This bilingual monograph is essentially a long article on the dating of Lycophron's Alexandra, published in Greek (pp. 1–51) with an English translation (pp. 53–93). The argument is that the negative portrayal of Greek heroes in Lycophron's poem reflects the rise of Rome on the Mediterranean stage in the second quarter of the third century bce. The poem is not intended for a broad audience, but rather to be appreciated by a small circle of upper-class intellectuals (p. 64).
R.'s date for the poem, also favoured by A. Hurst in his excellent Budé edition (Lycophron: Alexandra [2008], pp. vii–xiii), is supported by the ancient biographical tradition. According to the Suda, Lycophron, one of the seven tragedians known as the Pleiades, also wrote ‘the so-called Alexandra, the obscure poem’ (ἔγραψε καὶ τὴν καλουμένην Ἀλεξάνδραν, τὸ σκοτεινὸν ποίημα). The biography of Lycophron preserved through the scholiastic tradition on the Alexandra adds the details that this Lycophron, the son of Socles, was born on Euboea and later adopted by Lycus of Rhegium, an enemy of Demetrius of Phaleron. While in Alexandria, this Lycophron wrote a book On Comedy. Consistent with this tradition is a date for the Alexandra in the time of Alexander's sixth successor (line 1446), Pyrrhus, at which point Cassandra says a relative of hers, a wrestler, will establish the power of her race over land and sea (lines 1446–7). This would therefore be a reference to Rome's victory over Pyrrhus.
The view adumbrated in the previous paragraph runs counter to what has become the standard view in contemporary anglophone scholarship and was an alternative strand in ancient scholarship on the poem. In a note on line 1226, where the rise of Rome is predicted, a scholiast wrote ‘from what he said about the Romans, the poem must be by another Lycophron, not the tragedian, for a contemporary of Philadelphus could not have written about the Romans’ (ἐντεῦθεν περὶ Ῥωμαίων λέγει καὶ Λυκόφρονος ἑτέρου νομιστέον εἶναι τὸ ποίημα, οὐ τοῦ γράψαντος τὴν τραγωιδίαν; συνηθὴς γὰρ ὢν τῶι Φιλαδέλφωι, οὐκ ἂν περὶ Ῥωμαίων διελέγετο). Never mind that the existence of a ‘second Lycophron’ is the opinion of a scholiast, a substantial body of modern scholarship is devoted to interpreting the poem as the product of a person writing in the early second century bce. This view descends, in its current form, from P. Fraser's article in the Report of the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus (1979), itself a refinement of arguments in K. Ziegler's article on Lycophron (RE 13 [1927], cols 2316–81). Ziegler followed K. Beloch and S. Suhaus in arguing that the author of the Alexandra was a contemporary of Flamininus, who is identified as the ‘kinsman’ of Alexandra and wrestler in lines 1446–7. Ziegler supported his argument with linguistic parallels between Lycophron and the Sibylline Oracles, especially the third, which he believed, following A. Rzach, was written by an Alexandrian Jew drawing upon earlier traditions (esp. Orac. Sib. 3.49; 192; 611; 809–18). The oracular tradition, according to Ziegler, provided the broader literary context within which the Alexandra was composed (RE 13 [1927], col. 2380). While favouring a date around 196, Ziegler left open the possibility that the poem was inspired by the cult of Flamininus established on Euboea in 190 bce.
Fraser's refinement of Ziegler's position was to draw attention to the statement in a scholiast's note stating that the section treating Cyprus (lines 447–502; 586–91) depended upon Eratosthenes. If that were true, there would be a demonstrable link between Lycophron's poem and literature created in the second half of the third century, which is elsewhere non-existent. If that link were to be sustained, a date for Lycophron in the first half of the third century would be rendered impossible. Unfortunately, beyond the scholiast's note, Fraser could not show a direct connection between Lycophron and Eratosthenes. It remains plausible that the link between Lycophron and Eratosthenes reflects the use of a common source. The absence of any other obvious reference to a work of literature or event later than the end of the fourth century contrasts significantly with Lycophron's inclusion of clear references to people and events before that time. The last datable reference prior to the emergence of the ‘wrestler’ is to the death of Hercules, son of Alexander and Barsine, in 309 bce (lines 801–3). R. is correct to note (pp. 91–2) that one did not need to wait until the Second Punic War to discover that the Dasii were a notable south Italian family (see, alternatively, S. Hornblower, Lykophron's Alexandra, Rome and the Hellenistic World [2018], pp. 6–7).
The first part of R.'s argument is based on the portrayal of Greek heroes. It might be expected that the Greeks will not come off very well in a poem that purports to record a prophecy of Cassandra. Iphigenia, for instance, is scarcely an innocent virgin. She is the mother of Neoptolemus and, in her Tauric old age, boils human flesh (p. 60). Penelope squanders Odysseus’ fortune while partying with the suitors, Odysseus is a schemer, Menelaus is a terrible dragon and so forth (pp. 61; 55–6). But, as R. astutely points out (pp. 62–3), if the hero is like Diomedes or Philoctetes, a person who will have a later Italian home or role in Italy's mythic history, the portrait will be less negative.
According to Pausanias, Pyrrhus told a Tarentine ambassador that he hoped, as a descendent of Achilles, he would be successful in his campaign against Trojan colonists (Paus. 1.112.11, with A. Erskine, Troy between Greece and Rome: Local Tradition and Imperial Power [2001], p. 158). Assuming that Pausanias is quoting a source roughly contemporary with Pyrrhus, Lycophron otherwise offers the earliest evidence for the connection between Aeneas and Rome. In the fourth century Rome could have a Greek founder (a child of Odysseus and Circe). Cassandra thus offers what may not have been the well-established tradition at this point, that Romulus and Remus were descendants of Aeneas. As R. writes, ‘[i]t is remarkable that of the profusion of myths relating to the founding of Rome, Lycophron brushes aside all those that promote the city as being of ultimately Greek creation … and chooses to endorse instead the version that was most agreeable to the Romans’ (p. 67).
R.'s solution as to the identity of the ‘unrivalled wrestler’, Cassandra's kinsman, of line 1446–7, is, to my mind, extremely appealing. Rather than assuming the wrestler must be a specific person, she suggests the wrestler is the Roman people (p. 80), a position noted by Hurst as a possibility in his note on the line (Lycophron, 316). As the wrestler ‘will celebrate his excellence amongst friends, having secured the spear-won prizes of war’, R. suggests this is a reference to the treaties at the end of the Pyrrhic War in south Italy (pp. 83–4). If that is the case, further discussion of what this would mean in terms of contemporary appreciation of Decius’ seizure of Rhegium during the Pyrrhic War and his execution by the Romans after the war's end would have been welcome (Pol. 1.7.7–13).
The final section of R.'s book treats the identity of Lycophron. She accepts the tradition that he was an Eretrian adopted by Lycus of Rhegium, and points out that three of the plays attributed to Lycophron – Andromeda, Elephenor and Nauplios – deal with themes included in the Alexandra. More significant, perhaps, is Lycophron's interest in Scylla, one of Rhegium's most famous neighbours. As R. points out, Lycophron links south Italy with Troy through the adventures of Hercules (p. 87). His killing of Scylla (lines 44–9) is one of the few Italian stories connected with the hero in the Alexandra. Finally, Lycophron displays a noted antipathy for Locris, which would accord with the politics of southern Italy. Also, as R. observes, Cassandra/Alexandra's Italian links may stem not just from Aeneas, but also from the cult of Alexandra in Messenia, whence the founders of Rhegium came (pp. 92–3).
R.'s book may not be long, but it is a clear-headed, well-argued contribution to the question of the Alexandra's date and authorship.
