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ROPE, ROBE, SHOE OR CHARIOT? SOPHOCLES, POLYXENA FR. 527

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 March 2018

Lyndsay Coo
Lyndsay Coo*
Affiliation:
University of Bristol
*
l.coo@bristol.ac.uk
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The Classical Quarterly , Volume 68 , Issue 1 , May 2018 , pp. 23 - 30
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Copyright © The Classical Association 2018 

Among the remains of Sophocles’ Polyxena, a tragedy that dealt with the sacrifice of the eponymous princess at the end of the Trojan War, there is this enigmatic fragment preserved in Hesychius’ Lexicon (Hsch. π 652 = Soph. Polyxena fr. 527):Footnote 1

παράρυμα· Σοφοκλῆς Πολυξένῃ

παράρυμα ποδός

ὡς κρεμαμένων τινῶν ὑφασμάτων ἐκ τοῦ ἅρματος πρὸς κάλλος. τινὲς δὲ σχοινίον ἐν ταῖς ναυσίν. οἱ δὲ ὑπόδημα.

παράρυμα1 Musurus: παραρύμα cod. | παράρυμα2 Schrevelius: παρὰ ῥύμα cod. | ἐκ τοῦ ἅρματος: ἐκ δέρματος Sommerstein | ἅρματος: εἵματος uel ῥάμματος uel ῥύματος Tollius

Side-covering: Sophocles in Polyxena: ‘A side-covering of the foot’, because of certain woven things hung from the chariot for decoration. Some people [use it to mean] a rope on ships. And others a shoe.

Evidence from the fifth and the fourth centuries b.c. shows that warships were equipped with sets of παραρέματα, protective screens that were drawn over the sides of the vessel.Footnote 2 The naval lists record two types: λευκά, made of sailcloth, and τρίχινα, made of hide, which shielded the rowers from spray and missiles respectively.Footnote 3 Given the well-attested meaning of the term παραρέματα, the Lexicon’s explanation of the phrase has confounded scholars; Pearson described it as ‘the mysterious gloss of Hesychius, of which nothing can be made’.Footnote 4

The same expression, but without its Sophoclean attribution, is recorded by Photius:

Phot. π 289

παράρυμμα ποδός· τὰ ὑποδήματα τὰ ῥυόμενα τοὺς πόδας.

‘A side-covering of the foot’: the shoes that protect the feet.

A combination of this testimony, the fact that the metaphor ‘a παράρυμα of the foot’ sounds like it ought to denote a shoe (or at least an item of apparel), and the seemingly nonsensical nature of Hesychius’ reference to a chariot have led most scholars to disregard or emend Hesychius’ text and to conclude that Sophocles must be describing either footwear or a foot-covering garment. However, if our text is correct, it appears that the Lexicon provides three discrete meanings of the single word παράρυμα, and that the latter two are presented as alternative meanings to Hesychius’ understanding of the use found in Polyxena. Only the first definition, where the word is coupled with ποδός, is specified as coming from that play. Had all three glosses been alternative explanations of the Sophoclean expression παράρυμα ποδός, it is highly likely that the complete phrase would have stood as the lemma, as is the usual practice elsewhere in the Lexicon.Footnote 5 This suggests that ‘a shoe’, the third definition, cannot be the meaning of the Sophoclean phrase as understood by Hesychius. The purpose of this article is thus to evaluate the various definitions of παράρυμα found in Hesychius and, in so doing, to reassess his credibility as the only testimonium that claims knowledge of the specific meaning of the word as used in Sophocles’ Polyxena.

ROPE

Hesychius’ second definition is σχοινίον ἐν ταῖς ναυσίν. The diminutive of σχοῖνος, the term σχοινίον may denote a small rope or cord; in a nautical context, however, it can be used of a regular-size or even a heavy rope, such as a mooring cable. The gloss is of course inaccurate, since παραρέματα were not ropes but screens. This could be the result of confusion at some point with ῥῦμα, one meaning of which is ‘towing rope’; it may be relevant that our sole manuscript of Hesychius reads παρὰ ῥύμα in the Sophoclean quotation (where παράρυμα is the correction of Schrevel).Footnote 6 In its nautical sense the word should and does only appear in the plural, since the two sides of a ship necessitate two (or more) sets of παραρέματα. Although mention of ships would certainly be apt in a play which dealt with the issue of the Achaean departure from Troy, it seems fairly clear that this section of Hesychius’ entry cannot refer to the Sophoclean phrase παραρύμα ποδός but rather to the lemma παράρυμα in its nautical sense, and that the definition has at some point been garbled. The Lexicon does include an entry for the plural form at Hsch. π 649 παραρέματα· δέρρεις, although this is assumed to be an interpolation from the Cyril lexicon, and is likely to be glossing the specific occurrence of παραρέματα at LXX Exod. 35.11, where it is used to translate the word for the curtains of the Tabernacle.Footnote 7

ROBE

Toll conjectured both εἵματος (‘garment’) and ῥάμματος (‘hem’, ‘stitching’) for ἅρματος: if we accept either, Hesychius’ gloss would seem to denote decorative woven material attached to the hem of a garment so that it covered the wearer's feet.Footnote 8 Welcker associated the fragment with another fragment from the same play, Polyxena fr. 526 χιτών σ᾽ ἄπειρος, ἐνδυτήριον κακῶν.Footnote 9 This line is thought to come from a prophetic speech—variously assigned by scholars to the ghost of Achilles, Cassandra or Polyxena—foretelling the murder of Agamemnon, owing to the line's similarity to the description of the deadly robe used to entrap Agamemnon at Aesch. Ag. 1382–3 ἄπειρον ἀμφίβληστρον … πλοῦτον εἵματος κακόν.Footnote 10 There is a strong emphasis in Aeschylus’ Choephoroe on the fact that this garment was abnormally long, covering Agamemnon's feet: it is referred to by Orestes as πέδας τε χειροῖν καί ποδοῖν ξυνωρίδος (Cho. 982), νεκροῦ ποδένδυτον | δροίτης κατασκήνωμα (Cho. 998–9) and ποδιστῆρας πέπλους (Cho. 1000). If fr. 527 also came from a description of this robe, then the metaphor of the παραρύμα could form part of the riddling language in which such prophecies are often cloaked. If correctly quoted in Hesychius, fr. 527 comes from an anapaestic or lyric passage, whereas fr. 526 is an iambic trimeter, but these prophetic utterances would not need to come from exactly the same moment in the play.

It is also possible that a different robe is referred to. Greek male dress did not usually reach to the feet, and garments which did so had connotations of effeminacy and stereotypical Asian luxury.Footnote 11 It is therefore unlikely that the phrase describes Greek male dress, but it could refer to clothes worn by women or Trojan men, or perhaps to some form of ceremonial dress.Footnote 12 Wilamowitz suggested ‘prodit aut Helena aut nuptialis pompa’, comparing Seneca's Troades where Polyxena's sacrifice is described in nuptial language.Footnote 13 The phrase could have been used of Trojan male clothing: compare Soph. Troilus fr. 622 καταρβέλοις χλαίναις, which probably describes the robes worn by a group of Trojan men.Footnote 14 A further possibility is a reference to a funeral garment, since a long robe could have sepulchral connotations.Footnote 15 In all of these scenarios, however, it is difficult to imagine what the intended effect of the nautical metaphor could have been.

SHOE

Sommerstein concludes that Polyxena fr. 527 must refer to ‘luxurious footwear’,Footnote 16 and suggests that it may describe ‘either the royal attire of Agamemnon or the bridal attire of Polyxene the last time she comes on stage’.Footnote 17 The metaphor of the παράρυμα could then denote a closed-sided shoe rather than an open-sided sandal (although we might object that, even when describing a single shoe, the plural παραρέματα ought to be used since both sides of the foot are covered). Sommerstein explains away the chariot by conjecturing ἐκ δέρματος for ἐκ τοῦ ἅρματος, suggesting that two pieces of information—i) that some naval παραρέματα were made out of leather and ii) that the Sophoclean metaphor denoted shoes worn πρὸς κάλλος—have been cobbled together.Footnote 18

Elaborate descriptions of footwear are used elsewhere in tragedy to indicate the royalty and/or stereotypical Oriental extravagance of the wearer. Compare the elevated language used by the Persian chorus of Darius’ slipper at Aesch. Pers. 660–1 κροκόβαπτον ποδὸς εὔμαριν, or by Agamemnon of his own shoes at Aesch. Ag. 945 πρόδουλον ἔμβασιν ποδός. In Euripides’ Orestes the Phrygian eunuch describes both his own foreign footwear (Or. 1369–70 βαρβάροις ἐν εὐμάρισιν) and how Helen, depicted in this play as having been corrupted by the luxury of Troy, fled from her would-be attackers on golden-sandalled step (Or. 1468–9 φυγάδι δὲ ποδὶ τὸ χρυσεοσάμβαλον ἴχνος | ἔφερεν ἔφερεν).Footnote 19 It is certainly possible that Polyxena, with its Trojan setting, could have drawn attention to a character's shoes in order to emphasize their wealth and/or barbarian nature.

Aside from the testimony of Hesychius and Photius, we have no further evidence for παράρυμα (or παραρύματα) ever being used of footwear, as either a metaphor or a technical term for a specific type.Footnote 20 The entry at Phot. π 289 certainly refers to fr. 527, but we do not know how Photius obtained his definition. If he did not have access to the original context of the phrase in Polyxena, ‘shoe’ may well have appeared the most plausible meaning.

CHARIOT

Finally, we turn to Hesychius’ chariot. First, we ought to acknowledge the possibility that the entry is simply a mistake either by the lexicographer himself or the source from which he drew (probably Diogenianus). Such a mistake could perhaps be based on the similarity of the word ῥυμός, ‘chariot pole’, to the ending –ρυμα. Indeed, the next entry immediately after this reads παραρυμίς· τὸ παρὰ τὸν ῥυμόν (Hsch. π 653). The word παραρυμίς here is hapax legomenon, but it is not inconceivable that a mix-up of παραρυμίς and παράρυμα (especially with the latter in its singular form, which is attested only with regard to fr. 527) has at some point led to confusion when glossing the Sophoclean phrase, and that Hesychius either caused or inherited this error.

Otherwise, commentators have struggled to make sense of the text. Campbell understood Hesychius to mean ‘a sort of hammer-cloth’, but suggested that the reference was in fact to footstalls in a chariot, which he identified with the ἀρβύλαι at Eur. Hipp. 1189.Footnote 21 Here, Hippolytus is described jumping into his chariot, αὐταῖς ἐν (Valckenaer: αὐταῖσιν codd., αὐταῖσεν cod. unus Etym. Magn.) ἀρβέλαισιν ἁρμόσας πόδας. The word ἀρβύλη normally means ‘boot’, but in this instance, according to the scholia, it denotes a fitting in the chariot floor into which the driver could secure his feet.Footnote 22 However, doubts have been raised as to the scholiast's reliability on the grounds that ἀρβύλη nowhere else has this meaning;Footnote 23 even if we were to accept Campbell's identification, it is hard to imagine why something so mundane as a footstall should merit a fairly elaborate naval metaphor.

Since naval παραρέματα were hung over the sides of the ship to protect the vessel and the crew, we might by analogy expect a chariot's παραρύμα ποδός to be material hung over the sides of the vehicle in order to protect the driver's feet (for example, from dust or dirt thrown up by the wheels or the animals’ hooves).Footnote 24 In fact, this fits well with what we know of ancient chariot construction. The high-front chariot, the standard type used in mainland Greece from the seventh century b.c. onwards, did not feature a solid main body but rather rails from which was hung low-level screening material.Footnote 25 This material reached just above foot-height, and ran round the front and the sides of the chariot. It is likely to have been made out of woven textiles or leather latticework, and is sometimes depicted featuring decorative and ornamental detail. Several descriptions of chariots in the Iliad suggest woven breastwork of this type.Footnote 26 The presence of material on the ancient chariot which fits all the elements of Hesychius’ description (woven; suspended; decorative; foot-protecting) should thus give us pause before dismissing his opaque testimonium.

Mention of specific chariot components was certainly not below the dignity of the genre of tragedy, even when not conveyed through a metaphor: see, for example, Aesch. Sept. 153 χνόαι (‘naves’) and the synonymous σέριγγες at Aesch. Sept. 205, Supp. 181, Soph. El. 721 and Eur. Hipp. 1234. At Soph. Epigonoi, P.Oxy. 4807 ii.11–12 we find a catalogue of various chariot parts, including a rail and a βλῆτρον (the latter term may refer to breastwork, or to a leather strap or strut).Footnote 27

Furthermore, the metre of fr. 527 is suggestive. Tragic anapaests most frequently appear in the contexts of processions, religious rituals, lamentation and the arrival and departure of dramatic characters.Footnote 28 Sommerstein compares this fragment with Sophocles’ Antigone, where we find the arrival of characters heralded by short passages of choral anapaests.Footnote 29 Perhaps in Polyxena the grandeur and the significance of an arrival or a departure by chariot were remarked upon with this instance of nautical imagery. Onstage chariots are often viewed as a hallmark of Aeschylean stagecraft; there is none in extant Sophocles, but this does not rule out his having used them.Footnote 30 The two obvious candidates among the securely attested dramatis personae of this play who would have the status to use such transport are Agamemnon and Menelaus; for reasons that will become apparent shortly, I favour the likelihood of the former.Footnote 31

It is easy to see how the imagery of the παράρυμα would be transferable to this other mode of travel, where the movement of the chariot would have paralleled that of the ship. The use of nautical imagery in relation to motion would be appropriate in a tragedy where the plot revolved around the question of what lengths the Achaean army would go to in order to sail home from Troy. Indeed, we know that nautical metaphors were employed elsewhere in the play: one character bemoans the fact that he must make a judgement where either option will cause dissatisfaction, comparing himself to the helmsman of a ship: οὐ γάρ τις ἂν δύναιτο πρυμνήτης (Diggle: πρῳράτης cod.)Footnote 32 στρατοῦ | τοῖς πᾶσιν εἶξαι καὶ προσαρκέσαι χάριν (Polyxena fr. 524.1–2). On the basis of the speaker then referring to ὁ κρείσσων घεὺς ἐμοῦ τυραννίδι (fr. 524.3), the passage is universally accepted by scholars as having been spoken by Agamemnon, perhaps facing the unenviable choice of either sanctioning human sacrifice or giving up the possibility of returning home.Footnote 33 We thus find an existing association in Polyxena between Agamemnon and nautical imagery.

To carry the idea even further, if fr. 527 refers to a chariot entry by Agamemnon, such stagecraft could have been a deliberate and significant echo of his striking chariot arrival in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon.Footnote 34 We have already noted a certain allusion to Agamemnon in Polyxena fr. 526 (see above), and it is tempting to imagine that Sophocles’ play would have explored the parallels between Agamemnon's decision to kill Iphigenia—the event that lies behind the action of Aeschylus’ tragedy—and his sacrifice in this play of another innocent young girl, Polyxena. In Agamemnon, the king enters accompanied by Polyxena's sister, Cassandra, who probably rides with him in his chariot.Footnote 35 Could he have made a similar entry or exit in Polyxena, conveying yet another daughter of Priam to her death? A direct visual allusion to the Oresteia would certainly drive home the comparison. Furthermore, the phrase παραρύμα ποδός could have recalled the emphasis on the uncovering and the actions of the king's feet in the corresponding Aeschylean scene, where Agamemnon, after dismounting from his chariot, removes the shoes from his Troy-conquering feet and walks barefoot over the tapestries to his death.Footnote 36

We know that the original text of the Lexicon has suffered severe abridgement and interpolation, and it may well be the case that Hesychius’ original entry for παράρυμα presented the situation with much greater clarity. It is equally possible that Hesychius was working from confused, inaccurate or incomplete sources, and that none of the discussion above comes close to the original meaning of the Sophoclean phrase. My purpose is not to argue that the ‘chariot’ interpretation is the correct one, but rather to lay out and assess out a range of possibilities and their implications.Footnote 37 This article hopes to have shown that, while it is not implausible that Sophocles’ Polyxena drew attention to a robe or a shoe, the case for dismissing Hesychius’ chariot out of hand as nonsense is less compelling than it might at first appear, and that even a baffling two-word fragment could have the potential to reveal something new about Sophoclean dramatic practice.Footnote 38

References

1 Numeration refers to the following editions: Adler, A., Suidae Lexicon, Pars IV: Π–Ψ (Leipzig, 1935)Google Scholar; Cunningham, I.C., Συναγωγὴ λέξεων χρησίμων (Berlin and New York, 2003)Google Scholar; Hansen, P.A., Hesychii Alexandrini Lexicon, Volumen III: Π–Σ (Berlin, 2005)Google Scholar; Theodoridis, C., Photii Patriarchae Lexicon, Volumen III: N–Φ (Berlin and Boston, 2013)Google Scholar. Tragic fragments are numbered according to TrGF.

2 Both spellings παραρέματα and παραρρέματα are well attested in the naval records: see Threatte, L., The Grammar of Attic Inscriptions (Berlin and New York, 1980), 1.521Google Scholar. These screens are referred to as παραρρύσεις at Aesch. Supp. 715 and as παραβλήματα at Xen. Hell. 2.1.22.

3 See Torr, C., Ancient Ships (Cambridge, 1894), 52–3Google Scholar; Morrison, J.S. and Williams, R.T., Greek Oared Ships 900–322 B.C. (Cambridge, 1968), 302Google Scholar; Casson, L., Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World (Princeton, 1971), 249Google Scholar. Although their main function was protection of the vessel, Xenophon records an occasion in 406 b.c. on which Conon employed παραρέματα in order to conceal the presence of the crew from their enemies (Hell. 1.6.19).

4 Pearson, A.C., The Fragments of Sophocles (Cambridge, 1917), 2.168Google Scholar. Lucas de Dios writes of the fragment: ‘El texto es ambiguo y la fuente lo complica aún más.’ (Lucas de Dios, J.M., Sófocles: Fragmentos [Madrid, 1983], 266 n. 1005Google Scholar); Sommerstein calls Hesychius’ first definition ‘mysterious’ (A.H. Sommerstein in id., Fitzpatrick, D. and Talboy, T., Sophocles: Selected Fragmentary Plays, Volume I [Oxford, 2006], 82Google Scholar). Pralon bizarrely translates ἅρματος as ‘la lanière de fixation’ and concludes that ‘le glossème ne se distingue ni par sa poésie, ni par sa fonction dramatique … Il paraît simplement relever d'une langage métaphorique, plutôt recherché, voire apprêté.’ (Pralon, D., ‘La Polyxène de Sophocle’, in Fartzoff, M., Faudot, M., Geny, E. and Guelfucci, M.-R. [edd.], Reconstruire Troie: Permanence et renaissances d'une cité emblématique [Besançon, 2009], 187–208Google Scholar, at 203–4).

5 This point is missed by Ellendt, F., Lexicon Sophocleum (Berlin, 1872 2), 602 s.vGoogle Scholar. παράρυμα, who takes all three definitions to be confusingly variant explanations of the Sophoclean phrase, commenting: ‘ex quibus haec hausit lexici conditor, eos Sophoclis fabulam non amplius legisse integram manifestum est: non potuissent enim dubitare pes hominisne an nauis intelligendus esset, nec de instita et calceo ambigere.’

6 Alberti's edition reports three conjectures by Toll for Hesychius’ ἅρματος: εἵματος, ῥάμματος and ῥύματος, with the explanation of the Sophoclean phrase as ‘pars uestis, quae trahebatur’; it is not clear what meaning of ῥῦμα is understood here (Alberti, J., Hesychii Lexicon, Tomus Secundus [ed. Ruhnken, D.] [Leiden, 1766], 868Google Scholar).

7 The Cyril lexicon (as reported by Cunningham [n. 1] from the unpublished edition of A.B. Drachmann), Synagoge π 139, Phot. π 290 and Suda π 425 all include the entry παραρέματα (παραρρ- Su. G, –μμ– Syn. A, Phot., Su.)· δέρρεις (–ρ– Phot., Su.), σκεπάσματα (om. Cyr. A).

8 εἵματος is printed by, for example, Dindorf, W., Poetae scenici Graeci (Leipzig and London, 1830), 53Google Scholar (Ἀποσπασμάτια) and Ahrens, E.A.J., Sophoclis fragmenta (Paris, 1844), 280Google Scholar. It is also accepted by Ellendt (n. 5), 602, who believed the object in question to be the trailing hem of a garment. ῥάμματος is noted with approval by Schmidt, M., Hesychii Alexandrini Lexicon, Volumen Tertium: Λ–Ρ (Jena, 1861), 276Google Scholar, and printed in the text of Hesychius by Hansen (n. 1).

9 Welcker, F.G., Die griechischen Tragödien mit Rücksicht auf den epischen Cyclus (Bonn, 1839–1841), 178Google Scholar; see also Ahrens (n. 8), 280.

10 See Pearson (n. 4), 2.167–8; Calder, W.M., ‘A reconstruction of Sophocles' Polyxena’, GRBS 7 (1966), 31–56Google Scholar, at 49 (reprinted in id., Theatrokratia: Collected Papers on the Politics and Staging of Greco-Roman Tragedy [ed. Smith, R.S.] [Hildesheim, Zürich and New York, 2005], 233–66Google Scholar, at 256–7); Sommerstein (n. 4), 81.

11 For the theme in tragedy, see Aesch. Edoni fr. 59 ὅστις χιτῶνας βασσάρας τε Λυδίας | ἔχει ποδήρεις (of Dionysus); Eur. Bacch. 833 πέπλοι ποδήρεις (of Maenad dress).

12 However, the anonymous reviewer for CQ suggests that fr. 527 comes from a description of Agamemnon's royal robes, thus foreshadowing the garment in which he will be killed. If so, his clothing would have been unusual for a Greek man, with the covering of the feet perhaps intended as an orientalizing effect.

13 U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, ms. ap. Radt, S.L., Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, Vol. 4: Sophocles (Göttingen, 1999 2), 407CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Hartung, J.A., Sophokles’ Werke. Achtes Bändchen: Fragmente (Leipzig, 1851), 50Google Scholar, who suggests that the fragment refers to the robe worn by Polyxena at her sacrifice.

14 Sommerstein (n. 4), 242–3.

15 cf. Il. 18.353 ἐς πόδας ἐκ κεφαλῆς (of Patroclus’ funeral garment), and see Seaford, R., ‘The last bath of Agamemnon’, CQ 34 (1984), 247–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 252.

16 Sommerstein (n. 4), 82.

17 Sommerstein (n. 4), 75.

18 This does not, however, take into account the fact that the leather sets of παραρέματα were not woven (ὑφασμάτων), and that the woven (i.e. sailcloth) sets of παραρέματα were not made of leather.

19 See also Soph. Captivae fr. 44 πατὴρ δὲ †χρυσυσδύς† ἀμφίλινα κρούπαλα, which Pearson (n. 4), 1.31–2 suggested might refer to ‘the elaborately fashioned shoes of the oriental monarch [i.e. Priam] with their decoration of gold’.

20 Ellendt (n. 5), 602 incorrectly reports Photius’ definition of παραρέματα as δέρρεις, ὑποδήματα, an error perhaps prompted by his quotation of Phot. π 289 immediately beforehand. The correct text is δέρρεις, σκεπάσματα (see n. 7). For an exhaustive survey of fifth-century and fourth-century Greek terms for footwear, see Bryant, A.A., ‘Greek shoes in the classical period’, HSPh 10 (1899), 57–102Google Scholar.

21 Campbell, L., Sophocles (Oxford, 1881), 2.527Google Scholar.

22 The scholiast's interpretation is accepted by, for example, Bryant (n. 20), 75; Barrett, W.S., Euripides: Hippolytos (Oxford, 1964), 380Google Scholar; Harris, H.A., ‘The foot-rests in Hippolytus’ chariot’, CR 18 (1968), 259–60Google Scholar.

23 None the less, the alternative explanation of the Euripidean phrase αὐταῖσιν ἀρβέλαισιν—that Hippolytus leaps into his chariot ‘boots and all’ (accepted by, for example, Paley, F.A., Euripides, with an English Commentary [London, 1872], 1.233Google Scholar and LSJ s.v. ἀρβύλη)—is rightly dismissed by Barrett (n. 22), 380 as ‘silly’.

24 We find a protective apron of this kind on a few Cypriot Iron Age terracotta representations of chariots, while some Cypriot stone models of the same period seem to indicate a cloth draped over the siding. See Crouwel, J.H., ‘Chariots in Iron Age Cyprus’, Report of the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus (1987), 101–18Google Scholar, at 105, reprinted in Littauer, M.A. and Crouwel, J.H., Selected Writings on Chariots and Other Early Vehicles, Riding and Harness (ed. Raulwing, P.) (Leiden, Boston and Cologne, 2002), 141–73Google Scholar, at 150.

25 For this description of the high-front chariot, see Crouwel, J.H., Chariots and Other Wheeled Vehicles in Iron Age Greece (Amsterdam, 1992), 30–3Google Scholar.

26 Il. 5.727–8, 10.475, 23.335, 23.436. See Lorimer, H.L., Homer and the Monuments (London, 1950), 326Google Scholar.

27 See the edition and discussion of Mülke, C., ‘4807. Sophocles’, ΕΠΙΓΟΝΟΙ’, The Oxyrhynchus Papyri 71 (2007), 15–26Google Scholar.

28 Brown, S.G., ‘A contextual analysis of tragic meter: the anapest’, in D'Arms, J.H. and Eadie, J.W. (edd.), Ancient and Modern Essays in Honor of Gerald F. Else (Ann Arbor, 1977), 45–77Google Scholar.

29 Sommerstein (n. 4), 82.

30 Taplin, O., The Stagecraft of Aeschylus: The Dramatic Use of Exits and Entrances in Greek Tragedy (Oxford, 1977), 76Google Scholar. Triptolemus’ chariot must have played an important role in the eponymous play by Sophocles (cf. the description of it at Soph. Triptolemus fr. 596), but it may not have appeared onstage; see Sommerstein, A.H. and Talboy, T.H., Sophocles: Selected Fragmentary Plays, Volume II (Oxford, 2012), 231Google Scholar n. 59.

31 The presence of both Atreidae in this play is attested by Strabo 10.3.14 (= Polyxena fr. 522).

32 For James Diggle's unpublished emendation, see L.M.-L. Coo, ‘Sophocles’ Trojan fragments: a commentary on selected plays’ (Diss., University of Cambridge, 2011), 180–3.

33 See Gruppe, O.F., Ariadne: die tragische Kunst der Griechen in ihrer Entwickelung und in ihrem Zusammenhang mit der Volkspoesie (Berlin, 1834), 595Google Scholar; U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, ms. ap. Radt (n. 13), 406; Pearson (n. 4), 2.163; Calder (n. 10 [1966]), 46–7 = Calder (n. 10 [2005]), 253–4; Sommerstein (n. 4), 60–1.

34 If Hesychius (or, more probably, his source) was aware that the phrase referred to a specific chariot in Polyxena, this might explain why his gloss refers to ‘the’ chariot (τοῦ ἅρματος) rather than to ‘chariots’ in general. On the significance of the chariot in Agamemnon, see Himmelhoch, L., ‘Athena's entrance at Eumenides 405 and hippotrophic imagery in Aeschylus's Oresteia’, Arethusa 38 (2005), 263–302CrossRefGoogle Scholar, who demonstrates that in this play chariot imagery is associated with ‘acts of impiety, brutality, and civic injury, either performed or led by Agamemnon’ (280), as well as with aristocratic wealth, tyranny and nuptial ritual.

35 Taplin (n. 30), 304–6.

36 cf. Aesch. Ag. 905–7 νῦν δέ μοι, φίλον κάρα, | ἔκβαιν’ ἀπήνης τῆσδε, μὴ χαμαὶ τιθεὶς | τὸν σὸν πόδ’, ὦναξ, Ἰλίου πορθήτορα, and Agamemnon's description of his shoes as πρόδουλον ἔμβασιν ποδός (Ag. 945). See Levine, D.B., ‘Acts, metaphors, and powers of feet in Aeschylus's Oresteia’, TAPA 145 (2015), 253–80Google Scholar, who argues for the importance of shod and unshod feet as a strand of meaningful imagery throughout the trilogy.

37 An eloquent statement of this approach to fragments may be found in Wright, M., The Lost Plays of Greek Tragedy. Volume 1: Neglected Authors (London and New York, 2016), xxviGoogle Scholar: ‘Wherever possible, we should try to come up with alternative or multiple interpretations of the fragments. (…) It is up to us how much credulity or scepticism to adopt with regard to the evidence, but we should avoid dogmatism or dogged adherence to any one particular interpretation, for the nature of the material is such that our conclusions can only ever be tentative or provisional. Rather, we need to be exploratory and open-minded to different possibilities.’

38 This paper develops an argument originally presented in my PhD thesis (Coo [n. 32]). I am grateful to James Diggle for his guidance at the time, and to the anonymous reviewer for CQ for their comments on this material.