Although the manuscript tradition of Euripides’ Orestes is unanimous in preserving the reading Μυκηνίδες ὦ φίλαι at line 1246, recent editors have increasingly preferred the emendation Μυκηνίδες ὦ φίλ⟨ι⟩αι, first suggested by Gottfried Hermann in 1841.Footnote ¹ Thanks to the recent publication of new Michigan papyri, that emendation can now be unreservedly accepted.Footnote ²

At the time he proposed φίλ⟨ι⟩αι, Hermann did not offer much in the way of justification,Footnote ³ but Vincenzo Di Benedetto has elaborated on the basis of responsion with the antistrophe. There (at 1266), the later text of Demetrius Triclinius (as well as several from the so-called second Thoman recensionFootnote ⁴) preserves the reading ἑλίσσετέ νυν βλέφαρα,Footnote ⁵ while the veteres have ἑλίσσετέ νυν βλέφαρον. In light of the transmitted text at 1246, the argument for reading βλέφαρα at 1266 is straightforward: the responding lines, which comprise the incipits of strophe and antistrophe, respectively, scan as telesillian (˘ ‒ ˘ ˘ ‒ ˘ ).Footnote ⁶ But as Di Benedetto argues, one should legitimately suspect βλέφαρα of being a Byzantine correction: Euripides inclines toward the singular βλέφαρον (for example, Ion 205, El. 1332, Hel. 673, etc.), and the enoplian produced by accepting this variant (˘ ‒ ˘ ˘ ‒ ˘ ˘ ‒) corresponds to the incipits of other Euripidean stanzas (for example, Alc. 588 = 597, Med. 627–8 = 636–7).Footnote ⁷ Since forms of φίλος and φίλιος are both frequent in Euripides, the sole argument against emending to φίλ⟨ι⟩αι at line 1246 to produce a corresponding enoplian, in truth, was the unanimity of the manuscript tradition.

This objection can now be put to rest: on the recto of P.Mich. inv. 3250c (a second-century b.c.e. papyrus) we find the sequence μυκνιδεσωφιλι, which its editor, Cassandra Borges, has restored as Μυκνίδες ὦ (= Eur. Or. 1246).Footnote ⁸ The larger context of the passage guarantees the identification: the papyrus belongs to a set consisting of incipits categorized under a variety of headings. The recto in question contains the label παρόδων ἀρχαί (indented and marked with a paragraphos), below which the incipits of a number of known Euripidean lyrics appear: El. 988 (on ii.7); Or. 1246 (on. ii.9); Or. 317 (on ii.11); Bacch. 519 (on iii.1); Bacch. 64 (on iii.2); and Or. 140 (on iii.4).Footnote ⁹ Most of these, curiously, do not derive from parodoi (at least as we understand the term), but the confluence of Euripidean passages and the trio of verses from Orestes, in particular, is decisive in spite of the misleading heading.

The hand's Ptolemaic-era date, which is early by any standard, provides the ancient witness which validates Hermann as well as the subsequent editors whose sensitivity to Euripidean style favoured emendation at 1246: since the veteres preserve both φίλαι and βλέφαρον, we may conclude that, at some early point in the tradition, the original φίλιαι lost an iota. Whether it was out of a concern for responsion (of the sort known to have been undertaken by Demetrius Triclinius) or, as Diggle would have it, simple trivialization, this loss resulted in the variant βλέφαρα creeping into the tradition.