Transmitted as a part of the Euripidean corpus, the Rhesus could hardly be numbered among the masterpieces of ancient theatre. Nonetheless, there are plenty of scholarly reasons to study it in depth. To begin with, it is very probably the only fourth-century tragedy available to read in its entirety. Moreover, it is the only surviving play dramatising an episode from Iliad 10, re-interpreted from the Trojan standpoint through a complex intertextual play.
The steadily growing interest in the piece has led, exceptionally, to a grand total of four commentaries on it being published in the space of just sixteen years. After valuable work by A. Feickert (2004), V. Liapis (2012) and A. Fries (2014), readers can now turn their attention to this edition with commentary by F. in the ‘Cambridge orange’ series. The book is the culmination of long-term research documented by a series of articles published between 1990 and 2018. F. describes his project as ‘a comprehensive approach’ (p. vii) in which literary and historical interpretation of every episode prefaces and accompanies the linguistic, grammatical and text-critical commentary. I would like to make clear at the outset that he successfully achieves this goal.
After a short foreword, the book starts with an introduction, the critical edition of the text, a 500-page commentary and a thorough bibliography, followed by two useful indexes. The quality of the print is very high, as is the norm in this series.
Section 2 of the introduction offers a thorough review of the sources of the myth. F. opportunely calls the reader's attention to the Pindaric version (Σ bT Il. 10.435) in which Rhesus, unlike in the Iliad, has the time to carry out a one-day aristeia before being slaughtered. His perceptive suggestion is that, if Athenian spectators remembered this version, they probably did not perceive Rhesus’ assertion that all he needed to bring the war to an end was a single day (ll. 447–50) as the boast of a miles gloriosus: he might well have come across as an unfortunate hero suffering a sad peripeteia.
As for the much-debated authenticity and date issues (Sections 3–6), F. rightly shares the opinion of many recent scholars that Rhesus is the work of an unknown fourth-century poet. To an even greater extent than the features often put forward as evidence of a later date (the so called ‘mosaic’ technique, a fondness for hapax eiremena, the free re-usage of fifth-century tragedy's stage conventions) F. regards the presence in the play of certain elements that are a better fit with the fourth-century cultural map as decisive. In spite of Fries's objections, F. sides with Liapis (JHS 129 [2009], 71–88) in detecting various details pointing to a ‘Macedonian’ perspective (particularly the play's attention to Macedonian military organisation). To these he adds a new piece of evidence extracted from the second stasimon (ll. 342–87), in which the chorus identifies Rhesus with Zeus and Ares. This form of ‘deification’ is foreign to fifth-century tragedy and more consistent with a fourth-century play (F. usefully compares the stasimon with the earliest piece of literary evidence of this practice, CA 173–4, sung in 291/290 bce in honor of Demetrius Poliorcetes). The chorus’ exceptional praise immediately preceding death makes Rhesus’ peripeteia all the more pathetic. F. boldly suggests a parallel between his fate and the death of Philip II, assassinated in the theatre of Aegae, which he entered after the procession of the twelve gods, like a thirteenth divinity. Philip's unexpected fate (perceived as most tragic by the famous actor Neoptolemus, cf. Stob. 4.34.70) might have impressed contemporary dramatists and prompted them to develop a new kind of tragic peripeteia. He thus cautiously suggests 336 bce as a plausible terminus post quem for Rhesus. F.'s proposal is attractive, though I would not push the chronological argument too far.
The play's interest in Macedonian matters is not regarded by F. as proof of Liapis's theory that Rhesus was written for a Macedonian audience. Nor does he accept his predecessor's speculative attribution of the play to Neoptolemus. The author could be any one of the Athenian dramatists who shared a taste for tragic thaumaston; his intention probably was to offer his fellow citizens some additional information about the people who had defeated them.
In Section 7 F. focuses on the comic elements detected in Rhesus since G. Hermann's time. His idea is that the incorporation of comic traits into a tragedy, already there in works of the late Euripides, could have given the author the opportunity to create an equivalent to the sense of separateness that characterises Il. 10, imitating its non-epic features. F. is aware that ‘this suggestion cannot be more than a guess’ (p. 55). Nonetheless, it is a welcome opportunity for perceptive analyses of certain passages (see pp. 497–500, on the epiparodos and its relationship to Aristophanes’ Acharnians).
Section 8 briefly sketches a political interpretation of Rhesus, highlighting a series of themes not present in Iliad 10, which may reflect political issues debated in the second half of the fourth century in the Athenian ekklesia or boule.
F.'s critical edition ‘follows Diggle's very closely’ (p. 79). This was almost inevitable in view of the quality of Diggle's work. In any case, F. does not hesitate to take an independent line when necessary. For example, at ll. 16–18 L. Dindorf's more economical deletion is preferred to Diggle's excision of the whole passage; at 423 he rightly accepts Liapis's and Fries's arguments in favour of A. Nauck's τέμνω; at 449 he prints Feickert's θἠτέρᾳ; the choral utterance of 704–5/722–3, attributed by Diggle to a single speaker, is better divided up between two voices. F.'s own proposals are few in number: 687, indication of sermo fractus; 889, persuasive parenthetic interpretation of ἢ δυσδαίμονα καὶ μελέαν. Though in general ready to question manuscript readings, F. also offers sensible conservative arguments (e.g. see his fine note on 479 ἀριστέας). I especially appreciated the open-minded nature of his textual discussions, always giving due space to alternative solutions that readers might prefer to his own.
The core of the book is the commentary, where F.'s strengths as a Hellenist are everywhere apparent. His command of the relevant bibliography is impressive: readers are always provided with a complete assessment of each issue, often expanding and integrating the observations of his predecessors. No relevant aspect of the text is overlooked: language, syntax, style, metre, literary interpretation, staging, history. A particularly rewarding feature is his sensible exploration of the relationship between Rhesus and its epic model. Good examples of this may be found in the notes to ll. 52–75, on the innovative idea that the battle was interrupted as a result of divine intervention, and to ll. 595–674, where F. shows that the often-criticised dialogue between Alexander and Athena/Aphrodite contributes to making Alexander an even worse character than in Iliad 10 and mocking Aphrodite's favourable attitude to the Trojans. Equal attention is paid to the striking similarities between Rhesus and fifth-century tragedy: see, for example, the parallel reading of Hector's rough treatment of the shepherd and Creon's of the guard in Antigone (pp. 283–4). F. is perhaps too confident about the possible influence on Rhesus of Sophocles’ lost Shepherds (p. 283: on this point I share Liapis's doubts). On the other hand, he rightly dismisses Fries's attempt to present Rhesus as a would-be Xerxes on the too restricted basis of his mention of a possible invasion of Greece (pp. 403–4).
Questions of staging are expertly handled, with a constant focus on the author's ability to build on inherited conventions. As far as the use of the eisodoi is concerned F. adopts L. Battezzato's convincing reconstruction (CQ 50 [2000], 367–73). He also rightly believes that a fourth actor was used for Alexander. Highly useful analyses are dedicated to silent exits (pp. 243–4), to characters entering on a chariot (pp. 352–3) and to the unusual situation of a messenger remaining on scene and participating in the dialogue once again (p. 326), for which he calls attention to the relevant parallel in Euripides’ Helena (Eur. Hel. 621ff.).
F. has produced a first-rate work, fruitfully interacting with its predecessors and depicting the dramatic art of this fourth-century author in less dismissive terms than some previous studies. The book deserves pride of place on the shelf of every scholar interested in the history of Greek theatre and fourth-century tragedy in particular.
