Euripides and the Instruction of the Athenians

Introduction

Introduction The earliest assessments of tragedy we possess-one by a fourthcentury philosopher, the other by a fIfth-century comic poet-bear witness to the organic connection between tragedy and the Athenian polis. Aristotle, to be sure, refers to it only in passing. In the Poetics, while discussing the element of "thought" in tragedy, he remarks that the older poets (that is, the fIfth-century tragedians) made their characters speak politikos, "in a political vein," whereas those of his own day make their characters speak rhetorikos, "in a rhetorical vein."l Although he does not elaborate on this tantalizing observation, in the Nichomachean Ethics (1093a27-10<)4b11) he describes as "political" the discipline that spans ethics and public policy and that pertains to the moral education of the community.2 If (as seems likely) Aristotle is using the term in the same sense in both passages, then his remark offers a preliminary indication that the political and ethical components of Greek tragedy will be closely conjoined. Aristophanes, on the other hand, considers the political role of tragedy directly and at length. The climax of the Frogs is an agon or poetry contest that takes place in the underworld under the auspices of the god Dionysus. The shades of Aeschylus and Euripides are vying for the title of best tragedian; the realm of Hades, it seems, bears a curious resemblance to Athens, where tragedians competed for frrst prize at the City Dionysia. Just as at Athens public benefactors were rewarded with free entertainment and favored seating in the Prytaneum or city hall, so in the underworld the winner of the contest will enjoy "meals in the Prytaneum and a seat next to Pluto" (Frogs 764-65). Euripides, arguing his own cause, claims to have freed tragedy from the cumbersome staging and obscure language favored by his rival. He explains that he has substituted a leaner, more tightly structured, "democratic" form (952) that is relevant to the spectators' daily life and allows them room for discrimination and judgment. Aeschylus presently demands, "On what grounds should we admire a trage- 2 Euripides and the Instruction of the Athenians dian?" Euripides is unhesitating in his reply: "For his skilfulness and his admonitions, because we improve the people in the cities" (1009-10). Aeschylus has no quarrel with this formulation. He concurs with Euripides on the didactic function of tragedy: "For children it is the schoolteacher who instructs; for grown-ups, it is the poet.,,3 It is an acknowledged goal of tragedy to teach what is good and useful (christa, 686, 1056, d. 1035, 1421); the two poets diverge, however, on the appropriate means. Aeschylus maintains that whereas he has incited the Athenians to courageous action through his productions of tragedies "full of Ares" (1021 ff.), Euripides has made people worse instead of better, because his characters exhibit moral weaknesses that have inspired the audience's imitation. Though Aeschylus admits that his rival's portrayals are true to life he believes that moral edifIcation, not truth, is the business of tragedy. "The poet should hide what is bad," says Aeschylus, "not represent or produce it" (1053-54). The verb "produce ," didaskein, also means "teach." Aristophanes is taking advantage of ordinary linguistic usage to buttress his claim that the playwright is also a teacher.4 The association between poetry and teaching is a recurrent motif in the Frogs. The parabasis leads off with the statement that it is right for the chorus to offer "good advice and instruction to the city" (christa tei polei xumparainein kai didaskein, 686-87). At a later point in the play Aeschylus associates his own inspirational and instructive practice with that of a distinguished group of predecessors: Orpheus, Musaeus, Hesiod, and Homer (1032-36). In identifying the poets as the fountainhead of practical and moral wisdom he is on fum historical ground. "There is an important element in early, archaic, and classical verse that might be called, broadly, 'educational' or 'culturally formative.' Homer, Hesiod, Solon, Xenophanes, Theognis, to name a few, all address themselves, in greater or lesser degree, to the information and admonition of their audiences."s But Aristophanes has in mind something more precise than cultural formation. In the course of the contest between the two rivals, it emerges that the improvement ofthe polis is the goal of the poet's instruction ; it is in that sense, according to Aristophanes, that tragedy aspires to the political. As we have seen, the chorus offers its good advice to the city, and Euripides asserts that the tragedian should make the people better in the cities. Defending himself against Aeschylus' accusa- Introduction 3 tions, Euripides inquires indignantly in what way his passionate female protagonists harm the city (1049). Dionysus ultimately informs the two tragedians that he intends to bring back with him to the upper world "whichever one of you can give the city some useful advice" (142o-21)-a charge that each does his best to satisfy. These passages make assumptions that may appear startling to modem readers, but are taken for granted by the two contestants; presumably they reflect ftfth-century preconceptions about poets and poetry. There is no concern that aesthetic and political purposes might inhibit one another; rather, artistry and admonition are said to operate in tandem (d. 100<)-10). The domain of private life is not envisaged as separate from the public realm; both dramatists agree that sexual conduct , for example, has the potential to damage the city. Both recognize too that as dramatists they are doubly accountable: not only should they help the Athenians become better citizens, they must themselves serve as examples of responsible statesmanship. Both assume that the representations of tragedy will provoke a mimetic response in the audience . Aeschylus, to be sure, reduces this notion to its most absurd because most literal form: Athenian women have committed suicide in emulation of Euripidean prototypes, he claims, and prosperous citizens have managed to evade their civic responsibilities by dissimulating their wealth on the model of Euripides' ragged kings (1050-51, 1065-66). Euripides does not admit that his characters have caused harm, but neither does he challenge the basic premise. As we have seen, the two poets disagree only on whether the community is better served by portraying conflicts and passions in all their complexity , or by presenting a simple and idealized account of human nature. It is hard to imagine anyone more favorably situated than Aristophanes to comment on the social function of tragedy. As a contemporary of Sophocles and Euripides, as an Athenian citizen who was himself a playwright, he enjoyed an insider's privileged perspective . Therefore his account of tragedy'S didactic function and political orientation tends to inspire respect. But we must also keep in mind that Aristophanes was above all a writer of comedies, with a penchant for parody, exaggeration, and sheer fantasy. It is possible that the didactic account of tragedy set forth in the Frogs was not intended to be taken seriously. Several considerations tell against this view. In the frrst place, a successful joke depends on a degree of cultural consensus; it is the comic 4 Euripides and the Instruction of the Athenians turn given to shared assumptions that most reliably raises a laugh. The "didactic theory" may be no more than a convenient peg on which to hang the contest between Aeschylus and Euripides, with its elaborate stage business and its mischievous caricatures of both playwrights.6 Nevertheless, the audience must accept the basic point that tragedy does indeed offer instruction in order to fmd amusing its subsequent ludicrous applications. There is no reason why a comic poet (not unlike a modern cartoonist ) cannot be "funny ... [and] serious at the same time."7 To succeed on both counts is, in fact, the fond prayer of the chorus in the Frogs ()89-9O). Aristophanes seems to combine the two modes in his treatment of tragedy, assigning tragedy a responsible social role even as he relentlessly parodies and caricatures its practitioners.8 Finally, if it is permitted to consult the social and historical context for the tragic performances as a kind of control on Aristophanes, even a brief survey will turn up numerous indications that lend credence to his account. The Social and Historical Context Tragedy was a genre unique to Athens; its development coincided with the city's transformation into a major power and the equally rapid evolution of Athenian democracy.9 The ftfth century opened with the wars against Persia, which brought Athens to the forefront of the Greek states and displaced Sparta from its previous position of leadership . The subsequent founding of the Delian League consolidated Athenian hegemony. Athens kept a tight hold on its confederates, assessing an annual tribute and crushing all attempts at revolt, and the other members of the League discovered in short order that they were not so much Athens' allies as Athens' subjects. Increased tensions with Sparta led to an outbreak of hostilities in 461. A peace treaty concluded in 445, and designed to last for thirty years, did not endure: the year 431 saw renewed hostilities between Athens and Sparta. The conflict would continue, with only minor interruptions, until 404. Even as Athens launched military initiatives on many fronts, the establishment within the polis of a democratic system of government proceeded apace. Cleisthenes had laid the groundwork in the previous century, with his reorganization of the citizenry into new political units that cut across traditional affiliations based on locality, cult, ancestry , and class. Ephialtes introduced changes that curtailed the Introduction 5 authority of the aristocratic law court and strengthened the legal and political authority of the ordinary citizens. Pericles made widespread participation in the business of government a practical reality when he introduced monetary compensation for jurymen and, in all likelihood, for citizens serving in other official capacities as well. The theater was not an invention of the democracy, but by the fIfth century it had become closely identifted with the official life of the democratic polis. Presented annually at the state-sponsored festival of Dionysus, the plays integrated some of the democracy's most characteristic practices into their production.10 The theatrical program was selected by a polis official, the eponymous archon, and the productions were fInanced by wealthy individuals as a leitourgia or public service on the same order as outfItting a warship or sponsoring an athletic eventY Reflecting the democratic principle of accountability, an assembly held after the event offered a chance to investigate any irregularities connected with the festival. The composition of the chorus, the judges, and the audience contributed to the democratic ambience. Ordinary Athenians (out of the ordinary, to be sure, in their ability to sing and dance) made up the chorus, and the prizes were awarded by a panel of judges chosen by lot- that favorite instrument of the democracy. The plays were viewed by an audience whose attendance, once Pericles established a fund to offset the price of admission, was subsidized by the state; as a further official inducement to attend, city business was suspended for the duration of the festival. A religious as well as a civic occasion, the festival of Dionysus drew in the same broad constituency that participated in the many other religious festivals that articulated the Athenian year.12 There is every reason to believe that the theater audience spanned the full spectrum of society: men, women, and children; aristocrats, commoners, and slaves; poor and wealthy; city-dwellers and rustics; citizens, metics, and foreigners. 13 The theater was democratic in a way that approaches the modern use of the term-it was comprehensive as the assembly and the law court, those other great political gathering-places, were not. 14 This circumstance offered the dramatist a unique opportunity to address himself to representatives of the entire population on issues that concerned them both individually and as members of the various groups that claimed their allegiance. 6 Euripides and the Instruction of the Athenians If Athens was the school of Greece, as Thucydides' Pericles asserts (Thuc. 2.41.1), then the theater had a strong claim to be the school of Athens. Yet this figure should not suggest (as it might in a modern context) the indoctrination of an impressionable populace by the establishment 's deSignated spokesmen. The social policy of Athens was self-consciously liberal rather than prescriptive; the members of the audience harbored strong, diverse, and noisy opinions of their own; and the message they received at the festival of Dionysus contained as much of query and admonition as of flattery and praise.15 The quality of instruction was already discernible in the festival's opening events-ceremonies that constituted a powerful statement of "civic ideology."16 The festival of Dionysus- held in late March, when the seas were open for sailing after the winter storms-was the occasion for the members of the Delian League to bring their annual tribute to Athens. 17 The tribute was displayed in the theater-a sight calculated to appeal to Athenian pride and patriotism. But another preliminary feature of the festival was a parade through the Theater of Dionysus by the war-orphans who had been raised at public expense-a ceremony that no less insistently underscored the sacrifices and burdens of empire. IS The civic ideology adumbrated in the opening ceremonies was not a simple one. Even if the evidence is only circumstantial, it seems reasonable to associate the plays presented in such a framework with the same civic program. But tragedy had the resources to convey a far broader range of political concerns than those implicit in the festival's opening pageantry , and to treat them with more complexity, finer shading, and greater variation. The Political Contribution of Tragedy That tragedy possessed a political component is now generally acknowledged . There remains, however, considerable uncertainty about the level at which it can be seen to operate.19 The theory that tragedy's political consciousness manifests itself in overt references to specific contemporary events now has few supporters.20 The very structure of tragedy militates against such a practice: there is no feature like the parabasis of comedy, which suspends the action and breaks the dramatic illusion in favor of direct address to the audience .21 The matter too discourages topical reference: with one ex- Introduction 7 ception, the characters and plots of the surviving dramas are derived from the world of legend, from Homer and the poems of the epic cycle .22 If these tales from the heroic age make allusion to the concerns of fIfth-century Athens it can only be indirectly, through inference and comparison. Tragedy'S contemporary message is "general not particular , and objective not personal ... inherent in the detached reality of the drama as a whole."23 A more promising line of inquiry opens up with the suggestion, consciously paradoxical, that tragedy derives its political influence precisely from its unpromising structure and material. Tragedy, on this interpretation, exploits the tensions inherent in the contrast between past and present; it juxtaposes the characters of legend with the world of the fIfth-century polis in order to bring into focus the divergent values of the inherited culture and the new social order.24 The Greek ethical vocabulary was forged in an aristocratic milieu that equated merit with birth and wealth, and that prized individual assertion and accomplishment over communal effort. In such a society results counted for much and intentions for little; there were no mitigating circumstances for failure. Social esteem, more than any internal measure, was the determinant of individual worth. This aristocratic code contributed to the successful functioning of a society at war-the kind of society depicted in the Iliad and dominated, as Aristophanes puts it (Frogs 1036), by ''battle-lines, deeds of valor, men's armament."2S Scarcely had these standards been articulated than they began to undergo modi&cation to serve changing social needs. The Odyssey already reflects a different set of circumstances, and in the next century the lyric poets would reshape Homer's language to address the concerns proper to their own age.26 Yet a conservative and reverential impulse ensured that such modi&cations as took place were all but invisible . The ethical vocabulary itself did not change, but the traditional terms were transferred to different contexts, thereby acquiring different signifIcations even as they preserved a sense, or illusion, of continuity .27 Democratic Athens introduced far-reaching innovations, both social and political, that might have seemed to call for some wholesale readjustment of the aristocratic code. The structures put in place by Cleisthenes encouraged the Athenians to de&ne themselves as members of a network of social groups-local, tribal, civic-whose de- 8 Euripides and the Instruction of the Athenians mands could not necessarily be reconciled with one another or with traditional standards of individual honor.28 Another Cleisthenic mechanism, that of ostracism, seemed designed to deal precisely with the threat that an exceptional individual might pose to the community: provided that six thousand citizens turned up at a special assembly and the majority scratched his name on a potsherd, an individual could be banished from Athens for ten years without ever having been accused of any deftnite crime.29 The qualities that constituted excellence in the archaic hero could prove problematical for a society like that of democratic Athens, which depended for its successful functioning not on outstanding individual accomplishment but on the unifted efforts of a majority of citizens. Another fundamental change concerned the distribution of political authority. Although the aristocrats enjoyed a monopoly of the highest military offices, they had to share power with the ordinary citizens. It was the common people who by their votes in the assembly had the last word on public policy; they who served on the juries, and manned the ships that formed the basis of the city's power.30 Such a society assumed no natural hierarchies; birth and wealth no longer served as reliable indicators of merit, while exceptional achievement could be perceived as a threat to the collective. The inherited aristocratic code was out of alignment with contemporary social reality. Yet despite all social transformations, the authority of tradition still held strong. The Athenians still respected the standards enshrined in the paradigms of myth and poetry, still looked to the past as a source of validation. At this juncture the whole society stood in need of guidance from that traditional source of wisdom, the poets. Aristocrats and commoners alike could benefIt from a scheme of values retaining the glamor and authority of the heroic past, yet accessible and appropriate to the present. It is in attending to this demand that tragedyincluding the tragedy of Euripides-reveals its political dimension.31 So wholesome an aim may surprise in a poet generally reckoned a literary and social subversive.32 This view of Euripides has encountered strong supportin the twentieth century among critics who found something familiar and deeply sympathetic in the image of an artist alienated from his society.33 The image itself, to be sure, has its source in antiquity, in the comic Euripides memorably caricatured by Aristophanes. These caricatures, accepted at face value and pieced out with motifs from Euripidean drama, gave rise to the Euripides of the Introduction 9 biographical tradition: a morose solitary disappointed in his private life and unpopular with his fellow citizens.34 This Euripides in tum was assimilated to the evolutionary account of tragedy promulgated in the nineteenth century and still widely influential . In the assessment of the German scholars of the Victorian age, Aeschylus represented the beginning, Sophocles the zenith, and Euripides the decline.3s Such an ordering posits a simple hierarchical succession where ancient audiences would have perceived complex and tangled interrelationships, both literary and chronological. For Sophocles produced tragedies simultaneously with Aeschylus as well as with Euripides; he influenced and was influenced by Euripides, whom he outlived. Aeschylus' plays, moreover, were revived after his death, at the same time that Sophocles and Euripides were producing their mature work.36 If we aspire to recover something of the Greeks' perspective on Euripides we must make strenuous efforts to shed modem habits of thought-including a bias in favor of evolution and alienated artistswhile constantly checking categories and assumptions against the ancient testimony. Certainly the ancient witnesses can be interpreted in many different ways. But there can be no doubt that both Aristotle and Aristophanes regarded Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides as a trinity set apart from other playwrights, and sharing more similarities than differences.37 A study of political elements in Euripides will tend to reafftrm this ancient alignment, for it will focus attention on characteristics of Euripidean tragedy that could be matched in Aeschylus and Sophocles.38 It can of course be objected that what emerges is a somewhat flattened picture of Euripides, and there is no question that a concentration upon other elements of his dramaturgy would yield a different result. Nevertheless, this study will have fulftlled its purpose if it serves as a corrective to the conventional modern account of Euripides and helps to reinstate him in the historical context he shared with his fellow tragedians. Political Elements in Euripides We may distinguish three strands of political reflection in the plays of Euripides, although in practice they will often be found to intertwine. The most obvious (and also the most frequently studied) is the evocation of democratic institutions and practices. 10 Euripides and the Instruction of the Athenians Although there exists no single fIfth-century synthesis of democratic political theory, many passages in the extant literature combine to show that Athenian citizens were cognizant of the special features of their political system and took enormous pride in its benefIts .39 To those who met its stringent requirements for citizenship, Athens' radical democracy promised liberty and equality-abstractions that translated into access to the political process, the guarantee of free speech, and the impartial protection of the law. These features became the staples of fIfth-century celebrations of Athens, of which the best known is the funeral oration that Thucydides puts into the mouth of Pericles.40 They also found their place in tragedy, incorporated into the dramatic action by Aeschylus inhis Suppliants and by Euripides in Children of Heracles and his own Suppliants. It is these two plays, together with isolated passages from other tragedies that strike an overtly patriotic or democratic note, that are generally featured in discussions of Euripides' political thought.41 The Ion has been analyzed for its treatment of autochthony and the Athenian colonization of Ionia; the political assemblies of the Orestes and Hecuba have also attracted notice.42 Yet institutions and practices are not the only registers of a society's political tenor. This handful of plays by no means exhausts the political signifIcance of Euripidean drama. Athens' changing relations with the external world constituted an aspect of the political that Euripides' generation was especially well situated to apprehend. Born in 484 B.C., Euripides grew to adulthood in a city still elated by its unexpected victory over Persia. In 455 Euripides competed for the fIrst time in the City Dionysia; soon after, probably in 454, the Delian League moved its treasury from Delos to Athens. That move has traditionally been interpreted as symbolizing a new stage in the relationship between Athens and its allies-a proclamation that the alliance begun as a defensive coalition against Persia had been transformed into an instrument of Athenian power. The city that prided itself on its democratic institutions ordered its foreign policy according to a different set of political principles.43 The same citizens who rejoiced in their internal freedom did not hesitate to impose their rule upon others; so far from perceiving any contradiction , they seem to have regarded the empire as the guarantor of Athenian independence. Thucydides' Alcibiades warns the citizens that ruling others is their insurance against being ruled themselves (6.1.8.3), and Thucydides later makes the comment that it was difftcult for the Introduction 11 Athenians to lose their liberty, because ever since they had expelled their own tyrants they had been accustomed "not only not to be subjects , but for more than half of that time [actually] to exercise rule over others" (8.68.4; d. 7.75.7). True to their admonitory function, the dramatists repeatedly.called Athenian imperialism into question. Aristophanes' lost comedy, the Babylonians, caustically portrayed "the effect of democracy on the allies."44 Sophocles made oblique reference to Athens as a tyrant city in his Oedipus the King.45 And the morality of power emerges as one of the major themes of Euripides' Hecuba. The most pervasive aspect of the political in Euripides is also the most diffi.cult to isolate. It is sounded in the characteristic tonality he imparts to themes of perennial, indeed universal interest; this tonality is not confmed to specifIc passages, but is audible throughout each play. Euripides is anything but innovative in his choice of subject matter ; his themes are well attested in the literary tradition and indigenous to tragedy as a genre. The relationship between life and death; the nature of moderation; the claims of justice; the defInition of nobility; the uses of language and intellect-these are the dominant motifs of Euripides' Alcestis, Hippolytus, Hecuba, Heracies, and Trojan Women. I shall try to show that these traditional subjects acquire a contemporary and political dimension at his hands; that each becomes, with varying degrees of emphasis, the carrier of a democratic ideology. Such a claim is not susceptible of proof, only of repeated and, it is hoped, cumulatively persuasive illustration. It is best tested through the detailed textual interpretation of each individual play-an approach that avoids the danger of discussing single terms in isolation from their contexts and the equal danger of generalizing about the ideology implicit in "Greek tragedy." Within the scope of a single tragedy it is possible to see issues made vivid through ethos and example , subjected to the challenges and debates that are intrinsic to the structure of Greek drama. The rather amorphous notion of "democratic ideology" acquires shape from the thematic material particular to each play, while the text itself acts as a control against unwarranted schematization. It is a common complaint that Euripides resists critical generalizations ; unpredictability, it has been said, is the single constant of his work.46 No one would have the temerity to claim that any selection of Euripides' plays is "representative." Rather, the fIve plays here chosen 12 Euripides and the Instruction of the Athenians for analysis illustrate a spectrum of Euripides' political thought. While each of the tragedies stakes out its own political ground, collectively they will be seen to display an outlook so consistent that it may fairly be taken as Euripides' own. The plays also share a certain consistency of subject matter. Each has a starting point eminently traditional and entirely characteristic of tragedy as a genre: an encounter with Ananke or necessity.47 Necessity might be described as a grim subset of Tyche or Fortune, that wellknown wrecker of mortal plans and expectations.48 Whereas Tyche was merely unpredictable, Ananke was unfavorable almost by defmition . At a minimum it entailed compulsion, at its worst it imposed fearful suffering and loss. Ananke recommends itself to the dramatist, however, as a point of departure-not just for its emotional potential, but because it sets the stage for ethical reconsideration. Whereas human beings at the height of prosperity have no reason to question the standards that have contributed to their success, misfortune brings a new thoughtfulness and often a change of heart-if not for the victims themselves, at least for the spectators of their suffering. For Euripides the most fundamental aspect of Ananke is mortality itself , which forms the subject of the Alcestis. Others are war (Hecuba, Trojan Women) and divine hostility (Hippolytus, Heracles). Euripides takes advantage of the opening provided by Ananke to draw together the ethical and the political and to suggest-always in the indirect and allusive manner of tragedy-a series of lessons to the Athenians. He incorporates into his tragedies a modifIed set of standards for the democratic age. It is this process that forms the subject of this study. NOTES 1. Poetics 1450b7-8. The translation is Halliwell's (1987). This passage raises two related questions: which poets does Aristotle include among the archaioi, and what is implied by the antithesis politikos!rhetorikos? That the "older poets" both here and at 1453b27 must include Euripides, for reasons both chronological and stylistic, was demonstrated by Denniston 1929. It is a mark of the pervasive influence of the nineteenth-century view of Euripides as a case apart from Aeschylus and Sophocles that both Else 1957 and Lucas 1(}68 are inclined to exclude Euripides from the company of the archaioi even though both cite Denniston and acknowledge the force of his arguments (Else 418, n. 29; Lucas ad 1453b1.7). Lucas ad 1450b8 suggests that politikos "implies a less exclusive interest in persuasiveness and point scoring" and singles out Euripides as partic- Introduction 13 ularly "rhetorical"- a characterization that helps explain his inclination to group Euripides among the neoi. Yet Lucas also acknowledges that "there is some overlap between" the two categories of "political" and "rhetorical." That is, he seems to recognize that for the archaioi political content was inseparable from its rhetorical expression-as is in fact the case for all three tragedians. For the connection between the element of "thought" and rhetorical argument see Halliwell 1986, 154-55, and 1987, 96. 2. For discussion and additional Aristotelian references see Else 1957, 265-66, and Macleod 1982, 132. 3. Frogs 1054-55. This translation follows Stanford 1958 in taking hostis as eqUivalent to hos and didaskalos as its antecedent. 4. The point emerges even more clearly at 1026, where Aristophanes juxtaposes both senses of didaskein in one line. 5. Woodbury 1986, 248-49. He notes that Aristophanes is the fIrst specifIcally to link poetry with the term didaskein, and discusses changes in the concept of "teaching" and "teachers," linked to the activity of the sophists, that may have contributed to this development. For the didactic role assigned to Homer by later tradition and some overtly didactic elements discoverable in the Homeric texts, see Verdenius 1970. For a thoughtful general discussion of poetry and teaching in the Greek tradition see Blundell 19t\9, 12-1". 6. "Didactic theory" is adopted as a pejorative label by Heath 1987; invoking Aristotle, Heath defInes the primary aim of drama as the production of emotive enjoyment (9-10 and passim). Heath's work is an important corrective to the tendency (which I cannot claim to have escaped) to assess the plays as if they were intellectual treatises while scanting their emotional, visual, and auditory effect. But Heath seems to stretch the evidence when, in establishing a literary genealogy for his "hedonistic poetics," he suggests that Hesiod's Muses link the pleasurable closely with the fIctional (5-6). In order to attack the "didactic theory," he must insist on an increasingly strained differentiation between the hypothetically noneducational intentions of the dramatists and the indubitably educational effects of their plays (44-47, 72-78). Heath's own summary of the theory he seeks to demolish 69-44) shows how widely it was accepted in antiquity. Finally, Aristotle's Poetics can be interpreted to take into account the moral or didactic element (d. Halliwell 1986). Heath does not convince me that the playwrights did not aim at instruction at once through intellectual and emotional means. 7. For the quotation and analogy see de Ste Croix 1972,3,,7. Cf. also Forrest 1985, 231. 8. For Aristophanes' view of tragedy, ingeniously inferred from his comments on comedy, see Taplin 1983. 9. The rapidity of these developments and the stabilizing influence of tragedy is stressed by Meier 1988, 31 ff. 10. For a full account of the circumstances of production see PickardCambridge 1968, 79-99. The connection between tragedy and the democratic context is stressed by RosIer 1980, 8 ff.; d. also Longo 1990. 11. The three liturgies are listed together by [Xen.] Ath. Pol. 1.13. Euripides and the Instruction of the Athenians u. For an account of these festivals see Cartledge lC}85; also Burkert lC}85, 225-46. With the exception of the "festivals of inversion" (Burkert, 231; he includes the women's festivals of Skira, Arrephoria, and Thesmophoria, and the slaves' festival of Kronia) they involved the entire population. 13. The question of the makeup of the audience is controversial: some scholars (e.g., Wilson 1982, 158-59) still deny that women and slaves attended the theater. There is, however, no statement in the ancient sources that women and slaves were not included in the audience, and there is at least one unambiguous statement that they were (Gorgias 502d6, where Plato says that the theater is "a tJ'pe of rhetoric directed to the demos, which consists at once of children and women and men, and slaves and free"). The evidence is collected and discussed by Pickard-Cambridge 1968, 263-66. Whether there was anything like proportional representation of each sector of the population is, of course, a matter of sheer guesswork. RosIer 1980 contends that the majority of the audience consisted of (male) urban, middle-class citizens; Meier 1988, 8 ff., stresses tragedy's special relevance to the (male) citizen body. Winkler 1985 posits the ephebes as both chorus and target audience, although to make his argument he must blur drama's earliest manifestations with its developed fifth-century form. 14. For the contrast between the audiences of oratory and tragedy see Ober and Strauss 19')0, 238-39. 15. For Athenian liberalism see Thuc. 2.37.2, 2.39.1-2. For the conduct of the audience see Pickard-Cambridge 1968, 272-73. For the admonitions delivered by the dramatists cf. Frogs 1009-10. 16. The term is used by Goldhill1987, among others. Goldhill does not provide a defInition of "ideology," but seems to use it in the same sense of"unofficial belief system" as does Ober (1989,38-40), who offers several working definitions , and Henderson (1990, 277-78). 17. For the context of the festival see Pickard-Cambridge 58-59; also Goldhill 1987, 60-61. 18. GoldhilllC}87 sees the preliminary rituals (including, in addition to the display of tribute and the parade of orphans, the libations to Dionysus poured by the ten generals and the crowning of benefactors of the polis) as involving purely "a projection of power" (61), with a contrasting questioning and "transgressive " element (68-6g) provided by the plays. Meier's analysis (1g88, 68-70) is in my view more exact: he draws attention to the emphasis on sacrifIce as well as on power implicit in the opening ceremonies. 19. Cf. the comments of Meier 1988, 242, on the shallowness of the search for topical references characteristic of many "political" interpretations of tragedy, and the rather too broad and deep generalities of the school of Vernant . Meier's own thesis that tragedy operates at the level of "nomological knowing" (set forth briefly in 1983, 154 ff., and developed in 1988, 43 ff.) is compelling , although his own analyses of the individual tragedies of Aeschylus and Sophocles remain rather general. He does not discuss Euripides. 20. Cf. Taplin 1986, 167: "I would strongly maintain that Greek tragedy is through and through political, in the sense that it is much concerned with the Introduction 15 life of men and women within society, the polis, but that this particular concern does not necessarily involve any direct reference to the immediate politicking of the Athenian audience at anyone particular time." The latter hypothesis was painstakingly and ingeniously applied to the plays of Euripides by Delebecque 1951 and Goossens 1(}62. In a more subtle but, in my view, equally untenable modifIcation of this position, di Benedetto 1971 posits an emotional development in Euripides directly related to the progress of the Peloponnesian War. 21. These and other structural contrasts between tragedy and comedy are discussed by Taplin 1977, 130-34, and 1'}86. 22. Aeschylus' Persians is of course the exception. It is the only surviving example of historical tragedy-an experiment evidently soon abandoned as too harrowing for the audience. That, at least, is the reason suggested by Herodotus ' account (6.21.2) of the production of Phrynichus' Capture ofMiletus, which led to the banning of the play and the fIning of its author. 23. Zuntz 1955, 5. His study of Suppliants and Children ofHeracles remains exemplary . 24. This paragraph summarizes the suggestive and influential position set forth by Vernant 1970,283, and Vernant and Vidal-Naquet 19~h, 4-5 and 9-10. 25. It will be apparent that this summary is based on Adkins 1(}60, 5-7, and passim; also 1972, 10-21, and passim. (Adkins' account in tum builds on the work of E. R. Dodds, as noted by Garner 1987, 11). Adkins' study of the interplay between"competitive" and"cooperative" standards as reflected in literature from Homer to Aristotle has been criticized on the grounds that he ignores the overlap between the two systems (Long 1970, 123-25) and discusses isolated terms without sufficient reference to their contexts (Dover 1983, 38-40). Nevertheless Adkins' criteria, under one guise or another, underlie most of the discussions of Greek ethical thought that have appeared over the last twenty-fIve years-including the anthropological approach of Vernant and Vidal-Naquet, which has so largely eclipsed Adkins' lexical analysis (d. Vernant 197°,283, on the "confrontation of two systems of value"), and the sociological methodology of Ober (d. Ober/Strauss 1990, 243, on "the conflict between the values of competition and consensus"). Adkins' contribution to the continuing discussion of Greek values deserves to be recognized; his categories remain useful, Ibelieve, as a basis for analysis so long as they are deployed with caution. 26. For the different morality of the two Homeric poems see Reinhardt 1960, 14-15. For adaptations of Homer in lyric poetry see Murray 1980, 126-31. 27. For the Greeks' awareness of this process of linguistic transvaluation d. Thuc. 3.82.4-83.6; also Eur. Hec. 608 and Plat. Rep. 56oe. 28. For Cleisthenes see Meier 1983, 91-143. For a discussion of Athenian social organization see Vickers 1973, 106-9, and Fisher 1976, 5-30. 29. For the institution see Arist. Ath. Pol. 22. 30. Cf. [Xen.] Ath. Pol. 1.2. Having stated that it is the men who serve in the navy who give strength to the polis, the author goes on to note that the demos sensibly does not attempt to gain control of the highest military offIces 16 Euripides and the Instruction of the Athenians (1.3). Since the generalships and cavalry commands were decided by election, not lot, and since literary and epigraphic evidence from the fIfth and fourth centuries confIrms that these offices were dominated by members of aristocratic families (d. Davies 1981, 122-24), critics both ancient and modem have questioned whether the real power did in fact lie with the people (for discussion see Ober 1989, 20-21). It remains, however, undeniable that the demos enjoyed far more authority under Athenian democracy than under any other ancient political system. Sinclair 1988, 221, reasonably concludes that the system worked because of its "balance and perspective.... Athenians . . . seem to have been content with the possession of power and with the exercise of it in ways that enabled them to employ the talents of ambitious individuals while keeping their leaders under close scrutiny.... " Ober's study (focusing, however, on the fourth century) shows how the public discourse of the orators helped maintain this balance. 31. The urgency of the Athenians' need for tragedy is emphasized, even overstated, by Meier 1988, 7 ff. 32. For an excellent critique of this tendency see Kovacs 1987, 9 ff. Kovacs insists on the importance of reading Euripides "straight" and relating his concerns to the rest of the tragic tradition. Although I do not share his view of Euripides as an artist who is nowhere ironical and everywhere conservative, and I differ also (as detailed in the notes to Chapters 2 and 3) on individual points of interpretation, I concur with his general approach. 33. Reinhardt 1957 has been influential in shaping the received view of the alienated Euripides. Cf. de Romilly 1986, 5-17 and 221-26, for a lucid discussion of Euripides' "modernity" from the perspective of his own time and ours. 34. For the influence of comedy and Euripidean tragedy on the biographical tradition see Lefkowitz 1979. 35. See Behler1986 for an account of the origins of this evaluation in the writings of the brothers Schlegel, and Henrichs 1986 for the contribution of Nietzsche. Michelini 1987 gives a perceptive account of trends in Euripidean scholarship in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, while herself succumbing to the temptation to set up Sophocles as the norm against which Euripides reacted (54-55 and passim). But Euripides can scarcely be convicted of violating the norms of a tradition that was still in the making at the time he was producing his plays. He himself did much to form it, and in fact exerted a more decisive influence on the subsequent history of the genre than did either Aeschylus or Sophocles. 36. For Aeschylus d. Aristoph. Ach. 10-12, where Dicaeopolis describes his emotion upon seeing a play of Aeschylus and the scholiast confIrms that there were revivals of Aeschylean tragedy; also Frogs 868-69, where Aeschylus remarks that his own poetry has not died with him, whereas Euripides' has. 37. The canonical grouping is noted by Halliwell 1987, 4, n. 3., citing Frogs 785-94. Aristotle too tends to link the three tragedians, especially Sophocles and Euripides: d. Poetics 1453b28-31, 1454b31-36, 1455a18, 1456a25-32. (This is not to deny that Aristotle prefers Sophocles to Euripides, only to point out that he tends to discuss them as a pair. For the vexed question of the identity of Introduction 17 hoi archaioi in the Poetics, see n. 1 above.) Halliwell 1986, 10, concludes that Aristotle manifests "a relative lack of interest in Aeschylus' work ... [and] a positive admiration for the work of both the other major fIfth-century tragedians (more qualified, but still strong, in the case of Euripides).... " 38. For discussion of political elements in Aeschylus and Sophocles respectively , see Macleod 1982 and Knox 1983. 39. The absence of such a synthesis is noted by A. H. M. Jones 1957,42, who proceeds to reconstruct one on the basis of the hostile assessments of democracy that do survive. Farrar 1988 attempts an account of early democratic thinking based on Thucydides and the fragments of Anaxagoras and Democritus. 40. Thuc. 2.35-46. For a schematic representation of democratic topoi see Loraux 1986, 181. 41. For a catalog of such passages see Butts 1947, 171-75. On Suppliants see Zuntz 1955, Collard 1975A, and Burian 1985; for Children of Heracles, see Zuntz 1955 and Burian 1977. 42. On Ion the best studies are those of Walsh 1978 and Loraux 1981B. Euben 1985 focuses on the theme of political corruption in Orestes, and Kovacs 1987 discusses "dynasts and democrats" in Hecuba. De Ste Croix 1972, 356 n. 1, makes a typical selection of "political" passages in Euripides. In addition to the plays mentioned above he lists the praise of equality in Phoenician Women, the discussion of wealth as a criterion of worth in Electra, and the anti-Spartan sentiments of Andromache. 43. De Ste Croix 1972, 16-17, discusses the different ethical standards implicit in Thucydides' account of internal and external affairs. 44. At Ach. 642. As Norwood 1930 demonstrates, it is rash to conclude from the slight and scattered ancient evidence that the Babylonians portrayed the allies as branded slaves. That the comedy was sharply critical of Athenian treatment of the allies is, however, implicit in Ach. 500-503. 45. Cf. the classic discussion by Knox 1957, 53-77. 46. Whitman 1974, v. 47. For chance and necessity as themes of Greek tragedy, see Arrowsmith 1959, 54, and Conacher 1967, 3-4· 48. See Nussbaum 1986 for a far-ranging study of tyche in the moral thought of Plato, Aristotle, and the tragedians. ...