H. sets out to reveal the importance of the mid- to late-fourth century b.c. at Athens, particularly the Lycurgan period (338–322 b.c.), for the construction of the fifth-century's tragic productions and playwrights as both ‘classical’ and distinctively Athenian. This is admirably accomplished by means of a two-part argument. Following an introduction in which the background to the study is presented, Part 1, ‘Classical Tragedy and the Lycurgan Programme’, consisting of three chapters, focuses attention on the activities undertaken by Lycurgus and his near contemporaries in relation to the Theatre of Dionysus and the tragic play-texts. Part 2, ‘Reading the Theatrical Heritage’, also comprising three chapters, considers how the oratory of Aeschines and Demosthenes, the subject matter of many comic fragments and Aristotle's Poetics each contribute to the developing picture of the Lycurgan programme to establish and maintain the uniquely Athenian nature of tragic drama in the face of Macedonian challenges and universalising trends outside of Athens. There follows an epilogue in which the success of Lycurgus' efforts is assessed. To assist the reader unfamiliar with the timeline and the many epigraphic collections referred to in the course of the argument, a reference chronology and a title/abbreviation list are provided before the introduction. The study concludes with a bibliography and index.

In the introduction H. draws attention to a phenomenon requiring explanation – the almost total absence of references to tragedy or tragic playwrights in the fifth- and early fourth-century Athenian literature (other than comedy), in comparison with what seems to be an ‘explosion’ of references in the extant literary evidence from the Lycurgan era (p. 5). H. goes on to associate this unprecedented engagement with the fifth-century's tragic texts and playwrights with the precarious political position in which Athens found herself in relation to Macedon, especially post-338 b.c. It is her contention that during this period, Lycurgus and others engaged in a conscious effort in a variety of media, including oratory, architecture and inscriptions, to style fifth-century tragedy as a unique product of the city in which it was produced.

With this aim in view, the first chapter in Part 1 considers the ways in which Lycurgus establishes the importance of poetry to Athenian identity and simultaneously creates a strong sense of interdependence between the city's political and ‘“literary” history’ (p. 59) through the use of quotations from the poets, Homer, Tyrtaeus and Euripides – especially his Erechtheus – in his speech Against Leocrates.

Chapter 2 opens by noting the temporal relationship between Lycurgus' speech, the creation and erection of the Victorum Dionysiorum Fasti (IG ii² 2318) c. 347/6 and 343/2 and Lycurgus' introduction of a law which included the direction to create a bronze statue of each of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides as well as requiring that official copies of all their plays be made and housed in the city's archives and, furthermore, that all productions of these plays thereafter be a performance of only these scripts. H. then sets forth one plausible explanation for these events, including what might be termed the ‘rehabilitation’ of Euripides’ image as an upstanding citizen of fifth-century Athens, who made a significant contribution to the city's greatness: in the face of the growing threat to Athens' national identity posed by Macedon and their equally culturally threatening poaching of famous actors and performance of ‘adaptions' of the plays of Athens' own great tragedians, Lycurgus (among others) saw the need to reassert the city's proprietary claims to the city's historio-cultural output.

In the third chapter of Part 1, H. takes as her subject the enlargement and enhancement of the Theatre of Dionysus begun in c. 350 b.c., but greatly advanced under Lycurgus' more expansive building programme, and viewed as the third major step in the reconceptualisation of Athens' cultural heritage and its preservation. This monumentalisation of the theatre contributed significantly to the concretisation of the city's claim to be the cultural home of tragedy and the custodian of what had become the ‘idealized version of the Athenian past’ (p. 123).

In the first chapter of Part 2 (Chapter 4), H. examines the uses made of theatrical references and examples drawn from tragedy in the speeches of Aeschines and Demosthenes, as one way of demonstrating how ‘Athens’ theatrical past was becoming ever more a part of public discourse’ after 350 b.c. (p. 134). As with Lycurgus, so too with these orators, H. focuses on the way in which fifth-century tragedy is used in the construction and maintenance of Athenian identity. The study of fourth-century comedy's use of tragedy occupies Chapter 5, which offers further support to the argument. Here, H. notes how references to tragedy are typically placed in the mouths of non-elites who either misquote or otherwise apply a tragic line in an inappropriate context. In her analysis, such use speaks to the assumed familiarity of the fourth-century audience with these fifth-century texts, especially those of Euripides. As this discussion draws to a close, H. reads the evidence that Astydamas, a fourth-century tragic poet, complained about the impossibility of being able to best the lionised words of the fifth-century's tragic poets as further evidence of a certain ‘tragic nostalgia’ infecting the popular imagination. Chapter 6 turns our attention to the decidedly apolitical and universalising tendencies of Aristotle's Poetics as an example of the forces operative outside of Athens that were attempting to undermine the uniqueness of Athenian tragedy and with it the Athenians’ pride in their political and cultural heritage – trends and forces against which Lycurgus and others responded, especially in the last third of the fourth century, with a grand effort to emphasise the uniqueness of the Athenian democratic spirit to the form and content of ‘classical tragedy’.

The epilogue chronicles the political events at Athens after the attempted revolt from Macedonian oversight had failed as well as the changes to the theatrical programme that ensued. The most telling of the latter, in H.'s view, is a monument dated to 307/6, naming the Athenian demos as choregos; throughout she has argued that it was the aim of Lycurgus and others to present ‘the tragedians’ accomplishments as a collective achievement of the demos’ (p. 228), and at Athens, at least, this was achieved.

The case H. builds for the importance of Lycurgus’ initiatives in relation to the esteem in which we still hold Athenian tragedy, primarily in Part 1 of the book, is most persuasive. The presentation of primary sources not generally included in the discussion of Athenian drama, as well as the interpretative use to which they are put, contribute significantly to the value of this study, as does the presentation and handling of the supporting evidence in Part 2. The text itself is almost free of typographical error.Footnote ¹ And although one might take issue with H.'s claim that the eight or nine plays referred to in Aristotle's Poetics are ‘roughly half’ of our 33 extant texts (p. 8 and n. 22), in a work that is otherwise exceptionally well argued, this is a truly minor point. For anyone interested in the history of Greek drama, or the significance of tragedy after the close of the fifth century, this is one book I would happily recommend.