The Past in Aeschylus and Sophocles 9783110257564, 9783110257526

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Poulheria Kyriakou The Past in Aeschylus and Sophocles

Trends in Classics – Supplementary Volumes Edited by Franco Montanari and Antonios Rengakos Scientific Committee Alberto Bernabé · Margarethe Billerbeck · Claude Calame Philip R. Hardie · Stephen J. Harrison · Stephen Hinds Richard Hunter · Christina Kraus · Giuseppe Mastromarco Gregory Nagy · Theodore D. Papanghelis · Giusto Picone Kurt Raaflaub · Bernhard Zimmermann

Volume 11

De Gruyter

The Past in Aeschylus and Sophocles by Poulheria Kyriakou

De Gruyter

ISBN 978-3-11-025752-6 e-ISBN 978-3-11-025756-4 ISSN 1868-4785 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Kyriakou, Poulheria. The past in Aeschylus and Sophocles / by Poulheria Kyriakou. p. cm. – (Trends in classics – supplementary volumes) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-3-11-025752-6 (hardcover : acid-free paper) 1. Aeschylus – Characters. 2. Sophocles – Characters. 3. Characters and characteristics in literature. I. Title. PA3829.K96 2011 882’.01—dc22 2011009922

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de. © 2011 Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/Boston Typesetting: Apex CoVantage Logo: Christopher Schneider, Laufen Printing: Hubert & Co. GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen Printed on acid-free paper Printed in Germany www.degruyter.com

For Theokritos κοινὰ δ’ ἔχειν τε καὶ μέλλειν

Acknowledgments It is a pleasure to acknowledge the debts I have incurred during the preparation of this book. Patrick Finglass and Daniel Jacob, who read the typescript as referees, waived their anonymity for the sake of more efficient communication. They saved me from several mistakes of various kinds and made many judicious comments and insightful suggestions. I am very grateful for their assistance. Patrick also generously sent me the typescript of his major forthcoming commentary on Ajax. Although I received it too late to be able to use it extensively and modify my discussion accordingly, it has offered valuable help, and I was gratified to see that we agree on important issues. Several former and current students as well as friends and colleagues did not begrudge the time it took them to procure bibliographical items and read parts of the typescript. Most often I relied on the truly exceptional helpfulness of Alexandros Kampakoglou. I also wish to thank for their help Stavros Frangoulidis, Theophilos Kyriakidis, Nikos Miltsios, Agapi Stefanidou, and Yannis Tzifopoulos. Many thanks are due to the staff of Walter de Gruyter for their great efficiency, and especially to the editors of Trends in Classics Franco Montanari and Antonios Rengakos for accepting the book in the series. On many and diverse occasions, Antonios also unstintingly provided welcome advice, encouragement, support, and entertainment. A loyal friend, he has been willing to graciously remember and forget what I wished him to. As always, my husband and colleague Theokritos Kouremenos has shown himself the most generous friend, supporter and helper. Apart from sacrificing much in order to look after me throughout with affection and vigilant care, he readily put aside his own pursuits and devoted much time and effort to reading the typescript several times, correcting errors, sharing his knowledge and insights, making suggestions, and criticizing my arguments. Knowing well that my resources are poor and I cannot adequately return his kindness, I at least fully acknowledge it, and dedicate this book to him, for past, present, and, hopefully, future.

Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A.

Aeschylus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 I. II. III. IV. V.

B.

1

Persae . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Septem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Supplices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Agamemnon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Choephori and Eumenides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . .

17 37 65 89 143

Sophocles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185 VI. VII. VIII. IX. X. XI.

. . . . . .

187 241 315 371 433 471

Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Appendices. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bibliography. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Index of passages. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Index of names and subjects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

507 517 543 559 591

Ajax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Philoctetes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Electra . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Trachiniae . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Oedipus Tyrannus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Oedipus Coloneus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Introduction In Greek tragedy time is associated with changes that often take the form of shattering revelations. Several characters, such as the Sophoclean Ajax, Deianeira, or Heracles, wish and attempt to undo some of these changes. In effect, they try to freeze time, by creating or perpetuating a certain state of affairs that approximates as much as possible a past state they view as most honorable, and thus advantageous to, or worthy of, themselves. Others, such as Xerxes in Aeschylus’ Persae, or members of the Atreid family in all tragedians, try to effect changes themselves, by correcting actual or perceived wrongs and fixing actual or perceived problems, in order to secure a similar benefit. Such attempts of the characters are most often shaped in connection with (their view of ) not only their personal but also their familial and/or communal past. Despite the prominence of the theme of the past in tragedy, which offers the playwrights considerable latitude for variation, to my knowledge no study devoted exclusively to the topic has been undertaken so far, although it has been discussed to varying extents in the framework of more general critical works. Obviously, the present study aims to fill this gap only partially, since, for reasons of size and economy, it leaves out Euripides. The past pervades, and may be said to define, Greek tragedy, as indeed most of Greek poetry, on a fundamental level. Like epic and much of lyric, tragedy draws its subject matter mainly from the repository of stories about heroes of old, which had already been treated, often several times, in the poetic tradition. Of the very few, albeit intriguing, exceptions, only Aeschylus’ Persae survives. The rest of the extant plays may be viewed as contributions to a complex poetic exploration of traditional stories, in a process that extended far back into the past and would, notionally at least, continue into the future. Regrettably, since very little of the long and rich legacy on which the tragedians could draw upon has survived, the vagaries of transmission restrict the range and probably the accuracy of critical discussions. Detection and appreciation of the debts of tragedians to their predecessors are mostly matters of educated guess for scholars. Often, it is virtually impossible to know, and fruitless to try to guess, the kind or range of innovations a tragedian introduced into his treatment of the old myths, or if, and to

2

Introduction

what extent, the work of predecessors significantly influenced the shaping of his own. Even when the work of a predecessor or two has survived and is considered an important model for a poet and his audience, certainty is difficult to attain. Given the paucity of available material, an obvious example to take is the treatment of the myth of Agamemnon’s family in the surviving works of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. Since Aeschylus’ Oresteia is a monumental, masterly trilogy, modern scholars as well as spectators and readers take it practically for granted that Sophocles, Euripides and their audience would take it very seriously into account. In fact, there is no clear evidence about, no way of knowing, and little benefit in trying to guess, their attitude toward the Oresteia. The present study will deal only tangentially with the links of the plays of Aeschylus and Sophocles to the poetic past, for two reasons. The first is the paucity of evidence just mentioned. The second is the fact that, despite, or rather because of, this paucity, several worthy laborers have already tilled the field of possible associations and comparisons between extant texts. The attempts of the Homeric Andromache and the Sophoclean Tecmessa to dissuade their men, the fathers of their only children, from going to their deaths have been adequately scrutinized. Similarly, the laments of Electra for her father, and the matricide of Orestes, which attracted the Furies (or not), have been meticulously studied in all their extant variations. The primary goal of this monograph is to examine the import of the past within the surviving plays of Aeschylus and Sophocles and determine whether the treatment of the past differs within the work of each poet and between them. The past is defined as the time of events that precede those dramatized in the plays. For instance, in Sophocles’ O T, Oedipus’ dispatching of Creon to Delphi belongs to the past, but not Creon’s report of the oracle to Oedipus and the suppliants. The characters’ view of themselves (and others) and their view of the past, which informs their all-important decisions and (re)actions, are in a continuous, complex feedback relationship. Most characters harbor an idea of the past that is for all intents and purposes fixed. On the other hand, the decisions, actions, and especially the (perceived) freedom of choice of characters often bear on the interpretation, and thus on the impact, of prior events, which is often reviewed, reconsidered, and, sometimes, consciously manipulated. Since I do not aspire to offer new insights to the discussion of freedom of choice in the tragedy of Aeschylus and Sophocles, I will not enter it in this book. Nevertheless, for the sake of clarity, a word about this notoriously complicated issue is in order. Without doubt, if the characters have

Introduction

3

no or little freedom of choice, any study of their decisions, actions, and the way these are connected to the past can only be a study of illusion or selfdelusion. This view is not as implausible as might seem at first sight, but I do not find it convincing, since the evidence from the plays does not credibly support it. Next I will outline the main problems by way of some examples, which indicate that the freedom of choice of the characters is occasionally more extensive than is usually thought to be. Paradoxically, this is the case when divinely backed pronouncements such as curses and oracles come to be fulfilled. In extant tragedy, the question of Agamemnon’s freedom of choice at Aulis and especially the consequences of the sacrifice of his daughter Iphigeneia conspicuously exemplify the complexities of the issue under discussion. If Agamemnon was free to kill or spare the girl, as his wife and murderer Clytaemestra believes, how should one view the position of the other characters toward Clytaemestra? Are they wrong to ignore her claims to retaliatory justice, and to consider and punish her crime as morally repugnant? If Agamemnon did not act freely, as the Sophoclean Electra argues, is Clytaemestra’s confidence in the justice of, and even her freedom of choice in, her revenge a pathetic illusion or self-delusion? Was she, like her husband, just an instrument of hostile divinities in charge of internecine talio, a mere link in a chain of family murders, the moral background of which is difficult to determine in both the human and the divine spheres? In a similar vein, was the decision of the Aeschylean Eteocles to face his brother at the seventh gate of Thebes predetermined by the curse of Oedipus on his sons, or was it a free decision, fixing coordinates for the fulfillment of the curse that had not been specified when it was pronounced? More intriguingly, perhaps, did the decision of the Sophoclean Heracles to send Iole to his home as his live-in concubine, and especially the decision of his wife Deianeira to use the charm of Nessus to win Heracles back, fix the outcome of the oracle of Zeus to Heracles, delivered years ago at Dodona? It is not certain that the oracle was formulated disjunctively, predicting release from labors or death for Heracles at the end of fifteen months after he had left home for the last time. It is possible that it predicted only release from labors. In any case, given the condition of Heracles after the gift Deianeira sent him, the characters realize that his release from labors could only be achieved in death. However, it is not absolutely clear that the oracle of Zeus predicted a pre-determined event, which would take place irrespective of the choices of the mortals involved. As I will argue in the chapter on Trachiniae, Sophocles presents Deianeira as a person who did have the intellectual and emotional wherewithal

4

Introduction

to avoid the disaster she brings on herself and her family. If one takes into account the formulation of the oracle, especially in its disjunctive version, it is difficult to shake off the suspicion that things could have turned out differently for the couple and their family, at least for a while after the timeframe specified in the oracle. If Heracles had not sent Iole to his home, and especially if Deianeira had not decided to react as she did, blinded by her desires and unable to retain her customary restraint, Heracles might have enjoyed his release from labors in a peaceful life, at least for a while, instead of finding it in a terrible death. Nor was the older oracle of Zeus to Heracles, which predicted that he would die at the hands of no living being but an inhabitant of Hades, more deterministic, as it did not in any way specify Nessus and his charm, or even intentional killing. It cannot be ruled out on the basis of that oracle that Heracles would be killed accidentally, for instance by a weapon that had formerly belonged to a man who would be dead at the time of the hero’s demise. Alternatively, there were many inhabitants of Hades who would have an interest in taking revenge on Heracles by killing him. The list of his victims was long, and among the latest entries were the male members of Iole’s family. It cannot be ruled out on the basis of either oracle delivered to Heracles that one of his victims, for instance Iole’s brother Iphitus or her father Eurytus, would have managed to engineer his death. Had Nessus failed to use Deianeira as the instrument of his revenge, Eurytus, for instance, might have succeeded in using Iole for the same purpose. Conceivably, such a plan would have materialized a while after the end of Heracles’ labors, and he would have enjoyed a period of peaceful retirement with his family. Other oracles that did not predict an event destined to take place in predetermined time and by predetermined agency are those mentioned by the ghost of Darius in Aeschylus’ Persae. Since Darius had thought that the oracles would be fulfilled in the remoter future and comes to believe that the impious rashness of Xerxes was the cause of the Salamis disaster, the timeframe of the fulfillment of the oracles was not predetermined. Again, as in the case of the old oracle delivered to Heracles in Trachiniae, Darius’ prediction of the Plataea disaster does not necessarily imply that the oracles contained specifications he did not mention in his first reference to them. He says that he infers the future calamity from the recent disaster at Salamis, which indicates that the fulfillment of the oracles has begun. Darius asserts that the process is irreversible and will thus be completed in the time of Xerxes’ current expedition against Greece, which has been marred by the impiety of the leader and his army. It is then unlikely that the oracles

Introduction

5

contained specifications that could have provided the recipient with clues as to the circumstances of their fulfillment. Alternatively, even if the oracles predicted the loss of a Persian army in Boeotia, this prediction would not necessarily include a timeframe. If so, Xerxes’ actions fixed the fulfillment of the oracles, although, according to Darius, the gods aided and abetted his son’s folly, as they commonly do. In Oedipus Coloneus, moreover, the part of Apollo’s oracle to Oedipus that pertains to the end of his life does not seem to exclude freedom of choice on the part of the recipient. This oracle predicted that Oedipus would reach the end of his troubled life at a grove of august goddesses, benefiting his hosts and harming his banishers. It did not indicate where, or when exactly, it would be fulfilled. At the beginning of the play, Oedipus is a long-suffering old man, but this does not automatically entail that he is about to die. His arrival at a grove of dread goddesses is an indication that he is, and he interprets it as such, although his transition can apparently proceed as predicted only if he manages, with the help of the goddesses to whom he prays, to convince the locals to grant him asylum. This does not turn out to be a problem, but the play contains a twist that foregrounds Oedipus’ freedom of choice. Because of another Delphic oracle received fairly recently by the Thebans, which said that their wellbeing depended on Oedipus, alive or dead, the Thebans send Creon on a mission to persuade the exile to return home to Thebes. The plot proceeds by means of many other twists and turns, such as the arrival of Ismene with the goal of informing her father about the situation at home, but the most important is that Oedipus has the choice of remaining in Athens or returning to Thebes. Since the old Delphic oracle did not specify his last destination, the land in which he would meet his end could be any one that would host him last and had a precinct of august goddesses such as the Eumenides or, for instance, Demeter and Persephone. Of course, the Thebans had exiled Oedipus, and the Athenians eventually agree to host him. However, at the beginning of the play, when he prays to the Eumenides at Colonus, the Athenians have not granted him asylum yet. For their part, the Thebans are poised to ask him to return home, although he does not know that yet, and their offer will be unsatisfactory, and its presentation fraudulent. In any case, Oedipus makes his decision before learning the verdict on his petition for asylum in Athens. The Athenians, the Thebans, and especially Oedipus himself are apparently free to make choices that seem to fix the fulfillment of divine mandates. No divine or human external constraint prevents them from making different choices that would result in Oedipus’ return to Thebes, blessings

6

Introduction

for it and harm for Athens, as Athens would be the last city to exile and Thebes the last to host him. Despite such remarkable indications, there is little doubt that no single answer or formula can be found that may cover all cases, or issues raised by the study, of freedom of choice in tragedy. It certainly cannot be ruled out that the events predicted in oracles were actually predetermined: the gods did not provide specifications, but that does not automatically mean that the mortals involved were free to determine the way the oracles would be fulfilled. Greek tragedians, and other Greek poets, did not care to address issues such as divine knowledge and determinism except through ambiguous hints. Concerning human freedom of choice, they mostly eschewed the presentation of characters completely lacking it. This is the freedom of choice that results from the lack of external – in the context of tragedy, mainly divine – constraint, operating at a specific moment against the will of the individual targeted. In most cases, divine will operates through the impulses or considerations of the humans involved in its realization, whether they realize and acknowledge it or not, and irrespective of the degree of specificity of relevant divine predictions such as oracles. To return to the examples considered at the beginning, in Aeschylus’ Oresteia, the capture of Troy as punishment for the transgression of Paris seems to be the will of Zeus Xenios. Nevertheless, the sacrifice of Iphigeneia does not seem to be a corollary of the realization of this will. Aeschylus does not indicate that Zeus forces Agamemnon to sacrifice his daughter so that the punitive expedition may take place. If Agamemnon had chosen to spare Iphigeneia, the will of Zeus would presumably have been accomplished in some other manner, although this potentiality is not addressed in the trilogy. Of Labdacid plays, the curse of Oedipus on his sons in Aeschylus’ Septem, which condemned them to divide their inheritance by the sword, is bound to lead them to fratricidal conflict. Eteocles (and Polyneices) freely decided to bring forward, or certainly not to try to postpone, their inevitable confrontation and commit mutual fratricide on the field of honor. There also does not appear to be any possibility that Oedipus in Sophocles’ OT could have spared his father. In parricide (and incest) Oedipus had no choice. He did try to avoid his crimes but had no chance of success. Still, the specific time, place, and manner of death of his father Laius were determined by Oedipus’ impulses, to go into self-imposed exile from Corinth and to react violently to Laius’ road-rage. The fated crime of parricide took place as it did because Oedipus and Laius were the men they were: intelligent

Introduction

7

and confident, or impulsive and foolish, to the point of trying to thwart the fulfillment of oracles, as well as haughty and ruthless to the point of not hesitating to attack stranger travelers on a public road. Such speculations cannot count as a comprehensive solution to the problem of free will in the tragedy of Aeschylus and Sophocles, especially from the perspective of innate moral determinism. Divine will or fate may operate through human choices, whether impulsive or considered, as e.g. the actions and reactions of Laius and Oedipus in O T indicate, but are these choices truly voluntary or controllable? To take the example of Agamemnon’s family again, did Agamemnon and especially Clytaemestra have full control over their decisions to commit their crimes? It is possible that Iphigeneia’s sacrifice was not fated, either as a necessary prerequisite for the punishment of Troy or as punishment for the slaughter of Thyestes’ children. Even so, would, and ultimately could, Agamemnon have chosen to spare his daughter, being the man Aeschylus and the other tragedians represented him to be, eager to undertake the expedition for various reasons, personal and familial? In a similar vein, it is not clear that the gods in charge of internecine talio such as the Pleisthenid daemon in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon used Clytaemestra as their instrument. Still, assuming that they did not, would she have spared her husband, being the woman the poet represented her to be, eager to punish him for the perceived wrongs he had inflicted on her and to acquire the dominant position she apparently craved in her family and city? The possibility that some characters were born criminals or victims complicates the question of tragic freedom of choice, but only or mainly as far as modern audiences and scholars are concerned. The characters of Aeschylus and Sophocles, and conceivably the tragedians themselves, are not preoccupied with the problem of innate determinism. It is true that the values and principles of many characters, especially Sophoclean heroes such as Ajax or Electra but also Aeschylean ones such as Eteocles, do seem to leave little room for flexibility in moral choices. As a character’s system of values is largely determined by his or her inborn qualities, or physis, his or her choices may be thought to be presented as innately determined. On the other hand, as the cases of the young Neoptolemus in Philoctetes and even the mature Deianeira in Trachiniae show, such determinism is not portrayed as inescapably rigid: it may be weakened or overruled under the influence of others or one’s own impulses. In any case, in extant Greek tragedy agents are never absolved of moral responsibility for their crimes and are judged and punished on the basis of this responsibility. To remain with the example of Agamemnon’s family,

8

Introduction

Orestes and Electra believe that their mother killed their father because she was an immoral wife and mother, prone to adultery, material acquisitiveness, and indifference toward her children. Neither they nor the choruses or the minor characters ever entertain the possibility that her moral constitution did not allow her to act differently, namely to resist her lewd impulses and spare Agamemnon, or at least to eschew her association with Aegisthus and disfranchisement of her children. They never say or imply that she did not really have a choice in acting as she did because the gods had made her immoral, or her heart or seat of intelligence consisted of a particular arrangement of atoms, for instance. Thus her children punish her not only because she committed crimes that should be punished irrespective of her motives and freedom of choice but also, and, as far as their emotions are concerned, primarily, because she yielded to criminal impulses which she should and could have resisted. Given that the characters of Aeschylus and Sophocles believe that there is freedom of choice, at least with regard to moral responsibility for crimes, this study will focus on the role of the past in their decisions, actions and view of themselves and others, as already indicated. I will examine whether different characters or groups have different or evolving views of the past and, if so, to what extent and how this difference and evolution may be accounted for. Apart from minor characters such as messengers and attendants, choruses are the most obvious candidates for the expression of divergent views, as they are often different from the main character(s) in age, sex, and social status. Their involvement in the travails of the principal(s) may be heavy or indirect. In general, primarily in Sophoclean plays, closer ties of choruses to principals do not result in greater engagement of choruses with the past, which may provide better insights into its relationship to present and future. On the other hand, the lyrical vehicle of expression provides several choruses, especially Aeschylean ones, with the opportunity to probe the past in ways rarely open to principals. Unlike the latter, choruses may consider, sometimes repeatedly, the remote past as a foil to the dramatic present. The distinction between recent and remote past is not particularly prominent in the works studied in this book. The most significant but partial exception is Aeschylus’ Oresteia, the only extant trilogy. Agamemnon includes several reviews of the recent and the remoter past, in various registers. In the last two plays of the trilogy, which dramatize the punishment of Agamemnon’s killers and its consequences, the focus shifts to, and stays almost exclusively on, the latest misfortunes. I will argue in the relevant chapters that this shift is due to the structural requirements of the

Introduction

9

trilogy and Aeschylus’ choices in the portrayal of different characters. It is likely that other trilogies handled the past in a similar manner. The characters in virtually all extant plays do have to come to grips with the past, whether remote or recent, personal/familial or communal, or both. This may include prophecies difficult to fulfill, in emotional or practical terms, such as that of Calchas in Agamemnon or Helenus in Philoctetes, and ambiguous or open-ended oracles such as those delivered by Zeus to Heracles in Trachiniae. The challenging and largely inscrutable backdrop against which the characters need to make their decisions and act turns darker and harder to negotiate when it includes a (family) curse or inherited guilt. There are also many innocent sufferers in tragedy, but great suffering due to past wrongs or misfortunes is likely to have a corrosive effect on morale and, more often and troublingly, on morality. In Aeschylus’ Choephori Electra is initially unsure of what she should do and afraid that the stranger who claims to be her brother may wish to mock her misfortunes. In the kommos, she shows a more determined and ruthless aspect, which may be associated with the mistreatment she suffered after the murder of her father and her recollection of it. In Sophocles’ Electra Agamemnon’s daughters not only suffer much at the hands of their mother and stepfather but also disagree on the appropriate mode of conduct toward the hated couple. The feistier Electra oversteps, even by her own admission, the limits of proper behavior. At the end of the play, she urges the desecration of Aegisthus’ body. The more timid Chrysothemis is resigned to her harsh fate, cowering before the couple and berating Electra. When the false news of Orestes’ death arrives, she loses all hope for the future and refuses to support her sister, failing to offer even a word of praise or sympathy. As already suggested, the beliefs, decisions, and (re)actions of the characters are often mediated through their view of the past or their (re)vision(s) of it. The shaping of their view of themselves and others as responsible agents with free will and (un)worthy members of a family and/or community owes much to this process of examining the past and (re)constructing a narrative of it. On the other hand, the characters’ conception of themselves and others and their perception of the obligation to (re)act in specific ways influence their (re)construction and narrative of the past, or their occasional failure to provide such a narrative. Often, this ultimately impacts on their future as well as the future of others. Sophocles’ OC provides a gripping illustration of the manner in which a character’s views of past and present influence each other, with farreaching consequences. Oedipus decides to reject the entreaties of his male

10

Introduction

kinsmen because he holds them responsible for his exile and plight in it. His hatred of them apparently influences his view of past events, and this view nourishes his hatred and inflexibility, leading him to choose to ask for asylum and stay in Athens. Less prominently, but in a similar vein, in Aeschylus’ Oresteia the children of Agamemnon and Clytaemestra cherish their father and deplore his ignominious murder, the defining event in their lives. They view themselves as his disfranchised heirs, who have been subjected to various sorts of abuse by their murderous mother and stepfather: the children need to punish the guilty couple in order to restore their status and house. Their concentration on the murder of their father, the guilt of their mother, and their own sufferings naturally makes them view their father as entirely blameless and their mother as the incarnation of evil, a shameless adulteress, unworthy mother, and greedy usurper. This may not be unexpected, but their failure to consider, or even to mention, the plight of their sister Iphigeneia, with the exception of a single, passing reference by Electra in Choephori (242), is remarkable, and difficult to account for only in terms of their attitude to their parents. For Orestes and Electra, Iphigeneia apparently died too long ago to matter much anymore. They care little to go over the circumstances of her sacrifice, and much less to probe its connections with their troubles: her victimization seems to pale in comparison with the murder of their father and especially their own grievances. As pointed out above, they view themselves as the victims of their mother’s immorality. They never entertain the possibility that she had any other motives for murdering their father, not even in order to dismiss her claims. Moreover, because of their preoccupation with their own sufferings, they fail to take into account not only their sister’s sacrifice, the most glaring omission, but also the rest of their family’s internecine past, not to mention the moral problems of the Trojan war. The Sophoclean Ajax too defines himself through the past, his valiant achievements and especially those of his father Telamon. Viewing himself as the best warrior deserving the highest rewards for his prowess, Ajax fails to acknowledge even Achilles’ fighting superiority. He also fails to consider the possibility that Telamon may not repudiate him for the failing to win Achilles’ arms, or to take revenge for this failure, but for ignoring his advice and insulting the gods. Philoctetes, a hero very similar to Ajax in his intransigence, hates profoundly the Atreids and Odysseus, whom he considers responsible for his abandonment on Lemnos. This hatred makes him behave unjustly toward his new friend Neoptolemus. It also has led him to form an idealized, distorted view of various comrades he regards as

Introduction

11

honorable. Because of his self-conception as an innocent and noble victim of despicable men, who wronged him grievously in the past, he divides the world in black and white, in utter villains and heroic paragons of nobility. This unconsidered dichotomy renders him incapable of reaching a sober and just verdict on the role of the honorable comrades in his abandonment and their share of responsibility for his plight. Despite this deficiency, Philoctetes has a consistent view of his past, and thus of his present and future. For all the flaws of the narrative he constructs on the basis of this view, he is eloquent and eventually manages to convince the young Neoptolemus to do his bidding without regard for the grave problems it involves. Philoctetes’ enemy Odysseus fails to offer an alternative narrative of the past and thus fails completely to sway Neoptolemus. Although the mission of Odysseus has divine backing and is meant to serve the common good, his apparent inability to deal with, or indifference toward, the past dooms him to failure. The mission is saved at the last moment with the intervention of the immortalized Heracles ex machina, who offers a narrative that associates Philoctetes’ past with his own. His divine credentials and goodwill toward his addressees notwithstanding, Heracles also deals with the past in a manner reminiscent of Philoctetes’ unconsidered view of it. As they strive to secure a future they deem and project as morally just for themselves and others, the human characters become involved in a complex process of integrating past and present, and often future. This integration meets with mixed success, as seams and cracks are almost invariably visible. The Aeschylean Danaids, who flee from Egypt to Argos to avoid the unwanted marriage with their cousins, the sons of their uncle Aegyptus, view themselves as very similar to Io, to whom they trace their descent. In the narrative they construct, the persecution and peregrinations of Io in the remote past prefigure their own troubles, and they hope to be delivered as she was. Since they vehemently reject marriage, their equation with Io can only be made at the cost of downplaying Io’s sexual relationship with Zeus. Deianeira and Heracles in Trachiniae wish to perpetuate their past and present in the future, although they are faced with irrevocable changes. Deianeira wishes to continue being the only consort in Heracles’ house, although she is past her prime, and Heracles has taken Iole as his live-in concubine. Heracles is not willing to release his sexual control over Iole even when he is dead. To fulfill their wishes, both spouses need to negotiate the assistance of helpers, with disastrous results. Against her better judgment, disregarding her knowledge and insights, Deianeira turns to the

12

Introduction

instructions of Nessus, her old would-be ravisher and Heracles’ victim. She soon ends up killing her cherished husband and committing suicide alone and repudiated by her family, before the tragic truth comes out. Heracles forces his son Hyllus to promise to take his place in the bed of Iole. The boy is devastated, but his father is only concerned with securing his vicarious enjoyment of Iole, the last and fatal object of his sexual desire. Irrespective of the power of their intellect or emotions, the methods they use to achieve their ends, and the consequences of their actions, virtually all Aeschylean and Sophoclean main characters scrutinize the past. However, Sophocles’ characters seem to have a greater attachment to it. This may be an accident of transmission and is to an extent counterbalanced by the greater preoccupation of Aeschylean choruses with the past. Nevertheless, I will argue in this study that, because of the feedback between the self-conception of the characters and their conception of the past, no character or play reaches a clear and comprehensive view of the past, and this failure forms a substantial part of the tragic condition as dramatized by Aeschylus and Sophocles. I will not discuss Prometheus Vinctus because I am fairly satisfied by the arguments of those who do not consider it a work of Aeschylus, at least in its present form. I will also omit Sophocles’ Antigone because the conflict over the burial of Polyneices, primarily the decision of Antigone to bury him in defiance of the prohibition and intransigence of Creon, is not directly linked to the terrible past of the Labdacid family. The play leaves little doubt that Antigone, a true daughter of her father, would proceed to bury her brother even if things were different within her family. Although the misfortunes of the family may play a role in her decision, this is motivated mainly by moral/religious concerns, which make her ignore even her engagement to Haemon and their future. On the other side, the decision of Creon to prohibit the burial of Polyneices and desecrate his body is taken on the basis of Polyneices’ sacrilegious attack on his home city, but the play focuses instead on Creon’s dealing with Antigone and her supporters, real or imagined, and this is not significantly determined by past events. For the rest, I discuss Aeschylus’ plays in chronological order. This choice provides a convenient or conventional manner of classifying the plays because I have not observed any linear development in the treatment of the past from earlier to later plays. The chronology of most Sophoclean plays is not certain. I begin with Ajax, which is usually

Introduction

13

considered a fairly early, if not the earliest, surviving work, but I continue with the late Philoctetes (409 BC), as the two plays share several themes. Most important for my purposes, they stress the defining influence of the past on the decision the heroes have to make in the face of a loathsome situation and after suffering deception due to divine or human intervention. Electra and Trachiniae are discussed in the order of the OCT edition, with no implication that this was the actual order of their composition or performance. I also discuss O T before the posthumously produced OC. These plays are not as closely interrelated as Ajax and Philoctetes, but the figure of Oedipus as the main hero in both makes at least an association of order almost inevitable.

A. AESCHYLUS

I. Persae 1. Beginning at the end To modern audiences, Persae has two important distinctions: it is the earliest surviving tragedy (472 BC) and the only extant one with historical subject matter, the Persian reception of the news of the Salamis catastrophe of 480 BC and the return home of the defeated king Xerxes. Obviously, only the choice of historical subject matter was relevant to the original audience, and this perhaps only to the extent that the play dealt with a quite recent naval battle, which many among the spectators, their families and friends had experienced as combatants or civilians. Since the modern concept of myth was not self-evidently shared by the Greeks, they did not necessarily doubt the historicity of figures and events now viewed as mythical, although they did disagree on specifics. In this light, tragedies with “mythical” and “historical” subjects would not be very sharply differentiated, despite the fact that recent history provided the plots for very few tragedies.1 Persae has given rise to several scholarly debates, over its value as a historical source, especially in relation to Herodotus’ account of the battle of Salamis, its possible political or propagandistic goals, and its contribution to the fashioning of Athenian/Greek self-perception and Athenian civic/imperial ideology.2 Such debates fall mostly outside the scope of this study. I will discuss briefly at the end the over-arching question whether the play is mostly sympathetic or hostile toward Persia(ns). In the framework of the play’s presentation of the Persian defeat as divine punishment for human folly, the ensuing discussion will focus mainly on the problematization of the characters’ perception of the past as a foil to present and future contingencies.

1

2

For myth and history as inspiration for tragic plots in general and Persae in particular see Harrison (2000) 25–26, Föllinger (2003) 241–48, Kapsomenos (2004), and Garvie (2009) ix–x. For the historical accuracy of the play see e.g. Podlecki (1966) ch. 2, Pelling (1997), Harrison (2000) 26–30, and Wallinga (2005), esp. ch. 3, 5, 6 and 9. Cf. Garvie (2009) 181–82. For the other debates see nn. 35–37 below.

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I. Persae

The subject of Persae is particularly amenable to reflections on past and future. It has been called a nostos play,3 but Xerxes’ actual nostos is much delayed, and nothing changes after his arrival (908ff.). He accomplishes nothing, receives no information, commits no crime, and undergoes no further change in his circumstances. He does not meet any member of his family, make any decision or announcement, and does not even seem to have acquired any knowledge or insight. Xerxes appears as a regretful commander, who laments the loss of his comrades and his own survival (915– 17, 962–66, 974–77, 988–91; cf. 931–34), blaming his fortune (908–12, 941–43) and his enemies’ prowess (1026–27). The play does not indicate beyond doubt that the admonitions of the ghost of his father Darius to the chorus and the Queen to restrain and comfort his rash son (829–38) fall on deaf ears. Nevertheless, Xerxes’ potential healing and coming to terms with the catastrophe, including the realization of his culpability and eventual care to avoid further disasters, fall outside the limits of the play. Winnington-Ingram argues that Darius’ explanation of the Persian defeats at Salamis and Plataea as punishment for hubristic folly fails to register with the other characters. This failure becomes most obvious in the exodus (908–1077), when Xerxes and the chorus attribute the disaster to divine agency, taking up the theme of divine envy and hostility that had dominated the play before Darius’ appearance.4 It is true that the hubris of Xerxes becomes a cardinal issue only in the pronouncements of his father, but the exodus, devoted to lamentation and emotional release, cannot count as proof that the chorus at least have learnt nothing from Darius. The last stasimon (852–907) and the exodus do not deal with the future at all, and Darius had said that Xerxes would only bear to listen to his mother (838). The play seems to indicate that the king’s condition and the laments appropriate to the terrible disaster leave little room for admonitions from the chorus, or for contemplation of the distant future – the proximate future will be as ruinous as the recent past (796–822; cf. 843–44). Although chastisement or enlightenment is absent from the exodus, the play at least

3 4

See Taplin (1977) 124–25; cf. B IV n. 6 below. Winnington-Ingram (1983) 13–14. Cf. Parker (2009) 128–29. Garvie (2009) xxii–xxxii calls the two explanations of the Persian disaster the “moral” and “amoral” view respectively. For Xerxes’ hubris cf. the discussion in the next section with n. 15. The oracles Darius mentions predicted Persian military setbacks (739–42, 800–2). For the failure of these oracles to provide temporal or other specifications see the discussion of freedom of choice in the Introduction.

1. Beginning at the end

19

does leave open the possibility that the characters may behave more soberly in the remoter future, a feature that further distinguishes Persae from the majority of extant tragic plays. Garvie correctly points out that neither Persae nor any other tragedy presents a simple, moralistic view of crime and punishment, or of the apportionment of human and divine responsibility in human suffering. Nevertheless, even if the oracles received by Darius (739–42; cf. 800–2) indicated or implied that the Persian might would be destroyed because of divine resentment, Xerxes’ folly seems to have triggered their fulfillment. Of course, realistically, Xerxes would not necessarily know that his building of the Bosporus bridge would be offensive to the gods, and the play does not state that he built it in full awareness and defiance of divine resentment for it. Also, the play does not specify whether the expedition would not have ended in disaster if Xerxes had used ships to transport his army across the Aegean, or even if the army had not desecrated the temples and statues of Greek gods. But Aeschylus was not apparently concerned with providing full explanations or with covering all eventualities in connection with the Persian defeats. Darius suggests that Xerxes should and could have understood that the building of the bridge was impious and ruinous. In a similar vein, logistical and moral alternatives are simply not considered. If one wishes to consider them, one may assume that they would not necessarily have guaranteed the success of the expedition but at least they would not have brought about its failure. A reading of the play focusing on its depiction of folly and failure and on the openness of its ending is not mutually exclusive with views such as that of Griffith, who suggests that the play provides a reaffirmation of social and political order. This is comforting, to both characters and, most crucially and unexpectedly, audience: mediated by the presentation of Darius as an idealized father-figure who protects family and state, the reassertion of Xerxes’ control at the end is satisfyingly closural.5 The play, though, never shows Xerxes’ rule to be in serious danger, at least not in the dramatic time of the play, and his differences from his father are, in my opinion, emphasized more than Griffith allows.6 My main objection to his

5 6

Griffith (2007). For earlier scholars who suggested that the final scene has a rehabilitating effect see Conacher (1996) 31 n. 56. Cf. Lloyd (2007) 6–7, and n. 25 below. For the similarities between Xerxes and Darius see Saïd (1981), and cf. Belloni (1982) 192–93, Euben (1986) 363, and Rosenbloom (1993) 190, (2006) 146–47.

20

I. Persae

reading of the play and tragedy in general concerns his argument about tragedy’s apparent favor toward monarchic/aristocratic regimes and figures of authority, who are presented as caring, fatherly protectors. While this favor is an indisputable fact, the explanation for it may more plausibly be sought in the genre’s indebtedness to tradition than in the biases of authors and audience, which can be detected through the lens of Lacanian psychoanalysis. Tragedy, like epic and lyric before it, is a highly traditional genre, whose plot-lines are taken from, or based on, the mythical/literary tradition. Epic and much of lyric sang the stories of kings and monarchies, which unfold in a time long before the political demise of these institutions. The simplest answer to the question why tragedy does not depict the fall of monarchies is that the tradition it draws upon does not include such stories, since it was formed long before the rise of democracy and, in most cases, tyranny. As far as regime criticism is concerned, there is a fair degree of it in tragedy, and it involves the excesses of both “autocracy” and “democracy.” On the other hand, tragic authors had no reason to depict only evil monarchs, as their tradition did not include only this sort, and such a choice would provide no clear dramatic benefit. Tragedy could certainly abandon the tradition, but such a possibility is purely theoretical, and its failure to materialize cannot be attributed, only or primarily, to Athenian liking for strong, autocratic father figures. To be sure, Greek society in general was patriarchal, and its literature could hardly reject patriarchy. Comedy, which invents its plots, also ends its plays with the reaffirmation of patriarchal order, as Griffith himself points out.7 The closure in Persae is satisfying and comforting to the extent that the fate of the army, over which chorus and Queen agonized in the first part of the play, has become known, and Xerxes has returned, although virtually alone, and burdened by the crushing weight of a terrible defeat. His personal fate, though, and the fortunes of his empire remain open-ended. Most of the play is devoted to the past, and the handling of this major theme is intriguingly complex.

2. In the beginning there was Xerxes The Persian view of Xerxes’ campaign and the defeat at Salamis expressed in the play, i.e. Aeschylus’ version of the Athenian implied view (of the

7

Griffith (2007) 132.

2. In the beginning there was Xerxes

21

Persian view) of the war, is unsurprising in the context of Greek poetic tradition in general and the tragic genre in particular. The vanquished habitually attribute their defeat to the wish of the divine power(s) to denigrate them, either because of unprovoked and inscrutable hostility, or as punishment for moral/religious transgressions. The victors exult in the perceived boon of divine support, which they attribute to their piety, and to divine loathing for their impious adversaries. A reading of the play along these lines does not rule out emphasis on the political or constitutional shortcomings of the Persians. On the contrary, it clarifies the picture of the background of the defeat sketched in the play.8 Following the appearance of Darius’ ghost, there remains no doubt that the Persian campaign was doomed from the beginning, despite the huge army’s enormous numerical and logistical superiority (cf. 334–52) and the prowess of its commanders (303–30, 441–44; cf. 21–59, 955–1003). Since Persia is governed by an absolute monarch (cf. 763–64), the blame falls squarely on the shoulders of Xerxes, the commander-in-chief. Young and impulsively reckless (744, 782), Xerxes fails to follow his father’s advice (783). He is also vulnerable to taunts issued by evil companions: this is how the Queen explains their son’s decision to undertake the campaign to the ghost of her husband (753–58). Her view could be easily taken as the result of maternal bias and as an attempt at exoneration,9 but the play does not indicate that the Queen’s judgment is (hopelessly) flawed. Xerxes’ readiness to believe the tale of the Greek emissary at Salamis (353–73), for instance, may be thought to corroborate the narrative of his thoughtlessness. Harrison insists that the Queen’s presentation includes stock motifs of the negative portrayal of Persian monarchy in Greek authors, including the pernicious influence of selfish royal women on Persian rulers.10

8 For the intertwining of these two aspects in the play see e.g. Goldhill (1988) 193. Cf. Heath (1987) 65, and Parker (1996) 210. Harrison (2000) 100–2 thinks that religion is subordinated to politics, but the fact that the theme of hubris, for instance, is a cultural commonplace does not diminish its importance. Cf. Conacher (1996) 5–7, who cautions that the critical tendency toward disparagement of the importance of the nemesis theme does not do justice to the play’s complexity and especially its multi-faceted handling of its central theme. 9 Cf. e.g. Smethurst (1989) 136, and Georges (1994) 87. 10 Harrison (2000) 78–81. For negative views of the Queen cf. Clifton (1963) 114, and Schenker (1994) 288.

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This assessment is hard to substantiate in the case of the Queen.11 Even if valid, it should not lead to the conclusion that Greek authors and audiences did not share, or held in contempt, the views expressed by Persian characters. On the contrary, it is plausible to assume that the portrayal of Persia in Greek sources was shaped largely by Greek beliefs, and not only with a view to depicting a polar “otherness,” which would serve as the basis of self-definition.12 Herodotus and Thucydides will later present not only the Persian but also the Athenian empire in a manner quite similar to the presentation of Xerxes’ empire in Persae.13 Even if Aeschylus meant to portray the Queen as part of a corrupt royal machine, he would not necessarily fashion her statements and judgments so as to make (all of ) them completely repellent or alienating to the audience.14 Influenced by evil companions or not, Xerxes’ damningly hubristic mistake, which doomed his campaign, destroyed his army, and caused terrible woe to his people, was to insult the gods by bridging over the Hellespont (744–50). Most scholars suggest that his actual hubris was the attempt to expand Persian rule from Asia to Europe, and that the bridging of the Hellespont was merely a potent symbol of the offense.15 This view

11 For a good discussion of the presentation of the Queen in Persae see McClure (2006), esp. 79–84, who argues that she is presented in Greek rather than Persian terms, as a concerned, respectable mother and matron, dedicated to her duties toward gods and men, deferring to males and uninterested in the game of power. Dominick (2007) suggests that Aeschylus and Herodotus present Xerxes’ mother as both different from and similar to Greek women, thus challenging their audience’s notion of different and similar. For the Queen in Persae cf. the discussion below. 12 This position has been advocated at its most extreme by Hall (1989) 56–100 and especially in her edition of the play (1996) 12–13. For criticism of the latter see the reviews of Rosenbloom (1998), and Sommerstein (1998). Cf. Rhodes (2003) 115–16, and Garvie (2009) xx–xxii. 13 See Rosenbloom (2006) 94–95. For Persian-style hubris of the Athenians in Herodotus cf. Fornara (1971) 55–56, Stadter (1992), and Moles (1996); for Thucydides’ view cf. Tuplin (1996) 193, and Miller (1997) ch. 9. 14 Michelini (1982) 149–53 suggests that the Queen’s view (753–58) is a glimpse of a tragedy of character, Xerxes’ personal tragedy, as it were, which is not allowed to develop, because Darius’ view dominates the stage, leaving Xerxes’ personal story out of focus. For the Queen’s other assessment of Xerxes’ motives (473–77) see the discussion in 4 below. 15 See e.g. Winnington-Ingram (1983) 10–11, and Conacher (1996) 25, with further references in n. 40. Winnington-Ingram associates this symbolism with Agamemnon’s walking over the tapestries in the so-called carpet scene in Agamemnon, an

2. In the beginning there was Xerxes

23

is based on Darius’ claim that Zeus ordained for one man to be the ruler of all Asia rich in flocks (762–64). There is no plausible reason why this statement should be taken to imply more that it says. According to Darius, Zeus ordained that one man would have huge power and wealth, not that his rule should be limited to Asia. The emphasis falls on the extent of the Persian empire under one ruler: Darius stresses the god-ordained vastness and riches of the empire, not its god-ordained limits. The mention of Asia is natural in the context of a historical review since the Persian empire was created in Asia: there is no implication that it should necessarily be confined to it. No character in the play, and least of all Darius, who conquered several European cities (cf. 868–902), ever expresses concern that Xerxes overstepped his Asian mandate, only that he campaigned against a distant and valiant land over the sea (cf. 231–45).16 The aspirations for expansion of Persian rule to Europe, or the attempt made by a land power to dominate a sea people, may be presented in a negative light in the play,17 but the root of Xerxes’ problem lay elsewhere. Faced with the challenge of transporting his huge force across the sea, and over-confident in his power, he offended the gods grievously. In the play, the bridging of the Hellespont is presented as the main offense, and Persian rule over Europe, if it may be accorded importance, would have followed as a result, a prospect doomed from the

act which he views as “a symbol of sacrilege, resumptive of all relevant acts of similar impiety” (p. 90). The carpet-scene may contain such symbolism (cf. A IV n. 82 below), but Agamemnon’s personal and inherited offenses are clearly stated and emphatically elaborated upon in the play. On the contrary, Persae includes no suggestion or implication that Xerxes committed any offense prior to the bridging of the sea, and there is no mention of any crime committed by his father or other forebears. Conacher, quoting Kitto, claims that no Greek would normally consider a bridge of ships an impiety. As already indicated in the previous section, and irrespective of the relevant views of other Greeks as well as of the question whether modern scholars are in a position to imagine them, Aeschylus did suggest that the bridge offended the divine Hellespont, the gods, and especially Poseidon (723, 744–50). 16 In response to the chorus’ inquiry about proper Persian action in the future (787–89), the ghost of Darius does not urge cessation of European ventures but only cessation of attacks against Greece (790, 823–26). More tellingly, he explains his advice with a reference to logistical problems (792, 794), not a divinely sanctioned prohibition of a joint rule over Asia and Europe. 17 Cf. Michelini (1982) 82–83, who suggests that the play presents the Persians as land dwellers and the Greeks essentially as a sea people.

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beginning because of Xerxes’ impiety. Equally devastatingly, the Persian army desecrated the shrines and statues of the Greek gods (807–12), an offense for which the decimation of the remaining host at Plataea will provide further severe punishment (800–6, 813–22).

3. The ghost of the father Xerxes’ ruinous folly is shown in a worse light because the characters perceive it as the failure of a ruler and son to live up to the achievements of his father and great predecessor Darius. The appearance of the ghost of the king himself gives a new spin to the tale of gloom that dominated the play from the chorus’ intimations in the parodos (8–15, 93–100 and 114–39), which were followed by the Queen’s narration of her ominous dream and the subsequent portent (176–214), and the messenger’s report of the disaster (249–55, 302–514). Darius, and the glorious past he both represents and takes credit for, is a cardinal figure in the play, and he is invoked repeatedly before the appearance of his ghost. As soon as Xerxes is mentioned, he is called “a king born of Darius” (βασιλεὺς Δαρειογενής, 6).18 The Queen is greeted as “elderly mother of Xerxes and consort of Darius” (156): both rulers are revered as gods by the Persians (157),19 although the fate of the expedition and Xerxes’ fortunes hang in the balance (158). The Queen mentions Darius twice upon her entrance (160, 164). More significantly, both father and son appear in her ominous dream, Darius pitying the fall of his son from the wrecked chariot, and Xerxes tearing his clothes at the sight of his father (197–99). The chorus advise the Queen to propitiate the gods and her dead husband Darius with offerings (215–25). The elders mention the losses the Athenian army

18 The same appellation occurs at the end of the parodos (144–45). West emends Δαρειογενής to Δανάης τε γόνου (145), a reference to Perseus, the eponymous ancestor of the Persians (cf. 80). This enables him to emend and retain 146, which other editors delete. But the suggested corruption of 145 is difficult to explain, especially since the first reference to Xerxes’ paternity occurred dozens of lines earlier. On 146 see Garvie (2009) 94–95; cf. Föllinger (2003) 267 n. 154. 19 There is no indication that the historical Persians worshipped their kings as gods; see Harrison (2000) 87. Nevertheless, Darius is invoked as a god in the play (620, 642–43); see Court (1994) 47, and cf. Griffith (2007) 122–24. Garvie (2009) on 157 thinks that this is an exaggeration since Darius is also called “equal to the gods” (634, 856).

3. The ghost of the father

25

inflicted on Darius’ force (244),20 shortly before the messenger’s arrival. Following his report of the disaster, the first stasimon (532–97) includes a brief but nostalgic reference to Darius’ military efficiency and benevolent rule over his people (555–57). In the rest of the play until Xerxes’ appearance, Darius’ temperance, wisdom and successes are repeatedly contrasted with his son’s failures. The ghost of the king reveals that the destruction of the Persian army at Salamis had been foretold by oracles (739–42). Since this disaster has occurred, he is certain that the other disaster predicted in the oracles will take place, namely that the Persian force left in Greece will be decimated at Plataea as a punishment for their desecration of the statues and temples of the gods (800–22). Darius, though, does not suggest that the Salamis disaster was simply a fated setback but explains that Xerxes’ youthful and impious folly was the trigger for the speedy fulfillment of the oracles (742–50; cf. 782–86). He also advises the chorus and the Queen to admonish and restrain Xerxes (829–38). In the last stasimon, the chorus recall Darius’ reign as a virtual golden age of uninterrupted and glorious achievements, now undone by the recent naval disaster (852–907; cf. 652–56). It is far from surprising that a young king and commander-in-chief is consistently compared with his royal father. Moreover, the appearance of the ghost serves important functions. The moral/religious background of the Salamis disaster as well as predictions and admonitions to the stricken people could only be provided by a Persian figure of authority with special access to the divine. The castigation of Xerxes’ shortcomings by his own father puts the king’s failures into starker relief. In conjunction with the fulsome praise of Darius by the chorus and the Queen (709–11) and his own review of the achievements of Xerxes’ Medo-Persian predecessors (765–81), the paternal condemnation underscores vividly Xerxes’ inadequacy as a successor to great men.21 Instead of standing on the

20 At 236 the chorus remind the Queen that the Athenian army has wrought much evil to the Persians. The text has been suspected. If it is genuine, the statement must allude to Marathon too but is not limited to it: an Athenian audience would probably also think of the capture of Sardis. 21 McClure (2006) 84, 88–91 points out that the presence of both parents onstage and the naming of Xerxes in parts dealing with his shortcomings and disastrous hubris contribute to the representation of the king as a youth unfit for royal duty, being major elements in the formulation of the discourse of blame for his reckless and dishonorable actions. For the contrast between Darius and Xerxes cf. n. 25 below.

26

I. Persae

shoulders of giants, Xerxes is shown to stand next to them and is made to look disastrously puny. The contrast between the admirable rulers of the past and the present destroyer of Asia is simply shattering. All these dramatic benefits notwithstanding, there is no doubt that an authoritative figure other than Darius could have served the same purposes equally well, without compromising the play’s thematic framework or even patriotic/partisan concerns. To assume that Darius was indispensable because Aeschylus’ choice of this character was successful is circular. An aged counselor, a prophet, a priest, or a god could easily have fulfilled Darius’ function. Tragic convention, according to which foreign peoples worshipped the same gods as Greeks, would have facilitated the choice of a god. In such case, the contrast between Darius and Xerxes would have remained largely unchanged. Even details such as Darius’ distress at his son’s folly and failure could have been communicated to the audience by another authority figure. Xerxes himself could also have been shown to recall belatedly the oracles his father mentions and the advice he had received from him; the prophecy of the Plataea disaster could have been given in a royal dream. Much more intriguingly, the inclusion of Darius in a play dealing with recent historical events, which were connected to his own campaigns, and stressing Xerxes’ relationship to him was virtually bound to make the audience recall Darius’ campaigns. In particular, the Athenian audience of 472 BC watching a play that consistently compared Xerxes with his father could not but recall Marathon and draw the obvious connections.22 Nevertheless, the significance of Marathon is minimized, and other failures of Darius are completely glossed over.23 Aeschylus apparently made a series of remarkable choices in Persae. He presented the ghost of Darius onstage, although this appearance does not seem to have been absolutely necessary in the framework of the play’s plot. Moreover, not only did he stress Darius’ wisdom, piety and successes as a foil to Xerxes’ recklessness, hubris and

22 If Phrynichus’ recent Phoenissae (probably 476 BC), to which Persae is indebted according to its hypothesis, made the connection explicit, the audience’s recollection and the peculiarity of Aeschylus’ handling of Marathon might be further reinforced. Cf. next n. 23 See Saïd (1981) 35. Harrison (2000) 85–86 objects that Marathon is not glossed over, but there can be no doubt that it receives minimal emphasis; cf. the discussion below. The suppression of Darius’ failed Scythian campaign, which involved the bridging of the Thracian Bosporus, stands out, but this at least was not part of the audience’s history; cf. Winnington-Ingram (1983) 9.

4. The specter of Marathon

27

incompetence, but he also put in the mouth of the ghost a review of Medo-Persian history. On the other hand, neither this thoughtful and efficient shepherd of his people nor any other character lays any