‘O seed of Atreus, after how many sufferings have you come forth with difficulty into freedom, perfected by this present enterprise.’

In these words the Chorus expresses a typically choral summation of the action. By the murder of Clytaemnestra and Aegisthus, Electra and Orestes have at last won through to freedom; they have put an end to the long history of violence and vengeance which has plagued the house of Pelops from the beginning. The morality of the matricide is not in question. The Chorus regards it simply as both necessary and just, however dreadful it may seem to dispassionate reflection. For the Chorus, the justice of the matricide is self-evident, as it was necessary to restore Orestes to his rightful throne, to bring an end to the chain of violence and retribution and to restore the house of Atreus to its proper condition. In these final words the Chorus betrays no sense of unease; there is no suggestion that the matricide may have repercussions in the future. There is nothing, in short, in these words, other than the happy anticipation of a life, from this point on, of prosperity and freedom. The Pelopid curse has run its course, the chain is broken, and all has come to a satisfactory and just conclusion.

Euripides’ Orestes is a paradox. Few critics of drama today would place it at the summit of the playwright’s achievement, on a level with the Medea, Hippolytus and Bacchae. In antiquity, however, it appears to have been one of the most popular Greek tragedies, performed and praised without stint. The hypothesis prefixed to the play’s text in one mediaeval manuscript called the Orestes ‘one of those dramas with a great reputation on the stage’. The comic poet Strattis referred to it as ‘a most clever play’, Menander used one of its scenes as the model for a long messenger’s speech in his Sikyonioi, and several other comedians in Athens parody or quote phrases from the play. A house in Ephesus has an incident from the Orestes painted on one of its walls. Such evidence for the play’s popularity can be corroborated further by the state of its text in the mediaeval manuscripts and by epigraphy. The former is grossly adulterated with actors’ revisions, the latter provides evidence for a performance of the play at the Dionysia of 340 B.C.

In a recent article Benjamin Meritt and Malcolm McGregor have sought to refute my criticisms of their text of the publication formula in the Athenian decree concerning relations with Mytilene.

Alexander’s administrative arrangements in India are an obscure and somewhat neglected subject. The obscurity is due to a crucial lacuna in the narrative sources, which take us to a crisis in government but say nothing of its resolution. Late in 325 the satrap of northern India, Philip son of Machatas, was assassinated by some of his native mercenaries. In his place Alexander appointed the native prince Taxiles to govern the territory along with Eudamus (the officer commanding the satrapal army of Thracians) until such time as he sent out a new satrap from court. Nothing more is heard of a replacement or of India. The sources foreshadow an administrative change but never report the outcome. Instead we have to wait for the reports of the satrapal distributions of Babylon and Triparadeisus, in which the division of the Indian provinces is sensibly different from what it had been in Alexander’s day. The change may be due to the king himself or to his successors. Both views have been stated, but the issue has never been fully argued and it is worth reopening. It has important implications for Alexander’s view of empire in his last years and for the status of India in his imperial plans.

In the early months of 324 B.C., Harpalus, treasurer to Alexander the Great, fled Babylon westwards rather than run the risk of remaining to face his king, whose return from the Indian expedition was marked by a widespread purge of satraps and generals. With a sizeable complement of ships, mercenaries and money, Harpalus appeared off Cape Sunium in Attica in mid-summer, seeking entry into Athens, and despite an initial refusal, was subsequently admitted, only to be placed under arrest soon afterwards. His detention was brief, however, and having successfully escaped from custody, he fled the Greek mainland, presently to meet his death at the hands of his own men. At Athens investigations were instigated, and following a protracted preliminary inquiry by the Areopagus, a number of prominent Athenian statesmen were named as having accepted bribes from Harpalus. The most notable outcome of the subsequent cases argued before the appointed dicastery was the conviction of Demosthenes who, on being unable to pay the allotted fine, went into temporary exile in southern Greece in the first half of 323 B.C. Such, in barest detail, is the Harpalus Affair, about which much has been written by numerous scholars in an attempt to explain satisfactorily the roles of both Harpalus and Demosthenes in the above-outlined sequence of events.

Tacitus is remarkably confident in the analysis and interpretation of motive and causal sequence. Having made up his mind on a matter, he opens up with all the stylistic artillery he can muster. With one eye open for pretence, he is by no means reticent to take upon himself the responsibility for stripping away the pretence and revealing the intentions and state of mind of characters. This will be readily granted. Yet it is in fact notable how often he seems to depart from the practice of simply setting forth the results of his researches and interpretations as outright statement. He creates, as it were, a distance between himself and facts, suspicions, rumours, motives and the reports of his sources. This provokes a number of questions, dealt with here in three sections. First, there are instances where he appears to allow uncertainty, where he uses expressions alluding to report, varying from rumour to historical record: why and when does he do this? In the same vein, why and when does he cite authorities and among them why does he cite some by name, which he does so seldom? Second, there is a distinct, but connected, category of usage which presents alternatives of motive. Last, I will examine larger, thematic areas where techniques are combined.

This version of the life of Aesop is known only from the one manuscript, which had belonged earlier to the library of a monastery near Frascati, from which it disappeared with no mention of it after 1789 till it was rediscovered in the Pierpont Morgan collection in 1929. It was published in 1952 by B.E. Perry at the University of Illinois Press (Urbana) in his fine Aesopica I, 35-77, with much other material, including a full account of the manuscripts of the other version of the life, W.

MS. G is from the end of the tenth century. Perry thinks that the original goes back to the first century A.D. and reflects the strong interest in popular versions of Aesop’s life in Egypt at this period. It has a pronounced Egyptian colouring, Isis playing a prominent part in the naive and bawdy story, with a strong opposition to Apollo. Four papyrus fragments similar to G have been found (see Perry, op. cit. 1), and various Eastern versions of part of the story are known. The manuscript has many koine features that agree with Perry’s dating, and the language can often be usefully illustrated from the modern Demotic. Features that are more likely to be errors of tradition in the manuscript are mainly unimportant late spellings.