The Authenticity of Euripides, "Phoenissae" 1-2 and Sophocles, "Electra" 1 Haslam,
Michael W Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies; Summer 1975; 16, 2; ProQuest pg. 149

The Authenticity of Euripides, 
Phoenissae 1-2 and Sophocles, Electra I 

Michael W. Haslam 

THE IMPORT of this article is that the verses which our mediaeval 
manuscripts give as Euripides, Phoenissae 1-2 and Sophocles, 
Electra 1 are spurious. The plays originally commenced at 

verses 3 and 2 respectively.! The evidence is remarkably voluminous 
and no less remarkably unequivocal. It is disturbing to find that play­
openings which appear never to have caused misgivings as to their 
authenticity are after all additions that deprave the Euripidean text. 
We cannot rely on always having a mass of external evidence to impel 
us to the truth. 

I. Euripides, Phoenissae 

The evidence for Soph. El. 1 follows as a corollary to that for Eur. 
Phoen. 1-2. First, therefore, the Phoenissae. Since it is external evidence 
that has unmasked the intruders, that evidence, embarrassingly 
copious as it is, will be presented first. 2 The paradosis gives us (vv.l-6): 

'f"n , 1 " ,_ I t'~ , 

:.~ 'T7}V EV aCTpOLC ovpavov T€JLVWV ooov 

Kal XpvcoKoM~TOLCLY €JL{3€f3c1c OtCPPOLC 
f1 HAL€, Ooa£c innatcLY €lAtccwv cpAoya, 

1 I wish to thank my colleagues and teachers at University College London, all of whom 
have helped in one way or another with the preparation of this article; especially Mr Alan 
Griffiths and Professor E. W. Handley, who were kind enough to read a draft, and above 
all Professor E. G. Turner, whose contribution extends far beyond what is apparent in the 
following pages. A shorter and preliminary version of this article was delivered as a paper 
at the XIV International Congress of Papyrologists, held in Oxford in July 1974, and is 
published in the Proceedings of that congress. A fresh piece of primary evidence has since 
accrued: the codex mentioned on p.156 infra. 

a It is given in a rather more logical order than it originally presented itself to me. I had 
noticed the anomaly of the Phoenissae apX17 in P.Oxy. 2455 fr.17 (pp.150f infra) and had also 
seen Dr Hughes' thesis (p.156 infra); but it was only when I stumbled across the report of 
the Edfu ostrakon in JJurPap (pp.158f infra) that I recalled and connected them: then every­
thing leapt into place. 

149 



150 EURIPIDES, PHOENISSAE 1-2 AND SOPHOCLES, ELECTRA 1 

6Jc SvcTUxfi e~fJatct rfj 'TO'T' ~pipq. 
, .... "~ rT I~ • I '''''8 .... aK'T£V €'r'IKac. n..aop.oc 7JV£K 7J1\ € Y7JV 
't'. " , n. I • __ , I 8 I T7Jvo • €KI\£7TWV 'VOLVtCCav €VCLlUav X ova· 

1. External evidence, direct 

i. PAPYRUS HYPOTHESIS. P.Oxy. xxvn 2455 is from a-papyrus roll of the 
second century which contained a collection of 'hypotheses' to the 
plays of Euripides, arranged in alphabetical order according to the 
initial letter of the play title. Each l)7To8€c£c is preceded by the play 
title and then by quotation of the dpX7}, i.e. the first line of the play, 
presumably to serve as a check on identification. P.Oxy. 2455 is the 
most substantial ancient remnant of a corpus fragmentarily pre­
served in several other papyri,3 and widely utilized, sometimes 
partially copied, by ancient mythographers.4 The corpus eventually 
got dismembered, the hypotheses being prefixed to their respective 
plays: several of them appear in more or less mutilated form (and 
docked of the now superfluous dpX~) in mediaeval MSS of the plays. 
Zuntz, in discussing the main types of the Euripidean hypotheses, 
coined "Tales from Euripides" as a convenient title.5 

In P.Oxy. 2455, Phoenissae follows the second Phrixus, at the end of 
fr.17 col.xx. The title and dpx~ are reported as (289-90): 

3 Collected by C. Austin, Nova fragmenta EUripidea (Berlin 1968) 88ff. Now add: ZPE 4 
(1969) 43f and 173 (Syleus), which belongs in fact to P.Oxy. Z455 (compare the ZPE plate); 
ZPE 4 (1969) 7-11 (Auge); BICS Supp1.3z (1974) (Andromache and Alexander: from the same 
roll as P.Oxy. 2457). Apparently there are more yet to come (E- G_ Turner, Proceedings of the 
IX International Congress ofPapyrology [Oslo 1958] 7). P.Oxy. XLll 3013 has the hypothesis of a 
Tereus, almost certainly Sophocles'. 

a One hundred years ago Wilamowitz was writing about the underlying argumentorum 
sylloga (Analecta Euripidea [Berlin 1875] 183-84)_ Somehow, and through no fault of his own, 
the idea of a single corpus has been credited to Zuntz_ 

5 G. Zuntz, The Political Plays of EUripides (Manchester 1955) ch_6. Zuntz suggests EOPL1TlSov 
'IcT'oplfU as the Greek title (p.136), but iCT'oplfU are different: one might write '1j iCT'opla 
(,AAKTlcT'lSoc, say) ~CT'~ 1Tap' EOPL1TlSr!, but that does not make it Euripides' lCT'opla. R- Pfeiffer, 
History of Classical Scholarship (Oxford 1968) 195, says that S"]'Y7}CLC would be a more appro­
priate term than {m&8mc (though he does acknowledge that {m&8£CLC "may have been used 
in Peripatetic circles for the plots of plays," p_193), but SL'1'Y"1CE:LC are different again: the, 
Callimachean diegeses abound in J'n's and .frrJclJl·s and contain things like 0 1TOL"1T"'1C, T'OWO 

y/ypa1TT'fU, even {moT'l8£T'fU, while the hypotheses are self-contained summaries of the plot 
without any reference to the poet or to the structure of the play. The ancient terminology 
is not to be lightly set aside. Cf n.21 infra. 



MICHAEL W. HASLAM 151 

fP [0 £] r !- ~ c a £ [wvap]xrJ£6 

r[.]r €[.] .. [ ]4>[7 

The papyrus then breaks off. When I had suggested that the true 
reading of the beginning of the apx~ would be T/~~€ (i.e. v.3), my 
colleague Dr W. E. H. Cockle observed that fr.19, the first two lines 
of which are reported as 

] wv ap[x?]L 

]V€L~LCT[ 

might in fact be combined with this part of fr.17. Professor Turner, 
Dr Cockle and myself have since had a look at the papyrus itself at the 
British Museum, and have been able to confirm the acceptability both 
of the original suggestionS and of the placing of fr.19, and the reading 
as it now stands is: 

fP[ 0 ]w~~ca~ wv apX?]L 

?7['\]~€ [Ooa ]~[ c L7T7TOLCL]V €L'\LC~[ wv] 4>['\0')' JI,X9 

The quoted apx~ obviously rests on scholarly authority. It would 

s i.e. ~v &pX~' ~v ,03 I 'ljc &p~(,) is the regular formula; the only deviant is the Auge 
hypotheSiS published in ZPE 4 (1969) 7-11, which has 'ljc ~ &p~" with the article (pace the 
transcriptions: see the plate, Taf. m). On the 03 (~) apxr7 formula in general see E. Nach­
manson, Der griechische Buchtitel (Goteborg 1941) 38-49. (I take it that the notice of Stesich­
orus' two palinodes, Page, Poetae Melici Graeci 193, should read not ~ #La, ap~ ... , rijdU 
... , but Tilc #L~v ap~ ... , rijc 8( ... ) 

1 The reading r[.]" was evidently (and quite properly) influenced by expectation of the 
traditional verse 1. 

8 Except that there is no trace of the labda: ?/[,\]~€, not ?/~€. 
9 The placing offr.19 makes two further contributions. (a) Fr.19 had been identified by 

the editor, on the strength of what now turns out to have been a misleading coincidence of 
letter sequence, as Eur. fr.922 N2 Tlc TOVJLOV ovoJLa TOV'7TOvd8'CTOV (3POTOLC. It so appears, under 
the heading BOYCIPIC(?) (ATYPOI, in Austin, op.cit. (supra n.3) 90. (This was impossible 
anyway, for the title would be Bovap'c caTvp'K6c, which would of course be followed by 03 
&p~: the papyrus has ~v.) This supposed identification entailed removal of Lamia from the 
Euripidean corpus; it can now be reinstated. (b) Fr.19 has remains of five more lines, from 
the beginning of the Phoenissae hypothesis. Its lower part will abut, I think, a fragment 
identified by W. S. Barrett as having remains of the first three lines of the Phoen. hypothesis 
(wrongly located in the P.Oxy. publication at fr.17 col.xiii 172-74, first part) and should 
serve to aid the restoration attempted by him in the addendum to his article in CQ 15 
(1965) 58-71. But fr.19 is in so deplorable a condition (I have inspected it under glass) that 
it is difficult to say more than that it appears not to be inconsistent with Barrett's recon­
struction. A small modification I can make without reference to the new placement is that 
the scrap identified by Barrett has line-ends. 



152 EURIPIDES, PHOENISSAE 1-2 AND SOPHOCLES, ELECTRA 1 

be good to discover what that authority is,lO and I think we can. It is 
not the authority of Aristophanes of Byzantium, for the hypotheses 
compiled by him were altogether more erudite, in which the subject 
matter was a succinct single-sentence item, one out of several. Our 
hypotheses may be the product not of Alexandrian but of Peripatetic 
scholarship-and not of the frivolous activity of a degenerate Peri­
patetic like Satyrus, but of the conscientious and intelligent work of 
one of Aristotle's own pupils. Dicaearchus of Messene composed 
ImoO/C€LC nov EVpt7Tl8ov Ka~ COcpOKI\/OVC p.vOwv (Sext.Emp. Math. 3.3), 
and Carlo Gallavottill suggested that the papyrus hypotheses may be 
they. The suggestion (which had been damned in advance by Wila­
mowitz) has found little or no favour, and Gallavotti himself subse­
quently retracted it.12 It seems to me to border on certainty. 

There are three attestations of Dicaearchus' hypotheses. 

(a) The least helpful is attached to the non-Aristophanic hypothesis 
of Alcestis. To the heading <Y7TOO€CtC 'AI\K7JCTl8oc in L, Triclinius added 
LltKat&pxov.13 Few will believe that a thing is so simply because Tri­
clinius says it is so; but it would be foolish to reject on principle all and 
everything emanating from his lively hand. Zuntz argued that this 
Alcestis hypothesis does not belong to the same stock as the rest of the 
'Tales' (Political Plays, 144£); if that is true, either Triclinius' notice is 
wrong, or Dicaearchus is not our man. We happen now to have re­
mains of the papyrus hypothesis of Alcestis, in P.Oxy. XXVII 2457. It 
was considerably longer than the 'Dicaearchan' hypothesis in the 
mediaeval MSS, but the editor, E. G. Turner (who holds no brief for 
Dicaearchus), adduced similarities of phrasing to support a supposition 

10 Not only for present purposes. Much in the mythographers derives more or less 
directly from this corpus. Our picture of this whole area of ancient scholarship might be­
come much clearer. Then there are details such as the authenticity of Pirithous, Rhada­
manthys and Tennes, labelled as spurious in the Vita but present in the corpus of hypotheses 
(Rhad.: PSI 1286; Tennes: P.Oxy. 2455; Pirith. : hypothesis quoted by John Logothetes along 
with those of Melanippe Sophe and Sthenoboea, of the same type). 

11 C. Gallavotti, RivFC N.S. 11 (1933) 188. 
11 Wilamowitz, op.cit. (supra n.4) 184. Zuntz, op.cit. (supra n.5) 143-46, expressly rejects 

and opts for 1st century B.C. Gallavotti, PSI 1286 introd., had eventually followed Pohlenz 
forward into the imperial age. W. Ritchie, The Authenticity of the Rhesus of Euripides (Cam­
bridge 1964) 7f, gives an inconclusive discussion. Turner entertains the possibility of being 
forced back into the 2nd century B.C. (P.Oxy. 2457 introd., cf. Greek Papyri, an Introduction 
[Oxford / Princeton 1968] 101). No one has said anything since. 

18 A. Turyn. The Bytantine Manuscript Tradition of the Tragedies of Euripides (Urbana 1957) 
286. 



MICHAEL W. HASLAM 153 

that the 'Dicaearchan' hypothesis is an abbreviated version of the 
ancient one. If so, we are still thrown back on to the slippery authority 
of Triclinius until we find other grounds for supposing the papyrus 
hypothesis to be the work of Dicaearchus, but at least Zuntz' attempt 
to dissociate Alcestis from the bulk of the 'Tales' falls to the ground. 
It seems that it has been unusually severely abridged, that is all.14 

(b) From Sextus Empiricus we learn not only that Dicaearchus com­
posed irrro(Jlc€LC TCJV EvpL7T£8ov Ked. CocpoKMovc fLv(Jwv,15 but that they 
were of just this type. The word irrro(J€c£c, says Sextus at the beginning 
of his treatise against the Geometers (Math. 3.3 = Dicaearch. fr.78 
Wehrli), is used in all sorts of ways, 7To.\.\axWc Kat &.\.\wc. He picks out 
three meanings, the first of which he exemplifies by reference to the 
irrro(JlCELc of Dicaearchus; in this sense all it means is ~ TOU DpafLa'TOC 

I Th f}' .,. \ I < ~ \ 7T€PL7T€T€£a. e passage goes: Ka EVa fL€V TP07TOV Tj opafLanKTj 7T€PL-
I (J \, " 't If) ..,. , , \ 7T€'TELa, Ka 0 KaL TpayLKTjV Kat. KWfLLKTjV V7TO €CLV €LVa£ l\€yofL€V Kat. 

A I \ • (J I ~ E "~ \ (..I.. \ I '(J 16 ' .u LKa£apxov T£vac V7TO €C€LC TWV VPL7TLOOV KaL O<pOKI\€OVC fLV WV, OVK 
"\ \ \ - • '(J ,,\ - ~ I I I al\l\o TL Kal\OVVTEC V7TO €CLV Tj TTjV TOV opafLaTOC 7T€p£7T€TELav. 7T€pL7T€TELa 

is reasonably taken in the context to mean something like 'plot', 
'progression of incidents', a substantival 'how the drama falls out': a 
paraphrase, in fact, of il7Tof}€c£C = argumentumP And why, when he 
wants to give an example of dramatic hypotheses, does Sextus 
select Dicaearchus? This is strong evidence that the Euripidean 
hypotheses best known around the end of the first century were 
those of Dicaearchus. 
(c) A simple but cardinal piece of information is incidentally conveyed 
by the remaining attestation. The remarkable 'hypothesis' to Rhesus 
in the mediaeval MSS, discussed at some length by Ritchie,18 contains 
the following. 7TP0.\0YOL De DL'TTOt cplpovTaL. 0 youv L1 t.Kat.apxoc (Nauck: 
DLKa£av codd.) EKn(J€tc TTJV {.l7TO(J€CLV TOU <p.rJcov ypacpn KaTa .\lgLv OVTWC 

vuv €vcl.\Tjvov cplyyoc ~ 8£cpp~.\aToc. 
14 So also Austin, op.cit. (supra n.3) 89: "idem argumentum, sed in breve coactum, 

exstat in codd." 
15 pov(}wv: i.e. of the plots of the individual plays. This is clear from the phrase €KTL(}ELc TTJV 

lnro(}mv 'TOU 'P~cov in the late Rhesus hypothesis mentioned under (c) below. 
16 'TLVaC, as its position shows, does not imply that the collection was incomplete (A. 

Tuilier, Recherches critiques sur la tradition du texte d'Euripide [Paris 1968] 43), but is tanta­
mount to 'for example', 'say'. 

17 'plot' Zuntz, op.cit. (supra n.5) 144 n.2. 7TEpL7T€'Tm1. Kat lnrOBf:CLC is how 7TepLox~ is glossed 
by Photius and Hesychius and the Suda ("glossa sacra" Naber!-for 7TEpLOX"'J cf the Livy 
periochae and Sellius' 7TEptoXal of Menander, and also Sulpicius Apollinaris' metrical argu­
menta to Terence, called periochae in the Bembine). 

18 op.cit. (supra n.12) 6-40. 



154 EURIPIDES, PHOENISSAE 1-2 AND SOPHOCLES, ELECTRA 1 

" " "-' ~, ',/,,"',/,.' '\ \ W Kat EV EVtOLC OE TWV aVTLypa'fJWV ETEPOC TLC 'fJEpETaL '"po"OYOC. KTI\. e 
already know that Dicaearchus composed hypotheses to Euripides' 
plays (Rhesus was in the Euripidean corpus); we now learn that he 
quoted the first verse.19 

The papyri and the mythographers alike show that our Euripidean 
hypotheses enjoyed popularity-were standard, even-in the early 
centuries of the Empire: the dramatic hypotheses which came to 
Sextus Empiricus' mind, and which he expected his readers to be 
acquainted with, were the Euripidean and Sophoclean ones (in that 
ord~r) of Dicaearchus.20 This sets up a strong presumption, a pre­
sumption that is confirmed by the nature and format of our hypoth­
eses. Ours are the only dramatic hypotheses, of whatever author, 
that both (a) quote the first verse and (b) consist exclusively of a 
summary of the plot:21 the same is true of Dicaearchus'.22 

Objections to the identification may be quickly disposed of. 
(a) Some have imagined that Dicaearchus' hypotheses incorporated 
critical matter of some kind.23 They did not: witness Sextus Empiricus. 

19 So did Callimachus in the Pinakes, apparently, and it has been assumed that the author 
of our hypotheses took over the practice from him (by Turner, op.cit. [supra n.3] 2 and 
op.cit. [supra n.12] 101f; pfeiffer, op.cit. [supra n.5] 195; and by myself [supra n.1]). On the 
contrary. Cf. B. Nachmanson, op.cit. (supra n.6) 46f. 

P.Oxy. xvm 2192 (a letter of ca A.D. 170) 15-17 mentions '\&yov ~7!LT9ILd.C TWV 8€pccry6pov 
TWV TpcryLKWV ILv8wv (E. G. Turner, Greek Manuscripts of the Ancient World [Oxford / Prince­
ton 1971] no.68). Whatever the title of Thersagoras' work may have been COn the Myths of 
Tragedy" suggested Turner,JEA 38 [1952] 91, and op.cit. [supra n.12] 87), it is not likely to 
have been a collection of hypotheses if it was epitomised (and if '\6yov E1TLTolLal is rightly 
taken to mean 'prose epitomes', the implication is that it was in verse !). 

10 Add ex silentio: no Aeschylean hypotheses of our type exist. A slightly mauled Sopho­
clean one we now have, almost certainly, in P.Oxy. XLII 3013. (Cf. Wilamowitz, op.cit. 
[supra n.4] 183.) For the order Euripides-Sophocles (tacitly reversed by Wilamowitz, Lucas 
and others) cf. Heraclides ofPontus' 1T€P~ TWV 1Tap' E?JpL1Tl811 Ka~ CO</>OK,\€i. and Duris of Samos' 
1T£pl EvpL1TI80v Kal Co</>oKMovc. 

11 The Menander hypotheses, for example (P.Oxy. 1235 and 2534, ZPE 6 [1970] 5-7+ZPE 
8 [1971] 136), are supplemented by didascalic and allied information and by a critical 
appreciation. They are doubtless post-Aristophanic. (Ascription to Sellius is plaUSible.) 
The 'hypothesis' properly so called is just the summary, exclusive of all other matter. 

12 If only PSI 1286 extended another inch or so leftwards the identification would be 
assured (or not), for we would know what verse was given as the Rhesus apXJi. We await 
another bit, whether of that or of the heading of Sophocles' Ajax (entitled AiavTOC 8&vaTOc 
by Dicaearchus, hypoth. Aj.). 

13 Zuntz (op.cit. [supra n.5] 143f) rightly demurred from this 'dogma', but it is still 
propagated: in OCDI S.v. HYPOTHESIS D. W. Lucas says of our hypotheses, "Since their date 
is probably of the first century B.C. they cannot be the same as those produced by Dicae­
archus for Sophocles and EUripides (Sext.Emp. Math. 3.3), which appear to have contained 
also investigations into the origin of the poet's subject-matter"; cf Turner, op.cit. (supra 



MICHAEL W. HASLAM 155 

The confusion, insofar as it is still current, seems to have arisen from a 
notice in the Medea hypothesis (not of our type) citing Dicaearchus 
along with Aristotle as authority that Medea was 'lifted' from Neo­
phron. But that testimony is expressly stated ad loc. to have been 
drawn from Dicaearchus' "Life of Greece," a different and more 
ambitious work altogether (frr.l, 47-66 Wehrli). Dicaearchus also 
wrote a treatise 7TEpL LlwvvnaKwv ayu)vwv (schol. Ar. Av. 1403, fr.75 
Wehrli); it may be from there that our other titbits of his work in the 
field of tragedy were taken.24 To be sure, Dicaearchus pursued 
literary researches, but his lJ7To8€CELC were argumenta (preceded by 
quotation of the apx~), nothing more. 
(b) Zuntz maintained that a work of such an 'uninspired' kind must 
belong to a later era.25 Since we know that Dicaearchus did undertake 
such a work, this argument is something of a non-starter. But it might 
be remarked that (as Ritchie notes) Heraclides of Pontus did not 
think it unworthy of him to compile T~ KEq,&'AaLa EvpL7TtSn ;26 and 
Aristotle's SLSaCKaAtaL had not depended on inspiration. 
(c) The lJ7To8€cELc, in their original form, are stylistically elegant 
compositions. As an example of early minor Peripatetica to set beside 
the Characters of Theophrastus, they are most welcome and merit 
study.27 Accurate and judiciously balanced in content, limpid in 
expression, taut but unforced in composition, choice while correct in 
vocabulary, there is certainly nothing in them incompatible with 
what we know of Dicaearchus' style, nor, I suggest, with what we 
might imagine of it.28 

n.3) 8; Ritchie, op.ot. (supra n.12) 8, 30f; M. H. van der Valk, Researches on the Text and 
Scholia of the Iliad I (Leiden 1963) 345. 

24 Sophocles, not Aeschylus, introduced the third actor (Vita Aesch. 15: no mention of 
Aristotle !), and Oedipus Tyrannus was defeated by Philocles (hypoth. II aT; Dicaearchus 
surely cited as authority only for this, not for the intitulation); cf. schol. ad Eur. Andr. 1. 

25 op.Ot. (supra n.5) 138-39, 146. 
26 Antiphanes fr.1l3.5 Kock. The identification is generally accepted (cf. F. R. Wehrli, 

Die Schule des Aristoteles VII [Basle 1953] 61f). Ke</>&>"aux presumably of the type of e.g. hypoth. 
I Soph. Ant., T6 8~ Kf!</>&>"a.&v JCT£ T&'</>OC IIoAuvf!tKovc, 'AVT£Y&V7JC dvatp£c£c, O&'vaToc Al,...ovoc, 
Kal ,...6poc Evpv8tKT]c TijC Al,...ovoc ""T}Tp6c and (nicely demonstrating the relative paucity of 
incident) hypoth. mOT, T6 KE</>&>"a£ov 8€ TOV 8pa,...aToc yvwc£c TWV l8lwv KaKWV Ol8£7T68oc, 
TrfJpwclc TE TWV d</>8a>.p.wlI Kala.' ayxoVTjc 8avaToc '!oKacTTjc. Dicaearchus gave them stylistic 
clothing. 

27 The Characters too used to be considered a product of the imperial age. 
28 What we know is virtually nothing. Cicero calls him copiosus (De Off. 2.5.16, fr.24 

Wehrli). His style will be expected to conform to the precepts of Arist. Rhet. III (5 on T6 
£>J.T}vl{uv). Barrett notes avoidance of hiatus in our hypotheses (CQ 15 [1965] 61 n.2, 62 n.!). 



156 EURIPIDES, PHOENISSAE 1-2 AND SOPHOCLES, ELECTRA 1 

More could be said, but this is hardly the place. We may still wish 
it were Aristophanes' hypotheses we had, not Dicaearchus'; but that 
will only be because the later scholar incorporated Aristotle (via 
Callimachus ). 

A small reservation about the authority of the quoted aPX7J of 
Phoenissae must now be entered. If our hypotheses are Dicaearchus', 
P.Oxy. 2455 has some 500 years behind it. There may be a chance that 
the originally quoted apX7J has been changed to bring it into line with 
the current text, if that had a different apX7J' This evidently did not 
happen with Rhesus, however, and in view of the independent trans­
mission the risk of such contamination may be thought slight. 

On the evidence of the hypothesis aPX7J on the one hand, and the 
mediaeval MSS on the other, texts of Phoenissae current in antiquity 
might be expected to begin either at v.3 or at v.l. We are lucky enough 
to have two such texts with the beginning of the play. Each starts at 
verse 3. 
ii. PAPYRUS TEXT. A fragment of a papyrus roll of the play, P.Oxy. inv. 
21 3B.26/E(7-8)a, was edited by David Hughes in a University of 
London doctoral thesis of 1972, and I am very grateful to Dr Hughes 
and to the Egypt Exploration Society for allowing me to mention it 
here. The text is written on the back of a 'numerical calculation' 
(Hughes) in a hand which I would assign to the late first or early 
second century. What is left is the upper part of two successive 
columns: the line-ends of one, the line-beginnings of the next. The 
column tops are preserved, and the first line of the first column reads 
]cpv¢>.:\oya, v.3. 
iii. ANOTHER PAPYRUS TEXT. A still more recent accession is another 
papyrus text of the play, an unpublished one with the Oxyrhynchus 
inventory number 50 4B.30/E(1). It is an early codex: more precisely, a 
conjugate pair of leaves that apparently constituted the first quire 
(i.e., a unio) of a codex of Phoenissae (and other plays?) written in a 
hand of a type conventionally assigned to the late second or early third 
century. The first leaf has its outside page blank; the text starts on the 
inside page, and in the margin against the first line is the nota personae 
i:OK, Jocasta. The first line runs 7J.:\L€8oatci7T7TOtctV€LCwv¢>.:\oya (€LCWV for 
€t.:\LCCWV, an insignificant slip): again v.3. 

2. External evidence, indirect 

There is more evidence yet. It is not entirely redundant, for it does 



MICHAEL W. HASLAM 157 

not all come from Egypt and is not all late. Most of it has been 
available for very much longer than the papyri, yet the obvious and 
proper conclusion was not drawn. In a sense, it is the papyri that are 
redundant. One item carries us back beyond Alexandria to Athens in 
the fourth century. 
i. THEODECTAS. Some verses of the distinguished litterateur Theo­
dectas, written probably a few years after the middle of the fourth 
century, have often been 'compared' with the opening of Phoenissae. 
They evidently come from the beginning of one of his tragedies. 29 

'S'Q KalJUcpEyyij i\a/L7Ta8' ELi\{CCWV cpi\oyoc 
<tH"\ ()' - '() I 1\ IUE. 7TO ELVOV 7TacLV av PW7TOLC CEIlac • 

.,.~ I ,."\ \ """ 
10 LaEC TLV a""ov 7TW7TOT ELC OVTW /LEyav 
"(J I , ,- '~I ..J.. I \ 
Ell OVT aywva Kat OVCEK'f'EVKTOV KPLCLV; KTIl. 

The points of comparison are two. Both openings are apostrophes of 
the Sun; and ),a/L7TaS' EL),{CCWV cpi\oy6c echoes El),{ccwv cpi\6ya. The 
phrasing is so close that it can hardly be doubted that the reminiscence 
is deliberate. It makes more sense if Theodectas knew the Euripidean 
line as the first verse of the play than if he knew it as the third. This 
is a form of argument I shall be using again, and I should state that it 
does not purport to preclude absolutely the possibility of acquain­
tance with vv.1-2. We may postulate either that the verses were 
known or that they were not. The question is, which is more plausible? 
ii. AccIUs. Euripides' play was exploited in a more thoroughgoing 
manner by Accius at Rome. Accius' Phoenissae began, like Euripides', 
with an apostrophe to the Sun by Jocasta:30 

Sol, qui micantem. candido curru atque equis 
flammam citatis fervido ardore explicas, 
quianam tam adverso augurio et inimico omine 
Thebis radiatum lumen ostentum tuum. .. ? 

Take the first two lines as an expanded version solely of Eur. Phoen. 
3. Each word in the Greek has its Latin counterpart: "Hi\LE- Sol, (JoatC 

t7T7TOLCLV- equis ... citatis, Eli\{ccwv- qui . .. explicas, cpi\6ya- flammam. 
This is not so much adaptation as word-for-word translation.31 What 
is there left over? micantem., candido curru atque, and fervido ardore. It 

29 TrGF 72 FlO: "initium tragoediae videtur esse" Snell, as I expect others before him. It 
would be a reasonable guess even without Phoenissae, which practically guarantees it. 

30 581-84 Ribbeck. There can be no doubt that this is the very beginning. It is quoted by 
two independent authorities, Apul. Flor. 10, and Priscian, De metris fab.Ter. 15, III 424 Keil. 

31 ad verbum e Graecis expressa, as Cicero put it (De Fin. 1.4). 



158 EURIPIDES, PHOENISSAE 1-2 AND SOPHOCLES, ELECTRA 1 

would be unfair to call this mere padding, but it adds nothing to the 
intellectual substance. The only thing that might make for any doubt 
at all is candido curru. But is not 'with bright chariot' strangely 
anaemic as a rendering of 'mounted on gold-welded chariot'? and 
why does Accius' Sun fail to cleave his way among the stars ?32 I 
suggest that much as micantem amplifies jlammam, without qualifying 
it in any very meaningful way, so does candido curru atque amplify 
equis citatis;33 and miCANtem CANdido is achieved.34 It is not a matter 
for great surprise if two independent expansions of 'Sun, rolling flame 
with swift horses' should each introduce a chariot. I submit that when 
asked to consider whether Accius' opening is more plausibly regarded 
as a version of Eur. Phoen. 1-3 or of 3 alone, no one will feel obliged to 

vacillate. If anyone should, let him look at the first word. 
The implication, then, is that Accius, like Theodectas before him, 

knew the first verse of Euripides' Phoenissae as "HA£€ 80aic ~1T1TO£C£V 

€lMccwlI cPAoya. Later antiquity is peppered with direct but isolated 
quotations of the verse, which, though less decisive than its mutations 
in Theodectas and Accius, point in the same direction and have a 
certain negative value as regards vv.1-2. 
iii. GRAEco-EGYPTIAN HYMN. An ostrakon found at Edfu in 1938/9 has 
written on it some lines which were first published by G. Manteuffel 

38 Seeking to answer the latter question, F. Leo (De tragoedia RomalU1 observationes criticae 
[Gottingen 1910] 1-5= Ausgewiihlte kleine Schriften I [Rome 1960] 191-93) adduced a scholium 
that has been thought to report a tradition that Phoen. 1-2 were criticized by Sophocles 
(see p.162 infra), and he inferred that Acdus was subtly airing his scholarship. But if that 
were so, the last thing Acdus would have done would be to retain the chariot, thereby 
giving his audience the impression (if, that is, they were as learned as Leo) that "primum 
... versum omisit, alterum contraxit": he would have studiously avoided everything in 1-2. 
Leo seems not to have considered that Acdus might have had no knowledge of Phoen. 1-2, 
let alone the scholium. He and all other critics have proceeded from the unquestioned and 
unwarranted assumption that Accius had Phoen. 1-3 in front of him. Subsequent scholars 
have taken up Leo's line (1. Mariotti, MusHelv 22 [1965] 215; A. Traina, Vortit barbare [Rome 
1970] 191-94), and Acdus is now in danger of being thought as allusive a scholar-poet as 
Callimachus. There is no need to discuss Enn. Med. init. here. 

33 Similarly we 8ve7'tJ](ii (Eur. Phoen. 4) is filled out to tam adverso et inimico omine (cf, as 
adduced by Leo, the rendering of the single word 8VC'TUxii in av8pa 8ve'TUxij E§vyplweav, 
Phoen. 875, by a fortulU1 opibusque omnibus desertum, abiectum, adjlictum; examples could be 
multiplied). Acdus' Bacchae provides a trivial but fairly close parallel: nam neque sat jingi 
neque dici potest I pro magnitate (247 Ribbeck) renders OQIC !Xv 8vvalp.TJv ILly£Ooe £§mT£tV (oeoe 
lCaO' 'EM&8' ECTlu), Eur. Bacch. 273f. The accession of jingi neque (did) is comparable to that 
of candido curru atque (equis). 

34 Virgo Aen. 6.165 accendere cdntu, said to have been improvised in recitation, is an 
interesting similitude. 



MICHAEL W. HASLAM 159 

in 1949.35 It is assigned a date towards the end of the Ptolemaic era. 
After a partly illegible heading, V€aCOL ..•• SLC (vIa COL f-L€ACfJSla ?), the 
verses run :36 

" ~., J. I ,~ €TrOC 0 €'f'WV1JC€V TOO€' 
\ \ , D \ A COV TO KpaTOC, ,..aC£I\€V, 
\ , , (I i: COV TO KpaTOC, £€pa",. 

5 ., HAtE {}oa'ic iTrTrOLCLV ~Atccwv c/>A6ya, 
"HAtE {}oa'ic iTrTrOLCLV ~Atccwv c/>A6ya. 

Whatever we make of this strange and unsophisticated little farrago,37 
the closing refrain is more readily explicable if the verse was known 
as the first line of the tragedy than if it was known as the third. 
iv. AELIUS ARISTIDES. The ostrakon is kept strange company by a 
passage from one of the curious {EPOt A6yot of Aelius Aristides, sophist 
and hypochondriac extraordinary of the mid-second century. In one 
of his dreams he found himself in the agora at Smyrna, in a Aaf-LTra­
S'Y}cPopta; it was dawn, and they were all chanting" HALE {}oaic £TrTrOLCLV 
E lA{ccwv c/>A6ya. 38 

v, vi. METRICIANS. The second-century metrician Hephaestion had 
taught that there were four disyllabic feet (by permutation: v-, -v, 
- - and vv) and eight trisyllabic.39 His successors seized on this com­
putational method of metrical analysis, and schematized gloriously. 
Pentasyllables were 32 in number, and were analysable either as 

35 ]]urPap 3 (1949) 102-03, subsequently as O.Edf. 326 in Tell Edfou 1939, Fouilles franco­
polonaises III (1950) 331-32 with pI. L. 

36 3,4 cvv ostr., post COTTo in 4 (ita ed.: potius ante carr. f). 
37 The editor suggested it might be a hymn to Horus-Helios sung by school-children-a 

Graeco-Egyptian "All things bright and beautiful." His metrical analysis of3 is choriamb+ 
anapaest, of 4 dochmiac: both lines are in fact hemiepe, _vv_vV_. We have just the sim­
plest iambic and dactylic measures here. 

38 Or. 47.22 (Keil, 1.22 Dindorf) 1TaV7'EC £Aap.1TaS'1J<I>6povv Ot £V rfj ayop'i- I(a~ TO Evp£7TlSnov 
TOlYrO ;A£yoV' "HALE Boa.c Z'1I'1TOmV ElAtccwv <l>A6ya' Kal. yap ap.a ~Alov &VaToAfi 'S&KOVV ElcEABEiv. 
(For Aap.1TaS'1JSpop.taL see J. G. Frazer on Paus. 1.30.2, Ed. Fraenkel on Aesch. Agam. 314.) 
Dindorf in his apparatus (I p.451) identifies the verse thus: "est initium Phoenissarum." 
This form of words might suggest that Dindorf rejected vv.1-2, were it not for the ridicule 
he later poured on the Euripidean scholium lending support to such a rejection (p.162 
below). 

at Choeroboscus in Heph. 3, p.2l2 Consbr.: Eldv oW S£aJ.MapoL TWV a1TAwv 1T&SEC TlccapEC. 
ElTa l(aTa ava&1TAaCtacp.ov TpLcvMapoL OKTcfJ, wc 0 TEXVtKOC (i.e. Heph.) </>'1JCLV. 1TaAtv l(aTa avaSL-
1TAaCLacp.ov KTA. Apparently Hephaestion balked at more than trisyllabic feet. The matter 
was evidently already controversial in the time of Dionysius of Halicarnassus: he tersely 
ends ch.17 of De Compositione Verborum, a1TAOIic SE ';v8JLoC 17 1TOIlC oUr' lAarrwv 800 cvMapwv 
OUrE p.El~wv TptWV' Kat 1TEpt p.& TOVTWV OUK ola' OTL SEi Ta 1TAEtW AEyEW. 



160 EURIPIDES, PHOENISSAE 1-2 AND SOPHOCLES, ELECTRA 1 

disyllable+ trisyllable or as trisyllable+ disyllable.'o One example is 
given, and that example is "HAL€ BoaLc. Analysed as -uu v- it is 
iambic, as -v w- (!), trochaic. We cannot be sure when this specific 
illustration originated, but it may have been in the second century.u 
Since the iambic/trochaic ambivalence selected for demonstration 
obtains only in a pentasyllable of the shape -vvv-, it is not safe to 
infer that the "HALE line was known as v.3 but as v.1; but if it was 
known as v.1, its adoption for illustrative purposes is that much more 
comprehensible. Grammarians' predilections for first lines are 
notorious: metricians share them equally. 

There is another citation in a metrical context, slightly more 
interesting. One of the more respectable parts of the mish-mash 
known conglomerately as the Scholia B to Hephaestion, the so-called 
third book (Hoerschelmann: see pp.xiv f Consbruch), begins with a 
section 1TEP~ laJLf3LKov (pp.266-69 Consbr.). It lists iambic lines in order 
of length, from the 'monometer brachycatalectic' (cp£v cp£v: very apt) 
to the full pentameter (mtT£p AVKaJLf3a KTA., Archil. 172.1-2 West). 
The example of the 'dimeter brachycatalectic' is "HAL€ BoaLc l1T1TOLC 
(sic). Evidently the only wayan example of the required length could 
be obtained was by the Procrustean expedient of cutting a trimeter 
down to size. The question is, why this particular trimeter? Caesuraless 
verses must have been known (perhaps even collected), which would 
have submitted to dimidiation without requiring the docking of the 
horses' tail. And" HAL£ Boa'ic is hardly a regular iambic metron. The 
verse was just the first to come to mind that lent itself to the required 
modification. 

Both these metrical instances provide no more than arguable 
evidence of the actual initium. Negatively, they fail to give any indica­
tion that vv.1-2 were known. The same may be said of the remaining 
three attestations.'2 
vii. MACROBIUS. Macrobius devotes no small part of the first book of 

40 Anon. I1£p~ piTPWV Kal. '7To8wv §3, p.357f Consbr. (cf xxvii f) and Schol. B Heph. Bk. 5, 
p.296f Consbr. (cf xv). The latter has escaped the index. 

41 We shall hesitate to attribute it to Hephaestion himself (if. n.39 above), but it prob­
ably antedates the dispute as to whether the grand total was 124 (4+8+16+32+64) or 
144 (12 X 12), and we know that to be second century, for the latter sum was favoured by 
Longinus (Choerob. 3, p.212.25 Consbr.). 

42 I do not know if! have caught all the attestations. There is a great need for a collection 
of citations, such as has been attempted for Orestes by V. di Benedetto in his edition (Flor­
ence 1965) xx-xxv. 



MICHAEL W. HASLAM 161 

his Saturnalia43 to the bTLKA~CHC of Apollo. One of them, he says, is 
, EAEAEVC (Sat. 1.17.46): Apollo 'EAEAEVC appellatur a7T6 TOU JAlTTEc8aL 

7TEpL TfjV yfjv, quod aeterno circa terram meatu veluti volvi videtur ut ait 
Euripides: fI HALE Boa tC i7T7TOLCLV E lALCCWV t/>A6ya. 44 

viii. STOBAEUS. Stobaeus, on the nature of the sun (1.25.6,1.214 Wachs­
muth), reports that for Euripides the sun is fire. AEYEL youv €V ({JOLVLccaLC 
introduces quotation of Phoen. 3. Stobaeus' source is not known. 
ix. ACHILLES GRAMMATICUS. Apropos the sphericality of the sky, the 
Isagoge to Aratus' Phaenomena, ascribed to the grammarian Achilles 
and dated by E. Maass to the third century, quotes without attri­
bution Phoen. 3.45 Achilles draws via Eudorus on the first-century B.C. 
Alexandrian Diodorus,46 but we cannot tell at what stage the Phoenis­

sae quote got in. 
I find one passage that might be held to indicate acquaintance with 

vv.I-2 in antiquity. Julian the Apostate, eulogizing the emperor 
Constantine whom he was shortly to march against, refers to gold­
inlaid chariots, XPvcoKOAA7JTa aPILaTa (Or. 2.50d). The sentence is too 
long to quote in its entirety: let us pick it up where it eventually 
reaches the main verb. alcxvvotJL7Jv, El JL~ TOU II7JAEwc tfoaLVotp:T)v 

., I \ , , '~I \' " ,/... \ EVYVWJLOVECTEPOC KaL E7TaLVOL7JV HC DvvaJLLV Ta 7TpocoVTa COL, OUTL 't'7JJLL 
\ \. \ ~ \ ~ , ~ \ \ A' 1 \ 1\ XPVCOV KaL al\ovpy7j Xl\aLVaV, OVOE JLa L..ILa 7TE7TI\OVC 7TaJL7TOLKLI\OVC, yvvaL-

~" C "" '''' \ ., J\T 1 '\ \' \ \ , KWV Epya WWVLWV, OUDE L7T7TWV lYLCaLWV Kal\l\7j KaL XPVCOKOI\I\7jTWV 

apJL&TWV &CTp&7TTOVcaV a LyA7jV, OVD€ ~V '!VDWV At80v €vav8fj KaL XapLEccav. 
Homer-imbued as the oration is, the reference to Peleus is followed up 
by a citation from the Iliad,7Tt7TAoL 7TaJL7TotKLAOL, lpyayuvaLKwv I Ct80vtwv 
(6.289£). Then come the Nisaean horses and the gold-inlaid chariots. 
The allusion here is to Xerxes' departure from Sardis for Greece as 
described by Herodotus (7.40.1). Xerxes' chariot is drawn by Nisaean 
horses, but is not stated to be inlaid with gold; golden apples and 

43 The Saturnalia is dated "not very long after 431" by Alan Cameron, JRS 56 (1966) 
24-38. 

44 'EAfAfVC evidently a back-formation from the cry JA"AfV. JA"AfV is something like 
'TTU£CXV, apparently: JAfAfV, JAfA"AfV, and JA"Al,ftv are found in contexts both of lamentation 
(Aesch. PV 877, Eur. Phoen. 1514, Hel. IllI, Ar. Av. 213) and of war or war-preliminaries 
(Achaeus fr.37, Ar. Av. 364, Xen. Anab. 1.8.18). Cf the ancient commentators, e.g. at Hesych. 
s. v. : J'TT£CPcfJv111J.u 1TOAEp.t.K6v· oll)E 1TPOUVUq,cfJVTJCtc 1TU'UVtCp.ov. The crowd shouted' EAfAfV lovlov 
at the Athenian oschophoria (Plut. Thes. 22, q.v. for origin of cry); it may be this that led to 

an association with Dionysus (Ov. Met. 5.14). Did Macrobius' derivation go via JA"At,£,v 
(the other €AfAl~EW, which started life as ffAl[u,)? 

45 Achilles ch.6, in Commentariorum in Aratum reliquiae, ed. E. Maass (Berlin 1898, repro 
1958) 37. 

48 Achilles ch.2 (Maass, op.cit. [supra n.45] 30); cf. Diels. Dox.Graec. 17-22. 



162 EURIPIDES, PHOENISSAE 1-2 AND SOPHOCLES, ELECTRA 1 

pomegranates are the only gold in the vicinity. Does XPVCOKOAA~TWV 
come from Phoenissae, then? I am inclined to think it does not. 
Julian's allusions to drama are few, usually if not always second-hand. 
aCTpa7TTovcav atYA7Jv carries no Euripidean allusion; apJ-LaTWv is not 
8lcppwv. XpvcoK6A>..TJTOC is a fine-sounding word eminently fit for a 
splendid chariot, be it the Great King's or the Sun's, and it is quite 
possible that the author of Phoen. 1-2 and Julian thought of it inde­
pendently. There is nothing exclusively poetic about the word. It is 
found in Rhesus and in Antiphanes (see n.83 infra), but also in Lucian 
(31.29) and later prose writers (see H. Stephanus, TGL s.v. XPVC6KOAAOC). 
Compounds of -K6A>..TJTOC are readily coined and are more common in 
prose than in verse. 

3. Evidence of scholia 

One testimonium remains. One of the ·old' (i.e. pre-mediaeval) 
scholia on Phoen. 1-2 runs as follows: 7TaAata nc cplpETat 86ga WC 
CocpoKMjc fLEV EmnfL~cEtEV Evpml8t/ on fL~ 7TpohagE TOVTOVC TOVC 8vo 

, r ~ \ E' ,~ " \ , /: "R" , • C.I.. , ~ \ cnxovc, 0 OE Vpt7T'OTJC on fLTJ 7TpOETac:;EV EV I\EKTpCf 0 O'f'OKI\TJC TO 

r~ Q TOU CTpaT7Jy~cavToC EV TpolCf 7TOTE' (Soph. El. 1). "An ancient tradition 
is reported that Sophocles reproached Euripides for failing to prefix 
these two verses, and that Euripides in tum reproached Sophocles for 
failing to prefix, in the Electra, "'Q TOU cTpaTTJy~cavToc EV TpolCf 7TOTE." 

Not everything is perspicuous here, but all we need observe for the 
present is that the premise of the SOga is that Phoenissae was originally 
without verses 1-2-and that Sophocles' Electra was originally without 
verse 1. Unfortunately this premise has been editorially reversed. 
"Vulgatis, si fL~ abiiciatur, sensus inerit commodus," commented 
Valckenaer: an observation true in itself, but misguided in intent. To 
alter a scholium to bring it into line with the transmitted tradition is 
always a dangerous procedure. But ever since, the two fL~ 's have been 
deleted.47 Their removal proceeded from an assumption that Phoen. 
1-2 and Soph. El. 1 were genuine48-an assumption that can no longer 
be happily made. 

17 I have not counted the number of references to the scholium that I have come across, 
but they all cite it in its perverted form. Of the scholia editors, Oindorf relegates the p:r}'s 
to the apparatus (and calls the story inane), Schwartz more circumspecdy puts them in 
square brackets. "Non Sophocli ex scholiis, sed scholiis ex Sophocle medela est afferenda" 
was G. Wolff's dictum (ap. Oindorf,Sdwlia in Soplwclis Tragoedias Septemll [Oxford 1852] Hi). 

&8 It did not proceed from a concern for good Greek, for J7I"T'I'''~CE'£II has been left un­
touched; in any case p.,q should not shock anybody. Rather p.,q might be taken, with caution, 



MICHAEL W. HASLAM 163 

The opening of Sophocles' Electra has now been brought into the 
inquiry: see pp.166-68 below. For the moment, let us merely restore 
the scholium to its received form and enter it as a testimony calling 
into question the authenticity of Phoen. 1-2 and Soph. El. 1. 

More straightforward, and manifesting no doubt about the verses, 
is another 'old' scholium on Phoen. 1 (c1J SLOS€VWII ••• ), which backs up a 
jejune paraphrase (by no means all such are Byzantine) with a 
quotation from Aratus illustrating acrpoll in the meaning of zodiacal 
constellation. The remainder of the scholia are of no evidential 
value. 49 

The scholia (and dubiously Julian) apart, the earliest reference I 
find to Phoen. 1-2 is mediaeval, lurking in Eustathius' prodigious 
commentary on the Iliad. Commenting on Il. 4.75, oioll 0' aCT€pa ~K€ 

Kpollov 7TaLC a'YKvAOf-L~T€W, Eustathius makes the standard distinction 
between aCT~p (a single star) and aCTpolI (a constellation), and he 
exemplifies it by quoting, in oratio obliqua, Phoen. 1: OLO Kat EvpL7TLo7JC 

\ <tH·\ \'" ,~, "'/" t~, \ ~ \ ~ r ~, 
Tall I\LOII T7JII €II aCTpOLC ovpallov T€f-LII€LII €'f''YJ 00011, T7JV OLa TWII ",WOLWII 

" / ,/.. / r 'f''' ,~ ,/.. / --" \, / 
OVTW KLV7JCLII 'f'pa",WII, WV €KaCTOV €K OLa'f'0PWII aCTpwv KaL (xCTPLWV 

OL€'W'Ypa~7JT(xL (Comm. ad Il. 446.47--447.1, I 705.8-10 van der Valk). 
In not naming the play but merely making the attribution to Euripides 
he follows what is his customary practice when referring to better 
known plays. The distinction between aCTpov and aCT~p is inherited, 
and so is the exegesis of Phoen. 1, but it could well be that Eustathius, 
enormously well read in Euripides as he was,50 added the Phoenissae 
citation on his own account. If Eustathius entertained any doubts 
about the authenticity of the line, he conceals them. 

4. Internal evidence 

To argue now on internal grounds that Phoen. 1-2 are spurious may 
seem a piece of supererogation. However: (i) no amount of external 

as indicative of a date in the early empire: if. KUhner-Gerth II §511.3c, Mayser, Griechische 
Grammatik II ii 551, 562. Lucian, Hist.conser. 26, is a close parallel: TO!hO 8£ /-utM.eTa ilTtaeal-"TJII. 

OTt p.~ Tall cvyypa,p£a ••• '1Tpoa7roe~ae a7r£8av£. As for ~mT'I-"-rJe£'£II, it is presumably not in 
quasi-historic sequence (like e.g. Xen. Cyn. 8.2.14 AO,),oe • •• a7r0l-"IITJI-"0Il£V£Tat. we AerOt /eTA.) 

but a preciosity . 
.. The one beginning l(Joe £xovetll ol TPl%')'tKOl, though marked as belonging to v.l, could 

equally well have been comment originally on v.3. Another, beginning '7r£1 KVKAoT£poe 0 
ovpavoc, dearly is meant to apply to v.3. Everything else is Byzantine. 

60 H. W. Miller, AJP 61 (1940) 422-28, collects a formidable list of citations. On Eustathius 
knowledge of the non-select plays (were it not for which we would not have them) see 
A. Pertusi. Dioniso 20 (1957) 21 and n.18, and R. Browning, BICS 7 (1960) 15. 



164 EURIPIDES, PHOENISSAE 1-2 AND SOPHOCLES, ELECTRA 1 

evidence will ever prove a given verse spurious (nor, let it be said, 
genuine)-not that I would happily construct a process of trans­
mission whereby Phoen. 1-2 are genuine; and (ii) we have the oppor­
tunity of comparing the true opening with the one that was so 
successfully grafted on to it. But in proceeding to impugn the verses 
I am reminded of the case of Aeschylus' Supplices. It is difficult today, 
now that documentary evidence has shown Supplices not to be our 
earliest extant tragedy, to find a scholar who would believe, even 
were it not for that evidence, that it is. It seems so obvious, now, that 
Phoenissae starts at verse 3. 

Here are the opening verses again, with 1-2 bracketed as a tem­
porary compromise. 

["'r\ \ , " 'A I .~ , 
0:.': T7JV €V acrpotc ovpavov TEILvWV OOOV 

Ka, XpvcOKoM7]TOtCtv lIL{1E{1WC 8lrppotc] 
., HAtE (Joa'ic i7r7rotctv ElAlecwv rpAoya, 

we 8veTVX77 87]{1atCt rfi TOT' ~IL'Pq. 
• A"~ u_~~ ., , .3:\(J A aKTtv E'f'I/Kac, n..aalLoe 7]VtK '//\ E Y1Jv 

I ~. '\ \ .rF.' • __ \ , (J I T7Jvo , EK/\t7rWV 'Votvtceav EVa/Uav X ova' 

What is the Sun doing cleaving his way among stars? The normal 
relation of the sun to stars is a simple one: the sun puts the stars to 
flight. If the image is not to be totally absurd,5l we must follow the 
commentators52 in supposing the aCTpa to be the constellations of the 
zodiac; the &80c is then the Sun's annual course, not his daily one. But 
this is most unexpected. The Sun traverses the vault of heaven once a 

51 It will not do to adduce instances of the Sun and the stars in company. With one 
exception (not counting the corrupt Phoen. 504) these are representations of both day and 
night; so with the descriptions at Bur. EI. 464fI and Ion 1146fI. and Zeus' turning back the 
sun and stars on the occasion of Thyestes' banquet (Bur. EI. 726fI, Or. lOOlff). The excep­
tion does not help the present case: in Apollo's final address in Orestes (1685fI) he promises, 
'EA~V P.€M.OpoLC 'IT€AaCW, I Aap.'lTpwv aC7pwv 'lTOAOV l,avtJcac, I €YOa 'lTap' • Hpf! 'Tjj 0' 'HpaKAEovc I 
• H{3TJ 'lTap€8poc KTA. This amalgamates two images, that of the constellations in the vault of 
the sky (Eur. fr .594.5 8l8vp.olT' apKTo, .•• TOV ' ATA&v7€,ov TTJPovc, 'lTOAOV: the 'lTOAOC is supported 
by Atlas, as e.g. at Aesch. PV 429f) , and that of the 'lTOAOC as the location of the abode of the 
gods (Eur. fr.911.5 (3acop.alT' €lc a1.0/p'ov 'lTOAOV apO€k I z,rw' 'lTpocp.€l'wv); cf. He!. 1096, HF 406f, 
Phoen. 1006; Page PMG 936.12. 

Nor will it do to think that we are on the point of sunrise: 'among the stars'. forsooth; and 
dawn precedes the sunrise, in any case (J. Diggle at Phaethon 63). Finally, Homer's 'starry 
sky' in the daytime is quite different, that being an aspect of formulaic composition. 

52 Not all. It is to Wecklein's credit that he balks at this interpretation even though he 
has no other to put in its place: "Wenn auch der Glanz der Sterne vor der Sonne erbleicht, 
so erscheint es doch als unpoetisch, ... an den Tierkreis zu denken" (Ausgewahlte Tragodien 
des Euripides V [Leipzig 1894] 29). 



MICHAEL W. HASLAM 165 

day, and it is this daily circuit which we should expect to find53-and 
which, indeed, we do find once the opening is stripped of 1-2. 

Then: what is the structure of this lengthy apostrophe? We have 
three participles, distributed either side of "HALE.54 A vocative can be 
preceded by a participle with cL (e.g. cL cPa€vvac ovpavov vaiwv 7T'TVX<XC I 
ZED) or it can be followed by a participle (e.g. rEpp:ij XOOVLE TTaTpii/ 

E7TOTTTEVWV Kpd.TTJ). But both at once? This seems stylistically horrid. 
But the chief objection I would enter against 1-2 is not so much 

philological as aesthetic. 55 The thing is out of all proportion. The 
apostrophe is a device for getting the playoff the ground. HIt was a 
bad day for Thebes when Cadmus came here from Phoenicia" gets 
closer to the intellectual content of the opening. The three-line 
invocation is grossly overblown. Lines 1-2 are almost sheer bombast, 
for apart from the picturesque detail of 'gold-welded', verse 3 says 
all that they have to say and more. The circuit through the sky (v.l: 
forget the muddying stars) is inherent in ElAtccwv, and the chariot 
(v.2) in ;'TT7TOLCLV. Euripides can afford to leave the chariot implicit, 
for it is a familiar image that is being evoked. Say" HALE before the 
audience of a tragedy and they will imagine a chariot.56 

The disproportion is shown up by the first three-line invocation 
that comes to mind, Aesch. Ag. 22-24. 

'T "" \ \ ", w XaLpE l\afLTTTTJp VVKTOC TJfLEpTJCLOV 
.J..' .J..' \ ~ , 'f'aoc TTL'f'aVCKWV KaL xopWV KaTaCTaCLV 

\ \ ~ , "A ~ ~ .J.. ~ I ,\ , , 
TTOI\I\WV EV PrEL TTJCOE cVfL'f'opac Xapw' LOV LOV. 

His prayers are answered, his year's watch is over: he greets the long­
awaited fires. And he breaks out of metre. What a contrast with 
Phoenissae, where what has happened is-nothing at all. Agamemnon 

53 so, for example, in Ajax' suicide speech, Soph. Aj. 845f cv a', W TOV al7TVv o~pavov 
a,tPfY'IAaTbJV ,·HA,€, 7TaTpcpav -n}v ~p.~v OTav x8ava, tanc, I(7"A. [The second invocation of the Sun 
in the same speech, 856-58, is surely spurious, as I hope to argue elsewhere.] Cf [Eur.] 
Epigr. 2.1-2 Bergk (n.83 infra), Timoth. fr.13 Bergk, Nonn. 17.271f, Quint.Smyrn. l.U8f. 
When it is the annual circuit that is in question, this is made explicit: e.g. Sen. Oed. 250ff 
tuque, 0 sereni maximum mundi decus, , bis sena cursu signa qui vario regis, I qui tarda celeri 
saecula evolvis rota, etc., Nonn. 38.114 'HlA'oc AVKa{JaVTa aVWa€Kap.TjVOV l>..lccwv, I(7"A. 

54 I presume people have construed Tlp.vwv Ka~ €P.{3€{3wc, and not, as Leo, op.cit. (supra n.32) 
4=KI.Schr. 193, Tlp.vwv Ka~ €i>..lccwv (€P.{J€{Jwc intermisso); but the logical superiority of Leo's 
impossible construction does serve to point the messiness of the image. 

65 "Phoenissarum hocce 7Tp6cW7TOV TTjAauytc, in quo suos sibi naevos nonnulli detexisse 
videbantur, multis perplacuit," Valckenaer ad loco 

66 It would be pleasing if Phaethon had been performed the previous year; but the point 
stands anyway. 



166 EURIPIDES, PHOENISSAE 1-2 AND SOPHOCLES, ELECTRA 1 

was written many years earlier and by a very different poet, but 
Euripides was not so far degenerate. 

The prayer to Zeus at Phoen. 84-85 rounds off the prologue. After 
the detached exposition of the intervening lines, Jocasta once more 
intrudes herself into the play: 

-'_\\''I'.l..~' , -, \ 
W\J\ W 't"-"Ewac ovpaVOV vaLWV l7TVXac 

Z - - • - ~\ ~\ , R ' EV cwcov T)p.ac, oOC oE cvp./"'acLV 'TEKVO£C. 

The empty three-line apostrophe to Helios at the beginning cheapens 
this far less empty prayer for salvation, first by the very weight that 
is a function of its length, and secondly by the specific anticipation of 

, "" I I b ' ..., f~ 1 ovpavov veuwv l7'TVXaC y ovpavov 'TEP.VWV OOOV. 

II. Sophocles, Electra 

Soph. EI. 1 is put by the scholium on the same footing as Eur. Phoen. 
1-2: it stands or falls with them; and Eur. Phoen. 1-2 have fallen. 
Since we do not know the genesis of the l7aAateX So~a, we are perhaps 
not absolutely bound to accept both sides of the equation. But we 
shall at least look at Soph. El. 1 with the uncritical mist removed from 
our eyes. 

Here is the opening as transmitted. 
'l'n - , , ", , 
~.: 'TOV C'Tpa'TTJ'YTJcw'TOC EV J. POLCf 170'TE 

'A' - - , -'''1: ' yap.Ep.vovOC l7a£, vvv EKELV E~Ecn COL 
, \' .,. '8 J. 8' , , l7apovn I\EVCCELV, wv l7pO VP.OC 'IC aEL. 

\ \ --\ \"A "8 ,~ 'TO yap l7«I\atOV pyOC OV1TO EtC 'TOOE, 

-, \ - ~\ '1' , TTJC Ot.C'Tp01TI\1JYOC «I\COC vaxov KOP1Je" 
<I t"'O' - \ , 8-av'TTJ 0 , pEC'Ta, 'TOV I\VKOK'TOVOV EOV 

• \ A' \ ayopa VKELOC" K'TI\. 

I C'Tpa:rr(y1]C<XV'TOC: 'TVPCXVVJ]C<XV'TOC !:yp 

One is not reduced to protesting that cL 'TOU c'Tpa'TT)y.rycaV'Toc £V 

TpolCf 170'TE is a wretchedly feeble verse, though protest it one cer­
tainly may. One can observe that it gives a form of address that is long 
without having any corresponding elevation of feeling or of language; 
one can argue too that such a stilted address is out of place in the 
mouth of the Paedagogus. Indeed, the old man just does not talk like 
this. He is well and consistently characterised, and his addresses are 
otherwise perfectly straightforward-save only when he breaks up 



MICHAEL W. HASLAM 167 

the brother-and-sister reunion with the far from stilted JJ 1TAELC'Ta 

JLWpO' Kat. CPPEVWV TT}TWJLEVO' (1326). 
No address at all would be wrong: 'AyaJL€JLvovOC 1TaL, more raised 

than just 'Op€CTa but not unduly so, is exactly right: anything more 
must either lift the emotional level too high, or, as is the case with the 
traditional opening. be simply dull.57 One can appeal to the other 
Sophoclean plays which open with an address :58 

A· (A h ) 'A \ \ l' ~ A ' ~ I~ , , ~. t ena EL JLEV W 1T(U apnov OEoopKa CE KT/\. 

OT (Oedipus) 1'Q T€Kva. Ka8JLov TOU 1TaAa, v€a TPOCP7}.' Tlvac KTA. 

A t (A ' ) 1'£"\ , " <:, '.I.. ' r' , I 1" ,. 0' , n . ntlgone :',f KOLVOV aVTCCOE/\.,.,OV .LCJLT}VT]C Kccpa. ap Ote KT/\. 

oe (0 d· ) TfT' .1..' A' 'A' , , e IpUS .L EKVOV TV.,.,/\OV YEPOVTOC vnyovT}, Twac KT/\. 

The criticism made of the spurious prologue of Rhesus was that it was 
1TEtOC 1Tavv Kat OV 1TP€1TWV Evpml8'[J, Hvery pedestrian and unworthy of 
Euripides." This charge (mutato mutando) is one which no one could 
level against any of the above four initia, but who could defend JJ TOU 

CTpCCTT}Y7}CavToC €V T pol~ 1TOTE from it? The first line of the Rhesus pro­
logue in question is JJ TOU JLEylcTOV ZT}voc /XAKLJLOV T€KOC : this has more 
claim to poetry than the insipid line foisted on to Sophocles in Electra. 
There may be duller lines in Sophocles, but never as the first verse. 

The source of the line, once it is recognized as bogus, is immediately 
apparent. In his false messenger speech, the Paedagogus describes 
how Orestes was proclaimed victor at the Pythian games in these 
words (693-95): 

, 'fJ ,,.. "A ~ " --" W/\ 'SET, PYELOC JLEV avaKaI\OVJLEVOC, 
N ~"O' -'" tE""~ ovoJLa 0 PECTT}C. TOV TO KI\EtvOV I\I\CCUOC 
'A' ") I I YCCJLEJLVOVOC CTPCCTEVJL ccyELpavTOC 1TOTE. 

The recollection of Agamemnon's fame is as appropriate there as it is 
inappropriate in the old man's unaffected and enthusiastic address to 
his young charge. 

Once again there is external evidence to substantiate the internal. I 
relegate it to a subsidiary position because that is where such incidental 

57 W. Biehl, apropos Eur. Or. 852 (Textprobleme in Euripides Orestes [Jena 1955] 52), says 
"die unvermittelte Anrede 'Ayap.'p.vovoc 'lTat ware wohl im Munde des Tieferstehende 
nicht angemessen." Whether or not this is true of the messenger's addressing Electra (I 
think it is not), it certainly could not be said of a man who is allowed ~ 'lTA€kTa piiJPOI K'T.\. 
Eur. Andr. 891 makes an instructive comparison with Soph. El. 1-2: Orestes' inquiry after 
Hermione meets with Hermione's ~ vav-rl.\olCl xdp.a'Toc .\IP.~V q,aV€4c I ' Ayap.'p.vovoc 'lTat, 'lTpOC 
C€ 'TwvS€ yovva'Twv, K'T.\. Cf also Eur. El. 880f. 

58 To go no further afield. But does Septem begin 9Q 'Toii Kpa'ToiivToc rijc8€ @1J{Jalac X8ovoc I 
Ka8p.ov 'lTo'\t'Tal, xp~ MY€IV 'Ta KalpLa? 



168 EURIPIDES, PHOENISSAE 1-2 AND SOPHOCLES, ELECTRA 1 

and extraneous ep/-,auf. ought properly to be. This time there are as 
yet no papyri, but there is a piece of pornography. Machon recounts a 
sexual encounter between Mania, an Athenian prostitute of high 
repute, and Demetrius Poliorcetes, king of Macedonia.59 Mania agreed 
to do Demetrius a favour if he would do her one. His side of the 
bargain fulfilled, Mania turned round and invited him to avail him­
self of the reciprocal favour with these words: 'A ya/-,'/-,vovoc 1Ta/:, viJv 

EK€/:V' ;g€C'T£ cot. Gow calls the story unedifying, and so of course it is, 
but we can make it serve a more respectable end than Mania's. Such 
an innocuous verse: not, one would have thought, a verse to attract 
such a scurrilous application-not, that is, unless it had that claim to 
memorability automatically enjoyed by a tragedy's opening line. 

The jest was not Mania's own. On its first occasion it was more 
genuinely witty. One of the most celebrated tragic actors of the 
fourth century was Theodorus. Before a tragic competition in which 
he was to perform, so Plutarch informs us, he and his wife abstained 
from sexual intercourse. On his victorious return home, the words 
with which his wife greeted him were 'Ayap.'/-,vovoc 1Ta/:, viJv EK€/:V' 
;g€CTt co£.60 

III. Iudicium et Quaestio Delendi 
All scholars who have considered the shorter openings, that is to say 

the authentic ones, have damned them. I shall not dwell on this, nor 
labour the moral. The best and most serious discussion is offered by 
Kaibel in his commentary on Sophocles' Electra. He labels the address 

6. Machon 226-30 Gow. lowe the reference to Professor E. W. Handley. 
so Pluto Mar. 737 AB: ~p.~c87J 7'E Kal rilc BE08dJpoV YVVCUK6C o~ '7TpOC8E~ap.lVTJc a~7'6v ~V 7'0 

CVYKa8aJ8EtV, VwoyVov 7'OV aywvoc OV'TOC' ~'7Td 8E v'K1]cac EldjA8E '7TP6C cWn/v, aC'7Tacap.lV'T/c Kal 
El'ITovC'T/c ·"Ayap.€p.vovoc '7Tal:, vVv ~KEI:v' E~EC7'l COt." The inference I wish to draw gets satisfying 
if oblique support from something else we are told of Theodorus: he always insisted on 
taking the opening part-on the grounds that what the audience hears first makes the 
greatest impression (Arist. Pol. 1336b: o~8EVl yap '7Tcfnr07'E 'lTapfiKEV lavTOV '7TPOE'Ct%yEtV, Oll8E 7'WV 
MEAwv VwOKP'7'WV, WC olKnovp.lvwv 7'WV 8Ea7'WV 7'al:c 'lTpcfrrcuc aKoal:c.). [It would seem, then, 
that in a performance of Electra Theodorus would have spoken the 'Ayap.lp.vovoc '7Tat line 
himself (as the Paedagogus), rather than have had it spoken to him (as Orestes). This is per­
haps rather surprising, but incomparably less so than D. L. Page's interpretation, that plays 
were radically reworked so as to have the main character speak first (Actors' Interpolations 
in Greek Tragedy [Oxford 1934] 94, followed most recently by R. Hamilton, GRBS 15 [1974] 
401). Incidentally, Mr Alan Griffiths has quite rightly pointed out to me that it is not safe 
to assume (as I did in my earlier discussion [n.1 supra]) that Electra was the play in which 
Theodorus had just acted on the occasion Plutarch refers to, for Theodorus and his wife 
may have constantly been making such literary witticisms; but this does not affect the 
point at issue.] 



MICHAEL W. HASLAM 169 

in Electra (1-2) "umstandlich" but goes on to defend it on the general 
ground of the poets' love of Oberfluss.61 Though Kaibel went astray, 
he nevertheless shows an enviable sensibility in stylistic matters. The 
"schwlilstig" address to the Sun in Phoenissae comes out very badly 
from a comparison with Sophocles' openings: yet the single-line 
apostrophe "HAtE K'TA., it is asserted, would have been "unertraglich 
nackt." There is no denying that it does have a certain starkness,62 
compounded, I think, of the abruptness off/HAtE (without ciJ or any 
other prefatory formula and contained within the foot63) and the 
selection of detail in the imagery. But this is how Euripides chose to 
begin, and we must adjust our critical expectations accordingly, must 
effect a shift in our notions of what is and what is not tolerable. 

iJ~j-t'Y)'TEP €cnovx' 'EAEvc'ivoc xOov6c (Suppl. 1), say, is nondescript 
beside the brilliant "HAtE verse. While tEpj-tfj x06VtE 7UXTpfjJ' E7T07TTEVWV 

Kpa'T'Y) (Aesch. Cho. 1) makes a fairly good formal parallel, the best 
comparison, I think, would be with Medea, twenty or so years earlier 
than Phoenissae: ErO' WCPEA' 'Apyovc j-t~ 8"X7TTCxCOat cKacpOc. That line too 
came in for exceptional praise and blame. Each of the verses is vivid 
and precise in detail, affective in its mode of speech, only obliquely 
related to the situation in hand, only indirectly expressive of the 
emotion of the speaker: the more expressive for being oblique. 

Eur. Phoen. 1-2 and Soph. El. 1 must go. The authors by whom they 
purport to be written did not write them: their place is in the appara­
tus, not the text. 

IV. Origin and Transmission 
To recognize a verse as spurious is not to account for its origin and 

encroachment on the text. Often enough the former will be possible, 
61 Cf Wecklein on the Phoenissae initium, "Die drei ersten Verse kennzeichnen den hohen 

Stil der griechischen Tragodie," loc.cit. (supra n.52). His statement "Die Dichter wussten 
das Imposante solcher dCPOA~ wahl zu wiirdigen" can stand if for 'Dichter' we substitute 
'Schauspieler'. It is ironic that for Kaibel the scholium showed" dass ein spaterer Geschmack 
fUr die wiirdevolle Steifheit derartigen Anreden kein Verstandis mehr besass"; in fact, of 
course, the change in taste was just the other way. In Ecd. 1 c1J Aap.7Tp6v op.p.a TOU TP0X"1AU.TOV 

AVXVOV, Aristophanes is getting at the elevated treatment Euripides accorded mundane 
things rather than at the inflated style itself. 

62 "exile et imperfectum" Pflug-Klotz, after Hermann. 'imperfectum', yes (and all the 
better for it), but 'exile' it is surely not. 

63 But the self-contained dactylic foot is not only less startling than it would have been 
at an earlier date but less startling than it would be with any other word. See W. S. Barrett, 
ed. Euripides, Hippolytos (Oxford 1964) on Hipp. 19 (and his Addenda, p.432), and Ed. Fraen­
kel, Aeschylus, Agamemnon II (Oxford 1950) p.8 and n.2. (On Fraenkel's note, is there any­
more reason that· HALE should have anything preceding it than that, say, 'Epp.fj should?) 



170 EURIPIDES, PHOENISSAE 1-2 AND SOPHOCLES, ELECTRA 1 

the latter not. But we are bound to wonder how the bogus verses 
with which we are here concerned came to invade and hold such a 
prominent position. 

Odd things did happen to the beginnings of other tragedies too.6' 
The prologue of Rhesus known to Dicaearchus did not reach Alex­
andria; and the anapaests with which the play now begins had in 
some MSS another and spurious iambic prologue attached to them. 
Iphigenia Aulidensis too gained an iambic prologue and was otherwise 
tampered with. Rhesus is a rather mysterious case (suspicions of its 
authenticity seem not to be pre-Alexandrian),65 and Iphigenia Auli­
densis, being posthumous, is of course a special one.66 More pertinent, 
perhaps, are the modifications that were made to the openings of 
Archelaus and of Meleager. 

In Frogs Aristophanes has Aeschylus subject six of Euripides' 
prologues to the rude humiliation of A'TJKtHhov a.1TWA€C€V. (None of his 
other plays that we have the beginnings of, and none at all of Sopho­
cles' or Aeschylus' that we have the beginnings of, is susceptible of the 
treatment.) They are, in Aristophanes' order, Archelaus, Hypsipyle, 
Sthenoboea, the second Phrixus, Iphigenia Taurica and Meleager. The 
first and last of these, but not the others,67 arrived at Alexandria with 
a different apx1]. The scholia on Frogs identify each tragedy as it comes 
up. So on AtyV1T'TOC. cfJc J 1TA€U:'TOC EC1Tap'Tat '\6yoc (ap. Ran. 1206) is the 
note' ApX€'\&ov av'T'TJ ~ apX1]-but appended to it is an amendment :68 
., .f. ~ ~ , \ .I.. ' ~ E' ,~ \ , ,~ , ~ WC 'TtV€C. 'f'€VOWC ov yap 'f'€p€'Tat vvv VPt1TWOV /\oyoc ovo€tC 'TO'OV'TOC, 

"SO some say; erroneously, for there is not now any such verse in 
Euripides." And it goes on to record Aristarchus' suggestion that 
Euripides H changed it afterwards, and Aristophanes quoted the 
original version."69 All is then plain sailing until we reach Meleager: 

"Much of what follows is eclectically derivative. and I give a summary and rather 
dogmatic account. Page, op.cit. (supra n.6O), is naturally laid under obligation. 

eo The Dicaearchan prologue was presumably the genuine article. Perhaps someone 
else's Rhesus supplanted Euripides', as may have happened too with Pirithous. 

sa Discussed by C. W. Willink, CQ 21 (1971) 34:HJ4. 
17 We can be sure, not the others. For those plays for which we do not have the evidence 

either of the indirect tradition (as Hypsipyle) or of the direct (In, we have the apxa.l of the 
hypotheses. If I am right in ascribing the hypotheses to Dicaearchus, their evidence is not 
evidence for the Alexandrian text; but then if the apxa.l of the hypotheses and of the 
Alexandrian text failed to coincide, we would know about it from the Aristophanes scholia 
ad loce. 

18 I assume two stages to the note; otherwise we should expect O~K at the beginning. 
According to whom was it the apX'7? Dicaearchus? 

•• o~ yap Je-n, t/YrIdv'Aplc-ra.pxoc. "TOV 'Apx€Aaoll. €l p.~ a.~oc P.E"T/8-qK€JI VC"TEPOV. & IlE 'Ap'c-ro­
¢&.vrJc TO Je apxfjc K€lp.€JIOV € l1l"€. 



MICHAEL W. HASLAM 171 

Olv€vc 'TrOT' €K yfjc KTA. (1238, 1240-41). This time the scholia report 
that the quotation is not the actual opening, but comes /L€Ttt lKavtt TfjC 
apxfjc. They proceed to quote the current apx~: KaAv8wv /LEV ij8~ 
yata II €A07Tlac xOov6c; and this latter line, it so happens, is quoted by 
Aristotle too.70 

There is only one plausible explanation of this state of affairs; it is 
more or less that given by Fritzsche,71 and, indeed, partially by 
Aristarchus, whether he was relying on tradition or (as seems more 
likely) on guesswork. The prologues of Archelaus and of Meleager 
must have been rewritten after the production of Frogs. Why? 
Evidently to save them from a recurrence, in actual performance, of 
the treatment they had got from Aristophanes: in a subsequent 
production, it was feared, the deflating oil-flask might be interjected 
from the audience.72 (The modified versions will not admit it.) Why 
only these two, and not the other four? Archelaus is the first in the list, 
and therefore exceptionally prominent, while Meleager suffers the 
squib twice over, in its first verse and then again in its second. 

Melanippe Sophe is a different case again. Next in line for the ATjKVOtoV 
after Meleager is Melanippe: ZEVC. WC A€AEKTa£ TfjC aATj{}Elac V7TO. At this 
point, though, Aristophanes has Dionysus call a halt-as indeed he 
must do, for we happen to know how the prologue went on, and it 
does not admit the ATjKV{}toV. Now we learn from Plutarch that 
Euripides had originally written Z~vc. OCT£C 0 ZEVC. ov yttp otSa 7TA-T]V 
A6ycp, but such was the outcry that he was obliged to change it.73 The 
alteration this time is not due to Aristophanes, for the version that he 
quotes is not the original but the second version.74 

70 He assigns it to Sophocles (Rhet. 1409b10). However suspicious this may look at first 
Sight, its only significance is that Aristotle's pen sometimes slipped. 

71 F. V. Fritzsche, Aristophanis Ranae (Zurich 1845), on 1206; anticipated in T. Mitchell's 
delightful commentary (The Frogs of Aristophanes [London 1839] 263). 

72 The alteration is firm evidence for subsequent production of these two plays. (A. w. 
Pickard-Cambridge, The Dramatic Festivals of AthensZ [Oxford 1968] 99-101, does not mention 
them.) Such a trifling revision is quite unlike the reworking of e.g. Hippolytus, Phrixus and 
Melanippe (which made new plays of them), and not very like even the revamping of 
some comedies; presumably not the work of Euripides himself but of some producer. Did 
the recensions nonetheless become the official L ycurgan versions? 

73 Pluto Mor. 756c, see further at frr. 480,481 N2. There are grave problems here (was 
the change made before or after a public performance?, what of the attribution to Piri­
thous?, etc.), and they have been aggravated by the accession of P.Oxy. 2455, which gives as 
the &PX11 not the expected Z£ve, we MA£K'Ta~ K'TA. but Z£ve 8. [ (8~[e1T6'T'1'}e H. van Looy, Zes 
verloren tragedieS van Euripides [Brussels 1964] 213; I have verified the delta from the original; 
after it I cannot exclude <p[ (f[, 9[, p[ Turner, ed.pr.). 

74 Since the line is not to be 'oil-bagged', it is proper to ask why it is chosen. Because it 



172 EURIPIDES, PHOENISSAE 1-2 AND SOPHOCLES, ELECTRA 1 

These cases perhaps show little more than that while initia always 
have an importance of their own, this did not always serve to protect 
them. The openings of several Greek epic poems were in dispute: 
even the Iliad was not exempt.75 The Theaetetus of plato had an alter­
native proemium to the extant one,76 and it may be doubted whether 
either of them is original. The failure of the expanded beginning of 
the Aeneid to gain a place in the direct tradition may be put down to 
its exclusion from the definitive first edition (whose authority also 
kept out half-line completions). It was otherwise with Lucan: the 
prefatory seven lines to the Pharsalia, which among other things 
mitigate the abruptness of the original opening, became part of the 
manuscript tradition.77 

In the case of Phoenissae and Electra, the scholium purports to give 
the source of the new openings. Phoen. 1-2 is Sophocles', El. 1 Euri­
pides'.78 We have seen that there is more than a grain of truth to the 
story (insofar as it implies the verses are not original), but this does 
not mean that grains of salt will be altogether out of order. Though 
one will want to qualify one's judgement of it as a narratiuncula inepta, 
one is still not inclined to take it at its face value. We might be pre­
pared to believe that Sophocles found fault with the opening, and 
even that he said as much (it is true that we would not expect him to 
begin S079), but it is difficult to imagine him actually proposing the 
two new verses by way of amelioration. The interplay between the 
texts of Aristophanes and Euripides evidenced by Meleager and 
Archelaus might suggest a subtler interpretation, that the reported 
repartee between the two tragedians is lifted from a comedy;80 but 

would have called to mind the notorious first version? Or for the sake of the anticipation 
of Zd!c >''r}Kvlhov a1Tw>'£cOl? Or both? 

76 See T. w. Allen, Homer, the Origins and the Transmission (Oxford 1924) 289f, and cf. 
M. L. West, Hesiod Theogony (Oxford 1966) ad v.l. 

76 BKT n (1905) col. iii 28-37. 
77 Commenta Bernensia: hos vii versus primos [.Bella per Emathios plus quam civilia campos 

etc.] dicitur Seneca ex suo addidisse . .. , ne videretur liber ex abrupro inchoare dicendo 'quis 
furor' [8: quis furor, 0 cives, quae tanta licentia ferri]. Various discussions to be found in 
W. Rutz, ed. Lucan (Wege der Forschung 235, Darmstadt 1970). Literary aesthetics are 
largely what was involved here. 

78 It is a tempting but hardly tenable inference that Sophocles' Electra and Euripides' 
Phoenissae were produced the same year. 

78 • H>'L£, </>t>.l1T1TOLC Bpvtt 1TptC{JLCTOV d>.ac (d{Jac Bothe) is attested for Tereus (fr.582 Pear­
son), but there is no reason to think it the first verse; and even if it is, it is plainer. (The 
Tereus hypothesis of P.Oxy. 3013, anomalously, fails to give the apX'J.) 

80 Aristophanes and Strattis both wrote a Phoenissae, both of which contained parody of 
Euripides'. 



MICHAEL W. HASLAM 173 

here again, so constructive a criticism is not what we expect from the 
comedians. It remains possible that objection of some kind was taken 
to the openings (the additions themselves show only that they were 
amenable to supplementation, not that they were intrinsically 
objectionable), and that such objection, once given practical ex­
pression in the form of the extra verses, was as it were sanctified by 
way of the o6~a. The source of the scholium, whether in its original 
written form ('Sophocles reproached Euripides, etc.") or in its form 
as taken over into the body of the scholia,81 is not worth guessing at.82 

Phoen. 1-2 (I say no more of the vapid Soph. El. 1) are good verses, 
the work of someone ov TO EvpL1T'tSov Mywv aAA' EVpt7TL?)LKWc.83 We 
have to ask not only when they could have been composed, but when, 
why and by whom they could have been put at the head of the play. 
And the most obvious set of answers, to which moreover I see no 
reasonable alternative, is early, to make a more impressive declama­
tory opening, and by the actor playing Jocasta. 

Such an audaciously conceived and creditably executed augmen­
tation one will be inclined to assign to the fourth or early third 
century B.C. How is it, in that case, that the verses remained sub­
merged until their eventual triumphant resurrection in the Middle 
Ages? In an earlier discussion (see n.l) I made the convenient double 

81 ?TaAa£a T£C c/JlpE'Ta£ S6ga will be an integral part of the transmitted scholium: scholiasts 
either copy and excerpt, or they compose. 

82 A rather similar story is told by Serenus ap. Stob. 5.82 about a notorious line from 
Aeolus (fr.19 N2): Evp£?TlIlTjc £VIlOKl/LTjc£V EV 8£aTPIP £l?TWV .. Tl Il' alcxpov,TJV /L.q TOie£ Xpw/Llvo£c 

i)OKfj;" Ka~ ll'\aTwv EVTVXWV avnt> "c.S Evp£?Tl8Tj" ;c/JTj "alcxp~v TO y' alcxpov, K&V 80Kfj K&V /L~ 
lloKfj." Here however, as normally in such anecdotes, (1) the point at issue is one of moral 
philosophy, not literary aesthetics, and (2) the criticism, though cast in iambic form, 
moves outside the dramatic context. The trustworthiness of such stories may be gauged 
from the fact that this particular one recurs in different form and with attribution of the 
rebuke to Antisthenes instead of to Plato at Pluto Mor. 33c; q.v. for other ?Tapallwp(Mc££c. 

83 ovpavov TI/Lvwv d86v perhaps draws on ovpavov vaLWV ?TTVXaC (84), and Fraenkel com­
pared Eur. fr.124.2f (ap. Ar. Thesm. 1097f) 8£1x /L1cov yap al81poc I TI/Lvwv KI'\w8ov (of Per­
seus!). Another source might be the epigram said by Eparchidas (ap. Athen. II 61B) to have 
been composed by Euripides on a woman and her children who died through eating 

. fu· l' • , , ',\'8' -H'\' I .. ' '" '",,' ~ , 8 pOisonous ngl: W TOV a'YTJpaTOV?TO ova£ £poc t£ T£/LVWV, ap £LO£C TOLOVo 0/L/Lan ?TpOC E 

?Ta(Joc KTA. (with 2 cf Theodectas fLI0, p.157 supra). With E/L{3€{3WC 8lc/Jpo£c, cf Soph. fr.672 P. 
OXOtc ' AKEcra{OtCtV €/Lf1Ef3wc 7To8a. XpvcOKOA.\~TOtCtV is striking and makes for an impressive 
line. XPVCOKOAATjTOC and XPVCOKoAAOC usually describe fancy vessels (,gold-inlaid'), e.g. Soph. 
fr.378 P. (-KoAAa), Antiph. fLI06.2 K. (-KOAA?]TOV). fro 237.2 K. (-KOAATjTOV); Palamedes' oar, 
satirized by Aristophanes, had been XPVCOKOAATj (Eur. fr.5S7 N2); similarly at [Eur.] Rhesus 
305 ?TIATTJ 8' E?T' w/Lwv XpvCOKoAA?]TOtC TtnrO£C I ;Aa/L?T€. [Did composers of spuria have some 
special liking for xpvco- compounds? In three successive pseudo-Sophoclea (frr. 1025, 1026. 
1027 Nauck) are found XPVCOT£UKTWV, XPvco/Lopc/Joc and XPVCW1TOC.] 



174 EURIPIDES, PHOENISSAE 1-2 AND SOPHOCLES, ELECTRA 1 

assumption that they were (a) in existence by the time of the recension 
made by Aristophanes of Byzantium and (b) known to Aristophanes 
ofByzantium.84 If this is true, we may be fairly confident that Aristoph­
anes included the verses in his text and stigmatized them with the 
obelus. We are then free to explain their absence from later texts of 
the play by postulating that Aristophanes' obeli effected their re­
moval; but lines athetized by the Alexandrians are not usually 
omitted in later texts (and where they are, this may mean not de­
pendence but an unstable tradition); it is more likely that the verses 
were not widely current, and that their (stigmatized) presence in 
Aristophanes' text did not lead to their importation into ordinary 
texts. There is nothing improbable about this; at the same time, there 
is no verifying the assumption that the verses did feature in the 
Alexandrian text. Even if they did not, they could still be of an earlier 
origin, and have been preserved in copies which bypassed Aristoph­
anes, to be incorporated later in the edition of Didymus, say. At 
the same time, again, their total permeation of the mediaeval tra­
dition is no argument for an early origin. We know of a good number 
of verses of post-Alexandrian origin that are present in all the MSS. I 
should myself be surprised if the verses were not delivered in some 
performance of Phoenissae prior to Aristophanes' work on the text, a 
little less surprised if Aristophanes was not acquainted with them. 
What is certain is that the original performance was without them.85 

UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, CARDIFF 

December, 1974 

84 I am very grateful to Mr Barrett for questioning the second article and to Professor 
M. L. West for questioning the first. 

85 I hope to follow up elsewhere some implications that this may be thought to carry 
for the whole question of interpolation in Greek tragedy. Meanwhile, papyrus evidence 
regarding further interpolations in Phoenissae is presented in CQ N.S. 16 (1976).