According to L'Année Philologique, W. has already devoted his Ph.D. thesis as well as a longer paper to the relationship between time and ritual in Greek tragedy. In this monograph, which is entitled after Ch. 965, he analyses each tragedy of the Oresteia in its own time setting and interprets the entire trilogy as a pattern of ritual agency, paying special attention to time-related aspects. W.’s focus on time is twofold. From a ritual studies perspective, and referring to (not circumstantially reported) anthropologic and cross-cultural positions, W. acknowledges that ‘for the Greeks … the time devoted to the performance of sacred rituals differed qualitatively from other time periods’, and defines it as ‘suspension’ (p. x). On the other hand, he understands time as frame of dramatic agency, considering how each dramatis persona feels, uses and manipulates it: for example by accelerating or delaying events, by judging time settings as ritually appropriate or wrong, and by recognising the propitious kairos for specific actions.

The introduction seeks to provide an overall survey of the extant research on temporality and ritual from the perspectives of both classics and anthropology. The criteria underlying the selection of works listed for the field of classics, where the amount of subject-related studies produced in the last decades can hardly be accounted for in a two-page résumé, are not clearly discernible. W. also examines ritual (and agonistic) temporality, that consists of a succession of discrete but interrelated rituals according to the schema ‘first sacrifice, pause, second sacrifice’. He then outlines the concept of time liminality as suspension from (ritual) agency, which will be crucial in the interpretation of the Oresteia as a ritual macrostructure.

In the second chapter (Agamemnon), W. begins by delineating the ritual pattern described in the parodos. The sacrifice of a pregnant hare and the counter sacrifice of the virgin Iphigenia are interpreted as two pieces of a symbolon (p. 31) according to the presumed common structure of Greek rituals (see above), with the delay of the Greek army as liminal pause in between. According to W., the sacrifice of Iphigenia represents at the same time the end of a ‘ritually bracketed temporality’ (p. 33), concerned with Artemis’ cult, and the beginning of a new one, specific to the Oresteia. In fact, ‘where once a male brought forth a female [Iphigenia] to be slaughtered as a bull/cow sacrifice, later a man [Agamemnon] is described as a bull that is sacrificed through the agency of a female’ (p. 34, cf. 73–4). However, tripartite time structure can hardly be considered as a main criterion in defining rituals; otherwise, any peripeteia consisting of the three moments ‘status x, change, status y’ (e.g. wars, anagnoriseis, etc.) should be classified as such. In this way, W.’s interpretation of Agamemnon's nostos as a ritual pattern (p. 42) is not convincing. The analysis becomes more constructive when it comes to Agamemnon's re-integration into the political life of Argos, which is restrained by Clytemnestra's deceptive agency and by her promoting for him of a new, un-king-like identity (in particular during the Carpet Scene). While Cassandra, whose knowledge is both analeptic and proleptic, intentionally enacts a ‘strategy of delay’ (p. 61) by refusing to answer the queen's questions, Clytemnestra's agency is determined by the urgency to take vengeance under the pressure of her secret time schedule. With Agamemnon's murder, she mistakenly believes she has purified her house from the pollution (miasma) he caused by murdering his own daughter.

The third chapter (Choephoroi) starts with an ‘investigation of the ritual contours of the first half of the play’ (p. 100), including Orestes’ funerary rituals at his father's tomb and the chorus’ procession, libation and mourning. After a prolonged suspension of socio-political norms in the still kingless city, Clytemnestra seeks to propitiate Agamemnon's restless psyche through libations, which are to be performed by Electra. ‘The ritual, as conceived by Clytemnestra, … would be oriented towards appeasing Agamemnon's spirit and so to removing him as an operative force in Argos; … however, Electra would ask for her father's help in taking vengeance upon the very person who sent the … libations’ (p. 109). In this ‘reversal of ritual polarity’ (p. 108), Clytemnestra unintentionally makes the anagnorisis between the siblings occur and helps them to take vengeance at her own expense. After having considered at length Orestes’ awareness of his own nostos and revenge timing (which combines ‘patience in waiting and immediacy in the performance of the critical act’, p. 124), W. focuses on the dispute between Clytemnestra and Orestes. Here the figure which linked time and agency most brilliantly in Agamemnon is juxtaposed with the one succeeding in the same task in Choephoroi; past events as well as their future consequences are debated, both set in increasingly extended temporal boundaries. In his treatment of the third stasimon W., supporting a quite controversial hypothesis, admits allusions to the Eleusinian Mysteries (p. 140) by referring to darkness and light symbolism (cf. the watchman prologue in Agamemnon). Working as a ritual catharsis, Orestes’ agency should put an end to the time liminality produced by consanguineous regicide, and re-establish socio-politically normative conditions in both house and city. However, in contrast, it turns out to perpetuate the contagious pollution lingering upon Atreus’ kin.

In the final chapter (Eumenides) we face the time pattern of chronological linearity. To quote W.’s slightly abstruse wording with regard to the Pythia's prologue, ‘whereas the predominant temporality of Agamemnon and Choephoroi was cast from the first in terms of a suspension between the poles of the sacrali[za]tion/desacralization structure and a repetition of the same, Eumenides, at least initially, contrasts strongly with ritual time through its affirmation of a calm, sequential process’ (p. 164). However, the Erinyes soon return to time suspension by preventing others’ action through their own inaction (they are asleep before Orestes) and through the spell of a paralysing ‘rage’ (cf. the time-suspending effects of Achilles’ menis in the Iliad) that should last eternally, even after Orestes’ death. The whole dispute is interpreted as the clash of opposite time patterns: that is to say, suspended and ritual time, supported by the Erinyes, vs sequential and worldly time, supported by Apollo. Finally, the curse is broken by Athena who, after having set the dispute in the non-religious, institutionalised terms of a trial and under the sign of ‘juridical temporality’ (pp. 188ff.), shifts the meaning of the Oresteia’s keyword for liminality (menein) from appalling time suspension into everlasting honour (p. 195). In this way, Athena integrates the Erinyes into the normative time pattern of the polis.

The weak points of the book appear to be theoretical vagueness, prolixity and obscure language. Some readers will miss an exhaustive definition of controversial key concepts such as ‘ritual’ and ‘agency’, encounter commentary-like expositions that appear somewhat descriptive in a monograph, and wonder whether tripartite ‘ritual’ time frame as well as ritual agency and language are specific to the Oresteia or apply to Greek tragedy in general. Also, in a programmatically interdisciplinary monograph on ritual, one would have welcomed a more comprehensive treatment of ancient religious and philosophical sources, and possibly comparisons with other literary works.Footnote ¹ With regard to the book structure, the scarcely one and a half page long epilogue is not thoroughly informative, and separate indexes instead of the general one would have been more user-friendly.Footnote ²

As a thematic commentary of the Oresteia based on recursive time, ritual and agency patterns, W.’s book proves to be effectual; however, since the research goals that motivate this reading are not clearly stated, little can be said about their achievement. Nevertheless, the monograph shows a promising interdisciplinary approach and a number of appealing text readings.