Interpolation in Greek Tragedy, I Reeve, Michael D Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies; Fall 1972; 13, 3; ProQuest pg. 247

Interpolation in Greek Tragedy, I 
Michael D. Reeve 

I T IS not always possible to read a classical text without feeling from 
time to time that more than one mind has played a part in its 
creation. In Homer the feeling is familiar, but lesser authors can 

arouse it in forms even more acute. If not all scholars share it, those 
who act upon it and excise what strikes them as alien are liable to be 
accused of arbitrariness by others who have been brought up on the 
author from the cradle and never seen reason to doubt the received 
text. In no branch of literature has the issue engaged more attention 
than in tragedy.! 

As of many other things, the great age of arbitrariness in the textual 
criticism of tragedy was the second half of the nineteenth century. 
Many scholars of that age who shortened the extant plays have left 
no name to posterity outside bibliographical compilations,2 and no 
two scholars of the present century will agree on a second practitioner 
of the craft; but the first is invariably August Nauck, whose range 
alone guarantees him notoriety.3 

The present century has seen two works concerned with interpola­
tion in tragedy, Actors' Interpolations in Greek Tragedy by D. L. Page 
(Oxford 1934) and Binneninterpolation by G. Jachmann (GottNachr 1 
[1936] 123-44, 185-215, of which all but 123-33 deal with tragedy). 
Where Page places the responsibility for most interpolations is evident 
from the title of his book. Jachmann, on the other hand, is convinced 

1 This article is in three parts, which for reasons of space will appear separately. Professor 
William M. Calder III was kind enough to suggest the idea for the first, and all three owe 
many improvements, visible and invisible, to the acumen and careful scholarship of 
Mr W. S. Barrett. 

a For Sophocles see the exemplary Index Commentationum Sophoclearum by H. Genthe 
(Berlin 1874). For Euripides, Prinz and Wecklein (Leipzig 1878-1902) endeavour to record 
all conjectures, and the sources can usually be located by recourse to the relevant sections 
of Engelmann-Preuss, Bibliotheca Scriptorum Classicorum I (Leipzig 1880), and the continua­
tion to 1896 by Klussmann (Leipzig 1909-11). 

3 To mention nothing else, he edited the whole of Euripides (ed. 1 Leipzig 1854, ed. 3 
1869-71) and revised all Schneidewin's commentaries on Sophocles (Berlin 1856-60 and 
several later editions, for which see ed. 9 of Ajax, 1888, p. iii n.**). 

247 



248 INTERPOLATION IN GREEK TRAGEDY, I 

that most interpolations in tragedy are of the same nature as inter­
polations in other literary works and date from the period of purely 
literary transmission, which lasted much longer than the period of 
performances. Both Page and Jachmann lean heavily on the labours 
of nineteenth-century scholars, though Jachmann's respect for them, 
especially for Nauck, is greater by as much as he is the readier of the 
two to delete.4 

How is the student of tragedy to make up his mind about the extent 
and the origin of interpolation? HIt would be possible to collect all 
the passages which have ever been suspected or expunged," says 
Page (p.55), "and then to make two inquiries. First, whether the 
grounds for suspicion or deletion are strong enough; second, if they 
are strong enough, whether the interpolation is histrionic or not. 
This would seem to be the proper method. But nobody could study 
even fifty passages chosen at random without beginning to under­
stand the feeling which lay behind J eb b' s acrimonious strictures (pp.li, 
Iii of the Introduction to his edition of OK). It soon appears that careful 
scrutiny of a very great number of suspected passages is a waste of 
time, and that animadversions on the deletors' methods and reasons 
must be ineffably tedious." A German scholar has recently attempted, 
however, to circumvent the ineffable tediousness of the operation. In 
a dissertation entitled ENIOI AeETOYEIN (Tiibingen 1968), J. Bau­
mert has collected and examined all the deletions ever proposed in 
Alcestis and Medea, not so much for the sake of Alcestis and Medea as 
because the deletions proposed in them raise all the questions that 
ever arise about the propriety of deletion. If it could be proved that 
certain kinds of argument for deletion are invalid, much of the work 
that Page had no stomach for would have been done. Deletors and 
defenders alike must be grateful to Baumert for undertaking the 
proof; deletors cannot afford to ignore, and defenders certainly will 
not ignore, an investigation so fundamental. 

Baumert distinguishes two kinds of evidence for interpolation, ex­
ternal and internal. The external evidence, however, presents nothing 

'For all its aggressiveness, Jachmann's article is on the whole more instructive than 
Page's book, partly because his arguments on individual passages are more incisive, partly 
because he is better informed about scholarship in antiquity, partly because he exposes 
many of the prejudices that deletors have to contend with. It must not be forgotten, how­
ever, that Page's book was his first publication. 



MICHAEL D. REEVE 249 

more than a choice of variants, and such choices can be made only on 
internal grounds. Not until they have been made can the reliability 
of the external evidence be assessed. Stobaeus, for instance, attributes 
Andr. 330-31 to Menander. Who is right, Stobaeus or the scribes of 
Andromache? There is a simple conflict of evidence, and it can be re­
solved only by an examination of the context in Andromache. If the 
context is incomplete without the lines, Stobaeus is wrong; if they do 
not belong to the context,5 Stobaeus may still be wrong but has 
some chance of being right. 

Baumert divides the external evidence into three categories accord­
ing to the nature of its source: the mediaeval manuscripts, citations, 
and the scholia. A division according to the nature of the evidence it­
self might have been more helpful: direct evidence, indirect evidence, 
and editorial comment. There is no difference in principle between a 
mediaeval manuscript that visibly gives one reading and an ancient 
scholion that explicitly attests another; but there is a difference be­
tween transmitting a text and compiling an anthology, and there is 
also a difference between transmitting a text and passing judgement 
on it. Baumert's conclusions about these three kinds of evidence are 
as follows: (1) direct evidence indicates omissions rather than inter­
polations; (2) indirect evidence is altogether unreliable because the 
sources go their own way; (3) editorial comment, which includes 
much that has been mistaken for direct evidence,6 is of no evidential 
value. His argument for (1) is completely invalid, and though he is 
more right than wrong about (2) and (3), he fails to formulate 
his points sharply and to discriminate between one case and 
another. 

To take (3) first, what does it mean if a schoHast remarks that a line 
is 7TEpLcc6c?7 Noticing that the term is often used in grammatical 

5 In fact they do not. See most recently O. Zwierlein, GGA 222 (1970) 204 n.9. 
S E.g., the greater part of what the scholia say about actors. 
1 One of the scholia Baumert discusses in this connexion is irrelevant, :E Phoro. ]692 1TWC 

yap Oar/II:£ IIOAVlIdKT]1I ' AVT£y6V1] CVJL<pEVyovca T<fJ 1TaTp{; 1TAt:OIl&~t:£ Of T<fJ TO£OVr<p fio", & EUP£1TloT)c. 
Baumert says (p.63) "flir den Scholiasten ... liegt in der Verbindung von Bestattungs- und 
Begleitungsmotiv einfach ein Pleonasmus des Euripides," and again (p.65) "im Schol. 
Phoen. 1692 werden zwei Motive, die sich nicht glatt zueinander fiigen, mit dem Vermerk 
1TAt:OIl&~f£ dem Euripides zuerkannt." The comment of course means "Euripides is full of 
such things." 

Baumert is not at his happiest interpreting scholia: at Or. 640, where the scholiast says 
;11£0£ &:OfTOVC£ TOVTOIl Ka~ TOll Jtfic cTlXOIl' OUK ;Xovc£ yap TOll EUP£1TlO€£OIl xapaKTfipa, he regards 
as "erwagenswert" (p.51 n.1) Biehl's suggestion that the subject of ;Xovc£ is the same as the. 



250 INTERPOLATION IN GREEK TRAGEDY, I 

eluddation when a word fulfils no obvious function, Baumert argues 
that it is never more than an editorial judgement. Some of the most 
interesting cases bear him out. At Or. 249, for instance, the scholiast 
rightly takes exception to the article in Jc TOV "'oyov, but there is no 
reason to think that he knew of any other text; and at Phoen. 428 
anyone could easily feel that cVyycxf.L0C yap JCT' Jf.LOC is 7T€ptCCOv 

after 408-25. Nevertheless, editorial judgment may not be the whole 
story. 

Phoen.973 \ 't. ' • ~, \ 1 I~ I\€s€t ycxp cxpXCXtC KCXt CTPCXT?]I\CXTCXtC TCXO€, 
1\ ',1.." , '\ I \ 1 7TVI\CXC €'f' €7TTCX KCXt I\OXCXY€TCXC f.L0I\WV 

" ... "',1.. 1 I, 'P 973 'YJpK€£ OV'TOC" 0 yap E7TL'f'EPOP.€VOC .•• 7TEP£TTOC ECTLV. "" 

Why is 974 7T€ptTTOC ? On the strength of Homeric scholia such as that 
on Iliad 8.528 &(J€T€VrCXt OTt 7T€ptCCoc. Fraenkel suggested8 that 7T€ptCCOc 

is a remnant of an Alexandrian athetesis. Though in this particular 
case he could well be wrong, since the scholiast may have disliked 
AoxcxylTCXC in 974 after CTPCXT?]AaTCXtC in 973, the idea itself is perfectly 
plausible, espedally in the abbreviated state of the extant scholia. 
The problem of 7T€PLCCOC then gives way to the thornier problem of 
Alexandrian atheteses; but if in one single case an Alexandrian athete­
sis can be shown to have rested on documentary evidence, the possi­
bility must always be reckoned with that 7T€ptCCOc has documentary 
authority behind it. One such case is Iliad 23.92: &(J€T€LTCXt OTt ••• E A, 
Jv 7TaCCX£C OE OUK ~v 0 cTlxoc E T. Two others have been pointed out by 
Jachmann:9 Iliad 4.88 Z'Y}VOOOTOC TOVTOV f.LEv TO &KPOT€A€VTtOV oihwc 

',1.. .... "" 1 "', , "" '" 1 ."" ',1.. ~ A • (J 1 yPCX'f'€t €VP€ OE TOVO€ , TOV OE OEVT€POV OVO€ ypCX'f'€t, OOKWV CXV PW7TtVOV 
TO ~'Y}'T€LV €lvCXt, cum Zenodoto consentit P.Hib. 20;10 Iliad 21.290 &lJET€LTCXt 

OTt ••• }; A, om. KP'Y}TtK-rJ secundum P.Oxy. 221 col. xv 26-27. In general, 
then, Baumert is right that editorial comment is of no evidential 
value; but the Homeric scholia show that it may occasionally reflect 
a documentary divergence. 

Then (2). Baumert discusses a number of excerpts in Stobaeus and 

subject of &'O€'Tova. To say nothing of the strain this imposes on ixova, a refutation is pro­
vided by hypoth. Rhesus: 'TOVTO 'TO SpalLa i",o, v600v Vrr£v6T}cav WC OVK OV EvpmtSov' 'TOV yap 
Eo.p6K~£'OV ILaMov Vrro.patv£t xapa~pa. 

8 SBMiinchen 1963, Heft 1 p.46. 
I Klio 33 (1940) 240-41; GottNachr 4 (1942) 343 n.1. Cf also op.cit. (p.247) 141 n.1. 
10 Cf S. R. West, The Ptolemaic Papyri of the Iliad (Cologne 1967) 27, 68~9. 



MICHAEL D. REEVE 251 

Christus Patiens without properly illustrating the elementary point 
(p.18) that not every word of the original always suited the purpose 
of the excerptor. He mentions, for instance, that Stobaeus cites Eur. 
El. 369-70 without the rest of the sentence (p.19), but he does not 
mention that the rest of the sentence was irrelevant to the heading 
under which the atation comes, namely on OUK aEL TOLC EUYEVEG KaL 

XPYJCTOLC TWV 1TaTEpwv EO~KE Ta TEKva. Similarly, Stobaeus cites HF 
101-06 (Baumert p.26) without 103 or T' EUTVXOVVTEC o~a TEAOVC OUK 

EtITVXELC, which may have seemed unsuitable for a section 1TEPL E)\1TLOOC. 

Such omissions clearly reveal nothing about the original. On the other 
hand, the omission of a line that would not have conflicted with the 
purpose of the excerptor may well reveal something more interesting 
than the mere selecti veness of the excerptor, as it does at Bacch. 314-18: 

cod. L 'tA' ,/.. ~, , 
ovx 0 ..... LOVVCOC cW<pPOVELV avaYKaCEt 

~ , 'K' '\ \" ~ ,/..' yvvaLKac EC TYJV V1TpLV, al\/\ €V Tn <pVCEt 
\ ,J.. ..... n ,\ "" 

TO CW<pPOVELV €VECnV ELC Ta 1TaVT aEL. 

TOVm CK01TELV Xpry' KaL yap EV (3aKXEVfLaCLV 

T , .. , ,/.. '~'/"O' avc 1] yE CW<ppWV OV OLa<p apYJC€TaL. 

Stob. Flor. 5.15 'tA' ''/'' ~, , 
ovX 0 ..... LOVVCOC fLYJ cW<pPOVELV avaYKacEL 

(= 3.5.1 W.-H.) - "K' '\ \" ~,/.., yvvaLKac ELC TYJV V1TPLV, a;\I\ EV Tn <pVC€L 
, A... ..... " ", ", 

TO CW<pPOVELV EVEcnv ELC Ta 1TaVT aEL. 

Stob. Flor. 74.8 'tA' 'A, -, I 
OVX 0 ..... LOVVCOC fL1] cW<pPOVELV avaYKaC€L 

(= 4.23.8 W.-H.) - "K' '\ \" ''/'' I yvvaLKac ELC TYJV V1TPLV, al\l\ EtC TYJV <pVCLV 

.-. "', \ \ '(3 I 
TOVTO CK01TELV XPYJ' Kat yap EV aKXEVfLaCLV 

... , ., ,'/'' ''''/''0' ovc 1] yE CW<ppWV OV oLa<p apYJCETaL. 

Here for once Baumert does try to show why the citations differ (p.26): 
the longer version, he thinks, was suitable for the section 1TEPL cWcPpo­

cvvYJc but would not have made a good yafLLKov 1TapaYYEAfLa. Un­
fortunately it is by no means clear why he takes this view.l1 Since 
316 is undoubtedly an interpolation,12 it is perverse to deny that the 
shorter version derives from an uninterpolated text. 

11 "Die verkurzte Fassung ist eine Ermahnung fur Hochzeiter. Fur mangelnde Keusch­
heit enrschuldigt Dionysos nicht: ... &,\,\' Elc T~V ¢VCLV TOiJTO CK07T€LV Xp~, ' •.. sondern auf die 
Anlage muss, wer auf Brautschau geht, in dieser Hinsicht priifend sehen'." 

12 See Dodds on 314-18, and W. S. Barrett, Hippolytos (Oxford 1964) 175. Baumert ignores 
Dodds' observation that £VECTtv nowhere else means 'depends on' (for which the Greek 
is £CTtV ~v: see LS] ~v A.I.6). 



252 INTERPOLATION IN GREEK TRAGEDY, I 

Finally (1). Direct evidence is supplied mainly by the mediaeval 
MSS but also by the scholia they contain, which report the readings of 
ancient MSS, and divergences at both stages of the tradition are dis­
cussed by Baumert. About the mediaeval MSS he has this to say 
(pp.7-8): "Die mittelalterliche Oberlieferung basiert aller Wahr­
scheinlichkeit nach auf einer einzigen, vermutlich in der Photius-Zeit 
vorgenommenen Transliteration. Divergenzen unserer Handschriften 
konnen folglich, wenn iiberhaupt, ausschliesslich byzantinische 
Falschungen und Obertragungen anzeigen." That no divergence in 
the mediaeval tradition can be older than Photius is a strange mis­
apprehension, and Baumert would no doubt have avoided it if he had 
read more widely.Is It invalidates completely the ingenious argument 
to which he proceeds.14 His argument about ancient variants is more 
complex but equally invalid. If a scholiast says that a line was not €v 
TOLC 7To,uoLc, these 7To,uol, unless descended from Aristophanes' 
edition, must have been either MSS used by him or MSS independent of 
him. The latter alternative is rejected by Baumert (p.46) on the ground 
that there is no evidence for the existence after Aristophanes of MSS 

independent ofhim;15 but how can such evidence be recognized when 
so little is known about the form in which Aristophanes presented his 
results? and how likely is it that the Aristophanean edition drove all 
other texts out of circulation? As for the other alternative, that the 
7To,uol were MSS used by Aristophanes, Baumert argues as follows 
(pp.45-46): Aristophanes used the official Athenian copy (Galen 
17.l.607 Kiihn= in Hippocr.Epid. 3.2.4 [Corpus Med.Graec. V 10.2.1 
p.79]), which was the mainstay of his edition; the scholia were written 

13 E.g. Barrett, op.cit. (supra n.12) 58-59; G. Zuntz, An Inquiry into the Transmission of the 
Plays of Euripides (Cambridge 1965) 261-72. The unsoundness of Baumert's argument does 
not entail that the conclusion he wishes to establish is false. If later centuries shared 
Aristophanes' desire for completeness (cf n.18), interpolations might be expected to have 
spread throughout the tradition by the time of Photius. Certainly the mediaeval MSS all 
contain, with two trivial exceptions (Phoen. 1282 om. OP; cf Baumert p.ll), every one of the 
11 Euripidean passages that are known to have been unevenly attested in antiquity. Cf 
Jachmann's remark, GottNachr 4 (1942) 366-67, that "nahezu tiberall die interpolierten 
Rezensionen sich vorherrschend durchsetzen und den breiten Hauptstrom der Oberliefer­
ung bilden." 

14 Namely: Byzantine interpolations, if they were to have been written in Euripidean 
Greek, would have had to be derivative, say borrowed from an anthology; but of the 65 
lines unevenly attested not one is in Stobaeus; therefore uneven attestation is a sign not of 
interpolation but of omission. 

11> In spite of holding that there were no such MSS to collate, Baumert considers it imper­
missible to restrict the practice of collation to Aristophanes (p.45). 



MICHAEL D. REEVE 253 

to accompany the Aristophanean edition; therefore the 7ToAAol are of 
no authority. This argument depends on the reliability of the official 
Athenian copy, which for all anyone knows may have been heavily 
interpolated. The conclusion that Baumert draws after he has rejected 
both alternatives is that the 7TOAAOl were vitiated by post-Aristoph­
anean omissions (pA7). This conclusion does not follow, however, 
unless Aristophanes suppressed information about all his sources 
except the official Athenian copy, which is the last thing he is likely 
to have done.16 

Baumert regards it as significant that the scholia record omissions 
in other MSS but never additions (pp.44-45)P An explanation readily 
suggests itself: Aristophanes drew up a text that included every line 
attested, so that the only symbol he needed to use was a symbol for 
omission. IS 

What does it mean, then, if a line was unevenly attested in the 
ancient MSS? Once more, only an examination of the context in each 
case can give the answer. 

(1) Ale. 818-20 (?): 818-19 del. Wecklein, recte.19 

(2) Hipp. 871-73: del. Nauck, recte (see Barrett). 
(3) Hipp. 1050: del. Nauck, recte (see Barrett). 
(4) Andr. 1254: del. Kirchhoff, recte.20 

(5) Phoen. 375: del. Usener, RhM 23 (1868) 155, recte. 
(6) Phoen. 1069 (1): 1070 del. Bruhn, Jahrbf.cl.Phil.Supp. 15 

(1887) 271.21 

16 See Barrett, op.cit. (supra n.12) 47. 
17 This is not actually true: £ Or. 1229lv Tc!> avnypac/){fJ ou c/>/povTat o07Ot ol 0' 'lap.!3ot, [Kat] 

lv aAACfJ at. Baumert does not discuss the passage, but if he thinks omissions in MSS other 
than the scholiast's Hauptexemplar have no authority, he must think the addition here has 
no authority. 

18 CI U. von Wilamowitz, Einleitung in die griechische Tragodie (Berlin 1895) 149: "Sein 
Bestreben war offenbar, moglichst wenig von dem Oberlieferten umkommen zu lassen"; 
Hermes 44 (1909) 449: "Unser Text ist, wie so oft, von den Alexandrinern aus verschiedenen 
Exemplaren componiert, in der Absicht, moglichst wenig umkommen zu lassen." 

19 Taih-a Of Ta Tpla €v nctv OUI( ;yl(~tTat £ 820 in V, where 819 is written as two lines. 
Whichever lines the scholion originally referred to, 818-19 at least are interpolated (see 
Dale or Weber). 

20 The line separates a1TaA,\asaca (1255) too awkwardly from d (1253). 
21 {3pa'Mwe p.€V €g/PXTl, (;/-twe S€ ;g.)\8€, aKoveov' €V To,e 1TOUOte aVTtyp&'c/>ote oJ yp&'c/>€T(U 6 

cTlxoc (£ V 1069). Since 1071 cannot stand as it is without 1070, Bruhn altered .\~gac' to 
.\~s~tC and attached the line to 1069. Not the least objection to this procedure is that it does 
not account for the interpolation; for it would be a coincidence if a line was interpolated 



254 INTERPOLATION IN GREEK TRAGEDY, I 

(7) Phoen. 1075: del. Kirchhoff, recte.22 

(8) Phoen. 1225: del. Kirchhoff. 23 

(9) Phoen. 1282: del. Grotius, recte. 
(10) Or. 957-59: del. Kirchhoff, recte. 24 

after aM' OfLWC when the construction was not elliptical. Elliptical it surely was: (enter 
messenger) w~, Tlc £V '/TVAaLCt SWfLaTwv KVP€L; avolY€T', £K'/T0P€VET' '[oKaC'T'TJV M/Lwv (no 
response); wTJ /LaA' avOLc (pause, and then the bolts rattle); ()La fLCXKPOV fLlv, aM' ofLWC (Jackson. 
Marginalia Scaenica [Oxford 1955] 173-74). Either. therefore. 1070 must be left alone. Or 
1071 must go with it; so that unless the original note has been badly garbled, it looks as 
though I:V had wandered from 1075. Irrespective of I:V 1069, a case can be made out 
against 1 07l, but too many other passages would have to be considered with it for a footnote 
to suffice. 

22 Contrary to what Wecklein and Murray say, Valckenaer retained the line: "quae 
secundum scholiasten, si recte conicio, deerant in exemplaribus non paucis, Tl /Lot '/ToO' 7]KnC 

KCXLVOV aYYEAwv E1TOC, Euripidea tamen mea quid em opinione, non miror si nonnullis hac 
in sede displicuerint." As Pearson points out, the line interrupts the sequence of thought. 

23 For the interpolation of such lines see e.g. II. 9.224a and Ed. Fraenkel, Agamemnon ill 
(Oxford 1950) p.756 n.l. If Phoen. 1225 were unanimously transmitted, deletion would not 
be justified. Baumert's remarks on the scholion are confused and the italicized sentences 
irreconcilable (pp.49-50): "G. JACHMANN .•• beurteilt dieses Scholion als urkundlichen 

• Nachweis fur eine nacharistophaneische Interpolation ... Moglicherweise deutet das 
Scholion auf eine Interpolation hin. Den Anspruch einer Urkunde allerdings kann das Scholion 
nicht erheben. Denn C. JACHMANN hatte vielleicht doch bedenken mussen, dass gerade die 
Sinnlosigkeit der Kombination beider Bemerkungen [(1) am) TOV ()LTfYTlfLCXT£KOV J1T~ TO fLLfLT)TL­

KOV fLETlf3T)' A€{1Tn OVV T0 AOYCP TO Tath-a Mywv:(2) oVroc ()€ ou 4>lp£TaL Jv TOLC 1ToMoLe avnyparpOLC] 

auf byzantinische Zeit hinweisen kann, in der systematisch alles antike Material zusam­
mengestellt wurde, urn es vor dem Untergang zu bewahren. So ist es durchaus denkbar. dass 
ein Scholion aus einem Exemplar, welches den Vers Phoen. 1225 nicht fuhrte, in ein vollstandigeres 
Manuskript iibertragen wurde." 

24 960-81 are rightly given to the chorus by Weil, RevPhil 18 (1894) 208-09, and C. 
Pasquali, Athenaeum 8 (1930) 72-76. The formal facts about Euripidean messengers' speeches 
are as follows: (1) they are invariably followed by some utterance from the chorus; (2) if 
no other character is on the stage. the chorus follow with lyrics (HF. 1016, Ion 1229, Bacch. 
1153; cf Alc. 212) or anapaests (Andr. 1166, Phoen. 1480); (3) if some other character is on 
stage, the chorus either (a) follow with trimeters and are followed by that character in 
trimeters (Med. 1231, Held. 867, Hipp. 1255, Hec. 583, Supp. 731, IT 340, 1420, Phoen. 1200, 
Bacch. 775; cf Hec. 1183) or tetrameters (Hel. 1619), or (b) follow with lyrics and are followed 
by that character in trimeters (EI. 858). Formal considerations, therefore, tell against two 
of the possibilities at Or. 949-1012: that the chorus both speak 957-59 and sing 960-81, 
and that Electra sings 960-81 immediately after 956. There is no strict parallel for either of 
the other possibilities, that the MSS are sound and that the chorus sing 960-81 immediately 
after 956; but since there is only one other passage (EI. 858) where the chorus follow the 
messenger in lyrics while some other character is present, it can hardly be called anomalous 
if at Or. 982 they are followed by Electra in lyrics rather than trimeters. EI. 854-72 is in fact 
closely parallel to Weil's arrangement: just as the chorus there start dancing when the 
messenger announces to Electra that Orestes is returning triumphant, so the chorus here 
start dancing when the messenger announces to Electra that Orestes is returning in distress. 

Formally, then, Weirs arrangement has more to commend it than the arrangement in 



MICHAEL D. REEVE 

(11) Or. 1229-32 (?): 1227-30 del. Nauck.25 

(12) Or. 1394: del. Kirchhoff, recte.26 

255 

Out of 12 omissions, then, nine are right, and one more (8) will be 
accepted by anyone who is not defending a theory like Baumert's; of 
the remaining two, (11) may be right if the scholion is misplaced, and 
(6) is almost certainly a misplaced version of (7). Jachmann therefore 
has every justification for the view that the omission of lines from 
some ancient MSS casts such suspicion on them that their genuineness 
and not their spuriousness must be proved (Baumert p.43). 

Even Jachmann makes one mistake in dealing with omissions. 
Manuscripts occasionally omit lines accidentally, and if there are 
obvious palaeographical reasons for an omission it cannot be used 
in support of a deletion, however attractive the deletion may be on 
internal grounds. In an otherwise excellent article on Horace, Odes 
4.8,27 Jachmann castigates scholars who seize on a palaeographical 

the MSS; but the crux of the matter is whether 960-81 are better suited to the chorus or 
Electra. Di Benedetto's summary does not do justice to Pasquali's arguments for giving 
them to the chorus, and he is unable to point to a Single word that suits Electra better. His 
assertion that "da vv. 960-967 risulta che chi parla as solve alla funzione di Jg&.PXwv del treno 
e questa era propria dell'attore" makes no allowance for 960 ~ IkAacyla and 965 lax£lTw 
8€ ya KVKl\w7Tla. 

25 Jv TCP aVTLyp&',p<t> OV ,p'POVTaL 007-0L ol 8' tap-/3oL, [Kat] lv ~1\I\<t> 8' E 1229. If the aVTlypa,pov 
really omitted 1229-32, the omission can only have been an accident, because 1231-32 are 
indispensable. No other scholion, however, with the doubtful exception of E V Phoen. 1069 
(see n.21), records an omission that can only have been an accident, and so Nauck deleted 
1227-30 on the supposition that they were the four lines originally referred to by the 
scholion. The deletion has two advantages: it restores symmetry to the prayer (cf Cho. 
479-509), and it allows f.LOAEiv in 1226 to be echoed immediately by iKOV MiT' in 1231 (cf 
El. 672-73,675-76, Hyps. fr.64.69-70 Bond, Aesch. Supp. 215-16). 

26 If what Di Benedetto says were true, that the line makes sense and is immune to con­
siderations of either attestation or symmetry, then there would be no case against it, 
certainly not that it is "una evidente dittografia del precedente," which it is not, even in 
the loose acceptation of'dittography' that prevails in modern editions. As for the sense, 
the chorus ought to be saying 'for I did not understand what went before', but the line 
makes them say 'for what went before, which was not readily intelligible, I have worked 
out'; or does it mean 'I grasp not your previous story with any clearness as the result of 
conjecturing' (Wed d) ? Wei! pardonably goes no further than to quote Heath's translation 
and declare the line "assez obscur." 

27 Philologus 90 (1935) 331-51. When Jachmann has demonstrated once and for all the 
spuriousness of lines 15b-l9a (del. Lachmann), it is a surprise to find G. W. Williams, The 
Third Book of Horace's Odes (Oxford 1969) 84, invoking eius at line 18 in defence of eius at 
3.11.18. 



256 INTERPOLATION IN GREEK TRAGEDY, I 

explanation of correct omissions; but in method, if not in their con­
clusions, they are right and he is wrong.28 

Now to internal evidence. Baumert divides arguments for deletion 
into categories, so that if a variety of arguments have been brought 
to bear on one passage, it has to be discussed separately under each 
heading. Since many kinds of argument for deletion turn out to be 
bad, any accumulation of such arguments is presumably bad. 
Methodical as this approach seems, it is misguided and dangerous, as 
an example will show. 

Or. 1022 ou eLy' a4>EtCa 'TOVC yvvaLKELove yoove 
, c \ 0'" \ \ ,"'" \ \' <I C'TEPS EtC 'Ta Kpav EV'T ; OtKTpa /LEV 'Tao • a/\/\ 0/Lwe 

,1...' , " \ " <pEPELV e avaYK'YJ 'Tae 7TapEe'TWCae 'TVXac. 

Three arguments have been used for the deletion of 1024: (1) it was 
unknown to the scholiast (AEL7TEt 'TO OEt 4>I.PEtV); (2) it was obviously 
put in to complete the sense of aU' 0/LWC; (3) it disturbs the sequence of 
couplets (1022-46). Now it is true that each of these three arguments is 
inadequate: (1) and (3) would go by the board if the line were vital 
to the sense, and (2), as Baumert says (p.277), is just as likely to be an 
explanation of why the poet put it in as why an interpolator put it in. 
An inadequate argument, however, is not the same as a bad one: 
three bad arguments do not make a good one, but three inadequate 
arguments may make an adequate one. That is the case here, and it is 
the case in many other passages.29 

A relevant argument is bad only if its premises are false or its logic 

28 Jachmann's examples (p.341 and n.13) are Hes. Smt. 209b-lla tK£AOC [ ... ZK£AOt], Ov. 
Fasti 2.203-04 omen habet [ ... omen habet], 2.281-82 erat [ ... erat], 6.271-76 onus [ ... onus], 
and Prop. 3.10.17-8 caput [ ... caput]. Cf also Med. 304 TOtC 3' ... [TOtC 3' ... J om. A, del. 
Pierson; Hipp. 691 Jpei . .. [Jp£i ... ] om. A, del. Brunck; Hec. 756-58 [ou SfjTa . •• ] ovS£v om. 
M B, del. Kirchhoff; Juv. 7.135 ... purpura . .. [ ... purpura . .. J om. U, del. Knoche; 8.5-6 
[CorvinumJ-i . .. J CorvinumJ-i om. G, del. C. F. Hermann; 159b-60a [Syrophoenix . .. J Syro­
phoenix om. F, del. C. F. Hermann; 160 ... Syrophoenix . .. [ ... Syrophoenix . .. J om. A, del. 
Jahn; Soph. OC 1321 aSIL~'T7]C [ •.• 'ATaAaV'T7]c] om. CP, del. Gratwiek, CR 79 (1965) 243-46 (for 
this omission cf Or. 1393-94 EKacTa [ ••• £VyvwcTa] om. A). 

29 It would be nice to know why Baumert regards Med. 468 as spurious (p.257 n.2). The 
only objections that are advanced against it nowadays are that it recurs at 1324 and without 
it the two speeches are of equal length; yet Baumert discountenances both kinds of argu­
ment. All credit to him if he agrees with Matthiae, Euripidis tragoediae et fragmenta VI 
(Leipzig 1821) 469: "aptius ibi haec conferuntur in Medeam post Creusae et liberorum 
caedem perpetratam, quam hie in Iasonem, nullo nisi uxoris desertae crimine laboran­
tern." 



MICHAEL D. REEVE 257 

faulty. The three arguments above are bad only if their major 
premises are expressed in a way that renders them false: (1) no line 
unevenly attested in the ancient tradition is genuine (false for the sake 
of argument); (2) no line that completes what would otherwise be an 
elliptical construction is genuine; (3) no sequence in dialogue is irregu­
lar. Most scholars, however, would be content to express them as 
follows: (1) very few lines unevenly attested in the ancient tradition 
are genuine; (2) many spurious lines complete what would otherwise 
be an elliptical construction; (3) the regularity of sequences in dia­
logue is usually broken for some dramatic reason (this will do, but 
the matter is rather more complex).30 The conclusions yielded by 
these premises all begin "probably," and the degrees of probability 
vary. To think that there is anything discreditable about that is to 
misunderstand the logic of textual criticism. In default of an auto­
graph, no textual decision in Euripides or any other author can rise 
above probability. At Ale. 1037 all the MSS and the scholia as well 
offer OVTOt c' aTtJLcX~wv, bur all editors since Scaliger have printed OVTOt 
c' (hL~wv. That Euripides intended &TtJLcX~WV is overwhelmingly im­
probable, but it is not in any strict sense impossible. A tempting 
syllogism must be resisted: (1) Euripides always made his trimeters 
scan; (2) Ale. 1037 does not scan; (3) therefore Euripides did not write 
Ale. 1037 as it stands. What after all is the authority for (1) ? To go 
no further, it founders on Ale. 1037. The notion that it holds good can 
only be entertained after a judgement of probability has been made, 
namely that a scribe is far likelier than Euripides to have written 
aTtJLcX~wv instead of &T{~WV. 

It is unreasonably exacting, then, to demand that a transmitted 
reading should not be changed unless the poet cannot possibly have 
written it.31 It should be changed if he is likelier not to have written 
it than to have written it. There are no rules for weighing probability 
in such matters,32 and different critics will tilt the balance in different 

30 See Denniston on El. 651-52. 
31 Baumert's assertion (p.97) "Anderungen des iiberlieferten Textes konnen-will man 

nicht jeden methodischen Halt verlieren-ausschliesslich dann erlaubt werden, wenn 
zwingende Notwendigkeit vorliegt" is vacuous until "zwingende Notwendigkeit" is 
defined, and no defmition is likely to meet the objection put forward above. 

32 To be more precise, general rules are too vague to be helpful in particular instances, 
and specific rules are too nwnerous to be worth drawing up. It is trivially true that anyone 
who gives a reason for making a change is setting up a rule, but the number of helpful 
rules to be extracted even from a large number of good reasons is usually very small. 



258 INTERPOLATION IN GREEK TRAGEDY, I 

ways; but an editor who prints a reading when he regards another as 
more probable is not doing his job, and an editor who fancies he can 
avoid arbitrary procedure by sticking to the transmitted text is mak­
ing a judgement of probability just as arbitrary as if he were to change 
it. 

If there were rules for weighing probability in such matters, they 
would not include, as Ale. 1037 shows, the rule that a transmitted 
reading is the likeliest reading simply because it is transmitted. A 
transmitted reading is never more than part of the evidence for what 
the author wrote. Another example will make the point clearer and 
take it further. At Hipp. 1228, where L has TTPOC TTI.Tpac, editors rightly 
print TTpOC TTI.TpaLC; but at Hel. 409, where L again has TTPOC TTI.Tpac, 

editors all retain it. In neither passage is TThpac impossible (ef Od. 
12.71).Why then the discrepancy? Because at Hipp. 1228 several other 
MSS have TTPOC TTI.TpaLC, whereas at Hel. 409 L is the sole authority. Can 
it really be maintained in these circumstances that TTp6C TTI.Tpac at 
Hel. 409 is protected by the mere fact of being possible? 

The deletion of a line does not differ in principle from the addition 
or alteration of one letter, and the text may be no more affected by 
it. At IA 1032, for instance, Wilamowitz deleted a line that makes no 
difference to the sense: 

jkTJ8~ TTaTpcfJov 8bjkOV 
" ,. 'T:'" I '''e aLCXVV • 0 yap TOt vvoap€WC OUK asLOC 

[ ~, I , '''E'\ \ '] KaKWC aKOVEtV· EV yap N\TJCLV jkEyac • 

Many editors who might bring themselves to add an iota or alter a 
letter would balk at deleting a whole line, and yet by deleting IA 1032 
they would run no graver risk of misrepresenting what the poet 
meant. By altering a letter, indeed, they might run the gravest 
possible risk, the risk of reversing the sense completely (Soph. EI. 
1320 KaAwc codd., KaKwc Nauck; 1466 ou eodd., EO Tyrwhitt; OT 376 
jkE ••• yE cov codd., C€ ••• y' £pov Brunck; Eur. fr.l035.2 KaKoLc codd., 
KaAoLc Grotius). The best that can be said for the reverence some 
scholars display towards transmitted lines is that they are following 
Alexandrian precedent; but the Alexandrian editors possessed an 
equivalent of square brackets and were not afraid to use it. 

Broadly, the difference between emending and deleting is that the 
one corrects an accidental change in the text, the other a deliberate 



MICHAEL D. REEVE 259 

change. Some changes made by scribes were deliberate, but their 
object was to restore what the author wrote, not to improve on it. 
That actors in antiquity often tried to improve on the text of the 
tragedians is shown by the notorious measure of Lycurgus ([Plut.] 
Mor. 841F), and only a devout believer in the purity of the copy 
sanctioned by Lycurgus can suppose that their efforts have left no 
mark on the tradition. 

If the deletion of a line is being considered, therefore, the question 
to be asked is which is more likely, that the line was written by the 
poet or by an interpolator. It is a more difficult question than which 
is more likely, that a word was written by the poet or by a scribe. 
Scribes often wrote D€gEcf)(xt when they should have written D€gac()at, 

but they were not given to writing CPEV when they should have 
written 7TapacKEvac()'rjco/-tEVYJv. About the mental processes of inter­
polators, however, nothing useful is known beyond what can be 
inferred from their work. In comparison with what survives of Eurip­
ides, what survives of their work is very little, and there is no reason 
to think they all shared the same mental processes. It is futile, there­
fore, to demand that before a line is deleted some explanation should 
be forthcoming of why it was put in. Futility is not all: are doctors 
forbidden to treat a patient for pneumonia unless they know how he 
contracted it? Not but what the motives of some interpolators are 
perfectly clear; and if it turns out that interpolators often put lines 
in for the same reason, say to complete an elliptical construction, then 
something useful is known about them, and anyone who refuses to 
contemplate the possibility that less offensive lines elsewhere were 
interpolated for the same reason is turning a blind eye to part of the 
evidence. 

Enough on the metaphysics of interpolation. It remains to say a 
word about Baumert's views on internal arguments. With one excep­
tion, his categories do not lend themselves to general comment, 
because it is not so much the value of certain arguments that 
he disputes as their applicability to particular passages: editors 
have been too intolerant of grammatical anomalies,aa too strict in 

33 "Es ist letzten Endes eine Frage des Ermessens, bis zu welchem Grade syntaktische 
Schwierigkeiten zu billigen sind. Aber der Spielraum sollte nicht zu eng bemessen sein" 
(p.1l6). The second sentence, incidentally, is tautological and therefore completely 
unhelpful. 



260 INTERPOLATION IN GREEK TRAGEDY, I 

their logical requirements,34 too quick to diagnose obscurity,35 and 
so on. 

The one exception concerns words that occur nowhere else or 
nowhere else in the same sense, a motley collection about which no 
comprehensive statement can be made; for along with K6p€VIUX (Alc. 
178; a7TCxt ,\€y6fL€VOV) and f3aStcr~c (Med. 1182; a:rrat in classical Greek) 
come 7T6fL1TtfLOC (Med. 848; (hat in the sense <hospitable') and 7T€7TpaK'T"at 

(Med. 1064; a7Tat in the sense <it is settled'). No a7Tat '\€y6fL€VOV is 
automatically suspect: in the messenger's speech in Orestes, for in­
stance, there are at least five words beginning with alpha alone that 
appear nowhere else in Euripides (866 ayp6()€v, 874 u()poLcfLa, 903 
a()vpoy'\wccoc, 920 aiJ'T"ovpyoc, 922 aV€7Tt7T'\T}K'T"OC), but it would not occur 
to anyone to suspect either the whole speech or the lines in which they 
appear. In trimeters suspicion falls on words of the following classes: 
(1) words common at the time but otherwise absent from poetry;36 
(2) words otherwise found only in epic or lyric;37 (3) words common 
elsewhere in the poet in a different sense;38 (4) words common in 
later Greek but otherwise absent from the language of the time; 
(5) words not found elsewhere in the poet but common in the other 
tragedians. None of the five words from the messenger's speech in 
Orestes belongs in any of these five classes; nor does Kop€vfLa or f3aSLC'T"~c. 

34 "Mit einem Urteil, das ein Missverhaltnis eines Verses oder einer Versgruppe zum 
Kontext feststellt, erhebt man einen schwerwiegenden Einwand gegen die Echtheit der 
Oberlieferung ... Auf die sich zwangslaufig ergebende Frage, wann wir von einer Verletz­
ung der gedanklichen Gestaltung eines Abschnittes sprechen dUrfen, kann freilich keine 
umfassende Antwort erteilt werden. Eine Entscheidung ist von Fall zu Fall zu treffen" 
(p.198); "FUr uns ergibt sich die Aufgabe zu Uberpriifen, ob die Widerspriiche an den 
verdachtigten Stellen immer richtig 'diagnostiziert' sind" (p.Z09). 

36 "Diese Stelle kann ein Beispiel fUr die Neigung einiger Kritiker sein, bei schwierigen 
Perikopen, denen man fehlende Klarheit und Mangel im Ornatus nachsagt, gar zu schnell 
zum Mittel der Athetese zu greifen" (p.136). 

36 E.g. olKla, read by A V B at Med. 1130 and introduced by Pearson at Trach. 911, and 
,\,6ytOv at Held. 405 (cf Wilamowitz, Hermes 17 [1882] 352 n.1=Kleine Schriften I p.97 n.1). 

37 E.g. OC 304 dlwv (cf GRBS 11 [1970] 293 n.21). 
88 E.g. Or. 806 op.a,p.oc, which elsewhere means 'brother' or 'sister' (674, Hipp. 339, IT 

1361, He!. 890--where in the words of Hermann "mirum si elidere vocalem, quam op.a,p.ov 
scribere maluisset Euripides," Phoen. 319, fr.515.5; the same applies to Sophocles). Together 
with the unemendable metrical anomaly in 804 (P. Maas, Greek Metre, transi. H. Lloyd­
Jones [Oxford 1962] § 118), this suffices to condemn 804-06. 803, incidentally, is corrupt, 
because €7TapKELv elsewhere takes the dative, a point that did not escape Weil and Wecklein 
but failed to worry them; read perhaps €VpWV for OVTa (lOt y€ . •• OV'TL would be closer, but 
yE is unjustifiable). 



MICHAEL D. REEVE 261 

7rE7rpaKTat at Med. 1064, if the objection is correctly formulated,39 
belongs in class (3), and of course 7rpaCCEtV is so common in Euripides 
and everywhere else that the objection is a very serious one. In short, 
misuse of a word, whether in sense or stylistically, is what matters. 

From Baumert's treatment of individual passages there is very little 
to be learnt. Under both 'external evidence' and 'internal evidence' 
he defends a large number of interpolations commonly recognized,40 
and even if he had always seen the force in his opponents' arguments, 
his own too often defy probability and strain language. Two illustra­
tions will suffice. 

Andr.5 r \ ,,, -, 'A '" ' , ':oTJI\WTOC €V yE Tep 7rpW vopofLaXTJ XPOvep, 
- <;"" "\ \ <;, , , 

vvv 0 , E t nc al\l\TJ, OVCTVXECTaTTJ YVVTJ 

[ ' - ',I.. " , , ] EfLOV 7rE'f'VKEV TJ YEVTJCETat 7rOTE 

6 " V" " "(3 '8 ., .., ,/..' ounc . Ot U1TOKpLTaL TOV Lap., OV 1TPOCf: 7JKav U1TOV07JcaVT€C Hvca T7JV ypa'f'7Jv 

S~ T{C 1: 7. 

Baumert accepts ounc from V and agrees with the scholiast's inter­
pretation aVTL TOU CVYKptTLKOU TO OVCTVX€CTaTTJ' Why Euripides in this 
one place should have used the superlative for the comparative, and 
why 8' OUTLC was ever corrupted to 8' EL nc or o~ TLC, he does 
not explain. There is no clearer case in Euripides of an interpolation 
designed to obviate an elliptical construction.41 

Med.1314 \ - \ -<;, ., '\ 
xal\aTE KI\TJoac wc TaXLCTa, 7rPOC7rOI\OL, 
, \' e' < , • "<;' <;, \ - , EKI\VE apfLovc, wc LoW OL7rI\OVV KaKOV, 

, 'e' '<;'" <;" TOVC fL€V aVOVTac, TTJV O€ THCWfLat otKTJV. 

"Nach allgemeiner Auffassung wird das Objekt OL7rAovv KaKbV des 
Finalsatzes durch zwei mit den Partikeln fLEV und OE abgesetzten 
Bestimmungen erlautert. Die Verbindung zweier Glieder, die trotz 

39 Another way of putting it is that the perfect is being made to do duty for the future. 
The whole of 1056-80 is interpolated. as G. Muller argued in Stltal25 (1951) 65-82; ef now 
CQ 66 (1972) 51--61. 

40 E.g. Hipp. 1029, Ale. 795b-96a. 1094-95 (on which see Zwierlcin, op.cit. [n.5) 205 n.lO). 
Med. 87, 262,785. Phoen. 912, Hee. 1087. 

41 But for Baumert's treatment of the passage, it would scarcely be necessary to add 
that the interpolator altered OVCTVX€CTaT1) to OVCTVX€CT£pa. which must already have dis­
appeared from the margin (or wherever Aristophanes put it) when the text came into the 
hands of the scholiast. 



262 INTERPOLA nON IN GREEK TRAGEDY, I 

der Partikeln syntaktisch nicht parallel geordnet sind, noch sich 
inhaltlich unter den gemeinsamen Oberbegriff rugen, veranlasste 
einige Interpreten mit Recht zu Textanderungen. K. SCHENKL 186842 

streicht den Vers Med. 1316 ... Zweifelhaft jedoch ist der Ausgangs­
punkt dieser Vorschlage ... " (p.146); and he goes on to suggest that 
only the punctuation need be altered: 

WC Z8w (OL1TA.oiJv KaKov) 
, '(J' ,~" ~, 'TOVC J-LEV aVOV'Tac, 'TTJV OE 'TELCWJ-LaL OLKTJV. 

The words OL7TA.oiJv KaKov constitute a "betont vorangestellte Appo­
sition zu 'TOVC J-LEV (Javov'Tac," the children being two in number, and 
H die Partikeln J-LEV und oE, die an keine bestimmte Stelle des Verses 
gebunden sind, stellen dann vollig parallel die Objekte (-rove, 'T~v) 
der beiden Pradikate tow und 'TELeWJ-LaL gegenuber." In other words, 
the text is the nearest Euripides could get to we 'Tove J-LEv tow (JavoV'Tae, 
~ , ~ , \~" ~, 

Dt7TI\OVV KaKOV, 7"TJV oE 'TELeWJ-LaL OLKT/V. 

In most of the passages Baumert discusses, the pertinent arguments 
have already been used, and Baumert's reluctance to accept them is 
not reason enough for repeating them; but in two passages something 
can be added. 

Med.37 ~ ,~ ~'" , f3 " , OEOOLKa 0 aV7"TJv J-LTJ 7"£ OVI\EveTJ VEOV' 

[f3apEta yap CPP-rJv, ovo' aVEgE'T(xt KaKWC 
, "~~ ,~~ , , 

7Tacxovc • Eycpoa 'TTJVOE, OELJ-LaLVW 'TE VLV 
'(J , "../..' ~, .. J-LTJ TJK'TOV WCTJ 't'acyavov OL TJ7Ta'TOC 
~ ~, 'f3~' "'" " ctYTl o0l-wvc EtC ac , LV EC'TpWTaL I\EXOC, 

'" 'I , , , 
TJ KaL 'TvpaVVOV 'TOV 'TE YTJJ-LaV'Ta K'TaVTJ, 

Ka7TELTa J-LeLSW CVJ-Lcpopav A.af3Tl TLVa.] 
~ , , " 
OELVTJ yap' OV'TOL • • • • 

No one seems to have noticed that OEL~ yap in 44 very nicely picks up 
OEOOLKa 0' av'T~v in 37. Cf Or. 102--03: 

E" ~ ,~ ,~ ., '1·" ~ 
1\. OEOOLKa 7Ta'TEpaC 'TWV V1T I\L4} VEKpWV. 

n·' c:- , '43 "A "f3 - ~, , 1\. OELVOV yap, pyEL 'T ava Of! uta CTOJ-La. 

41 The article here referred to, 20stG 19 (1868) 344-58, contains no mention of Med. 1316. 
Good luck to anyone who sets about tracing the conjecture to its true source. 

u 8€£VOL yap? 



Or. 1366 

MICHAEL D. REEVE 

XO. aAAa KTV7rEt yap KAfj8p(X {3(xctAEtwv S6fLWV, 
, "'e ' , Q' m ~ etYYJcaT . ESW yap TtC EKfJawE~ 'Vpvywv, 

015 7TEVc6JLEc8a Tav 06JLo~c 07TWC EXEt. 

cp P. ' ApYELOV gtcpoc EK 8avcXTov 7TEcp€vya 

{3ap{3apotc €V €V/lapt-
~ , I~" I 

cu' KEopwTa 7TaCTaOWV V7TEP TEpafLva 

LlWptKcXC T€ TptyAvcpovc, 

cppofJoa cppofJoa, ya ya, 

{3ap{3cXpoLet opacJLo tc. 

263 

, ~ , , .... I '" 't:. f' , 'E"~ TOVTOVC OE TOVC TpELC C7'[XOVC OVK (Xv 7'[C E~ ETOtJLOV cVYXWp7JCEtEV VPt7TWOV 

Etvat, aAAa JLaAAov TWV IJ7TOKPtTWV, oi7'[vEc, iva JLT] KaKo7Taf}wctV am) TWV {Jact-
\' ~ , f} \ \ , 'I:' I \ ~ m \" I\EtWV OOJLWV Ka al\l\OJLEVOt, 7TapaVOt~aVTEC EK7TOpEVOVTat TO TOV '¥pvyoc EXOVTEC 

~ \ I " ... <;, \ ~ f} I ,\ I 'I: ' ,/,.' I cX7JJLa Kat 7TPOCW7TOV. 07TWC OVV OLa T7JC vpac EVI\OyWC E~LOVTEC 't'aLVWVTat, TOV-

TOVC 7TpO( C)EV'Ta~av. €~ cLv St alho~ MYOVCLV aVTLJLaPTVPOVCL Tfj SLa 'TWV f}vpwv 

€~6SCf' 4>avEpov yap EK TWV E~ijC OTt {J7TEP7TE1T~SYJKEV. 1} 1366 

A familiar problem. As the scholiast observes, 1369-74 seem to indi­
cate that the Phrygian has just jumped off the roof; but defenders of 
1366-68 put some other interpretation on them, such as that he 
jumped off a roof somewhere in the palace before emerging through 
the door (.E1371, Baumert pp.78-79). 

That is as far as the argument can go if it is confined to 1366-74.44 
In fact the structure of the whole scene must be taken into account. 

CHO. 1353-65 strophe 
1366-68 three trimeters 

PHR. 1369-1502 monody. punctuated by single trim­
eters from the chorus (1380, 1393, 
1425, 1452, 1473) 

CHO. 1503-05 three trimeters 
OR./PHR. 1506-36 dialogue in tetrameters 
CHO. 1537-48 antistrophe 

Now in the strophe the chorus assume, naturally enough (cf 1296-

1310), that Helen is dead, and only at the end of his long monody does 

44 One small point, however: if .:1wPtKa:~ 'TplyAVtPot were represented on the CK7}vt7, would 
it not be confusing for a slave who emerged through the door to speak of having escaped 
over them? 



264 INTERPOLATION IN GREEK TRAGEDY, I 

the Phrygian reveal that she has escaped (1494-98). No sooner has he 
revealed it, however, than he is agreeing with Orestes that her death 
was fully deserved (1512-13), and Orestes goes on to say that he will 
not stop at one corpse (1536). This and other difficulties in 1503-36 
led A. Griininger45 to delete 1506-36 and substitute 1503-05 for 1549-
53 (with 'A'TPf:t8rW for 'OPEC'T'YJV in 1505). Gruninger's proposal has 
recently been revived, albeit tentatively, by B. Gredley, who shows 
that none of the solutions so far offered is satisfactory.46 Amongst 
other things, Gredley observes that without 1503-36 the structure of 
the scene is much more orderly; what he fails to observe is that it is 
more orderly still, in fact perfectly symmetrical, without 1366-68.47 

45 De Euripidis Oreste ab histrionibus retractata (Basel 1898). 
46 GRBS 9 (1968) 409-19. He deletes 1503-05 and leaves 1549-53, except that he suspects 

1550 (414 n.ll). If 1506-36 go, the remaining tetrameters in the vicinity inevitably come 
under suspicion. Their use just to announce an entry seems rather pointless (on Phoen. 
[l308-O9] see Fraenkel, op.cit. [n.8] 83 and n.2), and the shouted yvwp:r/ in 1552-53 is strange 
technique; the yvwP:Y] itself makes only superficial sense, and Grtininger remarks (p.23) that 
E&rvXWV &v,)p "male cadit in Menelaum, praesertim si dicitur a choro, qui modo calamita­
tern vel iam ruinas domus Atridarum cecinerat" (cf Di Benedetto: "Riesce strano che il 
Coro qualifichi Menelao €&rvXwv in una situazione simile. Si avrebbe l'impressione che 
Euripide faccia ripetere poco opportunamente al Coro una formulazione dei rapporti tra 
Menelao e Oreste, che andava bene per una fase precedente della tragedia," followed by 
the suggestion, ingenious but impossibly demanding on the audience, that €&rvxwv is 
meant to pull the wool over Menelaus' eyes). 

On tetrameters in tragedy see J. Kanz, De tetrametro trochaico (diss. Giessen, Darmstadt 
19l3) 23-39; W. Krieg, Philologus 91 (1936) 42-51; M. Imhof, MusHelv 13 (1956) 125-43; 
T. Drew-Bear, AJP 89 (1968) 385-405. Of 1549-53 Imhof says (p.137): "Die Tetrameter von 
1506ff. wirken hier noch nach." 

This is as good a place as any for draWing attention to another proposal of Griininger's 
that has recently been revived and elaborated on, the deletion of 1618-20. In Hermes 97 
(1969) 8-22, an article that would do credit to the most methodical of detectives, G. Seeck 
finqs cause for suspecting not only 1618-20 but every other mention of setting the palace 
on fire (1593-96, 1149-52, 1541-44+l357-60). This reference was kindly supplied by 
Professor W. G. Arnott. 

47 The inconsistency between the dialogue and the surrounding context is so glaring that 
even the interpolator can hardly have overlooked it. Was the dialogue written not to follow 
the monody but to replace it, at a time when monodies were either out of fashion or 
beyond the capacity of the actors? Without the monody the Phrygian does not contradict 
himself, and the disappearance of Helen is not forgotten but merely delayed (1579-86). 

In this hypothetical version the arrival of the Phrygian must have been announced, and 
it is tempting to wonder whether 1366-68 might have announced it. As Mr Barrett points 
out, however, they are not quite suitable: 1368 aptly introduces the monody, in which the 
chorus do learn what has been happening inside the palace, but not the dialogue, in which 
the Phrygian is so intent on saving his skin that his entry must have been too precipitate 
to be greeted so calmly by the chorus. 



MICHAEL D. REEVE 265 

So much for ENIOI A BE TO Yl.:IN, a catalogue of deletorial obliqui­
ties. As it happens, two recent articles on tragedy have furnished 
ample material for a dissertation in the manner of Baumert entitled 
ANArKAIOI LJE EIl.:IN; and though the second part of this trilogy 
will not pretend to be anything so grand as a dissertation, it may at 
least succeed in showing that the boot fits either foot. 

EXETER COLLEGE, OXFORD 

May, 1972