1. Smith, W.D., ‘Dramatic Structure and Technique in Euripides’ Suppliants’ (Diss. Harvard Univ., 1955), 48Google Scholar.

2. Zuntz, While Gunther(The Political Plays of Euripides [Manchester 1955], 20fGoogle Scholar.) saw SuppL as wholly lacking in irony and ambivalence others have disagreed. For a summary of earlier views see Conacher, D.J., ‘Religious and Ethical Attitudes in Euripides’ Suppliants’, TAPA 87 (1956), 8–14Google Scholar. Some commentators saw the play’s contradictions as without aesthetic significance: Greenwood, L.H.G., Aspects of Euripidean Tragedy (Cambridge 1953), 119Google Scholar; Fitton, J.W., ‘The Suppliant Women and the Herakleidai of Euripides’, Hermes 89 (1961), 430–48Google Scholar. For literary analysis of the contradictions see Gamble, R.B., ‘Euripides’ Suppliant Women: Decision and Ambivalence’, Hermes 98 (1970), 385–86Google Scholar; Smith, W.D., ‘Expressive Form in Euripides’ Suppliants’, HSCP 71 (1967), 151–52Google Scholar; and Burian, Peter, ‘Logos and Pathos: The Politics of the Suppliant Women’, in Burian, P. (ed), Directions in Euripidean Criticism: A Collection of Essays (Durham 1985), 129–55Google Scholar.

3. For the complex implications of apparently extraneous moralizing and intellectualizing in Euripides see Conacher, D.J., ‘Some Questions of Probability and Relevance in Euripidean Drama’, Maia 24 (1972), 199–207Google Scholar and, on this passage in SuppL, ‘Rhetoric and Relevance in Euripidean Drama’, AJP 102 (1981), 23–25Google Scholar; also Michelini, A., Euripides and the Tragic Tradition (Madison 1987), 88–89Google Scholar, 137–42, 300–3. On the function of Theseus’ speech, and others like it, see also Mastronarde, D.J., ‘The Optimistic Rationalist in Euripides: Theseus, Jocasta, Teiresias’, in Cropp, Martin et al. (eds.), Greek Tragedy and its Legacy: Essays Presented to D.J. Conacher (Calgary 1986), 203–04Google Scholar.

4. Editors, including some who like Collard, Christopher (Euripides Supplices [Groningen 1975], 154–55Google Scholar) assume a lacuna, have either attempted to emend the last word of line 179 (see discussion, n.8 below) or preferred to delete the following lines. But the speech is already very short (cf. n. 11 below). An extensive discussion of the problems appears in the dissertation of W.D. Smith (n.l above), 115–25, who opts for.excision of 180–83.

5. Works and Days 21–24. For the difficult text, caused apparently by Hesiod’s habit of assimilating proverbs into lengthier expressions, see A. Hoekstra, , ‘Hésiode, Les Travaux el les Jours 405–507, 317–319,21 -24. L’élément proverbial et son adaptation’, Mnemosyne 4 (1950), 106–14Google Scholar.

6. The intellectual and stylistic mannerism in which each term and concept evokes a polar and antithetical expression is common in archaic thought; for a recent study see Hubbard, T.K., The Pindaric Mind- A Study of Logical Structure in Early Greek Poetry (Leiden 1985), 8–11Google Scholar.

7. Supporting this reading, see the recent article of Cannatà Fera, M., ‘Euripide Supplici 176–79: il motivo della metabolē tēs tukhēs’, GIF 38 (1986), 255–57Google Scholar.

8. Collard proposed to emend dedoikenai to dedorkenai: ‘Euripides, Supplices 176–83’, RIFC 101 (1973), 411–13Google Scholar. Verbs of seeing are frequent in the passage, but little is gained by adding another; and Collard (n. 4 above, 155) must buttress his reading by a rather strained interpretation of sophon. By retaining dedoikenai we can take a further step in filling in the lacuna after 179: it should be followed by a clause balancing the final clause in 178. See M. Cannatà Fera (n. 7 above), 256.

9. See Gamble (n. 2 above), 388, an idea ‘as old as Homer’. Cf. Pucci, Pietro, The Violence of Pity in Euripides’ Medea (Ithaca 1980), 29–30Google Scholar for an exaggerated Euripidean example of this preparation (Fr. 964N 2). For conventional examples, see Cannatà Fera (n. 7 above), who collects a number of passages, many from tragedy (257–59).

10. See also another passage cited as a parallel to the Democritus fragment by Cole, Thomas, Democritus and the Sources of Greek Anthropology (Cleveland OH 1967), 122Google Scholar: the fourth-century Archytas of Tarentum argued (DK 47 B3) that logismos is an invention that increases homonoia by encouraging exchanges between rich and poor.

11. Theseus’ reply is 55 lines long; Adrastus’ speech would be thus in more typical balance at 40 than at its present 30 lines (162, whether delivered by Adrastus or not, clearly belongs to the preceding stichomythy). Cf. the reconstruction attributed to Kirchhoff in Murray’s OCT: Adrastus will need to round off the gnomic section, make the application to his own case, and perhaps add some more transition to the case of the poet. A minimum length for this would seem to be three or four lines. The assumption that the lacuna should obscure some reference to divine cruelty (crudeles enim dii sunt, et miseri homines) is otiose, however, since Theseus clearly indicates that his reply is aimed at arguments not made by Adrastus.

12. See Collard (n. 4 above), 155.

13. See Lysias 1, 3, 7, 12; Antiphon ‘Prosecution for Poisoning’ and ‘On the Murder of Herodes’.

14. Gorgias (DK 82 Bl 1.9) states that ‘there enters those who hear [poetry] terrified shuddering and tearful pity [phrikē periphobos kai eleos poludakrus] and a grief-loving longing [pothos philopenthēs].’ He goes on to emphasize the empathetic effect of the mimesis: ‘By means of the words the soul experiences as its own a feeling aroused by the successes and misfortunes of others’ actions and physical states.’ For other evidence of Gorgias’ theories, see Pohlenz, Max, ‘Die Anfänge der griechischen Poetik’, NAWG 42 (1920), 168–75Google Scholar.

15. On the significance for literary history of this new focus see de Romilly, Jacqueline, Magic and Rhetoric in Ancient Greece (Cambridge MA 1975), 5–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16. On inconsequent reflection in Euripides see the citations in n.3 above. Euripides often marks these passages with apologias resembling those that long misled commentators on Pindaric poetry; see Michelini (n. 3 above), 137 n.29.

17. 195–99: On the hamilla logōn (‘contest of words’), see Collard (n.4 above), 159–60.

18. As Kirchhoff thought (see n. 11 above).

19. Even the most extreme formulation, that it is better never to be born at all, is a patent commonplace (pantakhou thruloumenon, Euripides, Fr. 285N 2). See Kamerbeek’s, J.C. commentary on Sophocles, OC 1124–28 (Leiden 1984), 172Google Scholar. Nestle, Wilhelm (Euripides; Der Dichter der griechischen Aufklärung [Stuttgart 1901], 66)Google Scholar, citing the ideas attributed to Prodicus by Socrates in the pseudo-Platonic Axiochus (366C-369D), saw the passage as an allusion to his work. But we cannot be certain whether the author of Axiochus was referring to any extant work of Prodicus or simply foisting a cliché on him. For further references to Cean pessimism, however, see Nestle (n.23 below, 166 n.5).

20. Note that it is precisely the weakness of the argument that proves the ability of the debater ton hēttō logon kreittō poiein (‘to make the weaker argument the stronger’). For association of this technique with Protagoras, see Aristotle, Rhet. 1402a24–28.

21. Note especially Sophocles Antigone 332–75; Prometheus 442–506; Democritus (DK 68 B5); Gorgias, Patamedes (DK 82 Bl la.30); Hippocrates VM 3. Later summary in Diodorus (1.8 - DK 68 B5).

22. Havelock, E.A., The Liberal Temper in Greek Politics (London 1957)Google Scholar, painstakingly traces the logos through its permutations in tragedy, Plato and Diodorus, before tracking it to its origins in the fragments of presocratics from the sixth through the fifth centuries (33–124). See also Guthrie, W.K.C., History of Greek Philosophy vol.3 (Cambridge 1969), 60–83Google Scholar and Kleingünther, Adolf, PRŌTOS HEURETĒS: Untersuchungen zur Geschichte einer Fragestellung (Berlin 1933), 95ffGoogle Scholar.; the post-Democritean sources are discussed by Cole (n.10 above,passim).

23. See Havelock (n.22 above) who mentions most of these figures. On Prodicus see further Nestle, Wilhelm, ‘Die Horen des Prodikos’, Hermes 71 (1936), 151–70Google Scholar, and Henrichs, Albert, ‘Two Doxographical Notes: Democritus and Prodicus on Religion’, HSCP 79 (1975), 111–19Google Scholar; on Anaxagoras and Archelaus, Lämmli, Franz, Vom Chaos zum Kosmos: Zur Geschichte einer Idee (Basel 1962), 64–66Google Scholar; on Democritus, Cole (n. 10 above), passim.

24. See Havelock (n.22 above), 28–31.

25. In the myth hinted at in Hesiod’s ‘division at Mecome’ (Theog. 53f.), separation seems obscurely to accompany the beginnings of sacrifice, since humans and gods will no longer eat together; it leads eventually to the theft of fire, which founds human technology and causes the punishment of Prometheus. See M.L. West, Hesiod: Theogony (Oxford 1966), 317–18; on reminiscences in Ovid, Lämmli, Franz, Homo Faber: Triumph, Schuld, Verhängnis? (Basel 1968), 11–12Google Scholar; and Wirshbo, Eliot, ‘The Mekone Scene in the Theogony: Prometheus as Prankster’, GRBS 23 (1982), 101–10Google Scholar. For an analogous separation at the end of the heroic age, see the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women, Fr. 1.8–13 and Fr. 204.96–128, discussed by West, M.L., ‘Hesiodea’, CQn.s. 11 (1961), 133–34Google Scholar, and n.47 below.

26. Cf. Eisenberger, H., ‘Gedanken zu Solon’s “Musenelegie”’, Philologus 128 (1984), 14CrossRefGoogle Scholar, who describes the second part of the poem as offering the ‘Unterbau … einer empirischen Anthropologie’.

27. 41–43. For the text of line 42, see Christes, Johannes, ‘Solons Musenelegie’, Hermes 114 (1986), 10Google Scholar. On the Hesiodic passage, see n.5 above. Analysis of Solon’s thought has been retarded by a sterile controversy over the ‘main theme’. For analysis of the controversy see Spira, Andreas, ‘Solons Musenelegie’, in Gnomosyne. Menschliches Denken und Handeln in der frühgriechischen Literatur (Munich 1981), 177–96Google Scholar. Spira’s view that an analysis of wealth, more than a theodicy, underlies the poem is one I would share; see also Büchner, Karl, ‘Solons Musengedicht’, Hermes 87 (1959), 184–86Google Scholar. Opposing viewpoints employ what seems to me an anachronistic theological analysis; see Christes (above), who includes a large bibliography.

28. The hope for financial gain that precipitates the list of professions is part of a list of hopes, several of them unreasonable (e.g. that the ugly will become handsome, or the coward brave). The inability of humans to predict and so master the future is stressed, especially in the case of prophecy and medicine; see also the lines that introduce the list (33–36), especially the last (khaskontes kouphais elpisi terpometha, ‘open-mouthed we delight in vain hopes’; cf. Prom. 250, tuphlas en autois elpidas katŌikisa, ‘I established blind hopes in them’, and Semonides, 1W. 6–7). The list in Solon is followed by a passage (63–70) on the unpredictability of fortune. On the negativism of the list, see Alt, Karin, ‘Solons Gebet zu den Musen’, Hermes 107 (1979), 400Google Scholar.

29. For greed in success, see the poem’s opening and its closing (71–73).

30. The word is a leit-motiv of the poem. For its elusiveness, see line 58, and the concept in line 71, ploutou d‘ ouden terma pephasmenon andrasi keitai, ‘no apparent limit is set to wealth for men’. In Semonides 1W, a poem whose theme is closely parallel, cf. lines 1,5, 12.

31. See 75–76, the close of the poem. For Zeus’ association with telos see 17 (alla Zeus pantŌn ephorai telos, ‘but Zeus oversees the end of all things’), and cf. line 28, on Zeus’ justice.

32. Havelock shows the importance of the view that humans are more like animals, and even plants, than they are different (n. 22 above, 26–28). For the persistent return of the word theriŌdes in the prose texts related to this developmental anthropology, see Collard (n.4 above), 162, who cites Guthrie (n.22 above), 80 n.2.

33. Lämmli (n.23 above, 61–64) makes an interesting attempt to trace the key-word phuran (‘mix’) to Archelaus, who was developing cosmic concepts of Anaxagoras into an anthropology. If he was right, the presence of the term in Prometheus (450) would be another factor pushing the date of that play into the second half of the fifth century and arguing against Aeschylean authorship. We cannot, however, eliminate the possibility that Protagoras or Anaxagoras may have contributed to the terminology as well.

34. For the technological implications in Hesiod’s account of the Bronze Age, see Gatz, Bodo, Weltalter, goldene Zeit und sinnverwandte Vorstellungen, Spudasmata 16 (1967), 44Google Scholar. Solon begins with seafaring and farming, ending with medicine, an art that was probably beginning to become important in his lifetime; for the early development of Greek medical arts, see Di Benedetto, V., ‘Intorno al linguaggio erotico di Saffo’, Hermes 113 (1985), 149Google Scholar. The listing of professions is found in Prometheus’ speech: the yoking of beasts, which may suggest farming, is followed by seafaring (462–68); the following speech (476–99) deals with medicine and divination. Farming and seafaring appear in the Antigone ode (334–41), along with medicine (363–64), while Theseus includes farming, seafaring, and divination.

35. Theseus’ remark is vague enough to admit several interpretations. That most frequently given, that humans would have been wiped out, if their life had not contained more good than bad (see T. Nicklin’s edition [Oxford 1936], 63), is both bland and unpersuasive: the question deals with the quality of human life and is not answered by merely pointing at survival. Theseus’ conclusion will be that we are luxuriously provided for (214–15). Burian’s interpretation (n.2 above, 132) does not seem to follow from the context. On the contradiction in having the gods responsible for progress, see Havelock (n. 22 above, 71–73), who ascribes such views to Euripides and notes, ‘The author’s insistent theism involves him in unconscious paradox.’ See also Kleingünther (n.22 above), 110.

36. Creation stories are rare in Greek mythology and most of the sources are late. Pausanias retails stories about human beings fashioned from mud by Prometheus (10.4.4); cf. the creation of the woman Pandora at Theogony 571–72.

37. See Wirshbo (n.25 above): before the separation mentioned at Theogony 535–36, only their disparate life-spans distinguished humans from gods (103). The theme may appear in the opening to the fragmentary Ehoiai(1.6–10 MW).

38. Kronos apparently created the golden race, and possibly the silver race as well. Zeus enters the picture first as destroyer of the second race (W&D 138).

39. See Collard (n.4 above), 161. For the distortion of the developmental anthropology by Plato’s account in Protagoras 320c ff., see Havelock (n.22 above), 91–92.

40. Cf. Prot. 321a. 1–2, tauta de emēkhanato eulabeian ekhōn mē ti genos aistōtheiē (‘he contrived these things because of his concern that no species should become extinct’); and cf. 32 lb.5–6.

41. Aggelon / glōssan logōn, 203–04. The phrase illustrates the position of logos midway between thought and language. The tongue is the intermediary (messenger) of logos which derives from the first gift, that of sunesis. Theseus may here be describing the evolution of human beings out of an animal state, in which case the addition of intelligence and speech could be seen as part of the act of divine creation. There is an obvious clash between creation and development in the passage.

42. For the importance of language in the developmental anthropology, see Havelock (n. 22 above), 80–81; Cole (n. 10 above), 40–41; Kleingünther (n.22 above), 100–01.

43. See Gregory Vlastas, ‘On the Pre-history in Diodorus’, AJP 67 (1946), 57. Note that Plato’s mythical version inserts the theft of fire, but assimilates it to hē entekhnos sophia (‘wisdom in the crafts’, 32 Id.1,4).

44. For figurative interpretation see first the allegorizing of Homer by Theagenes in the late sixth century (DK 8.2) and the theories of Prodicus discussed below. Theseus begins ‘I praise the one who … ’ and waits to add the partitive genitive theōn in the next line, thus creating a potential confusion between human and divine heuretai. The identity of the divinity is not further explored; he is referred to as theos, with or without the article, at 208, 214, 216, and 226.

45. The confusions that Collard sees in this passage (n.4 above, 163) are clarified to some extent if one thinks of the duality of grain and wine, the dry and wet crops that provide basic nurture. The rain from heaven thus has a double and mediated function, if Theseus is thinking of civilized nurture (wine) rather than savage nurture (water). Note the importance of these elements in Prodicus’ account of the development of religion, discussed below.

46. See Lesky, Albin, Thalatta: Der Weg der Griechen zum Meer (Vienna 1947), 56, 171Google Scholar, 200. L. shows that the sea is almost always pictured as a source of danger, in a state of disturbance or storm that threatens human life.

47. See West’s discussion in ‘Hesiodea’ (n. 25 above), 132–33. West argues that the Catalogue identifies the end of the heroic age with the end of the Golden Age; but they may only be analogous, see n. 49 below. Against West’s view, see Schmitt, Arbogast, ‘Zum Prooimion des hesiodischen Frauenkatalogs’, WJb n.F. 1 (1975), 19–23Google Scholar.

48. See 43–46, which clearly imply that only the need for gain would impel one to such a life, anemoisi phoreumenos argaleoisin (‘carried around by grievous winds’). A parallel passage in Semonides (1W) illuminates Solon’s passage. After the same sentiment about human helplessness and hope (1–10), the poem debouches into a list of miserable deaths, in disease, war, drowning at sea (given the fullest treatment, 15–17), and suicide by hanging.

49. Gatz (n.34 above, 31) points out the echoes of the Golden Age in the paradise of the heroes (W&D 172–73), where the earth bears crops three times a year. See also the just city (236–37), where the wealth of the earth makes seafaring unnecessary—oud’ epi nēōn / nisontai, karpon de pherei zeidōros aroura (‘nor do they travel on ships, but the grain-giving ground bears fruit for them’), and comment by A. Lesky (n.46 above, 33). The Hesiodic Catalogue (cf. West’s discussion, ‘Hesiodea’ n.25 above) provides a narrative schema for this in Fr.204.

50. In his only known work, the Hōrai, persuasively reconstructed by Nestle (n.23 above). References in Themistius and Xenophon indicate (Nestle, 154–55) that Prodicus gave agriculture credit for cultivating and taming human souls, as well as crops and herds.

51. On the interpretation of DK 84 B5 see Nestle, Wilhelm, ‘Bemerkungen zu den Vorsokratikern und Sophisten’, Philologus 67 (1908), 556–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar and more recently Albert Henrichs (n.23 above, 114ff., and ‘The Atheism of Prodicus’, Cronache Ercolanesi 6 [1976], 15–21Google Scholar).

52. See Nestle (n.23 above) 157 and, on the connection between the logos about Herakles’ choice and the main topic of the Horai, 164–66.

53. See Henrichs (n.51 above) on the evidence for Prodicus’ atheism.

54. See Kleingünther(n. 22 above), 29–39.

55. Long, A.A., ‘Socrates in Hellenistic Philosophy’, CQ 38 (1988), 162–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar, argues that the passage ‘contains nothing that an early fourth century writer could not have written and believed to be Socratic’. That such theology could not have been expressed before Plato is sufficiently disproved by this passage in Euripides.

56. For Archelaus and Anaxagoras see Kleingünther (n.22 above, 99–101). For Diogenes see Theiler, Willy, Zur Geschichte der teleologischen Naturbetrachtung bis auf Aristoteles (Zürich 1925), 1–2Google Scholar, 62–63. Theiler, however, attempts to attribute most teleological passages in Xenophon to Diogenes, which seems unnecessary. For Diogenes’ views on noēsis see DK 64 B3: ou gar an … hoion te ēn houtō dedasthai aneu noēsios, hōste pantōn metra ekhein (‘for it would not have been possible without intelligence to distribute in such a way as to maintain the measures of all things’). If one were to think about it, one would find that everything was houtō diakeimena hōs anuston kallista (‘arranged in such a way as to be the best possible’). This at least does recall the optimism of the Euripides passage.

57. Cf. the Aeschylean apatē theou, Persai 93, SuppL 110–11, TrGF 3.F301.

58. Note that Hellenic tradition treats oracular prophecy and divination based on omens differently; but in this case there is no attempt to make a distinction. Conacher, D.J., Euripidean Drama: Myth, Theme and Structure (Toronto 1967), 99–100CrossRefGoogle Scholar, notes the contradiction in Theseus’ logic (see also ‘Religious and Ethical Attitudes’ [n.2 above], 17); Greenwood (n. 2 above), 115–16.

59. For this theme cf. Solon 13W.31, anaitioi erga tinousin and Pindar, Py.3.35–37.

60. On these matters see Latte, Kurt, ‘Schuld und Sünde in der griechischen Religion’ (1920)Google Scholar; repr. in Kleine Schriften (Beck 1968), 17–26Google Scholar.

61. Parker, Robert, Miasma: Pollution and Purification in Early Greek Religion (Oxford 1983)Google Scholar, shows the close connection in traditional views between moral fault and disease (Chs. 7 and 8). He argues that infection was a concept so closely associated with ritual pollution that enlightened medical writers rejected theories of infection altogether (219–20). Note that the manuscript reading of sunnosounta in 228 (retained by Collard [n.4 above, 170] but emended by the OCT edition of J. Diggle, 1981) exactly conveys the blurred logic of guilt by contamination.

62. Note that Adrastus uses justice terms twice (hoi menontes tous apontas ēdikoun [‘those remaining wronged those who were elsewhere’, 152]; taut’ ekdikazōn ēlthon [‘it was these things I want to judge’, 154]), and that Theseus seems both to approve Polyneices’ decision to leave Thebes (151) and to be incredulous at Eteocles’ appropriation of his brothers’ inheritance (153).

63. For the connection between hubris and good fortune, see Michelini, , ‘Hubris and Plants’, HSCP 82 (1978), 35–44Google Scholar. For the relation of hubris to Solon’s image of the terma or telos see 41–42.

64. See Burian (n.2 above), 133.

65. For the importance of the economic motif in Solon 13W, see Büchner (n. 27 above).

66. See Michelini (n.63 above) on (human and animal) youth.

67. Collard defends the relevance of the passage (n. 4 above, 131–32, 171–72). For an opposing opinion see Kovacs, David, ‘Tyrants and Demagogues in Tragic Interpolation’, GRBS 23 (1982), 34–35Google Scholar. While it is true that proverbial material from other places seems occasionally to have entered the text from marginalia, enough clearly genuine examples of deliberate inconsequence exist to create a presumption in favor of the retention even of abruptly introduced material.

68. It would, of course, be a simple matter—at least to certain scholars—to prune further, pasting 231 to 246, and ignoring the abrupt and incoherent effect of consigning to a three line tag (229–31) any reference to the actual expedition. In fact Theseus does not discuss the expedition at all; but his political excursus stands in lieu of a narrative expansion, and without it the speech would be lame indeed.

69. Besides the passages quoted in n. 29 above, see also Solon 4W 7–10.

70. See W&D 186–96, and the ainos at 202ff.

71. For the desirability and elusiveness of this ‘middle class’, usually described as here in abstract and negative terms, see Vannier, F., ‘La classe moyen introuvable’, LEC 52 (1984), 99Google Scholar, 102.

72. See Politics 1295b. 1–34.

73. Cf. the noble autourgos in Or. 920 (hoiper kai monoi sōizousi gēn, ‘those who alone preserve the land’); the farmers in Peace 507–511. For the connection with Prodicus, see Nestle (n. 23 above), 156.

74. For this concept, as it develops in comic references to the Golden Age, see Gatz (n.34 above), 114–19.

75. The word truphan is used in Euripides of any one who is luxuriously cared for, particularly of children; cf. Ba. 969 and Ion 1376, both of which refer to the enjoyment of maternal attentions.

76. The relation between Prodicus and Socrates is one of the mysteries of history; it would seem to be more than a mere joke (e.g. Meno 96d.7, Hipp. Ma. 282c.2; Theaet. 15 lb.5; Laches 197d). See Henrichs, ‘Atheism’ (n.51 above), 21, on the curiously gentle treatment of Prodicus in later sources; this anomaly may be traceable to Prodicus’ relation to the Socratic tradition. For the importance of moralism even in Prodicus’ linguistic work, see de Romilly, J., ‘Les manies de Prodicos et la rigueur de la langue grecque’, MH 43 (1986), 3–5Google Scholar.

77. The most relevant example, of course, is the philosophy of Plato. See D.J. Mastronarde (n.3 above, 203): ‘Such confidence in the intelligibility of the world may be deemed untragic.’

78. Note the repeated characterizations, 464, 512, 575.

79. Human prosperity depends on temporal vicissitudes that are controllable only from a divine perspective; see nn.30 and 31 above.

80. Truphōmen in 214 is explained by the following relative clause: we humans are in a state of truphē because we, are not satisfied with what we have been given. This meaning (see LSJ s.v. III) is found elsewhere primarily in the colloquial language of Platonic dialogue. (For other uses of truphan in Euripides, see n.75 above).

81. See Smith (n. 2 above), 167–68.

82. Helene Foley in a recent talk at the University of California, Berkeley, has shown that Theseus’ reformist plans for the funeral of the Seven attempt to do away with traditional mourning ritual.

83. On the content, see the opposing views of Burian (n.2 above), 147–50, and Collard, C., ‘The Funeral Oration in Euripides’ Suppliants’, BICS 19 (1972), 43–44Google Scholar.

84. As Collard suggests (n.83 above, 48–49).

85. It should also be noted that the conflict between Athens and Thebes was solved by diplomatic means in the Aeschylean version, so that Euripides has not been forced by tradition to saddle Theseus with aggressive war: he chose this version. See Aélion, Rachel, Euripide: hérétier d’Eschyle (Paris 1983), 231–33Google Scholar, and Burian (n.2 above), 139.

86. See DK 82 B6. Gorgias emphasizes civic virtue, mildness and lack of rigor over martial prowess.

87. Because Solon’s legislation restricted younger women from attending funerals of those who were not close kin, older women would have had wider opportunities to attend and participate in dirge ritual. See Ps.-Demosth. 43.63 and Garland, Robert, The Greek Way of Death (Ithaca 1985), 23–34Google Scholar. No other tragedy features an elderly female chorus; for elderly male choruses, see Aeschylus’ Agamemnon and Euripides’ Herakles.

88. Burian (n.2 above, 150–51). See also Shaw, M.H., ‘The (Greek) of Theseus in “The Suppliant Women”’, Hermes 110 (1982), 15Google Scholar.

89. Cf. Burian (n.2 above), 143. It will of course be pointed out that not all tragedies follow such a pattern. Euripides’ own three ‘untragic’ plays, Ion, IT and Helen show the possibility of reversing an apparently incurable event into happiness. But it should be noted that all three deal, in negative fashion, with traditional patterns of suffering and loss. IT and Helen seek to recapture a happy present from the horrors of the (partly illusory) past, while in Ion matricide at Apollo’s altar is averted by a hair.

90. For another treatment of this conventional theme, see Euripides, Medea 1090–1115.

91. Burian (n.2 above, 154) remarks, ‘Theseus’ kosmos of intellect is never rejected … His reasoned discriminations and high-minded moderation define a legitimate ideal, but one whose limitations are obvious …’. See also M.H. Shaw (n. 88 above, 11: if it were not for Theseus as counter-example, Adrastos’ negativism would appear true); Paduano, Guido, ‘Interpretazione delle Supplici di Euripide’, ASNP 35 (1966), 199Google Scholar (on the contrast between the theory of nomos and its working out in human life); D.J. Mastronarde (n.3 above), 204.

92. Note the jibe of the Theban herald, 580; Theseus replies by declining to lose his temper (581–82). On the ways in which Theseus does and does not conform to this characterization, see Fitton (n.2 above), 434.