Download POLITICS AND EURIPIDES by SUSAN C. LAFONT, BA A THESIS IN

POLITICS AND EURIPIDES
by
SUSAN C. LAFONT, B.A.
A THESIS
IN
HISTORY
Submitted to the Graduate Faculty
of Texas Tech University in
Partial Fulfillment of
the Requirements for
the Degree of
MASTER OF ARTS
Approved
Accepted
December, 1987
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I was first introduced to the plays of Euripides in a
course taught by William Arrowsmith at the University of
Texas during the academic year 1963-64.
Since then I have
read and reread discussions of those plays by Gilbert
Murray, David Grene, Richard Lattimore, Rex Warner, Philip
Vellacott, Arrowsmith himself, and others.
My own
interpretations derive in considerable part from theirs,
but in a general way that often precludes direct citation.
I am indebted to Professors James E. Brink and Peder
G. Christiansen for criticism and suggestions that improved
this study.
I am particularly grateful to Professor Briggs
L. Twyman for persevering in the direction of this thesis
even after our marriage.
I must thank my friend Jane Bell
Beard for long hours of help with problems of style.
Any
faults that remain herein are, of course, my responsibility
alone.
11
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ii
TRANSLATIONS
iv
CHAPTER
I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
INTRODUCTION: THE POET AND HIS TIMES
1
ALCESTIS AND MEDEA
20
THE ARCHIDAMIAN WAR
43
THE PEACE OF NICIAS AND THE IONIAN WAR
67
CONCLUSION: EURIPIDES POLITIKOS
85
ENDNOTES
88
BIBLIOGRAPHY
95
111
TRANSLATIONS
EURIPIDES
All translations are from David Grene and
Richard Lattimore, eds.. The Complete Greek
Tragedies. Vols. 3 and 4, Euripides
(Chicago, 1958) .
Alcestis
Lattimore in Euripides 3: 2-53.
Andromache
John Frederick Nims in Euripides 3: 556-605
Electra
Emily Townsend Vermuele in Euripides 4:
390-454.
Hecuba
William Arrowsmith in Euripides 3: 487-554.
Heracles
Arrowsmith in Euripides 3: 266-337.
Heracleidae
Ralph Gladstone in Euripides 3: 110-155.
Hippolytus
Grene in Euripides 3: 158-221.
Ion
Ronald Frederick Willetts in Euripides 4:
2-79.
Medea
Rex Warner in Euripides 3: 56-108.
Orestes
Arrowsmith in Euripides 4: 186-288.
Phoenissae
Elizabeth Wycoff in Euripides 4: 456-528:
Phoenician Women.
Frank William Jones in Euripides 4:132-184:
Suppliant Women.
Lattimore in Euripides 3: 608-661: Trojan
Women.
Supplices
Troades
IV
OTHER AUTHORS
Plutarch
Ian Scott-Kilvert in Plutarch, Nine Greek
Lives (Baltimore, 1964): Pericles,
Alcibiades.
Thucydides
Richard Crawley in Thucydides, The
Peloponnesian War (New York, 1951).
V
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION: THE POET AND HIS TIMES
The Athenian Euripides wrote tragedies for a
politically astute population of an imperial city.
His
earlier plays do not survive with a possible exception.
Those that do survive date from the decade before the
Peloponnesian War and the course of the war that brought
ruin on Athens and her Empire.
Euripides and other tragic
poets obviously meant to advise their audience on proper
conduct.
Yet the plots of their tragedies always center on
situations that are political or involve politics.
The
question is did such poets, and in particular Euripides,
treat universal situations, or did they mean to portray
contemporary politics under a veil of myth.
Critics and historians alike have long given only
tentative or partial answers, if they have not ignored the
problem altogether.
It warrants full consideration.
If
the tragedies were topical, as it seems possible to show
they were in the case of Euripides, they are of much
greater value as historical evidence than is commonly
thought.
Conversely, recognition of this topicality should
deepen and perfect our understanding of Euripides' work as
drama.
Since Aristotle (Poetics 1.1451b) it has been
supposed that the subject of poetry is properly the
universal, whereas history deals with the particular.
The
plays of Euripides, however, treat concrete problems of
politics. War, and peace; or so I will argue.
The poet
drew upon specific contemporary events, used universal myth
as a vehicle to portray those events, and thereby advised
his audience on a particular situation.
always comes full circle.
Thus the poet
Before we can formulate our
problem fully, we must first consider the life and times of
Euripides.
The poet was born in the center of Attica at Phlya,
2
on the rich land of the central plain in 485 or 480 B.C.
The priesthood of Apollo Zosterios, hereditary in his
family, proves aristocratic birth.
According to Aristotle,
Euripides was challenged to an antidosis which certainly
indicates wealth.
In this peculiar procedure, any wealthy
Athenian assigned to sponsor a liturgy (financially) could
refuse and request another citizen to perform it or request
an exchange of properties.
Both parties gave an accounting
of their properties under oath and a court decided which of
the two citizens would be responsible for the liturgy.
Euripides was apparently never active in politics, although
he did serve on an embassy to Syracuse,
probably a mission
early in the 420s because by the time of the Peace of
Nicias in 421, he was a known critic of war.
Tradition associates him with the intellectual
movement of the sophists.
Diogenes Laertius (9.54) gives
the house of Euripides as the location of Protagoras' first
4
reading of his agnostic work on the gods.
In a broad sense, the sophists descended from the
Ionian thinkers who in the course of the sixth century had
virtually invented formal logic and the rational discussion
of nature and human life.
Many of the sophists or teachers
did not agree on the nature of the cosmos, the definition
of right or wrong, or whether the world of the senses was
reality or illusion; rather they shared the common ground
of consistent questioning in their search for knowledge.
In Athens some of the more prominent sophists such as
Protagoras, Anaxagoras, and Socrates were persecuted for
their work because the conservative majority feared the new
system of inquiry which challenged traditional views.
Protagoras practiced his trade as sophist from
sometime before 444, when he was appointed to draw up an
5
Athenian law code for Thurii.
He is most famous for his
statement: "Man is the measure of all things."
Toward the
gods he adopted an agnostic attitude but seems to have held
conventional moral ideas.
Anaxagoras, long time teacher and confidant of
Pericles, continued the speculation of the Ionian school,
begun by Thales in the early sixth century, on the nature
of the cosmos in which natural law ruled.
His astronomical
views were the principal bases for the charges of impiety
g
that forced him to leave Athens.
Socrates pursued his famous search for a wise man and
questioned various types of people: politicians, philosophers, poets, and craftsmen.
Men in each category knew
something about their individual concerns, but none could
say how to make men better or how to improve their souls.
In the course of his search, Socrates angered many.
In 399
the democracy condemned him to death on charges of
impiety.
Protagoras in his great work on theology asserted:
"In regard to the gods I cannot know that they exist nor
yet that they do not exist, for many things hinder such
knowledge—the obscurity of the matter and the shortness of
human life."
The sale of the book was forbidden in
Athens, and all existing copies were publicly burned.
Accused of impiety, the philosopher left Athens, sailed for
Sicily, and was lost in a storm.
8
In 415, Euripides paid
tribute to Protagoras in his lost play Palamades, the
second play of the trilogy which dealt with the story of
Troy and concluded with The Trojan Women. The chorus of
Thracian women for Palamades wept and cried: "[You] have
slain, [you] Greeks, [you] have slain the nightingale, the
winged one of the Muses, who sought no man's pain."
Nearly all of the plays of Euripides reflect the
sophists' technique of questioning conventional religious,
moral, and political beliefs.
Protagoras's contention,
"that man is the measure of all things," must have strongly
influenced Euripides and freed him to create in his plays a
world which depicts man not as a static being, but ever
changing.
The world reacts to the attitudes and actions of
men and what results is a world constantly in flux,
sometimes good or bad, callous or compassionate, a mixture
of honor and baseness, but never consistent.
The poet first entered the competition at the
Dionysia in 455.
This annual competition was held as a
part of the festival dedicated to Dionysius.
Performances
over a several day period included lyric chorus, comedy,
and tragedy.
Euripides won his first victory in 441.
He
lived in Attica and presented plays in Athens until 408
when he received and accepted an invitation to the court of
Macedonia.10
One can only speculate as to why Euripides
left Athens after a lifetime of residence and involvement
with the polis.
Following the Peace of Nicias, his plays
reflect a growing disillusionment with the war and with
attitudes and conditions resulting from the war.
Perhaps,
like Protagoras and Anaxagoras, he left Athens because he
no longer believed that he had the freedom to voice the
doubts, questions, and cryptic judgments so prevalent in
his plays.
Veiled irony no longer offered sufficient
protection from public criticism.
Whatever the reason,
Euripides went to Macedonia and died there in 406.
These are the bare facts of Euripides' life and
career.
Stories about his marital difficulties, references
to his mother's connection to a greengrocery, reports that
he lived and worked in a cave, an account of his death,
torn to pieces by hounds in Macedonia--all are parts of
unreliable legend.
The ancient "Life" of Euripides and a
biography by Satyrus rely heavily on references from Old
Comedy which are highly suspect. 12
Euripides' lifetime coincides with the rise of
Athens, from the great victory over the Persians at Salamis
and the ensuing organization of the Delian League, on
through the conversion of that League into an empire, and
finally to the verge of defeat at the hands of Sparta.
During his childhood and youth Athens appeared the champion
of Hellenism against Persia abroad, and the advocate of
13
..
freedom and rule by the people at home.
As Euripides
grew toward maturity of body and poetic power, so did the
empire and the democracy.
The great empire builder Cimon
was aristocratic in politics, temperament, and wealth.
He
succeeded the earlier heroes Themistocles, exiled amongst
the Persians he had conquered, and Aristides the Just.
Cimon's victory at the Eurymedon in 469 sealed Athenian
domination of the Aegean, which enabled Athens to increase
pressure for ships and tribute from allies who had believed
they would be free of outside influence once the Mede was
driven back.
The prospect of empire attracted men who envied the
glory of the son of the great Miltiades.
Men such as
Ephialtes and his young protege Pericles were greedy for
power and glory, as they recognized the demos was greedy
for wealth.
It was Pericles who perhaps first found the
name for a constitution granting political power to a
citizenry that lives on the tribute of subjects and finds
thereby the leisure to contemplate new conquests:
democracy.
Although Pericles was sometimes cautious about
conquest, his successors such as Cleon and his nephew
Alcibiades were not.
Pericles dominated the political scene in Athens for
thirty years, but in 429 he died a victim of the plague
that devastated Athens.
Throughout the chaotic period of
the Archidamian War, which ended with the Peace of Nicias
in 421, and almost to the conclusion of the Ionian War,
which ended with the surrender of Athens and the
destruction of the Long Walls in 404, Euripides wrote and
8
presented his plays to Athenian audiences.
After the
destruction of Melos in 416, his inevitable disillusionment
became evident, but the poet persevered in his attempt to
reach the conscience of the people through the subtle
influence of his drama.
Of the eighteen extant plays of Euripides, nineteen
if one includes the disputed Rhesus, eight are dated by
references in the Didascalia and the Scolia.
Another means
of dating is style, principally metrical forms.
In his
last plays Euripides made more use of trochees, resolution
in iambic lines (that is, the substitution of two short
syllables for a long and a short), and the antilabe in
which the line was interrupted by a change of speakers.
Metrical evidence cannot pinpoint a play to an exact date,
but it is valuable in placing a work within a span of years
of a decade or perhaps less.
A third method of dating
relies on events referred to in the play.
Again, the
reference to a specific event does not always date a play
to an exact year, but it is an excellent means of
14
chronological placement.
In the case of the Electra, most scholars would agree
that an apparent reference to the Athenian relief expedition sent to Sicily in spring 413 dates the play to the
months when the outcome was unknown.
Lattimore notes in
his commentary on the chronology of Euripides' plays that
there are less trochees in the Electra than one might
expect for a play as late as 413.
This argues strongly
against excessive reliance on metrical evidence.
Granted,
consideration of style is important, but one must remember
that Euripides, as any other playwright, was free to
experiment with various styles of writing, and therefore,
it is very possible that he would use a style, abandon it
for the next few plays, and then go back to a previous form
for reasons now undiscoverable.
Political topicality in many of Euripides plays may
be at least as good, if not a better, guide to chronology
than metrical considerations.
The reference to events,
issues, and even important people in the plays can provide
a time frame for the work.
For example. Ion obviously
evokes the rebellion of the Ionian allies in 412. One
of
the main themes of The Suppliant Women is Theban denial of
burial to heroes fallen in war against Thebes.
After the
battle of Delium in 424 the Thebans refused to allow the
Athenians to gather their dead for burial.
Momentous events occurred during the years that these
plays were written.
Even brief examination of the
chronology of the plays will give a strong indication of
what kind of spectacle confronted Euripides and served as a
catalyst for his genius. Alcestis, dated to 438 in the
16
Didascalia,
falls in the period just after the Saraian
10
Rebellion and the attack on Aspasia, the mistress of
17
Pericles,
and two of his friends, Phidias the artist and
Anaxagoras the philosopher.
According to the Didascalia,
Medea was presented in 431 the first year of the
Archidamian War before Sparta invaded Attica, and followed
a period in the late 430s when Athens came to the aid of
Corcyra against Corinth and was involved with Corinth over
Potidaea.18
Hippolytus, dated in the Didascalia to 428, won a
first prize for the poet.19 The two years prior to this
presentation saw the outbreak of the plague in Athens and
the death of Pericles.
It was then that Cleon assumed his
role as one of the most prominent players in Athenian
politics .
The ancient manuscripts do not supply dates for the
Heracleidae, Andromache, and Hecuba, but R. Lattimore in
his generally persuasive chronology, based on metrical
evidence and in some cases political references, assigns
dates to these three plays in the period before the Peace
of Nicias in 421.
The Heracleidae in 429 followed a two
year period of war.20
Attica was twice invaded by Sparta.
Captured Thebans were executed by Plataeans, and five
Peloponnesian envoys were executed in Athens. In both cases
the executions took place without a trial.
11
The three years prior to the presentation of
Andromache and Hecuba, dated 426 and 425 respectively by
21
Lattimore,
saw the revolt of Mytilene, the surrender of
Plataea to Sparta, the outbreak of civil war and the
eventual triumph of democracy in Corcyra, the Athenian
capture of the Spartans at Sphacteria, followed by a
Lacedaemonian offer of peace which was refused by Athens.
Lattimore prefers the date 423 for The Suppliant
Women and 420 for Heracles but admits the strong
possibility of a later date by two to three years for both
22
plays.
An examination of war and politics between 424
and 420 offers a veritable feast of possibilities for
topical comment.
In 424 Athens lost the battle of Delium
in Boeotia, and a Spartan force led by Brasidas invaded
Thrace and Chalcidice.
destroyed in 421.
Scione revolted in 423 and was
The Peace of Nicias in that same year
halted hostilities between Sparta and Athens, but the peace
was short lived.
Sparta's allies, Corinth, Megara, and
Boeotia would not agree to its terms.
Shortly after the
Peace of Nicias, Argos formed an alliance with Athens but
two years later, after the battle of Mantinea in 418,
changed sides and entered into an alliance with Sparta.
Alcibiades took the stage in Athenian politics with his
election as strategos in 420.
12
The Trojan Women, presented in 415, followed the
destruction of Melos in 416 and preceded the first Sicilian
expedition which set sail in the summer of the next year. 2 3
No recorded date can be found for Electra, but Lattimore
and many other authorities agree on a reference to the
ill-fated Athenian relief expedition sent to Sicily in
early spring of 413: 24
We two must rush to Sicilian seas.
Rescue the salt smashed prows of the
fleet. (^. 1347-48)
Athens suffered the revolt of many of her allies in
412.
The next year, 411, the oligarchic revolution
temporarily replaced the Athenian democracy with the rule
of the Four Hundred from June to September.
was restored in 410.
The democracy
Lattimore's chronology places Ion
between 413 and 410 and The Phoenician Women in the latter
year or the next.25 Euripides' last two years in Athens
saw the Athenians slowly regain strength.
After Alcibiades
took command the Athenian fleet reduced many of the Ionian
allies to renewed obedience.
Orestes, dated to 408 by the
Scholia, was the last play Euripides wrote for presentation
.4-u
26
in Athens.
On the basis of style and structure Lattimore dates
Iphigenia in Tauris to 414.
The Scholia to Aristophanes'
Frogs and Thesmophor iazusae place the presentation of Helen
in 412 two years later.27
In these two plays Euripides
13
produced something like romantic fantasies, as if to offer
the audience an escape from reality.
Both plays condemn
war and make an appeal for peace, but since each play
offers a story completely contrary to the accepted version
of the myth, it would be difficult to analyze either for
topicality.
Euripides knew his audience would recognize he
was not talking about reality.
The war continued until 404 when Athens surrendered
and the Long Walls were torn down.
Euripides' last two
plays, Iphigenia in Aulis and The Bacchae probably date
28
from 407. Both were presented posthumously.
These two
works from the years after Euripides left Athens can hardly
be tested for topicality, since we do not know if they were
written for presentation to an Athenian audience.
How
things looked from Pella is a different matter.
It is generally recognized that the content of
Euripides' plays is in large part a commentary on war,
politics, suffering, treachery, and the loss of moral
values.
G. Luntz examines two of a supposed three
political plays of Euripides, in the belief the rest are
not.
Lattimore recognizes topicality to some extent.
He
uses politics or events of the war to reinforce metrical
evidence to date some of the plays.
P. Vellacott finds
even stronger evidence of topicality in a number of the
tragedies.
H. Konishi recognizes political topicality in
14
Medea.
D. Konstan analyzes Electra for examples of
philia in the sense of political alliance, rather than the
literal "friendship." 32
W. R. Connor uses at least seven
of Euripides' tragedies in his study of political life in
fifth-century Athens.
In Connor's view Medea, Heracles,
and The Suppliant Women offer evidence for the use of
philia (alliance) in contemporary politics.
Hecuba
comments on unprincipled politicians such as Cleon.
Ion,
Hippolytus, and Orestes reflect on young men involved in
politics.
Yet, surprisingly, Connor asserts that it was
"not Euripides' intent to depict, through his plays, the
political situation of contemporary Athens."33 J. H.
Finley examines the work of Thucydides to determine if the
historian truly represented the period he described.
Exiled from Athens in 424, Thucydides did not compose his
work until later in the century around 404.
Finley
compares the work of Euripides with Thucydides and finds
evidence of similar ideas, viewpoints, and styles of
rhetoric.
Accordingly, he concludes that Thucydides did
accurately represent the period. 34 Finley's use of
Euripides is in itself an indirect argument for topicality
in the poet's work.
These seven scholars approach but do not overtly
propound political topicality.
I would suggest that it is
possible, indeed necessary, to go farther.
This thesis
15
will test the hypothesis that the plays are much more
specifically political.
Out of the fifteen extant
tragedies presented in Athens between 438 and 408 at least
thirteen appear demonstrably to be direct comments on
recent events.
Euripides plays, I suggest, were written with
specific events and people in mind.
the genre to veil topicality in myth.
It was the nature of
For an Athenian
audience the veil could easily be pierced by recognition.
From a distance of twenty-five hundred years it is not
always so easy for the modern reader to recognize
topicality, but in order to understand the plays fully a
reader must try.
The Trojan Women is a moving play about
the tragedy of war and reversal of fortune, but if one is
aware of the destruction of Melos by Athens and the part
played by Alcibiades, then this play takes on an added
dimension.
arrogance,
Menelaus represents Alcibiades in all his
and the Achaean Greeks who destroyed ancient
Troy parallel the Athenians who conquered, then executed or
enslaved the population of Melos.
Aristophanes testifies to the role of a tragic poet.
og
In The Frogs
Dionysius mourns the death of Euripides and
descends into Hades to bring back the poet.
When the god
arrives a contest ensues between Euripides and Aeschylus,
and Dionysius announces that he will take the winner back
16
to Athens.
As a test he requests specific advice on a
politician who had brought much grief to Athens.
Now both approach, and I'll explain—I
came
Down here to fetch a poet: "Why a
poet?"
That his advice may guide the city true
And so keep up my worshipl
Consequently, I'll take whichever seems
the best adviser.
Advise me first of Alcibiades,
Whose birth gives travail to mother
Athens. (Frogs 1423-1428)
Euripides' answer is specific, direct, certainly topical.
Athens must not trust Alcibiades.
Out on the [citizen], who to serve his
state
Is slow, but swift to do her deadly
hate.
With much wit for himself, and none for
her. (Frogs 1433-1435)
Perhaps Aristophanes was chiding the tragic poets for lack
of directness in their use of topicality, but he was not
rebuking them for lack of topicality in general.
It should be difficult to deny that the contemporary
Athenian audience would make the political associations
necessary to recognize topical statements, although a
number of critics in effect do just that.
Examination of
duties and responsibilities of fifth century citizenship
suggests that Euripides, along with his contemporaries, was
not a man removed from the realities of political life.
As
an Athenian citizen he was subject to military service from
the age of twenty to sixty.
No more than fifty-four in 431
17
the poet was still liable for defense of the frontiers or
even for military expeditions.
Citizenship required
service in the jury courts, the assembly, and the
37
council.
Neither the poet nor his audience were
uninformed on the events leading to the outbreak of the
war; nor of various political intrigues, such as those that
culminated in the prosecution of Anaxagoras, Phidias, and
Aspasia.
The debate and decision of the Assembly to aid
Corcyra in her war with Corinth, though influenced by
Pericles, were public knowledge.
In all probability the
astute Athenian audience of Medea, as well as audiences of
the other plays of Euripides, easily understood the
references to political events.
Politics provided
stimulation in their daily round.
Topicality is often found in flashes and is rarely
consistent throughout a play.
Date, plot, character, or
specific dialogue, even the tone in which a speech is cast
may supply the clue to a reference to a current event or
person of prominence.
For example, in The Trojan Women
Menelaus makes a grand entrance, preening and posturing in
his fine clothes.
Not to think of Alcibiades, the author
of the destruction of Melos, in relation to this character
38
would have been impossible for an audience in 415.
(This
is not to say that Menelaus will represent Alcibiades in
18
any of the other plays or even in different scenes in the
same play.)
Again in the Alcestis the King weeps and pleads for
the life of his wife who is to die for him.
The play was
presented in 438, the same year that Pericles openly wept
and pleaded for his mistress Aspasia at her trial on
charges of impiety and procuring free born Athenian women
for Pericles.
Or again, the outbreak of the war and also the
presentation of Medea mark the year 431.
The play takes
place in Corinth, the city that had been instrumental in
moving Athens and Sparta towards war.
The plot of a
mother's destruction of her children parallels Corinth's
attempt to destroy her colony Corcyra.
Euripides' plays reflect the chaos, confusion, and
flux of the latter half of the fifth century.
He examines
how politics and the war have caused a change in the old
ideas of piety, patriotism, loyalty, honor, kinship, and
heroism.
For Euripides the Athenian experience of empire
and war had made the old conceptions sometimes irrelevant
and at any rate often inapplicable.
For example, the role
of the hero in his plays no longer follows the traditional
pattern maintained by other Greek dramatists.
His heroes
are components of one whole individual split into two
contrasting halves: Jason and Medea, Hippolytus and
19
Phaedra, Admetus and Alcestis, Hermione and Andromache.
Jason represents practical objectivity and Medea passionate
commitment.
Neither is complete without the other.
Just
as the integrated individual requires a balance, so,
Euripides implies, do the polis and Greek civilization if
they are to survive.
Thus Euripides emerges as a patriot,
a conscience for Athens, and a pragmatic interpreter of his
39
time."^^
Since our interest is political topicality the events
of Euripides' time lead to natural groupings.
The Alcestis
and Medea reflect politics before the outbreak of the
Peloponnesian War.
The plays from The Heracleidae through
The Suppliant Women fall during the years of the
Archidamian War.
The Heracles probably belongs with The
Trojan Women and Electra to the years of quasi-truce with
Sparta; Ion and the remainder of the plays first produced
at Athens to the Ionian War.
In each case, the plays
appear to comment on contemporary events or current
concerns of the citizenry provoked by those events.
The
plots themselves, the choice of characters, actual
allusions in the dialogue, or combinations thereof provide
the evidence.
CHAPTER II
ALCESTIS AND MEDEA
The politically motivated attack on Pericles'
mistress Aspasia evidently suggested the story of Alcestis
to Euripides.
Pericles' policy towards Corcyra and Corinth
probably inspired the Medea, while Euripides also noticed
the similarity in the situations of the foreign witch and
the foreign courtesan.
The topicality of both plays is
clear.
The Alcestis, presented in 438, the earliest extant
play of Euripides, in several instances appears to refer to
the indirect attack on Pericles through the indictment and
trial of his mistress Aspasia in that same year.
Not a
satyr play, though performed fourth in the set, it is
40
commonly classified as a tragicomedy.
That this play was
fourth in the set could suggest that it was hastily written
or rewritten to fit into the position, thus to be ready for
presentation in the same year in which Aspasia was tried.
It would have been difficult to rework the trilogy for that
year's presentation, but the fourth position of satyr play
or tragicomedy written with an "all's well that ends well"
tone would serve as a convenient vehicle for pointed
topicality on short notice.
20
21
Two years before the presentation of Alcestis Samos
and Miletus came to conflict over the town of Priene.
Miletus appealed to Athens for assistance, and Athens went
41
to war with Samos.
The final siege and reduction of
Samos required nine months and ended in spring or summer of
42
439.
The victory over Samos strengthened the prestige of
Pericles and the Athenian Empire, but the siege was long
and the enemies of Pericles in Athens used pockets of
public disgruntlement, which accompany any war, to
indirectly attack Pericles.
The sculptor Phidias and the
philosopher Anaxagoras were close associates of Pericles,
and both men came under attack. 43
Another natural target was Aspasia, a native of
Miletus, the mistress of Pericles, who lived with him from
not long after 445, when he had divorced his wife.
Rumor
had spread after the Samian War that Pericles entered the
44
war in defense of Miletus "for the sake of Aspasia."
Furthermore, Aspasia was a remarkable, independent woman,
whose actions were uncharacteristic for her time.
Plutarch
describes Pericles' attachment to her as a combination of
45
passion and admiration for her rare political insight.
The enigma of this extraordinary woman is apparent even
from the little we read in Plutarch, virtually our only
source.
Her profession was "the keeping of a house of
young courtesans," but her intellect inspired Socrates and
22
many of his disciples to converse with her on a variety of
topics on many occasions.
Some of the followers of
Socrates brought their wives to these discussion sessions,
46
a strong indication of Aspasia's standing in this circle.
In 438 Aspasia was tried on the double charge of
"impiety and procuring free born Athenian women for
Pericles." 47
This was an indirect attack on Pericles and
fell close in time to the attack on Phidias and
Anaxagoras. 48
Plutarch wrote that Pericles saved Aspasia
by making a passionate appeal at her trial and literally
49
breaking into tears before the jury.
In the same year that Aspasia was indicted,
Euripides' Alcestis was presented.
version of a well-known legend.
Euripides used one
Admetus, King of Phera in
Thessaly, does not have to die as a young man if he can
find someone to take his place.
Neither of his parents
will die for him, but his young wife, Alcestis, offers her
life for his.
He accepts, and early in the play when she
is dying, Admetus openly grieves over his loss:
The sun sees you and me, two people
suffering.
Who never hurt the gods so they should
make you die. (246-247)
I implore the gods to pity you
They have the power. (250-251)
There would be nothing left for me if
you died.
23
All rests in you, our life, our not
having life. Your love is our worship.
(276-279)
Such lines would naturally have evoked the image of
Pericles shedding tears for Aspasia.
After Alcestis'
death, the Choragus charges Admetus to endure the calamity,
offering the proverbial wisdom that men have lost wives
before and he will not be the last, since all are doomed to
die.
Admetus replies in this curious way:
I understand it. And this evil which
has struck
was no surprise. I knew about it long
ago,
and knowledge was hard. (420-422)
The reply of Admetus strikes a cryptic note until one
reflects that surely Pericles anticipated a political
attack on himself through Aspasia.
Pericles was renowned for his constancy and
foresight.
He knew what was best for Athens.
Thucydides
argues that "Pericles . . . was enabled to lead them (the
people) instead of being led by them."
his honesty and judgment (2.65.8).
The people trusted
The historian concludes
his obituary of Pericles: "So superfluously abundant were
the resources from which the genius of Pericles foresaw an
easy triumph in the war over the unaided forces of the
Peloponnesians" (2.65.13, emphasis added).
Plutarch
describes "the admiration and good-will the people felt
24
towards Pericles, since he now seemed to them a man of
foresight as well as a patriot."^^
When the body of Alcestis has been carried to the
palace followed by Admetus, the chorus sings, praising her:
Much shall be sung of you
by the men of music to the seven strung
mountain
lyre-shell, and in poems that have no
music,
in Sparta when the season turns and the
month Carneian
comes back, and the moon rides all the
night;
in Athens also, the shining and rich
Such is the theme of song you left
in death, for the poets. (445-454)
The language is certainly evocative of Pericles' funeral
oration after the first year of the war: " But rather daily
behold the power of the city; and when her great glory has
inspired you, then reflect . . . ."
Very likely Pericles
used much the same sort of rhetoric earlier in his career,
for example, in his justification of the grand and costly,
building project for the Acropolis.
In this play Euripides used not only Admetus, but
also Apollo, the very symbol of foresight, and Heracles as
champions of a noble woman undeserving of an early death.
Apollo's opening plea and argument with death over the life
of Alcestis offers another parallel to Pericles' plea for
Aspasia.
Closing the dialogue with death Apollo warns:
25
For all your brute ferocity you shall
be stopped.
The man to do it is on the way to
Phere's house
now, on an errand from Eurystheus, sent
to steal
a team of horses from the wintry land
of Thrace.
He shall be entertained here in
Admetus' house
and he shall take the woman away from
you by force. (64-69)
The mortal described by Apollo with the courage to
physically challenge death is the mighty Heracles who
fights and defeats Death at Alcestis' tomb.
This reference
to Heracles and the land of Thrace in the north could be a
reference to Pericles' Pontic expedition.
Plutarch (Per.
20.1) stresses the importance of the expedition, but we
have no definite date.
D. Kagan agrees with most scholars
in placing the expedition in the 430s after the rebellion
of Samos and Byzantium. 52 Athens depended heavily on grain
and dried fish from the Black Sea, and an open route to the
Ukraine through the Hellespont and the Bosporus was vital
to the grain supply of Athens.
Particularly in war, grain
was vital to Athens if the city was to remain strong behind
the Long Walls and independent of local food supplies.
Euripides' audience would have been well aware, through
public discussion and preparation, of such an important
expedition whether it was in the planning stages, or under
way, or completed.
Only two years before, at the time of
the Samian rebellion, Sparta had sought to launch an
26
invasion of Attica the main aim of which would have been
destruction of the grain crop.
The play concludes with great rejoicing after the
rescue of Alcestis by Heracles. "Beside the tomb itself, I
sprang and caught him [Death] in my hands" (1142).
Reference to the defeat of Death suggests an allusion to
the value of Pericles.
The Greek mind formed a natural
connection between grain supply, famine, and death.
As
Heracles defeats Death, so Pericles defeats famine which
leads to Death.
Considering that the sensational trial of Aspasia and
the presentation of the play occurred in the same year, it
would seem obvious that the audience would have identified
the pleas and grieving of Admetus with the behavior of
Pericles in court, and heard the song of the chorus as
veiled praise for Aspasia, an exceptional woman, respected
by many and known throughout Hellas.
As Pericles feared
his political survival would cost Aspasia's conviction, so
Admetus saw that his survival involved an insupportable
loss.
Admetus's admission that he has expected this evil
seems to suggest Pericles also, a man who must finally face
and deal with what he has feared for years: a threat to the
woman he loves.
The year 431 brought the outbreak of the Archidamian
War and also the presentation of Medea.
The scene is
27
Corinth, the city most instrumental in moving Sparta toward
war with Athens.
Euripides' play portrays human love,
betrayal, murder, and revenge, but it also presents a
political indictment of Corinth as the polis most
responsible for the breakdown of the Thirty Years' Peace.
Historically the first step in the breakdown of the
peace involved the Corinthian colony of Corcyra.
This
colony, located on the west coast of Greece, refused in 435
to send aid to its colony at Epidamnus where a civil war of
several years, involving democrats pitted against exiled
aristocrats and their barbarian allies, had culminated in
the democratic faction requesting Corcyrean assistance to
"reconcile them with the exiles and put an end to the war
with the barbarians." 54
turned to Corinth.
When Corcyra refused, Epidamnus
On the advice of the Oracle at Delphi
the Epidamnians offered to turn their city over to Corinth
55
in exchange for aid. Corinth accepted.
Corcyra, in
alarm, proposed to Corinth that this matter be submitted to
arbitration.
Corinth flatly refused.
Kagan argues,
probably rightly, that Corinth wanted war with her colony
Corcyra.
Corinth was no rival of Sparta and Athens, but
she had made a concentrated effort to compensate for her
dwindling prestige by building a sphere of influence in
cg
northwestern Greece.
Corcyra flourished as a growing
28
power in this area and in addition, according to
Thucydides, offered insult to her mother country by public
disdain for Corinth at religious festivals common to all
57
the colonies of Corinth.
Corinth's defense of Epidamnus
was not based on rational motives.
revenge on the child. 58
The revenge backfired.
The mother wanted
In the same year Corcyra with
eighty of her one hundred twenty ships defeated the
Corinthian navy of seventy-five ships, and Epidamnus
surrendered to Corcyra.
For the next two years Corinth
built and equipped more ships in preparation for a second
meeting with her insolent colony.
Alarmed by the reports
of massive ship construction and crew enlistment in
Corinth, Corcyra turned to Athens for help.
Corinth as
well sent envoys to the Athenian assembly, attempting to
persuade Athens to avoid involvement in the coming
conflict, by labeling Corcyra's action against her mother
polis as an insult deserving punishment, and also
mentioning past services rendered to Athens.
But the case
was weak, and the only argument to merit Athenian
consideration was the possible violation of the Thirty
Years' Peace.
Though not a member of the Athenian league, Corcyra
prepared a strong case to justify Athenian aid, a practical
appeal.
If Corinth defeated Corcyra and absorbed the
29
Corcyrean navy of one hundred twenty ships, the Corinthian
navy would rival that of Athens.
On the other hand,
Corinth was an ally of Sparta, and since war between Athens
and Sparta was inevitable, Corcyra's navy as an ally would
join that of Athens to fight the enemies of Athens.
After
hearing Corcyra's case the Athenian assembly voted to form
a defensive alliance with Corcyra.
Athens sent ten ships
to help assist Corcyra in case of attack by Corinth.
The vote of the assembly for defensive aid to Corcyra
avoided a technical violation of the Thirty Years' Peace.
By refusing an offensive treaty which would have been a
violation of the peace treaty, Pericles chose the moderate
path, and he took steps to prevent the large Corcyrean navy
from falling under Corinthian control.
In late summer of 433 near Sybota a Corinthian fleet
of one hundred fifty ships joined battle with the Corcyrean
fleet of one hundred ten ships.
The ten Athenian ships
entered the battle to prevent the complete defeat of
Corcyra.60
Another twenty ships from Athens appeared
shortly, giving the impression that a larger Athenian force
was coming to the rescue.
The Corinthians withdrew and
both Corcyra and Corinth claimed victory.
The next day the
61
Corinthians refused battle and returned home.
The conflict between Corinth and Corcyra set in
motion a chain of events that would quickly escalate toward
30
general war.
in the next year Athens and Corinth became
involved in another conflict over the control of the
Corinthian colony Potidaea, which was also a tributary ally
of Athens.
Annually Corinth sent magistrates to this
colony, and for many years Potidaea had functioned without
conflict as a loyal colony of the mother city as well as a
tributary ally of Athens.
In 433/32 Athens raised the
tribute of Potidaea from six to fifteen talents.
Thucydides does not discuss the matter, but Kagan believes
that this increase along with that for other allies in the
area was needed to support Athenian garrisons at Brea and
Amphipolis on the Macedonian border.
Fearing the power and
ambition of King Perdiccas of Macedon, Athens, Kagan
argues, made a treaty with the brother and nephew of the
king, a policy designed to reduce, if not eventually to
overthrow, the power of Perdiccas.
The struggle with the
king and the protection of Athenian allies in this area
would cost money, therefore, the tribute was increased.
Perdiccas attempted to gain the support of Corinth by
suggesting his willingness to encourage rebellion at
Potidaea.
Alarmed by the combined threat of Perdiccas and
Corinth and forewarned in the summer of 433 by a Corinthian
speech at Athens in which Corinth strongly hinted of plans
to stir up trouble among Athenian allies, Athens demanded
that Potidaea tear down her "walls on the side of the
31
Pallene, give hostages and send away the Corinthian
62
magistrates."
Potidaea refused, and Athens was involved
in a costly effort to put down the rebellion of Potidaea
aided by a volunteer army from Corinth.
Corinth actively
worked to involve the Spartans and urged them to declare
war against Athens.
The intensity of the war increased as
both Corinth and Athens added reinforcements.
Envoys from
Potidaea went to Sparta to ask for aid in spring of 432,
and in summer of the same year the Spartans voted for war.
In the same year of the Potidaea conflict, Athens
passed the Megarian Decree against a polis which had
supplied ships to be used by Corinth against Corcyra.
After the battle of Sybota, Pericles was aware that Corinth
would attempt to cause problems between Athens and her
allies, that is, Potidaea, and he retaliated, not with open
war, but with a decree that prohibited Megarians from
entering the Athenian Agora or any of the ports of the
Athenian Empire.
This economic weapon resulted in a
disaster for Megara and emphasized the danger of supplying
aid to the enemies of A t h e n s .
63
Although these three events did not
specifically
cause the war, they cumulatively gave Corinth the pretexts
needed to arouse fear and jealousy of the Athenian Empire
at the gathering of the Peloponnesian League in Sparta in
32
432.
Without Corinth to fan the flames of fear the Thirty
Years' Peace might have survived.
Corinthian hostility towards Athens and the
circumstances that produced that enmity evidently suggested
the story of Medea to the poet.
Euripides based his plot
on a tale well known to the Athenian audience of the fifth
century.
In Corinth Jason has recently abandoned Medea,
his foreign wife of many years and mother of his sons, in
order to marry the daughter of King Creon of Corinth.
By
royal decree Medea is banished from the city and allowed
one day to make preparation for exile.
Jason confronts
Medea and defends his recent marriage.
He argues from
logical, objective motives, and this defense reveals not
only the cold calculation behind his second marriage, but
also his earlier marriage to Medea.
According to Jason the
gods ordained that Medea, a foreign princess from Colchis
with occult powers, would fall in love and go to any
length, even to murder her brother, to aid him in the theft
of the Golden Fleece and escape from Colchis.
Thus his
debt fell not to Medea, but to the gods who guided and
protected his adventure.
Jason expresses incredulity at Medea's anger over his
new royal alliance, especially in light of the obvious
power and prestige which accompanied the marriage.
should Medea feel deserted and slighted when the new
Why
33
arrangement will benefit their sons in the future?
For
Medea's sons to also be the sons of the future King of
Corinth is a cause for joy, not rage and recrimination.
Following Jason's exit, Aegeus, King of Athens, makes a
brief appearance in Corinth and offers sympathy and
sanctuary to Medea.
The play concludes as Medea, in a
jealous rage, sends her two small sons to Jason's young
wife with gifts, a robe and golden diadem that cling to the
flesh and burn upon contact.
perish in flames.
Both Creon and his daughter
Still unsatisfied, Medea is torn between
love for her children and an overpowering desire to inflict
the ultimate anguish on Jason.
Mother love succumbs to
revenge; she murders their sons and escapes from Corinth in
a dragon-drawn chariot to the sanctuary of Athens.
Considering the part played by Corinth in pushing
Sparta and the members of the Peloponnesian League into
war, it is not surprising that Euripides selected Corinth
as the setting for one of his plays presented in 431.
In
addition, the main characters reflect the faults attributed
to the city by Thucydides.
Commenting on the conflict
between Corinth and Corcyra, the historian describes the
Corinthians as excessively proud, jealous, and
uncompassionate (1.25-26). The speech he gives the
Corinthians in the summer of 432 at the congress of the
Peloponnesian League, reveals greed, arrogance, and
34
jealousy (1.61-70).
In the play neither Creon, the King of
Corinth, nor Jason who aspires tp..the throne, is a
sympathetj.c character.
Each embodies and reflects the
characteristics of arrogance, jealousy, and greed peculiar
to a second-rate power.
Medea is a play about a mother's
destruction of her own children, and just as Medea murders
her own sons, so did Corinth attack and attempt to destroy
her own colony of Corcyra.
Another indication of topicality arises from the
common difficulties faced by Medea and Aspasia.
Both are
foreign, clever, and attached to powerful men.
Both face
exile and the loss of any secure future prospects for their
children.
Both have greatly aided their men, but are now
64
without a place of refuge.
It is not known whether Aspasia became the mistress
of Pericles before or after Athens expelled the leading
oligarchic families and imposed a democratic constitution
on Miletus.
Possibly the two became acquainted during the
revolution, or they may have met after Aspasia's family
left Miletus.
The reports of Aspasia's education and
learning point to a wealthy family, possibly one of the
leading Milesian families forced into exile.
Aspasia could
not hope to return to Miletus if Athens refused her a
home.
Her son by Pericles was denied Athenian citizenship
under a law Pericles himself had sponsored in 451/50, which
35
provided that no child could be admitted to citizenship
whose mother and father were not both Athenian citizens,
legally married.
Although in Medea Jason's behavior
bears no resemblance to Pericles' defense and support of
Aspasia, possibly Euripides' statement was indirect support
for Pericles, in that he emphasized the disaster for Athens
which could result from narrow and self-serving behavior
gg
such as Jason's.
Aegeus, the King of Athens, offers his protection to
Medea who is in danger from Corinth and the wrath of Creon,
a gesture symbolic of Athens' protection of Corcyra.
The
appearance of Athens' King presents the chorus with a
convenient excuse to praise Athens.
This is a pointedly
patriotic speech meant to inspire the Athenian audience in
the first year of the war.
From the viewpoint of dramatic
composition the sudden appearance of Aegeus has often been
considered weak and contrived, but from the viewpoint of
political topicality an Athenian audience in the first year
of the war would have recognized and welcomed Aegeus'
appearance and the patriotic speech of the chorus as a
fitting statement of support for Athens in a war brought on
by Corinth's jealousy and greed.
Throughout the play are pointed allusions to
Corinth's role as a troublemaker.
Euripides has the nurse
speak of great people's erratic tempers, and how moderation
36
is better.
This could easily refer to the actions of
Corinth's leaders that had brought on the war.
Corinth
could not accept the balance of power between Athens and
Sparta brought about in 445 by the Thirty Years' Peace.
This agreement would have allowed the people in Greece to
live on fair terms with each other, but because of jealousy
Corinth was determined to create situations which would in
turn alarm her Spartan allies and lead Sparta to a war with
Athens. The nurse reflects:
Having their own way, seldom checked.
Dangerous they shift from mood to mood
How much better to have been accustomed
To live on equal terms with one's
neighbors.
I would like to be safe and grow old in
a
Humble way. What is moderate sounds
best,
Also in practice is best for everyone.
(120-127)
Lines given Medea allude to the Corinthians' hasty
judgment of and consequent war with Corcyra in 435 and
again in 433.
Corinth refused the arbitration proposed by
Corcyra in 435 and then spent two years preparing for a
second encounter with her colony.
The Corinthians refused
to consider any peaceful solution to the Corcyra problem.
Medea complains:
For a just judgment is not evident in
the eyes
When a man at first sight hates
another, before
Learning his character, being in no way
injured;
37
I'd not approve of even a
fellow-countryman
Who by pride and want of manners
offends his neighbors. (219-224)
Regardless of the Athenian involvement in Corcyra,
Megara, and Potidaea, it was Corinth's fear and jealousy of
the Athenian empire and Athenian naval superiority that
triggered the violent speech against Athens at the first
assembly in Sparta in 432.
While fearing Athens, Corinth
at the same time underestimated Athens' ability to
withstand a land attack from the Peloponnesian forces.
Medea makes the bitter observation that people envy
cleverness in others, but this could also apply to
Corinth's jealousy of Athens:
For apart from cleverness bringing them
no profit.
It will make them objects of envy and
ill-will.
If you put new ideas before the eyes of
fools
They'll think you foolish and worthless
into the bargain. (296-299)
Medea represents Corinth when the chorus questions
her and later weeps for her.
How can Corinth turn on and
kill her own colony of Corcyra?
Such an act is as much
against nature as a mother's destruction of her own
children.
But can you have the heart to kill your
flesh and blood? (816)
In your grief, too, I weep, mother of
little children.
You who will murder your own. (996-997)
38
The chorus also asks how the holy city of Athens can
accept Medea if she kills her children.
In like manner how
can the holy land of Greece accept a polis determined on
the destruction of its own?
The ancient bond of kinship
should overshadow petty squabbles and supply a means for
settlement of serious conflict.
How can these holy rivers
Or this holy land love you.
Or the city find you a home.
You, who will kill your children.
You, not pure with the rest?
0 think of the blow at your children
And think of the blood that you shed.
(846-852)
An earlier comment to Medea by the chorus is also an
observation about Greece at war.
The speech laments the
atmosphere in Greece where honor and trust appear to be
lost in the struggle for power.
Good faith has gone, and no more
remains
In great Greece a sense of shame.
It has flown away to the sky. (439-441)
After the exit of Aegeus the chorus listens and
responds to Medea's plan for revenge against Creon and
Jason and then breaks into a praise of Athens that has no
real place in the plot but rather makes a pointed patriotic
statement:
From of old the children of Erechtheus
are
Splendid, the sons of blessed gods.
They dwell
In Athens' holy and unconquered land.
39
Where famous wisdom feeds them and they
pass gayly
Always through the most brilliant air
where once, they say.
That golden harmony gave birth to the
nine pure Muses of Pieria.
And beside the sweet flow of Cephisus'
stream.
Where Cypris sailed, they say, to draw
the water.
And mild soft breezes breathed along
her path.
And on her hair were flung the
sweet-smelling garlands
Of flowers of roses by the lovers, the
companions
Of Wisdom, her escort, the helpers of
men
In every kind of excellence. (824-845)
There is a strong resemblance between the tone of
Pericles' funeral oration delivered in 431, as recorded by
Thucydides, and the tone of Euripides' choral ode.
The
chorus praises Athens, a city where the ancient people
descended from gods: a holy, free land, full of wisdom and
adorned by artistic light and excellence.
Pericles,
according to Thucydides, praised Athens as a city whose
history displays ready valor to stem aggression, a city
that cultivates refinement and is singular in generosity, a
city in which freedom extends to all areas of life and
whose constitution serves as a pattern to others (2.36-40).
Aegeus' offer of support for Medea closely parallels
Athens' aid to Corcyra in 433: "For many reasons, woman, I
am anxious to do This favor for you" (719-720).
Just as
Athens agreed to help Corcyra defensively, but refused an
40
offensive treaty, Aegeus makes it clear that he will not
help Medea to get out of Corinth; he does not wish to
"incur blame from my friends" (730). His offer of
assistance includes sanctuary in Athens if she can reach
there.
King Creon refuses to discuss Medea's request to stay
in Corinth, but instead flatly states, "Your words are
wasted.
You will never persuade me" (325).
Similarly,
Corinth refused the offer of arbitration in the dispute
with Corcyra.
Jason also represents the attitude of Corinth. He
refuses to_.be content; h^ must have more power and
prestige.
He is openly self-serving.
Love plays no part
in his. marriage to Creon's daughter, and he arrogantly
admits his selfish, but to him, common-sense motives
(522-575) .
The obvious parallel between Medea and Aspasia
presents another example of political topicality. 67 Medea
laments her situation as an exile:
What town will receive me?
What friend will offer me a refuge in
his land
Or the guaranty of his house and save
my own life?
There is none. (386-389)
These words could just as easily have been spoken by
Aspasia during her trial for impiety and procuring in 438.
Both Aspasia and Medea would have suffered as exiles.
41
Because of her crimes, Medea could not return to Colchis,
and, in all probability, Aspasia would not have found
welcome on Miletus where Pericles had established in 445 a
go
new government by force.
Each woman carried the stigma of cleverness and
69
learning.
Plutarch (Per. 24) refers to Aspasia as a
woman of great intellect.
Her intellectual interests and
possible association with men such as Anaxagoras and
Socrates made charges of impiety possible in 438.
Medea
bitterly complains of the jealousy, misunderstanding and
distrust she has suffered because of her learning:
Often previously
Through being considered clever I have
suffered much.
A person of sense ought never to have
his children
Brought up to be more clever than the
average.
For, apart from cleverness bringing
them no profit.
It will make them objects of envy and
ill-will.
If you put new ideas before the eyes of
fools
They'll think you foolish and worthless
into the bargain;
And if you are thought superior to
those who have
Some reputation for learning, you will
become hated.
I have some knowledge myself of how
this happens;
For being clever, I find that some will
envy me.
Others object to me. (292-304)
In Medea, Euripides made thinly veiled references to
a wide variety of political events covering a span of at
42
least seven years.
The involvement of Athens in the war
between Corcyra and Corinth figured most prominently, but
such lines as those directly above referred not only to the
attack on Aspasia, but also attacks on other friends of
Pericles such as Phidias and Anaxagoras.
Always, as in
Alcestis, Pericles dominates as a defender either of his
mistress from a politically motivated attack, or of the
colony Corcyra against the attack of its mother polis
Corinth.
CHAPTER III
THE ARCHIDAMIAN WAR
Each of the five extant plays of Euripides written
during the Archidamian War offers evidence of political
topicality.
Lattimore's chronology dates The Heracleidae
to 429, Hippolytus to 428, Andromache to 426, Hecuba to
425-424, and The Suppliant Women to 423.
With the
exception of Hippolytus, which won a prize in 428, specific
dates for each of the remaining four plays are much
debated.
Yet it seems possible to date each of them within
a two-year period through careful examination of political
events to which each play could refer.
The Heracleidae portrays the persecution of Heracles'
family by the powerful King Eurystheus of Argos.
Heracles
is dead; his family refugees from Argos; no land will grant
them sanctuary for fear of offending Eurystheus.
Wherever
the Heracleidae travel in search of a home, Eurystheus'
herald follows with orders not to give them shelter.
But
Athens' King Demophon, hearing the demands of the arrogant
herald from Argos and the pleas of the Heracleidae, rejects
the dictate from Argos and offers protection to them and
Alcmene the mother of Heracles.
Eurystheus, in retalia-
tion, invades Attica, suffers defeat and meets his death.
43
44
Euripides changes the usual ending of the legend.
In
most versions Eurystheus was killed in battle, but
Euripides has the King brought in after defeat.^^
The
ruler of Argos is contrite and admits, with dignity, past
wrong doing, but Alcmene demands his death.
a surprise reversal.
The ending is
Alcmene, the focus of sympathy
through the play, now appears not only unreasonable, but
inhuman in her lust for revenge.
The Athenian chorus
offers a weak and ineffectual protest over the execution of
the penitent ruler, and the play ends as the guards take
Eurystheus to his execution while Alcmene orders that his
body be cast to the dogs.
Is the unusual ending of this play explained by
political topicality?
Thucydides relates that in late 430
or early 429 Peloponnesian ambassadors, on their way to
Persia to enlist the aid of the King in their war against
Athens, stopped in Thrace to secure transport across the
Hellespont. The envoys were detained and turned over to
Athenian representatives who escorted them under guard to
Athens.
"On their arrival the Athenians . . . .
slew them
all the same day, without giving them a trial or hearing
the defense which they wished to offer, and cast their
bodies into a pit" (2.67).
That both the play and the
events recorded in Thucydides involve the hasty execution
of prisoners without benefit of trial is a strong argument
45
for topicality and for spring 429 as the date of
presentation of the play.^^
Euripides places special emphasis on the behavior of
Alcmene and her inhuman lust for revenge; she loses dignity
while her enemy Eurystheus gains dignity in his calm
acceptance of his fate.
Punishment of one's enemies is
understandable and acceptable, but only through lawful
means.
To not allow men to have a fair trial and then
throw their bodies into a pit with no proper burial does
not speak well for Athens.
Euripides uses Alcmene as an
example of a howling mob motivated by blood lust.
R. Gladstone argues that the lack of Euripides' usual
portion of difficult choral lyrics in The Heracleidae shows
haste in composition.
Presumably, then, Euripides chose
the theme on news of the capture of the ambassadors.
Their
summary execution could have produced Euripides' abrupt
reversal.
Gladstone finds the end of the play carelessly
composed, which is another indication of the poet's
u
4. 72
haste.
Additional evidence of topicality and for dating the
play to 429 is the apology of Macaria, the daughter of
Heracles, for so public an appearance (474-477).
Her
modesty recalls a pronouncement of Pericles in 431/30,
recorded by Thucydides (2.45), that the ideal behavior for
46
a woman is to avoid notice and comment, whether for good or
bad."^^
The herald Copreus' speech (134-176) offers another
example of topicality.
it is much shorter but very similar
in tone to the speech delivered by the Corinthian envoys in
Athens in 432, reported by Thucydides (1.37-44).^^
The
herald warns the son of Theseus not to give aid or
sanctuary to the Heracleidae:
Consider what you stand to gain if you
Should let them in or let us take them
out.
For our part we can offer to you all
The weight of power; our King's great
influence
Will be behind you in all you do.
But if artful talk and wailing move
Your pity, that can only mean one
thing.
A total war! (153-160)
Notice the similarity in the following excerpts from the
Corinthian speech at Athens:
On the contrary, return us like for like,
remembering that this is that very crisis in
which he who lends aid is most a friend, and he
who opposes is most a foe. And for these
Corcyraeans—neither receive them into alliance
in our despite, nor be.their abettors in crime.
(Thucyd. 1.44)
For you cannot become their auxiliary and remain
our friend; if you join in their attack, you must
share the punishment which the defenders inflict
on them. (Thucyd. 1.40)
The story of Plataea, as described by Thucydides,
presents another strong possibility for topicality.
the Plataeans slaughtered one hundred eighty Theban
In 432
47
prisoners captured when Thebes attempted
of Plataea.
Athens.
Several hundred
a sudden take over
refugees fled from Plataea
Athens never responded
to Plataea's request
to
for
h e l p , even though Plataea was an ally of long standing who
had aided Athens in the struggle against the Persians.
In
4 2 7 , Plataea fell to the Spartans and two hundred
twenty-five were put to death.
The slaughter of prisoners
without a fair trial and the plight of the refugees
seeking
asylum are elements of the Plataea situation as well as the
play.
In his introduction
to The Heracleidae
P.
Vellacott a r g u e s , "It is reasonable to surmise that here
Euripides
is offering to those who will accept it, a poet's
comment on contemporary politics as acutely critical as the
Specific comment made by the historian."
H i p p o l y t u s , presented
a noble but misjudged m a n .
76
in 4 2 8 , depicts the tragedy of
Poignantly, when it is too
late, the hero receives the futile gesture of
recognition
as an honorable m a n , guilty of neither crime nor betrayal.
The fate of Hippolytus parallels that of Pericles
in the
last year of his life.
In the play, in a suicide note, Phaedra prompted
shame and revenge, falsely accuses her stepson
of r a p e .
by
Hippolytus
T h e s e u s , King of Athens and husband to Phaedra,
believes this accusation against a son whose
exemplifies honor and chastity.
life
Angered at Hippolytus'
48
alleged behavior, the grieving ruler implores Poseidon to
honor a past promise of three granted wishes and to destroy
Hippolytus.
The god complies, and as the prince nears
death Artemis informs Theseus of his mistake in misjudging
a son whose life offered no evidence of wrongdoing, much
less proclivity to betrayal, rape, and incest.
But
Theseus' recognition of his son's innocence and regret over
his own hasty judgment and condemnation come too late.
tragedy cannot be reversed.
The
Hippolytus dies.
In the early fall of 429 Athens suffered disaster.
Pericles died of the plague after a lingering illness of
many months.
No longer did Athens have a statesman
committed to a policy of moderation and capable of
implementing it.
"Inconsistency would haunt Athens
throughout the war."
So Kagan succinctly summarizes
Thucydides' judgment on the political situation in Athens
after the death of Pericles.
Compounding the tragedy to the polis of the loss of
Pericles was the tragedy of the last year of the great
man's life.
A year burdened with false accusation, trial,
conviction, and wasting illness.
Opponents of Pericles
78
launched their final attack in the fall of 430.
To bring
Pericles down may have required a coalition effort of both
79
Cleon's War faction and the peace faction,
both of which
80
desired a quick settlement to the war.
The attack took a
49
common enough form—a charge of embezzlement of public
funds .
Athenians had good cause to turn against Pericles at
this time.
countryside.
Sparta had looted and burned the Attic
Athens had failed in a lengthy and costly
campaign to defeat Potidaea.
The plague had taken a
terrible toll in suffering and death.
The war faction
wanted to pursue the war with more vigor.
The peace
faction desired peace even at the cost of a reduced
81
empire.
Since the first year of the war Pericles had
advised moderation.
He argued that the aggressive defense
of Attica would not serve to end the war with Sparta;
rather a moderate defense and wholesale withdrawal of the
Attic population behind the city walls would prove to the
Spartans that Athenians, with the help of the fleet and
resources of the empire, could hold out for many years
without a confrontation on land.
To the war faction this
was not enough; to the peace faction it was too much.
Such
strong sentiment against Pericles resulted in conviction,
punishment of a large fine, and removal from public
off ice.
Between September of 430 and midsummer of 429,
Pericles held no position in the government.
In the spring
of 429 Pericles was elected again as strategos for the next
official year which began in midsummer.
Thucydides
50
explained the reversal of popular support on the grounds of
the people's realization that they had rightly "judged him
to be the ablest" (2.65.4).
Kagan suggests that the people
"missed his outstanding talents, his experience, and
confidence, and the security he made them feel."
Whatever the reason behind reinstatement, it was too
late.
Pericles was mortally ill, probably of a slow,
wasting form of the plague.
The final recognition of his
worth was an empty vindication.
He had been sacrificed to
the easily swayed mob, led in large part by Cleon, the
leader of the war faction.
The historical Cleon resembles the Theseus of
Euripides' play.
Always the politician, Theseus-Cleon,
plays to public opinion, reacts in haste, and advocates
violence as a solution to problems rather than moderation
and control.
One speech in Hippolytus not only embellishes
Hippolytus in the honor of Pericles, but uses Hippolytus'
words to his father to characterize Cleon.
Your mind and intellect are subtle,
father:
here you have a subject dressed in
eloquent words;
but if you lay the matter bare of
words,
the matter is not eloquent. I am
no man to speak with vapid, precious
skill
before a mob, although among my equals
and in a narrow circle I am held
not unaccomplished in the eloquent art.
51
That is as it should be. The demagogue
who charms a crowd is scorned by
cultured experts. (983-990)
Throughout the play the characters, with the
exception of Theseus, indulge in ongoing discussions of
their problems: What is wrong with Phaedra?
Why won't she
tell the nurse?
How should Hippolytus react?
defend himself?
Should he break his oath?
Should he
Constant
analysis of such situations by characters in the play leads
some of them to change their minds about what would be the
correct or expedient action.
In the months prior to and
following Pericles' trial, conviction, and expulsion from
the government, the various political factions behaved as
erratically as the characters in this play.
were formed and then quickly dissolved.
Coalitions
Co-conspirators in
one month became enemy factions in the next.
A great deal
of talking and planning and analyzing brought very little
in the way of substantial progress in the war; just as in
the play the continual discussion, vacillating first to one
solution and then another, produces nothing beneficial for
those involved.
Phaedra represents the plague.
Even before she
appears on stage she is described (130-140) as ill, unable
to leave her bed or eat, wracked by fever.
When Phaedra
does appear she has to be supported by the nurse.
Euripides presents the queen as a woman out of control, not
52
responsible for the havoc she creates.
the form of a destructive disease.
Her passion takes
Thus a foreign woman
who happens to be queen destroys Hippolytus, just as the
plague destroyed Pericles.
Throughout this play, Theseus represents Cleon and at
the same time, or alternatively, Athens, not an ideal
Athens but the harsh reality.
For Euripides the ideal of
Athens was something to strive for, but this ideal was lost
or forgotten in the clamor for power and the chaos of war.
Euripides reminds his audience in this play that the people
of Athens have not merely forgotten the ideal, they have
foolishly destroyed its strongest and most dedicated
advocate, Hippolytus-Pericles.
Euripides closes the play with a final tribute to
Pericles.
First the father (Theseus) speaks concerning his
son (Hippolytus):
Pallas Athena's famous city.
What a man you have losti Alas for me!
(1459-1460)
The chorus presents the final statement of common grief for
the honorable man that the Athenian audience would
immediately have recognized as a lament for Pericles.
This is a common grief for all the
city;
it came unlocked for. There shall be
a storm of multitudinous tears for
this;
the lamentable stories of great men
prevail more than of humble folk.
(1462-1466)
53
A year or two after the production of Hippolytus, or
perhaps as many as five, Euripides in Andromache took up
the story of Hector's widow after the fall of Troy.
As
slave and concubine she serves Neoptolemus, the son of
Achilles.
Andromache has a son by Neoptolemus, and they
live in Thessaly, the ancient homeland of Peleus and
Achilles.
The play takes place in the shrine of Thetis
close to the palace of Neoptolemus, a shrine to which
Andromache flees for sanctuary from Hermione, the official
wife of Neoptolemus.
and Helen.
Hermione is the daughter of Menelaus
Originally she was betrothed to Orestes, her
cousin from Argos, but her father Menelaus treacherously
broke his promise because of the persecution of Orestes for
matricide by the Furies.
Neoptolemus has gone to Delphi to
beg forgiveness of Apollo for earlier demanding reparation
from the god for the death of Achilles.
Hermione is childless and feels that Neoptolemus
neglects her and favors Andromache and the child.
Taking
advantage of her husband's absence and working herself into
a fit of jealous rage she confronts Andromache in the
shrine, hurls insults, and accuses her of using witchcraft
to make her barren and turn Neoptolemus against his true
wife.
Andromache answers Hermione with pride and anger.
Neoptolemus dislikes Hermione because she constantly
praises Sparta and flaunts her wealth.
Andromache voices
54
her lack of hope of a fair trial—so she will not give
herself up but will remain in sanctuary until Neoptolemus
returns from Delphi.
Menelaus arrives from Sparta to help his daughter.
He takes Andromache's son prisoner and threatens to kill
the child if Andromache does not leave the sanctuary.
After she surrenders to Menelaus, he retracts his promise
and declares that Hermione may decide the fate of the boy.
At this point Andromache makes a strong speech against the
Spartans, their cruelty, treachery, and lack of
intelligence (441-465) . Peleus, the father of Achilles,
arrives and expresses his outrage against a foreign king's
attempt to condemn Andromache without a trial.
He too
speaks out against the Spartans (590-615).
Most authorities agree on 427 or 426 as the date for
Andromache. 83 The verbal attacks on Sparta by Andromache
and Peleus could reflect strong feeling against Sparta over
the execution of about two hundred Plataeans and
twenty-five Athenians after the fall of Plataea in 427.
The repeated mention of execution without a fair trial in
connection with Andromache and her son could be a reference
to Plataea.
The kindly treatment of Peleus and his family
in the play reflect the good relations between Athens and
Thessaly during this period.
55
After Peleus' intervention Andromache and the child
are released, and Menelaus in a complete change of temper
replies that he is only doing his duty in trying to help
his daughter.
In something of a huff, as if his good
intentions were completely misinterpreted, he announces his
immediate departure for Sparta.
Hermione feels deserted by
her father and fears her husband's anger when he returns.
She appears in a complete state of disarray, hysterical,
and threatening to kill herself.
Orestes, her cousin and
King of Argos, enters and announces his desire to help her
and take her away from the difficult situation.
He hints
that he has arranged for Neoptolemus to be killed in
Delphi.
The couple leave.
The reversal of Andromache's
fate and that of her son might suggest the reversal of fate
for the people of Mytilene in 427.
The puzzling presence of Menelaus in The Andromache
presents an alternative case for political topicality.
King of Sparta makes a long journey to the north.
The
His
avowed purpose is to intervene on Hermione's behalf against
Andromache, but his actual purpose is to secure Hermione
for Orestes.
The Spartan general Brasidas led an
expedition North in 424, and a date of 423 for the play
would explain Menelaus' presence as an obvious parallel to
Brasidas.
84
56
Supposedly Brasidas led the Spartan expedition north
to free Athenian allies, but in reality the Spartans cared
little for the freedom of the northern city states and were
not able to protect the allies over any extended period of
time.
In the play, Menelaus deserts Hermione when he no
longer feels the threat of Neoptolemus' return.
Orestes
takes advantage of Hermione's hysteria and convinces her to
leave Neoptolemus and return with him to Argos.
The Athenian audience would immediately recognize
Orestes as a matricide and for all his kind words to his
cousin, she may very well find herself in another difficult
marriage, a pawn of power, torn between father and
husband.
The northern allies were in much the same
position as Hermione.
The support of Brasidas and the
Spartan force enabled the allies to break away from
Athenian control, but as in the case of Hermione these
allies might very well find themselves used as pawns—no
longer allies of Athens, but unable to protect themselves
once the Spartan force left the north.
Peleus' and
Andromache's strong speeches against Spartans could well
reflect the strong feeling in Athens against the northern
Spartan expedition.
Late in the play a messenger brings news of
Neoptolemus' death.
Peleus hears the story of how Orestes,
over several days, planted rumors in Delphi concerning
57
Neoptolemus' plan to steal Apollo's gold.
The mob attacked
and at first he fought them off, but from the temple came a
voice urging the mob to kill him.
Achilles' son was
overwhelmed by sheer numbers and hacked to death before the
altar (1085-1165) .
Thetis appears and reproaches the
Delphians for the death of Neoptolemus (1231-1241).
The
Delphic Oracle did not support Athens during the war.
The
description of the death of Neoptolemus and Thetis'
reproach to the people of Delphi present a deliberate slur
on the oracle and the people of that city.
The demagoguery of Cleon,beginning with the affair of
Mytilene, led Euripides to consider arguments from alleged
political necessity.
aspects of war.
The Hecuba explores the dehumanizing
After the fall of Troy and the death of
most of her family, Hecuba and the Trojan women are told
that the Greeks must sacrifice Hecuba's daughter, the
virgin princess Polyxena, to the spirit of Achilles in
order to get a favorable wind for the fleet.
The Greeks
are camped on the Thracian peninsula, and Hecuba implores
Odysseus to save her daughter in payment for the time she
recognized him as a spy inside Troy but did not report
him.
His reply is that it is a political necessity to
sacrifice Polyxena, and he would save Hecuba's life, but it
is not required that she, an old woman, die.
Odysseus
explains that it is necessary for him, as a leader of men.
58
to show the army that dead heroes are properly honored, or
in the future men will refuse to fight.
The girl dies
bravely; the army expresses awe and admiration for her
dignity and courage.
Hecuba begs to prepare her daughter's
body for proper burial.
Almost immediately the body of Polydorus, the brother
of Polyxena, is brought in.
During the war the boy had
been sent for safety to the King of Thrace, Polymester.
A
large amount of gold accompanied the young prince to insure
his future.
When the word of Troy's defeat reached Thrace,
Polymester murdered the prince and threw his body into the
sea; it later washed ashore close to the Greek camp.
Hecuba vows revenge, and because she and her daughter have
been given to Agamemnon she begs for his help in the name
of all the nights he has spent with Cassandra.
will not help the old queen.
Agamemnon
It would not be politically
expedient to anger an ally, but he agrees not to interfere
with Hecuba's plans.
Polymester, at the request of Hecuba, arrives with
his sons to pay his respects.
In answer to Hecuba's
inquiries, he reports that Polydorus is well.
She tells
him that there is gold hidden in Troy near the temple of
Athena and also gold in her tent; she must tell him and his
children the exact location in order that they may pass the
treasure on to Polydorus.
Inside the tent the Trojan women
59
strike.
Polymester is blinded and his sons are killed.
Hearing the screams, Agamemnon arrives to investigate and
stays to listen to the arguments of Polymester and Hecuba.
Polymester argues that he killed Polydorus as a favor
to the Greeks to prevent a Trojan prince from reaching
manhood, building a new Troy, and seeking revenge against
the Greeks.
It was "a policy of wise precaution" (1137), a
tidy summing-up for a hideous crime.
In addition
Polymester killed the prince to protect his own land of
Thrace from Greeks who might consider the harboring of a
Trojan prince as an act of war against the Greeks.
Hecuba
argues that Polymester killed for greed; he wanted the
gold.
Agamemnon agrees with Hecuba, and in retaliation
Polymester repeats the prophecies of a seer in Thrace:
Hecuba will turn into a howling bitch, climb the mast of a
ship, and jump into the sea and drown at "Cynossema, the
bitch's grave, a landmark to sailors" (1273).
Agamemnon
and Cassandra will be murdered by Clytemnestra with an ax.
Agamemnon refuses to hear any more from the blinded, raving
King and orders Polymester to be taken to a desert island.
The play ends as Hecuba prepares the bodies of her children
for burial and the Greeks prepare to sail with the new
wind.
60
Hecuba evidently dates to 425-424.
A line of the
play (173) is parodied in Aristophanes' Clouds produced in
423. Another line (462) refers to the Delian games
established by the Athenians in 426.®^
Throughout the play
runs the theme of revenge and what it does to the human
spirit.
Revenge never solves a problem; it is pointless
and eventually dehumanizing.
At the beginning of the play
Hecuba has suffered greatly but still has a hold on
decency, honor, and moral law (nomos).
In her anguish she
loses her hold on civilized behavior and becomes as brutal
and inhuman as those she seeks to destroy.
Literally no
longer human, but a howling bitch, she jumps into the sea.
Euripides points out to his audience that this is what war
does to human beings.
They become inhuman, often through
suffering or as in the case of Odysseus and Agamemnon
through political power.
Politicians justify their actions on the basis of
political necessity which because it is political is
removed from considerations of civilized behavior or moral
og
law.
The chorus describes the words of Odysseus on the
necessity of Polyxena's death:
Until he spoke-that hypocrite with honeyed tongue,
that demagogue Odysseus.
And in the end he won,
asking what one slave was worth
when laid in the balance
with the honor of Achilles. (131-136)
61
Hecuba makes a bitter comment on politicians and political
necessity:
0 gods, spare me the sight
of this thankless breed, these
politicians
who cringe for favors from a screaming
mob
and do not care what harm they do their
friends,
providing they can please a crowd!
Tell me,
on what feeble grounds can you justify
your vote of death?
Political necessity?
But how? And do your politics require
the shedding of human blood upon a
grave,
where custom calls for cattle.
(255-262)
In 427 political necessity at first dictated the
death of all men on Mytilene; but almost immediately the
Athenian Assembly limited this punishment to the leaders of
the revolt only, who still numbered over a thousand.
The
triumph in 424 of democracy in Corcyra supported by
Athenians was won at the horrible price of wholesale
slaughter of the aristocracy with representatives of Athens
looking on, hesitant to interfere because of political
considerations.
Polymester also pleads political necessity
for the murder of Polydorus, though this was a weak excuse
to disguise his greed.
Euripides used the words of Hecuba and the chorus on
politicians and the very words of such politicians as
62
Odysseus and Agamemnon to comment on the empty
justification of political necessity.
Cleon, in his speech
on Mytilene in 427 discussed a specific case in general
terms (Thucyd. 3.38-41) because if he had been specific he
would have had to talk about the execution of thousands of
people.
Euripides wanted to make his audience realize that
when politicians such as Cleon talk about political
necessity, people die.
Cleon at first convinced the
Athenians (although they repented in part the next day) to
make an example of Mytilene and vote for the execution of
the entire population as a punishment for revolt.
In the
Hecuba the people who are sacrificed for political reasons
are not nameless or faceless; they are individual human
beings.
People in Athens had to be made aware, Euripides
believed, of the danger of men in power who use the
argument of political necessity as a justification for
crimes against civilization.
In his next surviving play Euripides considered
another crime against civilization.
The Suppliant Women is
a play of little action, concentrating mainly on criticism
of war.
Even when young boys are urged to remember the
deaths of their fathers and seek revenge in later years
(1143-1146) , it rings so false as to be obviously foolish
to the audience.
For the plot of The Suppliant Women
Euripides used a portion of the myth concerning Oedipus'
63
sons Polyneices and Eteocles.
These young men agreed to
share the throne of Thebes, ruling in alternate years.
After one year Eteocles refused to give up the throne to
Polyneices who in turn attacked Thebes with the support of
his father-in-law Adrastus, King of Argos, and the Argive
army.
Both brothers were killed in battle, and Creon,
their uncle, succeeds to the throne of Thebes.
He refuses
to allow the bodies of Polyneices and the Argive heroes to
be buried.
As the play opens the mothers and children of the
slain heroes and King Adrastus implore Aethra, mother of
Theseus, to intercede with her son and persuade him to
march against Thebes and secure the bodies for burial.
At
first Theseus refuses, but later changes his mind when his
mother points out that this is the brave and honorable
course to take.
Theseus is warned by a herald from Thebes
not to interfere, but he feels honor bound to give proper
burial to the bodies, at the same time emphasizing that
even he as king must consult the free people of Athens
concerning their wish to go to war (350-354).
Theseus
leads the army of Athens against Thebes, defeats the city,
secures the bodies for burial, but refuses to enter the
gates of Thebes, declaring that it was not his intention to
destroy a town, but only "to claim the dead" (725) .
The
64
bodies are burned on a funeral pyre and the children of the
dead heroes collect the bones of their fathers in urns.
Athena appears to urge Theseus to secure a promise
from Adrastus that Argos will never attack Athens. She also
tells the young sons of the dead heroes that one day they
will gain revenge for their fathers and sack the city of
Thebes.
Possible dates for this play range from 423 to 415,
but 423 to 420 seem most likely.
The Boeotians and
Athenians fought the Battle of Delium in 424.
The
Boeotians won and refused to allow the Athenians to collect
their dead for burial (Thucyd. 4.97-100).
Throughout the
play rings the constant lament: "Bring home our dead for
burial" (170, for example), which would have been
politically topical in 423 or even in the later years.
The play is a criticism of war and revenge, and a
plea for peace.
There is the open praise of peace by the
herald.
How much better is peace than war!
First and foremost, the muses love her
best,
And the goddess of revenge hates her.
She delights
In healthy children and she glories in
wealth.
But wickedly we throw all this away
To start our wars and make the losers
slaves-Man binding man and city chaining city.
(473-494)
This appeal for peace could reflect the negotiations
65
between Sparta and Athens which started in 423 and
continued until the agreement of the Peace of Nicias in
421.
In 425, Athens rejected the Spartan proposal of
peace.
This refusal by Athens and the defeat of Athens at
Delium may well be alluded to when King Adrastus of Argos
says:
Argos we thought, was irresistible:
We were so many, young, strong of aim!
Eteocles would have come to terms; his
claims
Were fair; but we refused and lost.
(726-740)
In addition to the repeated arguments for proper
burial of the dead pertaining to Delium, and appeals for
peace calling to mind peace negotiations leading to the
Peace of Nicias, there are references to the rash young men
and their desire for war.
Alcibiades was elected strategos in 420. Adrastus'
praise of the young Theseus could well refer to Alcibiades
and his well known desire for war and a chance to command:
"And in you she has a leader both young and courageous"
(190-191). Granted, these two lines could be interpreted as
merely complimentary to Theseus, but these lines should be
examined with others in the play to discern a pattern about
foolhardy young men who desire war.
Although Alcibiades
did not become strategos until 420, he was never one to
keep a low public profile.
His desire for power and his
66
proclivity for action and daring were well known long
before his election.
The references to rash young men who desire war would
naturally remind the Athenian audience of Alcibiades and
his group of friends.
Adrastus explains his reasons for
going to war: "The young men clamored at me and I lost my
head" (160). Theseus answers Adrastus:
You were led astray by glory loving
youngsters,
Promoters of unjust wars, who spoil the
townsmen.
One of them wants to be a general;
Another to seize the power and riot in
it,
A third is set on gain. They never
think
What harm this brings for the majority.
(232-237)
At the end of the play the sons of the dead Argive
heroes vow revenge when they grow to manhood:
Father, I beg you, hear your children's
cries!
Shall I ever set my shield against your
foes,
Making your murder engender death? May
that day come!
If God is willing, justice will be done
For our fathers. (1143-1147)
Violence begets violence.
War will never end.
Thus
Euripides seems to warn the city against Alcibiades.
CHAPTER IV
THE PEACE OF NICIAS AND THE IONIAN WAR
In Heracles Euripides reverses the old tradition that
Heracles undertook the twelve labors as a penance for
killing his wife and children in a fit of madness.
Instead
the hero completes the last of his labors and returns to
his family.
As the play opens Lycus, the unlawful king of
Thebes, threatens to kill Heracles' earthly father
Amphitryon, Megara Heracles wife, and their children.
Lycus overthrew Megara's father Cleon, the rightful King of
Thebes, and therefore fears Megara and anyone closely
connected to her.
The setting is in Thebes at the altar of Zeus next to
the palace of Heracles.
Amphitryon, Megara, and her
children have taken refuge at the altar.
They cannot
expect help from Heracles because he is involved in the
last of the labors, the visit to Hades to bring back the
three-headed dog Cerberus.
Since he cannot drag them from
the altar, Lycus orders his soldiers to stack wood around
the altar and burn the family alive, but Megara considers
this a cowardly death and begs permission to properly dress
and prepare her children for execution.
67
68
At the last moment Heracles returns and relates the
story of his adventure in Hades; not only did he bring back
Cerberus, but also helped Theseus return from the
underworld.
Lycus does not know of Heracles' return and
goes into the palace to get Megara and her children for
execution where he is killed by Heracles.
At this point
madness, sent by Hera, causes Heracles to turn on his
family and he murders Megara and the children.
As he is
about to kill Amphitryon, Athena strikes him with sleep.
The hero awakens tied to a pillar, the ground around
him littered with the bodies of his family.
when he learns
that he is responsible for this horror he wants to commit
suicide.
Theseus enters and convinces Heracles that
suicide in this case would be cowardly; after the tragedy
of death it requires great courage to continue life and he
emphasizes that as a friend he is there to help Heracles.
Theseus offers Heracles friendship, hospitality, wealth,
and the cleansing of blood guilt in Athens.
The play ends
as the two men leave for Athens, the great hero leaning on
Theseus for support.
The Heracles dates to 420 in Lattimore's chronology;
87
W. Arrowsmith prefers a 419-418 date.
The name Heracles
would bring to mind Sparta for the Athenian audience.
The
Greeks in general believed the invasion of the Peloponnese
by the Dorians around 1100 was led by the sons of Heracles,
69
and commonly referred to that invasion as "The Return of
the Heracleidae."
This play emphasizes cooperation, mutual support and
friendship between Heracles and Theseus, which could refer
to the peace negotiations between Sparta and Athens that
started in 422 and concluded in 421 with the Peace of
Nicias.
Compassionate, wise Theseus-Athens will support
the great Heracles-Sparta and together the two will
overcome the sorrows of the past war.
Euripides' use of
the King of Thebes as a villain fits the political
situation of the early period of peace in that it is an
indictment of Boeotia which along with Megara and Corinth
refused to accept peace.
In the Heracles Euripides hopes
for lasting peace and condemns cities such as Thebes that
would obstruct that result.
88
The friendship of Theseus and Heracles could also
alternatively)
(or
refer to the Athenian alliance with Argos
which had been proposed
in 420 and accepted
in 419.
Tradition gave Heracles an Argive origin and kinship to
Eurytheus, King of Argos, for whom he performed his famous
labors. 89
Alcibiades was elected strategos in 420.
He
pushed for a treaty with Argos, and this led to a joint
expedition against Epidaurus in 419.
The friendship of the
two heroes might very well have brought to the minds of an
Athenian audience the proposed, or already accepted, Argive
70
treaty.
In that case Theseus would represent Alcibiades
offering his aid to Argos.
The Trojan Women, presented in 415, tells the story
of captives of Troy after the sack and fall of the city.^^
The men of Troy have been killed, only the women and
children remain.
The royal women have been divided among
the prominent Greeks.
Hecuba, queen of Troy became the
servant of Odysseus; Hecuba's two daughters have each been
assigned to a Greek hero.
Polyxena was sacrificed to the
spirit of Achilles, and Cassandra was given as concubine to
Agamemnon.
Andromache, widow of Hector, went to
Neoptolemus, son of Achilles, the man who killed her
husband.
Menelaus.
Helen was returned to her Greek husband
The setting is the Greek camp outside the
burning walls of Troy.
Hecuba cannot understand
Cassandra's joy in her bondage and gives no attention to
the girl's prophesies about the destruction of the house of
Atreus.
The great victory of the Greeks will turn into a
great defeat.
Andromache represents all women who are chattel in
war.
Not only has she lost her city, her position, her
home, her husband and other loved ones, she must now cross
the sea with a hated stranger and serve his house for the
rest of her life.
Andromache announces that she would
prefer death Polyxena had suffered because after death one
71
knows and feels nothing, the suffering is over.
At this
point in the play the Greek messenger enters to announce
that the Greek council has decreed that Andromache's small
son Astyanax, Hector's heir, must die, and if she dares to
curse the Greeks the boy will not be allowed a proper
burial.
Odysseus advised the council that it would be
dangerous to allow the young prince, "a hero's son," to
live (Tro. 712-724).
The child will be thrown from the
battlements of the city.
The messenger advises her that
she can literally do nothing.
boy clings to his mother.
She is helpless.
The little
The scene is tragic,
heart-rending, harrowing, almost beyond endurance.
Andromache, like Hecuba, is left with nothing.
The third scene involves Menelaus, Helen, and
Hecuba.
Menelaus enters, puffed with pride, accompanied by
a bodyguard.
He brags about what a fine day it is to
recover his wife, the he catches himself and emphasizes
that he really came to Troy to avenge his honor and destroy
the man, Paris, who took advantage of the guest-host
relationship.
Helen requests permission to speak, and
although Menelaus at first refuses, Hecuba begs that Helen
be allowed to speak.
Hecuba wants the opportunity to
answer any defense that Helen might make.
Helen refuses to
take the blame for the war and argues that it was in the
hands of the gods.
Hecuba is unable to attach the blame to
72
Helen convincingly, though both Hecuba and the chorus focus
all their hatred on her.
Menelaus weakly refuses to kill
Helen at Troy but explains that he will take her back to
Greece and punish her in the presence of people who lost
loved ones in the war.
The audience naturally knows that
Menelaus will never punish Helen, and that the couple are
among the few who will safely and swiftly return to their
home (Odyssey 4 ) . Again Hecuba is left with nothing.
The
focus of her hatred received no punishment.
An Athenian audience in 415 would have had no
difficulty in recognizing the parallel between this play
and the destruction of Melos in 416 or Scione in 421.
In
416, the year before the presentation of The Trojan Women,
the island of Melos, which had remained neutral in the war,
was invited to join the Athenian alliance.
The Melians
refused, and an Athenian force besieged and captured the
city.
The men were executed and the women and children
sold into slavery (Thucyd. 5.86-116).
According to
Plutarch, Alcibiades was one of the supporters of the
decree to destroy Melos (Ale. 16). Similar extreme
measures had been taken in 421 when Scione revolted from
Athenian control.
Athens crushed the rebellion and the
population suffered the same fate, execution for the men
and slavery for the women and children (Thucyd. 5.32).
73
Even in a play so clearly topical as The Trojan Women
it is important to note that a constant awareness of
political topicality will add dimension and understanding.
For example, the pompous posturing of Menelaus has often
been interpreted as simply comic relief, but the Athenians
could easily identify Alcibiades, one of the authors of the
destruction of Melos.
Plutarch describes Alcibiades' physical beauty, his
lisp, and his fondness for finery: "Even his lisp is said
to have suited his voice well and to have made his talk
persuasive and full of charm . . . ."
And the comic poet
Archippus, according to Plutarch, "when he made fun of
Alcibiades' son" wrote: "He goes mincing along, trailing
his long robe behind him, trying to look the image of his
father . . .
He tilts his head to one side and over does
his lisp" (Ale. 1, cf. 16). Read Menelaus' scene
(860-1059) with Plutarch's Alcibiades in mind.
Euripides speaks through Cassandra to expose the
heroic myth and express a pragmatic judgment on war.
of the three Trojan women loses everything.
empty.
Nothing awaits them but suffering.
total despair.
The future is
The mood is
Even an innocent child must die to appease
the fears of the great Greek heroes.
of war.
Each
This is the reality
74
Several commentators on The Trojan Women, including
most notably E. Havelock and Jean-Paul Sartre, consider the
play a statement of nihilism.^^
Not just in a general
manner, but in a very specific topical sense, Euripides
concludes that the reward of unprovoked aggression for the
aggressor is literally nothing.
No one wins.
The victors,
in this case the Greeks, will eventually suffer just as the
vanquished Trojans.
Nor will the Athenians prosper from
the unprovoked destruction of Melos.
It should be noted that in Athens in 415 on the eve
of the Sicilian Expedition there must have been a sizable
peace faction to support the presentation of such a strong
anti-war play.
Further, Euripides won a second prize,
which lends credence to the inference.
9?
While the outcome of that great expedition was still
undecided Euripides directly addressed the issue of
factions within the polis.
Electra presents the myth in
which Orestes and his sister Electra join forces to avenge
the death of their father Agamemnon.
Orestes returns from
exile to Argos with his friend Pylades.
The prince finds
his sister Electra married to a Mycenaean farmer.
The
farmer treats Electra with kindness and respect, but the
young woman is obsessed not only with avenging her father's
death, but with the poverty in which she lives.
She longs
for a life of luxury and a proper husband suitable to her
75
birth and position.
she wants revenge against her mother
Clytemnestra and her mother's co-conspirator and lover
Aegisthus, but it is as much a revenge for her own
mistreatment as for her father's murder.
D. Konstan analyzes references in the play to philia,
literally "friendship" or "kinship."
The terra regularly
implies something more: alliance or an agreement for mutual
support or defense.
Konstan believes that Electra contains
numerous allusions to specific factions and political
conflict in Athens.
He warns that it is a mistake to read
and interpret the play only on a universal level.^^
No date is recorded for Electra in ancient sources,
but the reference to the rescue of a fleet in Sicilian
waters (1347-1348) , in all probability, refers to the
Athenian relief expedition sent to Sicily in spring of
94
413,
which would place the play in the same year.
Between 418 and 413 politics in Athens ran amuck because of
the ever changing alignment of various factions.
In 417
Nicias and Alcibiades and their respective supporters
.
joined to ostracize Hyperbolus.95 Alcibiades
and his
supporters exercised the strongest influence in the
Assembly and pushed for a militant policy which resulted in
the conquest of Melos in 416 and the Sicilian expedition in
415.
Nicias and his faction opposed the 415 expedition,
but although the Assembly voted support for the more
76
militant policy of Alcibiades, Nicias received joint
command with Lamachus and Alcibiades of the Athenian naval
and military forces destined for Sicily.
Nicias'
appointment was evidence of the people's confidence in him
and was also an attempt to check the rash, dare-devil
tendency of Alcibiades with a cautious, conservative joint
commander.
in fact, it only crippled and deprived the
expedition of a single decisive commander. 96
In May of 415, shortly before the expedition set
sail, the Hermae, which were the square stone figures that
guarded the entrance to temples and houses, were damaged
throughout the city.
People panicked and considered it to
be an ill omen before the expedition.
Enemies of
Alcibiades accused him and his friends and also charged
that a mockery of the Mysteries took place at his home
during an evening of drunken celebration.
Alcibiades
requested a trial in order that he be cleared before the
expedition sailed, but his enemies realized that too many
citizens in the army and fleet supported Alcibiades, and a
conviction would be impossible.
Alcibiades sailed with the
fleet, but once he and the core of his support left Athens
the opposing faction preyed upon the fears and
superstitions of the Athenians and Alcibiades was recalled
to stand trial.
expedition.
This proved a disaster for the
Lamachus did not have the prestige necessary
77
for command, and Nicias lacked the ability to make a
decisive military evaluation and act quickly.
The
expedition was doomed.
Konstan contends that Electra offers evidence that
not only was the social world highly factionalized, but
that the concept of friendship in many cases took on the
connotation of political alignment.
Orestes refers to his
friend Pylades as the only true and loyal friend and later
questions the old man about friends in Argos, in this case
friend means possible supporters of Orestes.98 Electra
lamented Orestes' absence; he was not available as a friend
or philos or more specifically, in this case, a defender.
Konstan does not deny the overtones of affection in philos
but strongly believes in additional political meanings.
Electra vows to commit suicide if Orestes fails in his
attempt to kill Aegisthus.
Konstan argues that this is not
just a sign of love or pride or fear but a pledge of
fidelity.
When a messenger arrives he reports Orestes'
99
defeat of Aegisthus to all philoi or supporters.
Clytemnestra admits that she turned to the enemies of
Agamemnon for support because no one among his friends,
100
used here as allies, would have helped her.
Konstan does not think it necessary to analyze
Electra for references to a specific political crisis or
event in order to establish political topicality.
It is
78
sufficient to be aware of the changing influence and
alignment of various factions, and how these hindered the
rational consideration and implementation of government
policy in, for example, the Sicilian Expedition.
Euripides used the story of the eponymous ancestor of
the lonians as the plot for ^on.
In this myth Apollo raped
Creusa, the daughter of King Erechtheus of Athens.
princess secretly gave birth to a son. Ion.
The
To conceal her
shame she abandoned the child in his cradle but left some
of her jewelry with the infant.
Hermes on instructions
from Apollo took the baby to the priestess of Apollo at
Delphi, and the boy was raised in the temple.
years Creusa married Xuthus.
In later
They had no children and
eventually journeyed to Delphi to ask the oracle for
advice.
The oracle gave Xuthus a sign that Ion was his son
and should be accepted as the prince of Athens.
Unaware of
the boy's true identity Creusa tries to poison him.
The
plan miscarries, and just as Ion is about to kill Creusa
the priestess enters and gives the cradle to the youth.
Creusa recognizes it and identifies the contents.
The
mother-son recognition scene ends with a mutual agreement.
Xuthus will not be told that Creusa is the true mother and
Apollo the father.
Apollo's absence.
Athena makes an appearance and explains
The god does not want an embarrassing
explanation of what happened in the past.
Athena reveals
79
the future.
Ion will one day be King of Athens, and Ion's
children will settle Ionia.
After the disastrous defeat of the Athenian force in
Sicily in 413 the Athenian allies grew restless, took
advantage of Athens' weakened defenses, and broke away from
Athens.
The rebellion was particularly serious in Ionia
(Thucyd. 8.2-24) .
Lattimore's chronology dates the Ion to 412 on
101
metrical grounds.
Euripides' choice of this somewhat
obscure myth as a subject adds weight to that dating.
J. P. Barron maintains that both Athens and Ionia
adhered to the tradition of an Attic foundation of the
Ionian cities.
Such a tradition possibly went back to the
time of Solon.
The link between Athens and Ionia was
particularly emphasized in the fifth century and was used
as an excuse for founding the Delian League.
Barron also
presents evidence of a religious cult of Ion and his
descendents attached to the tradition. 102 If, as Barron
argues. Ion was widely accepted as the eponymous ancestor
of the lonians, and this link had been strengthened and
fortified since the time of Solon by religious tradition,
it would be a sensible political move on Athens' part to
use the story at the time of the rebellion.
No subject
could better suit the time and the situation of the Ionian
80
rebellion than a story which emphasized the bond between
Attica and Ionia.
Undoubtedly Euripides intended J^n to serve, at least
in part, as a vehicle for political propaganda.
the message of Ion.
Consider
The poet stressed the traditional
connection between Attica and Ionia, therefore the Ionian
Rebellion constituted a betrayal by the lonians of their
heritage (1575-1588).
Possibly Euripides hoped to dissuade
some lonians from actual rebellion and to weaken the
resolve of others.
The play also presents a strong indictment of Apollo
and the oracle at Delphi.
The lonians might have been
encouraged to consult the oracle by the Spartans who
controlled Delphi.
The play warns that Apollo is not to be
trusted (1555-1559) .
Lattimore dates The Phoenician Women to 410.103
The
action of the play covers that part of the Oedipus legend
that deals with the two sons of Oedipus, Polyneices, and
Eteocles.
Each brother wants to rule Thebes.
They agree
to share the power and serve as king in alternate years.
However, after a year as King, Eteocles refuses to turn
power over to Polyneices.
Polyneices raises an army in
Argos and marches on Thebes.
The two forces meet in
battle, and neither side wins a decisive victory.
and Polyneices agree to meet in single combat.
The
Eteocles
81
brothers kill each other, and in grief their mother,
Jocasta, commits suicide.
Rule of Thebes passes to
Jocasta's brother Creon, who banishes Oedipus and refuses
to allow burial for the bodies of Polyneices and the Argive
heroes.
The play ends as Oedipus, accompanied by Antigone,
leaves the revolution-torn city of Thebes.
In June of 411 an oligarchic revolution overthrew the
democracy in Athens.
A body of five men selected a council
of four hundred to govern with absolute authority.
The
democratic council of five hundred was dismissed by force,
and the assembly was never summoned.
Many moderate but
influential men in Athens were disillusioned with a foreign
policy mismanaged by a democracy, and the extreme
oligarchic faction won the temporary support of these
moderates.
The Four Hundred ruled from June to September
when the democracy was restored through the combined
efforts of democrats in Athens and the crews of the
Athenian fleet at Samos who were in large part supporters
of the democracy.
Euripides comments on the revolution of 411 in The
Phoenician Women.
The poet's use of a myth in which
brother turns against brother presents strong criticism of
the revolution in Athens.
The inability of the brothers to
come to terms and work out an acceptable solution for the
benefit of the polis not only destroys them, but also
82
causes the death of their mother Jocasta.
In a few short
months the people of Athens came very close to
self-destruction of their polis through revolution.
Euripides argues the virtues of democracy when
Jocasta tries to reason with Eteocles.
It's better child,
to honor Equality who ties friends to
friends,
cities to cities, allies to allies.
For equality is stable among men.
If not the lesser hates the greater
force,
and so begins the day of enmity.
(535-540)
In the first instance (536) the Greek for equality is
"isoteta timan" or equal honor among allies.
In the second
(538) equality is "ison nominon" or equality of citizens
under the law.
Euripides summarizes in these two
references to "equality" the cause of Athens' problems with
her allies and within her own polis—disregard for this
fundamental principle of democracy.
The people of Athens
would not long tolerate the oligarchic disregard for
democracy.
The allies of Athens would not remain loyal to
a city which had so little regard for their rights.
Compare the argument Thucydides attributes to
Phrynicus in 412 when the conspiracy that produced the
1 ^•
^
V 105
oligarchic revolution
was afoot:
83
And as for the allied states to whom oligarchy
was now to be offered, because the democracy was
to be put down at Athens, he [the Persian King]
well knew that this would not make the rebels
come in any the sooner, or confirm the loyal in
their allegiance; as the allies would never
prefer servitude with an oligarchy or democracy
to freedom with the constitution they actually
enjoyed . . . (Thucyd. 8.48).
Orestes, first presented in 408, was Euripides last
play before he left Athens.-"-^^
The play offers the
audience an intricate series of events in which Orestes
suffers, and Electra cares for him.
Both young people
await the arrival of Menelaus and hope, even expect, the
King of Sparta to speak out in their defense at the trial
in Argos.
Menelaus, however, does not help them, and they
are condemned to death.
They plan to commit suicide, but
before they die the brother and sister decide to kill
Helen, the source of all their trouble.
To prevent
Menelaus' retaliation Electra holds Hermione hostage.
Orestes and his friend Pylades go into the palace to kill
Helen, but she vanishes.
Apollo appears and makes a series
of announcements: Helen will become immortal.
She was only
an instrument of the gods to reduce surplus population.
Pylades will marry Electra.
For a year Orestes will endure
exile and then be tried in Athens for matricide and
acquitted.
become king.
He will return to Argos, marry Hermione and
All in all a neat ending with no loose ends.
84
It is likely that this complex plot relates to
complex intrigue in Athens, but there is not enough source
material to discover what it is.
Thucydides' Peloponnesian
Wa£, the best source of information for the period, breaks
off abruptly in 411.
Xenophon's Hellenica does not go into
internal Athenian politics for the years 410-408.
Aristotle's Constitution of Athens fails to give
information on the period.
Chapter 33 deals with the
revolution of 411, and chapter 34 jumps to the year 404/3.
P. J. Euben maintains Orestes depicts political
corruption.107 One would suspect that Orestes represents
Alcibiades. The character of Alcibiades may have suggested
to Euripides an additional fear for the future of Athens.
Throughout the play the audience would be reminded of
Orestes' crime of matricide.
Many would also remember that
Alcibiades served Sparta to injure his mother polis.
Orestes-Alcibiades just a confused, erratic, victim of
circumstances, or a clever realist?
Perhaps it was no
coincidence that Euripides left Athens in 408 shortly
before Alcibiades returned in 407.
Was
CHAPTER V
CONCLUSION: EURIPIDES POLITIKOS
During the 1960s and into the 1970s the Greek
military junta banned the plays of Euripides.
Of course,
this is evidence of the universal quality of his plays.
But the ban also bears clear witness to Euripides' powerful
and specific topicality in treating the history of Greece
in his own time.
Euripides dealt with real political
events and thus stirred emotions.
The colonels no doubt
feared that he might inspire Greeks once more—this time to
take action against a dictatorial government.
From the time of Aristotle to the present the
universal interpretation of Euripides has limited
understanding of his plays.
Recognition of political
topicality and universality should not be mutually
exclusive.
No student of Euripides would deny the
universal quality of his work.
But no student should
forget that Euripides, a citizen of imperial Athens, did
not in all probability have the judgment of future ages in
mind when he wrote his plays.
The Peloponnesian war was an all consuming experience
for his polis.
potential.
The poet took great joy in Athens' great
In Medea and The Suppliant Women he openly
85
86
praised his city.
for her future.
inspire.
in other plays he grieved and despaired
But he still attempted to instruct and
His message to his fellow citizens is often
clear: Recognize your mistakes.
Live up to your potential.
Learn from your past.
Hippolytus, the Heracleidae,
The Suppliant Women, and The Trojan Women—all offer such
advice.
We learn from Aristophanes in The Frogs that the duty
of a great tragic poet is to advise his city in much more
than a general way.
"Advise me first of Alcibiades" is a
demand for counsel on a very specific and difficult
question. 108
Euripides' comments on his contemporaries and
contemporary events are often quite clear.
in Alcestis,
Medea, and Hippolytus the poet illuminates and sometimes
celebrates the life of Pericles.
Hecuba, Andromache, and
The Trojan Women offer ferocious criticism of Cleon and
Alcibiades.
Ion is in part propaganda in response to the
rebellion threatening or underway in Ionia.
Euripides
treats and passes judgment on such specific events as the
executions without trial at Plataea, the wholesale
destruction of the peoples of Scione and Melos, the war
between Corinth and Corcyra, the battle of Delium, and the
revolution of 411.
87
In the plays we can discern a pattern of
deterioration both in the caliber of Athenian leadership,
and in the capacity of the demos to make political
judgments.
Konstan's analysis of Electra demonstrates the
large amount of historical evidence that might be gained
from similar in-depth examinations of other plays.
A much
better understanding of political events and political
attitudes in Athens in the fifth century could result.
The long neglect of political topicality in
Euripides' plays has obscured the history of his times.
has also limited our understanding of his work.
It
David
Grene in his introduction to Hippolytus contends that after
Phaedra dies the play is weak.
The poet loses interest in
the play and only goes through the motions because "he must
109
properly tidy up the end of the story."
Thus Grene
entirely misses the meaning of the last half of the play: a
110
powerful tribute to the life and greatness of Pericles.
ENDNOTES
David Grene and Richard Lattimore, eds.. The
Complete Greek Tragedies. Vols. 3-4, Euripides (Chicago,
lybS) , 4: 82-85.
2
All dates in the following text are B.C. unless
otherwise indicated. On the history of Athens' during
Euripides' lifetime see in general, in addition to the
works cited for specific matters in the following notes, J.
K. Davies, Democracy and Classical Greece (Stanford,
1983). On matters of intellectual history see, esp., Eric
A. Havelock, The Liberal Temper in Greek Politics (New
Haven, 1957. W. Burkert, Greek Religion (Cambridge, Mass.,
1985), provides a generally standard account of that
subject. But Burkert's judgment is sometimes distorted by
his own neo-Platonism, e.g., pp. 317-325 (pointed out to me
by Professor Twyman).
3
N. G. L. Hammond and H. H. Scullard, eds.. The
Oxford Classical Dictionary, 2nd ed. (Oxford, 1978), s.v.
"Euripides," by D. W. Lucas, 418.
^Ibid.
5
2
OCD , s.v. "Protagoras," by G. C. Field, 890.
g
F. E. Adcock in J. B. Bury, S. A. Cook, and F. E.
Adcock, eds.. The Cambridge Ancient History, Vol. 5.
(Cambridge, 1927), 282-283.
^J. B. Bury in CAH 5: 379.
Q
J. B. Bury and Russell Meiggs, A History of Greece,
2nd ed. (New York, 1975), 243.
Q
Gilbert Murray, Euripides and His Age (London,
1931) , 140.
^^OCD^, s.v. "Euripides," 418.
Ibid.
12
Murray, Euripides, 23-27.
•"•^Ibid., 37-38.
. 88
89
Grene and Lattimore, Euripides 4: 612. Gunther
Zuntz, The Political Plays of Euripides (Manchester, 1955),
56-58, 93-94, summarizes the analysis of resolution by C.
B. Ceadel, Classical Quarterly 35 (1941): 60-75. The
frequency of resolved iambic feet changes progressively and
dramatically from 1/16 lines in Alcestis (438) to 1/2.5
lines in Orestes (408) . Zuntz would date the plays
accordingly, but Ceadel himself recognized that this
pattern cannot exclude exceptions.
•'•^Ibid., 615.
"'•^Ibid., 613.
Donald, Kagan, The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian
War (Ithaca, 1969), 194-198.
18
Grene and Lattimore, Euripides 4: 613.
Ibid.
Ibid.
^•"•Ibid., 613-614.
^^Ibid., 614.
^^The date is recorded by Aelian Varia Historica 2.8.
Grene and Lattimore, Euripides 4: 615.
25,,
. -,
Ibid.
^^Ibid., 616.
^^Ibid., 614-615.
^^Ibid., 616.
^^ Zuntz, Political Plays, passim. Moreover, Zuntz,
p. 4, expliictly rejects the assertion of P. Giles,
Classical Review 4 (1890): 98, that The Suppliant Women
dealt with contemporary history.
^^Philip Vellacott, "Introduction" in Euripides,
Orestes and Other Plays, trans. Philip Velacott (New York,
1980), 17-18.
90
31
H. Konishi, "Euripides' Medea and Aspasia,"
Liverpool Classical Monthly 11 (1986, no. 4 ) : 50-52. John
Wilkins, "Aspasia in Medea?" Liverpool Classical Monthly 12
(1986, no. 4 ) : 8-10, offers only inconclusive criticism of
Konishi's case.
32
David Konstan, "Philia in Euripides' Electra,"
Philologus 129 (1985): 176-185.
33
W. R. Connor, The New Politicians of Fifth Century
Athens (Princeton, 1971), 189.
34
John H. Finley, "Euripides and Thucydides,"
Plutarch in
Alcibiades
(trans.49I.-S.
Kilvert,
Harvard Studies
Classical 2-3
Philology
(1938):
24-68.
1964)
35
36 Aristophanes Frogs (trans. G. Murray, 1950) .
37
Murray, Euripides, 42-45.
^^Plut. Ale. 1.
•^^William Arrowsmith, "Euripides' Theater of Ideas"
in John Gassner, ed., Ideas in the Drama (New York, 1964).
Reprinted in Erich Segal, ed., Euripides; A Collection of
Critical Essays (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1968), 25.
^^Lattimore, "Introduction to Alcestis in Grene and
Lattimore, Euripides 3: 5.
^•^Thucydides Peloponnesian War 1.115.
^^Thucyd. 1.117.
^^Plutarch Pericles 31.
*^Plut. Per. 24.1, 25.1
^^Per. 24.
4^Ibid.
^^Plut. Per. 32.
^^Plut. Per. 31. On the dating see Kagan, Outbreak,
194-198. Cf! ?rink J. Frost, "Pericles, Thucydides, Son of
Melesias, and Athenian Politics Before the War," Historia
13 (1969): 385-399.
91
49
Per. 32.
50
Per. 18, emphasis added.
Thucyd. 2.43.1 (trans. B. L. Twyman, 1987, ad
hoc)
52
Kagan, Outbreak, 387-388.
^"^Ibid., 179-181.
^Thucyd. 1.24.5-7.
^^Thucyd. 1.25.1-3.
56
Kagan, Outbreak, 221.
Ibid.
^^Thucyd. 1.25.3-4.
59
Kagan, Outbreak, 243.
60
, .
Bury and Meiggs, History of Greece, 246.
^•"•Thucyd. 1.49-51.
62
Kagan, Outbreak, 273. Ronald P. Legon, "The
Megarian Decree and the Balance of Greek Naval Power,"
Classical Philology 68 (1973): 161-171, contends that the
decree was passed before the battle of Sybota between late
summer 434 and early spring 433. Kagan's dating after the
battle of Sybota seems preferable, but it matters little
here.
go
Bury and Meiggs, History of Greece, 246-247.
64
Konishi, "Medea and Aspasia," 51.
gc
Bury and Meiggs, History of Greece, 217.
gg
Konishi, "Medea and Aspasia," 52.
Ibid.
go
Kagan, Outbreak, 170.
69
Konishi, "Medea and Aspasia," 51-52.
92
70
, ^
Ralph Gladstone, "Introduction to the Heracleidae"
in Grene and Lattimore, Euripides 3: 110-111.
Ibid., 111-112. Zuntz, Political Plays, 83-86,
argues that Eurystheus' prophecy of a Heraclid invasion
(1026-1041) would have been inappropriate after the Spartan
invasion of Attica in summer 430. But Zuntz' view requires
the supposition that Euripides meant to predict the outcome
of that invasion.
^^Ibid., 112.
73
•^Ibid.
119
74
Vellacott, Orestes, 18.
75
Ibid., 17.
^^Ibid., 18.
77
Donald Kagan, The Archidamian War (Ithaca, 1974),
^^Ibid., 91.
79
Connor, New Politicians, 3-32.
80
"•^Plut. Pe£. 35.
81
Kagan, Archidamian Viar, 91.
82
Kagan, Archidamian War, 101.
Grene and Lattimore, Euripides 4: 613.
^^Professor Twyman called the parallel between
Menelaus and Brasidas to my attention.
^^Grene and Lattimore, Euripides 4: 614.
^^William Arrowsmith, "Introduction to Hecuba" in
Grene and Lattimore, Euripides 3: 491.
^^Grene and Lattimore, Euripides 4: 614.
^^Cf. William Arrowsmith, "Introduction to Heracles"
in Grene and Lattimore, Euripides 3: 279-80.
^^OCD , s.v. "Heracles," by C. M. Robertson, 498.
93
90^
Grene and Lattimore, Euripides 4: 614.
91
Eric W. Havelock, "Watching the Trojan Women" in
Erich Segal, ed., Euripides: A Collection of Critical
Essays (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1968), 3-33. Jean-Paul
Sartre, "Why the Trojan Women?" (trans. J. Mehlman) in
Erich Segal, ed., Euripides: A Collection of Critical
Essays (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1968), 128-131.
92
Grene and Lattimore, Euripides 3: 608-610.
Lattimore (609, n. 1) "can hardly understand how the
Athenians let him present this play at all."
93
Konstan, "Philia in Electra," 179.
94
Grene and Lattimore, Euripides 4: 615.
^^Plut. Al£. 13.
96
Bury and Meiggs, Greece, 293-294.
^^Ibid., 294-295.
^^Konstan, "Philia in Electra," 179.
99
Ibid., 180.
•'•'^^Ibid., 181.
101
Grene and Lattimore, Euripides 4: 615.
1rtj•^
J. Peter Barron, "Religious Propaganda of the
Delian League," Journal of Hellenic Studies 84 (1964):
222-251.
•^ Grene and Lattimore, Euripides 4: 615-616.
•^"^^W. S. Ferguson in CAH 5: 321-338.
-'•^^On the interpretation of this and other references
or allusions by Thucydides to the attitude of the allies,
see T. J. Quinn, "Thucydides and the Popularity of the
Athenian Empire," Historia 13 (1964): 257-266.
Grene and Lattimore, Euripides 4: 616.
94
107
J. Peter Euben, "Political Corruption in
Euripides' Orestes," in J. Peter Euben, ed., Greek Tragedy
and Political Theory (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1986) ,
222-251.
108 Above, p. 14.
109
Grene, "Introduction to Hippolytus in Grene and
Lattimore, Euripides 3: 159.
110
Above, pp. 45-50.
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