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Geoffrey Bakewell finds in Aeschylus' Suppliants ‘an invaluable perspective on Athenian attempts at establishing their own identity in the late 460s bce’. The play presents a ‘displaced self-portrait of Athens’, and the ‘ambivalent welcome to exotic immigrants’ and ‘wariness towards outsiders’ makes that portrait ‘not entirely flattering’ (ix). I am not sure whether this judgement is meant to express a modern perspective, or that of Aeschylus' audience. Bakewell claims that metics ‘by their very nature constituted an existential threat to the democratic city and its self-understanding’ (8), and that they were perceived as ‘threatening’ (19), but provides no supporting evidence. To illustrate Athenian attitudes to metics he appeals to the Old Oligarch (not, perhaps, the most representative of witnesses), citing his frustration at not being allowed to assault foreigners; there is no mention of Dicaeopolis (Ach. 507–8). It is, of course, true that in Suppliants Argos is imperilled by the refugees' arrival: but that is because they are pursued by an army determined to enforce a legal claim on them, which Athenian metics typically were not. The view that tragedies gave spectators a ‘mental license to think through a pressing issue in an extended way, and at a safe remove’ (123) is widely held, and may be right. But its application ought not to depend on disregarding crucial features of a play's distinctively tragic scenario.
1 Aeschylus' Suppliant Women. The Tragedy of Immigration. By Bakewell, Geoffrey W.. Madison, WI, University of Wisconsin Press, 2013Google Scholar. Pp. xii + 209. Paperback £24.50, ISBN: 978-0-299-29174-7.
2 Aeschylus. Suppliant Women. Edited with translation and commentary by Bowen, A. J.. Aaris & Phillips Classical Texts. Oxford, Aris & Phillips, 2013Google Scholar. Pp. ii + 374. Hardback £50, ISBN: 978-1-908343-78-9; Paperback £19.99, ISBN: 978-1-908343-34-5.
3 City of Suppliants. Tragedy and the Athenian Empire. By Tzanetou, Angeliki. Austin, TX, University of Texas Press, 2012Google Scholar. Pp. xvi + 206. Hardback £37, ISBN: 978-0-292-73716-7; paperback £16.99, ISBN: 978-0-292-75432-4.
4 The Other Four Plays of Sophocles. Ajax, Women of Trachis, Electra, Philoctetes. Translated by Slavitt, David R.. Baltimore, MD, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013Google Scholar. Pp. xiv + 254. Hardback £32, ISBN: 978-1-4214-1136-1; paperback £13, ISBN: 978-1-4214-1137-8.
5 Sophocles. Philoctetes. Edited with a commentary by Schein, Seth L.. Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2013Google Scholar. Pp. xii + 375. Hardback £60, ISBN: 978-0-521-86277-6; paperback £22.99, ISBN: 978-0-521-68143-8.
6 Euripides. Alcestis. By Slater, Niall W.. Companions to Greek and Roman Tragedy. London, Bloomsbury Academic, 2013Google Scholar. Pp. x + 141. Hardback £50, ISBN: 978-1-7809-3472-3; paperback £16.99, ISBN: 978-1-7809-3473-0.
7 Early Greek Mythography, II. Commentary. By Fowler, Robert L.. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2013Google Scholar. Pp. xxii + 825. Hardback £148, ISBN: 978-0-19-814741-1.
8 The Orphic Hymns. Translated with an introduction and notes by Athanassakis, Apostolos N. and Wolkow, Benjamin M.. Baltimore, MD, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013Google Scholar. Pp. xxiv + 255. Hardback £21, ISBN: 978-1-4214-0881-1; paperback £12, ISBN: 978-1-4214-0882-8.
9 Epictetus. Discourses, Fragments, Handbook. Translated by Hard, Robin, with an introduction and notes by Gill, Christopher. Oxford World's Classics. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2014Google Scholar. Pp. xxxvi + 355. Paperback £9.99, ISBN: 978-0-19-959518-1.