Alan H. Sommerstein

Oath and state in Ancient Greece

The oath was an institution of fundamental importance across a wide range of social interactions throughout the ancient Greek world, making a crucial contribution to social stability and harmony; yet there has been no comprehensive, dedicated scholarly study of the subject for over a century. This volume of a two-volume study explores how oaths functioned in the working of the Greek city-state (polis) and in relations between different states as well as between Greeks and non-Greeks.

HARASSING THE SATIRIST: THE ALLEGED ATTEMPTS TO PROSECUTE ARISTOPHANES

This book contains a diverse collection of essays on the notion of “Free Speech” in classical antiquity. The essays examine such concepts as “freedom of speech,” “self-expression,” and “censorship,” in ancient Greek and Roman culture from historical, philosophical, and literary perspectives.

Old Comedians on Old Comedy

Of the various Greek dramatic genres, Old Comedy was the only one which was able explicitly to incorporate within its scripts discussion of itself as an artform. Tragedy, and so far as we can see satyr-play also, rigidly maintained the convention that the characters must speak and act only within the fictive situation; and in the fictive situation, belonging as it normally did to the remote heroic age, there was no such thing as drama on which to comment. Comedy too, by the time of Menander, had developed a parallel convention, with certain welldefined exceptions (such as the divine prologue and the concluding appeal for applause); here, to be sure, the characters are normally contemporary Athenians, and drama is therefore very much part of their lives, but specific reference to dramatic texts and performances in Menander seems always to relate to tragedy1. The convention seems to have developed gradually in the course of the fourth century BC: about the middle of that century Antiphanes could still complain of the difficulties comic dramatists face in making their plots and situations clear to the audience2 and Alexis could savage his older rival, Aristophanes’ son Araros, in a blistering oneliner3; one would dearly love, too, to know more about Timokles’ comedy Dionysiazousai (“Women celebrating the Dionysia“), of which Athenaios has preserved a substantial fragment4 explaining the beneficial effects of tragedy on the spectator (it reassures him that there is always someone worse off than he is!) but not, alas, the passage that must surely have followed it dealing with comedy5.

The Beginning and the End of Aeschylus’ Danaid Trilogy

Once upon a time, not very long ago, many of us thought we knew, in general terms, the structure and content of the trilogy by Aeschylus of which The Suppliants is the only part that survives. The production had consisted of The Suppliants, The Egyptians and The Danaids, with the satyr-play Amymone. The surviving play portrayed the arrival at Argos of Danaos and his daughters, in flight from Egypt and the threat of a forced marriage with their cousins, the sons of Aigyptos; the acceptance of their supplication by the Argive king and people; the arrival in pursuit of the sons of Aigyptos, with an army; the attempt by the herald of this army to seize the Danaids, his confrontation with the Argive king, and his declaration of war; and ended with the Danaids and their father leaving for the city with an armed escort. It was known, from many other accounts of the legend, that in the end the Danaids were after all compelled to marry the sons of Aigyptos, and that on the wedding-night all but one of the bridegrooms were murdered by their brides.

The history of the text of Aristophanes

An interval of twenty-four centuries separates the scripts that Aristophanes wrote for the first performances of his comedies from the texts of those comedies as they appear. This chapter attempts to trace the chain of transmission that leads from the former to the latter. The script of a dramatic performance is inherently unstable. Any text may be altered after its completion as a result of second thoughts by the author; but in a play text, the director, the performers, and the audience(s) have also to be considered. During the eighth century, when learning in the Byzantine Empire was at a low ebb, the preservation of classical poetry can have been assured only by the dull, unthinking conservatism of the schools. The first printed edition of Aristophanes was published by Aldus Manutius at Venice in 1498.Keywords: Aldus Manutius; Aristophanes; Byzantine Empire

Combat Trauma in Athenian Comedy: The Dog That Didn’t Bark

This chapter differs from most of the other contributions to this volume1 in that it deals not with the ways in which the effects of combat trauma are described in ancient Greek literature, but with a branch of ancient Greek literature that seems to go out of its way to avoid describing them. Not only that, but it also, in very large measure, avoids reference to the types of situation likely to cause combat trauma, and to the types of person likely to experience it—and this although in one way or another it very frequently concerns itself with the subject of war and soldiering. The relevance of such avoidance to the theme of the book does not, I hope, require to be argued for: silence, or suppression, can be very eloquent.

Index of Names and Topics

a fortiori argument from behavior of a heroine, 266, 267 from behavior of an exemplary hero, 303 from divine behavior, 172, 214 Achaeus, Peirithous, 298 Achilles, 32, 36, 76, 113, 139, 264, 281 in Hec., 33, 72, 144, 202, 230, 266 in IA, 43, 135, 141, 238, 239, 240, 250, 251, 285 Admetus, 29, 101, 108, 122, 124, 131, 170, 180, 227, 228, 257, 261, 270, 283, 285, 294, 299, 301 Adrastus, 40, 125 in Su., 34, 51, 80, 81, 82, 96, 186, 187, 217, 295 Aegeus in Bacchylides, 98 inMed., 30, 117, 118, 137, 200, 252, 255, 257, 295 Aegisthus in Aesch. Agam., 115 in Aesch. Choe., 100, 115, 269 in El., 34, 120, 285, 288 Aeolus, in Melanippe the Wise, 295 Aerope, 260 Aeschylus, 11, 18, 26, 27, 50, 53, 87, 89, 103, 115, 131, 134, 142, 207, 209, 239, 249, 253, 308 Aetnaeae, 53 Agamemnon, 65, 66, 67, 100, 101, 103, 107, 115, 196, 199, 236, 240, 260, 272, 292, 300 choral odes, 123, 149, 309 Argo, 53 as character in Arist. Frogs, 23, 24, 207, 304 Choephori, 34, 58, 65, 67, 84, 98, 103, 105, 125, 163, 242, 249, 288 chorus, 115 chorus, 102 contrasted with Euripides, 2, 68, 100, 148, 207 Cressae, 53 Danaides, 182 Eumenides, 59, 66, 84, 96, 142, 182, 183, 216, 242 chorus, 102 gods portrayed on stage, 175 Heracleidae, 112 Oresteia, 45, 60, 66, 67, 84, 85, 142, 188, 205, 238, 239, 310 Persae, 45, 50, 66 Prometheus Bound, see anonymous, Prometheus (Bound) Prometheus Pyrkaeus, 55 Prometheus Unbound, see anonymous, Prometheus Unbound Septem, 50, 100, 197, 296 choral odes, 123 Supplices, 66, 96, 216 Aethra, 34, 80, 81, 96, 217, 250, 255, 256, 295, 301 aetiology, 309 and poetic skill, 22, 183 at end of a tragedy, 158, 187, 193 in choral myth, 122, 124, 165 in prologue, 182 affirmation of values, 20 Agamemnon, 79, 103, 132, 139, 158, 163, 164, 192, 242, 245, 250 in Aesch. Agam., 115, 199, 202, 272, 300 in Hec., 33, 72, 120, 188, 204, 213, 231, 232, 233, 234, 257, 258, 259, 286, 300 in IA, 42, 135, 143, 235, 236, 237, 239, 250, 255, 301 in Iliad, 202, 300 in Soph. Ajax, 150, 300, 305 prayer to his ghost in Or. and Aesch. Choe., 85 Agathon, 49, 88, 127 Agave, 42, 87, 189, 220, 264 age status, 28, 283 agency, 149, 159, 164, 280, 282, 298 agōn (logōn), 76, 80, 117, 150, 162, 209, 213, 218, 221, 222–45, 270, 276, 299, 302, 308 agōn-scene, 78, 191, 299 aidōs, 108, 135, 273 Ajax, 212, 264, 281 in Soph. Ajax, 66, 75, 150, 178, 196, 199, 234, 305 akolouthia, 127 alastōr, 194, 201

Die Komödie und das „Unsagbare“

Thema des vorliegenden Aufsatzes ist die Frage, in welchem Mase, wenn uberhaupt, die Attische Komodie zur Zeit des Aristophanes in Theorie oder Praxis den mannigfaltigen athenischen Gesetzen unterlag, welche die Bestrafung bestimmter Auserungen in der Offentlichkeit anordneten. Diese Frage ist zuletzt in zwei wichtigen Aufsatzen von Stephen Halliwell (1991) und Jeffrey Henderson (1998) mit entgegengesetzten Ergebnissen behandelt worden. Halliwell erkennt zwar an, das die Komodie nicht explizit von rechtlicher Verfolgung ausgenommen war, kommt aber zu folgendem Ergebnis: „there simply was no essential expectation that [it] would or could be covered by this area of law … its culturally determined Position placed its festival Performances outside the framework in which defamatory … utterances could readily be preceived as actionable.“1 Henderson argumentiert dagegen, das der Spott auf Individuen in der Komodie dem in Reden sowohl hinsichtlich der wurden, als auch hinsichtlich derer, die vermieden wurden, gleiche. Seiner Argumentation zufolge last sich nicht belegen, das offentliche Verspottung im Kontext des Festes eher toleriert wurde oder weniger Arger bei seinen Opfern hervorrief als ahnliche Verspottung in einem anderen offentlichen Kontext. Beide jedoch stutzen sich auf allgemeine Argumente und gehen vom Wesen des Dionysos-Festes oder der Athenischen Demokratie aus. Im folgenden mochte ich eine andere Perspektive entwickeln, indem ich mich vor allem auf zwei Gruppen von Quellen stutze. Themen, die bevorzugt gewahlt wurden, als auch hinsichtlich derer, die vermieden wurden, gleiche. Seiner Argumentation zufolge last sich nicht belegen, das offentliche Verspottung im Kontext des Festes eher toleriert wurde oder weniger Arger bei seinen Opfern hervorrief als ahnliche Verspottung in einem anderen offentlichen Kontext. Beide jedoch stutzen sich auf allgemeine Argumente und gehen vom Wesen des Dionysos-Festes oder der Athenischen Demokratie aus.