›Prometheus Bound‹ – A Separate Authorial Trace in the Aeschylean Corpus 9783110687675, 9783110687644

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Nikos Manousakis Prometheus Bound – A Separate Authorial Trace in the Aeschylean Corpus

Trends in Classics – Supplementary Volumes

Edited by Franco Montanari and Antonios Rengakos Associate Editors Stavros Frangoulidis · Fausto Montana · Lara Pagani Serena Perrone · Evina Sistakou · Christos Tsagalis Scientific Committee Alberto Bernabé · Margarethe Billerbeck Claude Calame · Jonas Grethlein · Philip R. Hardie Stephen J. Harrison · Stephen Hinds · Richard Hunter Christina Kraus · Giuseppe Mastromarco · Gregory Nagy Theodore D. Papanghelis · Giusto Picone Tim Whitmarsh · Bernhard Zimmermann

Volume 98

Nikos Manousakis

Prometheus Bound – A Separate Authorial Trace in the Aeschylean Corpus

This project has received funding from the Hellenic Foundation for Research and Innovation (HFRI) and the General Secretariat for Research and Technology (GSRT).

ISBN 978-3-11-068764-4 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-068767-5 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-068781-1 ISSN 1868-4785 Library of Congress Control Number: 2019957900 Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2020 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Editorial Office: Alessia Ferreccio and Katerina Zianna Logo: Christopher Schneider, Laufen Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck www.degruyter.com

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parentibus optimis

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ἴσως μὲν οὖν δή, ὦ Κρατύλε, οὕτως ἔχει, ἴσως δὲ καὶ οὔ. σκοπεῖσθαι οὖν χρὴ ἀνδρείως τε καὶ εὖ, καὶ μὴ ῥᾳδίως ἀποδέχεσθαι —ἔτι γὰρ νέος εἶ καὶ ἡλικίαν ἔχεις. σκεψάμενον δέ, ἐὰν εὕρῃς, μεταδιδόναι καὶ ἐμοί. Πλάτων, Κρατύλος 440d 3–7 I was more motivated by curiosity. […] I just wondered how things were put together. Or what laws or rules govern a situation, or if there are theorems about what one can’t or can do. Claude Shannon, Collected Papers (1993) xxiv

Preface For the non-classicists the athetesis of Prometheus Bound, traditionally attributed to Aeschylus, is a rather unpalatable idea. The play is still being staged around the world as the work of Aeschylus, and most probably that will be the case for many years. Possibly forever. Even those theatre practitioners who have an idea about the long-discussed authenticity question, prefer to disregard it. And that is only natural. Who would want to stage a drama by some anonymous fifth-century playwright, about whom we know absolutely nothing, when they could stage a drama by one of the greatest poets of all time? However, the traditional authorship of Prometheus Bound has been seriously disputed by various specialists, and the book at hand has ended up being a further contribution to the growing body of evidence indicating that the play is most likely not by Aeschylus. This book is based on my University of Athens DPhil dissertation, submitted in December 2016. The present text is considerably revised, even if the main structure and argument are essentially unchanged. The revision took longer than hoped for, since various academic and other projects left limited time for the necessary work. The delay had one positive consequence; that is, I have been able to take into account relevant works of scholarship that appeared in the intervening years. I am grateful to many scholars and friends for their criticism and help; in particular, to Professors Dimitrios Karadimas, Georgios Mikros, and Efstathios Stamatatos. This book would not have been possible without their invaluable support. I am also grateful to Professors Ioannis Konstantakos, Maria Kikilia, Eleni Karamalengou, Sophia Aneziri, Selene Psoma, and Angelos Chaniotis, for their encouragement and constant help. I want to very much thank my dear friend and distinguished scholar of Byzantine studies Theofili Kampianaki for generously providing me with materials from the Bodleian Libraries at Oxford University. I am truly indebted to Professor Antonios Rengakos. He has been, in so many ways, the force behind this book. Finally, I want to thank my family and friends for putting up with me while I was writing this book, and before that, and after that: εὐχὰς ἀγαθάς, ἀγαθῶν ποινάς. Mount Lycabettus, Athens, Greece, 2020 Nikos Manousakis

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Contents Preface  IX List of Figures  XIII List of Tables  XV 

General Conclusions, or How to Read this Book  1

 Introduction  3 On Style  3 Style and Trace: A Necessary Distinction  8 From Basic Mathematics to “Thinking” Machines: A Brief History of Authorship and Chronology Research from the 18th to the 21st century  19  Pr. and the Athetesis Question  25 An Overview  25 Conclusions  44  Quantitative Style in Pr.  46 Beyond Aeschylus: Verbal Repetition and the Author of Pr.  47 A Sociolinguistic Indication: Pr., the Aeschylean Corpus, and the -οις/-οισι(ν) Technique  63 The Dramatic Use of Resolution in the Trimeters of the Oresteia, Supp. and Pr.: Anticipation Versus Exoticism  70 Enjambment and Interlinear Hiatus: Aeschylean Equilibrium and an Overzealous Attempt  80 The Vocabulary of Pr.: Embracing Sophocles and Leaving Homer Behind  101 Aeschylus and Pr.: Evidence from Syntax  113 Sentence-Length and the Idiosyncratic Choral Lyrics in Pr.  134 Conclusions  141 

Applying Automated Authorship Attribution to Greek Tragedy: The Case of Pr.  143 Trace Indicators  148 Function Words  151 Character n-grams  153 Describing the Corpus: ‘A Little Book of Decisions’  156 Methods of Analysis and Results  164 Conclusions  221

XII  Contents 

Who Composed Pr.?: A Possibility  223

Appendix I: The Distribution of Particles  226 Appendix II: Changes in the Texts in the Main Corpus  232 Bibliography  247 Index nominum et rerum  281

List of Figures Fig. 1: Index of Repetitiveness in the Aeschylean corpus  59 Fig. 2: Interlinear Hiatus in the Aeschylean corpus I  81 Fig. 3: Interlinear Hiatus in the Sophoclean corpus I  81 Fig. 4: Interlinear Hiatus in Part of the Euripidean corpus I  82 Fig. 5: Interlinear Hiatus in the Aeschylean corpus II  84 Fig. 6: Interlinear Hiatus in the Sophoclean corpus II  84 Fig. 7: Interlinear Hiatus in Part of the Euripidean corpus II  85 Fig. 8: Resolution Rate in Euripides  86 Fig. 9: Interlinear hiatus in the Aristophanic corpus  87 Fig. 10: Hiatus in Enjambment in the Aeschylean corpus  94 Fig. 11: Hiatus in Enjambment in the Sophoclean corpus  95 Fig. 12: Hiatus in Enjambment in the Euripidean corpus  95 Fig. 13: Yule’s index in the Aeschylean corpus  106 Fig. 14: Yule’s index in the Aeschylean corpus with Oresteia as a single composition  107 Fig. 15: Cosine Similarity and the Aeschylean corpus  110 Fig. 16: Cosine Similarity of Aeschylus’ vocabulary to that of Sophocles, and the Homeric epics  112 Fig. 17: Hyperbaton (demonstrative/adjective-verb-noun) in the Aeschylean corpus  118 Fig. 18: Style Change Analysis (function) in Pr.  168 Fig. 19: 24 most frequent words PCA in Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides and Aristophanes  173 Fig. 20: 24 most frequent words PCA in Aeschylus, Sophocles (with Aj.), Euripides (Heracl., Elec., Or.), Aristophanes, and Alex.  175 Fig. 21: 50 most frequent words PCA in Aeschylus, Sophocles (with Aj.) Euripides (Heracl., Elec., Or.), Aristophanes, and Alex.  175 Fig. 22: 90 most frequent words PCA in Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, the Homeric epics, and Alex.  178 Fig. 23: 24 most frequent words PCA in Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes, and Pr.  179 Fig. 24: 50 most frequent words PCA in Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes, and Pr.  180 Fig. 25: 90 most frequent words PCA in Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, the Homeric epics, Alex., and Pr.  181 Fig. 26: 50 most frequent words PCA in the lyric parts in Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes  182 Fig. 27: 50 most frequent words PCA in 4.200-word samples from Aeschylus, Sophocles (with Aj.), Euripides (with Heracl., Elec., Or. and Cycl.), Aristophanes, the Homeric epics, and Alex.  185 Fig. 28: 24 most frequent words PCA in 4,200-word samples from Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, and Pr.  186 Fig. 29: 40 most frequent words cluster analysis in Aeschylus, Sophocles (with Aj.), Euripides (with Heracl., Elec., Or.), Aristophanes, and Alex.  188 Fig. 30: Hyperplanes in 2D and 3D feature space  204 https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110687675-204

List of Tables Tab. 1: Yule’s K and Index in the Aeschylean corpus, Sophocles, and the Homeric epics  105 Tab. 2: Average Sentence-Length (in words) in Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides and Aristophanes  137 Tab. 3: Distribution of Particles in Aeschylus  227 Tab. 4: Distribution of Particles in Sophocles  228 Tab. 5: Distribution of Particles in Euripides  229

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 General Conclusions, or How to Read this Book The present study is an attempt to determine as safely and as clearly as possible the authorial nature of Prometheus Bound (henceforth Pr.), a now disputed tragedy traditionally ascribed to Aeschylus. In order to ascertain if Pr. is indeed the work of Aeschylus or not, I focus on mainly quantitative evidence concerning textual features that are under the conscious control of an author, and on others that are not. For a long time, style has been the term used to describe all aspects, conscious and unconscious, of textual composition. However, specifically in the study of authorship, conscious and unconscious textual composition features are very different in their nature and use. Hence, in the present work I use the term style to describe textual features more or less tied to the conscious control of the author, and I coin and use the term trace to describe textual features, linguistic habits, that are seldom noticed by the reader, and that it is extremely unlikely— impossible in the case of lengthy texts (such as Pr.)—that the author planned or deliberately modified. Style (quantitative/statistical in the main), trace, and their study are discussed in some detail in this work, in order to provide a complete framework for the scrutiny concerning the Aeschylean provenance of Pr. The trace evidence in this study supports the view that Pr. is a work of a single poet, i.e. it is not co-authored, and it has not undergone any major revision at the hands of someone other than its actual author (i.e., it is free from major interpolations). The author of Pr. could not have been Aeschylus, since his trace never matches that of this poet, and it is not impossible that he was in some way close to Sophocles himself and/or to Sophocles’ work. According to the same type of evidence, Pr. was possibly composed between 440 and 430 BCE. The style evidence in this study shows that the author of Pr. is different from Aeschylus as regards the handling of repetition (figured and unfigured), the dramatic exploitation of certain noun endings (allomorphs), resolution, enjambment, and interlinear hiatus. Furthermore, Pr. is un-Aeschylean as regards its overall vocabulary, certain features of syntax, and the sentence-length in its Choral lyrics. In short, this study shows that Pr. was in all likelihood composed by an author other than Aeschylus, and “structurally” different from Aeschylus in various ways, possibly more than fifteen years after Aeschylus’ death. The book at hand represents rather demanding reading, since it requires the Classics reader to spend some time approaching the terms and methodologies of statistics and computer science. However, all such terms and methodologies employed here are explained sufficiently, and an ample bibliography about them is provided in every case. The second part of this book, the introduction, is a discussion about the study of style and trace, how stylistics is tied to the study of https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110687675-001

  General Conclusions, or How to Read this Book authorship, and why trace is the most crucial quality in the uncovering of authorship. The third part of the book is a detailed overview of the authenticity question concerning Pr., in which it is argued that, as far as we know, the earliest documented judgment about the stylistic divergence of the disputed drama from the Aeschylean canon dates back to the 11th century CE. In the fourth part, various (more or less) stylistic features in Pr. are discussed and shown to be un-Aeschylean, while in the fifth and final part of the book, Pr. is shown to be un-Aeschylean in its trace. The five parts of this study can be read separately. For instance, a reader exclusively interested in the new evidence concerning the authenticity of Pr. can skip the brief history of stylometry in the introduction, or the second part of the book, the overview of the authenticity question, as a whole. Yet there is a sequential basis to the structure of the overall discussion in this work.

 Introduction That every word doth almost tell my name, Showing their birth, and where they did proceed Shakespeare, Sonnet LXXVI, 7–8

On Style The study of authorship of any kind of text traditionally means a search for a distinct style. Yet rigorously defining style (authorial and otherwise) has never been a simple task. Due to the vast number of characteristics associated with style, there is no single, commonly accepted definition of this concept. To approach its meaning as clearly as possible, one can attempt to define it within a specific context. Generally speaking, style can be found everywhere, 1 in every aspect of human expression—as Buffon famously noted: ‘le style, c’est l’homme meme.’ 2 Still, this attractive point of view is somewhat misleading: it suggests that style is a rather vague, inherent quality of human expression of every kind, rather than a method of categorizing it, as it should be understood in the context of the present

 1 Gombrich (1951) 41, focusing on art, notes that ‘it is very difficult to explain in words what makes a style, but it is far less difficult to see.’ An interesting analogy occurs in the way Augustine of Hippo (Conf. XI.14) discusses the nature of time: ‘quid est enim tempus? quis hoc facile breviterque explicaverit? quis hoc ad verbum de illo proferendum vel cogitatione comprehenderit? quid autem familiarius et notius in loquendo commemoramus quam temus? et intellegimus utique cum id loquimur, intellegimus etiam cum alio loquente id audimus. quid est ergo tempus? si nemo ex me quaerat, scio; si quaerenti explicare velim, nescio.’ One way to understand style is to consider it as an emergent phenomenon. More specifically, the study of the natural world and of social structure provides one with crucial examples of such phenomena (see e.g. Laughlin (2005) 6ff.), which arise as a combination of multiple components; yet their emergence cannot be explained simply by the sum of their components (see Goldstein (1999) 49; Kim (1999) 3). Generally, for the “emergent approach” in language, see Steels (1998) 384ff. (briefly); Keller (1994); Hopper (1998); Azumagakito/Suzuki/Arita (2011). The concept of emergence is Aristotelian: πάντων γὰρ ὅσα πλείω μέρη ἔχει καὶ μὴ ἔστιν οἷον σωρὸς τὸ πᾶν ἀλλ᾿ ἔστι τι τὸ ὅλον παρὰ τὰ μόρια, ἔστι τι αἴτιον (Met. 1045a 8–10). 2 Piveteau (1954) 503. See briefly Wales (2011) 211–12 for style as an idiolect. In one of his letters (CXIV.1), Seneca defines authorial style in a quite similar way, citing a phrase that, according to him, was proverbial to the Greeks: ‘talis hominibus fuit oratio qualis vita.’ Cicero (Tusculanae Disputationes V. 47) also attributes to Socrates a phrase of similar meaning: ‘qualis cuiusque animi adfectus esset, talem esse hominem; qualis autem homo ipse esset, talem eius esse orationem; orationi autem facta similia, factis vitam.’ https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110687675-002

  Introduction study. Style is far better described in the framework of the book at hand as a categorization model that emerges in the way people perceive actions and ideas, and which can have qualitative connotations. In other words, style is a heuristic order of mind-labels that allows us to classify forms of expression in mutatis mutandis commonly recognizable schemes that either we have created ourselves or have been bequeathed to us. Along these lines, style is quite often regarded as a distinguishing quality of an individual3 with respect to a wide range of activities, from the simplest everyday actions, e.g. walking, to carefully organized patterns, e.g., the rehearsed movements of a choreography. The frantic player in Stefan Zweig’s Chess Novella provides an interesting glimpse into a spectrum of stylistically distinguishable activities: ‘I could recognize the personal style of every [chess] grandmaster as infallibly from his own way of playing a game as you can identify a poet’s verses from only a few lines.’ 4 This phrase, apart from indicating that style can be a clear means of identification, shows that art, the most alchemistic of all human expressions but one with a tangible outcome, is a key case study for how style emerges. 5 The form and content of style in texts, or, more accurately, the style of authors of texts, has been one of the thorniest issues in the study of literature (and language in general) ever since antiquity; it has consistently been the subject of a long, intensive, and fruitful debate. The style of a text, to what extent the style is influenced by the genre, what the style tells one about the author, how can one approach the linguistically single(?) style of an author when studying a work that includes multiple speaking characters, such as in a stage play, etc.: 6 these questions illustrate, to some degree, the extent and implications of the issue. Love (2002) 20 aptly highlights the complexity of authorial style when attempting to

 3 In fact, Verdonk (2002) 3–4 defines style specifically in language as ‘distinctive linguistic expression’ and stylistics as ‘the study of style […] as the analysis of distinctive expression.’ 4 Zweig (2006) 71. Cf. Donat’s relevant phrase on the music of Bruckner and Brahms in Dover (1997) 41. 5 The artist, no matter the medium, can be seen as having a personal, distinguishable, or even easily recognizable style. This holds for both the unmixed (literature, painting, music etc.) and mixed (theatre (scenic art), cinema, graphic novels etc.) forms of composition. For instance, to take a rather complex mixed case, one can say that the way Alfred Hitchcock uses the movement of the camera to block a scene is evidently quite different from Stanley Kubrick’s method, no matter how similar the content of their scenes. See, e.g., the monograph by Falseto (2001) on the stylistics in Kubrick’s filmmaking. 6 See, for instance, McIntre (2006) for the use of linguistic material in the shaping of the point of view of different characters in drama.

On Style  

describe its different components: ‘the term style comprehends all at once a multiplicity of things—manner in language and diction, texture, so to speak, and, further, thought and judgment, line of argumentation, inventive power, control of material, emotion, and what the Greeks call ἦθος.’ In fact, the Greeks, as far back as Aristotle, whose third book of Rhet. (Περὶ Λέξεως) ‘ist […] kein Lehrbuch der Stilarten, obwohl sie viele kluge Gedanken über Stil enthält,’ 7 were keenly interested in style and in the procedure of the “weaving” of texts. Apart from λέξις,8 Greek writers, or more accurately, Hellenistic and later writers, used, broadly speaking, synonymous terms for literary style: χαρακτήρ, κατασκευή, πλάσμα, γενικὸν εἶδος,9 ὕφος, 10 ἰδέα, 11 ἑρμηνεία, 12 ἁρμονία, 13 etc., are found in a series of varied treatises on literary criticism. This kind of terminology derives ‘from the theory that three (or four) styles of σύνθεσις can be differentiated—severe, smooth, middle (and florid). Some version of this theory almost certainly goes back to Theophrastus.’14 Ιn his treatise On Literary Composition (22, 23, 24), Dionysius of Halicarnassus maintains that the three major dramatists of 5th century BCE Athens represent three different types of style. The plays of Aeschylus are

 7 Düring (1966) 150. For the “stylistics” of Aristotle, see, briefly, Morpurgo-Tagliabue (1980) 20–8; Walker (2015) 179–81. 8 See Aristotle Rhet. 1409a 24ff., Poet. 1449b 34–5, 1456a 33–1459a 16. Concerning poetry and prose, the Stagirite (in Rhet. 1404a 28–9) explicitly distinguishes two different kinds of diction (linguistic style): ἑτέρα λόγου καὶ ποιήσεως λέξις ἐστίν. Aristotle’s Poet. has been the most renowned and influential ancient treatise tied to literary criticism, and more specifically to poetic language and structure. 9 See, e.g., Janko (2000) 156 and n. 3, 5, and 415 n. 6. 10 ὕφος as a literary term (ἐκ δὲ τοῦ ὅλου τῶν λόγων ὕφους, meaning ‘the whole tissue of the composition,’ as translated by Fyfe/Russell (1999)) occurs for the first time in On the Sublime 1.4.8, a treatise on the aesthetics of literature dated, most probably, to the 1st century CE. For the dating and the authorship of this work, see, in detail, Russel (1964) intr. xxii–xxx; Kopidakis (1990) 24–30; Mazzucchi (1992) xxvii–xxxiv. For the concept of sublimity in ancient Greek and Latin criticism, rhetoric, and philosophy, before and after the On the Sublime treatise, see the thorough work of Porter (2016). 11 See Hermogenes On Ideas 1.1.1ff. with Ruiz Montero’s (1993) 35–9 remarks on the concept of ἰδέα in the context of literary criticism in antiquity, and specifically in the work under discussion. For Hermogenes’ stylistic classification system, see, in detail, Wooten (1987) intr. xi–xvii. See further Patillon (1988) 105ff. 12 See [Demetrious] On Style 12.1ff. cf. though 35.4ff. for the generalized later use of the term χαρακτήρ. For this treatise, see, further, the introduction and commentary of Marini (2007). 13 See Dionysius of Halicarnassus On Literary Composition 21ff. For this treatise, see, especially, the editions of Aujac/Lebel (1981); and Donadi/Marchiori (2013). 14 Janko (2000) 156.

  Introduction tied to αὐστηράν ἁρμονίαν, the plays of the evenly balanced Sophocles to εὔκρατον, and the plays of the elegant Euripides to γλαφυράν [ἢ ἀνθηράν]. 15 Generally speaking, ancient studies on literary style are of a practical nature. They teem with implicit and explicit suggestions and advice about the attainment of “rhetoric” objectives and the avoidance of relevant risks. The reason for this fusion of art and use-value is that in antiquity the sharp dichotomy ‘between “rhetorical” and “poetic” discourse—“persuasive” and “aesthetic”—essentially did not exist.’16 In modern times, the regulatory stylistic framework of antiquity, which reflected more than anything else an aesthetic of persuasion, has led to the research field of stylistics. 17 In 1909 Charles Bally, a Swiss linguist, and the founder of modern stylistics according to Todorov, 18 established the term stylistique to denote the study of the types of linguistic expression rendering emotional attitudes, with a focus, however, on spoken language. 19 The structuralistic study of literary and poetic language had already been one of the main research objectives of the Prague Linguistic Circle, which was the direct successor of Russian Formalism. 20 Nevertheless, Cressot, a disciple of Bally, saw for the first time literature as the par excellence domain of stylistics, and brought to the fore the need for particularized linguistic study of literary language, arguing that it ‘is a borderline problem, at the intersection of language and style, and that it would be futile to try and impose methodological conformity on such a composite domain.’21 Modern stylistics ‘has been defined as a sub-discipline of linguistics that is concerned with the systematic analysis of style in language and how this can vary according to such factors as, for example, genre, context, historical period and author. […] Stylistics draws upon theories and models from other fields more frequently than it develops its own unique theories. This is because it is at a point of confluence of many sub-disciplines of linguistics, and other disciplines, such as literary studies and psychology, drawing upon these (sub-)disciplines but not seeking to duplicate or replace them.’22 Linguistic style as a bearer of meaning is closely associated with the various choices, conscious or unconscious, that an author makes. Fowler (1966) 15 argues that linguistic style ‘may be said to reside  15 See On Literary Composition 21.2–3 for the introduction of these terms by Dionysius. 16 Walker (2015) 175–6. 17 See, concisely, Wales (2011) 399–401. 18 Todorov (1981) 25. 19 See Nerlich/Clarke (1996) 270ff. 20 See Wales (2011) 169–70, 336–7. 21 See Klinkenberg (1982) 54. 22 Jeffries/McIntre (2010) 1, 3.

On Style  

in the manipulation of variables in the structure of a language, or in the selection of optional or “latent” features.’ 23 But what is this “manipulation” supposed to signify? Riffaterre (1959) 155 is clearer, arguing that ‘style is understood as an emphasis [...] added to the information conveyed by the linguistic structure, without alteration of meaning. Which is to say that language expresses and that style stresses.’ Wales (2009) 1049 is even more specific, indicating that ‘in any language there is always more than one way of writing or speaking the same (sic) message, but with a different connotation or effect as a result. Stylistics as a discipline takes as its base this essential variation, whether at the level of phonology, grammar, lexis, semantics, or discourse.’ 24 In practice, though, what actually determines an individual style is comparison of the frequency of choice within the aforementioned essential variation among the writings of different authors. As Dover (1960) 67 puts it, a linguistic fact, for instance how many times an author makes a particular linguistic choice of any kind, becomes a stylistic fact when compared with the frequency of the same choice in the work of other authors. Hence, tracking this frequency of choices could possibly allow one to distinguish authors from one another. In general terms, literary stylistics emerge at the intersection of linguistics and literary criticism, and Leech (2008) 54–5 makes a crucial internal distinction for its study. 25 He indicates that within literary stylistics, ‘we may distinguish descriptive stylistics (where the purpose is just to describe the style) from explanatory stylistics (where the purpose is to use stylistics to explain something). Again, within explanatory stylistics, we may distinguish cases where the explanatory goal is extrinsic (e.g. to find out the author(s) or the chronology of a set of writings), or intrinsic (where the purpose is to explain the meaning or value of the text itself).’ In practice, explanatory stylistics with extrinsic goals, that is, the detection of authorship and/or chronology, is for linguistic analysis a terminological means to aptly espouse stylometry/stylometrics/quantitative or statistical stylistics—a heuristic (sub-)discipline addressed in detail in the following sections of this book. As we will see, even though the field has expanded greatly, the oldest and most popular objective of statistical stylistics has been to determine authorship and estimate the date of disputed and/or externally undatable, mostly literary, texts. To achieve these goals, scholars must approach their material in

 23 Later (Fowler (1996) 185), he will reject the term style altogether, since it ‘has an inevitably blurring effect, because the kinds of regularities referred to are so diverse in their nature.’ 24 Cf. Gaya Nuño (1959) 9; Leech/Short (2007) 41ff. 25 Leech (2008) 54 distinguishes between general and literary stylistics, cf. Jeffries/McIntyre (2010) 2.

  Introduction terms of relevant frequency. In other words, they have to focus on the measurable parameters of the texts under study, and in many cases extract large amounts of data corresponding to various textual features. Before I present a historical survey of statistical stylistics, it is necessary that the nature of textual features used in such a context is broadly considered. In other words, to determine which textual features can reveal the stylistic idiosyncrasies of authors and allow conclusions concerning the authorship and/or chronology of disputed and/or externally undatable works. The immediate answer would be meaningful linguistic features, which, as noted above, can belong to any level of language analysis. Until rather recently, these style indicators almost monopolized authorship and chronology studies. Scholars attempting to verify the authorship and dating of a literary (or any other kind of) text would consider especially its meaningful, (potentially) aesthetically significant 26 quantitative features, such as the frequency of specific (mostly content) words, grammatical and syntactical patterns, characteristics of meter, or patterns such as hiatus and enjambment in poetic texts. In practice, there is no fixed classification of style indicators for use in authorship and chronology studies: the texts one wants to study and the objective of one’s research direct the focus to particular features. As Enkvist (1973) 147 puts it: ‘Style is not a linguistic prime. This means that each stylo-linguist owes to his reader an explicit report of precisely what he means by style, and by what methods he has arrived at his results and conclusions.’ In the present study, I will attempt to show as clearly as possible that apart from the meaningful, aesthetically interesting formulations, a series of aesthetically rather uninteresting, but practically greatly rewarding indicators of style exist. I will introduce here a pivotal, I maintain, terminological distinction between style, tied to aesthetically interesting textual features, and trace, tied to aesthetically uninteresting textual features.

Style and Trace: A Necessary Distinction ‘The earliest extant passage to discuss differences in [literary] style is found in Aristophanes’ Frogs, produced in 405 BCE, where Aeschylus and Euripides are represented as criticizing each other’s style and defending their own (lines 830–

 26 By “aesthetically significant” I mean textual features that convey meaningful language information (tied to the communication process) and can be used for aesthetic ends. I will elaborate on the meaning and importance of this concept below.

Style and Trace: A Necessary Distinction  

1431).’27 In fact, the contest in Fr. ‘depends for its comic effect upon exaggerated opposition between its Aeschylus and its Euripides, and their different styles of tragic composition.’ 28 More specifically, the older poet reproaches the younger for the high rate at which he introduces (Cretan) monodies (849) in his plays. 29 Aristophanes’ Euripides reproaches Aeschylus for the prolix length of his choral odes and his frequent use of long, pompous words that are quite hard to decipher (924–6, 928–30). 30 These criticisms reveal for Aristophanes—and his audience of course—some of the distinguishing characteristics between the dramatic art of Aeschylus and that of Euripides. Among other things, their view of what it means for a play to be Aeschylean or Euripidean stemmed from the frequency with which these authors employed in their work a series of textual characteristics. However, is it arguable that one can attribute a play of unknown or disputed authorship, Pr. for instance, to one of these authors using criteria of this kind? The answer is both yes and no. This kind of criteria can be valuable in a discussion of authorship attribution, but researchers must keep in mind two shortcomings. The first relates to the size of the textual material under analysis. If, for instance, the

 27 Kennedy (1994) 26. For a discussion of style in the Aristophanic literary quarrel between Aeschylus and Euripides representing two generations of Attic dramatic poetry, see Griffith (2013) 115–49. See also Hubbard (2007) 498–9, who comments on Aristophanes’ evaluation of literary style—in Fr. and other plays—and its possible connection with oratory. For the importance of the contest presented in Fr. with regard to the history of literary criticism, see the thorough analyses by Hunter (2009) 10–52 and Halliwell (2011) 93–154. Also cf. Dover (1992); Worman (2014). 28 Scharffenberger (2007) 232. 29 See Dover (1993) 298 n. 849. For tragic monodies in general, see Barner (1971). For Euripidean monodies, see, in detail, Barlow (2008) chap. 3; and Beverly (1997). For the metrical characteristics of these songs, see, briefly, Parker (1997) 514–8 and, thoroughly, De Poli (2011), (2012). See also Chong-Gossard (2008) 107 n. 49, 50. For the singing characters in tragic plays, see Hall (1999), (2002), and (2006) 288–320; Schauer (2002); and Nooter (2012), specifically for Sophocles’ works. 30 For Aeschylus’ μεγαλοφωνία and ὄγκος, see Podlecki (2006); cf. Garvie (2006) 57ff. Griffith (1977) 149ff., based on Clay’s (1958/1960) lists, indicates that concerning the frequency of compound adjectives, adverbs, and neuter -μα nouns, ‘Aeschylus is the leading exponent of “high” tragic diction,’ compared to Sophocles and Euripides. Aristophanes’ version of Aeschylus in Fr. 1058–61 notably claims that ‘great thoughts and ideas force us to produce expressions that are equal to them,’ and that ‘it suits the demigods [, most probably implying ‘the great men of the heroic age,’ see the n. by Sommerstein (1996),] to use exalted expressions, just as they wear much more impressive clothing than we do’ (the translation is by Henderson (2002)). Cf. Aristotle’s remarks in Poet. 1448a 1–5 and 1449b 23–4: ‘since mimetic artists represent people in action, and the latter should be either elevated [σπουδαίους] or base, […] they can represent people better than our normal level, worse than it, or much the same,’ and ‘tragedy, then, is mimesis of an action which is elevated [πράξεως σπουδαίας]’ (the translation is by Halliwell (1999)).

  Introduction case is Greek tragedy, for which the extant material is rather scanty, 31 such criteria can often be misleading. The second shortcoming, which is far more important, is tied to the nature of these criteria, which are always under the aesthetic control and cautious care of the author. An example concerning tragic monodies can be enlightening. The only monodies found in the Aeschylean corpus belong to Prometheus (vv. 114–119) and Io (vv. 566–608), 32 both in the disputed Pr. This choice of lyric form in the delivery of tragic speech has been used, among other deviations from the extant Aeschylean structural norm, to identify the un-Aeschylean nature of the play. 33 The uniqueness of Pr. in its preference for solo songs by actors (not in kommos or epirrhema) is indeed astonishing. However, one must consider to what extent this criterion is an objectively distinguishing characteristic. In his last known trilogy, the Oresteia, Aeschylus made a bold experiment in the use of an ἀπὸ σκηνῆς song, when composing the kommos sung by Orestes and Electra.34 Consequently, one could think that the extensive use of monody in Pr., if Aeschylean, is just another similarly bold experiment. Furthermore, in one of Aeschylus’ lost plays, Semele, one finds another example of the poet’s bold use of “largescale” structures composed for a solo voice. 35 Most probably, during an epiphany of Hera in the prologue of Semele, the goddess transformed herself into a mortal woman (in all likelihood a priestess) to destroy Zeus’ mistress and her unborn child. 36 A papyrus published in 1941 37 preserves 15 hexameter lines that were recited or sung38 by Hera, in which the goddess speaks of ‘the infallible nymphs,

 31 The Euripidean corpus includes 19 dramas out of the roughly 90 that the poet seems to have composed during his career (455–408 BCE). By contrast, only seven fully extant plays remain from Sophocles’ more than 120 (he was active in the dramatic festivals from 468 to 409 BCE), and (traditionally) seven from Aeschylus’ 70–90 (he was active in the dramatic festivals from 499 to 458 BCE). 32 See Griffith (1983) 100ff. and 190ff., respectively. 33 See Griffith (1977) 108–10 and 119–20, respectively. 34 See Garvie (1986) 122ff. 35 I follow Sommerstein’s (2008) 225–7 reasoning in attributing fr. 168 Radt to Semele rather than to Wool-Carders. 36 See the discussion of the play by Hadjicosti (2006). 37 See Sommerstein (2008) 225. 38 The possibility that Hera’s hexameters were sung must be seriously entertained. Homeric ἀοιδοί sang their epic material to the lyre (phorminx) before the rhapsodes started reciting them. For sung hexameters, see West (1981), (1986), (1992) 208–9, 279, 287–8. Cf. the use of the dactylic hexameters in Sophocles’ Trach. 1018–22, and Phil. 839–842, where ‘the distribution of singing, chanting, and speaking is not at all clear’ (Rosenmeyer (1968) 225). The final lines of Aristophanes’ Fr. (1528–33) are also in hexameters, delivered by the Chorus; see Revermann (2013) 122.

Style and Trace: A Necessary Distinction  

[…], the daughters of the Argive river Inachus, who attend upon all mortal activities,’ and of course upon weddings. She then goes on to say that modesty ‘is by far the best adorner of a bride.’ 39 The closest parallel to this passage in extant tragedy seems to be Andromache’s elegiac dirge (vv. 103–16) in Euripides’ homonymous play, which is ‘in some way analogous to sung hexameters.’ 40 Marriage is again a crucial subject in that piece, which, it should be noted, is the only example of the elegiac meter in extant Greek tragedy. Similarly, for instance, the only example of ἀντιλαβή (the sharing of an iambic or trochaic line between two or more interlocutors) in the Aeschylean corpus is found in Pr. 980, and it is counted as one of the various structural deviations of the stichomythia in the drama from the Aeschylean norm. 41 However, a much simpler explanation for this unique phenomenon is likely: it is quite possible that something has dropped out of the text. 42 Another example of this kind appears in lines 255–6, where Prometheus, eager to finish the Chorus leader’s thought, extraordinarily takes the words out of her mouth. While Griffith (1977) 138–9 considers this a clear deviation from the Aeschylean norm, Ireland (1974a) 511 describes the same phenomenon as an extreme example of a broader Aeschylean technique. The examples of style indicators provided here, and also various others one could cite, point to the same conclusion: individual cases of potentially aesthetically interesting textual features can be highly controversial when used as evidence in a discussion of authorship attribution or chronology. The cumulative effect of such cases is enlightening about how different authors have chosen to construct their work, and is thus crucial for literary criticism. However, no such individual case can be considered in itself a convincing parameter in deciding who may have composed a specific text, or when this text was composed. To be convincing, a piece of authorial or dating evidence requires a high volume of comparative material. This condition brings the study of authorship and chronology of texts closer to “hard” science, to the—mutatis mutandis—rigor and objectivity of the natural sciences.  ‘The procession […] leaves the orchestra, singing a song composed in dactylic hexameters. This is not an Aeschylean song, although it opens with a reminiscence of Glaukos Potnieus (fr. 36 Radt 5f.) […], and dactylic rhythm has already (1264–95) been emphatically associated with Aeschylus. It may be that it is sung while the whole [C]horus is still in the orchestra and the song is followed, as they leave, by a song which Aristophanes did not compose but took from an Aeschylean play.’ See Dover (1993) 384. 39 The translation is by Sommerstein (2008) 231. 40 Rosenmeyer (1968) 225. 41 See Griffith (1977) 139. 42 See Griffith (1983) 260.

  Introduction The essential element of any text is words. All words found in the oeuvre of a (literary) author constitute her/his working vocabulary, though not in the sense that s/he did not know or use other words. Rather, these words are the only ones accessible to the researcher. Hence, one should focus on this material to draw reliable conclusions about the authorship and/or chronology of a disputed or externally undatable text that is associated with (in the case of authorship attribution analysis) or securely belongs to (in the case of chronology detection) an author’s oeuvre. The researcher’s most crucial decision is to determine which qualities of this material s/he will use to achieve this goal. Every text includes words used only once or a few times, as well as words used frequently. As we will see later in detail, reliable indicators of authorship and/or chronology include the frequency with which often repeated words vary in an author’s oeuvre, and the frequency with which some meaningful (grammatical forms) and non-meaningful (strings of phonemes) word constituents occur. Unlike aesthetically interesting features, these kinds of features recur dozens, hundreds, or thousands of times in any (more or less sizable) text, and they are not consciously controlled by the author on a large scale when s/he is composing his work or broadly adapted afterwards. Additionally, unlike features of aesthetic use, which depict various patterns of preference tied mainly to the subject matter of a work, these features seem individualized and consistent enough over an author’s career to ensure a high level of confidence in authorship attribution. However, because these features also vary, following a roughly rectilinear development, they further provide valuable evidence as regards the relative chronology of externally undatable works within an author’s oeuvre. The features under discussion are not features of style, since the term style, I maintain, cannot be used for textual aspects outside the author’s conscious control and aesthetic “care.” Therefore, one needs a suitable term for them. The discrepancy between an author’s style, consciously controlled even handled in a protean way, and the unconscious characteristics of her/his way of writing that can indicate authorship and relative chronology is, in all probability, the most difficult problem in modern authorship and chronology studies. However, it is actually less complex than it seems. It is nowadays more a matter of misleading terminology than anything else. Stylome, a bold term that has been used for the writing characteristics closely associated with authorship and chronology, is deliberately analogous to the DNA genome. Another term used to describe the same concept is writeprints. 43 For quite obvious reasons I prefer the latter over the  43 See, especially, van Halteren/Baayen/Tweedie/Haverkort/Neijt (2005); Juola (2006) 239–40; McDonald/Afroz/ Caliskan/Stolerman/Greenstadt (2012); Daelemans (2013) for stylome, and Li/

Style and Trace: A Necessary Distinction  

former. Nonetheless, as Dover (1997) 45 n. 19 notes, even the fingerprint analogy ‘is not quite perfect, because none of us by taking thought can add a whorl to his thumb, but it is not impossible to change a deep-seated habit to which one’s attention has been drawn.’ From my perspective, instead of searching for fancy terms to highlight the unique and persistent quality under discussion, one must find a term to signify its actual nature. If a set of textual, linguistic (in the broad sense of the term) characteristics indicating authorship and chronology—and in fact also other traits directly connected with the author, as we will see just below—cannot be described as style, then what is the right word to describe it? As Juola (2007) 120 argues, what he, in concentrated terms, calls ‘authorship attribution’ is ‘the task of inferring characteristics of a document’s author, including but not limited to identity, from the textual characteristics of the document itself.’ Therefore, what one is looking for is the author’s trace, the imprint that s/he, quite unintentionally and unconsciously, left in her/his writings. Identifying the author’s trace allows one to answer questions such as the following: Who composed a specific work of literature? Does a work of literature have more than one author? When was a work of literature composed relatively to other works by the same author? And also questions such as: What is the author’s gender? What is the mental capacity (possible mental health problems) of the author? Hence, the task of using the characteristics of a text to detect the unintentional mark of its author, to answer the above questions, can be called trace detection. I argue that all textual features that can potentially be firmly associated in any way with the aesthetic “interests” of an author fall under the umbrella term style. All textual features free of aesthetic connotations, individualized and persistent over time (in the sense that there is not even the slightest hint that the author would attempt to modify them for some reason in quantitative terms), and also variable (in the sense that they can allow one to discern different chronological periods in an author’s oeuvre), fall under the umbrella term trace. 44 Hence, linguistic style as a conscious act and an inherently fluid concept stays in the territory of pure philology, pleasing those who rightly argue that there is no unconscious or stable quality in stylistic choices. At the same time, a new field, one  Zheng/Chen (2006); Abbasi/Chen (2006), (2008); Pearl/Steyvers (2012); Orebaugh (2014) for writeprints. 44 See Dover (1968) 99–100, (1994) 87, (1997) 41–6. In a way I owe to Dover’s insight the distinction between the indispensably aesthetic nature of style and the practicability (of exercising choice about the textual features) of trace. His remark ((1997) 45) that authors ‘can be shown to differ consistently in respect of linguistic habits of a kind which not only passes unobserved by the reader but is also extremely unlikely to have been planned or deliberately modified by the author’ moulded my terminological venture.

  Introduction multi-disciplinary in its methods (bringing together linguistics, computer science, philology, and potentially various other areas of study) but autonomous in its objectives, emerges. Considering the different nature of evidence eventually unveiled by style and trace highlights the distinction. Style indicators describe the various nuances of the crafted form of a work of literature, while trace indicators provide one with meta-knowledge. In practice, through trace indicators one acquires basic information about the identity of a text, while through style indicators one attempts to shed light on the “mind” of the text. In this sense trace detection is external (to the content of the text), while stylistic analysis is internal. Dover (1994) 87 uses an analogy to describe the difference between stylistics (building on the aesthetic reactions of readers) and what he calls “microstylistics” (what I call trace detection): ‘the two domains are independent of each other, just as the history of sculpture investigated from the standpoint of visual and tactile form is independent of the physical analyses which determine the composition and provenance of a sculptor’s material.’ A point to be stressed here is that in a discussion about authorship and/or chronology, trace and style indicators are not “opponents” but the best of “friends”—as long as each of them is evaluated appropriately. Trace indicators, capitalizing on ample textual data without a bias toward aesthetic intent, lie on the side of “hard” science, and are thus the most objective and autonomously valid evidence that one can use to identify the provenance or date of a controversial text. Style indicators, depending on the size of the available sample and the way they can be associated with the author’s aesthetic objectives, strengthen the conclusions derived from trace indicators in a more or less significant way. In some cases, style indicators are as equally valuable as trace indicators (mainly in chronology detection), though not as equally valid. More specifically, the most valuable style indicators in an authorship and/or chronology discussion fall into two categories. The first focuses on features identified as having a clear highlighting function, but which are still essentially practical. In other words, a feature of this kind undeniably has highlighting connotations, but the author’s use leaves its overall practical quality (as an authorship and/or chronology indicator) unchallenged. The second category centers on undeniably stylistic (consciously aesthetic) features that do not, however, have a specific highlighting quality. To properly explain these categories, I will give two examples of such features from Greek tragedy. The first relates to the gradually increasing use of resolution (a

Style and Trace: A Necessary Distinction  

long syllable resolved into two shorts) in the iambic trimeters of Euripides, and the second to the use of recitative anapaests by Aeschylus. 45 As Rutherford (2012) 41 puts it, discussing the ‘ways in which the structure of the dramas can be seen as “loosening up” as [the 5th] century goes on,’ ‘Euripides’ willingness to use resolution rises markedly from [Hipp.] onwards, reaching its peak in [Or.], with 561 resolutions (49.3 per cent).’ 46 This means that the poet progressively felt more and more free to employ resolutions in his plays, to facilitate the construction of his iambic pieces. Consequently, and ever since Zielinski, the frequency of resolved iambic feet in Euripides’ extant and fragmentary dramas is considered an accurate indicator of their relative chronology. Apart from accommodating a wider range of vocabulary, the more frequent use of resolution makes Euripides’ language sound more relaxed, especially compared to the tragic idiom of Aeschylus and Sophocles, 47 and thus generally more “natural” and closer to everyday speech, since this feature creates ‘a rougher metrical pattern that would be noticeable in delivery.’ 48 To that effect, I must add an important micro-scale stylistic aspect of resolution. As Stanford (2014) 66 argues, the trimeter ‘could be made more excited by increasing the number of resolutions,’ and Euripides did make broad use of this effect. 49 In short, this feature is  45 In some cases, similar features appear in prose. For instance, the frequency with which an author employs a prose-rhythm in his writings could be a reliable indicator for relative chronology. See Brandwood (1990) 5–7, 167–206 for the Platonic clausulae, cf. id. 235–48. 46 The number of resolutions for Or. comes from Cropp/Fick (1985) 5. For the percentages of resolution in Sophocles and Aeschylus, see Schein (1979) 77; cf. Garvie (2006) 33 (for Aeschylus); Morais (2010) 530–3 (for Sophocles). For the percentages in Euripides’ extant and fragmentary dramas, see Cropp/Fick (1985) 5, 11–12. See also Devine and Stephens (1984) 68–9 for the steadily increasing pace in the use of resolutions in the Euripidean oeuvre (approximately 7% per year). 47 Aeschylus and Sophocles were not particularly fond of this device. An interesting fact about the older poet’s view on resolution is that he completely avoids the word ἱκέτης in the trimeters of Supp. (six times in other metrical systems in the play), evidently due to its anapaestic shape, but he employs it five times in all the trimeters of the Oresteia. In Aeschylus’ older extant dramas Per., Sev., and Supp. the frequency of resolution ranges from 12% to 8%. In the trilogy it drops to 6%. In the plays by Sophocles, the resolution rate ranges from 4% to 7%, and only exceeds 10% in Phil. (12%). See the tables by Schein (1979) 77. The lowest resolution rate in Euripides is 6% in Hipp. See Cropp/Fick (1985) 5. 48 Storey/Allan (2014) 305. Cf. Devine and Stephens (1984) 57ff. (especially pp. 60–1); Earp (1944) 122 (for Sophocles). 49 An interesting example for the dramatic effect in the use of resolutions is Sophocles’ Phil.; see Olcott (1974); and Schein (2013) 38. For Euripides, see Philippides (1981) 47ff., and Baechle (2007) 68–70. See also the study by Prato/Filippo/Giannini/Pallara/Sardielo (1975). Sutton (1980) 109–11 provides further evidence that resolution had a dramatic use, and maintains that even though the overall percentage of resolutions in Cycl. (42%) is characteristic of a drama of

  Introduction identified as a form of highlighting (of dramatic use), but remains essentially practical as the most reliable indicator of relative chronology concerning Euripides’ dramas. In other words, resolution both on a macro and micro scale is, of course, always under the conscious control of the dramatist. Yet, although Euripides exercises this control to serve dramatic purposes on a micro scale, it still constitutes robust macro-scale evidence of the poet’s gradual (quantitatively unplanned in the big picture) tendency to compose his dramas so that they are as free as possible from this metrical constraint.50 The second example relates to the Aeschylean frequency of the use of recitative anapaests. 51 As Griffith (1977) 68–70 aptly points out, from a large enough sample to give one confidence in the relevant figures, a study of the regular patterns of the non-lyric anapaests reveals that Aeschylus in his secure plays clearly favors the dactyl/spondee over the spondee/anapaest. By contrast, the author of Pr., unlike Aeschylus, markedly favors the spondee/anapaest and the spondee/spondee. The author of Pr. also does not favor the anapaest/anapaest pattern, which is consistently the third most “Aeschylean” anapaestic form. A dramatist’s consistent preference for one anapaestic pattern over another has no specific dramatic explanation. In fact, it is more like a composer’s consistent pref-

 about 410 BCE, ‘this figure is arrived at in some unusual ways and the behavior of some individual phenomena is not what one would expect for a play written at this date’ (pp. 109–10). In other words, Euripides might have (also) purposely used resolution to make Cycl. differ in sound from his tragic compositions. Yet see also Seaford (1982), (1984) 48–51; Wright (2006); O’Sullivan/Collard (2013) 39–41 for a (most likely) late date for Cycl. For the aesthetic (musical) effect of resolutions in lyric-iambic metre, see Scott (1984) 26ff., (1996) 22–3. In any case, though, as Cropp (2011) indicates in his review of Roisman’s and Luschnig’s commentary on Euripides’ Elec.: ‘you cannot take the emotional temperature of a passage simply by counting resolutions.’ Roisman and Luschnig (2011) 26–8, misleadingly, note that a high resolution rate in a tragic passage is a somewhat unequivocal sign of some speakers’ emotional intensity. If true, one would then have to (crudely) admit that, e.g., Hipp. has far fewer moments of emotional intensity than Hel. Evidently, this would be a flawed approach. 50 Dodds (1960) aptly indicates that Bacch. is, in various respects, an archaizing play composed at the end of Euripides’ life. Yet ‘the iambic trimeters give away the date of the play by the high proportion of resolved feet;’ see pref. xxxviii. 51 For the nature of lyric and recitative anapaests and their differences, see, in detail, Dale (1968) 47ff.; West (1982) 121; Hourmouziades (2011); Nooter (2012) 11 n. 33. Hourmouziades (2011) 3–4 accurately outlines this subject when wondering if anapaests, in performance, and especially when used in autonomous metrical systems, can be associated with a kind of musical recitation close to the operatic recitativo, placed between simple recitation in the form of stichic metres (such as iambic trimeter etc.), and melic metres, identified with pure song. Cf. Hall (2006) 301ff.

Style and Trace: A Necessary Distinction  

erence for one note over another, and hence can be important per se in an authorship attribution and/or chronology debate. Though lacking the practical utility of the frequency of resolutions in Euripides’ case, the different preference of Aeschylus and the author of Pr. for the patterns of recitative anapaests points to two conclusions. Either Aeschylus’ conscious but, at the same time, instinctively driven anapaestic “taste” abruptly changed in a notable manner when he composed Pr., for some indecipherable reason, or the disputed play is most likely the work of some other author with different “taste” concerning the regular forms of recitative anapaests. A third, but riskier, type of valuable stylistic evidence for the authorship and/or chronology of literary texts relates to features which even though they can (potentially) be used for highlighting (dramatic) purposes, one is in a position to show that in the text(s) s/he studies they are not used in this way. Telling examples of such features are sentence-length, word-length, and similar textual properties. If such features can be shown to have no highlighting function in a certain case, they can be regarded as being instinctively characteristic of an author or of a period in an author’s career. The author, no doubt, always includes these features within her/his aesthetic control, but, in such cases, the features can be regarded as indicators of an instinctive preference. However, if there is even the slightest evidence that the features serve highlighting purposes, and thus their use as evidence about the author’s identity or the date of the text could be misleading (if, for instance, Euripides would systematically use longer words in some play to produce an archaizing, “Aeschylean” effect), they should not be considered at all. Overall, the higher the number of occurrences of a stylistic feature in an author’s oeuvre, and the weaker its association with any kind of emphasis in meaning, the more it can be regarded as a useful indicator in a discussion concerning authorship attribution and/or chronology of a literary work. Yet even when employing criteria of exactly this kind, one is in no position to talk about “hard”science evidence, since one is still bound to the unavoidable subjectivity of the author’s choice. For instance, if Euripides had some stylistic reason to significantly reduce the use of resolutions in Ion, for example, and if for this particular play there was no chronological evidence other than resolution, one would most probably mistakenly assign it to the early years of the dramatist’s career. The same applies to all stylistic features. Similarly, if, for instance, Aeschylus had a context-driven reason to change his typical anapaestic propensity for the dactyl/spondee pattern when composing Pr., a conclusion in favor of the athetesis of

  Introduction the play mainly based on this discrepancy would have been severely biased.52 Thus, stylistic features may be valuable authorship and/or chronology indicators only as long as there is no (rational) aesthetic reason for a considerable change in an author’s conscious but instinctive (habitual) technique detectable in the  52 Hubbard (1991) indicates that when one makes the distinction between recitative anapaests performed by actors and the choral examples, it becomes evident that the patterns observed in the use of this metron are sometimes deliberately chosen for contextual reasons. His approach is interesting; however, it is also methodologically unsound in various respects. Hubbard (p. 440) argues ‘that actors’ [recitative] anapaests, particularly in the work of Aeschylus, tend to exhibit patterns different from those of the more common choral anapaests, whether for the sake of distinctive characterization or as emotional markers. The apparent eccentricity of [the] anapaests [in Pr.] relative to those in Aeschylus’ other plays may therefore be due to their being mostly actors’ anapaests.’ This scholar notes that by his calculations the period length (the ratio of anapaestic metra to clausular paroemiacs) for the dramas in the Aeschylean corpus is as follows: Per. 9.4%, Supp. 6.6%, Ag. 9.0%, Ch. 5.0%, Eum. 8.0%, Pr. 15.9%; these results differ slightly from Griffith’s calculations (see Griffith (1977) 71). Hubbard (1991) 441–2 argues that ‘what these raw figures conceal is the fact that the ratio is lower for the other plays of Aeschylus because, with the exception of [Eum.], they consist overwhelmingly of choral anapaests.’ Paroemiacs frequently appear as a paragraphing device in choral passages, and since the recitative anapaests of Pr. are mostly performed by actors, it is expected (in the absence of paroemiacs), for the average period length to be higher in this play. The same scholar indicates (see also p. 440 n. 4) that we do have an Aeschylean play that is directly comparable to Pr. as far as the quantity of actor’s recitative anapaests is concerned: Eum. The percentages are: Per. 15%, Ag. 31%, Eum. 81%, and Pr. 90% (recitative anapaests performed by actors to overall recitative anapaests). Yet the difference in period length between Eum. (8%) and Pr. (15.9%) is telling. As regards metron types, Hubbard finds fault with Griffith for not counting Per. 901–30. He includes the lines in his own count and concludes that the percentages of Pr. are close to those for Per. Hubbard also uses (and explains in some detail, see pp. 443–5) chi-square test (see n. 263 below), indicating that the difference between the numbers for Pr. and the other plays by Aeschylus is statistically significant. Yet, by his count, so is the difference between the numbers for Per. and the other securely Aeschylean dramas. The inclusion of Per. 901–30 to the count seriously distorts the results, since, as Garvie (2009) 341 notes about the exodos of the play: ‘we begin slowly with recitative anapaests, in which Xerxes, self-indulgently and at some length, expresses his sorrow and his longing for death (908–17). The Chorus responds at even greater length, but its anapaests are transformed almost imperceptibly from recitative to more emotional lyric, as is shown by the appearance of spondaic dimeters (922, 925, 928), resolution (930), the Doric α form (922), and a complete absence of paroemiacs’ (the emphasis is mine). Therefore, Hubbard’s chisquare test actually reinforces Griffith’s inferences. Moreover, the examples (of clustering patterns) Hubbard provides to support his (nonetheless attractive) view that in Aeschylus ‘a chosen [anapaestic] pattern may be repeated or avoided to give a passage a distinctive metrical signature or tone characteristic of the personage who delivers the anapaests’ (p. 445), do not change anything at all in Griffith’s overall conclusions about the individual use of recitative anapaests in Pr. In addition, some of his examples are dubious. For instance, Ag. 1525–7 is a corrupt passage used as evidence rather misleadingly (pp. 447–8); for the text, see Fraenkel (1950) 723–4.

From Basic Mathematics to “Thinking” Machines  

controversial text. However, if one wants to approach the authorship or chronology of any literary work from the perspective of “hard” science, one needs to focus on more rigorous and objective criteria—and to do that one would have to “dig,” as deeply as possible, below the linguistic “surface” of the text.

From Basic Mathematics to “Thinking” Machines: A Brief History of Authorship and Chronology Research from the 18th to the 21st century Before moving ahead with the main part of this work, that is, the specifics of the discussion concerning the authenticity of Pr., to provide proper understanding of the framework of the present study it is necessary, I believe, to briefly sketch the long quantitative “quest” for reliable indicators of authorship and chronology. This venture began with simple mathematical calculations, and led to an artificial intelligence research area. The discipline that became widely known as stylometry, stylometrics, or statistical stylistics, informally began in the mid-18th century with a series of observations by British philologist and poet Richard Roderick (1710–1756) and the Shakespearean scholar Edmund Malone (1741–1812) about the Shakespeare’s oeuvre.53 In the mid-19th century, the British mathematician Augustus De Morgan (1806–1871) argued in a letter (1851) that the authorial mark can actually be detected in latent statistical textual characteristics, thus laying the foundations for a brand new quantitative approach to texts–dissociated from meaning. More specifically, he argued that the consistent average wordlength (the total number of words to the total number of letters) in an author’s various works can be a numerical “fingerprint” through which one can distinguish texts (of different subjects) written by the same author. De Morgan claimed that different books in Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War would have similar word-length averages, and that these would be consistently different from

 53 Malone was the first to detect stylistic peculiarities in Shakespeare’s Henry VIII; see Wilson (1962) intr. xii. Malone dissociated Henry VI (Part 1) from the playwright on grounds of uncharacteristic versification and other stylistic peculiarities; see Craig (2009) 40. The task of evaluating the parts of the plays that came down to us under the name of Shakespeare was systematically pursued by later scholars such as W. Spalding, G.G. Gervinus, and above all F.J. Furnivall, the founder of the New Shakespeare Society; see McDonald (2006) 10ff. For the various challenges of authorship and chronology concerning the works of Shakespeare, see, in detail, the monographs by Vickers (2002a), (2002b); and the thematic volume edited by Craig/Kinney (2009). See also Vickers (2009), (2011); cf., though, Burrows (2012); Bruster/Smith (2016).

  Introduction the averages in the books of Herodotus’ History. De Morgan employed this criterion to suggest that the Epistle to the Hebrews was not written by Paul.54 The first scholar to elaborate on De Morgan’s ideas was the American physicist and meteorologist Thomas Mendenhall (1841–924), who realized that the study of the frequency distribution of words of various lengths was more relevant to an individual authorial mark than the average word-length. Mendenhall applied this idea to works by Dickens, Thackery, Shakespeare, Bacon, and Marlowe.55 The connection between the prospect of a quantifiable style and the discipline of Classics is also an early one. The term stylometry occurred for the first time ever in 1897 in Wincenty Lutosławski’s book The Origin and Growth of Plato’s Logic, in which he, among other topics, discussed in some detail various aspects of Plato’s linguistic style with respect to the relative chronology of his writings (chapter 3).56 Lutosławski notes that ‘there will be scarcely another case in which the mere question of the chronology of some writings would be of such unparalleled importance for the history of human thought as in the question of Platonic chronology. This exceptional importance of one particular case will have produced a new science of style, which will enable us to decide questions of authenticity and chronology of literary works with the same certainty as paleographers now know the age and authenticity of manuscripts. This future science of stylometry may improve our methods beyond the limits of imagination.’57 In practice, the stylometric analysis as regards Plato’s works began with some observations

 54 Lord (1958). See also Cohen (2007) 114–5. For the debate about the authorship of the Epistle to the Hebrews, see Rothschild (2009). 55 See Strome (2013) 55–6; Benedetto/Caglioti/Degli Esposti (2012) 145; Coulthard/Johnson/ Wright (2016) 153. 56 For Lutosławski’s work on Plato, see, in detail, Brandwood (1990) 123–35; Pawłowski/Pacewicz (2004); Pawłowski (2004). In general, for the scholarly attempts to date the philosopher’s writings, see Brandwood (1992) 9–120; and also Theslef (2009) 143–382. Ledger (1989) was the first scholar to attempt to date Plato’s works using what I call trace indicators (37 variables expressing the frequency of occurrence of a series of letters in the words), using new statistical techniques and all the computational power available at the time. For reviews of Ledger’s study, see Robinson (1992); and Young (1994). See also Howland (1991) 209–11; and Nails (1994), where the latter responded in detail to the former’s criticism of Ledger’s work, defending his results, though without accepting unreservedly all his methodological choices. Cf. Nails (1995) 106–7, (1998) 392 n. 40. The most recent analysis of trace characteristics in Plato known to me is Tarrant (2012) 65–70, and concerns the Republic. For a broad quantitative approach to Aristotle’s oeuvre, see Kenny (2016), especially pp. 70–160. Cf. Kenny (2001) 12–14, 127–170. For some remarks on style (and trace) and the relative chronology of Aristotle’s treatises, see Barnes (1995) 19–22; and Anagnostopoulos (2009) 22. 57 Lutosławski (1897) 192–3.

From Basic Mathematics to “Thinking” Machines  

made by Lewis Campbell in his 1867 joint edition of Sophistes and Politicus. The scholar argued that in these two texts there is a greater fondness for unusual words, poetical and technical, than in any other dialogue except Phaedrus, the Republic, Timaeus, and the Laws. This conclusion and similar observations on grammar and the rhythmical structure of sentences led Campbell to be the first scholar to conclude that Sophistes, Politicus, Philebus, Timaeus, Critias, and the Laws constitute the last phase of Plato’s writing career. 58 At any rate, it seems that classical philology has been a fertile field for the study of the trace and style of a text as evidence for its date of composition, a practice now known as stylochronometry. 59 Despite some interesting authorship and chronology studies during the 50 years after Lutosławski’s naming of the new field of stylometry, 60 the turning point in the evolution of the discipline and the most influential early computerassisted (at least partly) authorship study appeared in 1964: Mosteller and Wallace’s study on the authorship of the Federalist Papers—a collection of 85 articles and essays written (under pseudonym) by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, promoting the ratification of the United States constitution. 61 The success of this study marked the transition to a new era for authorship attribution, and also for chronology analysis, combining computers 62 with elaborate statistics, and introduced a major trace indicator (the term used anachronistically

 58 See Brandwood (1990) 3–8. 59 For the term, see Forsyth (1999) (who actually coined it); Stamou (2008); Klaussner/Vogel (2015). 60 See, for example, Holmes (1998) 112. 61 See Mosteller/Wallace (1964) and (1984). 62 As Francis (1966) 75 notes, ‘while the counting could have all been done by hand, the computations for the main study could not have been done in years without the computer.’ However, the road from the era of traditional stylometry, or more broadly “steam stylistics” (see Wales (2011) 400), to that of the automated authorship attribution and chronology detection (non-traditional stylometry) has been somewhat long. For instance, as Stamatatos (2009a) 538 notes, even by the late 1990s the authorship attribution methodologies proposed ‘were computer-assisted rather than computer-based, meaning that the aim was rarely at developing a fully automated system.’ For the transition from traditional to non-traditional stylometry, in other words from the time when Mendenhall had to hire several women to count the letters of the words in the works of Ben Jonson, Christopher Marlowe, and other authors (see Gibson (1962) 41), to the era using highly sophisticated statistics and computer programs in authorship attribution and chronology studies, see, for example, Holmes/Robertson/Paez (2001); Holmes/Crofts (2010); Rybicki/ Heydel (2013) (with some eloquent case studies); also cf. Rudman (2012) for a different point of view.

  Introduction once more) as its focus. Mosteller and Wallace were the first to focus on the frequency of function words (pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions, articles, etc.— the most frequently recurring words in language), bringing them to the fore as accurate indicators of authorship.63 With this pioneering study, ‘the academic world finally was given a convincing demonstration of stylometry’s potential,’64 and the discipline began to gain its own identity.65 In the decades that followed, the advancing quantitative models for stylometric research focused mainly on the lexical level, since ‘no potential parameter of style below or above that of the word [could be thought to be] equally effective in establishing objective comparison between authors and their common linguistic heritage.’ 66 In 1978, Andrew Morton, following his assumption that ‘the most effective discriminator between one writer and another is the placing of words,’ proposed a new method of stylometric analysis for authorship attribution, which led to some interesting, and well received, results about the authorship of the Pauline epistles.67 Thomas Merriam immediately replicated Morton’s method in three

 63 Before Mosteller and Wallace, the quantitative analysis of vocabulary with respect to authorship of literary and non-literary texts had already been the focus of two major statistical stylistics studies by Yule and Ellegård; see briefly Paisley (2009) 179–80. However, these scholars did not show any (particular) interest in function words. Yule (1944), attempting to detect the author of De Imitatione Christi, a highly popular 15th century devotional book, excluded from his study the ‘words of little or no significance as regards style’ (see p. 21 cf. p. 223), such as prepositions, pronouns, conjunctions, etc. He focused on what he thought to be the significant word categories—nouns, adjectives and verbs—yet from these types he limited himself to nouns. Ellegård (1962), in one of the earliest relevant studies to use a computer, attempted to uncover the author of the Junius Letters, a collection of letters critical of the government of King George III, published in two volumes in 1772. He based his work on words and phrases favored by the author of the Junius Letters compared to his contemporaries. On his method, see briefly Hockey (2000) 106–8. Unlike the work of Yule, Hockey’s selection of significant words was much broader and also indicated in some limited way the frequency of certain kinds of function words: abstract nouns, adjectives, adverbs, and prepositional and conjunctional constructions. 64 Holmes (1998) 112. 65 For the ‘flood of non-traditional scholarship that followed Mosteller and Wallace’ (Holmes/ Robertson/Paez (2001) 316), see Holmes (1998) 112–3. It is significant that, as Juola (2006) 243 notes (with bibliography), ‘it has become almost traditional to test a new [authorship attribution] method on this problem [of the Federalist Papers].’ 66 Tallentire (1973) 41. 67 Morton originally came to the field of stylometry following his interest in the authenticity of the Pauline epistles. He conducted authorship tests focused on the position of various words within a sentence, since New Testament Greek, being an inflected language, ‘is not tied to a rigid order of the parts of a sentence but can vary the sequence of elements in order to suit the expressive need of the moment or the taste of the author.’ See Love (2002) 139ff.

From Basic Mathematics to “Thinking” Machines  

studies concerning Shakespeare’s oeuvre. 68 Yet Wilfrid Smith heavily criticized Morton, rejecting his technique, arguing that it lacked rigor, and indicating that the data acquisition for his study is dubious and the size of samples he used too small. 69 An obvious example of Smith’s (justified) criticism has to do with hapax legomena. According to Morton, the position of these once-occurring words in the sentence may be a major distinguishing characteristic among authors. Smith, considering the quality of Morton's data, argued that there is no evidence for this claim. 70 At the beginning of the 1990s, Morton once again took center stage, proposing another authorship attribution method, using cumulative sum charts (cusum or qsum charts).71 He employed these statistical charts (mainly used in industrial processes and quality control monitoring) in an attempt to detect an author’s unique and consistent quantifiable linguistic mark, mainly using short words (words of two or three letters), vowel words (words beginning with a vowel), and a combination of short and vowel words. Morton maintained that the rate of occurrence of these features was clear evidence of authorship. This method requires one to generate and superimpose two charts: one on the sentence-length and another on the frequency of the aforementioned features. In 1993, Morton was challenged to test his methods, which had attracted the interest of forensic specialists, publicly on British television. ‘When they failed this particular trial, stylometry itself was felt by many to have failed.’72 However, in practice, Morton’s individual case provided more of an introspective moment for scholars in the field and, as Holmes (1998) 114–5 already notes, it did not deflect the research concerning authorship attribution and chronology ‘from its evolutionary path, and its modern face has now been changed by the influx of techniques from the domains of computer science and artificial intelligence.’ In fact, many factors unceasingly shape the future of the field: the immense pace of technological change, chiefly in information retrieval, natural language processing, and machine learning, and the massive quantity of the textual data now available, as well as the wide range of new academic and social needs and potentials involving authorship attribution, 73 chronology and genre  68 Merriam (1979), (1980), (1982). 69 For the controversy over Morton’s method, see briefly Holmes (1998) 112–3; and in detail Morton (1986); Smith (1985a), (1985b), (1987a), (1987b); and Merriam (1986), (1987). 70 See Holmes (1998) 113. See also Hadjimichail (2010) 260 n. 433 for a thorough list of studies criticizing Morton’s method. 71 Morton/Michaelson (1990); Morton (1991). 72 Love (2002) 140. 73 The reliability of authorship attribution (by far the most popular task of trace detection) was soon strengthened, and also gained renewed interest, after Mortron’s failure, mainly due to the

  Introduction detection, sentiment analysis, and a constantly growing list of tasks of inferring authorial characteristics from textual ones. Trace detection, as described here, is now chiefly conducted through algorithms that either visualize a series of texts in the same low- (two-) dimensional space according to their authorial (and other) mark, or are “trained” to attribute these texts automatically to predefined categories (their authors), based on a comparison of a usually massive number of occurrences of textual (linguistic) features. I have discussed here a series of crucial points in the history of stylometry and, eventually, trace detection, focusing on successful and non-successful attempts to use textual features to unveil an author’s unintentional mark on her/his work. My objective has been by no means to provide an extensive overview of the research in the field so far. This task has been aptly carried out by other scholars— especially as regards authorship attribution and chronology detection 74—and will also be carried out in part (regarding the now-current methods) later in the present study. My goal here has been to stimulate the reader’s curiosity about this exciting and promising field of study. In the following sections of this work I will pass from theory to action, attempting to ascertain if the trace, and also the relevant qualities of style in Pr., the long-disputed play in the Aeschylean corpus, resemble that of the plays securely composed by Aeschylus. Hence, I will attempt to shed new—and scientific—light on the old and challenging problem of its dubious authorship.

 success of John Burrows’ undeniably rigorous and systematic research. See Burrows (1987a), (1987b), (1989a), (1989b), (1992a), (1992b). 74 See Holmes (1994), (1998); Grieve (2005); cf. Grieve (2007); Juola (2006) 237–51; Stamou (2008); Stamatatos (2009a).

 Pr. and the Athetesis Question An Overview Pr. is probably the most problematic (in external terms) drama in the Aeschylean corpus. At the center of the problem is its dubious authorship and chronology; this, of course, has an impact on the general scholarly approach to this play. 75 As we will see below, this composition has been highly praised by some scholars, who have seen it as an expression of Aeschylus’ inspiration at its peak, and heavily criticized by others, who have argued that there is actually nothing Aeschylean about it. The authorship question concerning Pr., 76 which has been the subject of a long-standing (and at times intense) discussion within Classics, is important because this play is one of the very small number of texts that have shaped the current image of Aeschylus as a dramatist and poet. Since the fully extant plays in the Aeschylean corpus are not only few in number (seven, including Pr., of the 70 to 90 that Aeschylus seems to have composed), but also much smaller in length (except Ag.) than the dramas of Sophocles and Euripides, and his surviving fragments so scanty, it becomes clear (in quantitative terms) how each source played an important role in shaping Aeschylus’ legacy. Consequently, depriving the Aeschylean corpus of Pr. ipso facto means accepting that we know a lot less about Aeschylus as an artist than we thought we did—as compared to Sophocles, let alone Euripides. But how did we arrive at this point? How did the athetesis of the drama has become a compelling option? Pr. is traditionally attributed to Aeschylus, and no evidence exists that its authenticity was ever disputed in antiquity. Unlike the case of the pseudo-Euripidean Rh., there is no extant ancient source informing us of any scholars doubting the Aeschylean authorship of the play. 77 In his book on the authenticity of Pr., undoubtedly the most thorough study on the matter to date, Mark Griffith points out that ‘the first discordant voice [as regards the Aeschylean status of the play] was raised

 75 Furthermore, a major part of Sev., more specifically the exodos (v. 822 on), has most likely been “edited” by someone other than Aeschylus. On this, see Lloyd-Jones (1959); Mellon (1974) 1–11; Hutchinson (1985) 209ff.; and Sommerstein (2010) 323. See also Cameron (1971) 49–56; Winnington-Ingram (1977) 3–4; Thalmann (1978) 137–41; Conacher (1996) 71–4; West (2000) 351–2; and Tsantsanoglou (2010) 36–56. 76 For recent surveys, see Bees (1993) 4–14; Lefèvre (2003) 11–19; Ruffell (2012) 13–19. See also Sommerstein (2010) 228–32, 326. 77 For the authorship of Rh., see Liapis (2012) intr. lxvii–lxxv; Fries (2014) 22–8. See also Manousakis/Stamatatos (2018). https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110687675-003

  Pr. and the Athetesis Question by R. Westphal in 1869.’ 78 However, in their metrical study of Greek tragic and lyric poetry a few years earlier, in 1856, Α. Rossbach and R. Westphal had voiced explicit suspicion about the authorship of certain parts of Pr. More specifically, the two scholars argued that none of the Pr. choral odes can in fact be made to accord with the Aeschylean craftsmanship. 79 In addition to the lyric meters, following G. Herman’s indications, these scholars also commented on the rather idiosyncratic handling of the iambic trimeters in the play under discussion, especially concerning the high rate of first-foot anapaests (resolution of the first anceps). 80 In 1869, Westphal returned to this discussion in his Prolegomena zu Aeschylus Tragödien. He argued that the evident differences between Pr. and the other Aeschylean dramas were due to a revision that (Aeschylus’) Pr. suffered at the hands of a later author; 81 various other scholars closely followed Westphal in this respect. 82 Almost 20 years later, Kussmahly (1888) 18 became the first scholar to attempt to thoroughly defend the Aeschylean authorship of Pr. At the end of the 19th century, Bethe moved along the same lines as Westphal and his immediate successors, arguing that a revision of the play occurred most likely in the last 20 years of the fifth century BCE. Bethe highlighted, among other things, the demanding stagecraft of the drama (most notably the wide use of the lifting machine) to support his view. More specifically, he maintained that a series of additions made to Aeschylus’ simple, archaic composition rendered it more spectacular. 83 In 1902, Wackernagel, 84 partly in response to  78 Griffith (1977) 1. Cf. Ruffell (2012) 14. 79 Rossbach/Westphal (1856) pref. xi. The reasons given for this doubt relate to the unparalleled shortness and metrical peculiarities of these odes, when compared to all the rest in the Aeschylean corpus; see pp. 101–2, 158, 179–80, 440, 530. Kranz (1933) 226–8 argued that although the first stasimon is Aeschylean, the second and third derive from the text of some restaging of the drama which took place around 440–430 BCE. 80 Rossbach/Westphal (1856) pref. xvii. 81 Westphal (1869) 6, 13, 97. 82 See Wecklein (1893) 26 n. 1 for the bibliography. 83 See Bethe (1896). However, it seems that the discussion about the revision of Aeschylean dramas can, in fact, be traced back to antiquity. As Quintilian (X.I.66) notes: ‘tragoedias primus in lucem Aeschylus protulit, sublimis et gravis et grandilocus saepe usque ad vitium, sed rudis in plerisque et incompositus: propter quod correctas eius fabulas in certamen deferre posterioribus poetis Athenienses permisere: suntque eo modo multi coronati.’ In his 1552 edition of the ancient scholia on Aeschylus, the Renaissance humanist Francesco Robortello, considering this (to say the least, suspicious) information to be accurate, reproached the Athenians for their disrespectful action. In the preface to his edition, Robortello included a list of 19 points of criticism for Pr., mainly about its deviations from Aristotle’s model of tragedy. Hence, Robortello technically became the first “modern” scholar to introduce the concept of fabulas correctas to Aeschylean plays and especially to Pr. 84 See Wackernagel (1979) 1870 for the 1902 paper. See also Wackernagel (2009) 570.

An Overview  

Bethe’s revision theory, discussed a list of words and linguistic traits, such as the use of resultative perfect, 85 the -κα perfect of -ζω verbs, 86 the use of the future passive in -θήσομαι, 87 and the optative form χρείη, 88 occurring only in Pr. before the second half of the 5th century BCE. As Wackernagel rightly maintained, these traits are no evidence that any one part of the play is later than the rest, but they do indicate that linguistically Pr. seems to be rather ahead of its time. In fact, the notion that Pr. stylistically deviates from the other plays in the Aeschylean corpus predates the doubt surrounding the drama in the modern era, as I have shown elsewhere in detail. 89 The 11th century Byzantine scholar Michael Psellos (1018–1078 CE), in a brief treatise comparing the poetic caliber of George of Pisidia to that of Euripides,90 argued that Aeschylus in Pr. ῾βραχύ τι τοῦ οἰκείου παρεκβαίνει ἤθους᾽ (58–9). Psellos notes that Aeschylus in Pr. deviates somewhat from his usual style, using pure iambs with some frequency, as well as charming diction that excites the ear. Hence, from a stylistic point of view, the poet addresses the subject of the drama in a more “polished” or “pleasing” way than in his other compositions. The Byzantine scholar observes that Aeschylus in his other plays, and especially in Per., uses words and ideas that are exceedingly grandiose and difficult to interpret, and thus, if not deeply initiated in his style, one would not be able to understand his writings. Psellos, of course, does not express the slightest doubt about the authenticity of the drama. To him, Pr. is  85 The resultative perfect occurs for the first time in Pindar (Isth. Iv. 41, Nem. Ii. 8), and its use is limited even in the second half of the 5th century BCE: it occurs sparingly in the works of Sophocles (27 secure instances in seven plays; see Moorhouse (1982) 200) and Euripides, and, much more frequently, in those of Aristophanes (see Willi (2003a) 132 n. 28). Yet the evidence about its use in Pr. remains dubious. Coman (1943) 100, following Chantraine, indicates 14 occurrences in the Aeschylean corpus, of which eight occur in Pr. (2 rejected by Peretti (1927) 205– 7). Herington (1970) 41–4 indicates 11 examples in Aeschylus, at least five in Pr., removing some of Coman’s doubtful instances (cf. Conacher (1980) 160). Garvie (2006) 82–3 indicates nine examples in the Aeschylean corpus, of which five are in Pr. Griffith (1977) 196–7 indicates three or four secure examples in Aeschylus, of which two are in Pr. (446, 586). For Wackernagel’s somewhat misleading use of the term “resultative” to distinguish the Homeric from the classical perfect, see Haspelmath (1992) 214 n. 7. See further Gerö/von Stechow (2003); Bentein (2012). 86 With the exception of the disputed play (lines 211, 586), this formation occurs for the first time in Euripides; see Griffith (1977) 196–7. 87 Wackernagel notes that the use of συληθήσεται (line 761) is rather strange for an Aeschylean play, since the passive form of contracted verbs is absent even from Sophocles. Also see Stephens (1990). 88 Apart from Pr. (line 213), it occurs in Sophocles for the first time. See, also, Wiltshire (2007) 67ff. 89 See Manousakis (2017). 90 See Dyck (1986) 25ff.

  Pr. and the Athetesis Question simply a somewhat different Aeschylean composition. In any case, though, his remark, relocating the first astonished voice on the peculiar stylistic nature of the now-disputed play from the 19th all the way back to the 11th century, seems to be the oldest documented comment adumbrating the authorship question. In 1911, A. Gercke became the first scholar to openly question the authenticity of Pr. as a whole, without allowing the possibility of revisionist theories. To begin, he rejected the notion of a Promethean trilogy: he argued the most uncertain of the missing parts of the alleged composition, Prometheus the Fire-Bearer (Πυρφόρος), never existed. 91 Furthermore, using as evidence a series of incompatible points and (peculiarly) intense similarities between the extant Pr. and the drama reportedly following it, the lost Prometheus Unbound (Λυόμενος), Gercke claimed that in practice the plays are irreconcilable, and cannot have been part of a single broad composition. 92 He considered Prometheus Unbound to be an original Aeschylean play (most probably composed before 472 BCE), and contended that this play was the model for the composition of the extant Pr. around 420 BCE. 93 According to Gercke,  91 Gercke (pp. 164–5) claimed that Prometheus the Fire-Bearer cannot fit in such a trilogy: Pr. is illustrative in its dramatic prehistory, and the foundation of a torch race, a relay in honor of Prometheus (the putative subject of the play), is not sufficient dramatic material for the composition of a whole tragedy. Gercke was not the first to argue that Prometheus the Fire-Bearer is merely an alternative title for Prometheus the Fire-Kindler, the Aeschylean satyr drama of 472 BCE that accompanied Per. See Wecklein (1893) 20 n. 1, who rejected this idea as expressed by Canter in his Novae Lectiones of 1564; Harry (1905) 93 n. 1. Ancient commentators already associated the extant Pr. with two other tragedies, forming a thematically connected trilogy (see Herington (1972) e.g. n. on vv. 94, 511, 522). Later, the issue most notably came to the fore in the middle of the 19th century, when the precise subjects of the lost plays, along with their position in the trilogy, became thorny questions. See Welcker (1824), (1926); Hermann (1831) 253ff.; Westphal (1869) 207ff.; Wecklein (1893) 21–2; Coman (1943) 197–225. See also Brown (1990); Sommerstein (2010) 224–8; cf. Sommerstein (2008) 210–3. Yoon (2016) is the most recent work on the question of a connected Promethean trilogy. Yoon reconsidered the evidence, concluding that the extant Pr. and Prometheus Unbound were probably composed (by the same or different authors) and originally performed at different times, although the later of the two plays (whichever it may be) deliberately recalls and responds to the earlier. 92 It is interesting that Gercke’s criticism stemed mostly from the clear lack of a consistent plot that he observed in the extant Pr. and the storyline of Prometheus Unbound. However, as Dawe (1963) has shown, this kind of inconsistency was not highly problematic for Aeschylus or 5th century BCE dramatists in general. 93 Gercke (1911) 166 dated Prometheus Unbound before Per., but on no firm grounds. The period he proposed for the composition of Pr. is the same as that Bethe indicated for the alleged thorough revision of the play (see Gercke (1911) 173–4). For an early date for Pr. (± 470 BCE), see also Stoessl (1988). Cf. Flintoff (1986), who argued that Pr. is the work of Aeschylus and possibly the earliest extant Greek tragedy; Zunt (1983), (1993). For Prometheus Unbound as the model of the extant drama, see also Lefèvre (2003) 171–6.

An Overview  

the pairing of the two thematically related dramas within Aeschylus’ oeuvre most likely occurred during a joint performance. 94 The most notable aspect of Gercke’s study is that, turning from theoretical arguments to specific textual features, he used Engelmann’s data about the number of choral and actors’ lines in Aeschylus and Sophocles to show that in this (quantitative) respect Pr. is more Sophoclean than Aeschylean. 95 In 1913, F. Niedzballa, Gercke’s student, conducted the first large-scale vocabulary study of Pr. in light of the authenticity question. Niedzballa grouped the content words of the disputed play, in the form of grammatical lemmata, according to their origin. For instance, one of his major categories was Homeric words. He also listed the Eigenwörter of Pr.,96 that is, the words that occur in this play but in no other play in the Aeschylean corpus. Thus, even though he focused on content (thematically biased) words, he introduced the systematic study of the wording of Pr. Similarly, Niedzballa listed the lemmata that occur frequently in Pr. but quite rarely in the other plays in the Aeschylean corpus, and he even noted the words of the disputed play he considered to be of Aeschylean provenance. Niedzballa concluded that in terms of vocabulary Pr. stands apart from the six secure Aeschylean plays, and is from the hand of some later dramatist. According to Niedzballa, apart from the original plays of Aeschylus, the source material for the vocabulary of Pr. comes mainly from epic and lyric poetry, philosophy, and from the writings of Sophocles and Euripides. Some years later, in 1927, Peretti also conducted a large-scale vocabulary study of Pr., reaching an opposing conclusion. Peretti’s work can be regarded as the first attempt to methodically defend the Aeschylean authorship of the disputed play using quantitative evidence. Peretti argued that the number of Eigenwörter in Pr. is, mutatis mutandis, the number expected for all Aeschylean dramas. Thus, this criterion does not constitute proof for the athetesis of Pr. Peretti focused on Per., Supp., Ch., and Eum., all of which have a length similar to the disputed play. Based on his numbers, he indicated that there is no significant divergence between the aforementioned dramas and Pr., which, in this respect, is closer to Supp. than to the Oresteia.97 Körte (1920) 203–4, in favor of the Aeschylean authorship of Pr., also argued, as Wackernagel has done before him, that the linguistic and other idiosyncrasies of the disputed play occur throughout the text and not only in certain parts one

 94 See Gercke (1911) 174. 95 See Gercke (1911) 173. 96 Schimd (1929) first used the term Eigenwörter in reference to the vocabulary of Pr.; Griffith (1977) adopted this term ‘for want of a satisfactory English equivalent’ (see p. 157). 97 Peretti (1927) 230.

  Pr. and the Athetesis Question could easily identify as adapted. In practice, however, this observation indicates that Pr. is either heavily reworked as a whole or utterly spurious. In his 1928 edition of the play, Groeneboom could not have ignored this reconsideration of Pr. by the German critics at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. In his introduction, the scholar characterized the drama as an organic, cohesive, and undivided whole. Hence, the revisionist theories cannot hold. Groeneboom maintained that the staging difficulties of Pr. were of minor importance, and that the uninterrupted presence of the protagonist on stage was what limited the length of choral odes in this Aeschylean play. About the frequency of Eigenwörter in Pr., Groeneboom provided some relevant (raw) data, strengthening Peretti’s conclusion. He claimed that one of his students had counted the Eigenwörter in Per., resulting in a list of 596 such words. 98 The number of Eigenwörter in Pr. seems to have been an issue ever since Kussmahly (1888) 15. According to Kussmahly, followed by Gercke (1911) 172, there are about 500 such words in the disputed play. Niedzballa’s (1913) 41 count raised the number to 672. Peretti (1927) 194, on the other hand, reduced it to 471. 99 Yet, all in all, as Griffith (1977) 269–71 clearly showed, the vocabulary studies of Niedzballa and Peretti are rather unsound methodologically in various respects, and, consequently, their data cannot be regarded as valid in the form presented. In 1929, the first book-length study about the authenticity of Pr. appeared. Wilhelm Schmid, after listing all earlier theories and opinions on the topic, argued that a reworking of a genuinely Aeschylean play could not be the solution to the problem of the authenticity of Pr. Schmid stated that, from his point of view, there is no middle ground: Pr. in its present form is either the work of Aeschylus or it is not. 100 The scholar attempted to determine whether Pr., based on its conception, 101 diction, metrical design, and dramatic technique, could be regarded as a work by Aeschylus. In his study, Schmid connected major scale qualitative points with quantitative conclusions, shaping the first “scientific” attempt to approach the authorship of Pr. According to Schmid, its metrical idiosyncrasies, its un-Aeschylean prologue, and also its impious theology, alongside various formalistic aspects of its structure, the “incongruous” Oceanus scene, 102 the  98 Groeneboom (1928) 16–18. 99 Schmid (1929) 44 counted 631 Eigenwörter (lemmata) in Pr., and finally Griffith (1977) 164 counted 690. 100 Schmid (1929) 3. 101 Porzig (1926) 8 had already underlined the un-Aeschylean conception of Pr. 102 Schmid (1929) 5–20 devoted (too) many pages to this subject, concluding that the Oceanusscene is not by the hand of the author of Pr. In other words, he (strangely) argues that this scene is a latter addition to a spurious drama.

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“problematic” entrance of the Chorus, and other relevant features in the disputed play, compelled him to wonder if Aeschylus could actually have been capable of such “inexpediency.” 103 Overall, Schmid’s book is a quite remarkable example of connoisseurship concerning the question of the authenticity of Pr. Yet the author’s subjectivity undermines his conclusions. Many of Schmid’s judgments clearly follow his aesthetic experience of the drama. 104 Although he listed both its Aeschylean and non-Aeschylean qualities, he glossed rather lightly over the former, considering them to be the result of Aeschylus’ influence on the author of Pr. Schmid’s study was first received with much skepticism. His discussion of the authenticity question was regarded by various scholars as methodologically ineffective, and his conclusions as insubstantial.105 Nonetheless, subsequent scholars found in Schmid’s work a useful—though not unproblematic—basis for their own studies on the authenticity question.106 Thomson (1932), in the introduction to his new edition of Pr. (pp. 38–46), highlighted some similarities in structure and vocabulary between Pr., the Oresteia, and the early dramas of Sophocles (Aj., Ant.), concluding that the disputed play is the latest extant by Aeschylus (composed during the last two years of the poet’s life). 107 He argued that in this particular play, Aeschylus ‘may well have been influenced by the rising genius of Sophocles,’ and thus Pr. is simpler and clearer, 108 less ornate and archaic, with short and self-contained choral songs, and with various words ‘apparently new rather than old.’ 109 Thomson mainly focused on the evidence from vocabulary, and made quite an interesting

 103 Schmid (1929) 30. 104 For instance, see Schmid (1929) 34ff. for his view on the prologue of the play. 105 See Bacon (1930); and Peretti (1930). Körte (1931) 6, following Wilamowitz, Geffcken, Pohlenz, Schadewaldt, Snell, Peretti, Greneboom, and Focke, sharply defended the traditional authorship of Pr., noting that instead of undermining it, Schmid with his evidence had only succeeded in strengthening his confidence in it. Yet he acknowledged (p. 7) that for various reasons tied to (among other things) its vocabulary, syntax, and dramatic structure, this play occupies a very special place in the Aeschylean corpus. In response to his critics, Schmid (1931) insisted that the athetesis theory is the only effective explanation for the broadly idiosyncratic Pr. 106 See, e.g., Griffith (1977) 157ff. about the Eigenwörter. 107 Podlecki (2005) 200 also indicated that in his view Pr. was Aeschylus’ last play, or rather, ‘the play that stood first in what was to be his last tetralogy, parts of which (including perhaps [Pr.]) had not benefited from the author’s final revisions at the time of his death.’ 108 The simplicity and ‘limpidity’ of Pr. (see Herington (1970) 29) comes from the fact that, as Knox (1979) 62 put it, ‘the language of this play shows so little of the metaphorical exuberance and complexity typical of Aeschylus.’ 109 Thomson (1932) 43.

  Pr. and the Athetesis Question remark for his time: ‘in comparing the vocabulary of different plays, we must remember that words which express rare or special ideas are less valuable for our purpose than words which express the simple and common, since there are less likely to have been used by deliberate choice. And, even so, the evidence will be valuable only in so far as it is cumulative’ (p. 44). Even though the scholar mainly referred to content and not function words, and the few examples he gave were far from sufficient evidence for an evolution theory concerning the Aeschylean style (in fact he demonstrated that the vocabulary of Pr. could be more strongly associated with Sophocles than with Aeschylus), the reasoning was sound. Thomson, despite his rather peculiar method of selection and assessment of evidence, was the first to point out, in 1932, the cumulative importance of the simple and common in the authorship study of the vocabulary of Pr. In 1940, 11 years after his thorough monograph was first published, Schmid returned to the discussion about the authorship of Pr.110 in an entry in the third volume of Geschichte der griechischen Literatur. There he listed Pr. as a play which was composed under the influence of the Sophists. 111 He argued that, especially in the older generation of dramatists, this influence is obvious in the works of Sophocles but rather absent from those of Aeschylus.112 Therefore, a heavily Sophistic drama, such as Pr., could not possibly be attributed to Aeschylus. Schmid maintained that the disputed play was meant for reading (a Lesedrama), not for  110 A year earlier, Walter Nestle, a student of Schmid, attributed Pr. to the “school” of Aeschylus and dated it at about 450 BCE. More specifically, he proposed the poet’s son Euphorion, or his nephew Philocles, who were both dramatic poets themselves, as possible authors of the disputed play; see Droysen/Nestle (1957) 353. See also Robertson (1938) 9. If correct, and since Pr. was listed from the beginning in the official records as an Aeschylean play, it would be much easier to explain the silence of the ancient sources about its true authorship. See Sommerstein (2010) 232, who indicated that it is quite possible that Euphorion composed the plays of the Promethean trilogy using some sketch or synopsis left by Aeschylus, and now ‘we have a tragedy which can […] be called both Aeschylean and non-Aeschylean: Aeschylean in concept, but not in execution.’ Oberdick (1876) 429 had already proposed that Pr. is an adaptation of the original Aeschylean play, one which Euphorion made in around 426 BCE for the needs of a new staging of the drama. Wendel (1929), another student of Schmid, had studied the address formulae in Greek drama, and concluded that the deviations of Pr. in this respect show that it, most probably, is a revised version of an Aeschylean work (pp. 64, 138). 111 Schmid/Stählin (1940) 281ff. 112 For the sophistic nature of Pr., see Herington (1970) 94–7; Griffith (1983) index s.v. sophistic elements; Saïd (1985) favored Aeschylean authorship and argued for an archaic, non-Sophistic Pr. According to Saïd (2005) 216, ‘the major themes of the play are entirely consistent with the themes observable elsewhere in Aeschylus’ plays.’ Marzullo (1993) claimed that the author of Pr. was clearly influenced by the Sophistic movement and thus could not be Aeschylus. See also Carroll (1996), and for the use of rhetoric in Pr.

An Overview  

the stage, and that its author could have been a μέτοικος from Ionia, someone who was deeply influenced by Aeschylus.113 Additionally, Schmid casts doubt on the idea that ancient scholars before the Hellenistic period considered Pr. to be Aeschylus’ work. 114 He acknowledged the merits of the disputed composition, but could not see any connection between this ‘impressive monument of the emergent spirit of Sophism’ and the actual Aeschylean oeuvre. 115 In 1946, Jean Coman, challenging the conclusions of German criticism,116 reconsidered the issue of the authorship of Pr. in a book-length study, in which he reviewed most of the relevant literature up to that time. He attempted to rebut the objections of those who rejected the traditional authorship of the play, especially Schmid, whom he called l’enfant terrible of the athetesis. 117 Yet Coman’s study is far from rigorous or, as a matter of fact, objective. Most of the explanations he proposed for the dramatic idiosyncrasies of Pr. are rather unconvincing, 118 and in its examination of linguistic and metrical aspects of the issue, Coman’s book is seriously flawed. 119 Later, Séchan and Méautis also defended the traditional authorship of Pr. Séchan mainly offered arguments that associated rejecting Aes-

 113 Schmid first proposed the Lesedrama and μέτοικος theories in his 1929 monograph (p. 104, 109). In his response to the critics of his work, Schmid seems to reconsider the former view—see Schmid (1931) 220—but later came back to the idea; see Schmid/Stählin (1940) 306. 114 Schmid/Stählin (1940) 282. 115 Schmid/Stählin (1940) 303. 116 In 1946, E. R. Dodds explicitly associated the issue of the authenticity of Pr. with “parochial” interests, noting that: ‘there seems to be no escape from the conclusion that [Pr.] as it stands is what the Russians would call an “anti-God play.” For those who still hold that the devout Aeschylus cannot have written such a play there is only one road out of the dilemma – by proving that [Pr.] is not his work. Once the nineteenth-century interpretation had collapsed, it was logical that this desperate attempt should be made; and it was made, as we should expect on social and political grounds, in Germany […] [T]he play appeared to [Schimd] so dangerous, so subversive of all that a conservative German believed in, that it was essential to find reasons for excluding it from the Aeschylean canon.’ See Dodds (1973) 34–5; cf. Herington (1970) 109. However, Dodds himself acknowledged that Pr. is an idiosyncratic drama, noting that this fact cannot be lightly dismissed. In fact, he found ‘tempting on several grounds’ (p. 37) the hypothesis that Pr. remained unfinished by Aeschylus, and that Euphorion completed and staged it (pp. 37ff.). 117 Coman (1946) 6. 118 For instance, he maintained that the strange lack of any communication between Oceanus and his daughters in the Oceanus scene is due to the discretion of the Chorus. See Coman (1946) 47 n. 2, 230. Cf. Mastronarde (1979) 34 n. 65. Similarly, Coman argues that the a non-static parodos in Pr. would have been insolent on the part of the Oceanids, due to the on-stage physical torment of Prometheus. 119 See Herington (1970) 42 n. 11, 45 n. 15. Cf. Conacher (1980) 142.

  Pr. and the Athetesis Question chylean authorship of the play with overlooking its special place in the Aeschylean corpus as a drama of divine characters—like Eum. 120 Méautis offered a political interpretation of the drama, associating it with the Oresteia. He identified Zeus with Hiero, tyrant of Syracuse, and regarded Prometheus as the personification of pity, concluding that the extant Pr. and Prometheus Unbound were composed in Gela at the very end of Aeschylus’ life.121 However, as Stinton (1961) 544 rightly put it, ‘even if Méautis had shown independently that [Pr.] was late and written in Sicily, he would still not have proved that it had any political reference; to argue from the supposed political reference to the date [and authorship, of course,] is out of the question.’ In addition to the ad hoc approaches, in the mid-1930s, a series of studies on tragic language, versification, and structure, not oriented toward the authenticity discussion, added considerable energy to this issue. Quantitative studies on Aeschylean (or generally on tragic) enjambment and rhetorical pauses, 122 hiatus, 123 use of particles, 124 dialogue structure, 125 and the formulation of iambic lines, 126 strengthened the notion that Pr. is in many ways eccentric when compared to the secure plays in the Aeschylean corpus. 127 C.J. Herington’s comprehensive study on the au-

 120 See Séchan (1951) 58–64. The author of the Hypothesis on Pr. makes a general reference to the Aeschylean plays of divine characters. Cf. the remark by the author of the ancient Vita of Aeschylus in ἐκ τῆς μουσικῆς ἱστορίας (line 100ff.). 121 Méautis (1960) 69. Rose (1961) and Dreyfus (1961) followed Méautis in this “Sicilian” theory for the composition of the play (which goes as far back as 1832; see Lloyd-Jones (2003) 69). Focke (1930) maintained that Pr. was in fact composed during Aeschylus’ first visit to Sicily. Griffith (1978) provided an overview of all the relevant evidence, concluding that the Sicilian influence on Pr. ‘is no greater than it is for any of the undisputed plays of Aeschylus, and not appreciably greater than that for a typical play of Sophocles or Euripides’ (p. 124). On this issue, see also Herington (1967); Garvie (2006) 49 n. 5; Lloyd-Jones (1983) 100ff. and (2003) 54–5, 57–8. See Palladini (2013) for Aeschylus᾽ ties with Sicily. For the political interpretations of Pr., see the bibliography provided by Lloyd-Jones (1954) 237–8; as well as the study by Diamantopoulos (1973). See Podlecki (1999) and Parara (2010) for the political interpretation of Aeschylean tragedy in general. 122 See Yorke (1936a); Denniston (1936a), (1936b). 123 See Harrison (1941), (1943). 124 See Denniston (1954) pref. lxviii–lxix. 125 Jens (1955) reached the conclusion (p. 55) that the poet of Supp. and the Oresteia could not have been responsible for the undoubtedly Sophoclean structure of dialogues in Pr. 126 See Yorke (1936b) and Ceadel (1941) for the number of first-foot anapaests in the disputed drama. I will later return to this issue with further bibliographic references. 127 In his 1957/8 Geschichte der griechischen Literatur (p. 238), and in all the later editions of this work, Albin Lesky noted about the authorship of Pr.: ‘Heute herrscht die Meinung vor, daß

An Overview  

thenticity of Pr. appeared in the wake of this gradual realization. Herington’s ultimate aim was to propose a hypothesis that would account for as many of the actual and supposed eccentricities of the disputed play as possible. 128 Herington (1970) 7– 8 stated that doubts about the traditional authorship of Pr., ‘expressed in varying tones and pitches,’ were ‘well-justified’ and ‘the opponents of its authenticity have a perfectly serious case.’ Nevertheless, considering mainly linguistic, metrical, and structural peculiarities of Pr., especially word/ phrase repetition, hiatus, enjambment resolution, first-foot anapaests, address formulae, etc., Herington identified Pr. as one of Aeschylus’ last plays. In his view, it may have been composed in Sicily during the poet’s second visit (458–456/5 BCE), 129 since it ‘develops tendencies, at all stylistic levels,’ which can be traced in Aeschylus’ late plays. 130 It is quite interesting that in the first part of his study Herington noted that he would address two kinds of criteria related to the authorship of Pr.: ‘stylistic “tics” and mannerisms at the unconscious or barely conscious level of composition, and features that certainly belong to the conscious level, resulting […] from deliberate artistic decisions.’ The former refer to ‘minor features of diction, style, metre, and composition,’ and the latter to ‘the view of the cosmos implied in the several plays [of Aeschylus] and reflected in their composition.’ 131 Yet, as is clear from the differentiation between style and trace that I have made here, Herington technically examined mostly features of (habitual) style. 132 In only a few cases does he discuss features that can be  wir hier echten Aischylos lessen. Auch wir flogen ihr, erheben aber Einspruch gegen die Weise, in der manche Forscher unserer Tage das Vorhandensein einer Prometheusfrage überhaupt nicht anerkennen und über so vieles, was sorgsame Prüfung erfordert, ohne ein Wort hinweggehen.’ Cf. Conacher (1980) 173: ‘if […] the reader, like the present author, should decide that belief in the Aeschylean authorship of [Pr.] should not, in the present state of the evidence be abandoned, he must nevertheless admit that real difficulties lie in the way of its certain and unqualified acceptance.’ 128 Herington (1970) 8. Some years earlier Herington (1963) 5ff. highlighted one of the most notable peculiarities in the structure of Pr.: the fact that ‘apart from the passages of strict linefor-line stichomythia, and from the couplet 698–9, [the Chorus of this play] is allowed to converse only in quatrains.’ Griffith (1977) 130–4 indicated that it is rather hard to trace any development in Aeschylus’ extant plays, as Herington argued, concerning this rigidly symmetric arrangement of the stichomythic parts of the Chorus. 129 Herington (1970) 113–4. Cf. Herington (1967). 130 Herington (1970) 119. Cf. Herington (1965); and Ireland (1974b). Garvie’s (1969) book on the chronology of Supp. Provided statistics about various aspects of Aeschylean style (chap. 2), some of which Herington (1970) 8 indicates as reinforcing the conclusions of his own study. 131 Herington (1970) 28. 132 See, especially, Herington (1970) 33ff. on word/phrase repetition, 37ff. on interlinear hiatus, 46ff. on enjambment, 49ff. on 1:2 stichomythia, 51ff. on content words and phrases confined to Pr., Supp., and Oresteia, etc.

  Pr. and the Athetesis Question associated with trace, e.g., the use(s) of the definite article, the “ellipse” of the first and second persons of εἰμί in Pr., and the distribution and use of particles, 133 and no firm conclusion can be drawn from this scholar’s (scanty) quantitative microlinguistic evidence. 134 In 1977 Oliver Taplin’s comprehensive study of Aeschylus’ stagecraft appeared, and Pr. had a very special place in it. Taplin explicitly stated that Pr. should be either the work of some admirer of Aeschylus,135 or that it was left unfinished at the poet’s death and completed on the model of the originally Aeschylean Prometheus Unbound. 136 Taplin focused on the notable problems that arise when one attempts to describe (to reconstruct) a plan to direct this drama within the stagecraft available in the first half of 5th century BCE.137 In practice, Taplin indicated that the rather individual staging of Pr. is unworthy of Aeschylus, 138 at a time when, as he stated, ‘the vast majority of scholars are in no doubt that [Pr.] is entirely the work of Aeschylus, though some of them are willing to grant that

 133 Herington (1970) 40–1, 53–5, 63–75. Related to the study of particles, Herington (p. 63) admitted that ‘the difficulty of accurately counting and classifying particles and the inevitable unconscious bias to which a mere human being is subject in selecting and presenting the results of such a count suggest that here above all our studies would profit from the discreet application of electronics. Someone —but that someone will not be I!— must attempt a thorough computer analysis of the particles, not only in all Aeschylus but in all fifth-century drama, before the final word can be said.’ 134 For positive and negative reviews of Herington’s book, see Musurillo (1971); Tracy (1973); Podlecki (1973); Peradotto (1974); Stinton (1974); Lefèvre (1983). A crucial methodological problem in Herington’s study is that he attempted to approach the authorship problem through the dating debate. He sought to answer this question: ‘does [Pr.] accord with either of the two distinct phases of Aeschylus’ artistic personality [, Per., Sev. and Supp., Oresteia], for both of which we have (relatively) abundant evidence?’ (Herington (1970) 28). Yet this restrictive chronological dichotomy (Aeschylus’ secure extant plays cover only 15 years–with just three of four years intervening between the plays) distorts the authorship question. In the introduction to the translation of Pr. that Herington (1975) published with J. Scully, the authenticity of the play is not a prominent issue, and Aeschylus is the uncontested author. Cf. Herington (1986) 157ff. 135 Conacher (1980) 173 rejected the hypothesis that the author of Pr. is some imitator of Aeschylus. Would not a clever imitator, he wondered, have been particularly careful to avoid unAeschylean features in his work? Cf. Van Looy (1986) 140. 136 Taplin (1977) 240. Cf. Sommerstein (2010) 232. 137 The stagecraft of Pr. has been a thorny problem for a very long time. For instance, the third of Robortello’s (1552) Aristotelian reprehensions about Pr. is that the titan’s interlocutors, mainly gods and goddesses, arrive flying through the air and overrun the stage with machines, producing an outrageous spectacle. 138 Taplin (1977) 244, 260.

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the authenticity question is still open.’139 He argued that even though his ‘suspicion is based mainly on grounds of dramatic technique, and […] a great deal more work on other aspects of the play would be needed to arrive at any firm conclusion one way or the other, […] [t]he case against the play is far from proven […] but it is also far from negligible.’ 140 This crucial research desideratum found its most detailed expression in the revised form of Mark Griffith’s 1973 dissertation, published in 1977. 141 Griffith’s book remains the most influential study regarding the authenticity of Pr. to date; it established in the field of Classics the notion that the disputed drama is, in all likelihood, not by Aeschylus. Griffith, based on the long series of studies concerning the idiosyncratic nature of Pr., carefully reexamined all the available evidence, producing a methodologically sound and unbiased evaluation of them. As he noted, when beginning his project he had few doubts about the authenticity of the play. However, the evidence he assembled showed that Pr. was ‘consistently behaving quite differently from the six undisputed plays of Aeschylus, and he was thus ‘driven to believe that another hand was probably at work.’142 Griffith studied every aspect of Pr. that he believed could provide a clear and useful point of comparison between the author of the disputed play and Aeschylus (as well as Sophocles and Euripides). However, his most crucial contribution in the authorship discussion is that he scrutinized, for the very first time, all the metrical peculiarities of the disputed play—iambic, anapaestic, and lyric. He argued about the lyric peculiarities that ‘were the choral lyrics of Pr. all that we possessed of an anonymous tragedy, we would on metrical grounds reject absolutely the idea that Aeschylus could be their author.’ 143 Overall, none of the idiosyncratic textual features that Griffith focused on can provide by itself a firm reason for the athetesis of Pr.; yet cumulatively they offer a very good reason for the athetesis. The most evident sign of the influence of Griffith’s study is that (more than 40 years after its publication) it still remains the landmark reference work

 139 Taplin (1977) 460. 140 Taplin (1977) 240. 141 Taplin (1977) noted in an addendum of his book (p. 489) that he regrets he did not have the chance to take account of Griffith’s study. Later on (Taplin (2003) 133 n. 2), he associated Pr. with the “school” of Aeschylus. 142 Griffith (1977) pref. xi. 143 Griffith (1977) 67.

  Pr. and the Athetesis Question for the athetesis case.144 However, his arguments against the Aeschylean authorship of Pr., no matter how strong his case, were hardly met with immediate consensus. Shortly before Griffith’s conclusions became widely known through the publication of his book (although his thesis should have been accessible earlier), Ireland (1977) and Schein (1979), 145 focusing on Aeschylus’ sentence structure and the iambic “tactics” of Aeschylus and Sophocles respectively, both provided some mainly technical evidence supporting the Aeschylean authorship of the disputed play. Ireland sought to use ‘one of the major sources of style, sentence structure,’ 146 to firmly ‘establish […] the relationship that exists between [Pr.] and those works of Aeschylus the authenticity of which has not been questioned.’ In practice, this scholar focused on the iambic and trochaic parts of the plays (excluding stichomythia and short passages of trimeter dialogue), studying the structure of sentences and main clauses (further developed by coordination or subordination), overall sentence and main clause diversity, sentence and main clause length, the frequency and type of noun amplification, and the use of participles. In addition to the seven plays in the Aeschylean corpus, for reasons of comparison, Ireland applies the same metrics to two plays by Sophocles (Aj., Phil.), and two by Euripides (Hipp., Or.). Ireland used standard deviation 147 to establish a confidence interval within which, in a normal distribution, 148 about 65% (or less in other cases) of all instances of each structural phenomenon he studied would fall. Examples falling outside this interval were considered deviations from the Aeschylean norm to a degree greater than that admitted by more or less two-thirds of the poet’s work. Using this (crude, and rather limited in the level of  144 For the reviews about Griffith’s book, see Davies (1979); Garvie (1979); Müller (1979); Herington (1979a), (1979b); Bain (1985); Dillon (1985). Herington in particular, although he acknowledged the quality of Griffith’s study, and reaffirmed the individual nature of Pr. (even highlighting peculiarities that escaped Griffith’s notice), argued that Griffith could not properly explain how Pr. had come down to us, through the ancient grammarians, as Aeschylus’ work. He also maintained that Griffith’s book could not be seen as the solution to the authenticity problem, since the evidence the author used was, necessarily, tied to the subjectivity of artistic creation. 145 Ireland did not mention Griffith’s work. Schein’s book is a revision of his 1967 dissertation. He noted on the subject (p. 61 n. 3): ‘I regret that [Griffith’s] book appeared too late for me to do more than refer to it here.’ 146 Ireland (1977) 189. 147 See Hart (2006) 7984–7. See also n. 244 below. 148 A normal distribution is an arrangement of data in which most values cluster in the middle of the range and the rest taper off symmetrically toward either extreme; see Read (2006) 5652– 63.

An Overview  

confidence) test of “syntactic” similarity, Ireland argued that it was not Pr. but other plays of undoubted Aeschylean authorship that were uncharacteristic. His central conclusion was that sentence structure across the range of dramas he studied showed little difference among Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. Thus, Ireland maintained that there was no Aeschylean, Sophoclean, or Euripidean sentence structure, but only a tragic one. By this criterion, Pr. should continue ‘to be regarded as Aeschylean, as it has been for over two millennia.’ 149 Yet Ireland demonstrated only that sentence structure analysis applied in this very specific way to Greek tragedy is inconclusive as a criterion of authorship. In fact, if one follows Ireland’s numbers one can attribute plays such as Pr., Ch., Phil., and Or. to the same author. Thus, it is clear that this technique is simply insufficient to produce the intended differentiations.150 Schein (1979) 61ff. argued that the undoubtedly idiosyncratic structure of the trimeter in Pr. need not ‘imply non-Aeschylean authorship but only that Aeschylus, perhaps under the influence of Sophocles, was trying something different.’ Schein is right to contend that the absolute number of first-foot anapaests as a form of resolution in Pr. is a rather misleading criterion, since relative numbers tell a different story. The occurrence of first-foot anapaests as a percentage of the number of iambic lines per play in the Aeschylean corpus is 0% in Supp., 1% in Per., Sev., Ch., and Eum., and 2% in Ag. and Pr. However, the occurrence of firstfoot anapaests as a percentage of the total number of resolutions per play—a much sounder analogy than that to the total number of lines, because it clarifies inclinations in the choice of different types of resolutions—changes the view once more.151 In Pr., the rate reaches 32.4%, while in most plays in the Aeschylean corpus it fluctuates at around 4%. In Ag., it reaches 17% (and drops to 9% in Eum.), but the overall rate in the trilogy is less than 10%. 152 Schein’s assessment is a telling example of how quantitative style as a criterion of authorship can lead to unsound conclusions because of an inadequate metric. In addition to what one can observe in the figures, as Griffith (1977) 77–8 indicated, the author of Pr. also employs a different structuring technique in the first-foot anapaests than that used in the other plays in the Aeschylean corpus. More specifically, diaeresis after  149 Ireland (1977) 210. 150 See, e.g., Webster (1941) 402 n. 63 for a different judgment about Pr. using—mutatis mutandis—the same criterion of sentence structure. See also Allan (2007) for the complexity/simplicity of (Thucydides’) sentence structure explained by means of narrative mode (relating to the “distance” the narrator places between the narration and the events narrated). 151 See Garvie (2006) 35, table D. 152 Another important issue about first-foot anapaests in Pr. is their accumulation (clustering) in certain passages; see, e.g., Groeneboom (1928) n. on vv. 353–5.

  Pr. and the Athetesis Question ⏑ ⏑ – is rather rare in Aeschylus, but not in Sophocles and Euripides. The practice by the author of Pr. seems to be much closer to that of the two younger dramatists than to that of Aeschylus. Schein also argued that the high occurrence of the socalled “Sophoclean enjambment” (words ending at position 12 looking closely forward to the beginning of the next line) in the trimeters of Pr. is ‘not a complete departure from Aeschylean practice but rather an increase in a phenomenon which is found in other extant late plays.’ 153 In fact, though, the author of Pr. seems to be even fonder of this device than Sophocles. Aeschylus’ highest rate occurs in Eum., with one instance per 160 lines. Sophocles’ rate is about one per 50 lines, and there are only about thirty instances in the 19 plays in the Euripidean corpus. The rate of this type of enjambment in Pr. is one instance per 35 lines. Moreover, in six secure Aeschylean dramas only four instances of “Sophoclean enjambment” preceded by strong punctuation occur, while in Pr. alone there are twelve such instances. 154 M.L. West, one of the most ardent proponents of the athetesis of Pr. to this day, contended in 1979, in the wake of Griffith’s findings, that ‘those who still maintain that the play is by Aeschylus may probably be divided into three categories: those who have not read Mark Griffith’s recent book on the subject; those who are incapable of unlearning anything they grew up believing […]; and those who, while not constitutionally incapable of conversion, nor unimpressed by the evidence, yet have a rooted feeling, which they are unwilling to discount, that the play is like Aeschylus.’ 155 West, based on some parallels of expression between Pr. and Sophocles’ Ant. and Aj., and the idea that the author of Pr. used the work of Protagoras and Pherecydes in composing his play, argued that the disputed drama could have been conceived and produced only between 445 and 435 BCE, and dated it to the year 440 BCE, 156 shortly after the production of Ant. A further

 153 Schein (1977) 63. 154 See Griffith (1977) 96. The phenomenon occurs seven times in the 2,098 trimeters of the Oresteia, only about four times in all the earlier plays, and 19 times in the 770 trimeters of Pr. This fluctuation can hardly be regarded as an increase in a practice that is also found in other late Aeschylean plays. See also Dik (2007) 176. For the so-called “Sophoclean enjambment,” see generally Dik (2007) 178ff., 209–24. 155 West (1979) 130. Lloyd (2007) 358–396 reproduces this paper in an almost identical form (with the addition of a postscript). 156 Bees (1993), especially pp. 132, 235, 250–3, 261, discussed the affinities of Pr. with Herodotus’ work, in particular books 1–4. According to Bees, the author of Pr. (and Prometheus Unbound) is a poet contemporary with the historian, someone who composed the disputed play most likely after 445 BCE. Sutton (1983) 293–4, favoring the traditional authorship, dated Pr. to some years earlier, to 460–450 BCE, considering some affinities with the Sophoclean Inachus.

An Overview  

reason for this dating, according to West, is that ‘there may have been a particular stimulus to compose a Prometheus trilogy about 440 […]. A magnificent new temple of Hephaestus had just been completed above the Agora. There must have been a dedication ceremony at which fire was kindled on the altar for the first time—holy fire specially brought from a pure source, another altar, by runners. The occasion called for a torch-race. […] The teams lit their torches at Prometheus’ altar in the Academia and raced through the Ceramicus […]. Such an occasion might well give the cue for a revival of Aeschylus’ […] Prometheus Pyrkaeus [, the satyr drama of Aeschylus’ 472 BCE tetralogy], as well as for the composition of a tragic trilogy on the Prometheus story.’ 157 West, moreover, argued that the author of Pr. ‘writes iambics well, and he has considerable powers of imagination and description. But his construction of scenes and of the play as a whole is inept, differing altogether from Aeschylus not just in accomplishment but in conception and approach.’ He further noted that ‘[o]nce embarked on the narrative, the poet writes excellently. But as soon as he comes to the next transition, he plunges once more into a morass of fussy arrangements.’ 158 The author of Pr., West concluded, might plausibly have been Aeschylus’ son Euphorion.159 This hypothesis formed part of a rather bold theory. West proposed that Euphorion, having a soft spot for spectacle, a feature we see often in Pr., with its flying deities and its cataclysmic finale, could also have been the author or reviser of other “spectacular” plays traditionally attributed to Aeschylus. More specifically, West argued that The Weighing of Souls, a play that showed Zeus on stage weighing the souls of Achilles and Memnon in scales as they fought each other, as well as the Carians or Europa, most probably showing on stage the returning of Sarpedon’s dead body by Sleep and Death home to his mother, were composed, completed, or revised by Euphorion. They formed a connected trilogy with Memnon—the only play of the three  157 West (1979) 148. 158 West (1990a) 53, 60. Lloyd-Jones (2003) 55ff. had no sympathy for West’s view on the issue; cf. Hammond (1988) 13–16. Yet he noted that ‘whether or not Aeschylus was the author [of Pr.], and though I think it likelier that he was, I do not maintain that this is certain,’ Lloyd-Jones (2003) 70. The difficulty with the positions of West, Lloyd-Jones, Hammond, and other scholars (see e.g. Hall (2010) 230) about the authenticity of Pr. is that they seem to be based more on subjective appreciation or disapproval of the play as a work of art rather than on more objective criteria. 159 West (1990a) 67–72. In the preface of his Teubner edition of Aeschylus’ plays (West (1990b) pref. liii), West stated about Pr. (‘incerti poetae’): ‘quod persuasum hebeo hanc fabula, magnificam sane atque audacem, sed sententiarum profunditate cassam, rudi manu compositam, multimodis ab Aeschyli arte abhorrentem, neque ab eo factam esse neque aetate eius.’ In his Oxford edition of Aeschylus, Page (1972) 288 simply mentioned that ‘quonam anno acta sit fabula omnino ignoramus; etiam de auctore Aeschylo dubitatur.’

  Pr. and the Athetesis Question actually by Aeschylus and left untouched by his son in his production.160 Yet, no matter how attractive this theory is, distancing Aeschylean tragedy from the use of rather superfluous visual effects, 161 there is no real evidence to support it. In 1980 H. Friis Johansen and E.D. Whittle published a new edition of Aeschylus’ Supp., indicating about Pr. in the preface (p. 6): ‘one of the editors is inclined to deny the authenticity of this play and the other to defer judgement; but, notwithstanding our reservations, we have quoted and referred to [Pr.] in the Commentary as Aeschylean […]; but in questions of Aeschylean ideas, language and metre we have tried not to make our argument too dependent on the evidence provided by Prometheus.’ These scholars judged that since the athetesis had not yet been finally proved, despite West’s view, this would be the most practical solution to their problem. It becomes clear from this example that ambivalence concerning the authorial status of Pr. led to broader difficulties in the study of the plays with secure authorship in the Aeschylean corpus. 162 R.P. Winnington-Ingram’s approach to the issue underlined this point in the 1985 Cambridge History of Classical Literature (p. 288 n. 2): ‘the case for authenticity is well put by Herington (1970) but Griffith in a careful study (1977) suggests the opposite conclusion. […] The present writer must confess that his faith in the traditional authorship has been severely shaken, but it seemed right in all the circumstances to discuss the play here as Aeschylean, not least because, if another wrote it, he did so under strong Aeschylean influence.’ 163 The reason for this scholarly vacillation is clear, but not simple. Even though West overstated his case, 164 the idea is that the change of the status quo in an important issue in a research field as old as the study of classical texts, and based exclusively on modern evidence—with no indication of ancient suspicion, as, for instance, in the case of Rh.—is understandably not easy to process.165 Ten years after the publication of Griffith’s book a new monograph on the authenticity of Pr. (also developed from a PhD thesis) appeared—and is still the

 160 See West (2000) 350ff. 161 Cf. Taplin (1977) 39–49. However, see also Sider (1979) 572; Kamerbeek (1980) 396. 162 The problematic authorship of Pr., which clearly impacts its dating, also causes difficulties with the chronological placement of its fundamental ideas; see, e.g., Utzinger (2003) 212ff. 163 Cf. Winnington-Ingram (1983) 175ff. Storey/Allan (2014) 97. 164 See especially West (1979) 130. 165 Conacher (1980) 174 noted that ‘if one has, for many years, read and discussed the play as an Aeschylean tragedy, complete objectivity in assessing the recent assaults on that belief is difficult to sustain. Thus, for example, it seems inevitable that part of one’s general impression of what is typical of Aeschylus (particularly in the matter of themes and dramatic conceptions) is based on the play in question as well as on the other extant plays.’

An Overview  

most recent book-length study on the subject. M.P. Pattoni attempted to downplay the significance of the evidence concerning the athetesis of Pr.—mainly that of Griffith—focusing mostly on the metrical formulation(s) of the disputed play.166 Even though in some cases she provided overlooked Aeschylean parallels for features regarded as un-Aeschylean by Griffith and others, ‘when unable to find any she changes tack and protests that such unique features need not entail non-Aeschylean authorship.’ 167 Probably the most interesting and convincing point Pattoni made in favor of the traditional authorship of Pr. relates to its dramatic technique.168 More specifically, she aptly demonstrated that the notorious ambivalence of Oceanus’ daughters towards the Titan, ranging from explicit criticism to sacrificial identification, is not in any way random or unskillful, but depends upon whether Prometheus is regarded at any given moment in the play as a vulnerable victim or a potent enemy of Zeus.169 Overall, in her study Pattoni attempted to show that Griffith exaggerated the weight of available evidence about the individual nature of Pr. She reexamined most of this evidence 170 and produced reasonable counterarguments in certain cases, managing to cast some doubt on Griffith’s methods and conclusions.171 Yet, even though she reopened the case, since her book brought the argument ‘de nouveau dans le camp des adversaires de l’ authenticité du [Pr.],’ 172 she barely managed to mitigate the broad influence of Griffith’s sound inferences, as has become clear over the years. 173 The current state of the authorship question (which has been dormant for many years) is briefly summarized as follows in the 2011 Oxford Companion to Classical Literature, edited M.C. Howatson, (p. 477): Pr. is a ‘Greek tragedy attributed to Aeschylus, though perhaps completed or even written by another after the former’s death in 456 BC. No one in antiquity doubted that it was by Aeschylus, but in several respects the style is markedly different from that of his six other surviving plays. […] It is possible that

 166 Pattoni (1987). 167 Davies (1989) 11. 168 Pattoni (1987) 154ff. 169 Cf. Davies (1989) 12–13, who argued that this perception can be expanded ‘in the light of Aeschylean technique.’ 170 See also her later work on Pr., Pattoni (1993), (2008), and (2011). 171 See, e.g., Hooker (1990) 215. 172 Van Looy (1989) 253. 173 See, e.g., Garvie (2006) pr. xii. Griffith (2009) 6 n. 12 states that on the question of the authenticity of Pr., he remains ‘agnostic;’ cf. Griffith (1983) pref. viii. By contrast, as Podlecki (2005a) 195 noted (himself in favor of the traditional authorship), in the most recent edition and commentary of the disputed play, ‘most contemporary English-speaking scholars deny that [Pr.] is the work of Aeschylus.’

  Pr. and the Athetesis Question it was the second play of a connected trilogy, followed by Prometheus Unbound, of which a few fragments survive.’

Conclusions In the above review I attempted to distinguish facts from opinions about the athetesis of Pr. In short, scholarly work of the last 160 years has shown, beginning with connoisseurship and moving to the use of carefully selected quantitative evidence, that Pr. is very different from the other plays in the Aeschylean corpus in various features of its style—features that are all under the potential conscious control of the author, whether he exercises this control or not. Hence, that the play seems to be un-Aeschylean in these terms simply means that the range of stylistic features its author admitted into his work is different from the (known to us today) Aeschylean range. Though no single piece of such evidence may seem conclusive in itself, the complete list has come to look impressive.174 As authorship indicators, the most valuable of the stylistic features under discussion are associated with a reliably large sample of instances, and dissociated as much as possible from the author’s aesthetic objectives. There is no evidence that the authorship of Pr. was a matter of contention in antiquity. The first (documented) time that a scholar regarded the drama as not aligning with the Aeschylean stylistic habits occurred in the 11th century CE, when the Byzantine savant Michael Psellos briefly discussed its uniqueness in one of his treatises. The extant Pr. can be fairly associated with the lost Prometheus Unbound—whether they together formed some broader composition, and whether the latter was the work of Aeschylus or of the same poet as the extant play. I maintain that these few observations comprise all the major general facts available to us today about the authenticity issue concerning Pr. In the following section of the present study I examine, in the light of a several recent studies, some important stylistic criteria used in the debate about the authorship of Pr. Further, I provide a new methodological perspective in a specific case. My attempt is to indicate which of all these criteria can actually be regarded as valuable evidence for the authenticity of Pr. I focus on verbal repetition, iambic peculiarities, and vocabulary and linguistic charac-

 174 Or, as Winnington-Ingram observed: ‘for un-Aeschylean features it is often possible to think up explanations: as they multiply, the question arises in the mind how many special hypotheses one should allow oneself!’ Griffith (1983) 32–5 concisely discussed several features of style and structure that render Pr. un-Aeschylean.

Conclusions  

teristics, leaving aside lyric meters and recitative anapaests—aspects of the discussion admirably covered by Griffith (1977)—about which there is hardly anything to add.175 After that, I discuss in detail the trace of Pr., engaging, for the first time, “hard” science with the question of the authorship of this play.

 175 I owe this notion to Richard Janko, with whom I had the pleasure of discussing my work at an early stage.

4 Quantitative Style in Pr. In this part, I study a series of style indicators to ascertain their value as evidence regarding the authenticity of Pr. I do not address all the style indicators that can be associated with the issue at hand. I limit myself to stylistic features of quantitative significance that can now be reinterpreted after the laborious work of various scholars of Aeschylean tragedy, and tragic poetry in general, following Griffith’s monograph in 1977. In one case only, sentence-length, I revisit the stylistic evidence by conducting a new analysis. It is possible, and desirable, that even more stylistic features of Aeschylean tragedy will be quantitatively (re)approached in the future, thus providing new insights concerning the connection between Pr. and the rest of the plays in the corpus of the poet. Most of the studies used in this part are computer-assisted and align with the concepts and techniques of modern statistics. They are designed to uncover patterns associated with various stylistic phenomena, some of which would be extremely laborious— and in certain cases rather impossible—to fully document manually. Current methods of extracting information from texts make it possible to automatically document and study such highly recurrent features of style, yielding a sufficiently large sample of occurrences, and thus allowing more confidence in the conclusions reached. Some of the stylistic features examined here are in fact so “routinized” and habitual (e.g., close verbal repetition) that they seem almost unconsciously handled by the author on a large scale. Yet these features have potential aesthetic, dramatic functions—no matter whether these functions are broad or limited, or whether they are “active” or “inactive” in the texts examined in each specific case. I want to keep this distinction as sharp as possible because in past discussions, for lack of more objective evidence, style seems to have been abused as regards authorship and chronology of literary works. Some literary scholars, most of them in good faith, have severely overestimated the habitual quality of stylistic features, hence distorting their actual value. Style is telling of an artist’s compositional individuality, but only to the extent that the artist allows it to be so. An author (or an artist of any kind) can be more or less a stylist, that is, her/his style can be more or less distinctive or creatively varied over time. Yet, in any case, style exists to allow the artist to communicate (something) to the audience. The purpose of style is to provide the audience with a lens, a specific point of access to the artistic material. Artists—great artists in particular—use style to guide and shape the feelings of the audience, and this cannot ever be an unconscious process. In short, features of authorial style can be “routinized,” habitually handled on a large scale, but can never be unconscious. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110687675-004

Beyond Aeschylus: Verbal Repetition and the Author or Pr. | 47

Beyond Aeschylus: Verbal Repetition and the Author of Pr. Lewis Campbell (1879) 83–4 maintained that ‘one point in which modern languages are more precise and exacting than the ancient is their sensitiveness in not allowing the same word to be used twice, unless for special reasons, in the same passage. This requirement runs counter to a natural proclivity, as all must be aware who had occasion to correct a hastily written letter. The word that has most recently passed through the mind is most likely to present itself for selection, though it is rejected by the instinct of a modern writer. But in Sophocles this tendency appears unchecked, and, whether from the vividness of the impression which accompanied each word, or from whatever cause, seems to have been unusually strong.’ In fact, this repetition is not only a trait of Sophocles. Aeschylus and Euripides also have their share of what is often designated as unintentional, unconscious, careless, or—more accurately—unfigured repetition.176 Housman (1888) 321, unlike Campbell, indicated that this repetition is not a uniform characteristic of all ancient languages. Discussing a passage from Per. (451–3), he notes: ‘in this, the vulgate text, the word ἐκσῳζοίατο might not itself arouse suspicion. But suspicion is aroused when only two lines below we come to ὑπεκσῴζοιεν; aroused not by the mere repetition, for the Greeks are less careful than the Romans […] to avoid this fault.’ To begin, the reason for this “fault” is not that it passed unnoticed in antiquity. As Pickering (2003) indicated, even though the ancient ear did notice the iterations which some modern commentators might call careless, there is in fact no hint in the ancient sources that these ‘less meritorious repetitions’ were overall regarded as ‘careless or unintentional; the issue is one of literary judgement, good or bad,’ in view of their context (see p. 499). If one supposes, at least for the sake of the argument, that the ancient dramatists themselves (Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, or—much later—Menander) had a good idea of how repetitious their works were, why they did not attempt to change this? There is no doubt that Greek dramatists were fond of the various figures of repetition (of words, phrases, sounds, ideas, and concepts: polyptoton, anadiplosis, anaphora, traductio, tautologia, alliteration, assonance, ring composition etc.),177 using them to add further

|| 176 See Wills (1996) 475 for the term unfigured repetition. See also Aitchison (1994) in general for the phenomenon of repetition in linguistics. 177 ‘In its exploitation of [figured] repetitive language tragedy surpasses by far not only prose genres but also lyric, including Pindar […]. Often it is the same word which is repeated, or related forms of the word; a similar effect can be achieved by using synonyms, especially if the words are closely similar in form, length or rhythm; and parallel sentence-structures or clauses can also

48 | Quantitative Style in Pr.

musicality to their prosodic compositions. Hence, at the macro level, the high rate of repetition figures in Greek drama connects the metrically crafted texts of this genre more closely to music scores than to the texts of modern plays.178 At the micro level, a dramatist would use these mannerisms to ‘intensif[y] the argumentative or emotional force of [an] utterance’ and at the same time ‘distanc[e] and even distor[t] his language, removing it from the everyday.’179 But what about the unfigured repetitions? What is their purpose, if any? Before anything else, one should note that the musicality arising from figured repetitions can also result from the unfigured ones.180 Pausimachus of Miletus (about 200 BCE), to whose doctrine we have access thanks to the restoration by Janko of Philodemus’ On Poems,181 maintains that what makes a good poet is not content or word choice but only sound: the way ‘the word impinges pleasantly

|| be treated as a type of repetition. Sometimes the parallels are reinforced by alliteration or other sound-based resemblances.’ Rutherford (2012) 77. 178 For the dramatic use of repetition in Greek tragedy, see, for example, Kirkwood (1958) 215– 46; Easterling (1973); Budelmann (2000) 42–5; Goldhill (2012) 74 (for repetition as a key point in the structuring of a whole drama (El.)), for Sophocles—Smith (1960); Garvie (2002), (2006) 71ff., for Aeschylus—Collard (1991) n. on vv. 689–90 and Weiss (2008) (a very interesting view on the repetition of events) for Euripides. Generally, for repetition figures in ancient Greek literature (up to the beginning of the 4th century BCE), see Fehling (1969). See also Wills (1996) for figured (and unfigured) repetition in Latin poetry. 179 See Rutherford (2012) 77. The defamiliarizing figure of speech par excellence is enallage; see Matzner (2016) 100ff. Sandbach (1970) 123–4, with Menander in mind, highlighted an interesting aspect of repetition in drama, indicating that poets, consciously or unconsciously, could have associated specific words with specific characters. Hence, a repetition of this kind may be unfigured but it is definitely not unmarked. Testing this idea requires a thorough analysis of repetition by character in the extant plays of Greek tragedy. One example of this technique may appear in Aj. As Pickering (1999) 183–4 noted, in the 1093–1117 speech of Teucer an evident use of traductio occurs, based on the notion of commanding. It may be instructive that in the whole play the word στρατηγός occurs five times, four of which by Teucer: twice in the aforementioned monologue (1106, 1109) and twice in succeeding speeches (1116, 1386). Moreover, only Teucer uses the verb στρατηγέω in this play (1100) or the noun στρατηλάτης (1222). 180 Margulis (2014) 15, 160 rightly noted that ‘repetition is both more prevalent in music than language, and better received,’ and that ‘when language is being repetitive, […] language is being musical.’ The main objective in the use of figures of repetition in language composition is to draw and manipulate the audience’s attention, and thus highlight specific concepts and ideas. Unfigured repetitions, by contrast, are much less concrete, and when they do play a role, they serve to convey and underline feelings. Yet in both cases, the result of repetition, which in practice can foreground information not present in the individual words themselves, is more musical than linguistic (semantic). 181 Janko (2000), (2011).

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with its sound upon the ear,’182 as in the—hypnotic, indeed—unfigured repetition183 in Od. 9.82–104: ἀτὰρ δεκάτῃ ἐπέβημεν γαίης Λωτοφάγων […] οἱ δ᾽ αἶψ᾽ οἰχόμενοι μίγεν ἀνδράσι Λωτοφάγοισιν: / οὐδ᾽ ἄρα Λωτοφάγοι μήδονθ᾽ ἑτάροισιν ὄλεθρον / ἡμετέροις, ἀλλά σφι δόσαν λωτοῖο πάσασθαι. / τῶν δ᾽ ὅς τις λωτοῖο φάγοι μελιηδέα καρπόν, / οὐκέτ᾽ ἀπαγγεῖλαι πάλιν ἤθελεν οὐδὲ νέεσθαι, / ἀλλ᾽ αὐτοῦ βούλοντο μετ᾽ ἀνδράσι Λωτοφάγοισι / λωτὸν ἐρεπτόμενοι μενέμεν νόστου τε λαθέσθαι. / τοὺς μὲν ἐγὼν ἐπὶ νῆας ἄγον κλαίοντας ἀνάγκῃ, / νηυσὶ δ᾽ ἐνὶ γλαφυρῇσιν ὑπὸ ζυγὰ δῆσα ἐρύσσας. / αὐτὰρ τοὺς ἄλλους κελόμην ἐρίηρας ἑταίρους / σπερχομένους νηῶν ἐπιβαινέμεν ὠκειάων, / μή πώς τις λωτοῖο φαγὼν νόστοιο λάθηται. / οἱ δ᾽ αἶψ᾽ εἴσβαινον καὶ ἐπὶ κληῖσι καθῖζον, / ἑξῆς δ᾽ ἑζόμενοι πολιὴν ἅλα τύπτον ἐρετμοῖς.184 Second, it should be noted that the cause of relatively close unfigured repetition is largely cognitive. As Griffith (1977) 163 rightly argued, ‘once a word has been used, it is quite likely to be used again soon. The word remains in the front of [the author’s] mind, and once it has occurred to him, he may well use it two or three times close together, even with different meanings. He may then never use the word again, or not for a long time: the word returns to a more remote corner of his mind, whence perhaps it will only be recalled in a particular context. This tendency is noticeably strong in the Greek tragedians, and it is exaggerated by such technique as stichomythia, where one speaker will echo the other’s words intentionally.’ We come across a very similar description of this phenomenon in || 182 See Janko (2000) 188–9, 283. Cf. p. 295, where we read that according to Pausimachus ‘fine or inferior verse arises for no other reason than because of the combination of sounds itself.’ 183 From the six examples Pausimachus provides about ‘how repetitions of the same words please or pain us, because some letters are euphonious, like λ, whereas others are cacophonous, like σ and ξ,’ only one (Sophocles’ fr. 753 Radt) is normally recognized as a specific figure of speech (anadiplosis or, more precisely, reduplication (or palillogy): emphatic doubling or even triple repetition of words, see Dupriez (1991) 36 n. R4, 383–4). 184 The stress is mine. Apart from the variously recurring Λωτο/φάγ- (words in italics)—almost to the point of semantic satiation (a psychological phenomenon in which repetition causes a word or phrase to temporarily lose meaning for the listeners, who then perceive it only as a sound)—the repetition of λ (underlined words) is more than predominant in this passage. It is also interesting that in 82–90, except in Λωτοφάγων, λ occurs only twice (ὀλοοῖς, ἕλοντο), and in 91–104 there is hardly a verse in which λ does not occur at least once. One comes across an example of similar musicality resulting from unfigured repetition in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet 1.4 206–19. Notice the spiritual imagery the playwright introduces in this sonnet (shared by the two protagonists) through the unfigured repetition of various religious terms such as holy, saint, pray. In the very same piece of poetry, this imagery of chastity contrasts with the frequent unfigured repetition of words for body parts which can be used for both praying and caressing, such as hands and lips. Cf. the unfigured repetition of the word sin in the lines following the sonnet. See Levenson (2000) 196ff. about the emphasis on these words.

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the Cambridge Introduction to Psycholinguistics: ‘it is often found that, once a word has been used in a text, it has a tendency to turn up again and again. Apart from possible contextual reasons for this, we may also suspect a sort of self-maintaining “lexical priming” effect—the system is that much more ready to make the same word available, having recently done so. […] Against this, there may operate some widely acknowledged but little understood stylistic tendencies for speakers to vary their lexical selection […]. Generally, we may observe that, from the lexical encoding (and decoding) viewpoint, it is easier to use relatively few words many times (a type-to-token ratio of few-to-many), but that many pressures variably operate against this state of affairs.’185 In short, recurrence of words in proximity is a well-established characteristic of the human brain, one directly associated with cognitive ease and the economy of language composition. In other words, as any author writes a text, s/he repeatedly searches her/his mental lexicon for the words that best substantiate the meaning s/he wants to convey—and if her/his composition is not free, if, for example, it involves a specific metre or rhythm, the words s/he needs should also meet these further restrictions. Eventually, the author most probably will choose the words that satisfy these criteria and that will come to her/his mind with a greater degree of ease: s/he will make the least mental effort to reap the desired results. A word that has been recently used in a text is much more likely to be used again after a short interval, if needed, because it primes itself. The mere fact that it appears a couple of lines earlier makes it handy—that is, the cognitive effort needed for its retrieval is considerably less than for the use of a new word. This procedure roughly outlines the cognitive problem-solving “machinery” as regards word repetition in language composition. In the modern era, and in the overwhelming majority of cases, the process includes one more step. More specifically, after choosing her/his words, or while choosing them, the author attempts to eliminate, or avoid, repetition, to prevent monotony.186 On the contrary, Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides skip this step to a noteworthy extent. Pickering’s quantitative study of close repetition187 clearly demonstrated that in the work of these

|| 185 Garman (1990) 141. See also Levelt (1993) 8; Malt (2015) 329ff. 186 This concern seems to be an ancient one, as we learn from Quintilian (X.I.7): ‘Et quae idem significarent solitos ediscere, quo facilius et occurreret unum ex pluribus, et, cum essent usi aliquo, si breve intra spatium rursus desideraretur, effugiendae repetitionis gratia sumerent aliud quo idem intellegi posset’: ‘ people who had the habit of learning lists of synonyms by heart, so that any one of a set of words could be brought quickly to mind, and also, if they used one, and found they needed it again soon after, they could avoid the repetition by selecting another with the same meaning.’ The translation is by Russell (2001). 187 See Pickering (1999), (2001).

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dramatists, as well as in Menander, this cognitive procedure ‘appears unchecked,’ to use Campbell’s words. It seems that these poets, mutatis mutandis, gave in to the cognitive ease of unfigured close repetition without “guilt”—most probably because they saw nothing wrong in the outcome. The dramatists were not less sensitive to the phenomenon, as, anachronistically, modern criticism sometimes argues.188 Rather, during the era in which they composed their plays, their audience, as well as the nature of their writings, did not in any way lead them to find fault in close repetition. Therefore, they had no reason to work toward avoiding it. However, deliberate avoidance of unfigured close repetition in fact can be traced back to Greek antiquity. In the study of Greek prose that formed the methodological foundation for Pickering’s work, Dover (1997) 138 found that there is ‘a clear chronological trend towards reduction of recurrence [(repetition)] in oratory from Antiphon, via Lysias, to Demosthenes.’ He also indicated that ‘much pre-Platonic prose was insensitive to avoidable recurrence, and the tradition inaugurated by Thucydides [, who ‘shows a quite remarkable fall in recurrence’ (p. 137),] and taken to extremes by Isocrates, was over-sensitive and therefore blatantly artificial.’ An example of synonymy in Thucydides (1.3.2–4), cited by Dover (1997) 142, exemplifies the shift described here: οὐδὲ τοὔνομα τοῦτο ξύμπασά πω εἶχεν […] οὐδὲ εἶναι ἡ ἐπίκλησις αὕτη […] ἀφ᾽ ἑαυτῶν τὴν ἐπωνυμίαν παρέχεσθαι […] μᾶλλον καλεῖσθαι Ἕλληνας […] οὐδαμοῦ τοὺς ξύμπαντας ὠνόμασεν (Ἕλληνας) […] Δαναοὺς δὲ ἐν τοῖς ἔπεσι καὶ Ἀργείους καὶ Ἀχαιοὺς ἀνακαλεῖ […] οὐ μὴν οὐδὲ βαρβάρους εἴρηκε διὰ τὸ μηδὲ Ἕλληνάς πω, ὡς ἐμοὶ δοκεῖ, ἀντίπαλον ἐς ἓν ὄνομα ἀποκεκρίσθαι […] καὶ ξύμπαντες ὕστερον κληθέντες (the emphasis is mine). It becomes obvious that in this short passage the author is playing a word game. He is devising ways not to repeat himself, one after another, while continuing to talk about the very same thing. Considering this example, and various other relevant ones, it seems that, most probably, Greek prose authors began to avoid close repetition not because the phenomenon per se was considered inartistic, but because after a certain point in time its opposite was regarded as much more compelling.

|| 188 See Wills (1996) 474–7; Pickering (1999) 26–34. See also, especially, Cook (1902); Denniston (1954) intr. lxii; Jackson (1955) 198–9; Collard (1975) n. on vv. 16b–7. Pickering (2001) indicated that close unfigured (and sometimes also figured) repetitions were often obtrusive even to the copyists of ancient texts, who in various cases removed them. By contrast, the copyists are to be held responsible for the introduction of other repetitions by mistake. Cf. Craik (1988) 50; Mastronarde (1994) 45. Dover (1997) 140 rightly argued that every example of repetition in ancient Greek literature regarded as insensitive or due to the author’s bad judgment ‘will find its defenders, and they always deserve a hearing.’

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It is instructive that ‘the chronological trend found in Dover’s sample is not demonstrable in the tragedians.’189 One would expect that Euripides would be at least somewhat less repetitive than Aeschylus, but, as we will see below, this is not the case. One of Dover’s observations about Plato’s style and an illuminating passage in Aristotle’s Rhet. may lead one to understand why. Dover (1997) 138 claimed that the peculiar—if not unique—“naturalness” ‘of Plato’s style is achieved in large measure by his willingness to float between consistency and inconsistency of vocabulary [, in other words between repetition and variety], as good articulate conversation does.’ In Rhet. 1413b 3–1414a 7, Aristotle points out that different forms of communication also call for different choices in style (λέξις). Oral/debate (ἀγωνιστική) compositions, he argues, should not be treated in the same way as written ones (γραφική), because they are quite different. Aristotle goes on to say that written style is the most adequate when the author’s objective is precision, while oral style allows him to achieve the most appropriate enactment/delivery (ὑποκριτικωτάτη). Hence, ‘when compared, the speeches of writers appear meagre in public debates, while those of the rhetoricians, however well delivered, are amateurish when read. The reason is that they are only suitable to public debates; hence speeches suited for delivery, when delivery is absent, do not fulfil their proper function and appear silly.’ Thus, ‘asyndeta and frequent repetition of the same word are rightly disapproved in written speech, but in public debate even rhetoricians make use of them, for they lend themselves to acting.’190 Where is necessary to be nuanced (μεταβάλλειν) when repeating the same thing (word), maintains Aristotle, is in the tone of delivery: this paves the way for (a successful) enactment (τῷ ὑποκρίνεσθαι). He closes this discussion with a remark about an ingenious “mind trick” (παραλογισμόν) that Homer uses to establish Nireus, a character he mentions in a single passage, in the memory of his audience. By repeating his name three times in three consecutive lines (Il. 2.671– 3), Homer aptly increases the importance of this character in the same way as mentioning him repeatedly in separate parts of his work.

|| 189 Pickering (2003) 492 n. 8. 190 The translation is by Freese (1926). Aquila Romanus (3rd century CE) notes about this passage in his De Figuris (see Elice (2007) 45): ‘Ideoque et Aristoteli et iteratio ipsa verborum ac nominum et repetitio frequentior et omnis huis modi actioni magis et certamini quam stilo videtur convenire.’ The emphasis is mine.

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The common denominator of Dover’s observation and Aristotle’s comments is orality, and it is no coincidence that verbal repetition is central in miscellaneous products of oral culture(s), such as Homeric and Mesopotamian epics,191 ecclesiastical hymns, folktales, and even pop song lyrics. Plato’s apparent naturalness in choice of vocabulary, as praised by Dover, stems in part from the ability to fluctuate between opposites. He achieves the spontaneous grace of conversation, of oral communication, by repeating some words while varying others in the same passage. Hence, one can say that repetition, when combined with variatio— and in itself—can be a mark of orality and “naturalness” in a text. In the passage mentioned above, Aristotle, explicitly referring to actors and acting twice (Rhet. 1413b 11–14, 25–8), makes clear that oral style is actually in its proper place when enacted, that is, when used in (public) conversational discourse. In this context, close repetition of words is a useful feature, and is to be expected. The use of this feature in compositions that involve delivery, such as Homeric poetry, can be an efficient technique to help the memory of speakers, or help shape the memory of listeners, making, for example, as we have seen, certain characters more prominent than others. Therefore, it is no surprise that an oral genre such as Greek drama192 is highly repetitive in a figured and an unfigured way. The turn from free repetitiveness to (often artificial) variety took place for the first time in prose, but it does not seem to have been a gradual process, as Dover indicated. Dover’s sample included very different authors (such as Gorgias, Antiphon, Thucydides Lysias, the Hippocratic author, Isocrates, Demosthenes, and Plato), and it seems best not to suppose a, more or less, strict chronological development in the avoidance of repetition, judging from the prose of these authors. It is more precise to say that the texts included in this sample differ only in the “degree of orality” that their authors were prepared to admit into their work. In any case, the crucial notion here is that unfigured iterations readily appear in the work of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides—and sometimes, as we will

|| 191 For figured repetition in Homer, see Lowenstam (1993); and Kahane (1994). See also Mueller (2011) for a concise overview of this broad subject (of figured and unfigured repetition in the epos). For repetition in Mesopotamian poetic language in general, see Groneberg (1996) 70ff. See also George (2003) passim specifically for Gilgamesh. Further, for the quite crucial role of repetition in music, see the study by Margulis (2014) (especially p. 160ff. on the musicality of repetition in language). 192 Aristotle in Poet. 1449a 24–5 notes that the iambic trimeter, the metre par excellence of drama, is also the most suited for speaking on stage (μάλιστα γὰρ λεκτικὸν), and we also know that the plays of 5th century drama created by craftsmen (simultaeneously dramatists, choreographers, musicians, actors, directors, stage designers, etc.) were meant (primarily) for the stage and not for reading.

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see below, are dramatically exploited. There is no “taboo” for these poets on unfigured close repetition, which may indeed be somewhat monotonous at times in modern terms;193 this fact can be directly associated with the oral nature of their compositions. Yet even though Greek dramatists did not feel any need to restrict unfigured repetition of words in a relevantly short distance, at the same time it seems that they also varied other words and meaning units, achieving, in this respect, the effect of ‘good articulate’ speech that Dover noted in Plato’s style. An example from the prologue of Sophocles’ O.T. (1–13) makes this idea clear:194 ὦ τέκνα, Κάδμου τοῦ πάλαι νέα τροφή, τίνας ποθ᾽ ἕδρας τάσδε μοι θοάζετε ἱκτηρίοις κλάδοισιν ἐξεστεμμένοι; πόλις δ᾽ ὁμοῦ μὲν θυμιαμάτων γέμει, ὁμοῦ δὲ παιάνων τε καὶ στεναγμάτων: ἁγὼ δικαιῶν μὴ παρ᾽ ἀγγέλων, τέκνα, ἄλλων ἀκούειν αὐτὸς ὧδ᾽ ἐλήλυθα, ὁ πᾶσι κλεινὸς Οἰδίπους καλούμενος. ἀλλ᾽ ὦ γεραιέ, φράζ᾽, ἐπεὶ πρέπων ἔφυς πρὸ τῶνδε φωνεῖν, τίνι τρόπῳ καθέστατε, δείσαντες ἢ στέρξαντες; ὡς θέλοντος ἂν ἐμοῦ προσαρκεῖν πᾶν: δυσάλγητος γὰρ ἂν εἴην τοιάνδε μὴ οὐ κατοικτίρων ἕδραν.195

What the poet does in these 13 lines with unfigured close repetition and variation is noteworthy. He repeats the same word three times with no specific figure of speech underlying the repetitions: τέκνα-τέκνα, ἕδρας-ἕδραν, ὁμοῦ-ὁμοῦ;196 and

|| 193 See, e.g., Pickering (2003) 491: ‘studying passages closely does indeed illuminate repetitions that at first appear careless, but it is hard to be convinced when one reads some works that many of the repetitions encountered have a point that is even in principle discoverable.’ 194 For a similar effect in stichomythia, see, e.g., the repetition of φρονῶν-φρονεῖτ᾽ in 326 and 328 in O.T. There is also quite an interesting semantic pattern in the recurrence of the verb φρονέω in the Tiresias episode as a whole—a violent verbal struggle between the oracle and the king because of this word, cf. lines 302, 316, 328, 403, 461. The word games are, of course, much more frequent in stichomythia, which in this respect well reflects the natural tendency of speakers to pick up each other’s points, repeating and reformulating them, and hence reusing groups of words within a short period of time. For the pervasiveness and the crucial role of word repetition in oral communication (ordinary conversation and drama), see Tannen (2007) 48–101 in detail. See also on the subject the two-part volume edited by Johnstone (1994). 195 The emphasis is mine. 196 The only repetition in this passage that comes close to a specific figure of speech, that of anaphora (repetition of the same word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses), is the repetition of ὁμοῦ. This “anaphoric” scheme highlights the contrast (of terms following μὲν and

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three times he says the same thing using different words: θοάζετε- καθέστατε (τίνας ποθ᾽ ἕδρας τάσδε μοι θοάζετε-τίνι τρόπῳ καθέστατε), φράζ-φωνεῖν, and ἁγὼ (δικαιῶν)-ἐμοῦ (θέλοντος) (and also αὐτὸς). The repetition of (mostly significant) words marks the focal point(s) of the situation on stage (the supplication and the special bond that Oedipus has with his people), and establishes for the audience a sense of instant familiarity197 with the themes of the passage.198 The variation in language, by contrast, leaves a rather vague sense of obstructed continuity in the progress of the speech. Hence, the repetitions here, as in many passages in Greek drama, are unfigured, but they cannot be regarded as (dramatically) unmarked.199 This (peculiar) fusion results in a natural-seeming speech composed in an inherently confined language form—the tragic idiom, to which I will return. In addition, the careful recurrence of five consonants (θ, κ, λ, μ, π) creates an implicit rhythmic nexus in this small excerpt. Still, what can these observations tell one about the authorship of Pr.? Close repetitions in Greek drama can have a highlighting function even when they are || δὲ) between what can be seen (θυμιαμάτων) and what can be heard (παιάνων τε καὶ στεναγμάτων) inside the city, cf. v. 186. Kamerbeek (1967) 33 suggested that there is no real antithesis here, and the ὁμοῦ just ‘stresses the simultaneity of the actions involved.’ As Bollack (1990) 1056 indicated, ‘si le contraste entre la fumée et le son ne justifie pas la force de la répétition, le volume verbal, s’il n’est applique à rien, est encore plus embarrasant.’ Cf. Campbell (1879) 138. Most probably there is also an (irreverent) antithesis between παιάνων and στεναγμάτων, that is, between holy paeansongs (prayers to the Healer, of course, not tunes of victory) and harsh groanings. Cf. Ag. 245–7, Ch. 340–4, and, notably, Aeschylus fr. 350 Radt, where Apollo himself παιῶν᾽ ἐπηυφήμησεν, εὐθυμῶν the heart of Thetis. 197 Cf. Silk (1996) 480–8 for figured and unfigured repetitions. Kahneman (2012) 66 indicated that ‘repetition induces cognitive ease and a comforting feeling of familiarity.’ Similarly, Merritt (1994) 33 suggested that ‘familiar items can function much like concrete items in building the foundation for comprehending abstract messages. Cognitive accessibility (ease of learning) of an item, can, in fact, perhaps be conceptualized in terms of something like degree of experiential reachability—with concrete items as 100% experientially reachable. This may be why abstract messages are so often repeated, since through repetition they become more familiar, and through familiarity they become more experientially reachable.’ 198 The repetitions in this passage, and in various other passages in Greek drama, can also be viewed in light of lexical priming. This theory brings together corpus linguistics and psycholinguistics to explain the nature of collocations and colligations: see Hoey (2005) in detail. What is quite interesting in the repetitions from O.T. discussed here, studied in the light of lexical priming, is collocation and grammatical patterning. The former refers to the way every word is primed to occur with particular other words, while the latter refers to the grammatical functions in the sentence structure with which every word is associated. More specifically, the word τέκνα occurs and reoccurs (in syntactic isolation) as a vocative expression. ἕδρα occurs both times with a pronoun. ὁμοῦ occurs and reoccurs with nouns in the plural genitive. 199 Cf. Stinton (1965) 18 n. 2. See, e.g., Easterling (1973) 33–4.

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not directly associated with any figure of speech. This fact indicates their undoubtedly conscious nature. Nevertheless, 5th century BCE dramatists treated unfigured close repetition with great freedom, most probably endorsing it as a quite welcome (and in various cases dramatically shaped) feature of natural flow in their characters’ language—along with the other part of this equation: vocabulary variation.200 Further, it seems that they saw in close unfigured repetition a way of endowing their compositions with a rather less cognitively controlled musicality (if compared to that resulting from the figures of repetition). As Pickering (2000) demonstrated, Pr. is the only extant Greek drama that deviates in a noteworthy way from this “repetition-norm.” If this play is by Aeschylus, one has to face the fact that even though the poet treats close repetition in a more or less unforced way in six of his compositions (or four if one considers the Oresteia as a single composition), in Pr. he suddenly becomes restricted in this respect and attempts to avoid the phenomenon. Although by no means an impossible scenario, it seems, as we will see, rather improbable. Before Pickering’s study—which emphasized the restricted nature of Pr. in its repetitions of words within a few lines of each other—the evidence concerning repetition, as a phenomenon in general in the disputed drama, pointed to a different kind of divergence between Pr. and the secure plays of Aeschylus. Schmid (1929) 68, discussing the various un-Aeschylean features of Pr., went as far as to say that the large number, and notably the rationale and style, of repetitions of words, phrases, and also ideas in the play are so uncharacteristic of the great poet, ‘daß sie allein schon genügen würden, dem Aischylos das Stück abzusprechen.’ Also, Herington (1970) 33–4 maintained that even though the high rate of repetition of words and phrases in Pr. ‘might constitute a deliberate stylistic device’ adapted to the theme of this play, ‘there is almost certainly nothing approaching a parallel in tragedy or comedy.’ As Griffith (1977) 202 rightly indicated, even though ‘some of these repetitions do serve to keep relevant and important themes constantly in our minds, […] the word-for-word repetition is far more extensive and obvious than is usual for Aeschylus, who prefers more subtle variation of such thematically essential words and phrases.’ Schmid, Herington, Griffith, and other scholars studying the authorship of Pr. seem to have disregarded the phenomenon of close repetition of particular words (within 100 lines, for example), since it is common in all authors of Greek drama.201 These scholars focused on detached passages within the play, in which individual words or phrases are repeated in

|| 200 I discuss vocabulary variation in Greek drama in detail below. 201 See Griffith (1977) 163, 201, 338 n. 53.

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similar or identical form, concluding that the author of Pr. is much more inclined than Aeschylus to use repetition. Pickering (1999), (2000) used close word repetition in Greek drama to compare Pr. with the writings of (mainly) Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. More specifically, this scholar used the texts of the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (TLG) for all seven dramas in the corpus of Aeschylus, as well as all seven in the corpus of Sophocles and seven plays in the corpus of Euripides (six genuine and a pseudo-Euripidean: Andr., Heracl., Tr., I.T. Bacch., Or.,202 and Rh.)203 to detect, using the Pandora information retrieval software,204 the close repetitions in these works. Because of the special nature of lyrics, he examined only the iambic parts of the texts, focusing on consecutive trimeter passages (of 25 lines minimum). Pickering measured the repetition frequency of content words (nouns, verbs (the highly frequent εἰμί is appropriately excluded), adjectives, adverbs (other than those of time and place)), but set aside function words (particles, prepositions, conjunctions, pronouns, articles etc.), which continuously recur by definition.205 The verbal repetitions counted in Pickering’s analysis include only those occurring at a distance greater than one iambic line but not greater than 15 consecutive trimeters. Differences in inflection do not break identity in this study, but a compound verb close to a simple one does not constitute repetition.206 As noted above, the method of measuring repetition devised by Pickering largely followed the study by Dover (1997) on repetitiveness in Greek prose authors. Dover devised an Index of Recurrence, and compared various passages by Herodotus, Gorgias, Thucydides, and Isocrates. He also produced a table comparing passages of the same length in ten prose authors on the basis of the number of repetitions after different intervals.207 In determining the distance of repeated words in prose to develop his repetition formula, Dover missed the convenient

|| 202 Pickering chose these specific Euripidean plays for his study because their dates (± 425–408 BCE) allowed him to cover, as widely as possible, all chronological phases in the dramatist’s career. For the assumption of randomness in “choosing” these plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, see Pickering (2000) 100. 203 The TLG editions for these texts were as follows: Murray (1955), (1902–13) for Aeschylus and Euripides, respectively Dain (1955–62) for Sophocles. The TLG material is accessible for members at https://www.tlg.uci.edu. 204 See https://www.tlg.uci.edu/about/cd_soft.php. 205 I discuss the issue of content and function words below in more detail. 206 For the methodological decisions made in that study, see, concisely, Pickering (2000) 83– 5, 89–98. For solutions adopted in the transposition of verses and lacunae in the texts, see id. 82–3. 207 See Dover (1997) 137 table 7.2.

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verse arrangement of stichic poetry. Hence, he employed mobile lexemes.208 Simply put, the unit Dover used to measure the distance between two recurring words comprised the number of intervening words that are not subject to any placement limitations within the sentence. Pickering, of course, used verse arrangement in his formula. After measuring the size of the interval—ranging from 6 to 20, and thus, in a way, excluding the “figural” repetitions—between repeated words in mobiles, and because repetition is evidently more obtrusive when the interval is short, Dover employed not the intervals themselves, but their reciprocals in developing his recurrence “score.”209 For example, if the second occurrence in a word repetition is the sixth mobile after the first occurrence, it scores 1:6 (0.17). If the same word then repeats as the eighth mobile after the first occurrence, it scores 1:8 (0.13), and so on. Pickering followed the same method except that, instead of mobiles, he counted lines—ignoring repetitions in the same or adjacent lines. Once Pickering totaled all the reciprocals for a given text, he multiplied the result by 100 and divided it by the total number of (mobiles/)lines in the text. The resulting figure is the Index of Recurrence for that text.210 Apart from calculating this degree of repetition in Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, Pickering also studied separately the repetitions in the same or adjacent lines in the plays of these authors. Thus, he documented the frequency with which they use figures of repetition (anadiplosis, anaphora, etc., as discussed earlier). The rate of close repetition (not in the same or adjacent lines) in the dramas in the Aeschylean corpus (in reverse chronological order) as calculated by Pickering, appears in the chart below. Pr. (4.99) is by far the least repetitive play in the corpus—as well as the least repetitive of all the dramas examined in Pickering’s study.211

|| 208 ‘Syntactically, almost every Greek lexeme [(type)] is either mobile or appositive. If mobile, it can occur immediately after pause, or anywhere else. Appositives are subdivided into “prepositives” and “postpositives.” Prepositives (e.g., εἰ, καί) cannot occur immediately before pause, and postpositives (e.g., γάρ, με, ἄν) cannot come immediately after pause. Some lexemes, however, may be mobile in some contexts and appositive in others, according to what they mean. Thus αὐτ- is mobile when it means “self” or “same,” but postpositive when it is anaphoric (e.g. “her,” “them,” etc.).’ Cf. Dover (1960) 12–14. 209 Dover did this because the (decimal) result of dividing one by any number is greater the lower the denominator (distance) of the fraction (reciprocal number). 210 See, in detail, Dover (1997) 133–4; Pickering (1999) 45–6, 56–7, 67, (2000) 86. 211 See Pickering 87 (2000) table 3.

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Fig. 1: Index of Repetitiveness in the Aeschylean corpus

The results of the Oresteia seem to confirm the random nature of this style indicator. Even though it is a single composition thematically, the figures for its three constituent parts do not match. In fact, the figures for Ag. (6.94) and Eum. (7.00) are almost identical, but Ch. (8.85) is notably more repetitive. If Aeschylus had attempted to control this phenomenon, on the grounds that it was obtrusive, then one would expect this to be evident in all plays of the Oresteia. Yet this is not the case. In all likelihood the almost identical figures of Ag. and Eum. resulted by chance. The higher repetition in Ch. possibly resulted from the close recurrence of several thematic words, such as πατήρ (17 occurrences in Ag., 54 in Ch., 19 in Eum.), φίλος (25 occurrences in Ag., 34 in Ch., 14 in Eum.), and ὁράω (18 occurrences in Ag., 36 in Ch., 19 in Eum.). It is plausible that Aeschylus deliberately employed thematic repetition as a stylistic device more widely in Ch. than in the other dramas of the trilogy.212 This notion does not change the case advanced here. If the poet did not deliberately use a thematic repetition technique in Ch., it means that there was no master plan concerning close repetition in the drama at all. If he did use this technique, then the specific form of control he exercised increased rather than decreased repetition. In general, one can see from the chart above that the somewhat older dramas (Per., Sev.) are more repetitive than the others. However, one cannot speak of a

|| 212 For the nexus of thematic words in the Oresteia, see, for example, Chesi (2014).

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chronological trend emerging from the data for two reasons: the time span for the composition of the extant Aeschylean plays (472–458 BCE) is quite short; and the fluctuations of repetition within the corpus of this dramatist appear to be rather irregular. What one can say is that all the undisputed plays in the corpus display a repetitiveness mean of about 8.5, and no example has a repetitiveness index lower than about 7. Hence, the 4.99 for Pr. seems suspicious. Aeschylus, of course, could have consciously deviated from the repetition “norm” described here when composing Pr.—possibly in an effort to employ more vocabulary variatio in this drama. Yet there is no real evidence that he did deviate. The only actual fact here is that the author of Pr. differs noticeably from Aeschylus, as well as Sophocles and Euripides, in how he handles close repetition.213 At this point the “causality dilemma” of Pickering (2000) 88 emerges, and is more crucial than ever: ‘does the author of [Pr.] employ a relatively wide vocabulary because he is more anxious than others to keep unfigured repetitions down, or is his low repetitiveness index a consequence of his use of a relatively wide vocabulary?’ I will return to the width of the vocabulary of Pr. below, and shed some light on this question, which I will combine with the concept of lexical richness to ascertain how significant a role this feature plays in the authorship issue. In conclusion, when one brings together the older and the more recent research evidence on vocabulary repetition, it is clear that, in general, Aeschylus and the author of Pr. are incompatible. As noted, the author of Pr. has a soft spot for distant repetitions of words and phrases, which occur more frequently in his play than in the secure Aeschylean plays—but they seem to lack the purpose and pattern(s) discernible in the secure examples.214 On the contrary, concerning repetition within a few lines, whereas Aeschylus (as well as Sophocles and Euripides) seems to be mostly tolerant of it, the poet of Pr. seems to attempt to mitigate what might have felt clumsy to him.

|| 213 In Pickering’s study the only text that displays an index of repetitiveness lower than that of Pr., that is, 1.55, is the (late 3rd or—more likely—early 2nd century BCE (Hornblower (2016) 36–9)) iambic poem Alexandra, traditionally attributed to Lykophron. This work is roughly the length of a Sophoclean drama (1,474 lines), and, apart from its trimeter form, is associated with tragedy in various other ways; see Hornblower (2016) 14–15. This composition is full of rare, unusual, words, and hapax legomena; see id. 595; and cf. id. 53. A thematic aspect that Alex. shares, mutatis mutandis, with Pr. is the central role of oracular speech in the plot. Yet the inherent ambiguity, and the consequent obscurity in narrative style, resulting from this aspect is much more crucial—and better exploited—in Alex. than in Pr. For the literary qualities of Alex., see McNelis/ Sens (2016). 214 See Griffith (1977) 201.

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It must also be noted here that, even though the figures are too close to be conclusive, Pr. has the highest number of repetitions occurring in the same line compared to all dramas in the Aeschylean corpus. This is qualitatively apparent in the inclination of the author of Pr. to use anadiplosis. There are four examples of this figure used with thematic words in the trimeters of the disputed play, whereas, apart from a couple of monosyllabic vocatives, only two such examples occur in the six securely Aeschylean dramas.215 Anadiplosis in lyric parts, not uncommon in Aeschylus,216 though less frequent than in Sophocles and Euripides, occurs four times in Pr. As Griffith (1977) 195 indicated, two of these examples (vv. 887, 894) recall the way the two younger dramatists handle the figure,217 and seem to echo nothing of its Aeschylean use. Now, if one further ponders the form and function of anadiplosis in extant tragedy and the specific examples in the trimeters of Pr., one arrives at some telling conclusions. To make the enquiry more specific, I will examine here two of the four cases of anadiplosis in the dialogue parts of Pr. (v. 274, 999), in which the repeated word is a verb in the imperative—the most frequent form of anadiplosis in Euripides.218 The overwhelming majority of cases of anadiplosis of this kind (set

|| 215 See Pickering (2000) 88. For repeated monosyllabic vocatives in the anapaestic and lyric parts of Pr., see vv. 98, 114, 124, 566, 576, 579, 598, 602, 687, 742. 216 See Schmid (1929) 53–5. Anadiplosis in lyrics can also occur for metrical reasons; see Barrett (1966) n. on v. 830. 217 The figure under discussion must have been characteristic of Euripides, a “mannerism” (see Willink (1986) n. on vv. 219–20) that provoked Aristophanic raillery; see Kranz (1933) 231–2; Stanford (1976) n. on vv. 1335–6; West (1987) 286 n. 16; Dover (1993) 358. Further, anadiplosis in Euripidean lyrics is chronologically interesting, since the poet uses it with increasing frequency in his dramas. Or. of 408 BCE, with 45 occurrences, is the peak; see Ritchie (1964) 237. Sophocles also uses anadiplosis more in lyrics—though noticeably less than Euripides. For anadiplosis in the Sophoclean lyrics, see Trach. 655 (with the n. by Davies (1991); cf. Bacch. 107 with the n. by Dodds (1960)), 893; Aj. 620, 627, 1205; O.T. 1330 (with the n. by Bollack (1990)); Phil. 135, 205 (with the n. by Schein (2014)), 1169, 1179, 1187, 1209; O.C. 124, 1453. For Sophoclean anadiplosis in trimeters, see Trach. 1144; El. 459; Phil. 816, 1041, 1241; O.C. 1098–99. The O.C. example, in which anadiplosis occurs twice in a line spoken by two interlocutors (antilabe), and Soph. fr. 753 Radt, in which the same word is repeated thrice, show that even though Sophocles was rather sparing of the figure, he did at times employ it in an intensive way, characteristic of Euripides; see e.g., Or. 1373; I.A. 1289; also Diggle (1999) 140–1. Breitenbach (1967) 215 made a relevant observation about Euripides’ lyrics: in his earlier dramas the words the poet repeats in anadiplosis are simple and trivial. This runs counter to the Aeschylean, Sophoclean, and later Euripidean practice, according to which the words used in anadiplosis are mainly (emotionally) significant. The practice of the author of Pr. is closer to early Euripidean dramaturgy. 218 The other two cases of anadiplosis in the trimeters of Pr. include an adjective (v. 266) and a verb in indicative (v. 388). For imperative anadiplosis in Euripides, see Diggle (1990) 116–7, (1996) 196.

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at the beginning of the line) highlight some action of imminent emotional importance, or, more generally, the emotional instability of the speaker. For example, such anadiplosis appears when Medea implores Aegeus to take pity on her and allow her to go and live in his land, when she rushes her children off to the palace to offer her deadly gifts to Jason’s new bride, and when the messenger rushes her away from Corinth to escape death, after the murder of the king and his daughter.219 Also, Sophocles in Phil. uses anadiplosis with the imperative in two crucial moments in the drama (v. 816, 1041 (cf. v. 1035)): when Philoctetes, in excruciating pain, asks Neoptolemos to let him surrender to his physical suffering and thus allow time to soothe the sting,220 and in the hero’s cursing monologue, when he calls upon the gods to avenge him. The one and only Aeschylean example of this kind (Eum. 140) occurs at a similar moment. After the ghost of Clytemnestra leaves the stage, the enraged Erinyes wake up one another in trimeters (ἔγειρ᾽, ἔγειρε) and immediately express in song their horror at Orestes’ escape.221 On the contrary, the two examples of anadiplosis with the imperative in the disputed play occur on a rather different kind of occasion. The first occurs when the Titan, already sure of the good intentions of the Oceanides, asks the Chorus (πίθεσθέ μοι, πίθεσθε) to descend, come closer to him, and listen to his future fortunes. This anadiplosis seems more related to the special needs of the stagecraft of the play (the need for the Chorus to reach the orchestra in order to sing the first stasimon) than to the emotional state of the hero.222 The second example of anadiplosis with the imperative in this play does occur at a moment of emotional tension, but it comes from the mouth of the most unexpected speaker.223 Hermes asks Prometheus to come to his senses, even at the last moment. This desperate, as the anadiplosis indicates, plea would

|| 219 See the references in Diggle (1996) 196, to which add v. 1122. 220 See Schein (2013) 245 on this moment of Philoctetes’ crisis. 221 See Sommerstein (1989) n. on vv. 140–78. 222 The rather practical nature of Prometheus’ address to the Oceanides can be compared to the old man’s prompting to Creusa in Euripides’ Ion 738. 223 Cf. Schmid (1929) 54–5. This, mutatis mutandis, is also the case with the anadiplosis of a verb in the indicative in Pr. 338. In this line, the emotional repetition in the mouth of Oceanus indicates his self-confidence (and also his pride and vanity). However, the extant Sophoclean and Euripidean examples of this form of anadiplosis occur with emotionally charged speakers who seem to be at a breaking point. See El. 459 (with the n. by Finglass (2007)), Trach. 1144, Heracl. 449, Andr. 980 (with the n. by Stevens (1971)); cf. fr. 285 Kannicht v. 7 from the prologue of Euripides’ Bellerophon. On a first level Pr. 338 can be compared to Alc. 1017, 1093. Nevertheless, in these lines, spoken by Heracles, the use of anadiplosis highlights a crucial emotional antithesis (see the nn. by Parker (2007) and Iakov (2012) on these vv. for anadiplosis and Heracles’ character). This is not the case with Oceanus’ boast in Pr.

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have been more appropriate if spoken by the sympathetic Chorus than Zeus’ servant.224 Overall, one is in a position to say that the author of Pr., who is not prone to close repetition, at least not as much as Aeschylus, employs anadiplosis rather frequently and in rather un-Aeschylean ways. In dialogue Aeschylus seems not to favor this repetition figure, which is generally uncommon in tragic trimeters. In his anapaestic and lyric parts he is slightly more sparing of anadiplosis (of thematic words) than Sophocles and Euripides. Apart from his penchant for anadiplosis, the author of Pr. also shows his un-Aeschylean inclination for repetition word games in the use of a specific kind of polyptoton.225 An additional, but more confined, aspect of this tendency occurs in the opening of Pr., where ‘Might enforces his retorts by mocking reiteration of the last words of Hephaestus.’226 As Winningron-Ingram (1983) 190 n. 42 indicates, in this case the “picking-up” between speakers, a common feature of Greek style ‘is constant and tedious, a trick of style, a mannerism which it would be hard to parallel in extant Aeschylus.’ To sum up, as far as the handling of (figured and unfigured) repetition is concerned, Aeschylus and the author of Pr. evidently differ. Aeschylus seems to favor the echo that the patterns of distant repetition endow in a drama, rather than specific same-line repetition wordplay. At the same time, he is unforced in unfigured close repetition. The author of Pr. seems rather intolerant of the repetition of words within a few lines of each other. Nevertheless, he is particularly fond of figured repetition in the same line—and thus more stylized. He also employs distant repetitions, though not in the Aeschylean, pattern-oriented way.

A Sociolinguistic Indication: Pr., the Aeschylean Corpus, and the -οις/-οισι(ν) Technique In this section, I will begin exploring the conclusions concerning the authorship of Pr. offered by a quantitative linguistic study in the Aeschylean corpus, conducted by T.B. Allison (2003).227 Allison applied some of the methodology from

|| 224 Podlecki’s ((2005) n. on v. 999) suggestion that at this point Hermes is being sarcastic is not very persuasive. For (highly emotional) passages of split anadiplosis, where one or more words are placed between the two occurrences of the repeated type, as is the case with Pr. 999, see the Euripidean examples provided by Hordern (2002) 169; cf. Willink (1986) n. on v. 200. 225 See Griffith (1977) 203–7, (1983) index s.v. polyptoton. 226 See Thomson (1932) 136. 227 Allison conducted his quantitative analysis on the TLG Aeschylean texts, that is, on the edition of Murray (1955).

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corpus linguistics and sociolinguistics to the Aeschylean corpus to shed light on the poet’s handling of various aspects of dramatic composition. Sociolinguistics, which I will discuss first, is a sub-discipline of linguistics that focuses on language in social and cultural contexts—especially on how people with different social identities (e.g., gender, age, ethnicity, class) speak, and how the way they speak changes in different situations. In a word, sociolinguistics reveals how social and geographical influences, as well as communication circumstances, may affect language.228 The sociolinguistic data allow one to observe how a social framework shapes the linguistic identity of a real, or even fictional, person.229 Sociolinguistic research, as expected, mainly focuses on (oral communication in) currently spoken languages. Hence, when one attempts to study a non-spoken language such as ancient Greek or Latin—in other words, a large heterogeneous, closed, mainly literary corpus of linguistic material—instead, things get complicated. Yet dramatic texts can be the most appropriate verse compositions to serve this end. Stage characters have conversations or soliloquies, (re)constructing oral communication in vitro. The speech of these characters comes from the poet that created them, of course—and one should never forget that no matter their linguistic idiosyncrasies, more or less important, the language of these characters was put together through the same language source, the same mind. Greek comedy, as Willi (2003a) has shown,230 provides ample scope for analyzing the speech of stage characters in respect of the actual language spoken by the audience of the plays. By contrast, a similar approach in the more canonical language of tragedy would be dangerous and unrewarding.231 In the study of tragic speech, it would

|| 228 See Hudson (1996) in detail. See also the volume edited by Fought (2004). For a concise introduction to the basics of sociolinguistics, see Llamas/Mullany/Stockwell (2007). 229 See Allison (2003) 9 n. 39 for the references. See also the extensive study by Coupland (2007) for the formation of stylistic identity of speakers through their sociolinguistic choices. 230 For the background of this study see the bibliography by Willi (2003a) 3 n. 3. 231 Tragic language is largely artificial—as is also the case with the epic language (for which see, briefly, Willi (2011) 458–64)—and stands at a “de-familiarizing” distance from the (natural) Attic Greek of the 5th century BCE. The language of tragedy displays various peculiarities in morphology (dialectal and other), syntax, and vocabulary, through which the linguistic capture of the current and the eternal at the same time takes place. This is not to say, of course, that there is no formal common ground between spoken Attic Greek and the tragic idiom. As Dik (2007) asked, ‘how can a poet effectively characterize Antigone and Creon, or how does he expect us to follow Oedipus’ interrogation of the shepherd, unless he draws on some common core of Greek grammar that is shared by the spoken language and by written prose?’ On tragic language, see, in detail, Else (1965) 72ff.; Rutherford (2012) chap. 3; (and most importantly) Silk (1996); Mastronarde (2002) 81–96; Allison (2003) 15 (especially n. 62). The distancing, “alienating” quality of the artificial tragic idiom is evident in the language of paratragedy (see Rutherford (2012) 59–61).

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be rewarding to study the combination of “social” linguistic features the poets have given to each one of their fictional characters.232 Such studies provide insight into the linguistic side of the dramatic technique of playwrights.233 Thus, they uncover an aspect of their style that could be potentially useful in the debate about the authorship of the disputed Pr. The sociolinguistic variable of “Aeschylean stylistics” that can be of some value as regards the authenticity of Pr. is tied to the (linguistic) characterization of the dramatis personae in Greek tragedy.234 The dative plural ending for ο-stem nouns has two allomorphs, the short form, -οις, and the long form, -οισι(ν). In both Attic and Ionic early prose inscriptions, the two forms appear side by side. Yet over the course of the 5th century BCE, Attic prose inscriptions indicate a decrease in the use of the long form.235 ‘The last securely dated examples of -οισι(ν) in public documents appear around 420 BCE, but because official inscriptions are often conservative it is safe to assume that the long form had disappeared from spoken Attic long before.’236 Scholars have long assumed that the -oις/-οισι(ν) allomorphs appear in free variation in tragedy, with their distribution determined

|| 232 For example, in Wendel’s (1929) study of address formulae in Greek drama we read that of the 18 such formulae in the form of proper names in Pr., five are addressed to Prometheus by the (pompously polite) Oceanus, who stays on stage for 112 lines. His daughters, the Oceanides, who stay on stage for nearly the whole play, address the Titan in the same way only six times. Also, Hermes, who stays on stage for 135 lines, uses such an address for Prometheus only once. These numbers evidently speak to the use of proper name address formulae by the author of Pr. in a type of characterization tied to Oceanus. It should be further noted that the author of Pr., unlike Aeschylus, uses proper name address formulae to introduce a new character and avoid confusion only twice (see vv. 12, 66—both in the prologue). He does not employ proper name addresses simply for practical reasons; he seems to enjoy doing so. 233 Van Emde Boas (2017) achieved this goal in his thorough work on the sociolinguistics of Euripides’ Elec. He did not attempt to deduce the general from the particular. Instead, he shed light on the particular (the sociolinguistic connotations of a specific Euripidean play) underpinned by the essential (universal) features of language usage identified in linguistic theory; see id. 2ff. In other words, in this study the way language works in general becomes the background for understanding how ancient Greek literary language works. 234 See (the bibliography provided by) Allison (2003) 17 n. 68; and most recently van Emde Boas (2017) (the whole work is a study of tragic characterization; see pp. 52–4 for an overview of the term). 235 Allison (2003) 21 (see n. 5 for the references concerning the provenience of the allomorphs). 236 Willi (2002) 115, (2003a) 241.

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solely by the metre, without specific stylistic function(s).237 Allison (2003), challenging the metrical necessity hypothesis, employed statistical tests in order to ascertain if the distribution among tragic characters is indeed random. It appears that some characters use the long form more than others. Hence, while metre clearly has some influence in the choice of the allomorphs, stylistic considerations must have also played a part. Janko (1982) 48 indicated that in the Homeric epics the dative plural of οstems, along with some other alternative morphs in nominal declension, ‘originated in the interplay between the conservative diction handed down [to the Ionian bards] by the tradition and innovations delivered from their vernacular.’ In other words, in epic composition the use of -oις morph is a modernism, while the use of -οισι(ν), which possesses ‘the added virtue of being alien to most spoken dialects,’238 points to a more traditional context. That said, if Janko is also right to claim that the poets of the Hymn to Pythian Apollo and that of the Hymn to Hermes (dated to the early 6th century or even later) deliberately employ the -οισι(ν) form in order to generate an archaizing effect,239 the use of the long morph instead of the short in 5th century BCE poetry can be regarded as a long-standing archaizing stylistic device. This conclusion, though, is not unanimously accepted. For example, Colvin (1999) 184 suggested that ‘it is unlikely that [Aristophanes] used [the long forms -οισι(ν)/-αισι(ν)] to achieve an epic or archaic effect; they were probably “invisible” poetic licenses which did not give an aura of high poetry to the speech in which they occurred.’240 In any case, Allison (2003) 22–4 rightly indicated that mundane, or even “invisible,” as it may be, the -oις/-οισι(ν) morpheme fulfills four important criteria, and is hence worth closer study (to accept

|| 237 See Allison (2003) 22 n. 11. As is evident from comedy, in drama metrical constraints are not inevitably decisive concerning the choice of form between -οις and -οισι(ν). Unlike in Aristophanes’ plays, the -οισι(ν) (and also the -αισι(ν)) morph almost vanishes in Middle and New Comedy, although metrical considerations are still crucial. Thus, ‘a poet like Aristophanes could have reduced the amount of artificiality in his language if he had wanted to.’ See Willi (2002) 116; cf. Willi (2003a) 241–2. 238 Janko (1982) 77. 239 Janko (1982) 77, (2010) 32–3. For some concerns regarding Janko’s suggestion about the -οισι(ν) archaizing effect see Thalmann (1984) 205–6 n. 88; Richardson (2010) 16; Vergados (2013) 143. The long dative plurals in -οισι(ν)/-αισι(ν) should have had an Ionic ring to Attic ears; see Willi (2002) 123. Also, it is an interesting fact that Archilochus and Anacreon, unlike Alcman, restrict their short datives at the end of the line, while their long datives never occur there; see Page (1951) 115 n. 2. 240 Cf. Deplazes (1991) 133: ‘Das Faktum, dass bei Aischylos die kurzen und langen Endungen -οις/-οισι(ν) und -αις/-αισι(ν) nebeneinander ohne functionale Trennung erscheinen, erstaunt weiter nicht.’

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or reject its stylistic (characterization) connotations): the two forms of the morpheme are fairly securely guaranteed by metre;241 they are as numerous as one could hope for in (extant) drama; -oις/-οισι(ν) is a grammatical, a structural morpheme; and it connects to social stratification (a traditional feature in the epics, a potential archaizing device, and, as the inscriptions indicate, a morphological unit in transition over the course of the 5th century BCE). Allison’s percentages of -οισι(ν) over the total number of unambiguous -οις and -oισι(ν) morphs across Aeschylus’ extant plays indicate a slight but gradual decrease in the use of -οισι(ν). The only exception to this pattern occurs in Eum.,242 while Pr. fits well with late Aeschylus.243 The analysis of the data on the basis of Aeschylus’ tragic characters is also not particularly telling—before the Oresteia. Two characters of the trilogy, Cilissa, Orestes’ nurse in Ch., and Apollo, his protector in Eum., stand out from all other Aeschylean characters. More specifically, the mean use of -οισι(ν) across Aeschylus’ characters (who have a reasonable number of ο-stem dative plurals) is 34% with a standard deviation244 of 9.2%. The figure for the use of -οισι(ν) in Cilissa’s speech, 7.1%, is almost three standard deviations below the mean—a data point that statisticians frequently consider to be an outlier.245 By contrast, Apollo’s speech in Eum., 57.1%, is slightly more than two and a half standard deviations above the mean. This is unique in the Aeschylean corpus since no other character comes close to the nurse or the god. || 241 For the possibility of two shorts substituting for one short, which is very rare in Aeschylus, see Allison (2003) 23 n. 12. Further, to achieve maximum accuracy in his study of the -oις/-οισι(ν) allomorphs, Allison counted only the occurrences of -oις followed by a consonant or placed at the end of the line, and excluded those, possibly elided types, followed by a vowel. Because of the more frequent occurrence of -οις followed by vowels in Homer, it has been suggested that ‘in prevocalic environment they are (or were originally) elided long endings,’ see Janko (1982) 54. The percentage of the long forms drops, of course, when one retains the ambiguous -oις examples, yet the status of tragic characters in view of this percentage, which is Allison’s focal point, remains largely the same; see Allison (2003) 24. 242 See, Allison (2003) 26 table 2.1. Allison did not calculate the total percentage of the trilogy, which agrees strikingly with the declining pattern: Per. 35.6%, Sev. 34.7%, Supp. 34.3%, Oresteia 33.6% (Ag. 32.4%, Ch. 30.3%, Eum. 38.1%). 243 The figure for Pr. is 30.7%. 244 Standard deviation is a statistical measure used to quantify the amount of variation or dispersion of a set of data values. More specifically, it shows how much the data spreads out around the mean. It is calculated as the square root of the variance, that is, the average of the squared differences from the mean. Evidently, a low standard deviation indicates that the data points tend to be close to the mean (expected value) of the set, while a high standard deviation indicates that the data points spread out over a wider range of values. 245 See Allison (2003) 31 table 2.8. Cilissa’s case is notable even as regards the raw numbers: she speaks 39 lines in Ch. (734ff.), and uses the -οις morph 13 times and the -οισι(ν) only once.

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The -οισι(ν) figures for all other Aeschylean characters are much closer to each other, and much closer to the mean than these two examples.246 As Allison (2003) 32ff. demonstrated, using further statistical tests, the chances of the two characters deviating so sharply from the (Aeschylean) mean are exceptionally low. Thus, for some reason, the poet deliberately used more of the -οισι(ν) morph when composing Apollo’s lines, and much more of the -οις morph when composing the nurse’s lines. Aeschylus’ purpose in this case could have been to highlight Cilissa’s humble background and Apollo’s divine nature (epic stature).247 If Aeschylus indeed used the -οις/-οισι(ν) allomorphs as features of characterization for Apollo and Cilissa in the Oresteia—and all evidence indicates that he did—then two questions emerge: why did he not do the same for the other minor and divine characters in the trilogy, and why one cannot find anything similar in his earlier plays? The first question has a twofold answer: it seems that the poet follows precisely the same pattern with characters of low status in the trilogy as he does with Cilissa—yet the use of the allomorphs in their speeches is not statistically significant.248 By contrast, unlike Apollo, the use of -οις/-οισι(ν) in the speech of the other divinities in the Oresteia, Athena and the Erinyes, is quite close to the Aeschylean mean—and should be seen as the product of random choice.249 Thus, it might be that this stylistic load of characterization in Apollo’s and Cilissa’s speech was a limited experiment Aeschylus undertook for the first time in the trilogy. This is why, to answer to the second question, one cannot detect a similar feature in the earlier Aeschylean plays. In short, Aeschylus when composing the Oresteia decided for the first time to use this morph deliberately as an indicator of both low (in its absence) and high (in its abundance) status. One is in no position to say why this (late) experiment with -οισι(ν) as trait of elevated language is limited to Apollo’s speech in Eum., but one would have expected for the poet to exploit the device more comprehensively in the plays that followed the trilogy.

|| 246 Allison’s (2003) 32 histogram of the distribution of -οις/-οισι(ν) over Aeschylus’ characters has the form of a bell curve, a standard normal distribution—something one would expect in a random system. Nevertheless, Apollo and Cilissa deviate quite markedly from the center. 247 See Allison (2003) 35ff. in detail. Cilissa uses ‘elevated poetic language […] and almost incoherent anacolutha which characterize her as an ordinary humble person under emotional strain.’ See Garvie (1986) 243. For the role of the nurse in Ch., see also Pournara-Karydas (1998) 64–76. For Apollo’s’ language in Eum., see also Pelliccia (1993). 248 See Allison (2003) 36. 249 It is noteworthy that the ghost of the godlike Darius is one of the most reserved characters in the use of -οισι(ν) in Per. (26.3%), and also that the humble spy in Sev. uses this morph more often than king Eteocles (35.7% and 31.7%, respectively).

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If Thomson (1932), Herington (1970), and Podlecki (2005a), as well as the overwhelming majority of scholars in favor of the Aeschylean authorship of Pr., rightly maintain that it is one of Aeschylus’ final compositions (possibly the last),250 then the disputed play would have been quite an apposite candidate for the exploitation of the stylistic device under discussion. Pr. is a drama about devine characters in an even broader sense than Eum is. In Pr., the divinities of both the old and the new order are not part of a mortal man’s drama as in the Eum.: they are the focal point of the plot; the only human being that appears on stage, Io, is tangibly tied to the gods through her sufferings. If Aeschylus authored Pr., he could have readily employed -οισι(ν) as a characterization device in the speeches of Hermes, Hephaestus, Kratos, Prometheus, Oceanus, or even of Oceanus’ daughters. Further, he could have used this linguistic trait to separate one group of divinities from the other: the old gods from the new. However, this is not the case. No character in the disputed drama is statistically significant in the frequency of use of -οις/-οισι(ν), and it is evident that the author of Pr. seems “unaware” of the Aeschylean experiment in the Oresteia. Overall, on a macro scale Pr. aligns with the Aeschylean mean in the use of -οις/-οισι(ν). Yet even though it is a play in which the main characters are almost all divinities, it is more reserved in the use of the “dignifying” -οισι(ν) (30.7%) than Eum. (38.1%), the other divine drama in the Aeschylean corpus.251 On a micro scale, once again in contrast to Eum., in Pr. there is no character of particular interest in the use of οις/-οισι(ν). It must be noted that the difference in the use of -οις/-οισι(ν) between Aeschylus and the author of Pr. does not constitute evidence that they are not the same person. However, this feature gives insight into a feature in the intersection between trace and style, and leads to an interesting conclusion. More specifically, it allows one to observe the transformation of a neutral grammatical feature into a stylistic device within a genre, to witness how a poet conceived anew a simple morphological unit in (social) transition as a possible feature of style(s). Aeschylus, not long before his death, could have been the first Greek dramatist to conceptualize the idea that characters using -οισι(ν) (already an archaizing note in Homer) in their speech almost exclusively, acquire a higher, more solemn stature, one befitting a god. If this poet is also the author of Pr., and Pr. is composed later than the Oresteia, as those in favor of its Aeschylean authorship maintain,

|| 250 Earp (1945) 12 notes that ‘it would […] be against all normal laws of probability to put [Pr.] early […] [T]he play looks very late, and if only Aeschylus had lived so long, we might well put it ten years or more after the Oresteia.’ 251 See Allison (2003) 26 table 2.1.

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one then has to admit that in the composition that (immediately?) followed the stylistic “discovery” under discussion, a tragedy almost entirely populated by divine characters, Aeschylus chose to ignore it. This view is, of course, by every means a possible scenario. Yet, added to the other peculiarities of Pr., it could also be a telling observation concerning the authorship of the disputed play.

The Dramatic Use of Resolution in the Trimeters of the Oresteia, Supp. and Pr.: Anticipation Versus Exoticism I have already discussed here how iambic resolution in Greek (especially Euripidean) drama can be a method to facilitate metrical composition and make tragic language seem more relaxed, and, at the same time, a device of style, highlighting the meaning of high-tension passages.252 As noted, Euripides’ rate of iambic resolutions over time is a crucial indicator for the chronology of his (externally undatable) extant plays and fragments. The same method cannot apply to Aeschylus and Sophocles. The Sophoclean rate of resolution fluctuates in a manner that allows no chronological conclusions, and the Aeschylean rate seems to be rather similar to the Sophoclean in this respect. In his 1969 study on the dating of Supp., A. F. Garvie noted that the figures of resolution in Aeschylus indicate a steadily increasing restraint in the use of this feature, and thus Supp. appears to have been composed after Sev. and before the Oresteia and Pr.253 However, as Scullion (2002) 90–3 aptly demonstrated (and Garvie (2006) pr. xii confirmed), this suggestion is false. Although the time span of composition for Aeschylus’ fully extant plays is only 15 years, and for Sophocles is much longer, possibly more than 40, common conclusions emerge: the resolution rate in the extant plays of Aeschylus fluctuates in roughly the same way as it does in those of Sophocles, and there is no steady pattern of increase or decrease for either of them.254 In Sophocles’ case, one can infer practically nothing about the dating of his plays from the resolution rate; thus, for example, a fairly early and a late play by this poet, Ant. and O.C., are rather close in the overall frequency of resolution (4.6% and 6.2%, respectively).255 About the Aeschylean corpus one is in a position to say a little more—or so it appears. Since far more than half of the resolutions in all || 252 See p. 14ff. above. 253 See Garvie (2006) 33 (the main text and the page numbers of the first and second edition of this book are the same; the second edition includes a new introduction). 254 For the figures of resolution in Aeschylus and Sophocles, see the bibliography in n. 46 above. 255 See the telling plot by Morais (2010) 533.

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the plays occur in the third foot of the trimeter, if one combines dactyls and tribrachs one gets two distinct groups of three and four (or two) compositions, respectively. The first contains Per., Sev., and Supp., and has a resolution rate ≈ 6.5% (to the total number of iambic lines in each play). The second contains Ag., Ch., Eum., and Pr., and has a resolution rate ≈ 2.7%.256 In view of these figures, one can say that in its rate of resolution Pr. aligns with late Aeschylus. Yet, as we will see, the devil is once more in the detail. I have already indicated that among the different types of resolution employed in the plays in the Aeschylean corpus the disputed drama stands out for the preference of its author for first-foot anapaests.257 A further point in which Pr. stands out from the secure plays in the Aeschylean corpus in its handling of iambic resolution is of dramatic nature. Kitto (1961) 1 maintained that in Aeschylus ‘the dramatic quality of a scene had something to do with the incidence of […] resolutions—as is certainly the case in Sophocles.’258 Kitto noted that the dramatic use of resolutions connects to the degree of personal emotion, excitement, and active passion with which Sophocles wished to invest a scene or a passage: a telling example is the high resolution rate in the protagonist’s farewell speech in Aj. (vv. 815ff.).259 To determine whether also Aeschylus handles resolution using a specific dramatic technique, Allison applied a scansion program to the trimeters of the plays in the (TLG) Aeschylean corpus.260 His results about the distribution of resolutions in different parts of these dramas gave a more solid shape to Kitto’s (vague) indications about the dramatic use of the feature. Resolution seems to be interwoven with excitement in various Aeschylean passages. Yet, in view of Allison’s study, one can now speak of a very particular kind of excitement. To gain insight into the amount of clustering of resolutions in the Aeschylean corpus, Allison used two methods from corpus linguistics. He first (arbitrarily) divided each drama into five sections of equal length, then calculated the dispersion of resolutions using the normalized ratio of the standard deviations to the

|| 256 See Scullion (2002) 92–3. The figure for Pr. is 2.6%. 257 See pp. 39–40 above. 258 See n. 49 above. 259 See Kitto (1939) 183ff. 260 Concerning the overall percentage of resolutions in each play, Allison’s automated scansion broadly aligns with the manual counts of Descroix (1931); Ceadel (1941); and Schein (1979). Allison did not include resolutions that occur in the disputed exodos of Sev. in his scansion. For the technical specifications of his program, designed to automatically scan both trimeters and hexameters, see Allison (2003) 224–257. For more recent work on computerized scansion of hexameters, see Papakitsos (2011).

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mean,261 revealing an unevenness in the distribution of resolutions. In general, Supp. and Pr. show a less even distribution of resolutions in the Aeschylean corpus.262 Allison also ran a chi-square test263 on the subsections to reevaluate the dispersion in the plays, and concluded that the findings of this test correlate fairly well with the first measure of dispersion used.264 However, the method of dividing the trimeters of plays into fifths offers only a broad-scale image of the changing rates of resolution in the corpus. To detect specific passages with statistically significant rates of resolution, and thus to clearly indicate the dramatic function (if any) of this feature in Aeschylus, Allison used a more refined corpus linguistics approach: Philippides’ moving window analysis of trimeter passages. Philippides used a moving window (a set piece of text) of 45 consecutive iambic lines at a time, to document the statistically significant passages of high and low resolution in Euripides; Allison did the same for Aeschylus.265 The moving window analysis showed that the distribution of resolutions in Per. is fairly even—and thus evidently random. In the Aeschylean corpus, Per. includes the most resolved trimeters, but only one passage with a statistically significant high rate: a piece abundant with foreign names (vv. 284–332).266 The distribution of

|| 261 See Allison (2003) 81 n. 36 for the formula. Allison calculated the standard deviation (see n. 244 above) of the (five) sub-frequencies of resolution, and then divided this number by the mean of the sub-frequencies. The result was then normalized (divided by the square root of the number of resolutions in the sample (n) minus 1, and subtracted from 1)—that is, turned into a score from 0 (most uneven distribution possible) to 1 (perfectly even distribution). See also n. 526 below. 262 See Allison (2003) 82 table 5.4. Before calculating the dispersion in the dramas, Allison had indicated that only in Supp. and Pr. are resolutions rather unevenly distributed between stichomythic sections and other passages. In Supp., resolutions tend to appear more in stichomythia, whereas in Pr. the reverse seems to be the case; see id. 80. 263 The chi-square test is a widely used non-parametric (the data do not follow a normal distribution) statistical test that describes the magnitude of discrepancy between the observed data and the data expected to be obtained with a specific hypothesis. The following formula is used to calculate chi-square: χ2 = Σ(Ο-Ε)2/Ε, where O is the observed frequency and E is the expected (or theoretical) frequency. 264 See Allison (2003) 83. 265 See Philippides (1981) 54–5. The size of the window Philippides used is fairly arbitrary. In Allison’s study the window for testing low rate resolution in Ch., Eum., and Pr. was necessarily somewhat larger than 45 lines. For passages somewhat smaller than 45 consecutive triemetres, Allison followed Philippides in calculating the chance of the resolution count given the size of the passage. The confidence level Allison used, that is, the percentage indicating the probability that a certain distribution would occur in a random system, i.e. that some clustering would happen by chance—the acceptable probability of error—is 5% (standard in studies of this kind). 266 For resolutions in Per., see Broadhead (1960) 298–9. For the juxtaposition of proper names, see Garvie (2009) pr. xiv–xv, 45.

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resolutions is also, mutatis mutandis, even in Sev., with one (possible) passage of high clustering (vv. 568–613),267 and in Supp., with one passage of high and one of low clustering (vv. 275–347 and 911–949, respectively). The passage with the high resolution rate in Supp. (which, as it will become evident, is of particular interest for the present discussion) is an extended narrative in which Pelasgus draws attention to the exotic appearance of the Chorus, and the wondrous story of Io’s exotic wanderings, leading to her union with Zeus; it unfolds through a long-winded “web” of question and answer between the king and the Danaids.268 Only three of the overall 15 resolutions in this piece occur in proper names (Κύπριος (v. 282), Ἔπαφος (v. 315), Δαναός (v. 321)). Of the remaining 12, only two occur in somewhat recherché words (κρεοβότους (v. 287), νεοδρέπτους (v. 334)), whereas the rest occur in rather mundane ones (νομάδας (v. 284), βασιλέῳν (v. 298), ἄλοχος (v. 302), φύλακ᾽ (v. 303), πατέρα (v. 319), ὄνομα (v. 320), πότερα (v. 336), βαρέα and πόλεμον (v. 342), ἱκεσίου (v. 347)). By and large, in the plays composed before the Oresteia the high and low frequency of resolution in certain passages does not seem to connect to a concrete dramatic Aeschylean technique. Its only (possible) dramatic use is to aurally highlight a long, exotic, and wondrous ethnographical exposition in Supp., and (less likely) to intensify the sound of foreignness in Per.—in which necessity can be made a virtue. The handling of resolution in the trilogy turned into a stylistic device tied to the thematic structure of the plays and the characterization of the dramatis personae. Overall, Ag. includes notably fewer resolutions than the earlier plays. However, they are more clustered. In this drama one finds six passages with statistically significant rates of resolution: four of high and two of low rate.269 The worn-

|| 267 See Allison (2003) 86–8. Textual abnormalities in the passage of Sev. should make one extremely cautious in drawing any conclusions about four of the overall 10 resolutions in this passage, while three secure instances occur in proper names. 268 This example seems to run counter to Philippides’ (1981) 61 n. 48, 72 n. 57 suggestion that stichomythia and high rates of resolution are almost mutually exclusive. Yet, as noted, the passage under discussion is rather idiosyncratic, a storytelling kind of stichomythia. For this passage, see further Friis Johansen/Whittle (1980) 220ff. n. on vv. 277–90; and Sandin (2005) 154ff. For shared storytelling in Euripidean stichomythia, see Schuren (2014). The passage of statistically significant low rate of resolution in Supp., also a stichomythia, does accord with Philippides’ suggestion. In this passage, Pelasgus rebukes the Egyptian herald for attempting to abduct the suppliants. If the negative correlation between stichomythia and high resolution is not a factor, then what makes Aeschylus (consciously?) avoid resolution in this particular case is far from evident. It is possible, though, that Pelasgus’ intervention in this crucial point is in fact too robust for the sound of resolution. 269 One might argue that because of its length Ag. should include more statistically significant passages than earlier plays. However, as Allison (2003) 89 indicated, the increased number of

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out guard, the overwhelmed Herald, and the agitated Cassandra demonstrate a high rate of resolution in their speeches. By contrast, the speech of the dispassionate Agamemnon is statistically significant for its low resolution rate.270 Moreover, in vv. 503–632 there is a transition of a passage from a statistically significant high resolution rate to a low rate, then back again to a high rate, without other rates in between. It is particularly interesting that these changes seem to correspond to the structural/dramatic boundaries within the play, in other words, to change in speaker and tone. More specifically, as one follows the changes in resolution rate in this long passage, one witnesses the fairly clear-cut lines from the Herald’s moving prayer and his announcement of the king’s return, the stichomythia between the Herald and the Chorus, and the former’s second speech focusing on the pains of the Greeks during the expedition (which ends with a note of optimism about the memorable war), and Clytemnestra’s false joy about her husband’s homecoming. The same transition from low to high resolution rate, tied to some thematic preoccupation, occurs in Cassandra’s scene. Here (vv. 1196–1290) one can witness Cassandra’s transition from oracular obscurity to oracular clarity. In the first part of the piece (vv. 1196–1245), the Trojan prophetess, in stichomythia with the Chorus and in a soliloquy, speaks mainly in imagery about the king’s approaching death; the old men cannot understand her ominous words. By contrast, in the second part of the piece (vv. 1232–1290), again in stichomythia with the Chorus and in a soliloquy, Cassandra becomes clear: Ἁγαμέμνονός σέ φημ᾽ ἐπόψεσθαι μόρον (v. 1246). It seems possible that one of Aeschylus’ innovations in the composition of the Oresteia, and especially of Ag., includes the use of a specific dramatic rhythm through successive passages of high and low resolutions in the drama. No statistically significant passage of either high or low resolution rate occurs in Ch. Electra’s speech in front of Agamemnon’s tomb, moments before Orestes appears on stage (vv. 183-211)—her final words are: πάρεστι δ᾽ ὠδὶς καὶ φρενῶν

|| significant passages is far greater than the increased number of trimeters in this drama. In Per., with roughly half of the iambic lines of Ag., one statistically significant passage occurs. If the rate of significant pieces in these plays was roughly the same, one would expect two (or even three) significant pieces in Ag., not six. 270 For the antithesis in characterization between the Herald and the king in Ag., see Fraenkel (1950) 293–4. According to Fraenkel, in this play Agamemnon is ‘a model of perfect restraint,’ whereas for the Herald ‘all that matters is the unhoped-for happiness of the present hour.’ Cf. id. n. on vv. 503, 511, 518, 915, 936; Pearson/Headlam (1925) 36–7. For the structure of Cassandra’s scene, see Denniston/Page (1957) 164–6; cf. Fraenkel (1950) 539–540. For the guard’s scene, see Bollack (1981) 42–6.

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καταφθορά—includes the highest concentration of resolutions.271 Eum. includes one passage with a statistically significant high rate of resolution and one with a low rate of resolution (vv. 430–485 and 642–700, respectively). The first example, preceded by a passage that nearly reaches a level of significance for low resolution rate, includes Orestes’ attempt to convince the anxious Athena (v. 444: τῶν σῶν ἐπῶν μέλημ᾽ ἀφαιρήσω μέγα) that he is purified, and his pleading with her to be the judge of his case.272 The goddess in turn hesitates to accept the case, fearing that doing so could give rise to the wrath of the Furies. She struggles between two equally thorny options. When she departs, to fetch proper judges, she leaves the matter unresolved. Both Orestes and Athena have their fair share of resolutions in this piece. The passage of significantly low resolution rate in Eum. concerns “divine acts”: the “quarrel” between Apollo and the Furies about the importance of the paternal and maternal roles in the birth of a child (notably the god’s claim that only the father is a rightful parent), and Athena’s foundation of the Areopagus homicide court. It seems that the foundation of such a prestigious institution by a god, and the supernatural argument preceding it, were ‘too solemn for tribrachs.’273 Overall, in the passages with significantly low resolution rate in Aeschylus, characters seem to speak in a more deliberate, solemn, and dispassionate way, with a kind of stability that goes far beyond anticipation and even expectation. The Herald’s view of the strenuous expedition that will become a tale of valor for future generations, Agamemnon’s staid reaction to his wife’s excess, Cassandra’s purely oracular speech, Apollo’s “well-studied” defense of fatherhood, and Athena’s judicial legacy are all examples of this form of interaction. From the above, it becomes evident that one of the Aeschylean experiments in the Oresteia relates to the handling of resolution. The poet seems even more sensitive to the sound of resolution in the trilogy, and decisively employs it to achieve a dramatic effect closely tied to a specific kind of emotion, excitement, and active passion. It should be no coincidence that all passages with high rates of resolution in this composition include characters that are too excited or anxious about the

|| 271 See Garvie (1986) 86–8 and n. on vv. 183–4. 272 See Sommerstein (1989) n. on vv. 480–1 for the emendation of the crucial passage. 273 Kitto (1939) 190. Aeschylus “strays” to resolution twice in the 30 lines of Athena’s Areopagus rhesis. Yet only one of the words is readily replaceable, and thus thematically important: ἔρυμα (a hapax in Aeschylus: Eum. 303 (used metaphorically) and in Sophocles: Aj. 467 (used literally), found six times in the trimeters of the fully extant plays and fragments of Euripides). The second resolution in the Areopagus rhesis is a (crucial) proper name (Πέλοπος (ἐν τόποις) in v. 703: used to indicate the Peloponnese; see the n. by Sommerstein (1989) ad loc.).

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outcome of some imminent event.274 What sets apart the passages of high resolution from other pieces of personal passion in the Oresteia is the characters’ anticipation that something big will occur at any moment. In Ag., the wretched guard has long awaited the flame that will put an end to his pains, and he can finally see it. The Herald has been waiting ten years to return home, and now he is there, announcing the imminent homecoming of his master. Clytemnestra pretends to be filled with an overwhelmingly impatient joy to welcome her husband, who is just about to arrive, and acts eager to show him how loyal she has been. Actually, she is waiting for her victim, so she can finally put her murderous plan into action. Cassandra turns to resolutions when she abandons (her unfathomable) oracular speech and speaks the plain truth: the imminent killing of Agamemnon. In Ch., the “resolving” Electra almost loses her mind when she senses that her brother might be near, and may appear soon. In Eum., Orestes and Athena are both anxious about the trial that will soon take place. The former wants to escape from the Furies, and the latter to preserve justice without hurting her city. A possible (though not statistically significant) parallel from an earlier play— perhaps the first in which Aeschylus tentatively experiments with this stylistic form,275 occurs in Sev. Scullion (2002) 92 observed that eight of the overall 43 resolutions in this play occur in 30 iambic lines, delivered in ten groups of three amid lyric passages. In these pieces (vv. 203–244 and 677–711), the women of the Chorus speak in lyrics and Eteocles in trimeters. In the first passage, the king attempts to calm the women of Thebes, to put an immediate end to their frenzy, which could cause havoc in the city. In the second piece, the Chorus attempts to prevent the king from joining the battle himself. However, Oedipus’ son is determined to meet his destiny right away, and thus he departs for the seventh gate a few lines later.276 In Pr., seven passages are of particular interest in the handling of resolution rate: one with statistically significant high rate (vv. 696–765) and three with low rates (vv. 298–350, 609–665 and 908–992). In addition, although they do not contain enough resolutions to make a significant piece of 45 trimeters, three passages present such tight clustering of resolutions that they should, at least, be men-

|| 274 See Allison (2003) 103. 275 Evidently, we will probably never know if Aeschylus devised or adopted this technique. 276 There are no proper names in these resolutions, and in only two cases do the words seem to be thematically unavoidable in their context (πολέμιον (v. 216), πολεμίων (v. 231)). The rest are rather replaceable types (πόλεος (v. 218), σφάγια (v. 230), πρότερον (v. 697), ὀλομένων (v. 703), ὀλέθριον (v. 704), and ἐνυπνίων (v. 710)).

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tioned (vv. 351–371, 788–811, and 840–851). Schein (1979) 24 observed the exceptionally tight clustering of resolutions in Pr., noting that almost half of the resolutions in Pr. occur within only something more than a hundred lines.277 In this respect, Pr. is, mutatis mutandis, compatible with late Aeschylus. However, Pr. goes beyond Aeschylus in the “tightness” of resolutions,278 and when one moves to the content of the passages of special interest, one finds that while the solemnity pattern, tied to low resolution rate in the Oresteia, holds, the anticipation pattern, tied to high resolution rate, is distorted in the disputed drama. The passages under discussion in Pr. include vv. 298–350 (a significantly low rate), 351–371 (a high rate), vv. 609–665 (a significantly low rate), vv. 696–765 (a significantly high rate), vv. 788–811 (a high rate), vv. 840–851 (a high rate), and vv. 908–992 (a significantly low rate). Of the 27 resolutions in these passages, seven concern proper names, while the rest279 (some recurring) are closely connected with exotic landscapes and wondrous incidents (as is also the case with the proper names). The first cluster with a high resolution rate includes Prometheus’ narrative about his brother Atlas, who stands in the lands of the west, holding the sky and earth in place, and Typhon, who is crushed under Mount Etna. The second cluster includes the Titan’s first rhesis about Io’s future wanderings to the land of Chalybes, to the Cimmerian isthmus, etc. The third cluster includes Prometheus’ second rhesis about Io’s future wanderings, and the fourth includes his rhesis about Io’s past wanderings. The clusters with low resolution rate include a part of the Oceanus scene (a dialogue in somewhat extended speeches), a stichomythic piece featuring Prometheus, Io, and the Chorus in which the Titan explains who he is and who is responsible for his pains, and part of Io’s narrative about her nocturnal visions that triggered her wanderings. The clusters also include the Titan’s mainly oracular speech about the union that will deprive Zeus of his autocracy, and most of the iambic dialogue between Prometheus and Hermes. In view of these observations, one can argue that whoever composed the disputed drama seems to have been familiar with Aeschylus’ high resolution rate technique of anticipation, used clearly in the Oresteia, but employed it in an un-Aeschylean way. However, he seems to have chosen to follow the low rate solemnity || 277 Schein (1979) 24 suggested a correlation between the higher number of resolutions and the occurrence of Ionic forms (especially uncontracted forms) in narratives. Contra Allison (2003) 73 n. 9. 278 The probability for the most tightly clustered passage in the Pr. (nine resolutions in vv. 709– 735) to have occurred by chance is 0.001%, while the probability for the most tightly clustered passage in Ag. (seven resolutions in vv. 1246–1276) is 2%. See Allison (2003) 89 n. 48. 279 For the list of words see Allison (2003) 97–8.

78 | Quantitative Style in Pr.

technique used in the trilogy. It is quite possible that he attempted to make use of the rhythm emerging from the transition from high to low resolution rate and vice versa. Yet the result, even though more extensive, is looser than one observes in Aeschylus.280 Further, the nature of the passages he uses to incorporate this rhythm into his play, especially as regards the high rates of resolution, indicate a clear difference from Aeschylus’ technique. Allison (2003) 105 rightly pointed out that no dramatic anticipation seems to occur in the passages within which the resolutions are clustered in Pr. In these pieces we hear Prometheus narrating, with the gravity of a worldly folktale narrator,281 events from a distant past and from an even more distant future that inspire awe and wonder: far-away places, exotic settings, dangerous tribes, doomed creatures, and so on. These events thematically characterize the passages under discussion. There is no connection between the dramatic handling of high resolution rate in the Oresteia and in Pr.; the only Aeschylean parallel to the pattern observed in the latter play is found in Supp. As already mentioned, the single piece with a statistically significant high resolution rate in Supp. (vv. 275–347) is an extended narrative (in shared stichomythia) centered around Io’s wanderings. Exoticism and awe, further intensified by the unusual appearance of the Danaids, are key features of the passage. The author of Pr. could have used this passage as a model for the handling of resolution rate as he crafted his exotic and awe-inspiring narratives. As I will show in detail in the following section of the present study, the author of Pr. seems to have composed (roughly) vv. 700–800 (the Titan’s second rhesis about Io’s future wanderings, and his subsequent rhesis about her past wanderings) under the influence of Supp. Hence, it is plausible to argue that this influence could have also resulted in the close association of high rates of resolution and narratives of exoticism and awe in his play. In other words, the author of Pr., most likely influenced by Supp. (and possibly also by similar, non-extant Aeschylean pieces), made extensive use of this “exotic” handling of resolution, devising three “replicas” for his play.282 An apparent difference between the passages with high rates of resolution in Supp. and Pr. is that most of the words making resolution necessary in the Supp. passage are much more mundane than the examples in Pr. That is, whereas the author of Pr. seems to enjoy introducing clusters of highly thematic, fancy words, closely tied to awe and to the exotic, which

|| 280 In all Aeschylean examples of transition in Ag. and Eum., the passages of high and low resolution rate immediately succeed one another. In Pr. this occurs only once in five transitions. 281 See Griffith (1983) n. on v. 709. 282 Griffith (1983) 214 suggested that the account of Io’s (geographical) course in Pr. is perhaps ‘a deliberate revision [of Supp. 540–64] for exotic effect.’

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“trap” him into resolution,283 Aeschylus is deliberately rather more tolerant of resolution in a piece in which awe and exoticism are key factors.284 In contrast to the passages with high resolution rate, the dramatic handling of pieces with low resolution rate in Pr. seems structurally similar to that in the Oresteia. More specifically, the vitriolic (mainly from Prometheus’ side) interaction between the bound Titan and deities such as Oceanus and Hermes parallels the interaction between Apollo and the Furies in Eum. Further, the oracular speech of Prometheus, which lacks resolutions, parallels Cassandra’s clear prophesies in Ag. Pr. diverges from the Oresteia in passages with statistically significant low resolution rate concerning the Chorus. The unsolicited, compassionate group of Oceanides comes to the Titan’s rock shocked by the sound of a stroke on steel. They share his distress, and mourn for Prometheus’ pains. This Chorus is actually the only selfsacrificing Chorus in extant tragedy. Yet their speech is overall statistically significant for its low rate of resolution. In this respect, the Oceanides are strangely similar to the collected and dispassionate Agamemnon in the Oresteia.285 Herington (1970) 103 indicated that if Aeschylus indeed composed Pr., it certainly belongs to his later phase. The disputed play ‘whoever its author may have been, was probably written after the Oresteia. A remarkable pattern has recurred in our data of all types: a mere tendency observable for the first time in Supp. or the Oresteia or both (but most often the Oresteia) is developed with great violence in Pr.’ On the whole, the findings presented here concerning the dramatic handling of resolution confirm this view. The author of Pr. was familiar with a rather latent aspect of Aeschylean style that emerged in Supp. and in the Oresteia. These findings leave open two options. The first is that Aeschylus did compose the disputed drama, determining that the anticipation technique associated with high resolution rate was unsuitable for the divine framework of Pr., and that this feature could be used in this play only to highlight exoticism and awe, as in Supp. By contrast, he judged the solemnity technique associated with low rates of resolution to be fitting for Pr. The second option is that a meticulous imitator, who composed part of his play with Supp. in mind, intermingled the high and low resolution techniques found in Supp. and in the Oresteia, rejecting the anticipation technique and focusing on the link between high resolution rate and awe and || 283 It is noteworthy that most of the first-foot anapaest resolutions in the disputed drama include words of exactly this kind, e.g., μονόδοντες in v. 796, ἐπαφῶν in v. 849, etc. 284 One should not forget that Aeschylus was able to fit some very impressive words into trimeters without resolution, e.g., θρασυστόμοισι (Sev. 612), ξυγκαθελκυσθήσεται (Sev. 614), ἀστυγειτονουμένας (Supp. 286), ὐπερτοξεύσιμον (Supp. 473), κατεσφαγιασμένα (Supp. 947), and ἐλευθεροστόμου (Supp. 849). 285 See Allison (2003) 80.

80 | Quantitative Style in Pr.

exoticism. Hence, he created a “genuine” Aeschylean derivative. This imitator’s primary purpose could have been to reproduce the (Aeschylean?) rhythm in the transition from high to low and from low to high rates of resolution in drama.

Enjambment and Interlinear Hiatus: Aeschylean Equilibrium and an Overzealous Attempt An idiosyncratic feature of Pr. compared to the secure plays in the Aeschylean corpus concerns an obtrusive phonological phenomenon:286 that is, the author of Pr. strikingly frequently allows in the trimeters of his play a line ending with a vowel to be followed by a line starting with a vowel, without (syntactic) pause between them.287 Shortly before Griffith’s monograph on the authenticity of Pr. appeared, T.C.W. Stinton published a study on interlinear hiatus in Greek drama, refining E. Harrison’s approach to examining this feature.288 Stinton’s main contribution is that his figures for interlinear hiatus in Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes take account of a crucial detail that had been overlooked: change of speaker. When interlinear hiatus occurs in successive trimeters spoken by different actors, run-over is ipso facto impossible. Hence, the following charts illustrate the figures for interlinear non-stop hiatus as a percentage of all interlinear hiatus in trimeters, save those pairs of lines in which hiatus occurs in change of speaker, in the Aeschylean, the Sophoclean, and part of the Euripidean corpus.289 || 286 Isocrates’ distaste for hiatus is legendary, and has led to rather extreme methodological decisions in interventions by editors of his work; see Papillon (2007) 66–7. For the admittance of hiatus in Greek oratory in general, see Pearson (1975), who associated hiatus with the orators’ (and also the actors’) need to take a short (without breath) or long (with breath) break at the end of a clause, arguing that hiatus was actually employed by the orators to serve specific purposes. See also Devine/Stephens (1994) 254–5; Dover (1997) 177ff. Plato’s attitude towards hiatus varies to such a degree that is used as an indicator in the relative dating of his works; see, in detail, Brandwood (1990) 153–166. 287 The punctuation of ancient texts is a broad and thorny issue of textual criticism that cannot be thoroughly addressed in this book. See, for example, the observations by Renehan (1969) 76– 7; West (1973) 54–5, 69; Griffith (1977) 313 n. 80; Mastronarde (1979) 53–4; Fitch (1981) 291 n. 4. In Greek drama there is some agreement (evidently more concerning the question mark and the full stop and less concerning the comma and the ano stigmi). Yet punctuation is frequently a matter left to the editor’s discretion. 288 See Harrison (1941), (1943); Stinton (1977). Griffith (1977) 100–1 commented on the idiosyncratic nature of Pr. in its interlinear hiatus, using Harrison’s data. To facilitate his study of verseend hiatus, Stinton built on the various criteria that Fraenkel used to establish categories of sense-pause within the sentence. See Stinton (1977) 69–70. 289 For the figures, see Stinton (1990) 367, a slightly corrected version of Stinton (1977) 71.

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Fig. 2: Interlinear Hiatus in the Aeschylean corpus I

Fig. 3: Interlinear Hiatus in the Sophoclean corpus I

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Fig. 4: Interlinear Hiatus in Part of the Euripidean corpus I

The first conclusion one draws from the chart concerning the Aeschylean corpus is that it lacks a discernible chronological trend—not unexpected for works composed within a short time span of 15 years. Further, one observes that the Aeschylean mean of the secure plays in the corpus is ≈ 22%. The 51.4% in Pr., which is quite far from this mean, reveals how freely the author of the disputed play admits non-stop hiatus into his iambic lines (save for change of speaker), and seems to confirm that he has ‘made no effort to avoid interlinear hiatus,’ perhaps because he had ‘a less sensitive ear than that of the three great tragedians.’290 The rate of non-stop hiatus in Pr. is about double the rate of the secure dramas with the highest percentage in the corpus (Supp. and Ag.). However, if one compares the Aeschylean, Sophoclean, and Euripidean figures, one can conclude that the younger dramatists are generally more restrained than Aeschylus in allowing non-stop hiatus in their plays. Hence, if the high rate with which this feature occurs in Pr. is to be associated with one of these three poets, it should evidently be Aeschylus. Yet this line of thought is not tenable. The distance of Pr. from the mean of Aeschylus’ secure plays (almost 30%) is far too great not to be considered suspicious—especially if one assumes that the disputed play comes from roughly the same period as the Oresteia. In other words, if Aeschylus composed Pr. after the trilogy, then, in the meantime, his view of the desirable (and appropriate?)

|| 290 Griffith (1977) 100–1.

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amount of non-stop hiatus allowed in a play seems to have undergone an abrupt change. Unlike what is the case with Aeschylus, the data concerning Sophocles’ admission of non-stop hiatus fall into a chronological pattern. In fact, the transition from the earlier to the later plays is so smooth that one is actually tempted to argue that the emerging order is the right one. In support of this conclusion it could be added that from the various criteria that Finglass (2011) 4–11 examined to establish a possible chronology for Aj., figures for interlinear hiatus seem to be the most reliable. Yet contending that such a clear-cut chronological succession could emerge from such “remote” dramas—composed by Sophocles across a career of perhaps more than 40 years—is a dangerous move, to say the least. As for the Euripidean plays examined here, dating from 431 to 412 BCE, the data are even less informative concerning the chronology of the externally undatable plays. For example, even though they were, most probably, composed close together, Heracl. has more than twice the percentage of examples of non-stop hiatus than Med. This observation also applies, mutatis mutandis, to Ion and Hel.291 To reach more robust conclusions about non-stop hiatus in tragedy, especially concerning the authenticity of Pr., one must consider an additional factor. As Griffith and Stinton indicated,292 the much higher number of overall non-stop trimeters in the disputed play may be responsible for part of the interlinear hiatus discrepancy between Pr. and the rest of the dramas in the Aeschylean corpus. To avoid this bias, I turn to the proportion of non-stop to end-stopped hiatus as a function of the proportion of non-stop to end-stopped iambic lines in general, and show this in the following charts for plays in the Aeschylean, Sophoclean, and part of the Euripidean corpora.293

|| 291 For the dating of Heracl. (± 430 BCE), see Wilkins (1993) pref. xxxiii–xxxv; Allan (2001) 54– 6. For Andr. (± 425 BCE) see Stevens (1971) 15–21; Lloyd (1994) 11–12. For Ion (± 413 BCE), see Owen (1939) pref. xxxvi–xli; Lee (1977) 40; Swift (2008) 28–30. 292 Stinton (1977) 68, 70; Griffith (1977) 100–1, 313 n. 83. 293 For the numbers, see Stinton (1990) 367 col. 13.

84 | Quantitative Style in Pr.

Fig. 5: Interlinear Hiatus in the Aeschylean corpus II

Fig. 6: Interlinear Hiatus in the Sophoclean corpus II

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Fig. 7: Interlinear Hiatus in Part of the Euripidean corpus II

From the chart of the Aeschylean corpus, it becomes clear that Pr. is indeed much freer than the rest of the plays in the admission of non-stop hiatus. The data indicate that Aeschylus grew progressively more tolerant, or fonder, of interlinear nonstop hiatus, from Per. (62.3%) to Supp. (81.2%) and the Oresteia (77.2%), yet the 125% of Pr. still seems an abrupt increase. The mean of the secure plays in the corpus is ≈ 74%, and the disputed drama exceeds this number by 51%. The chart for Sophocles’ plays indicates four chronological phases in the admission of non-stop hiatus: 1. Trach.; 2. Ant. and Aj.; 3. El. and O.T.; 4. Phil. and O.C. The (smooth) transition from one phase to the next marks an increase in mean rate of Sophocles’ admission of non-stop hiatus ≈ 11%. In view of Stinton’s data about Euripides, which are far too limited and hence rather inconclusive, I am tempted to tentatively entertain a suggestion. One could possibly distinguish two phases in Euripides’ career using his inclusion of non-stop hiatus: from Alc. to I.T.(?), and from Hel.(?) to I.A.(?). In other words, one could suppose that up to some specific point, Euripides exercised more restraint in the degree of admission of non-stop hiatus in his plays. The first phase could fluctuate around 32% (the mean for Med., Heracl., Andr., and Ion). In the second phase, from Hel.(?) onwards, the feature under discussion could have become more pronounced in the poet’s work. The following chart illustrates a possible parallel for this kind of transition. It shows how Euripides handles resolution on a large scale (across his extant oeuvre). From Alc. to Hipp. the mean rate is 7%. Then—in less than five years—it abruptly increases in Andr. to 16%. From Andr. to Phoen., the resolution rate gradually increases from 16% to 35%, while from Phoen.

86 | Quantitative Style in Pr.

(most likely composed between 411 and 409 BCE)294 to Or. (composed in 408 BCE) it increases to almost 50%; the rate remains roughly steady in the later plays.295

Fig. 8: Resolution Rate in Euripides

To convincingly suggest that the abrupt changes in the handling of resolution in Euripides’ career can be seen as analogous to the handling of non-stop hiatus requires a more extensive investigation of the poet’s practice in interlinear hiatus. However, the available data from the four plays favor this possibility. Med., Heracl., Andr., and Ion fluctuate from about 24% to about 41% in the admission of non-stop hiatus. Hel. changes the picture with its about 69%—37% above the Euripidean mean of the preceding plays, and 28% above the play with the highest rate (Heracl.). This notable increase in the admission of non-stop hiatus in the Euripidean figures leads one to reconsider the increase in the Aeschylean corpus between the secure dramas and Pr. Although the change (51%) is very remarkable, the Euripidean example (of 37%) should caution one not to reject the idea that Pr. is Aeschylus’ work on these grounds. A similar fact preventing conclusive results about Pr. relates to Stinton’s figures on comedy. The following chart shows the proportion of non-stop to end-stopped hiatus as a function of the proportion of non-stop to endstopped iambic lines, in general, in three of Aristophanes’ early plays that were composed close together (428–423(420–417) BCE).296

|| 294 See Craik (1988) 40–1; Mastronarde (1994) 11–14; Papadopoulou (2008) 23–4. 295 See the figures by Cropp/Fick (1985) 5. 296 For Aristophanes’ first performances, see, concisely, Silk (2000) 17.

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Fig. 9: Interlinear hiatus in the Aristophanic corpus

Evidently, the fluctuations among Kn., Ach., and Cl. correspond to the divergence between the secure Aeschylean dramas and Pr. This observation, of course, is not a reason to question the authenticity of Kn. Thus, it must give one pause for thought about Pr. Actually, it seems that an adequate explanation for the extensive admission of non-stop hiatus by Aristophanes in Kn. allows one to better understand how the tragedians handled this feature, as well as the comic poet’s view on their practice. Aristophanes generally seems to be as free as Aeschylus, and vice versa, in the degree to which he admits non-stop hiatus in his plays. That they wrote in different genres, and in different artistic contexts, makes this observation somewhat paradoxical. Comedy, reflecting the usage of spoken language much more than tragedy, is expected to tolerate a phenomenon such as non-stop hiatus. The question one should ask here is why Aeschylus, a most “solemn” tragedian, is about as tolerant of non-stop hiatus as a comic poet, while Sophocles and Euripides are more sparing in the admission of this feature. Stinton (1977) 71–2 argued that Greek dramatists did not vary their practice regarding interlinear non-stop hiatus ‘to suit any particular dramatic requirement, since non-stop hiatus has no very obvious emotional effect.’ Yet he noted that it ‘is remarkable that six of the twenty-four trimeters with non-stop hiatus in O.T. occur in Oedipus’ impassioned speech at 1369–1415 […] (the corresponding figure [of the proportion of non-stop to end-stopped hiatus as a function of the proportion of non-stop to end-stopped iambic lines] for this speech alone is

88 | Quantitative Style in Pr.

111.1).’ In fact, closer examination of this (ambivalent) observation allows one to understand why Aristophanes and Aeschylus appear to be so similar in their use of non-stop hiatus, as well as why Kn. deviates so much in this respect from Aristophanes’ other plays. Thus, one can re-approach the authorship of Pr. in more conclusive terms by considering non-stop hiatus. For certain questions, it is useful to consider the problem backward, beginning at the end. To understand why the disputed Pr. stands so far from the mean of the secure Aeschylean plays in its admittance of non-stop hiatus, I will first attempt to determine why the same phenomenon occurs with Kn., a secure play by Aristophanes. All instances of non-stop hiatus in Ach., Kn., and Cl. fall into two categories: sharp and mild enjambment. The plays include many more instances of sharp enjambment than mild enjambment. Sharp enjambment in these plays applies mainly to cases where the word at end of the first line relates in a specific way to the word at the beginning of the second: a verb/participle looking forward to its subject/object, a subject/object looking forward to the verb it is connected to,297 an adjective looking forward to the noun it modifies,298 a personal pronoun looking forward to a preposition,299 ὅτι (ὡς) clause components,300 or a verb looking forward to a preposition or adverb.301 A further category includes clauses (direct questions, negative or other) in which the word at end of the first line is ποτέ.302 The few instances of mild enjambment include cases in which the first and second line are not so closely knit together—that is, the former does not syntactically “break” exactly at the point its sense is about to unfold.303 The recurring words in these examples indicate that metrical constraints in the construction of trimeters play a role in the words used in enjambment: the pyrrhic ὅτι occurs constantly at the end of the first or at the beginning of the second line, while the pyrrhic ποτέ is constantly found at the end of the first line. Likewise, the short monosyllabic prepositions (ἐκ/ἐξ, εἰς, ἐν, ὡς, etc.) constantly occur at the beginning of the second line. In other words, the high rate of nonstop hiatus in the plays by Aristophanes results to some extent from the poet’s

|| 297 E.g., Kn. 64–5 μαστιγούμεθα-ἡμεῖς, 486–7 διαβάλεῖ-ἡμᾶς, 647–8 ᾽φρασα-αὐτοῖς; Ach. 505–6 φόροι-ἥκουσιν; Cl. 33–4 τόκου-ἐνεχυράσεσθαι, 127–8 διδάξομαι-αὐτὸς. 298 E.g., Kn. 147–8/240–1 μακάριε/γεννάδα-ἀλλαντοπῶλα. 299 E.g., Kn. 703–4/1166–7 ἐγὼ-ἐκ; Ach. 167–8 με-ἐν. 300 E.g., Kn. 1254–5 ὅτι-ἀνὴρ; Ach. 375–6 ὅτι-οὐδὲν; Cl. 773–4 ἥδομαι-ὅτι. 301 E.g., Kn. 146–7 προσέρχεται-ὥσπερ, 150–1 πύθῃ-ὡς, 644–5 δοκεῖ-ἐπὶ, 698–9 ἐκφαγῶ-ἐκ, 1404–5 καλῶ-εἰς; Αch. 124–5 καλεῖ-εἰς, 927–8 φέρω-ὥσπερ. 302 E.g., Kn. 17–18 ποτε-εἴποιμ᾽; Ach. 588–9 (τίνος) ποτὲ-ὄρνιθος; Cl. 227–8 ποτε- ἐξηῦρον, 639– 40 ποτε-ὑπ᾽. 303 E.g., Kn. 43–4 νουμηνίᾳ-ἐπρίατο; Ach. 786–7 δελφακουμένα-ἐξεῖ; Cl. 836–7 ἠλείψατο-οὐδ᾽.

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rather unchecked tendency to allow this feature in his plays in order to facilitate his iambic composition. However, what about the excessive rate in Kn.? Can it be explained in these terms? The answer is no. The high rate of non-stop hiatus in this play relates to a specific piece of paratragedy.304 Of the overall 31 instances of non-stop hiatus in Kn., nine occur within 52 lines: 629–81. This piece is part of a ‘brilliant comic narrative’ in which ‘the style of a tragic ἀγγελική ῥῆσις would of course be parodied.’305 In this exciting passage, the sausage-seller reports the ἀγών between himself and Paphlagon at the βουλή. Here, for some reason, as Aristophanes attempts to broadly re-enact tragic speech he clusters almost onethird of the examples of non-stop hiatus in the play. To underscore the significance of this fact, I should add that there are 14 instances of non-stop hiatus in the first 623 lines of the play, and eight from line 683 to 1408. If one removes the instances of this specific passage from the trimeters of Kn., along with three thematically necessary and equally paratragic individual cases in which the words ἀλλαντοπώλης and ἀλλαντοπωλέω occur (vv. 147–8, 240–1, 1245–6), one is left with 19 examples overall in the play. This number gives a percentage of 76.6% for Kn., which accords with the other two plays of Aristophanes examined here. This observation sheds light on why Stinton’s (general) percentage of nonstop hiatus in Kn. diverged from the other plays of Aristophanes. However, strangely enough, it seems that when one next determines why the comic poet felt that free to use this feature in such an extensive way in this paratragic passage, as well as in other similar “moments” in the play, the excessive admittance of non-stop hiatus in Pr. becomes clear. The first question one should attack here is: what exactly, and whom (if there is a specific individual), is Aristophanes parodying by the overuse of non-stop hiatus in Kn.? Although one can trace no specific allusion in the piece, a reference in the beginning of the ῥῆσις seems to point to Aeschylus. The sausage-seller reports (see vv. 626–8) that he found Paphlagon in the council chamber, breaking out thunder-hurling words (ἐλασίβροντ᾽ ἀνναρηγνὺς ἔπη) and throwing mountainous lies against the Knights, calling them conspirators (τερατευόμενος ἤρειδε κατὰ τῶν ἱππέων, / κρημνοὺς ἐρείπων καὶ ξυνωμότας λέγων). Moreover, to outdo one of Paphlagon’s tricks, the sausageseller later (see v. 659) invites the men in the council to sacrifice 200 cows, instead

|| 304 For Aristophanic paratragedy, see Silk (1993), and (2000) 42ff. (for Aristophanes’ engagement with comedy and tragedy); Rosen (2005) 255–261. See also Robson (2009) 103–119. Paratragedy in Old Comedy is not an exclusively Aristophanic trait. See Miles (2009) for paratragedy in the work of Strattis. See, further, Nelson (2016) for the common ground and opposition between the two genres. 305 Neil (1901) 93.

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of the 100 that his rival proposed, “throwing” the cattle to him (διακοσίαισι βουσὶν ὑπερηκόντισα). In Fr., the Chorus uses a similar description for Aeschylus, who employs ῥήμαθ᾽ ἱπποβάμονα and γομφοπαγῆ (see vv. 814–29), and his rival Euripides argues that ἐν ταῖς τραγῳδίαισιν ἐτερατεύετο (v. 834), using ῥήματα βόεια (v. 924). Furthermore, in Cl. Aeschylus is called a κρημνοποιός (see v. 1367). This evidence of diction does not allow one to assert that the comic poet had Aeschylus in mind when composing the passage in Kn. Yet it is a quite plausible scenario. An additional argument in favor of this view is derived from the fact that, as we will discuss below, only in Aeschylus’ work can one detect a persistent dramatic use of interlinear non-stop hiatus. In the plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, one can find various long (mutatis mutandis) soliloquies with three or more instances of non-stop hiatus scattered within them (e.g. Per. 800–42, 353–432; Ag. 1–39; Eum. 1–63; El. 680–763; O.C. 421–60, 960–1013; Med. 1136–1230; Heracl. 1–54; and Hel. 1526– 1618), which are not of particular interest for this study. In the plays by these dramatists, one also finds short rheses (shorter than 30 lines), or passages in longer soliloquies, in which three or more instances of non-stop hiatus occur close to each other. Roughly five lines (usually one or two) separate each instance from the next. However, only in Aeschylus’ work does a persistent dramatic pattern tied to these pieces appear. Each extant drama by Aeschylus includes one piece of multiple instances of non-stop hiatus in a passage from a soliloquy or in a short rhesis (only Per. includes two): Per. 192–3, 195–6, 201–2 and 502–3, 506– 7, 509–10; Sev. 660–1, 665–6, 668–9, 672–3; Supp. 764–5, 765–6, 768–9, 769–70; Ag. 881–2, 893–4, 904–5 (a quasi-example because of the distance between instances, but, as we will see, with specific effect); Ch. 596–7, 573–4, 577–8; and Eum. 756–7, 758–9, 768–9, 773–4. An accumulation of such instances in Aeschylus always points to a climax of crucial and pressing present (or recent and enduring) events, presented in the most vivid light. In Per., it occurs at the climax of the queen’s narrative of her dream the previous night about the fall of Xerxes and at the climax of the messenger’s narrative on the catastrophe in Strymon. In Sev., it occurs at the climax of Eteocles’ long appointment of the champions that will fight at the gates of Thebes—that is, at the announcement of his decision to face his brother himself. In Supp., it occurs at the climax of Danaus’ long attempt to calm his daughters, who are dreading the approaching arrival of Aegyptus’ sons. In Ag., it occurs at the climax of Clytemnestra’s attempt to show how harsh her life has been during her husband’s absence. In Ch., it occurs at the climax of Orestes’ narrative about his plan to assassinate Aegisthus. In Eum., it occurs at the climax of the drama itself: at Orestes’ speech of gratitude to Athena, in which

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he swears an alliance between Argos and Athens—that is, when the play of the mortal hero transitions to the play of the immortal Furies. In Pr., there are three pieces which include notably extensive use of non-stop hiatus. The first piece is a passage from a soliloquy of the Titan, in which he tells the Chorus how he benefited Zeus and about his reward for helping men, including seven instances of non-stop hiatus: 214–5, 216–7, 217–8, 221–2, 226–7, 229– 30, and 230–31. Aeschylus or Euripides do not include similar examples. Only Sophocles includes (five or) six instances (in 24 lines): in Oedipus’ impassioned speech in O.T. 1369ff. (vv. 1392–1416) about the revelations concerning his past. The two other pieces in Pr., concerning respectively the list of Prometheus’ offerings to man and Io’s description of her forced exile from home, each include four instances of non-stop hiatus: 485–6, 490–1, 493–4, 498–9 and 664–5, 665–6, 673–4, 675–6. Four is the Aeschylean limit of occurrences of non-stop hiatus in a single passage, found once in Sev. and Eum. The three passages in Pr., much unlike the case in Aeschylus, all describe past events, with the first and the last pointing to some kind of climax: in the quarrel between the old and the new gods, and Zeus’ approach to Io, respectively. However, the second passage, focusing on the Titan’s beneficences, does not include such an effect. In this case, interestingly enough, the author seems to have dissociated the form from the content of the technique—evidently in favor of the former. The extent to which Aeschylus and the author of Pr. admit tightly clustered instances of non-stop hiatus—separated by no more than two lines—into their dramas (within the passages under discussion or elsewhere) especially reveals their differing approaches to handling non-stop hiatus. In six Aeschylean dramas, 14 examples of tightly clustered instances of non-stop hiatus occur—never more than four in a single play (Per. 192–3/195–6, 502–3/506–7, 506–7/509–10; Sev. 665–6/668–9, 668–9/672–3; Supp. 764–5/765–6, 765–6/768–9, 768–9/769– 70, 934–5/936–7; Ag. 654–5/656–7 (or 656–5/655–657);306 Ch. 569–70/573–4, 573–4/577–8; Eum. 756–7/758–9, 904–5/905–6). Of these examples, only three or four307—never more than two per play (Supp. 764-5/765-6, 768-9/769-70; Ag. 6565/655-657; Eum. 904-5/905-6)—include instances directly succeeding one another. Two include instances separated by one line (Supp. 934–5/936–7; Eum. 756–7/758–9). In Pr. alone, one finds 10 tightly clustered examples (5–6/8–9; 214–5/216–7, 216–7/217–8, 217–8/221–2; 226–7/229–30, 229–30/230–1; 300– 1/301–2; 364–5/366–7; 490–1/493–4; 664–5/665–6; 673–4/675–6; 793–4/796–7;

|| 306 If one follows West (1990) in adopting the order of lines proposed by Mähly (1867). 307 See n. 306 above.

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848–9/851–2),308 four of which include instances directly succeeding one another (216–7/217–8, 229–30/230–1, 300–1/301–2, 664–5/665–6). Another three (214– 5/216–7, 364–5/366–7, 673–4/675–6) include instances separated by one line. In Sophocles’ plays, several examples of clustering of non-stop hiatus occur—usually there is more than one example per play, and some plays include three or four—almost all of which include instances directly succeeding one another or instances separated by one line (see Aj. 752–3/754–5; Ant. 58–9/60–1, 1246– 7/1247–8; El. 6–7/7–8, 27–8/29–30, 519–20/520–21, 617–8/619–20, 1377–8/1379– 80; O.T. 1249–50/1251–2, 1400–1/1401–2, 1401–2/1403–4; Phil. 1283–4/1285–6, 1314–5/ 1315–6; O.C. 1526–7/1528). In general, Euripides includes very few examples of clustering of non-stop hiatus. Yet Hel., which includes seven secure examples, is unique in this respect for reasons discussed below. Most of the examples in Euripides, like in Sophocles, but much unlike in Aeschylus, are instances directly succeeding one another or separated by one line (see Heracl. 888–9/890– 1; Ion 64–5/65–6, 65–6/66–7; Hel. 412–3/414–5, 718–9/720–1, 1002–3/1003–4, [1015–6]/1017–8, 1294–5/1296–7, 1370–1/1371–2, 1371–2/1372–3, 1586–7/1587–8). Consequently, one can argue that in the clustering of non-stop hiatus Pr. is clearly un-Aeschylean, and is more related to Sophocles and Euripides—though it is much closer to Sophocles. It seems that the author of Pr. adopted (that is, attempted to imitate) and overused a stylistic device tied to the accumulation and clustering of non-stop hiatus instances persistent in Aeschylus’ plays but used sparingly by other dramatists. If correct, what exactly is the effect of this device? What was Aeschylus’ goal when using it in a climactic context of crucial and pressing events? Why did Sophocles and Euripides use it sparingly in a rather different context? Finally, is Aristophanes pointing specifically at Aeschylus when using this device in the passage from Kn. discussed above? To answer these questions, one should begin with a focus on a common quality shared by the Aeschylean passages within which non-stop hiatus instances appear close to each other (in some cases tightly clustered). A clear Homeric background seems to relate to four of these passages, and a rather similar association can be made for one of the other two. Hall (1997) 145 aptly compared the description of Persian soldiers meeting their death in Strymon to the account of the ‘Trojans driven into the river Xanthus by Achilles, whose corpses choked its waters,’ in Il. 21.7–26. The passage in Sev. serves as the climax of a quite Iliadic narrative construction.309 Eteocles, much like Hector in

|| 308 For the unlikely possibility of a lacuna after 849, see Griffith (1983) 237. 309 See Hutchinson (1985) 105–6 n. on vv. 674–6.

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Il. 6.441–3, ‘will feel shame at being thought a coward,’310 and for this and other reasons (personal and over-determined desire, but also honor), declares his resolution to fight his own brother. In his resolution speech four of the overall 13 (otherwise scattered) examples of non-stop hiatus occur. In this speech also occur the only two examples of clustering in the play. Further, it is interesting that right after Eteocles’ speech the Chorus responds with six spoken lines—something that in Aeschylus usually happens for a reason311—the first two of which (vv. 677–8) are in sharp hiatus. At the beginning of the third episode of Supp., Danaus announces to his daughters the arrival of the Egyptians. The girls are terrified, and what follows is an amoibaion in which the suppliants express their extreme anxiety in lyrics, while their father, speaking in iambics, attempts to ease their fears. In the final speech of the episode (12 or 13 lines long), before leaving for the city to secure assistance, Danaus makes one last effort to calm his daughters, reassuring them that it will not be easy for the Egyptians to get ashore. In this short speech there is a phrase evidently derived from a frequent epic formula (ναῶν ποιμένες), and, notably, an ‘extremely rare construction [which] is to be regarded as a Homerism in Aeschylus’ (φρόνει μὲν ὡς ταρβοῦσα μὴ ἀμελεῖν θεῶν).312 As in Sev., in this piece in Supp. one finds clustered four of the overall 13 examples of non-stop hiatus.313 In Eum. 754–77, in a speech 24 lines long, Orestes addresses his savior Athena. In it, one finds close together four of the overall 17 (otherwise scattered) examples of non-stop hiatus in the play. In the opening of the passage, Agamemnon’s son praises Athena, Apollo, and also Zeus, using a Homeric construction: a tis-speech.314 In this opening, which is an ingenious way for Aeschylus to validate through the (anonymous) voice of all Greeks (in oratio recta) Orestes’ right to his father’s wealth, one also finds two of the four instances of nonstop hiatus in the passage. The other two instances occur during Orestes’ oath that his city will always be on the side of the Athenians. In Ch., the only piece in which one finds three instances of non-stop hiatus close together (there are no other actual clusters or close-together instances in the play) is not especially Homeric. However, it is interesting that in this 12-line passage, as Orestes describes

|| 310 See Hutchinson (1985) 149. 311 See Hutchinson (1985) 148. 312 See Friis Johansen/Whittle (1980) 118 n. on v. 767, 122 n. on v. 773. 313 In this passage, synizesis occurs in v. 773 (μὴ ἀμελεῖν). Furthermore, two of the overall five trimeters in the six secure plays by Aeschylus, with a major syntactical stop after the tenth element, and standing in enjambment with the following line, notably occur in this piece. In Pr. alone there are six such examples; see Friis Johansen/Whittle (1980) 119–20 n. on v. 769. 314 Cf. for instance Il. 7.87. For full discussion of tis-speeches in the Il., see de Jong (1987). Cf. Cesca (2016) 47ff.

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how he imagines the killing of Aegisthus (vv. 567–78), one also finds oratio recta—and not once, as in Eum., but twice (vv. 569–70, 575). The 25-line long (quasi-)piece, including multiple instances of non-stop hiatus in Ag., is not Homeric, and does not include oratio recta within it. Its special nature lies in the quite similar thematic words found between the lines in hiatus (see vv. 881–2, 893–4, 904–5): πήματα-ἐμοὶ, πάθη-ὁρῶσα, κακὰ-ἠνειχόμεσθα. To sum up, the accumulation of non-stop hiatus instances within these Aeschylean passages (compared to the scatted instances in the plays) makes them special. In one case, (Ag. 881–2, 893–4, 904–5) (the meaning of) the words in hiatus even structurally highlights the central idea of the passage. Further, most of these pieces have a special engagement with the epic tradition. How can these two observations be brought together? Stinton (1990) 367 counted all examples of non-stop trimeters and non-stop hiatus in the plays he examined. Yet he did not combine them to give the percentage of hiatus in trimeters with (sharp) enjambment. Battezzatto (2008) 137 did, however, and the results, shown the following charts, are interesting.

Fig. 10: Hiatus in Enjambment in the Aeschylean corpus

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Fig. 11: Hiatus in Enjambment in the Sophoclean corpus

Fig. 12: Hiatus in Enjambment in the Euripidean corpus

It is clear from the first chart that Aeschylus’ sense of compositional “propriety” is exquisite in its notably consistent admittance of hiatus in enjambment. In all of his extant plays, the rate of hiatus under discussion is exactly the same. Thus,

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the poet must have been particularly careful (and very successfully so) not to surpass a certain (unconscious?) limit. Even though the divergence is slight, and the rate of Pr. is closer to Aeschylus’ rate compared to the figures for Sophocles and Euripides, the disputed drama remains the single work in the Aeschylean corpus that surpasses a persistently unfluctuating limit.315 In Sophocles’ case, the rates of hiatus in enjambment indicate, once again, four clear chronological groups: Trach.; Aj. and Ant.; El. and O.T.; Phil. and O.C. In the Euripidean corpus, one observes that the limitedly fluctuating rate of hiatus in enjambment up to Ion abruptly increases in Hel. To determine if the increase continues in the plays following Hel., I calculated the rate of hiatus in enjambment for Or., composed four years later. This rate is 11%. The number seems to confirm that Euripides did indeed allow more hiatus in enjambment after 412 BCE. However, Hel. still stands out from the rest of the Euripidean plays examined for its hiatus in enjambment rate. Interestingly enough, Battezzatto (2008) 120–1 argued that as the author of Pr. composed his play, he had in mind a particularly Aeschylean, slow and solemn style of delivery, one evoking epic poetry.316 If correct, this hypothesis— strangely—provides an answer to the questions raised in this section. Homeric epics avoid hiatus (interlinear and within the line) less often that the other genres of Greek poetry.317 Apart from allowing non-stop interlinear hiatus here and there in his plays to facilitate his iambic composition, as all dramatists did, Aeschylus

|| 315 Cf. Battezzatto (2008) 136 table 5: the scholar sets out the criteria for mild and sharp enjambment in p. 112–13. Stinton’s observations about sharp enjambment concern categories D and E in Battezzatto’s classification. When examined together, the D and E types confirm Stinton’s figures. Yet when Battezzatto examines only the “sharpest” kind of enjambment, type E, in two dramas in the Aeschylean corpus, it turns out that the difference between them is striking. More specifically, the type E hiatus in enjambment figure for Ch. is 6%, and for Pr. 18%. 316 See Battezzatto (2008) 125–7. 317 For hiatus in the Homeric epics, see briefly Haug (2011) 356. A fair number of examples of hiatus in the epics could be explained away by the disappearing digamma. However, instances remain abundant in the Il. and Od., and they have attracted apologists, who have proposed other kinds of explanations. E.g., Fortassier (1989) argued, with some exaggeration, that all instances of hiatus in Homer are deliberately employed to structurally highlight the concept of separation and distance. For active choice of hiatus in Homer, see also Wyatt (1992). For (Homeric) hiatus (τὸ μεταξὺ τῶν ὀνομάτων ψύγμα or ἡ σύγκρουσις τῶν φωνηέντων—in the words of Dionysius of Halicarnassus and the author of the treatise On Style (attributed to Demetrious Phalereus)—as an effective rhetorical device in antiquity, see Ford/Kopff (1976) 55–6. For hiatus in the Hesiodic epos, see especially Athanassakis (1969), (1970).

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could have crafted and employed in specific cases a rhythm of recitation that deliberately echoes that of the epos.318 In plays composed before the Oresteia, this form of recitation additionally relates to the Homeric epics through diction as well as structural and thematic allusions. In the trilogy this (further) type of association recedes into the background. In two of its plays (Ag., Ch.), the mere accumulation of hiatus is what mainly indicates the rhythm under discussion. In these plays the “epic” rhythm is additionally highlighted by features of style that are not specifically epic (use of oratio recta in the rheses, similar words in hiatus). Aeschylus employs this form of rhythm to highlight somewhat “trivial” situations as well as events of epic grandeur. There is nothing particularly epic (or monumental) in the attempt of a father to calm his daughters, even at a critical moment, in the attempt of a wife to show how she has suffered during the long absence of her husband, or in a plot to murder a lewd but unsuspecting man. By contrast, epic grandeur underlies Atossa’s imposing dream, the catastrophe in Strymon, the fratricide of Oedipus’ sons, and Orestes’ redemption speech addressed primarily to the goddess Athena. Generally, Sophocles employs the device of slow and solemn delivery rather sparingly. In his plays, the instances of non-stop hiatus are usually accumulated in passages of crucial importance for the plot, and/or of intense and pathetic tone. They do not include epic grandeur, yet one might say that they are more adequately central to the plot than some Aeschylean examples. The words in these passages should be heard as clearly as possible, by all listeners. Thus, Ant. includes three instances of non-stop hiatus close together (the only such passage

|| 318 Notably, Dionysius of Halicarnassus in Demosthenes 39.4 identifies Aeschylus as the main representative of what he calls αὐστηρὰ ἁρμονία in (dramatic) poetry. A pivotal characteristic of this austere and archaic (φιλαρχαίου) style of composition, which aims at solemnity rather than elegance (μὴ τὸ κομψὸν ἀλλὰ τὸ σεμνὸν ἐπιτηδευούσης) (id. 38. 1), and is noble (γεννικὴ) and grand in conception (μεγαλόφρων) (id. 39.8), is hiatus in delivery: τοιόσδε ὁ χαρακτήρ ὀνόμασι χρῆσθαι φιλεῖ μεγάλοις καὶ μακροσυλλάβοις καὶ ἐν ἕδραις ἀσφαλέσι και πλατείαις αὐτὰ πάντα βεβηκέναι, χρόνων τε ἀξιολόγων ἐμπεριλήψει διορίζεσθαι θάτερα ἀπὸ τῶν ἑτέρων. τοῦτο τὸ σχῆμα [ἀπὸ] τῆς ἁρμονίας ποιοῦσιν αἱ τῶν φωνηέντων γραμμάτων παραθέσεις, ὅταν ἥ τε προηγουμένη λέξις εἰς ἓν τούτων λήγῃ καὶ ἡ συνάπτουσα ταύτῃ τὴν ἀρχὴν ἀπὸ τούτων τινὸς λαμβάνῃ· ἀναγκαῖον γὰρ ἦν χρόνον τινὰ μέσον ἀμφοῖν ἀξιόλογον ἀπολαμβάνεσθαι. […] δείκνυται γὰρ ὑπό τε μουσικῶν καὶ μετρικῶν ὁ διὰ μέσου τῶν φωνηέντων χρόνος ἑτέρων παρεμβολῇ γραμμάτων ἡμιφώνων ἀναπληροῦσθαι δυνάμενος. τοῦτο δ᾿ οὐκ ἂν ἐγίγνετο μὴ σιωπῆς τινος ἀξιολόγου διειργούσης τὰ φωνήεντα ἀπ᾿ ἀλλήλων. πρῶτον μὲν δὴ τοῦτο τῆς ἁρμονίας ταύτης ἐστὶν ἰδίωμα ὡς ἐπὶ τὸ πολύ. See 38.1–4. I follow the text by Aujac (1988). According to Dionysius, the object of γλαφυρὰ ἁρμονία, by contrast, is euphony and musicality, and the pleasure they produce. See 40.1.

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in this play) in Creon’s proclamation to honor Eteocles and leave Polynices unburied for birds and dogs to savage (see vv. 188ff.). In O.T., (five or) six instances of non-stop hiatus occur in Oedipus’ plangent cries to Cithaeron, to Corinth and Polybos, to the crossroads where he killed Laius, and finally to his marriage, which made wives out of mothers, husbands out of sons, and brothers out of fathers. Sophocles chooses similar kinds of moments in a play to use clusters of two instances of non-stop hiatus. In El., one example appears in Orestes’ instructive speech to the old slave at the beginning of the drama (see vv. 29ff.). It is interesting that the second instance of this cluster occurs in the following words: σὺ δὲ / ὀξεῖαν ἀκοὴν τοῖς ἐμοῖς λόγοις διδούς. Later in the drama Electra asks Apollo to favorably listen to Orestes and Plylades, and to her own appeal (see vv. 1376–7: ἵλεως αὐτοῖν κλύε / ἐμοῦ τε πρὸς τούτοισιν). In this eight-line speech, one finds two (or three) instances of non-stop hiatus clustered together. In the final monologue of Oedipus in O.C., one finds a cluster of instances of non-stop hiatus in the hero’s crucial words to Theseus, that the king alone is about to learn a sacred secret (see vv.1526–9). One also finds three instances in the last words of Oedipus in the play, after he asks his daughters to no longer help him, since Hermes is now guiding him, and he, the blind one, is guiding those who can see (see vv. 1544ff.). In Euripides, clusters of non-stop interlinear hiatus also occur with words that should by all means be heard—words crucial either for the character speaking them, or for the play as a whole. For example, in Heracl., one finds such a cluster in the finishing words of the messenger who has come to inform Alcmene of the victorious outcome of the combat against Eurystheus (see vv. 888–9/890– 1). Before he began his narrative, Alcmene promised to set him free for the good news he brought, and in a four-line passage with two instances of (sharp) nonstop hiatus, following his main speech, he reminds her of the promise. Stinton counted 13 instances of non-stop hiatus in the play, and this example is the only cluster. Otherwise, instances of the phenomenon are scattered within the play. Thus, a passage of this sort could have been quite distinct in its delivery. In Ion, one finds two non-stop hiatus clusters close together at a pivotal point in Hermes’ opening speech, when he informs the audience about the delicate reason for the present visit of Xuthus and his wife to Delphi (see vv. 64–5/65–6, 65–6/66–7): ‘Though he has been Creusa’s husband for a long time, he and Creusa are childless. Hence they have come to this prophetic shrine of Apollo longing for children.’319 Hel. is similar, but also more complex. All clusters occur in crucial moments in the play: the first time we hear Menelaus say that he survived through || 319 The translation is by Kovacs (1999).

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an unexpected fate, and brought none other than Helen back with him from Troy (see vv. 412–3/414–5); when Menelaus’ old servant realizes that Helen did not disgrace her family, and that she and her husband were reunited not because of their efforts, but because of fate and the divine forces (see vv. 718–9/720–721); Theonoe’s decision to help the couple and disobey her brother (see vv., 1002– 3/1003–4 (& 1006–7, [1015–6]/1017–8), cf. vv. 888–9/890–1); the deceptive orders Helen gives to Menelaus, to go into the house and get ready to help her perform the ritual at sea for her dead husband (see vv. 1294–5/1296–7); Helen’s announcement to the Chorus that everything is going as planned, and that Menelaus, presumed dead, now has in his hands the weapons to be used in the symbolic burial (see vv. 1370–1/1371–2, 1371–2/1372–3 (& 1376–7, 1383–4)); and finally Menelaus’ cry to Poseidon, reported to Theoclymenus in oratio recta by a messenger, to help him and his wife come ashore safe and unharmed (see vv. 1586–7/1587–8). The overall high rate of non-stop hiatus in this play, along with many clustered instances, can be regarded as a kind of Homeric “clothing.” Euripides uses non-stop hiatus in a playful way to endow his innovative “new” Hel. with legitimacy through its association (by means of form) with the Homeric model—‘the best way to deal with the challenge of verifiability is to make what is new look rather old.’320 In other words, the high rate of non-stop hiatus in Hel., and the frequent admittance of clustered instances, associated with epic delivery style, becomes a structural technique that allows Euripides to present his more or less unfamiliar ideas on the myth in a very familiar oral context. That there are no clusters of non-stop hiatus in Or. of 408 BCE. strengthens this argument. In conclusion, it seems that Aeschylus (was possibly the first to have) used the more or less obtrusive phonological phenomenon of interlinear non-stop hiatus in the shaping of a dramatic phonostylistic device to highlight the climax of crucial and pressing present (or recent and enduring) events. The emergence of this device seems closely tied to the handling of hiatus in the epos, but Aeschylus gradually dissociated himself from it, as did, more distinctly, the dramatists that followed. In other words, instances of non-stop hiatus close together (in many cases tightly clustered) in an Aeschylean, Sophoclean, and Euripidean passage were, and still are, a cue to the actor preforming the specific piece that the pace of delivery should be

|| 320 See Allan (2008) 26ff. on how Euripides uses this technique with the Homeric myth in Hel. For Helen as a character in the epos, see, concisely, id. 10–12.

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slower, clearer, and, at times in Aeschylus and Sophocles, more solemn.321 Aristophanes, early in his career, overuses the tragic device in a long paratragic speech in Kn. (of 424 BCE), most probably pointing specifically at Aeschylus (who may have been its originator). The speech employs oratio recta rather extensively. In 412 BCE, Euripides innovatively “reshapes” the epos for the stage in Hel., and uses this device as a structural layer pointing to the “prototype.” If one re-evaluates Stinton’s (1990) 367 figures with these observations in mind, i.e., if one sets aside the accumulated instances of the phenomenon that can be directly associated with a dramatic purpose, one can see that comedy is freer than tragedy in general in the admittance of interlinear non-stop hiatus. Further, although Aeschylus is indeed less reserved towards the phenomenon than (especially early) Sophocles and Euripides, he is not as prone to it as Stinton’s rates indicate. Finally, Pr. seems to be the most problematic play in this respect. Its author evidently aimed at an effect

|| 321 As Dionysious of Halicarnassus indicates, αὐστηρὰ ἁρμονία (see n. 318 above) is not easy to achieve. It takes great skill on the part of the orator (in the present case, the actor) to avoid unpleasant sounds and produce what can be seen as χνοῦς ἀρχαιοπινὴς and χάρις ἀβίαστος; see Demosthenes 38.6. One should imagine that actors entrused with non-stop hiatus-passages by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides very carefully cultivated the mode with which they would deliver the specific pieces, in order to pass on the message to the audience as clearly as possible, and produce a solemn effect if needed. One should imagine the actor playing Hermes in Ion “nodding” to the audience with his delivery when saying that Xuthus and Creusa have come to ask Apollo about their infertility, or the actor playing Menelaus in Hel. “bragging” when saying that he brought Helen back from Troy. In the second example the audience has already seen Helen, and is aware of a backstory that the hero ignores. Thus, his marked words are a (structural) source of further irony. One should imagine a similar, probably more acute, ironic interaction in the pieces under discussion between the audience and the actor playing Orestes in Ch. Orestes’ plan, emphasized by the use of hiatus, is to kill Aegisthus first. Hence, as Garvie (1986) 228 noted, ‘Aegisthus should be in our minds when the door [in the palace] opens.’ However, Clytemnestra appears at the door. The same applies to the reassurance that Danaus’ offers to his daughters, that Egyptus’ sons will not be able to get to them easily. Yet right after the choral song that follows Egyptus’ sons appear on stage. With these examples in mind, one can, to some degree, associate non-stop hiatus pieces in tragedy with the frustrated expectations of the characters (and, at times, of the audience). One should also imagine, from a similar point of view, the actor playing Creon in An. using hiatus to make his (disastrous) proclamation absolutely clear, or Clytemnestra in Ag. making sure to narrate in a very clear manner the sorrows a wife left alone has to suffer. In other cases, such as the final speeches of Oedipus in O.T. and O.C., the narrative of Atossa’s vision and the catastrophe in Strymon in Per., or—most notably—Eteocles’ proclamation that he himself will fight his brother, or even Orestes’ farewell to Athena and Apollo in Eum., one should focus on the solemnity produced by the slower tempo of delivery adopted by the actors. It should be noted that Pr. does not include non-stop hiatus pieces or individual clusters that could be tied to any effect other than (extorted) solemnity and, most probably, sarcasm (through solemnity) (for the later, see vv. 300–2).

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achieved by Euripides when admitting non-stop hiatus more freely in Hel. If the author of Pr. is Aeschylus, then he (over)exaggerated322 the use of a stylistic device he had previously employed all too carefully, to make his play, the least Homeric in its vocabulary of all his extant dramas, as we will see below, sound more epic. If Aeschylus is not its author, then the actual author of the disputed play (over)exaggerated the use of a stylistic device—which possibly at some point had been (more or less closely) identified with Aeschylus’ style—in his over-zealous attempt to sound more Aeschylean. He overused its effect in pieces where instances of nonstop hiatus appear close together, and also used it in an unchecked way across the entire play, admitting several scattered clusters of non-stop hiatus. The result seems to be that the disputed play should have sounded more Aeschylean than Aeschylus himself. Pr. is a drama of exclusively divine and divinely possessed characters, tied to a myth of undeniable grandeur.323 This context could have made widespread use of an epic style of delivery—by Aeschylus or any other author—rather appropriate. Nevertheless, Aeschylus’ restricted, specific use of this stylistic device in the secure plays, especially in plays of divine grandeur such as Eum. (along with his documented strict sense of compositional “propriety” in non-stop hiatus in (sharp) enjambment), seems somewhat alarming as regards the traditional authorship of Pr.

The Vocabulary of Pr.: Embracing Sophocles and Leaving Homer Behind Much has been written about the vocabulary of Pr., with the key focus on how it conforms to the vocabulary of the secure plays of Aeschylus. As we have already seen, this kind of inquiry comprised the major early approach to the study of the authenticity of the disputed play. Yet these methods have aroused serious concerns about their objectivity and accuracy. Herington (1970) 29 aptly noted that evidence from Eigenwörter, the words peculiar to Pr., is in fact thin, despite its use in the front line of the athetesis for some time. Herington’s main objection is that the subject of any play largely dictates its peculiar vocabulary. Herington || 322 Although Hel. is more than 500 trimeters longer than the disputed play, it has three fewer clusters of non-stop hiatus. Further, Stinton’s 68.9% for the ratio of non-stop hiatus to endstopped hiatus as a function of the ratio of non-stop hiatus to end-stopped trimeters in general in Hel. is, in any case, about half the rate in Pr.: 125%. 323 Among the three pieces with multiple instances of non-stop hiatus in Pr., two—the account of the quarrel between the gods and the list of Prometheus’ offerings to man—are of epic grandeur; the backstory of Io’s expulsion from home is not of a similar nature.

102 | Quantitative Style in Pr.

cited as an example the adjective αὐθάδης, which (as well as the nouns αὐθάδεια and αὐθάδισμα) occurs in Pr. and nowhere else in the Aeschylean corpus.324 Herington’s justified concern is intensified by the limited number of extant plays and fragments securely by Aeschylus. Thus, one should be very cautious in drawing conclusions about the authenticity of Pr. through examination of its peculiar vocabulary. Griffith’s approach to the vocabulary of Pr. is the most cautious, realistic, and robust to date. He acknowledged the limitations described above and attempted to overcome them.325 Griffith focused on three aspects of vocabulary: the types of words Aeschylus often uses in his plays (compound adjectives, adverbs, neuter nouns suffixed with -μα, adjectives suffixed with -μων, etc.); Eigenwörter (selecting “significant” examples with strict criteria);326 and individual words that can be used to determine how Pr. resembles or contrasts with the secure plays by Aeschylus.327 The most striking results emerge from the Eigenwörter, against which Griffith used some of Sophocles’ and Euripides’ plays as a “control group” for

|| 324 Cf. Thomson (1932) 44 for the adjectives δηναίος and βασιλικός/τυραννικός. Similarly, as Griffith (1977) 173 noted, the noun χόλος is characteristic of the disputed play for expressing the concept of harsh anger. It occurs four times in Pr. and nowhere else in Aeschylus, who uses κότος, ὀργή, and μῆνις instead. Yet in a mutilated papyrus-fragment of Aeschylus (fr. 451r Radt, possibly from Philoctetes), one finds the verb χολόω. Even though Griffith’s argument does not lose its validity, since he is correct that Aeschylus evidently prefers words other than χόλος for the concept under discussion, it becomes clear that determining the authenticity of Pr. from its peculiar vocabulary is an approach as unstable as quicksand. 325 See Griffith (1977) 161–2. 326 For the criteria, see Griffith (1977) 162–4. 327 A special aspect of tragic diction that Griffith (id. 175–81) examined in the context of individual vocabulary includes the choice and use of particles. The largely optional nature and diversity of particles renders their comparative study in the work of different authors a very promising authorship criterion. Indeed, Griffith (id. 178), in view of the overall higher number of particles (save the mundane δέ, καί, τε) in Pr. compared to the secure Aeschylean dramas, concluded that, clearly, ‘Sophocles, and to a lesser extent Euripides, employ particles more freely than Aeschylus; and Pr. fits squarely with Euripides, almost with Sophocles, rather than with Aeschylus.’ I used the frequency lists by Rigo (1996), (1999), (2005) for Sophocles’, Aeschylus’, and Euripides’ plays, respectively, to reconfigure and extend Griffith’s examination. My results, appearing in Appendix I, indicate that as regards the overall number of particles, it is equally possible for Pr. to be Aeschylean, Sophoclean, or Euripidean. Thus, in its general form this criterion cannot effectively determine authorship, because it seems to point to the tragic idiom of the 5th century BCE rather than to an individual author. By contrast, discrepancies between the secure Aeschylean plays and Pr. on a micro scale, listed in Griffith (1977) 177 and in Appendix I in the present study, more reliably indicate that an author other than Aeschylus may have been at work in the disputed play.

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vocabulary analysis.328 In general, Eigenwörter numbers and occurrences in three plays by Aeschylus (Per., Sev., Ag.) and in Sophocles’ Aj. are roughly in the same range, but Pr. significantly exceeds this range—especially when it comes to “significant” words and Aeschylean dramas. Figures for later “control” plays (O.T., Med.) indicate a decrease in the overall number of Eigenwörter per drama. Although further analysis in this direction in the work of Sophocles and Euripides is required, this decrease could be interpreted as a sign that as tragedy—the tragic idiom—moved more and more towards greater linguistic standardization, from Aeschylus to Sophocles, and, notably, Euripides, Eigenwörter were generally less often admitted into the plays of this genre.329 If this reasoning is sound, Pr., with its extremely high number of Eigenwörter, must belong to an early phase of tragedy—or its author worked hard to convincingly “reconstruct” this phase. The instances and repeated occurrences of “significant” Eigenwörter in Pr. and the secure plays of Aeschylus show that the latter hypothesis is more probable that the former. In support of this argument, in another aspect of tragic vocabulary that Griffith studied, i.e., the types of words Aeschylus uses (more) often (than Sophocles and Euripides), it does not seem coincidental that Pr. notably corresponds to Aeschylus in the broad categories tied to elevated diction.330 Pr. contains a much larger number of words occurring nowhere else in the Aeschylean corpus,331 indicating not only a distance between the disputed drama and the “Aeschylean lexicon” but also that the author of Pr. employs a more diverse vocabulary than Aeschylus. Allison’s corpus linguistics approach confirmed this observation332 on lexical richness and redundancy in Aeschylus. These terms are two sides of the same textual phenomenon, i.e., lexical diversity: the use of a wide range of vocabulary, and the avoidance of repetition in composition.333 In his study, Allison applied a vocabulary-counting program to the Aeschylean corpus (TLG texts).334 He also used the same program to examine the vocabulary of Sophocles

|| 328 See Griffith (1977) 157–72, (1984) 282–6. 329 For the combined figures, see Griffith (1984) 285 table 2. 330 Griffith (1977) 156–7. Yet cf. id. 174–5, 187, 189 for prosaic and vulgar (un-Aeschylean) features in the vocabulary of Pr. 331 Pr. contains 80 more Eigenwörter than Per., which is next in order and the oldest extant tragedy. 332 See Allison (2003) 109ff. for the methodology and focus of this study. 333 For authorship attribution studies employing lexical richness, see the bibliography by Grieve (2007) 253. For the criterion in more detail, see Grieve (2005) 21–5. 334 All extraneous codes in the texts were cleaned out, words split by line breaks were joined, and n-moveables were removed. Other minor modifications and concessions were also made in the preparation of these texts for processing; see Allison (2003) 111–13.

104 | Quantitative Style in Pr.

and the Homeric epics (in both cases of the whole corpus and not per work, as with Aeschylus). One sufficient indication of lexical variation within a text or corpus is the type-to-token ratio (lexical entries to instances of words): the greater the ratio of type to token within a text or corpus, the more diverse its vocabulary. Conversely, a lower ratio means more repetition and less vocabulary diversity within a text or corpus. Yet this measure has been shown to be unreliable in the analysis of texts of different length.335 Hence, Allison turned to a lexical diversity measure that is more consistent over different text lengths: Yule’s K and Yule’s index. A higher K value means greater repetition and less lexical diversity. By contrast, as Yule’s index increases, so does the lexical diversity of a text.336 Even though Yule’s K and Yule’s index are the measures of lexical richness that are least biased by text length337 (that is, there is an increase of value as a small sample size increases, but then the value levels off), Allison was rightly quite cautious in employing the metrics in Greek texts. He first ensured that they actually remain unbiased in the samples of the specific dramatic texts he wanted to examine.338 Although his evidence shows that the metrics do remain constant for Greek, Allison

|| 335 See Tweedie/Baayen (1998) 324. 336 This metric resulted from the modification of Yule’s characteristic K, a metric that actually produces the opposite of vocabulary richness—i.e., repetition. The formula for Yule’s K = 10,000*(M2M1)/(M1*Ml). Ml is the total number of words and M2 is the sum of all words in each frequency group, from one to maximum word frequency, multiplied by the square of the frequency. See, further, Allison (2003) 120 with bibliography. The higher the K value, the greater the repetition, and the lesser the lexical diversity. Characteristic K is one of the earliest and most widely employed metrics of vocabulary richness. It was designed by Yule for a specific authorship problem (De Imitatione Christi, see n. 63 above), and since then it has been used in various authorship studies (see Oakes (2009) 1074–5), on prose and poetry literary texts such as Shakespeare’s plays (see Holmes (1994) 93). See Miranda-García/Calle-Martín (2005) for a recent discussion of the formula. For the consistency of Yule’s K across texts of different lengths, see Tweedie/Baayen (1998) 332–3. Contra Hoover (2003). Hoover also criticized the overall effectiveness of the use of lexical richness as a criterion in authorship attribution, arguing that it is of marginal value. Indeed, lexical richness is now used in conjunction with other, more robust, authorship criteria, and has no independent probative value; see, especially the studies of Stamatatos/Fakotakis/ Kokkinakis (2000); Zheng/Li/Chen/Huang (2006); Mikros (2007); van Dalen-Oskam/van Zundert (2007); Stein/ Lipka/Prettenhofer (2011). In Yule’s index, proposed by Williams (1970) 98ff., Yule’s K fraction is reversed (M1*Ml)/(M2-M1), and the arbitrary multiplication factor (10,000) is omitted. 337 A major problem in vocabulary quantification is that the vocabulary growth rate normally slows as the length of a text increases. 338 See Allison (2003) 121ff.

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carefully used equal-length texts in the vocabulary analysis.339 To determine how the plays in the Aeschylean corpus differ from one another, he randomly selected samples of 4,723 words (the length of Sev. (1–1004)—the shortest text in the analysis) from each play in the corpus, and calculated Yule’s K and Yule’s index based on these sub-corpora.340 Further, he calculated the same statistics in the complete Aeschylean (Pr. included) and Sophoclean corpora, and in the entire corpus of the Homeric epics. For the latter corpus, Allison also calculated the statistics of dialogue and narrative parts separately. All the results appear in the table below.341 Tab. 1: Yule’s K and Index in the Aeschylean corpus, Sophocles, and the Homeric epics

Yule’s K

Yule’s Index

Per.

21.07

474.82

Sev.

23.30

429.14

Supp.

22.66

441.35

Ag.

21.94

456.64

Ch.

22.77

439.42

Eum.

25.91

386.19

Pr.

19.47

514.02

Aeschylus Mean

21.19

473.64

Sophocles Mean

21.44

467.49

Homeric Epics Mean

33.71

297.91

Homeric Epics: Dialogue

28.96

346.61

Homeric Epics: Narrative

50.01

200.88

|| 339 Allison used the Monte Carlo Method for the randomization of the texts he examined both when testing the metrics for bias related to text length, and when conducting the actual vocabulary analysis; see Allison (2003) 122 n. 33. More specifically, when testing the metrics he had a computer program select 100 non-consecutive words at random from each text, and then calculated Yule’s K and Yules’ index. After that he repeated this process 300 times to get a sense of the mean and standard deviation. He then kept increasing the sample size up to roughly the size of the corpus. 340 Allison gives Yule’s K and Yule’s index means resulting from 300 randomized samples of 4,723 non-consecutive words per play. 341 See Allison (2003) 126 table 6.9 for the standard deviation (see n. 244 above) of the values.

106 | Quantitative Style in Pr.

The first conclusion apparent from the table is that the mean statistics for Aeschylus and Sophocles are nearly the same, whereas, naturally, the overall vocabulary of the Homeric epics is far less diverse than the tragic vocabulary. This observation is an additional indication of the shared nature of the tragic idiom. The Homeric vocabulary is more repetitive due to the narrative parts, while epic dialogue stands closer to the tragic mean.342 In drama Aeschylus has a slight lead over Sophocles in Yule’s index (and falls slightly behind in Yule’s K), meaning that the older poet is slightly less repetitive than the younger. To follow where the data lead, I created the following charts for Yule’s index within the Aeschylean corpus.

Fig. 13: Yule’s index in the Aeschylean corpus

|| 342 For the difference in style between the narrative parts and direct speech in the Il. and Od., see Griffin (1986), (2004). Griffin aptly associated the vocabulary of the Homeric heroes’ rheses with characterization. Cf. Friedrich/Redfield (1978); Martin (1989) 146–230 for Achilles; and Mackie (1996) in general for expressions tied to the Trojans and the Achaeans. See, further, de Jong (1988), (1992), (1997) for this duality of Homeric vocabulary from the perspective of narratology. For vocabulary repetition in the epics, see, especially, Mueller (2011) 73942.

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Fig. 14: Yule’s index in the Aeschylean corpus with Oresteia as a single composition

The first chart illustrates Yule’s index for all seven plays in the Aeschylean corpus, given separately. In the second chart, I consider the plays of the Oresteia as one single composition in view of vocabulary,343 and Yule’s index is calculated for

|| 343 Fraenkel (1950) n. on vv. 386, 525 first used the term “Oresteia-words,” such as ἄφερτος and δικηφόρος, words especially coined for a passage in Ag., but then freely used in the trilogy as a whole. Yet the vocabulary nexus of the Oresteia is not, of course, limited to some newfangled compounds, characteristic of Aeschylus as a word category, or in somewhat trivial poetic words, such as δρόσος, θυραῖος, ἔμπεδος (ἐμπέδως), etc., thematically occurring in more than one play in the trilogy. It also includes more prosaic words, such as καθεύδω, which in the Oresteia serve as essential connectors across the plays, indicating a specific form of events. More specifically, καθεύδω occurs in Ag. 1357, Ch. 881, and Eum. 94. In the first play, it metaphorically indicates the swift hands of the king’s killers. In the second play, it refers to Clytemnestra, who is probably asleep and does not hear the dying Aegisthus. In the third play, it connects to the sleeping Furies of the murdered Clytemnestra. This trivial compound seems to be closely associated with the succession of murders in the Oresteia. Each time it is heard it refers to a (more or less imminent) killing. Further, it is interesting that when used about Agamemnon’s murder it means “to be sleepless.” When used about Aegisthus’ and Clytemnestra’s murders, it signifies careless sleep. Cf. the observations of MacLeod (1982) 129 for Areopagus, the sleepless guard of those sleeping. καθεύδω does not occur in Sophocles, and of its two occurrences in Euripides, Phoen. 634 and I.A. 623, only the former is metaphorical and—in an entirely different context—has something of the Aeschylean poetic caliber. Further, nouns recurring in the trilogy, such as φόνος, δίκτυον, αἷμα, δίκη (not Δίκη), μήτηρ, or the adverb χαμαί (see the frequency list by Rigo (1999) for their

108 | Quantitative Style in Pr.

the trilogy as a whole. From this chart, it becomes evident that the secure plays of Aeschylus reveal vocabulary diversity expressed in Yule’s index within a spectrum that ranges from about 430 to 480. In other words, this metric in Aeschylus always exceeds 400 but never reaches—let alone exceeds—500. Pr. with 514.02, by contrast, is the only play in the Aeschylean corpus falling notably outside this spectrum. In the first chart, one can observe that Yule’s index is higher in Per. and Ag., while, as expected, it decreases as one moves from one play of the trilogy to the next, especially from Ch. to Eum: i.e., Eum. is overall more repetitive than Ch., and Ch. is more repetitive than Ag. As the trilogy moves from play to play, the new concepts considered, especially in the choral odes, are fewer and fewer. Hence, it is only natural that in Ag. Yule’s index is much higher than in Eum.344 In Per., the large number of exotic proper names should be a crucial factor in increasing Yule’s index.345 In Pr., one finds a few exotic proper names, as is also the case with Supp. However, this fact cannot account for the exceptionally high value for Yule’s index in the disputed play. It is unfortunate that one cannot say whether Pr. was the first play in a tri(- or di-)logy, the second in a trilogy, or whether it stood alone. Yet even if one knew the position of Pr. in a wider composition, the value of Yule’s index for this drama would still have been surprising. The emerging conclusion is rather clear: although the author of Pr. has tendency to include distant repetitions of words and phrases, as mentioned above, he tends to employ

|| occurrences in the trilogy), structure the thematic patterns of the whole composition. On leitmotivs in the Oresteia, see especially Yarkho (1997), with bibliography. 344 This pattern also becomes evident from the amount of Eigenwörter that Aeschylus progressively admits into his dramas. Using Allison’s (2003) 117 table 6.5 for the total number of words per play in the Aeschylean corpus, I calculated the ratio of Eigenwörter (merging the numbers given by Schmid, to some extent revised by Griffith (1977) 158) to the total number of words per play. The results are enlightening: Per. 9.1%, Sev. 9.3%, Supp. 9.2%, Ag. 9.5%, Ch. 7.1%, Eum. 6.2%, Pr. 11%. It seems that Aeschylus (unconsciously?) maintained a constant admittance of Eigenwörter in his plays: ≈ 9.2%—evidently tied to some extent to (new) thematic concepts structuring the plays. This observation applies to plays that stood alone thematically (Per.), and to others that stood first in a thematic trilogy (Supp., Ag.). The remaining plays of the Oresteia demonstrate a notable gradual decrease in the use of Eigenwörter. By contrast, the figure for Sev., a play that stood third in a thematic trilogy (preceded by Laius and Oedipus) aligns with the Aeschylean dramas that stood alone or first in a trilogy. Evidently, because the other two tragedies of Aeschylus’ thematic trilogy about the Labdacids were not part of this analysis. The ratio of Eigenwörter to the total number of words in Pr. is fairly close to the Aeschylean mean. Yet considering the consistency of the Aeschylean figures, even the quite small difference of ≈2% can be alarming in its own way. 345 For some repetitions in Per., see Garvie (2009) 50, 65ff. For thematic repetition as an organizational principle in the same play, see Holtsmark (1970).

The Vocabulary of Pr. | 109

a more diverse vocabulary than Aeschylus ever does in a single play. The evidence about the handling of close repetition in the plays in the Aeschylean corpus, discussed above in detail, strengthens this inference. The most striking vocabulary evidence drawn from Allison’s general stylostatistic study in the Aeschylean corpus as regards the authenticity of Pr. comes from the use of cosine similarity. This metric calculates similarity in the distribution of words between texts or corpora, returning a number between 0 and 1: 1 indicates complete agreement and 0 complete disagreement.346 The metric represents texts or corpora in the form of vectors (arrays of numbers indicating the frequency (raw count) of each word) in a vector space (a collection of vectors). Each separate term in a text or corpus corresponds to a dimension of the inferred vector. For example, line 39 of Ag. can be seen as a vector of five dimensions (terms of different weight): {μαθοῦσι(ν): 2, αὐδῶ: 1, καί: 1, οὐ: 1, λήθομαι: 1}. To compare two text-vectors requires calculating the cosine of the angle between them: hence cosine similarity.347 Even though the metric is designed to remain unbiased by text length, the model is, to some extent, still sensitive to this feature. Consequently, Allison based his cosine similarity analysis on randomly selected text samples of appropriate length: 4,723 words for a “target” text (each time the focus of the comparison) in the Aeschylean corpus, and 31,518 from the rest of the extant dramas in the corpus (including Pr. at first).348 Allison did not use any stop lists (excluding words present in very large amounts in all texts, i.e., function words) or appoint any further weights to the terms of the texts he examined, as is usually the case with analyses of this kind (most commonly related to information retrieval).349 Thus, Allison’s figures account for common

|| 346 See Allison (2003) 130ff. 347 The cosine in a right-angled triangle is the ratio of the length of the adjacent side to the length of the hypotenuse. The cosine of the angle between two vectors is equal to the dot product of these vectors divided by the product of vector length. ‘The dot product acts as a similarity metric because it will tend to be high just when the two vectors have large values in the same dimensions. Alternatively, vectors that have zeros in different dimensions—orthogonal vectors— will have a dot product of 0, representing their strong dissimilarity.’ See Jurafsky/Martin (2018) chap. 15 p. 10ff. also for the formula, more detailed discussion of this metric, and alternative similarity measures. 348 As with lexical diversity, Allison again employed the Monte Carlo Method, generating 300 randomized text samples of 4,723 and 31,518 words for each “target” text. See n. 339 above. The number 31,518 allows one to keep the same size across all plays in the Aeschylean corpus; see Allison (2003) 132 n. 49. 349 For information retrieval see Manning/Raghavan/Schütze (2008); Chowdhury (2010).

110 | Quantitative Style in Pr.

(more frequent) words, but also rare ones.350 Allison further calculated the mean cosine similarity between Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Homer by selecting samples of 4,723 words from the Homeric epics and all plays in the Sophoclean corpus and 31,518 from Aeschylus. Using the same method, he also calculated the similarity of dialogue and narrative pieces in Homer with Aeschylus. The results appear in the following chart.351

Fig. 15: Cosine Similarity and the Aeschylean corpus

The figures in the chart are telling. To begin, one can see that the plays of the Oresteia are the most Aeschylean plays in the corpus, and that moving from one drama of the trilogy to the next the vocabulary becomes all the more Aeschylean. This fact indicates the uniform linguistic nexus of the Oresteia, which makes a major contribution to the complete Aeschylean vocabulary imprint drawn from this analysis. Consequently, one can observe that all plays in the corpus progressively approach the language of the trilogy. Moreover, all dramas in the corpus stand close to the Aeschylean mean. Rather, all plays except Pr., which is roughly as Aeschylean as a play by Sophocles. Further, when the figures used in calculating the Aeschylean mean exclude Pr., this number increases to 0.9188. Thus,

|| 350 Discussion about the special value of the most frequent (common) words—function words— in automated authorship attribution follows below in more detail. 351 For standard deviation, see n. 244 above.

The Vocabulary of Pr. | 111

without Pr., the vocabulary in the Aeschylean corpus becomes in practice more Aeschylean. Allison also calculated a level of expected similarity for any two randomly selected corpora of 4,723 and 31,518 words for Aeschylus. That is, if Aeschylus were entirely consistent in his vocabulary, how similar would a sub-corpus of 4.723 words be to the rest of the Aeschylean corpus? The resulting mean cosine similarity is 0.9474. This number makes the distance between the vocabulary of Aeschylus and that of Pr. even more acute. The mean value for Aeschylus, as expected, stands somewhat further from Homer than from Sophocles, with whom Aeschylus shares a highly stylized idiom. Also, again as expected, Aeschylus stands much closer to epic dialogue than epic narrative. Even more interesting from the perspective of the authorship of Pr. are the conclusions one draws from the cosine similarity metric in the Aeschylean corpus when the disputed drama is removed from the calculations. When one calculates the cosine similarity of only the secure plays in the corpus of Aeschylus, something quite unexpected happens in the vocabulary similarity between Aeschylus and Sophocles. More specifically, the cosine similarity of Aeschylus to Sophocles drops (from 0.8658 to 0.8505) when Pr. is not included in the analysis. In other words, without Pr., Sophocles is less Aeschylean, or Aeschylus is less Sophoclean. That is, Pr. seems to be—strangely—more similar to Sophocles than to Aeschylus’ other plays.352 Allison further compared each play in the Aeschylean corpus to the total corpus of Sophocles and the Homeric epics. The results of this analysis, shown in the following chart, provide one with a rare insight into Aeschylus’s relationship with the vocabulary of a poetry that seems to have influenced him as no other.353 Likewise, this analysis reveals the connection of Aeschylus to a dramatist close to him chronologically.

|| 352 See Allison (2003) 135 table 6.12 for the complete figures (with standard deviation). Allison’s cosine similarity calculations of how each play by Sophocles compares with Aeschylus strengthen this point. As he noted, Trach. and Ant. share more similarities with Aeschylus than does Pr.; see id. 136–7 n. 55. 353 Aeschylus, referring primarily to plot line, of course, and not to the vocabulary, is famously quoted as saying that his tragedies were τεμάχη […] τῶν Ὁμήρου μεγάλων δείπνων (Athenaeus 8.347e; Radt TrGF III: Aeschylus T112a = Chameleon fr. 26 West). Sideras (1971) studied in much detail Aeschylus’ use of Homeric words. See also Franklin (1895); Garson (1985); O’Neill (1998) with n. 13 (p. 218) for further bibliography.

112 | Quantitative Style in Pr.

Fig. 16: Cosine Similarity of Aeschylus’ vocabulary to that of Sophocles, and the Homeric epics

At first glance, the “development” of Aeschylus’ vocabulary during the last 15 years of his career seems like a progressive movement away from the language of Homer and toward the tragic idiom as we know it from Sophocles, culminating with Pr. However, this observation is not quite correct. In Per. and Sev., Aeschylus’ use of vocabulary is closer than ever to Homer and further away from Sophocles. This ratio rather smoothly inverts in Supp., and what follows is indeed a progressive movement toward the tragic idiom of Sophocles. At the same time, the influence of Homer’s language on Aeschylus remains roughly constant. Once again, the chart above does not indicate how Aeschylus’ thematic vocabulary connects to the thematic vocabulary of Homer354 or Sophocles.355 It indicates something much broader—more specifically, how Aeschylus’ total vocabulary relates

|| 354 The evidently Homeric wording that was used by 5th century BCE dramatists to express stateliness on various occasions, or as an allusion to epic poetry. For the influence of Homer’s language (vocabulary and syntax) on Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, see, especially, the bibliography provided by Rutherford (2012) 112, to which add the study by Garner (1990) for the role of Homeric allusion in Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. 355 Obviously, the comparison of Aeschylus’ vocabulary to Sophocles’ vocabulary is more artificial than is the comparison to Homer. It is far more sensible to consider the results concerning the similarity of the Aeschylean vocabulary to the Sophoclean vocabulary as related to the similarity of the older poet’s vocabulary to the tragic idiom of the period when Sophocles was in his full artistic glory. In other words, in the comparison under discussion, in which function words

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(how similar is it) to the total (function and thematic) vocabulary of Homer and Sophocles.356 Pr. clearly disrupts the similarity pattern in the Aeschylean corpus described here. The disputed play stands notably closer to Sophocles than any other drama in the Aeschylean corpus, and, crucially, its distance from the Homeric vocabulary is distinctly un-Aeschylean. Moreover, the most Homeric (in its total vocabulary) of Aeschylus’ “late” plays is Eum., which is, partly, a play of divine characters.357 Pr., even though it is (almost) entirely a play of divine characters, differs completely in this respect. If Aeschylus is the author of Pr., then it seems that in this play he consciously decided to distance himself from Homeric vocabulary and “succumb” to the tragic idiom dominant in the last years of his life and career with an unprecedented intensity. Although not an impossible scenario, the evidence indicates that it is rather improbable. In conclusion, one can say that the cosine similarity analysis358 moves Pr. away from Aeschylus and closer to Sophocles.

Aeschylus and Pr.: Evidence from Syntax In addition to vocabulary (the amalgamation of various “emphatic” lexical features),359 in syntax the distance between the tragic idiom and the colloquial Attic Greek is clearly discernible. For example, as Rutherford (2012) 81 aptly indicated about word order in Sophocles’ Ant. 45–6 (τὸν γοῦν ἐμὸν καὶ τὸν σόν, ἢν σὺ μὴ || play an important role, Sophocles represents the tragic idiom of his period more than his own dramatic idiolect. 356 See, e.g., Allison (2003) 181 for the function words making Per. the most Homeric extant drama by Aeschylus in its use of vocabulary. 357 Ch., on the other hand, is the least Homeric play in the trilogy. Interestingly enough, this observation fits well with the evidence about the use of the -οις/-οισι(ν) allomorphs in the Oresteia discussed above. 358 Although Allison’s objective when applying cosine similarity to Aeschylus’ work was not to test the authenticity of Pr., studies specifically intended for authorship attribution have effectively used this affinity metric. See Koppel/Schler/Argamon/Winter (2012); cf. Koppel/Winter (2014). These scholars attacked the key problem in modern authorship attribution: the group of candidate authors for the authorship of a text is extensive and open (i.e., it is not certain if the true author of the disputed text is indeed included in the group). Cosine similarity was applied to a great number of sub-corpora derived from various blogs, and the texts to be attributed to the correct author were each 500 words in length. Unlike Allison, whose analysis used content and function words, these scholars focused on a different, less consciously controllable textual feature: character n-grams. This feature, among others, will be of central interest in the next chapter of the present study. 359 See Mastronarde (2002) 93.

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θέληις,/ἀδελφόν· οὐ γὰρ δὴ προδοῦσ᾽ ἁλώσομαι): ‘all in agreement but separated through hyperbaton, […] would be unacceptable in Greek prose.᾽360 Hyperbaton can be regarded as a form of syntactic discontinuity in which ‘a sequence of two elements, one of which (head) syntactically governs the other (modifier), […] are separated by one or more intervening elements. At least one of the intervening elements must be (directly or indirectly) superordinate to, or sister of (that is, at the same hierarchical level as), the head of the hyperbaton.’361 Although not always “active,” due to standardization, as we will see below, the main stylistic use of hyperbaton in both poetry and prose362 is to highlight certain elements by breaking the linear order of the sentence, either by a change in word order (creating a one-word parenthesis between syntactically inseparable words) or by the use of a parenthetical phrase. The emphasis (generating predictability or ambiguity) can be placed on either the (anticipating)363 element before the intervening feature(s),364 or the (anticipated) element immediately after.365 The figure can also simultaneously highlight various concepts placed around a concise parenthetical entity.366 To adequately map these concepts onto linear syntactic order, a more extensive construction is required.

|| 360 Cf. Denniston (1952) 57: ‘whatever we may learn of “natural” word-order in Greek from a study of such “natural” Greek writing as we can find, it is a priori inconceivable that hyperbaton should ever reveal itself as “natural.” The very terms themselves, hyperbaton, Sperrung, Spaltung, cry out against such a view.’ Quintilian (VIII.VI.62–67) gives a reason for the emergence of this feature in language. He maintains that since ‘language would very often be rough, harsh, limp, or disjointed if the words were constrained as their natural order demands,’ ‘hyperbaton, that is to say the “stepping across” of a word [verbi trangressionem], which is often required for reasons of Composition or decoration … [is] the only way of making […] prose rhythmical […] by an opportune change of [word] order’ (the translation is by Russell (2001)). 361 See Vatri (2017) 167. For hyperbaton with parenthesis (a more or less long, autonomous digression interrupting the flow of a sentence), see id. 120. 362 For hyperbaton in Greek prose, see, concisely, Denniston (1952) 47–59. 363 See Vatri (2017) 170 with bibliography. 364 See, e.g., Eum. 575 with Sommerstein’s (1989) note. Slings (1997) 174–5 discussed a special function of hyperbata, one that mainly highlights the element preceding the intervening feature(s). More specifically, a hyperbaton emphasizing the first word of the discontinuous construction it produces creates a break in cohesion and coherence with what precedes it in the narrative, rendering the meaning rather ambiguous for a moment, and changing the focus. 365 See, e.g., Sophocles’ Phil. 1013–4 with Schein’s (2013) note. See also, for example, Marcovic (2006) for the use of hyperbaton to highlight the end of syntactic and semantic units in Greek poetry and prose. 366 See, e.g., how a hyperbaton encompasses Deianeira’s crucial (ironic) complaint about Iole in Sophocles’ Trach. 540–1. Heracles’ reward to his wife, who has been so faithful to him, and so patient for so many years, is a young girl that will share their home. The words opening and

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The author of On the Sublime (22.1.3) argues that hyperbaton is χαρακτὴρ ἐναγωνίου πάθους ἀληθέστατος (‘the truest mark of vehement emotion’).367 When emotions overwhelm them, he argues, speakers tend to ‘keep altering the natural order of sequence into innumerable variations.’ Thus, ‘the use of hypebata [, separating things that belong together and are inherently indivisible,] allows imitation to approach the effects of nature’ (see 22.1.10–13 and 22.3.1–3). This connection between hyperbaton and high emotional excitement makes tragedy (especially tragic dialogue) an apposite literary field for the exploitation of hyperbaton. Indeed, Greek dramatists do employ hyperbaton frequently, and they often make quite imaginative use of its expressive qualities.368 As mentioned above, Michael Psellos, the Byzantine scholar who was the first to comment on the divergence between the (usual) style of Aeschylus and that of Pr., argued that while this dramatist is hard to interpret in his other writings, in Pr. he treats his subject with unusual linguistic clarity. In fact, the un-metaphorical simplicity of this drama369 has been—implicitly and explicitly—a consistent argument against its Aeschylean authorship. Already in antiquity, the use of hyperbaton in literature was widely regarded as a potential source of difficulty, ambiguity, and obscurity.370 Stanford (1942) 132, discussing Aeschylus’ obscurity, indicated that ‘besides his diction and imagery, sometimes syntax is to blame. Syntactically Aeschylus’ impetuosity is shown, and his meaning obscured, by [among other things] disturbances of the normal word order [and] abrupt insertions of independent clauses.’ Thus, it might be illuminating to examine the authorship of Pr. from the perspective of quantitative evidence related to the use of hyperbaton.

|| closing the hyperbaton (τοιάδ᾽ Ἡρακλῆς […] οἰκούρια), separating the unfaithful husband from his mistress, are equally prominent. Cf. Griffith’s (1999) note on Ant. 2–3. In this example a hyperbaton, which encapsulates the will of Zeus (Ζεὺς […] τελεῖ) from the very beginning of the play connects Antigone and Ismene (the only living members of Oedipus’ disgraceful family) to all the of the woes of the Labdacids. Cf. the double hyperbaton in Per. 350–1, and the shape of the sentence in Ch. 239–41, where the break between προσαυδᾶν and πατέρα is followed by an autonomous parenthetical phrase (ἡ δὲ πανδίκως ἐχθαίρεται). Dik (2007) 188–9 suggested that in poetry enjambment can sometimes be employed to highlight, almost as a hyperbaton, the two words separated by line break. See also Race (2002) for framing-hyperbata in Pindar. 367 The translation is by Fyfe/Russell (1999). 368 See e.g. Sev. 34–5, 655; Trach., 815–6; O.T. 1251; O.C. 1427; Med. 1148, 1367, 1368; Her. 222– 3, 1138; and Hel. 332–3, 707. 369 See n. 108 above. 370 See Vatri (2017) 119–22, 171–3 in detail. Vatri rightly noted (id. 173) that hyperbata can indeed be a source of difficultly for interpreting those cases in which ‘the syntactic discontinuity they entail induces hearers to build wrong analyses of partially input structures.’

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Of course, this approach has some inherent limitations. To begin, Devine and Stephens, who have studied hyperbaton thoroughly, argued that the use of this feature relates to the transition of Classical Greek from a non-configurational to a configurational stage: i.e., from a flat to a hierarchical phrase structure or, more specifically, from a mostly free to a more controlled word order.371 Thus, if on the one hand, the macro-scale frequency of the use of hyperbaton relates to an author’s idiosyncrasy, moving beyond his micro-scale literary objectives, then on the other hand, it may relate to the chronology of an author’s works, as a remnant of an earlier stage of language. In other words, a significant fluctuation in the frequency of use of hyperbaton across the works of an author, especially an early classical author, may indicate the time when these works were composed, a linguistic transition, rather than a different author at work. Yet this chronological aspect of hyperbaton does not seem to apply to the Kunstsprache of 5th century BCE drama. Baechle (2007) examined two types of hyperbaton commonly used in tragedy: modifier-preposition-noun, and modifier-verb-noun.372 The former is more frequent in Sophocles and Euripides than in Aeschylus, while the latter is notably more common in Euripides than in Aeschylus and Sophocles.373 This observation seems to indicate that the (possible) non-configurational past of Classical Greek did not affect the tragic idiom in the respect under discussion. Hence, the frequency with which the Greek dramatists employ hyperbaton may indicate authorial style—rather than linguistic transition. A more serious limitation related to hyperbaton in Greek drama as an indicator of authorship is the suggestion that it is merely an inescapable compositional necessity. In drama, metrically standardized forms of hyperbaton (variations in word order) are indeed frequently employed to serve the “mechanical” needs of

|| 371 See Devine/Stephens (2000) 83, 142ff. Cf. Bakker (2009) 128–9. Contra Beckwith (2002) 320ff. Cf. Speas (1990) 127. In configurational languages, in contrast to non-configurational, syntax is more important than morphology. Thus, flexibility in the choice of word order is limited. In non-configurational languages, rather than noun phrases with dependent modifiers, appositional (paratactic) structures are preferred. Other, though not incontestable, signs of non-configurationality include the lack of definite article and the null anaphora. Further, Haug (2009) 114 argued that ‘Homeric Greek [with only 93 examples of discontinuous prepositional phrases in both epics] is well on its way towards a configurational [prepositional phrase]. But we should note that [these] prepositional phrases have kept one property that is often associated with nonconfigurationality, namely the possibility of zero anaphors.’ 372 See Baechle (2007) 152ff., 227ff. 373 See Baechle (2007) 190, 229–30 for the figures. For the latter type of hyperbaton Baechle also calculated its frequency in Aristophanes. If the comedian’s plays are the best dramatic evidence we have of spoken Attic Greek, the results clearly show that hyperbaton, used quite sparingly in comedy, was not a feature of spoken language, but a hallmark of elevated poetry.

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composition. In other words, tragic poets use (more or less) metrically fixed (“formulaic”) types of hyperbaton in order to facilitate composition. As Baechle (2007) 230 noted, it seems that to a large extent ‘tragedians used verbal hyperbaton as a compositional device in response to metrical constraint.’374 Yet it would be misleading to view the metrical constraint in this context as an absolutely restrictive regulator depriving hyperbaton of its potentially expressive qualities. In response to Baechle’s position, Dik (2007) 122 noted that ‘the challenges of composition doubtless included an effort to accommodate word shapes that are more or less compatible with the trimeter line […] [T]his, however, does not exclude equally careful monitoring of pragmatic appropriateness. Lexical selection is an area where a poet had a range of choices, with the exception of proper names, so that we cannot take [metrically] intractable shapes as a simple given that is prior to any pragmatic analysis.’375 Overall, this combination of stylistic choice and metrical pervasiveness renders hyperbaton apposite authorship evidence in the case of Pr. The fact that, in this respect, dramatists had both to “yield” to compositional necessity and simultaneously “defend” their expressive preferences creates an idiosyncratic stylistic “blend” that could produce tenable conclusions about the authorship of the disputed drama. Fraser (1999) considered various aspects of syntax in Greek tragedy, and focused on a specific form of hyperbaton: a verb inserted into a noun phrase, between a demonstrative or adjective and a noun in agreement with it.376 He indicated that the high proportion of this broad form of hyperbaton in paratragic lines in Aristophanes’ Fr. shows that it should be regarded as a distinctive feature of tragic, possibly specifically Aeschylean, style.377 Despite a scarce number of lyric examples in tragedy, this type of hyperbaton seems primarily a feature of spoken (iambic and trochaic) and recitative (anapaestic) verse. The fact that parodies of tragic lyric do not include any instances of the feature strengthens this view.378 Therefore, I used Fraser’s list of instances to calculate the ratio (in percentage terms) of the occurrences of the demonstrative/adjective-verb-noun hyperbaton

|| 374 Cf. Baechle (2007) 14–5. 375 Cf. Fraser (2002) 95. Devine/Stephens (1994) 101 argued that ‘the rhythms of Greek verse are simply more highly constrained versions of rhythms already existing in Greek speech.’ According to this view, metrical standardizations affecting the syntax are ‘a stylization or normalization of the natural rhythm of language.’ 376 See Fraser (1999) 88ff. 377 See Fraser (1999) 90–91, 110–12 (with n. 17), 113, 117 (with n. 23), 122. Cf. Stinton (1975). 378 See Fraser (1999) 113.

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to the number of spoken and recitative lines for each play in the Aeschylean corpus, as well as for Sophocles’ O.T. and Euripides’ Med.379 Providing figures on one form of hyperbaton (no matter how broad) is, of course, far from an exhaustive quantitative analysis of how Aeschylus generally treated this feature. However— and even though a full quantitative study is desired—the specific figures can help one understand (partially but also clearly) that Pr. is rather incompatible with Aeschylus’ style in his last years. The chart below shows that the poet seems to have admitted the hyperbaton under discussion more and more frequently in his plays. That is, it seems that in (roughly) the last decade of his career—that is, from Supp. onward—Aeschylus gave to the demonstrative/adjective-verb-noun hyperbaton a more prominent role in his style.

Fig. 17: Hyperbaton (demonstrative/adjective-verb-noun) in the Aeschylean corpus

These (raw and processed) data of the analysis are too scanty to constitute an unequivocal indication of a gradual “infusion” of this feature in Aeschylus’ work. Nevertheless, they plausibly suggest that during the approximately five years that

|| 379 740 lines in Per., 487 in Sev., 473 in Supp., 1112 in Ag., 721 in Ch., 728 in Eum., 953 in Pr., 1200 in O.T., and 1306 line in Med. I also calculated the ratio of occurrences of the hyperbaton under discussion to the number of spoken lines in each drama excluding recitative anapaests. Yet the figures are in practice the same in both analyses. I excluded from my count the overall 21 lyric instances of the hyperbaton under discussion in the Oresteia, listed by Fraser (1999) 289–92.

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intervened between Sev. and Supp.,380 the poet became more inclined to the hyperbaton under discussion. It can be presumed that this tendency became more prominent in the dramas composed during the years between Supp. and the Oresteia.381 In the trilogy, the demonstrative/adjective-verb-noun hyperbaton occurs multiple times (11 overall instances in Supp. and 51 in Ag.), and the Oresteia seems to be the climax of Aeschylus’ stylistic development of this feature. If Pr., which contains a number of examples of this type of hyperbaton similar to the number in Aeschylus’ plays of around 470 BCE, is an Aeschylean play postdating the Oresteia—as most scholars in favor of the traditional authorship argue—then, once again, it would mean that Aeschylus clearly distanced himself from a stylistic feature he had vigorously sought to exploit during the final years of his career. This hypothesis is by all means possible, but a paradox as well. Furthermore, Sophocles’ O.T. and Euripides’ Med., with a demonstrative/adjective-verb-noun hyperbaton rate of 4% (55 instances) and 5% (60 instances), respectively, indicate that the hyperbaton in question was in fact notably more common in postAeschylean tragedy than it was in Aeschylus’ plays of the 470’s. Thus, since Pr. includes the hyperbaton under discussion so sparingly, it seems that its author, if not Aeschylus, was a post-Aeschylean poet rather disinclined toward the feature. Alternatively, this author might have consciously adopted the earlier (more archaic) Aeschylean style of the plays composed before the Oresteia in this respect. To conclude, one the one hand, it seems that Psellos did not have the hyperbaton under discussion in mind when noting that Per. is harder to interpret than the γλαφυρὸς Pr., since both plays include an equal share of the feature— and are thus equally “lucid” in this way. On the other, the difference at this level between Pr. and (especially) the plays of Aeschylus’ extant trilogy is noteworthy. Another, more notable, divergence in syntax between Pr. and the secure plays in the Aeschylean corpus concerns (dependent) complement (direct or indirect) statements (finite clauses) introduced by ὅτι/ὡς, occurring after verbs of knowing, showing, and saying.382 More specifically, a complement sentence is ‘a complex sentence where a clause, the complement clause, functions as an argument of a main predicate, the complement-taking predicate.’383 The main predicate, instead of an ὅτι/ὡς clause, is quite often followed by either an infinitive or || 380 Assuming that Aeschylus’ Danaids trilogy was first performed in 463 BCE. See Garvie’s (2006) preface to the second edition of his book on Supp. 381 Depending on the date of Supp., since, as Garvie (2006) pref. xv noted, ‘470 is a possible date’ for this play. 382 See Monteil (1963) 249–50, 354–7. 383 See Cristofaro (2012) 335. Cf. Cristofaro (2003) 95–8 for a discussion of this definition in a cross-linguistic context.

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participle. As for the ὅτι/ὡς clauses, it has long been argued, especially for verbs of saying, that ὡς is preferred to ὅτι when an author wants to mark a statement as an opinion, a pretext, or as untrue.384 Cristofaro (1998) 74–5 noted that while ‘in factual contexts ὅτι introduces foreground information with high communicative value, ὡς [introduces] background information with low communicative value.385 This also explains why ὡς is chosen for non-factual contexts, while ὅτι is not allowed: in this type of contexts the information conveyed by the complement clause cannot be asserted as a fact […] just like the information conveyed by ὡς in factual contexts.’ This also applies to structures with infinitive as opposed to participle complements. While the former express facts, the latter point to an opinion, a pretext, or an untrue statement.386 In other words, the author’s (speaker’s) choice between an ὅτι and an ὡς clause—and also between an infinitive and a participle—to complement cognitive verbs and verbs of showing/saying can in fact indicate her/his commitment to the truth of the complement clause. Huitink (2009) further discussed ὅτι/ὡς complement clauses tied to cognitive verbs from the perspective of the pragmatic assumption of presupposition—i.e., for those verbs that (more or less) presuppose (take for granted) the truth of their complement. Concerning presupposition, ‘pragmaticists do not believe that factuality or certainty on the part of the speaker is at issue; rather, they emphasize the pre in presupposition: a presupposed proposition is a proposition which the speaker assumes to be already part of the common ground. The relevant opposition is that between pragmatically presupposed and asserted information, not that between facts and possible facts.’387 Huitink indicated that participle complements are pragmatically presupposed (regarded as already known), ὅτι clauses are semantically presupposed (i.e., asserted: containing new information

|| 384 See Smyth (1956) 582f. 385 Information with high communicative value is nontopical (signifying what is being said about some topic and not the topic itself), focal, and new. For new information, successful communication depends on the ability of an author (speaker) to estimate the relevant knowledge the reader (hearer) already possesses and to increase this knowledge by gradually adding new, and hence more important, information. See Cristofaro (2008) 580ff. on (non-)topical, (non-)focal, and new(/already known) information and the use of ὅτι/ὡς. Huitink (2009) 33 n. 25 partly challenged Cristofaro’s criteria, rightly indicating that more research is necessary on this subject. 386 See Cristofaro (2008) 576. Participial complements are more frequent with verbs of knowing and showing. Verbs of saying or thinking—save ἀγγέλλω—very rarely take the participle complement in prose. However, in tragedy verba dicendi occasionally occur with participial complements; see Fournier (1946) 184–5 for some examples—adding Aeschylus’ Per. 1021. See also Monteil (1963) 339–40. 387 See Huitink (2009) 25.

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to the truth of which the author (speaker) is committed and urging readers (hearers) to accept), and infinitival complements are in fact neither pragmatically nor semantically presupposed.388 Further, Huitink suggested that ὡς complement clauses are rarer than the ὅτι-complements in Greek prose, and that, even though they are similar in use, they are not exactly synonymous. Huitink indicated that, as Cristofaro argued, ὅτι-complements are employed in Greek syntax to introduce foreground information with high communicative value. Yet participle-complements, not ὡς-complements, are in the main used for introducing background information with low communicative value. ὡς-complements, like participlecomplements, are used to trigger pragmatic presupposition, except that they are specifically tied to the extent of an event. In such complements, ὡς can be rendered as “how” (much, many, etc.).389 Following his data for Greek prose, Huitink maintained that in complementing cognitive verbs there might be a correlation between a frequent rate of occurrence of participle-complements and a limited rate of occurrence of ὡς-complements.390 In other words, if ὡς-clauses and participles by and large have the same pragmatic status, ‘the possibility of complementing a [cognitive] verb with a participle leads to a significant reduction of the number of ὡς-clauses found after such verbs.’391 With all the above in mind, one can draw some interesting conclusions about the use of complementation in Greek tragedy, and, most relevantly, about the association between the six secure Aeschylean plays and Pr. Willi (2002) 115–6 noted that ‘substantive subordinate clauses (“that-clauses”) are introduced by either ὅτι or ὡς in Attic Greek. In tragedy […] ὡς is much more frequent than ὅτι. In Aristophanic comedy ὅτι and ὡς roughly balance each other. In the unprestigious speeches of Aristophanes’ contemporary Lysias ὅτι is far more common than ὡς. The best explanation for this situation is that spoken Attic around 400 BCE knew both ὅτι and ὡς in substantive clauses, but preferred ὅτι. Tragedy, against everyday usage […] made ὡς its favourite. The distribution in comedy […] was less artificial than in tragedy but did not reproduce faithfully the statistical predominance of ὅτι in spoken language.’ It becomes clear from this observation that, to some degree, the high frequency of use of ὡς complement clauses and the low

|| 388 See Huitink (2009) 28. 389 See Huitink (2009) 32. 390 For ὡς in Herodotus, Huitink (2009) 31 n. 21 gave separate numbers, noting that ‘there is reason to assume that in the Ionic dialect ὡς fulfills at least partly the role played by ὅτι in Attic and therefore occurs much more often.’ 391 See Huitink (2009) 32.

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frequency of the more vernacular ὅτι complements in tragedy is a defamiliarization “mechanism” of the tragic Kunstsprache. Yet to what extent did the tragic poets choose to avoid using ὅτι complement clauses, and what is the effect of this choice in the dramatic exploitation of factuality, non-factuality, and presupposition? The best way to attack this question is to begin from the end—from the conclusions. Fraser (1999) 232, studying the distribution of some Greek complementizers (ὅτι, ὡς, ὅπως and εἰ) in a corpus of Homeric books, as well as extant plays ascribed to Aeschylus and works by Sophocles, Euripides, Thucydides, and Plato, indicated that the frequency of ὅτι in Pr. ‘is atypical of Aeschylus, and is closer to Sophoclean frequency.’ From Fraser’s list of examples for ὅτι and ὡς in Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, it appears that the divergence between Pr. and the secure plays of Aeschylus relates to the complement “that-” clauses. However, Fraser’s list is not complete, and to verify that these clauses are indeed the reason for the divergence under discussion, I used frequency lists392 to examine all ὅτι and ὡς complement clauses in the Aeschylean corpus. For reasons of comparison, I also examined all cases of ὅτι and ὡς complements occurring in lines 1– 1047 (the length of Eum., the shortest secure Aeschylean drama now extant),393 in six plays by Sophocles (Trach., Aj., Ant., El., O.T., Phil.). The results of my analysis confirmed my original view. In all the secure extant plays and fragments in the Aeschylean corpus, there are 32 ὡς (“that-”) complement clauses394 and only one ὅτι395 (“that-”) complement clause, after verbs of knowing, understanding, showing, and saying. The vast majority of ὡς complement clauses in the corpus are verb clauses, and only

|| 392 See Rigo (1996), (1999). 393 All of Aeschylus’ extant plays—save Ag.—are considerably shorter than those of Sophocles (usually more than 300 lines shorter). Hence, for the figures of complement clauses deriving from the work of these two playwrights to be properly comparable, this modification is necessary. 394 Per. 260, 287–8, 357, 525, 598–601, 754–5, 818–20; Sev. 176, 468–9, 617, 923; Supp. 65–6, 276, 390–91, 622; Ag. 494–6, 672, 882–5, 1354–5, 1367, 1505–6, 1619–20; Ch. 492, 987–8, 1010–11, 1034–5; Eum. 311, 657, 798–9, 953; fr. 78a Col. I 30–31 Radt; fr. 204b 10–11 Radt. For some of these ὡς clauses, the verb they complement, which would usually be ἴσθι (ὡς), is actually missing altogether. See Per. 260. Cf. Soph. Trach. 79; Aj. 39; O.T. 439. On this syntax, see Finglass (2011) 149. 395 Eum. 98–9. In a few cases, the peculiarity of tragic syntax, and the textual problems inherent in the transmission of Greek literature, render the identification of complement clauses debatable. See, e.g., Fraenkel (1950) 401. Yet these cases are so rare that the outcome of the analysis remains unchanged.

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very few are participial clauses.396 Four out of six secure Aeschylean plays, Sev., Supp., Ch., Eum., include four ὡς complements each, while Per. and Ag. include seven examples each. By contrast, in Pr. there are ten ὡς,397 and, most strikingly, seven ὅτι398 complement clauses. In the comparable part of the Sophoclean corpus examined here, there are 67 ὡς, and 24 ὅτι complement clauses.399 Trach., Aj., and El. include 11 ὡς complement clauses each, O.T. and Phil. include 13 such clauses each, while in Ant. there are eight ὡς complements. As for the ὅτι complements in the comparable Sophoclean corpus, Trach. and Aj. each include two examples, O.T. and Phil. each include three, El. includes four, and Ant. includes ten. Thus, whereas Aeschylus employs at least four ὡς complements in each of his secure extant dramas, it seems that for some reason he deliberately avoids ὅτι complements. By contrast, there is not one extant play by Sophocles with fewer than two ὅτι complement clauses. ὅτι complements occur in Pr. with remarkable frequency for a play composed by Aeschylus; Pr. is Sophoclean in this respect. Yet the author of Pr. is even more inclined than Sophocles to use ὅτι complement clauses. For instance, in El., a play of 1510 lines, there are seven ὅτι complements overall, and also in O.C., a play of 1779 lines, there are five or six such complements overall.400 In Pr., a play of 1093 lines, there are seven ὅτι complements overall. Only Ant., with ten ὅτι complement clauses overall in 1353 lines, seems to be, mutatis mutandis, similar to Pr. Further, the disputed drama is also closer to Sophocles than to Aeschylus in the frequency of use of ὡς complement clauses. The mean for ὡς complement clauses in Aeschylus’ six secure plays is five clauses per play, whereas the corresponding mean in the sample of Sophocles examined here is eleven ὡς clauses per play. Pr., with ten ὡς complements, is thus clearly more Sophoclean than it is Aeschylean in this respect. To sum up the quantitative

|| 396 See Per. 260, 525; Sev. 176; Ag. 672, 1354–5, 1367. Cf. Soph. Ant. 61–2; Aj. 281, 326; O.T. 44– 5, 625, 955–6; El. 552–3, 881–1, 1025; Phil. 415, 567. 397 Pr. 211–12, 260, 293, 296–7, 443, 843–4, 887–90, 1002–3, 1093, 1073–4. 398 Pr. 104–5, 186–7, 259–60, 323–4, 328–9, 377–8, 951–2. 399 In the Sophoclean corpus there are 35 ὅτι complement clauses overall: Trach. 439–40, 904– 5, 1110–11; Ant. 61–2, 98–9, 188–9, 276, 311–12, 325–6, 649–51, 758, 779–80, 1043–4; Aj. 678–82, 792–3; O.T. 59–60, 499–501, 525–6, 1133–4; El. 44–5, 332–3, 426–7, 988–9, 1070, 1106–7, 1367– 8; Phil. 325–6, 405–6, 549–50; O.C. 567–8, (605), 666–7, 872–3, 941–3, 1039–41. The ὡς complement clauses in the comparable part of the Sophoclean corpus examined here are the following: Trach. 1–3, 76, 79, 142–3, 171–2, 265, 351–4, 431, 627–8, 932–3, 939–40; Ant. 49–50, 61–2, 272–3, 316, 712–13, 735, 883–4, 1063; Aj. 39, 281, 326, 354, 355, 481–2, 589–90, 727–8, 837–8, 998–9, 1026–7; O.T. 44–5, 439, 537–9, 547, 555–6, 625, 711–13, 729–30, 779–80, 790–91, 842–3, 848, 955– 6; El. 56–8, 347–8, 525–6, 552–3, 560–61, 591–2, 596–7, 804–6, 882, 948–9, 1025; Phil. 70–71, 162–3, 253, 320, 345–7, 415, 501–3, 531–2, 534–5, 567, 610–12, 676–9, 1037. 400 For the list of cases, see n. 399 above. For O.C. 605 see the note by Jebb (1885) on this line.

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evidence, while Aeschylus almost completely avoids ὅτι complements in his plays, these clauses are a persistent feature in Sophocles and in Pr. Moreover, Aeschylus employs ὡς complements far more sparingly than Sophocles does, and the number of occurrences in Pr. reflects the Sophoclean, not the Aeschylean, practice. In view of these observations, the author of the disputed play seems much closer to Sophocles than to Aeschylus in how often he uses both ὅτι and ὡς complement clauses. The higher frequency of ὅτι complements (per play) seems to be a distinctively Sophoclean quirk, and not one characteristic of post-Aeschylean tragedy. This observation supports the idea that Sophocles had a direct influence on Pr. In the 18 secure plays by Euripides, only 13 examples of ὅτι (“that-”) complement clauses occur. The vast majority of these cases include one example per play, and never more than two.401 Further, in all Euripidean fragments one finds three such examples.402 In addition, in all extant fragments of the tragici minores, as well as in all the adespota, there are four examples of ὅτι complements overall.403 The data show that in Sophocles and in Pr., the use of the clauses under discussion is a consistent syntactic choice, while in later tragic poets, and in Aeschylus, it is the exception confirming the rule (that ὡς complement clauses are much more frequent than ὅτι complements in tragedy). If one now focuses on how Sophocles structurally and qualitatively exploits ὅτι complement clauses, some very interesting conclusions emerge—and the convergence of Pr. with Sophocles takes on a new magnitude. Of the overall 35 ὅτι—predominantly iambic—complement clauses in Sophocles, 28 follow a specific structure: the verb governing the complement clause is followed by ὅτι, which, being a pyrrhic word, conveniently occupies last position in the line, while the “that-” clause unfolds in the following line(s).404 In 14 examples of this kind, the verbs of knowing, understanding, || 401 Cycl. 421–2; Med. 560–61; Her. 1417; I.T. 1092–3; El. 171–3; Hel. 1491–4; Phoen. 1617; Or. 767, 891–3; Bacch. 173–4, 649; I.A. 129–30, 86(8–)9. 402 Fr. 727a.137 Kannicht (in a mutilated papyrus context); fr. 812.8–9 Kannicht; fr. 951.1–3 Kannicht. 403 Thes. fr. 3 Snell; Carc. II fr. 8 Snell; Dion. fr. 7 Snell; Ades. 482 Kannicht/Snell. Another possibility is Ades. 666 Kannicht/Snell, deriving from a papyrus context. Yet it is equally possible that this very mutilated clause is causal. 404 Trach. 439–40, 904–5, 1110–11; Ant. 61–2, 98–9, 188–9, 311–12, 325–6, 649–51, 779–80, 1043–4; Aj. 678–82, 792–3; O.T. 59–60, 525–6, 1133–4; El. 332–3, 426–7, 988–9, 1106–7, 1367–8; Phil. 325–6, 405–6, 549–50; O.C. 666–7, 872–3, 941–3, 1039–41. In the remaining examples, ὅτι is not the last word in the line (O.T. 499–501 (lyric); El. 44–5, 1070 (lyric); O.C. 567–8, (605)), or, even if it is, the clause is used parenthetically, as in Ant. 276, 758. While the ὅτι parenthesis in Ant. 276 appears in the line itself (cf. Eur. Phoen. 1617), Ant. 758 is a more complicated example. In this case even though the ὅτι clause is parenthetical, its content is actually expressed in the

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showing and saying, governing the complement clause, are directly followed by ὅτι, with no words intervening.405 This Sophoclean pattern exactly applies to five of the overall seven examples of ὅτι complement clauses in Pr.,406 while all extant plays and fragments by Euripides, the tragici minores, and the adespota, include six such examples.407 Evidently, for metrical reasons, a pyrrhic-shaped word such as ὅτι could conveniently be used (repeatedly) in the last position of the trimeter line. In fact, metrical convenience could have been one of the main reasons that led to the development of a Sophoclean syntactic mannerism (governing verb + ὅτι (with nothing in between)/complement clause).408 In Euripides, the tragici minores, and the adespota, apart from the last position, ὅτι occurs in various other positions in the iambic line, while in Sophocles there are only two or three such examples (El. 445; O.C. 567–8, (605)). Furthermore, in Euripides verbs of knowing/understanding govern ὅτι clauses with almost the same frequency as verbs of showing/saying. On the contrary, in Sophocles the number of ὅτι complement clauses governed by verbs of knowing/understanding (mainly (‘ἐξ/κατ)οἶδα and γιγνώσκω) is more than three times the number of such clauses governed by verbs of showing/saying. Interestingly, all examples of ὅτι complements in Pr. are governed by verbs of knowing/understanding,409 whereas the single ὅτι complement clause occurring in the secure plays by Aeschylus (Eum. 98–9) is governed by a verb of showing/saying (προὐννέπω).

|| next line. The “broken” syntax in these lines artfully conveys the speaker’s (Creon addressing Haemon) agitation. 405 Ant. 98–9, 188–9, 311–12, 325–6, 649–51, 1043–4; O.T. 59–60, 1133–4; El. 988–9; Phil. 405– 6; O.C. 666–7, 872–3, 941–3, 1039–41. 406 Pr. 104–5, 259–60, 323–4, 377–8, 951–2. In Pr. 328–9, three words (an adverb and a participial clause) intervene between the governing verb and ὅτι, which is in the last position in the line. By contrast, in the anapaestic Pr. 186–7, the governing verb immediately followed by ὅτι is placed parenthetically in the line. 407 Cycl. 421–2; Med. 560–61; Eur. fr. 812.8–9 Kannicht; fr. 951.1–3 Kannicht; Carc. II fr. 8 Snell; Dion. fr. 7 Snell. Bacch. 173–4, a rather mundane example, includes an intervening word (a proper name) between the governing verb and ὅτι. 408 / stands for change of line. On this, see also Griffith (1977) 192. 409 οἶδα and γιγνώσκω each occur twice in Pr., and ὁρῶ occurs three times. ὁρῶ never governs an ὅτι complement clause in Sophocles or Euripides. It has that kind of syntactic role only in a fragment by Thespis (fr. 3 Snell: ὁρᾷς ὅτι Ζεὺς τῷδε πρωτεύει θεῶν, οὐ ψεῦδος […]), the structure of which, though, is quite different from the Sophoclean structure of the examples in the disputed play.

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Another, this time mainly qualitative, aspect of the Sophoclean nature of the ὅτι complement clauses in Pr. relates to gnomic speech. Of the overall 35 ὅτι complement clauses in Sophocles, 11 introduce gnomic speech, or some saying of general significance.410 Six of these examples strictly follow the syntactic iambic pattern described above with nothing else between the governing verb and the complement clause.411 Interestingly, three of the overall seven ὅτι complements in Pr. also introduce gnomic speech,412 while three other such examples are remarks of similar status.413 Four of these six examples also follow the Sophoclean iambic pattern mentioned above.414 The single Aeschylean ὅτι complement clause is not gnomic in nature.415 In the plays and fragments by Euripides, only three examples of an ὅτι complement clause tied to gnomic speech, or to some saying of general significance, occur—all structurally following the Sophoclean pattern.416 In the fragments of the tragici minores, and in the adespota, one finds two gnomic ὅτι complement clauses structured in the form of the Sophoclean paradigm,417 and two generalizing sayings concerning the nature of Zeus.418 Apart from the general quantitative and structural affinity between the author of Pr. and Sophocles in the gnomic ὅτι complement clauses, it seems that there is also a more specific connection between the disputed play and a particular Sophoclean play. It seems that the author of Pr. had in mind a dramatic technique most prominently employed by Sophocles in Ant. Out of 11 ὅτι complement clauses introducing gnomic speech in Sophocles’ extant plays, six occur in Ant.,419 and only one of them deviates from the Sophoclean mannerism, governing verb + ὅτι (with nothing in between)/complement clause, in that there are three words intervening between the governing verb and ὅτι.420 All six ὅτι complement clauses introducing gnomic speech are—without a

|| 410 Trach. 439–40; Ant. 188–9, 311–12, 325–6, 649–51, 779–80, 1043–4; Aj. 678–82; O.T. 499– 501; El. 988–9; O.C. 567–8. 411 Ant. 188–9, 311–12, 325–6, 649–51, 1043–4; El. 988–9. 412 Pr. 104–5, 328–9, 377–8. 413 Pr. 186–7, 323–4, 951–2. 414 Pr. 104–5, 323–4, 377–8, 951–2. 415 For gnomic statements in Aeschylus and in Pr., see, in detail, Manousakis (2020b). 416 Med. 560–62; fr. 812.8–9 Kannicht; fr. 951.1–3 Kannicht. 417 Carc. II fr. 8 Snell; Dion. fr. 7 Snell. The non-envied object of the complement clause in Dion. fr. 7 Snell could be poor people, worthless men (those good for nothing), or the dead. See e.g. Eur. Her. 633–6, Cycl. 666–7, and fr. 532 Kannicht, respectively. Cf. the subtle use of oὐδὲν and μηδὲν in Soph. Aj. 1231. 418 Thes. fr. 3 Snell; Ades. 482 Kannicht/Snell. 419 Ant. 188–9, 311–12, 325–6, 649–51, 779–80, 1043–4. 420 Ant. 779–80.

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single exception—sayings spoken by Creon. It seems that in Ant. Sophocles used the mannerism under discussion to serve characterization. For most of the play Creon is adamant, implacable, relentless, intolerant, uncompromising—and the high frequency with which the poet puts gnomic “truths” in his words is crucial for understanding this character. As Griffith (1999) 36 put it, the king’s ‘constant reliance on γνῶμαι seems to reflect a desire to define and maintain his world in the most stable and unvarying (“universal”) terms possible.’421 The repeated use of the pattern of gnomic ὅτι clauses structurally conveys, in part, Creon’s monolithic attitude. These clauses concern the safeguarding nature of the state, the dangerous side of profit, the harm inflicted by an inadequate wife, and the nature of gods and piety. Creon’s generalizing sayings cease all at once in his encounter with Tiresias—just before he changes his mind about Antigone’s punishment, just before Haemon’s death is made known. When Creon later comes back on stage, carrying his son’s body in his hands, to take the final blow, to learn about his wife’s suicide, there is no place for (ὅτι or other) generalizations in his words. It seems that, to some extent, the author of Pr. attempted to imitate the Sophoclean characterization technique of ὅτι gnomic utterances. Oceanus articulates three out of six ὅτι generalizations (two out of the overall three strictly gnomic ὅτι sayings) in Pr.422 This character speaks only 55 lines in the play. He is a Titan who has escaped rough treatment at Zeus’ hands, and is willing to make an effort to resolve the feud between Prometheus and the Olympian lord diplomatically. This member of the former divine order seeks to persuade Prometheus, his kin, that it is in his best interest to come to a reconciliation with Zeus. In his attempt to do so, Oceanus employs ὅτι generalizations to argue that a (harsh) monarch, such as Zeus, the current supreme god, is accountable to no one, that speaking irreverently leads to punishment, and that words can heal a sick temper.423 The apparent characterization analogy between Creon and Oceanus, in view of the high frequency of use of ὅτι generalizations by both, is striking. To show to what extent and how the author of Pr. adopted (adapted) Sophocles’ dramatic technique tied to ὅτι, as well as ὡς, generalizations, I will elaborate below on its use in all the extant plays by Sophocles. To begin with, Sophocles’ technique of ὅτι generalizations should be directly associated with, or, more accurately, should be regarded as falling under, the socalled “Sophoclean enjambment” pattern. As Dik (2007) 209 noted: ‘some of the

|| 421 On Creon’s gnomic language, see the detailed bibliography provided by Foley (2001) 184 n. 38. See also Griffith (1999) index s.v. gnōmē. 422 Pr. 323–4, 328–9, 377–8. 423 For this gnomic saying, see Thomson (1932) 154–5.

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most spectacular line breaks in Sophocles are in fact the result, not of clauses running over by a word or two into the next line, but of clauses starting with only a word or two just before line end and then running on into the next line.’ As discussed above,424 this pattern is common in Sophocles, who seems to be fond of placing, for example, a conjunction or a personal pronoun at the line end, thus creating a form of dramatic micro-suspense about what will follow next in the sentence—that is, what turn the speech will take.425 By contrast, the ὡς of ὡς complement clauses in tragedy in general is frequently placed at the beginning of the (iambic or other) line, with the governing verb occupying the last position in the previous line. Thus, the micro-suspense in this pattern is reversed. Admittedly, however, the resulting syntax in ὡς complement clauses is less violently “fractured” and, consequently, less suspenseful. An important difference in the use of ὅτι and ὡς complement clauses in Sophocles relates to his generalizations technique, bringing one back to the observations put forward at the beginning of this section about the syntactic factuality of ὅτι and ὡς. It seems that Sophocles uses ὅτι and ὡς complement clauses, especially the syntactically suspenseful ὅτι type, to orchestrate broad, or more focused, plot “games” of conviction and reversal. As discussed above, ὅτι complement clauses syntactically convey foreground information with high communicative value, containing truth to which the author (speaker) is committed and which readers (hearers) are urged to accept. ὡς complements, by contrast, are pragmatically presupposed and convey information that is already known. These clauses seem to specify the extent of an (already known) event, rather than to communicate the factuality of the event. In other words, an ὅτι complement is in fact a(n) (debatable) assertion, a speech act in which something is claimed to hold, while an ὡς complement introduces common ground. With this nuance in mind, it would have been natural for Sophocles to use ὡς complements mainly to introduce gnomic speech and generalizations. This kind of speech is the opposite of foreground information: there is nothing new or shocking about it. Generalizations are the essence of common ground, and from this perspective their communicative value is low. Yet Sophocles uses ὅτι complement clauses to introduce gnomic speech and generalizations far more frequently than he uses ὡς complements—and he has a very good dramatic reason for doing so. Each and every ὅτι generalization in the work of Sophocles introduces a strong (honest or deceiving) conviction that is to be “overturned” in the play, either immediately or in the course of events. By contrast, gnomic

|| 424 See p. 40 above, especially n. 154. 425 For example, in O.T. 370–1 and 372–3, where Oedipus utters a shocking insult against Tiresias, and the oracle, in turn, utters a shocking and inconceivable truth about Oedipus’ future.

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speech and generalizations introduced by ὡς complements are the common ground—and even if challenged at some point in the drama, they eventually hold true. More specifically, in Trach. 439–40 Deianeira assures Lichas that it is only natural for men ‘not to always take pleasure in the same things.’ It is not Heracles’ fault, she claims, that he fell sick in love for Iole. It is not Iole’s fault either that she was brought to the land of Trachis. Deianeira attempts to elicit the truth about Iole and her husband from Lichas, pretending that she understands Heracles’ passion and that she will do nothing to act against it. Yet Deianeira does attempt to act against this passion, unknowingly sending Heracles a lethal robe. Her gnomic ὅτι assertion was in fact nothing but a pretense to convince Lichas to speak the truth. Similarly, in Aj. 678–82, Ajax tells Tecmessa and his companions, in a false (artfully open to misinterpretation) speech (646–92),426 that he has changed his mind about yielding to the gods and showing reverence to the commanders of the army, the sons of Atreus. In his ὅτι gnomic assertion, the only one in the play, he claims that he has recently learned that ‘the enemy must be hated as one who will sometime become a friend and [that] in helping a friend [he] shall aim to assist him as one assists a man who will not remain a friend forever.’427 Ajax is lying. He has no intention of yielding to the gods, or showing reverence to the Atreidae. He wants to placate the fears of Tecmessa and his friends, so that he can be left alone to take his life. His ὅτι gnomic pretense, just as the one used by Deianeira, is effective. Both characters sound equally convincing in their lie.428 In an ὅτι gnomic clause in El. 988–9, Electra tells her sister Chrysothemis that it is shameful for the noble to live a disgraceful life—and the only way for Chrysothemis to avoid that kind of life is to help Electra slay Aegisthus. Moments later, Chrysothemis makes it clear to Electra that she will not comply—even though she is noble born, she is woman and has no strength. Hence, she will continue to yield to those in power. In a similar way, after Tiresias’ exit in O.T. 499–501, the old men of the Chorus use an ὅτι generalization in their song to say that the gods are wise and know the truth about mortals, and an oracle is not their equal. Thus, Tiresias cannot actually be regarded as knowing more than any man about Oedipus, the savior of the city. Yet Tiresias is right about the past of the king, and the old men are utterly wrong about the oracle’s foresight. In both these cases, an ὅτι

|| 426 See Finglass (2011) 328–9. See also Lardinois (2006) for an interesting approach to the gnomic sayings in Ajax’s deception speech. 427 The translation is by Lloyd-Jones (1994). 428 For Sophocles’ non-gnomic ὅτι and ὡς “deceptive” complement clauses, or of uncertain factuality, see the remarks and examples by Moorhouse (1982) 313–4.

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generalizing conviction is, sooner or later, proven wrong in the dramatic universe of a Sophoclean play. ὅτι is employed to enforce the provisional validity of what should have been an “immortal” saying, one which is, however, to be “overturned.” Of the same provisional nature is the ὅτι generalization in O.C. 567–8, in which Theseus tells Oedipus that since he himself is mortal, he has no greater share than Oedipus in the next day. However, Theseus, unknowingly of course, utters this ironic ὅτι generalization during what is actually Oedipus’ very last day. From the extant plays, Ant. marks the acme of this Sophoclean technique concerning honest assertions. As already noted, in this play Creon uses many ὅτι generalizations—these all are proven unsuitable and inappropriate by the exodos.429 In fact, the burial of Polynices would not have harmed the state, the guard was not bribed to bury the dead body, Antigone was by no means an inadequate wife for Haemon, showing reverence for the dead is no wasted effort, and, finally, a mortal can bring about pollution that would attract divine attention and wrath. Creon’s world collapses as his “immortal” assertions, the pillars of his ethos, are proven disastrous one by one. His good intentions, forged in the fire of what he thought to be everlasting wisdom, have cost him the lives of his son and wife. They also cut short the life of a girl who should not have died. Gnomic utterances and generalizations tied to ὡς complement clauses are rare in both Sophocles and Aeschylus.430 In Aeschylus, these complements introduce generalizations that are pragmatically presupposed background information not to be challenged. One example is when the queen in Per. 598–601 says that ‘anyone who has experience of misfortune knows that in human affairs, when one is assailed by a surge of troubles, one is apt to fear everything.’431 Sophocles’ ὡς complement generalizations, by contrast, are more complex. The most interesting example occurs in Trach. 1–3. The play opens with an ὡς gnomic utterance by Deianara: λόγος μὲν ἔστ᾿ ἀρχαῖος ἀνθρώπων φανεὶς ὡς οὐκ ἂν αἰῶν᾿ ἐκμάθοις βροτῶν, πρὶν ἂν θάνῃ τις, οὔτ᾿ εἰ χρηστὸς οὔτ᾿ εἴ τῳ κακός·

|| 429 Cf. the thorough analysis by Kitzinger (1976) 144ff. Kitzinger maintains that Creon’s generalizations is a rational form of expression, masking irrational sentiments, and, generally, ‘either [these] generalizations don’t fit the situation or the sequence of thought, or they express an opinion which, in the context of this play, is discredited. Furthermore, the values upheld by his statements are often contradicted by actions or comments later in the play.’ See p. 145. 430 Aesch. Per. 598–601, 818–20; Ag. 1619–20; Soph. Trach. 1–3; Ant. 712–13, 883–4; O.T. 44–5; Phil. 501–3. Pr. includes one such (lyric) example: 887–90. 431 The translation is by Sommerstein (2008).

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ἐγὼ δὲ τὸν ἐμόν, καὶ πρὶν εἰς Ἅιδου μολεῖν, ἔξοιδ᾿ ἔχουσα δυστυχῆ τε καὶ βαρύν… There is an ancient saying among men, once revealed to them, that you cannot understand a man’s life before he is dead, so as to know whether he has a good or bad one. But I know well, even before going to Hades, that the one I have is unfortunate.432

Deianara, recalls an “immortal” saying, popularly ascribed to Solon,433 stressing its old age, only to contrast ‘the general maxim […] with her own case: she knows thoroughly […] already that her own lot is “unfortunate and heavy” even before she comes to the end of her life.’434 However, Deianara knows nothing of the imminent, immense misfortunes that fate holds in store for her. She has already lost her husband, who is now madly in love with a young girl, and she will soon die disgraced. From the perspective of the (knowing) audience, Deianara’s rejection of this specific ὡς (common ground) generalization is exquisitely ironic. The audience understands that, even though challenged at the outset of the play by one of the main characters (and also because of that challenge), this ὡς wisdom, within one day, will determine the fate of Heracles’ family. Along these lines, mutatis mutandis, the ὡς generalization in Ant. 712–14 (Haemon’s advice to his father) is a common ground utterance that will be proved right, even though Creon seems quite unwilling to embrace it.435 The remaining ὡς generalizations in Sophocles relate to background information, pragmatically presupposed, and are not meant to be challenged—à la manière de Aeschylus. The disputed Pr. is far more Sophoclean than it is Aeschylean in the syntactic and dramatic handling of the information load of ὅτι and ὡς generalizations. The author of Pr. often marks (concluding) gnomic utterances, introduced by ὅτι or by other conjunctions (though never by ὡς), by using the micro-suspenseful technique of “Sophoclean enjambment.”436 Five out of six Zeus generalizations and

|| 432 The translation is by Lloyd-Jones (1994). 433 See Easterling (1982) 71. 434 See Easterling (1982) 72. See also Davies (1991) 55–6. 435 Creon’s own ὡς generalization in Ant. 883–4, possibly indicating that if one could in fact postpone death with wails, no dying person would ever stop lamenting, is textually problematic; see Griffith (1999) n. on these vv. If the sense is right, this ὡς generalization by Creon is to be proved, to some extent, accurate, since Antigone, even though ‘she never expresses regret for her choice of action, and never tries to save herself from execution, when the moment comes her horror and fear are intense.’ See Griffith (1999) n. on vv. 933–4. 436 See Griffith (1983) 92.

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gnomic utterances in the play will be “overturned” either in the subsequent few lines, or in the course of events.437 Only one ὅτι gnomic utterance in the whole play remains unchallenged: Pr. 104–5. In Pr. 186–7, the Titan tells the Chorus that he knows that Zeus makes justice as he pleases (τραχὺς γ᾽, οἶδ᾽ ὅτι, καὶ παρ᾽ ἑαυτῷ/ τὸ δίκαιον ἔχων), but one day his mind will be softened (188–9: μαλακογνώμων/ ἔσται ποθ᾽). Similarly, in Pr. 323–4 Oceanus tells Prometheus to stop kicking out against the goad, since he can see that the god now in power is a harsh monarch, holding power irresponsibly (ὁρῶν ὅτι/τραχὺς μόναρχος οὐδ᾽ ὑπεύθυνος κρατεῖ). In Pr. 328–9, Oceanus tells Prometheus that rash words lead to punishment (γλώσσῃ ματαίᾳ ζημία προστρίβεται). Yet Prometheus knows well that it is precisely his rash words, his secret about the marriage that will deprive Zeus of his power, that will eventually deliver him. In Pr. 377–8, Oceanus tells Prometheus that words heal a sick temper (ὀργῆς νοσούσης εἰσὶν ἰατροὶ λόγοι). Nevertheless, as Prometheus will immediately point out, the heart is softened only at the right moment, not earlier (379: ἐάν τις ἐν καιρῷ γε μαλθάσσῃ κέαρ). In Pr. 951–2, we hear Hermes telling Prometheus that Zeus is not softened (οὐχὶ μαλθακίζεται) by devious methods—in the present case by the Titan’s persistence in keeping his secret about the supreme god’s fall from power. As with the similar claims earlier in the drama, the truth would be very different if Prometheus’ prophetic knowledge (see e.g. Pr. 907–10) holds true. Only in Pr. 104-5 do we hear an actually immortal ὅτι generalization, which is never the case in Sophocles. In Pr. 104-5, the Titan, alone on stage, addressing himself—which is what makes the utterance special— declares that Necessity is unconquerable (τὸ τῆς ἀνάγκης ἔστ᾽ ἀδήριτον σθένος), and that hence it cannot be softened. The author of Pr. eclectically exploits the Sophoclean technique under discussion—but he undeniably does exploit it. He uses it for the characterization of a minor character, Oceanus; in Sophocles, the technique is tied to major characters. Moreover, he uses this technique to create a thematic pattern about the softening of the hearts of the two protagonists of his play: one absent from the stage (Zeus) and one dominating it (Prometheus). This pattern is somewhat monotonous, yet it shows exactly how the author of Pr. attempted to adapt Sophocles’ technique. In Pr., no characters use gnomic ὅτι complements in an attempt to convince others that they are telling the truth; in such cases the characters are in fact lying, as in Trach. and Aj. In Pr., no tragic figures collapse under the weight of their gnomic assertions, as in Ant. In Pr., the gnomic ὅτι complements will only be denied either instantly or in the due course of events, as in Sophocles’ El., O.T., and O.C. || 437 Pr. 186–7, 323–4, 328–9, 377–8, 951–2.

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Concerning the exploitation of gnomic ὡς generalizations in Pr., the single such—lyric—example in the drama, 887–90, is unexceptional. In this passage, the nymphs of the Chorus sing about the wise man who first suggested how excellent it is to marry within one’s own station.438 This pragmatically presupposed wisdom saying is a comment on the deplorable fate of Io, who has just left the stage. Io’s unwilling involvement with Zeus, her unsuitable “marriage” to the father of the gods, is the cause of her misery, and this very event validates the wisdom saying of the Chorus about proper marriage. As indicated above, in both Aeschylus and Sophocles one finds unchallenged pragmatically presupposed ὡς || 438 My examination of evidence from Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides shows that the observations of Huitink and Cristofaro, deriving from Greek prose about the thematic role of ὅτι complement clauses, can also apply to tragedy. ὅτι complements in tragedy introduce foreground (yet not necessarily new) information, with high communicative value. However, ὡς complement clauses are not used in Greek tragedy, as they are in Greek prose, mainly to introduce imperfect or untrue statements, or even rumors; see, in detail, Cooper (2002) § 2.65.1.3[4]. On the contrary, they are often employed to trigger pragmatic presupposition—that is, to introduce common ground information or facts that are not to be challenged. An interesting example of an unchallengeable ὡς complement clause occurs in Soph. Aj. 1026–7, where Teucer addresses his dead brother Ajax with these words: εἶδες ὡς χρόνῳ / ἔμελλέ σ᾽ Ἕκτωρ καὶ θανὼν ἀποφθίσειν; Ajax killed himself using a sword Hector gave him as a gift, and the ὡς complement here sounds like the confirmation of an inescapable fate. For the “dead killing the living” motif, see Finglass (2007) 517. Even though in some cases ὡς complements can relate to the extent of an event, and hence ὡς in this kind of clause can be accurately rendered as “how” (much, many etc.)—as in Aesch. Sev. 176, 923; Ag. 882–5, 1619–20; Ch. 987–8; Eum. 953; Soph. Trach. 142–3, 627–8, 939–40; Ant. 49–50, 316; Aj. 355, 837–8; O.T. 439; El. 596–7; Phil. 320, 501–3, 531–2, 534– 5, 1037—this sense is by no means a majority rule in tragedy. For the most part, in tragic poetry ὅτι and ὡς are both “that-” clauses. In Pr. 259–60, a noteworthy example occurs which brings together an unchallengeable ὅτι and an unchallengeable ὡς “that-” clause. The Chorus addresses Prometheus with the following words: οὐχ ὁρᾷς ὅτι / ἥμαρτες; ὡς δ᾽ ἥμαρτες οὔτ᾽ ἐμοὶ λέγειν/καθ᾽ ἡδονὴν σοί τ᾽ ἄλγος. ἀλλὰ ταῦτα μὲν/μεθῶμεν, ἄθλου δ᾽ ἔκλυσιν ζήτει τινά. The nymphs actually say the same thing twice: ‘Prometheus, you are guilty.’ The first time they indicate this with an ὅτι clause (introducing foreground information with high communicative value), which immediately becomes presupposed through an ὡς clause. Adapting Sommerstein’s (2008) translation for these lines one achieves the right nuance of meaning: ‘Don’t you see [that] you were wrong? To [(now)] say [how] [(very)] wrong you were, is no pleasure to me, and it’s painful to you.’ In the next line, the girls say, ‘let us leave this matter [(, we all know what has happened, now you should)] ponder on how you can be delivered from your torment.’ It is quite clear that the girls feel sorry for the tremendous torment Prometheus is going through, but they feel that his action to help mortals was actually wrong. They express this feeling in the ὅτι clause, and then they right away consider it presupposed for the rest of their communication with the Titan. What they actually say to Prometheus is this: ‘you were wrong—I will not now comment on how wrong you were because you are in tremendous pain—change your mind and try to get out of this horrible situation.’

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wisdom utterances. Thus, one can only suggest that there is no sign of Sophoclean influence concerning ὡς generalizations in Pr. Yet, it can be noted here that in Pr. 887–90 the author of the disputed play structurally moves away from both Aeschylus and Sophocles: ὡς generalizations do not occur in the extant work of these dramatists in lyric sections. Evidently, the author of Pr. knew the Sophoclean “tactics” concerning both ὅτι and ὡς gnomic complements, but chose to exploit only the ὅτι type, which he adapted to the needs of his play. In summary, in this section I have shown that the frequency and exploitation of mainly ὅτι complement clauses indicate a varied divergence (syntactic-dramatic) between the secure plays in the Aeschylean corpus and the disputed Pr. It is clear from the available evidence that Aeschylus was not particularly fond of either ὅτι or ὡς complement clauses; the former seem to be almost entirely foreign to his style. By contrast, the author of Pr. is fond of both ὅτι and ὡς complement clauses, and his preference for ὅτι complements is striking for an Aeschylean play. However, even more striking is the affinity between Pr. and the works of Sophocles in the use of ὅτι complement clauses. Hence, the author of Pr. is either Aeschylus, who in his late years composed a drama influenced by Sophoclean syntax, or some other playwright, one closer chronologically to Sophocles and greatly impacted by the work of the poet of Ant.

Sentence-Length and the Idiosyncratic Choral Lyrics in Pr. Sentence-length (number of words or characters (letters) per sentence), and the distribution of sentences of different length, is a textual feature, a differentiating quality, that has been widely used in the past in traditional authorship attribution studies. At the end of the 19th century, the feature is brought to the fore as the best alternative to word-length in authorship attribution. This indicator of style has been studied in favorable light by Yule and Morton, whose stylometric endeavors I have discussed earlier in some detail. Yet the scholarly reaction to sentence-length as an authorship criterion was not always positive, and, from the 1980’s on, it is employed in the main as supportive evidence in authorship studies—in combination with other indicators.439 Even though it often yields interesting results as regards authorship attribution, sentence-length is a feature of style

|| 439 This indicator has been tested in ancient Greek literature, in texts spanning the philosophical work of Plato and the treatises of Aristotle to the epistles of St Paul. For a general review of its use, see Grieve (2005) 12–18. See also Irizarry (1991); Barr (2002); Dixon/Mannion (2010); Reicher/Krišto/Belša/Šilić (2010); and Pearl/Steyvers (2012).

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that can evidently be employed to serve various highlighting purposes. Hence, modified at will by the author as it is, it can be tied to different stylistic devices. If one can indicate a noteworthy and also persistent change in an author’s previously consistent sentence-length habits, associated with some obvious highlighting, dramatic, or structural objectives, then one can speak of different sentencelength phases in this author’s career.440 If a change in an author’s consistent sentence-length habits is singular, but can be explained in terms of some stylistic objective, then one can speak of a unique case—perhaps a unique work as regards the handling of sentence-length in this author’s oeuvre. If, however, a noteworthy change in some author’s previously consistent sentence-length habits441 is singular, rather abrupt, and, most importantly, tied to no obvious highlighting, dramatic objective, then one can tentatively suggest that this is a sign that a different hand has been at work. In other words, and even though sentence-length is potentially always under the conscious, aesthetic control of the author, if a significant change in an author’s instinctively consistent sentence-length preferences cannot be justified in terms of some mostly clear highlighting effect, it can then be regarded as a possible indication of inauthenticity. Grieve (2007) put to test four metrics of sentence-length: average sentencelength in words, sentence-length distribution in words (one-, two-, three-, four-, etc. word sentences), average sentence-length in characters, and sentence-length distribution in characters. This scholar indicated that character sentence-length metrics are only slightly more accurate than word sentence-length metrics.442 With this in mind, and in order to avoid any Aeschylean device tied to wordlength affecting my results,443 I examined the average sentence-length in words, and the sentence-length distribution in words, in Pr., in the secure plays in the

|| 440 The stylistic, aesthetic use of sentence-length in a work of literature can, e.g., be tied to the “fluctuation” of sentences of different length, expressing structurally the “fluctuation” of the characters’ emotions. See Tolcsvai Nagy (1998) for the stylistic use of sentence-length by James Joyce. See also Roberts (1996) on how careful “fluctuations” of sentence-length can allow a prose author such as Joyce to achieve a poetic rhythm. Cf. Schils/de Haan (1993). Macroscopically, in language evolution, as Biber/Conrad (2009) 151–5 indicate, sentence-length is a useful indication of chronology. Some important changes in sentence-length discernible in texts that were composed in different periods (these scholars study texts written in different centuries) echo the change in the language (of a certain genre). 441 The idea behind sentence-length as a useful indicator of authorship is that the mean sentence-length in an author’s entire oeuvre is mostly consistent. 442 See Grieve (2007) 259. 443 As noted earlier, Aeschylus is famous for employing long compound words, and Podlecki (2006) 15 shows that, at least as regards compound adjectives, Pr. is totally in line with this aspect of Aeschylus’ grandiose style.

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Aeschylean corpus, and in other dramas. A crucial methodological challenge for this kind of analysis concerns the punctuation of ancient Greek texts. Since these texts do not preserve their original “punctuation,”444 it remains an open question how much does the editors’ punctuation actually corresponds to the original —to the Greek authors’ idea of meaningfully “spacing” their texts. This issue can be effectively addressed ad hoc by two “axiomatic” admissions. The first, aptly articulated by Grieve (2005) 18, is that when using sentence-length as an indicator of authorship in ancient literature, punctuated by modern editors, one is ‘analyzing a syntactically annotated corpus, and this is a common and legitimate act of textual preparation [(processing)], as long as it is done in a sensible and consistent manner.’ In other words, to punctuate an ancient Greek text is to make apparent its basic syntactic properties. One can then exploit this essential annotation, drawing various quantitative conclusions as regards the syntactic habits of individual authors—always taking into account the literary genre, the stylistic objectives of the author, etc. The second admission is obvious and particularly important: as they undoubtedly seek to reconstruct the authors’ ipsissima verba, the editors of ancient literature—in a long, cumulative, “individually collaborative” work in progress—also seek to uncover the authors’ “intention” as far as “spacing” the texts is concerned.445 Thus, this modern, “foreign” to ancient texts, ongoing, wellintentioned syntactic annotation, if applied carefully and consistently, is to be regarded not as an obstacle, but as a facilitating factor for understanding the “logistics” of composition of the texts. Among the many features he examined in his key study of traditional evidence concerning the authorship of Pr., Griffith (1977) 214–7 also considers sentence-length.446 His results show that neither average sentence-length in words, nor sentence-length distribution in words can in fact be regarded as tenable (let alone standalone) parameters that can be used to discriminate between Greek tragic authors. This scholar focused only on passages in which some speaker has at least eight consecutive lines to himself, since, he suggested, ‘the demands of dialogue necessarily restrict the length of sentences.’447 In Griffith’s analysis, the

|| 444 See n. 287 above. 445 In the next section of the present study I carry out a series of automated tests to determine if and how the authorship status of ancient Greek texts edited by different scholars is macroscopically affected by the different (and possibly bold) conjectures of these editors, or by their different views as regards punctuation. The results clearly show that there is no evidence to support such an effect. On the specific editions of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes used for the present sentence-length analysis, see, in detail, the relevant discussion in the next section. 446 Cf. Ireland (1977) 206–7. 447 See Griffith (1977) 341 n. 88.

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full stop, question mark, and semicolon all evidently determine the limits of a sentence.448 Now, taking my cue from Griffith, and using, of course, the same sentence-end markers, I re-examine sentence-length average and distribution in words in Greek drama, but on a broader scale. My approach is different from Griffith’s in that I study a few more plays, and in that I take both long speeches and dialogue parts into account—at first in order to ascertain how much the dialogue parts affect the results. The results of my semi-automated sentence-length analysis of the complete text of all fully extant plays by Aeschylus and Sophocles, six plays by Euripides, and also six by Aristophanes449 confirm, mutatis mutandis, Griffith’s results and his general conclusion: average sentence-length in words and sentence-length distribution in words (frequency of sentences of four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, etc. words) has no discriminating power as regards different authors of Greek drama. This coincidence of evidence indicates that dialogue (stichomythic) parts, counted in my analysis and left out in Griffith’s, actually do not notably affect the length of sentences in this genre—leading to a significant downswing of the average rate. The average sentence-length in my count for each of the plays examined is shown in the table below. Tab. 2: Average Sentence-Length (in words) in Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides and Aristophanes

Aeschylus

Sophocles

Euripides

Aristophanes

Per.

Sev.

Supp.

Ag.

Ch.

Eum.

Pr.

16

15

15

16

15

15

16

Aj.

Trach.

Ant.

El.

O.T.

Phil.

O.C.

15

17

16

15

16

15

15

Alc.

Med.

Hipp.

Her.

Ion

Bacch.

13

16

16

15

13

15

Kn.

Cl.

Bir.

Lys.

Fr.

Pl.

13

12

12

11

11

12

|| 448 See Griffith (1997) 341 n. 88. 449 The six (the number of the secure dramas in the Aeschylean corpus) Euripidean (Al., Med., Hipp., H.F., Ion, Bacch.) and Aristophanic (Kn., Cl., Bir., Lys., Fr., Pl.) plays were chosen here to cover the full (available) chronological career span of each of these two poets. In the analysis I used the text of West (1990) for Aeschylus, of Lloyd/Jones (1990) for Sophocles, and of Diggle (1981, 1984, 1994) for Euripides.

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The results make it clear that if sentence-length in words was the sole criterion for telling apart these Greek dramas, one could have readily ascribed a play by Aeschylus to Sophocles or Euripides, and vice versa. At first glance, it seems that the only interesting conclusion one could draw from this table as regards sentence-length in Greek drama concerns the tragicomedies of Euripides. The average sentence-length in both Alc., presented in lieu of a satyr drama in Euripides’ 438 BCE tetralogy, and Ion, a play in which humor is masterfully exploited, stands close to that of comedy—which with its shorter sentences mirrors the length of regular speech much more than tragedy does. However, when I attempted to confirm this possible “generic” tendency, calculating the average sentence-length in Cycl., an actual satyr drama, and in I.T. and Hel., plays in which Euripides also exploits patterns of humor, as he does in Ion,450 the evidence did not show such an assumption to hold. In fact, this discrepancy seems to be pointing to a chronological development in Euripides’ career. When one studies the average sentence-length in words in all Euripidean plays, it becomes clear that in some early (of his now extant) dramas, Alc., Med., Hipp., Euripides more frequently employs sentences of about 12–16 words on average. In Heracl., Andr., Hec., Suppl., Elec., and also Tr., he turns to longer sentences—of about 19 to 20 words. In his next phase, containing H.F., I.T., Hel., and Phoen., he returns to somewhat shorter sentences, of about 16–17 words, and, in his final years, composing Ion, Or., Cycl., Bacch., and I.A., he seems to again prefer using shorter sentences, of about 13–15 words on average. For this chronological categorization to work, the “modifications” to be made in the more or less established dates of the externally undatable dramas are rather legitimate. Heracl. should be dated later than Hipp. (428 BCE),451 H.F., should be dated later than Tr. (415 BCE),452 and Ion should be dated later than I.T., Hel., and Phoen.453 In other words, it is not because of some “generic” affinity that Alc. and Ion (and also Cycl.) have a low sentence-length rate, it is because they belong in similar sentence-length chronological groups—found, as a matter of fact, at the two extremes of Euripides’ extant production. Thus, this criterion provides insight into Euripidean chronology, postdating a few of the non-securely dated plays of the poet.

|| 450 For the humorous nature of Euripidean plays such as Alc., Ion, I.T., and Hel., see the bibliography provided below in n. 515. See also Martin (2018) 11–12. 451 Other evidence concerning the dating of Heracl. before or after Hipp. is fragile, to say the least. See Wilkins (1993) intr. xxxiii–xxxv. 452 See Bond (1981) intr. xxxi–xxxii. 453 See Martin (2018) 24–32 in detail for the possible date of Ion. For dating I.T. between Tr. and Hel., see Parker (2016) intr. lxxvi–lxxx. See also Mastronarde (1994) 11–14 for the date of Phoen.

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Even though average sentence-length and sentence-length distribution in words is telling as regards some aspects of chronology in Greek tragedy, as far as authorship issues are concerned it is evidently inconclusive. However, this is the case only when one studies the full-length dramas. For the first time, I attempted here a sentence-length analysis not of whole plays, but of “structural varieties” derived from the plays. That is, I studied, through a semi-automated process, sentence-length separately in dialogue (iambic and trochaic) and lyric parts454 of each drama in the Aeschylean corpus. Whereas the conclusion of the analysis of the dialogue parts was by and large similar to that of the full-text analysis, in other words no discriminating evidence emerged, the results concerning the lyric parts were rewarding. To begin with, the shortness of the lyric parts in Pr. is one of the most apparent points of divergence between Pr. and the secure plays in the corpus, and, as noted earlier, it was tied to the authenticity question from early on.455 The study of sentence-length seems to shed new light in this divergence. In his secure plays Aeschylus composes long lyric choral pieces consisting of about 16– 30 sentences. Most of these sentences range from 10 to 20 words, while there is also a lesser but significant number of sentences ranging from 3 to 10 words. There are few sentences of more than 20 words—and only rarely does οne find sentences of more than 25 words. For instance, in the lyric part of the parodos of Per. (vv. 65–139) there are 17 sentences, of which only two are of more than 20 words (23, 24). In the first stasimon of the same play (vv. 532–97), consisting of 14 sentences, only one is of more than 20 words (24). In Sev. the parodos (vv. 78– 181) consists of 28 sentences, while the first stasimon (vv. 287–368) of 20. Of these 48 sentences in both lyric pieces only two are longer than 20 words (30, 31). Of the 24 sentences of the first stasimon in Supp. (vv. 524–599) only three are of more than 20 words (one of 24 and two of 28). The lyric part of the parodos (vv. 104– 257) and first stasimon (vv. 367–488) of the long Ag. consist of 43 sentences each, and only five in the former and four in the latter are of more than 20 words. The first stasimon in Ch. (vv. 585–652) consists of 19 sentences and the parodos (vv. 22–83) of 18. Of these 37 sentences, only four (two in each piece) are of more than 20 words. In the 34 sentences in the parodos (vv. 149–178) and first stasimon (vv. 321–396) in Eum. there are only two of more than 20 words (both in the second || 454 Only full-scale choral odes are examined here. The structurally intricate lyric pieces sung by actors (monodies, kommoi, and amoibaia) are excluded. 455 See n. 79 above. Griffith (1977) 123–6 aptly indicates that the scarcity (shortness) of choral lyrics in Pr. is not the result of dramatic necessity. The structural peculiarities as regards the lyric parts in Pr. are not confined to its choral odes. Pr. is the only play in the Aeschylean corpus to have a lyric/anapaestic-dialogue parodos (vv. 128–92), and also (lyric) monodies (vv. 114–9, 561– 608).

140 | Quantitative Style in Pr.

piece). All three stasima of Pr.—for the parodos is a lyric dialogue and thus it cannot yield any useful results in this analysis—consist only of 27 sentences: that is, one less than the parodos of Sev. and 16 less than the parodos or the first stasimon of Ag. Of these 27 lyric sentences in the disputed play, seven are notably long: of 46, 34, 32, 28 words, etc. For instance, the last three sentences of the first stasimon are of 46, 23, and 28 words, respectively. These overall numbers in Pr. are, strangely, mutatis mutandis, comparable only to the lyric part of the parodos of Supp. This piece has 33 sentences, six more than Pr. as a whole, seven of which are rather long: of 45, 28, 24 words, etc. The average sentence-length of lyric sentences in the secure plays of Aeschylus is as follows: Per. 15.982, Sev. 14.181, Supp. 15.283, Ag. 15.982, Ch. 15.677, Eum. 15.238. The average sentence-length of lyric sentences in Pr. is 20.133 words. A t-test carried out on these numbers (parametric test: the data follow a normal distribution)456 has shown that the deviation between the Aeschylean average and that in Pr. is statistically significant: the probability that this has occurred by chance is 0.001%.457 When I removed the lyricdialogue parodos from the analysis (vv. 128–192) and recalculated the average sentence-length in Pr., the number that emerged, 20.285, was slightly higher than the average sentence-length for all lyric choral parts of the disputed play. Taking into account all of the above, one can say that whereas Aeschylus had tendency to favor long choral odes consisting of many sentences, he had no particular inclination toward long sentences. On the contrary, the author of Pr. seems to enjoy introducing very long sentences into his short choral odes (at least two in each lyric piece). Moreover, and most importantly, there seems to be no specific dramatic objective tied to a possible change in the (lyric) sentence-length habits of Aeschylus in Pr. Hence, the divergence under discussion is an additional reason to suggest that the structuring technique of the choral odes in Pr.— the “mathematics” of their length—is un-Aeschylean.458 If one were inclined to

|| 456 For t-test (test of statistical significance), see, concisely, the entry by Prescott (2006) and that by Read (2006b) in the Encyclopedia of Statistical Sciences, and, in detail, Reid (2014) chap. 10. See also Craig/Greatley-Hirsch (2017) 50–2. 457 Statistically significant is the likelihood that a relationship between two or more variables is caused by something other than chance. Statistical hypothesis testing is used to determine whether the result concerning a dataset is statistically significant. This test provides a p-value, representing the probability that random chance could explain the result. The result is statistically significant when p