Some Passages of Euripides' "Hecuba" in the Light of New Textual Research Tovar,
Antonio Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies; Apr 1, 1959; 2, 2; ProQuest pg. 129

SOME PASSAGES OF EURIPIDES' 
HECUBA IN THE LIGHT OF 
NEW TEXTUAL RESEARCH 

ANTONIO TOVAR 



FOR THE PROFANE who think that in classical studies nearly 
everything has already been achieved, and that we can 

quietly rest on the sure results won by our predecessors during 
many centuries, it must be a surprise to learn that the science 
of manuscripts or codicology is a new one 1 and that the at­
tempt to trace the textual history of an ancient author is 
scarcely older than the present century. The oldest stemma 
codicum ever drawn is still not a hundred years old. 

In fact there is still much to do to establish a readable text 
of the most important ancient authors. By readable we mean 
a text which is founded not only on a complete recension of 
manuscripts, but also on the knowledge of textual history 
throughout the centuries. No branch of tradition must remain 
unclassified behind a text based on an incomplete exploration. 
This is, at present, a duty imposed upon philologists by the 
mere existence of modern methods. 

I shall attempt to show here how a fundamental study de­
voted to Euripides' manuscripts 2 can affect the text of a trag­
edy, and do so even though the standard edition, that of Gilbert 
Murray, is unanimously acknowledged to be an excellent 
work. 

The fact that the tragedy we choose for our analysis, the 
Hecuba, belongs to the so-called Byzantine triad, that is, to the 
most repeated group in all extant manuscripts, makes our task 
easier. The tragedies of the triad are those to which Professor 
Turyn has devoted most careful attention in his book. 

Let us examine some characteristic passages of this work in 
which the value of the famous manuscripts Land P, consid­
ered as the best from the first edition in the Renaissance until 
that of Kirchoff (1855), with a later reaction in favor of 
them initiated by Wilamowitz and sustained by the authority 
of G. Murray,3 decays still more when we can, thanks to the 
research of Turyn, know the manuscript tradition better. 

Land P are under the influence of late Byzantine scholar-

1 See for instance H. Hunger, Gnomon, 30 (1958), 285. 
2 A. Turyn, The Byzantine Manuscript Tradition of the Tragedies of Euripides 

(Urbana, 1957). 
8 Euripidis fabulae, ed. Murray, (Oxonii, 1902). See I, ivf. 



132 ANTONIO TOVAR [GRRS 2 

ship, especially, as we can check, in the triad (Hec., Orest., 
Phoen.), and even when they both agree, they do not prove 
anything, because as Turyn says,4 "the evidence of Land P 
for the text of the triad is deprived of value, except for scat­
tered peculiarities which throw subsidiary light on the diffu­
sion of some rare readings of the old tradition." 

Turyn is inclined to think ri that the source from which L 
and P were copied was related to a manuscript of the "com­
plete" Euripides (as we possess him) owned in the twelfth 
century by the Homeric commentator Eustathius. We can 
add as proof some coincidences between quotations of this 
author from Hecuba and P and/or L readings: 260 av(Jpcu7TOK'TO­
VEtV P (errore ex l:, as Murray points out) and also Eustathius; 
421 a/L/LOpOL LPMS Eustathius; 786 AE'YEL~ LP and Eustathius; 
996 'Toil 7TA7JUtOV P and Eustathius. The "Eusthathius manu­
script" is undoubtedly of the same type as the "complete" 
manuscripts Land P, and probably was either the original 
from which these were copied or a brother of it. 6 

In this case, and against the present day slogan recentiores 
non deteriores, the fact of the posteriority of LP as compared 
with M or B, is still a proof of their inferiority. 

Be that as it may, the old reputation and authority of the 
manuscripts Land P have lasted into the Murray edition, as 
will be shown by the few passages which we shall now reex­
amIne. 

Line 88 Kauav8pa~ read all the manuscripts except P; not­
withstanding, most of the editors (Nauck, Kirchhoff, Paley, 
Murray but not Meridier) accept the reading of P, Kauav8pav. 
The reason for the correction in P is clearly given by a Byzan­
tine scholium: Ei7TE 8e t/rox,y,v <EAEVOV E7TEL8,y, 'TE(JV7JKW~ ~v, Kauav8pav 
8E, Ka~ ou Kauav8pa~, E7TEL8,y, 'wua ~v. It is evidently the pedantic 
spirit of a late Byzantine scholiast who here speaks, most prob­
ably the same grammarian who has influenced P. 

135 O.oVEK· MBAV: ErVEK' LP. Murray says in his preface: 7 

"o.oVEKa non mutaui in ErVEKa nisi unius saltem libri auctoritate." 
But it is just in cases like the present one that the authority of 

4 op.cit. p. 303. 5 ibid. p. 305. 8 ibid. 305f. 
'I Eurip. fab. I, p. x. 



1959] SOME PASSAGES OF EURIPIDES' HECUBA 133 

Land P is to be disputed: could they in this case represent 
the genuine tradition? Not necessarily so, since inscriptions 
show the use of OUVEICa instead of the preposition EVEICa. 8 Kirch­
hoff and Meridier wisely read OUVEICa in this line. 

256 CPPOvrL'ETE LP: 'YLVWCTICETE ~1A. The replacement of 'YLVWCT­
KErE is due to the wish to avoid the repetition of the verb after 
the 'Yt'YIIWCTKOLCTUE of the previous line, but it emphasizes much 
better the hate that Mecuba feels for demagogues: 

p:YJ8e 'YL'YVWCTICOLCTOi /-LOt, 
ot TOV~ CPLAOV~ f3Aa11'TovrE~ ov 'YL'YVWCTICETE! 

As I have shown in two other instances,9 is is important not 
to be misled by pleasure in variation. Although B is presented 
in this passage by Meridier as a support of CPpovrf.,ETE, we know 
that this codex has been supplemented in this part with a 
Moschopulean text.lO It is therefore certain that the reading 
cppovr',ETE is an interpolation by Byzantine scholars. 

820 T' MB: 11'W~ ALPb. Here again we decide against LP, 
although they are accompanied by A. But even the presence 
of this manuscript 11 in the group LP can be proof of the cor­
rective character of 11'W~ instead of T' in order to avoid the 
sequence TL ••• 'T£~ at the distance of three small words in 
the same line. 

853 xapLv MBA 'Yp. 1: 8'ICTJv LP~ et margo A2. Here again 
the coincidence of LP is what makes the reading 8f.ICTJv suspect, 
although this is accepted by all recent editors: Kirchhoff, 
Nauck, Paley, Murray, Meridier. While it is true that the 
expression 80uvaL 8f.ICTJv at least once (Aeschylus Suppl. 703 
8LKa~ aTEp 11''YJ/-La'TCl)v 8L8o£EV) it means "to grant arbitration," it 
is generally used to signify "to suffer punishment, make 

8 K. Meisterhans and Ed. Schwyzer, Grammatik der attischen Inschriften 8 

(Berlin, 1900),215-17. 
\I On Bacch. 1152 in H omenaje a Rodolfo Oroz, Bol. de Filol. de la Universidad 

de Chile, 8 (1954/5),461£., and on Androm. 117lf. in Gymnasium, 63 (Heidelberg, 
1956),80f. 

10 Turyn op.cit. p. 88. 
II Turyn op.cit. p. 89 has established the position of this manuscript: the codex 

A "occasionally follows in the triad some Moschopulean elements," although "in 
its basic stock MS. A carries an old tradition ... " 



134 ANTONIO TOVAR [GRBS 2 

awards," which is quite unsuitable here. For Sovvat XaptV we 
can compare Aeschyl. Prom. 821 7J/LLV al) xapw so~ ifV7TEP -rrrOV/LE­
u-(}a and Soph. Oed. Col. 1489f. avO' @V E7Tao-xov El), T€AEo-cpOPOV 

xapLv SOVvat o-cpw, ifV7T€P TVYXavwv E7TEo-XO/L7JV. The favor that 
Agamemnon would wish to grant to Hecuba, provided that he 
can avoid arousing suspicion that he is doing so for Cassandra's 
sake, is that of permitting her to have her will against the 
Thracian host: 

'f3''\ () ~ ()' " '" l: ' Kat oVl\o/Lat EWV OVVEK avoo-wv S EVOV 
, ,,~ , ,~ ~~ , 

Kat TOV otKaWV TT}VOE o-Ot OOVvat Xapw. 

Here Sovvat governs two accusatives: aVOo-WV ~EVOV and n}VSE 

xapw. The fact that two lines below the verse finishes again 
with the word XaptV invited Byzantine scholars to seek a 
uariatio in style, and at the same time an easier reading. But 
n}VSE XaptV here is the xapt~ alluded to in line 830. 

943 b..wo-KopOW MBA: .6.wo-KOVPOtV LP. The corrector of this 
late branch of tradition could not be prevented from changing 
this word by metrics in a seemingly indifferent point, but it 
must be recalled that .6.tOo-KOPOt is the Attic form, assured by 
the iambic metre in other passages of our poet (H el. 1644, El. 
1239). This case shows clearly how the reading of LP can be, 
against the other evidence, the result of correction. 

990 o-E()EV AEy€t~ MBAP: AEy€t~ o-E()EV L. The preference given 
by all the editors (except Kirchhoff and Paley) to the reading 
AEYEt~ o-E()EV is only a consequence of the old recognized au­
thority of L or P. The order El) Ka~tW~ o-E()EV seems preferable, 
and as we have reason to doubt the value of L, nothing justifies 
maintaining L's reading against that of all the rest of the 
codices. 

In all the passages so far examined it cannot be said that 
only a prejudice against Land P has led us to prefer the read­
ings of the other branch of the tradition. Linguistic and liter­
ary arguments confirm the interpolated character of Land P 
and lead us again to the position of Kirchhoff: in nearly every 
passage I find myself agreeing with him. This does not mean 
that in philology scholars do Penelope's work. If Kirchhoff 
acted in reaction against an opinion accepted for many cen-



1959] SOME PASSAGES OF EURIPIDES' HECUBA 135 

turies, we can boast of a more complete knowledge of the 
Euripidean manuscripts and their relations. For the first time 
A. Turyn has followed the labyrinthine history of the whole 
of these manuscripts. We have only given a proof of the pos­
sibilities he has offered for making the text of the third Greek 
tragedian more accurately readable.12 

UNIVERSIDAD DE SALAMANCA 

11 I express my thanks to my colleague Professor D. Larkin of Univ. Nac. de 
TucumAn for his revision of the English ten.