surviving relatives, which is foiled by Bellerophon's son Glaucus.Footnote 13 Collard discusses the difficulties with this influential interpretation, the most serious being that Di Gregorio relies on a textually corrupt epigram that claims to describe a second-century b.c.e. temple-relief at Cyzicus.Footnote 14 Collard advises caution in reconstructing the plot, but still seems to favour the interpretation that the Bellerophon completes the Stheneboea.Footnote 15
Let us, then, take a new look at the evidence for reconstructing the Bellerophon. Most importantly, in analysing the available evidence (some of which has not been taken advantage of) we shall assume that Euripides' Stheneboea is not a prequel to the Bellerophon. Not only is there no reason to believe that the Bellerophon completes the action of the Stheneboea, but this suggestion also creates many problems – perhaps, as we shall see, more problems than it solves. Each type of secondary evidence presents its own problems of interpretation, and some are perhaps more reliably applied to reconstruction than others. I shall argue, however, that, once combined, the evidence will show that previous attempts at reconstruction do not adequately resolve the problems presented by the fragments and testimonia.
SHERLOCKISMUS OF THE BELLEROPHON
In an essay that lays out a principle for reconstructing fragmentary tragedies, Sommerstein suggests using a method called, after Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's detective, sherlockismus: ‘when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains must be the truth’, no matter how improbable.Footnote 16 This is an effective approach to studying Euripidean fragments given the poet's prowess in innovative mythopoeia. His tragedies do not always give us expected plots, but even for the fragmentary plays we can eliminate impossibilities and collect new, even improbable, alternatives. We can use this method to show that Euripides' Bellerophon does not continue the plot of the Stheneboea and that Bellerophon is not the speaker of the atheistic fragment (F 286).
In addition to the arguments presented above, a reading of F 310 does not support the interpretation that the Bellerophon follows the plot of the Stheneboea. The fragment is spoken by Bellerophon to himself – addressing his soul, as in F 307a – just before he dies:Footnote 17
You were always pious towards the gods when you were alive, and you were helping guests and never tiring for your friends.
Our hero claims that he was helpful (ἐπήρκεις) to his xenoi, but this statement contradicts what we know about Bellerophon's character in the Stheneboea. There, after defeating the Chimaera, he returns seeking vengeance from his host, Proetus, and Stheneboea. To punish them both, Bellerophon seduces, deceives, and kills her.Footnote 18 If the Bellerophon continued the plot of the Stheneboea, presumably there would have been a great emphasis on the actions in the Stheneboea, including his deception at the end, especially if, as others have suggested, Bellerophon is being punished for killing her. Therefore, Bellerophon's self-praise for his dedication to his own xenoi suggests that the Bellerophon is not a sequel to the events of the Stheneboea (that is, it does not continue or complete the action), but rather, in terms of the plot, is an independent treatment of the myth.Footnote 19
Our detective work also allows us to eliminate Bellerophon as the potential speaker of the infamous atheistic fragment. In F 286 (lines 1–3), someone claims that there are no gods, ‘arguably the strongest denial of the existence of the gods in Greek drama’:Footnote 20
Does anyone say there are gods in heaven? There are not, there are not, unless one wishes to follow ancient wisdom like a fool.
Although the speech is unassigned, most scholars assume that Bellerophon is the speaker. He is, after all, the most obvious candidate, especially given the frustration expressed in F 285, probably from the prologue:Footnote 21
I agree with the sentiment commonly repeated that it is best for man not to be born. I shall judge one lot of three the best: wealth, noble birth, and poverty; for I reckon it thus. The first, wealthy but not fortunate in his lineage, suffers; he suffers. He grieves wonderfully as he opens by hand his sweetest mansion of wealth. But going outside, although previously rich, he falls under the yoke of folly and suffers. And he who is proud of his noble birth but lacks a livelihood, although fortunate in his lineage, is inferior because of poverty. He grieves in his mind, and rejects manual labour out of shame. The last man, always a nobody, miserable till the end, is superior to them, because he does not know he lacks well-being, being ever misfortunate and base. Thus it is best not to experience good things. For I remember what I myself once was among men, when I was fortunate in life.
If we assign the atheistic fragment to Bellerophon, however, insurmountable problems arise with other lines known to be spoken by him. The denial of the gods in F 286 contradicts the sentiment of F 310, which we encountered just above, since there Bellerophon praises his piety (ἦσθ’ εἰς θεοὺς μὲν εὐσεβής, ὅτ’ ἦσθ’, ἀεί). Collard tries to account for the discrepancy, suggesting that ὅτ’ ἦσθ’ (he translates ‘while you lived’) alludes to Bellerophon's earlier prosperity (cf. F 285.20),Footnote 22 but it is unlikely that Bellerophon here refers to some distant time in his life, which must have been before the drama begins, in which he was prosperous. The hero is on his deathbed, and so it is likelier that he refers to his whole life, as if to say, ‘Despite your constant misfortune in life, you were always pious’. Moreover, the point of the atheistic fragment is that piety (εὐσέβεια) does not result in good fortune (εὐτυχία, cf. ηὐτύχουν, F 285.20). There, the speaker's point is that the gods cannot exist because they allow impious men to be more prosperous than the pious:
I say that tyranny kills many people, deprives possessions, circumvents oaths, and plunders cities. And even though they do these things, they are more fortunate than those living piously day to day in peace. I know small cities honouring the gods that obey larger and more impious ones since they are outnumbered in spearmen. I know that you, if someone who is lazy should pray to the gods and not gather his sustenance with his hands … fortify religion, and misfortunes …
The speaker of these lines criticizes the gods for not favouring the pious. If we accept the hypothesis that Bellerophon was pious (only) while he prospered, his own experiences would contradict the argument presented in the atheistic fragment. Thus ὅτ’ ἦσθ’ of F 310 cannot refer to Bellerophon's earlier prosperity (pace Di Gregorio, Riedweg, Collard); however, even if it simply means ‘while you were living’, it still contradicts the sentiment of the atheistic fragment.Footnote 24 The same character cannot praise his piety on his deathbed after he has previously rejected the gods' existence. Perhaps, then, Bellerophon is not the one who denies the existence of the gods. Scodel suggests this same solution and claims that perhaps ‘Euripides' originality lay in motivating the flight so that it was not hybristically intended (a very Euripidean move)’.Footnote 25
F 307a and 308 present yet more problems if Bellerophon is the speaker of F 286. These lines are delivered by Bellerophon just before he flies towards the heavens on Pegasus:
Hasten, my soul!
* * *
Stand back, shady foliage, let me cross over the watery glens. I am eager to see the sky above my head, and what condition it has for a good journey.
To me, these do not seem to be the words of someone who believes that he will not find the gods – or even unjust gods – in heaven. Bellerophon expresses excitement, using σπεύδειν twice (F 307a, 308.3), and he even expects the journey to be a good one (εὐοδίας). He is about to make not simply a trek but a good (εὐ–) trek. These lines express none of the disillusionment with the gods found in the atheistic fragment. They also provide a clearer picture of the Bellerophon character: he seems optimistic despite his current misfortune.
Therefore, no matter how improbable the alternatives, it seems impossible that Bellerophon is the one who denies the existence of the gods and that the Bellerophon continues the action of the Stheneboea. Still, several issues remain unresolved (for example, who speaks the atheistic fragment and what motivates Bellerophon's flight to the heavens?), but not all problems can be solved using the extant evidence. Before we address them, however, we must first reconsider whether Stheneboea appears in the tragedy.
STHENEBOEA AMONG THE DRAMATIS PERSONAE
Far more evidence suggests that Stheneboea does appear in the Bellerophon than that she does not. The fragments themselves, our most reliable testimony, provide circumstantial evidence of this. Although the context is uncertain, the beginning of her name (Σθενεβο–) appears in a badly damaged hypothesis to the play (P. Oxy. 4017 F 4 = T iiib.6). This could mean anything, but another important clue survives. The letters Λυκία in another hypothesis (P. Oxy. 3651 = T iiia.20)Footnote 26 suggest that the play takes place in Lycia, and most, if not all, reconstructors infer from this that Iobates, king of Lycia and father of Stheneboea, was a character. If the Bellerophon does follow the Stheneboea, some reconciliation between Bellerophon and Iobates would be required, and although it is not impossible that Iobates would forgive Bellerophon for murdering his daughter, it seems to me unlikely.Footnote 27 According to my reconstruction, no reconciliation is required since the murder never took place.
F 666 has also proved difficult to explain:
You are completely evil and a woman, of what greater disgrace might someone accuse you than this?
These lines, which are attributed by Stobaeus to Bellerophon, are addressed to a woman. Collard says that this fragment suits the plot of Stheneboea better and that perhaps it was misattributed to the Bellerophon.Footnote 28 Although the slander would no doubt fit the context of the Stheneboea, there is no indication that it would not suit the Bellerophon as well. Di Gregorio, on the other hand, trusts the original attribution but imagines it as an apostrophe to the dead Stheneboea.Footnote 29 The simplest explanation – although admittedly the simplest explanation is not always correct – is that the original attribution is accurate and that these lines are addressed to Stheneboea.
Her appearance in the Bellerophon is perhaps confirmed by a fragment of a vase-painting, the so-called Würzburg Skenographie (Martin von Wagner Museum H 4696 and 4701). The most visible figures depicted are a woman in a doorway and a downcast man wearing a traveller's hat and what seem to be rags. Although the scene is damaged, one can make out the outline of a man holding a ritual bowl and another woman peering out of a door on the opposite side of what appears to be a stage. The scene ‘call[s] out “theater!”’.Footnote 30 Trendall argues that the Pegasus depicted on the pediment of the portico suggests that the scene is from Euripides' Stheneboea.Footnote 31 Taplin calls this an ‘amusing idea’ but rejects it.Footnote 32 Csapo and Slater likewise reject the attribution because it does not explain all the vase's details: ‘The older man is performing a ceremony of purification for the young man. In myth and tragedy this is required after someone has spilt the blood of a relative and left his home in exile.’Footnote 33 Csapo and Slater suggest Euripides' Peleus, but the Pegasus on the pediment would remain a mystery. The play that accounts for most of the vase's details is the Bellerophon.Footnote 34 One of the eavesdropping women could be Stheneboea and the other either her nurse or her sister,Footnote 35 and the dejected man could be Bellerophon, who in Apollodorus' version (Bibliotheca 2.3) has slain his brother, seeking purification from Iobates, who holds a ritual cleansing bowl (phiale).
It would be circular to argue that this vase depicts the Bellerophon because, among other reasons, Stheneboea is in it and then to use this vase as evidence that Stheneboea appears in the Bellerophon. But I believe that another, overlooked, detail of the vase suggests that the scene is inspired by this drama. The sad-looking man appears to be wearing rags.Footnote 36 In Aristophanes' Acharnians, Dicaeopolis asks Euripides for the costume of one of his rag-clad heroes. Before Dicaeopolis requests Telephus' costume, Euripides suggests that he wear Bellerophon's rags (Acharnians 426–7), and a scholiast on the passage (Σ Acharnians 426) tells us that Euripides depicted Bellerophon as lame after his fall from Pegasus, which occurs in the Bellerophon. Admittedly, none of this evidence is a smoking gun, but an attribution of the vase-painting to Euripides' Bellerophon, even ignoring the women, would best account for the details of the scene.
Other external evidence suggests that Stheneboea appears in the Bellerophon and, furthermore, that Euripides tells a different version of her death, which he may have invented himself. In the agon of Aristophanes' Frogs, Aeschylus and Euripides discuss the corrupting effect that Euripides' Stheneboea has on the Athenian audience. Specifically, Aeschylus criticizes his underworld rival for portraying immoral women onstage. Euripides rebuts:
Sommerstein provides two possible explanations for what Aeschylus means. Either Athenian women are so ashamed by Stheneboea that they commit suicide or they use Stheneboea's suicide as an exemplum for their own.Footnote 37 In other words, she is either simply the cause of or the explicit model for women's suicide. In support of the former reading, Tzetzes in his commentary of the Frogs recounts her death as told in Euripides' Stheneboea (ad 1051),Footnote 38 and Sommerstein prefers the interpretation that Stheneboea's actions impelled women to commit suicide: ‘Since the structure of the sentence strongly suggests that the “harm … to the community” consists in the suicides themselves, not in an epidemic of adultery, the first interpretation is to be preferred.’Footnote 39 On the same passage, Sommerstein notes, ‘this [allusion] would be pointless unless there had been at least one well-known recent case of an upper-class wife … committing suicide by this means’.Footnote 40
Nevertheless, Aristophanes' joke would have more resonance if Euripides' heroine herself had committed suicide in the same way, and the pointed references to both hemlock and Stheneboea in Aristophanes' Frogs leave open the possibility that Euripides tells an alternative version of her death, one in which she commits suicide by drinking hemlock.Footnote 41 If this is the case, Stheneboea would have to appear in both the Stheneboea, where Bellerophon kills her, and the Bellerophon. Tzetzes comments on this passage and tells us that there are, in fact, two plays in which she appears:
καὶ ταύτης δύο δράματα Εὐριπίδου, τὸ μεν Βελλεροϕόντης καλούμεν, τὸ δὲ Σθενέβοια· γράϕουσι δὲ τὸν Σθενεβοίας ἔρωτα πρὸς Βελλεροϕόντην.
There are two plays with Stheneboea by Euripides: one called Bellerophon, the other Stheneboea. They describe Stheneboea's love for Bellerophon. (ad Frogs 1043)
Although the first sentence could perhaps mean that Stheneboea is only mentioned in the Bellerophon, the claim that both plays describe her love for him tells against this interpretation.
The Roman mythographer Hyginus preserves an alternative version of this myth in which Stheneboea commits suicide. Hyginus' version perhaps supports my reading of the passage from Frogs, although he does not specify how she kills herself. He says:
Bellerophon cum ad Proetum regem exsul in hospitium uenisset, adamatus est ab uxore eius Stheneboea; qui cum concumbere cum ea noluisset, illa uiro suo mentita est se ab eo compellatam. at Proetus re audita conscripsit tabellas de ea re et mittit eum ad Iobatam regem, patrem Stheneboeae. quibus lectis talem uirum interficere noluit, sed ad Chimaeram eum interficiendum misit, quae tripartito corpore flammam spirare dicebatur. [idem: prima leo, postrema draco, media ipsa chimaera.] hanc super Pegasum sedens interfecit, et decidisse dicitur in campos Aleios, unde etiam coxas eiecisse dicitur. at rex uirtutes eius laudans alteram filiam dedit ei in matrimonium. Stheneboea re audita ipsa se interfecit.
After Bellerophon had come to the court of King Proetus as an exile and guest, Stheneboea, the king's wife, became enamoured with him. Since he was not willing to sleep with her, she deceived her husband by claiming she was assaulted by Bellerophon. Having heard this, Proetus wrote a letter about the affair and sent him to King Iobates, Stheneboea's father. Upon reading the letter, he did not wish to kill such a great man, but sent him to his death against the Chimaera, which is said to breathe fire and have a tripartite body[: the head of a lion, the tail-end of a dragon, and the middle itself is a Chimaera]. While riding Pegasus, Bellerophon killed it and then, it is said, fell into the Alean plain, where he broke his hip. But the king praised his valour and gave him his other daughter in marriage. Stheneboea, after she heard this, killed herself. (Fabulae 57)
This passage recounts a mythical variant of Stheneboea's death, but is this variant Euripidean? Huys has shown that Hyginus is not simply ‘translating’ Euripidean versions of myths from the so-called ‘Tales from Euripides’ into Latin,Footnote 42 and certainly Hyginus' account of the Bellerophon–Stheneboea myth does not draw exclusively on either play. Hyginus' version of the myth, however, seems to fuse the Stheneboea and Bellerophon of Euripides. The Hyginean version follows what is known about the Stheneboea until the hero is injured. Hyginus, in fact, differs from Homer and Pindar but follows Euripides, as Bellerophon fights only the Chimaera.Footnote 43 No evidence suggests that Euripides' Bellerophon is injured in his battle with the Chimaera, which is described in Stheneboea. In the Bellerophon, however, the hero's fall from Pegasus is depicted, although it occurs not during his battle with the Chimaera but as he flies to the heavens. If Hyginus combines different aspects of the two Euripidean tragedies, as he seems to be doing, he could be choosing to represent Stheneboea's death as it is told in Bellerophon rather than Stheneboea.Footnote 44
Thus, in the Bellerophon, Euripides seems to include Stheneboea as a character and to depict her death as a suicide, possibly by hemlock. Unfortunately, none of the extant fragments provides irrefutable evidence of a suicide, but the play's hypothesis does mention a corpse (νεκρόν, T iiia.7), which could possibly be hers. The word is preserved without any context, and no other completely satisfactory explanation for it is readily available. It appears early in the hypothesis, which is 22 lines long, and Bellerophon does not die until the end of the tragedy. Moreover, his name occurs twice more later in the hypothesis (10–11 and 19), making it more unlikely that the corpse is his. Another possible explanation is that the nekron refers to one of Bellerophon's children (cf. Il. 6.203–5), but there is no evidence to suggest that Euripides follows this version of the myth.Footnote 45 Nevertheless, ‘corpse’ refers to someone's body, which, all things considered, could be Stheneboea's.
THE IMPIOUS HEROINE AND POSSIBLE RECONSTRUCTION
The task of reconstructing the tragedy with a pious Bellerophon and a suicidal Stheneboea still remains. As we have seen, it is unlikely that Bellerophon is the speaker of the atheistic fragment (F 286), and so we must assign the fragment to someone else. Other possible speakers are Iobates, Stheneboea, and the other female figure on the vase. The tirade against tyranny later in the fragment (5–12), however, makes it unlikely that Iobates is the speaker, while assigning the lines to an unidentifiable female character, either Stheneboea's sister or nurse, would thrust her into the spotlight of a myth in which she plays little or no role in the tradition. Stheneboea, then, remains a possibility, and there is no obvious reason to eliminate her as a candidate. In fact, if Stheneboea does give this speech, it would be consistent with the character required by other known elements of the action. The speaker of the atheistic fragment expresses disillusionment and dissatisfaction with the condition of life, and this sentiment would suit Stheneboea, who will soon commit suicide by hemlock.Footnote 46 She may also be depressed because she does not end up with the man she loves, and may decide, like Phaedra in the Hippolytus, that death is preferable to her current situation. Finally, the last lines of the fragment become an apt critique of Bellerophon's life. He is the one wandering, looking to the gods for help in his pitiable condition instead of working to reverse his own misfortune.Footnote 47
Using the fragments and available testimonia, we can attempt to reconstruct the plot of the tragedy, and I shall outline a potential reconstruction here. The usual caveats to reconstructing fragmentary dramas apply, and so I shall attempt to be as conservative as possible, citing the evidence I am using. Nevertheless, in order to make a coherent plot, we must sometimes attempt to decide what is most likely when no direct evidence is available.
The play is set in Lycia before the palace of King Iobates. Bellerophon has been exiled after committing a murder, probably accidentally killing his brother, in ArgosFootnote 48 (F 305; Hyginus, Fabulae 57; Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 2.3), and seeks purification from the king. King Iobates' daughter Stheneboea overhears their conversation (Würzburg Skenographie) and pities Bellerophon. She falls in love with him, following the canonical plot-line of the myth. Iobates, however, refuses to purify the hero. In a subsequent scene, Stheneboea asks her father to reconsider, but he refuses once again. He claims that Bellerophon is perhaps being punished by the gods and so he cannot intervene; the Chorus agrees with the king's assessment (F 286b). Stheneboea responds that the gods do not exist at all (F 286).Footnote 49 Frustrated by her father's stubbornness, Stheneboea attacks his greed (F 297)Footnote 50 and his pride, and she confesses that she would rather die than see bad men honoured unjustly (F 293). These lines set up and foreshadow her suicide later in the play. In another scene, she meets with Bellerophon and tries to come up with a plan, perhaps suggesting that they kill Iobates (F 289), but both the hero (F 287, 288) and the Chorus (F 291) reject this idea. The Chorus reminds them both about the capriciousness of fate, claiming that great men fall while the weak also see reversals of fortune (F 303, 304). Bellerophon suggests an alternative plan: to fly to the heavens and asks the gods themselves for forgiveness.Footnote 51 He notes that men often see reversals of fortune from bad to good (F 301) and that one should be courageous when facing misfortune (F 302). He then mounts Pegasus and flies to the heavens. He is denied admittance, is bucked off his steed, and falls to the earth, seriously injuring himself.Footnote 52 Either a messenger recounts the fall (F 309, 309a) before Bellerophon is brought onstage, or the wounded hero describes it himself. After hearing this news, Stheneboea runs inside and kills herself by drinking hemlock (Frogs 1050–1). Bellerophon praises his resolve before adversity (F 310), and then he is carried inside (F 311). Either before or after Bellerophon leaves the stage, a god, perhaps Athena or Poseidon, appears and describes the fate of Pegasus (F 312).
If this is close to the plot of Euripides' Bellerophon, we find characters not unknown to tragedy but carried to extremes and explored in more detail than their counterparts. We can compare Stheneboea to Jocasta in Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannus. Jocasta is incredulous about the validity of oracles: ‘No mortal affair depends on the prophetic arts’, she tells Oedipus (Oedipus Tyrannus, 709). She turns out to be incorrect, as does Stheneboea, and both commit suicide for their transgressions. We cannot tell whether Stheneboea's outright denial of the gods' existence is treated throughout the entire tragedy, but several of the fragments (F285, 286, 286b, 293, 300, 301, 303, 304) indicate that the seeming injustice of life is a prominent theme. The fate of Bellerophon is similar to that of Neoptolemus, who is killed seeking forgiveness from Apollo (Andromache, 1085–1165).Footnote 53 Both seek forgiveness from the gods, but both are punished. Throughout the play Bellerophon seems optimistic in the face of adversity, and he expects that his lot will turn out better with patience (F 287) and courage (F 302). The Bellerophon I imagine is the exact opposite to that imagined by other scholars. Whereas they find a foolish, bitter, and hostile (anti-)hero, I see a hero who displays perseverance and piety. As Olson says, ‘the most basic thesis of Bellerophon appears to have been that its hero was a thoroughly decent character’.Footnote 54 When Bellerophon flies to the heavens, he believes that the gods will reward him for his devout piety, but the gods see his ascent as a hubristic transgression of the natural boundary between the mortal and the divine.Footnote 55
When dealing with fragmentary dramas, sceptics will always win the day. I hope to have shown, however, contrary to the communis opinio, not only that there is no a priori reason to regard the Bellerophon as a sequel to the Stheneboea, but also that much evidence suggests that it was not. Likewise, there is no evidence that Euripides depicted Bellerophon as impious or an atheist, and the fragments themselves discount this interpretation. Only the specious temptation of reconciliation compels us to reconstruct the Bellerophon so that it coheres with the poet's own Stheneboea and with other mythical accounts. Given Euripides' penchant for innovative mythopoeia, however, we should be cautious of viewing the poet as beholden to any previous version of a myth, even his own.
