P.’s book, a revised version of her 2013 doctoral thesis in Sydney, attempts to clarify how Sophocles’ tragedies were related to their original audiences. Following, for example, M. Griffith, D.K. Roselli and D.M. Carter, it relies on the distinction between elite and non-elite as a main aspect of the heterogeneity of the spectators, most of whom were probably non-elite Athenian citizens (pp. 27–30, 201–3). The introduction first reviews the extensive bibliography on relations of the preserved tragedies to their socio-historical context and to democracy – relations often considered as elusive in Sophocles’ mythical settings or monarchical structures. By examining how non-elite figures and their interaction with Sophoclean heroes (aristocrats from myths of the elite) evoked social roles, relations or tensions in Athens, P. aims to show that the plays encouraged the identification of significant parts of audiences with non-elite figures – above all, with those Sophoclean personages and groups that specifically reflected the ‘middling group’ of citizens.
P. adapts I. Morris’ assumption that the late sixth-century shift to a restrained style of funerary monuments implies an ‘ideology’ of a ‘middling man’ (between rich and poor), prevailing not only among non-elite citizens but across Athenian society, until the lavish style of an elitist family ideology regained strength during the Peloponnesian War. P.’s discussion of Athenian social history and stratification uses (with F. Bourriot) an unattested distinction, albeit probable on the basis of modern examples, of a ‘socio-political group’ of educated citizens with ‘middling ideology’, between the elite and citizens with very limited resources and political participation; her emphasis is on the increasingly stronger role of that large, heterogeneous middling group in support of ‘inclusive’ democracy (p. 127) in the second half of the fifth century (pp. 32–63). Sophocles’ surviving tragedies date from approximately the same period.
Three main chapters on the extant tragedies (but not the fragmentary plays) study the status of non-elite and ‘middling’ figures and choruses in the mythical hierarchy, their interaction with elite characters, their linguistic performance and effectiveness, as well as the perceptions and responses by others. Chapter 1, ‘Odysseus’, following W.B. Stanford's notion of ‘adaptability’ of The Ulysses Theme and C.P. Segal, first discusses how Sophoclean roles of Odysseus were modelled on discrepant poetic approaches, showing him as a cunning opportunist, a bold mediator between basilêes and commoners, but most efficiently serving the general good (pp. 66–87). Sections on Ajax and Philoctetes explain that the cooperative, or inclusive, values represented in both plays by Odysseus’ vocabulary and action in the public interest recall the ethico-political values and mentality shared by the middling citizens in the audience: their expected identification with Odysseus would reinforce their motivation for political participation ‘even without the poet consciously creating … such an effect’ (p. 128: the last point is not further explained). But I doubt that the ‘aristocratic code’ of Homeric or Sophoclean heroes could be schematically equated with competitive values (pp. 74–6) and that Sophocles’ Odysseus could be of rather non-elite status (pp. 77–85): heroes, however ‘multi-faceted’ (p. 84) or un-heroic, are recognised by cult or divine protection in myth. The section on Ajax could have profited from looking at changes in Odysseus himself in the prologue and exodos (contra pp. 88–9), and not linking him exclusively with the alleged middling group, but perhaps rather with what I. Morris described as an ‘ideology’ of ‘middling man’ shared by most Athenians.
P.’s approach to Philoctetes (409 bc) is: ‘when democracy was re-established … it was … important … to pacify the potential polarization between the elite … and other socio-political groups … Odysseus, … a representative of the “middling” group, is both perceived negatively for the means he uses and praised for the values he defends (the cohesion of the community)’ (p. 127); both the oracle and Heracles justify his attempt at making the uncontrollable aristocratic opponent rejoin the camp at Troy (pp. 105–6). So, in both plays featuring Odysseus ‘a democracy that can encompass the points of view of all socio-political groups … is promoted’ (p. 249). Such analysis should not leave out how manipulative, but also unsuccessful, the later Odysseus proves. It is only when Heracles foretells kleos like his own for Philoctetes’ labours (Phil. 1418–22) that the crippled hero realises he is no longer manipulated as an outcast of unequal status – and is thus persuaded to cooperate.
Chapter 2, ‘Choruses’, highlighting (with C.P. Gardiner) the unanimous, coherent and more authoritative than subjective role of the male or female choral groups and focusing on the coryphaeus’ dialogical parts rather than on choral songs, discusses the chorus’ interaction with heroes/heroines or others in Sophocles’ tragedies in relative chronological order. P.’s schematic approach is that the active or passive stances of non-elite personages and choruses were mostly correlated to the degree of efficient involvement of middling citizens in contemporary politics. Accordingly, the choruses’ deference to heroes/heroines in earlier plays reflects a lack of dynamism and a need for support of non-elite and middling Athenians. Antigone seems to echo their developing political role in the final reversal of the relation between Creon and the old Thebans (allegedly not belonging to the ‘ruling elite’: p. 155), a precedent for the strong interdependence between elite figures and non-elite choruses in later plays: the Theban king and citizens throughout the Oedipus Tyrannus, Oedipus, Theseus and the ‘noble dēmos’ (p. 189) in the Oedipus Coloneus. The chorus’ willing, active and effective collaboration with central heroes/heroines in pursuit of a common interest in the dramaturgy of the three late plays is interpreted as reflecting the major political role of middling citizens and demagogues in the late fifth century. The argument seems more problematic in Electra: the spectators’ ‘identification process towards’ the politides of Mycenae/Argos (p. 174) is accompanied by the ‘blurring of the distinction between chorus and principals’ (p. 176), both eventually conspiring to kill the oppressive rulers (p. 231). However, Sophoclean ironies cannot be ruled out. The collective viewpoint defined by the attitudes of a tragic chorus – usually as subjective and changing as those of other non-conventional human characters – could affect, but not necessarily represent any parts of the audience or their responses throughout a performance (as early nineteenth-century German philosophers thought).
Chapter 3, ‘Other Non-elite Characters’, following the dating of the plays, describes mythical or anonymous free or slave women and men, such as messengers, from various social groups; it traces their important or auxiliary roles, their directly or indirectly defined, or unspecified, social status, and their typical or unconventional characteristics. Among the assumptions about the specific response that each personage could elicit from spectators of analogous status, I found it hardly plausible that the revengeful Paedagogue (allegedly not a slave) could appeal to middling and lower-status spectators of Electra as a model of authoritative stance (pp. 225–32); the Guard in Antigone as a source of encouragement for non-elite citizens (pp. 215–20) is an attractive suggestion. P. attempts to offer throughout a concrete picture of what we call spectator's identification (pp. 203–4 on A. Ubersfeld; in contrast, Aristotle, Poetics 1453a1–12). Yet comparable social status is only one out of various reasons that could make a spectator identify with a fictional figure during a scene. Moreover, Sophocles’ tragedies – and their ironies – do not often seem to invite any spectator or group of spectators to identify with specific figures, but rather with attitudes and emotions – often of contrasting characters.
The book (with very few misprints, but repetitions in concluding sections) contains a brief general index and bibliography. Despite the historically and dramaturgically problematic focus on members of a middling group, it offers an original contribution to research on the ‘imaginary’ of non-elite Athenians as reflected in Sophocles’ tragedies (‘General Conclusion’, pp. 247–51), by approaching from a socio-political perspective the attitudes of non-elite personages and choruses and their relations with others (though not relations between sexes, generations, humans and gods) in the dialogues and the plot. The volume is part of the discussion on varying forms and limits of ‘realism’ in the surviving Sophoclean texts, with respect to the socio-historical context, the characterisation of personages and related formal elements of the performance.
