Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
The locus classicus for the didactic aspect of Greek tragedy is, of course, Aristophanes' Frogs, especially the passage at 1009–10 where Aeschylus and Euripides agree that (we) tragic poets are valued ⋯τι βελτ⋯оυϲ…πоιо⋯μεν τοὺϲ ⋯νθρώπουϲ ⋯ν ταῖϲ π⋯λεϲιν. But how seriously should we take this? It is comedy, after all.
1 Greek Tragedy (English transl. by Frankfort, H. P., London, 1965), 18Google Scholar, cf. Lesky's, review of Pohlenz in Gnomon 28 (1956), 25Google Scholar. Contrast Russell, D. A., Criticism in Antiquity (London, 1981), 84Google Scholar, who says that in Frogs Aristophanes is ‘formulating a general idea which would have been widely accepted not only among his own audience…’.
2 English transl. of 2nd ed. by T. Rosenmeyer, Harvard, 1953; 4th German ed. Göttingen, 1975. The chapter was first published as an article in Die Antike in 1937.
3 On the retardation, see Harriott, R.Gand R 29 (1982), 35Google Scholar.
4 The word is introduced by emendation in at least two passages by Ghiron-Bistagne, P. in RÉG 86 (1973), 285 ff.Google Scholar; but I leave these out of account.
5 There is an interesting discussion, even if no satisfactory answer, by Vaio, J., GRBS 12 (1971), 344–51Google Scholar.
6 See Bowie, A. M.CQ n.s. 32 (1982), 27 ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar. esp. 30; also Edmunds, L., YCS 26 (1980), 1 ffGoogle Scholar. esp. 10.
7 I am grateful to the CQ reader for helpful suggestions.