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AESCHYLUS, PERSAE 767

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 November 2013

David Sansone
David Sansone*
Affiliation:
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
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[email protected]
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Extract

The ghost of Darius provides a versified history of the Persian kingship, from the beginning down to the reign of his luckless son Xerxes, that starts out as follows in Martin West's Teubner text (1990):

      Mῆδος γὰρ ἦν ὁ πρῶτος ἡγεμὼν στρατοῦ,   765
      ἄλλος δ’ ἐκείνου παῖς τόδ’ ἔργον ἥνυσεν·
      ϕρένες γὰρ αὐτοῦ θυμὸν ᾠακοστρόϕουν·
      τρίτος δ’ ἀπ’ αὐτοῦ Κῦρος, εὐδαίμων ἀνήρ,
      ἄρξας ἔθηκε πᾶσιν εἰρήνην ϕίλοις,
      Λυδῶν δὲ λαὸν καὶ Φρυγῶν ἐκτήσατο   770
      Ἰωνίαν τε πᾶσαν ἤλασεν βίᾳ·
      θεὸς γὰρ οὐκ ἤχθηρεν, ὡς εὔϕρων ἔϕυ.
      Κύρου δὲ παῖς τέταρτος ηὔθυνε στρατόν·
      πέμπτος δὲ Mάρδος ἦρξεν, αἰσχύνη πάτρᾳ
      θρόνοισί τ’ ἀρχαίοισι·    775
First comes ‘the Mede Cyaxares, whom A[eschylus] probably saw as the first king of a united Media and Persia, and therefore the right person to begin his list’. Unless ἄλλος (766) is corrupt, the first two members of the dynasty are anonymous. This is not perhaps surprising, given Aeschylus’ limited knowledge of early Median and Persian history and given his use of these rulers as foils to the blest (εὐδαίμων) Cyrus. Each of them is, like the equally anonymous Cambyses (773), accorded only one or two lines, in contrast to the five lines devoted to Cyrus the Great. What is surprising is that the second of these is singled out for his good sense and his restraint (‘For his clear thinking plied the tiller of his passions’, 767). Further, it is not clear what point is being made by attributing ‘this deed’ (τόδ’ ἔργον, 766) to the good sense and restraint of the son of the Mede, particularly since it is not immediately apparent to what deed reference is being made. As Alexander Garvie notes in his recent commentary on the play, ‘That this line [767] is out of place in the codd. is highly likely’.

Type
Shorter Notes
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 63 , Issue 2 , December 2013 , pp. 882 - 885
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2013 

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References

1 Garvie, A.F. (ed.), Aeschylus. Persae (Oxford, 2009), 300Google Scholar, with Garvie's emphasis (some scholars having taken Mῆδος to be a proper name).

2 In his marginalia Richard Bentley noted that perhaps ἄλλος concealed the name of the second ruler; see West, M.L., ‘The King's ghost's ghost kings’, in Flower, M.A. and Toher, M. (edd.), Georgica: Greek Studies in Honour of George Cawkwell, BICS Suppl. 58 (London, 1991), 182–8Google Scholar, at 183 n. 30.

3 For the metaphor, compare Ag. 802 οὐδ’ εὖ πραπίδων οἴακα νέμων; Bacchyl. 17.21–3 ὅσιον οὐκέτι τεᾶν | ἔσω κυβερνᾷς ϕρενῶν | θυμ[όν]; Pind. Isthm. 4.71–2 κυβερνατῆρος οἰακοστρόϕου | γνώμᾳ πεπιθὼν πολυβούλῳ, fr. 214 Snell–Maehler Ἐλπίς, ἃ μάλιστα θνατῶν πολύστροϕον γνώμαν κυβερνᾷ; see van Nes, D., Die maritime Bildersprache des Aischylos (Groningen, 1963), 122–8Google Scholar.

4 ‘The nameless son … apparently founds the empire’, Rose, H.J., A Commentary on the Surviving Plays of Aeschylus (Amsterdam, 1957–8), 1.146Google Scholar; ‘the “work” probably is the ἡγεμονία Mήδων, which lasted till Cyrus deposed Astyages’, Broadhead, H.D. (ed.), The Persae of Aeschylus (Cambridge, 1960), 192–3Google Scholar; ‘the unification of Media and Persia’, Garvie (n. 1), 303.

5 The suggestion was first recorded in Broadhead's commentary (n. 4), who adopted it in his text. Page himself printed 767 following 769 in his OCT of Aeschylus (1972). The transposition has been adopted by A.J. Podlecki (tr.), Aeschylus: The Persians (London, 19912), A.H. Sommerstein (ed. and tr.), Aeschylus (Cambridge, MA and London, 2008) and Garvie (n. 4), who notes ad loc. that ‘the Greeks generally admired’ Cyrus and that they considered him especially to possess the qualities enunciated in the line.

6 For the details, see West (n. 2), 183.

7 Siebelis, C.G., De Aeschyli Persis diatribe (Leipzig, 1794), 129–31Google Scholar. This transposition was adopted by Gottfried Hermann, in the second edition of his text of Aeschylus (Berlin, 1859), and approved by Keiper, P., Die Perser des Aeschylos als Quelle für altpersische Altertumskunde (Erlangen, 1877), 42Google Scholar.

8 Van Nes (n. 3), 126; likewise West (n. 2), 183.

9 See especially Schweizer-Keller, R., Von Umgang des Aischylos mit der Sprache: Interpretationen zu seinen Namensdeutungen (Aarau, 1972)Google Scholar. It is not only proper names that, according to the ancient commentators, Aeschylus is fond of etymologizing; see the scholia to Sept. 35 (ὅμιλος), 72 (θάμνος), PV 151 (πελώριος), 654 (ἔρως).

10 See also 174–6 (προϕρόνως …ϕρενῶν … ϕρονεῖν), 546–7 (ϕρενός … δύσϕρον), 1620–2 (σωϕρονεῖν … ϕρενῶν).

11 Authors subsequent to Homer seem to use ϕρένες and πραπίδες more or less interchangeably; see Sullivan, S.D., ‘πραπίδες in Homer’, Glotta 65 (1987), 182–93Google Scholar. For the meaning of εὔϕρων and for the train of thought in this passage, see the extended discussion by Fraenkel on Ag. 806.

12 Garvie (n. 4), 302, ad 762–4, considers ηὔθυνε 773 to be a nautical metaphor. If so, it will have been well prepared for by ᾠακοστρόϕουν in the preceding line.

13 Famously, Euripides' Medea, whose thymos is in control of her bouleumata, claims that that is the cause of the greatest misfortunes for mortals (Med. 1079–80).

14 Pers. 667–70, Sept. 336–8, Suppl. 713–14, Ag. 532–4, 832–34, 1186–7, Cho. 75–6, 753–5 (with πῶς γὰρ οὔ; intervening), 989–90. See also PV 333 (πάντως γὰρ οὐ πείσεις νιν· οὐ γὰρ εὐπιθής.).

15 Pers. 164, 391, 467, Sept. 232, 1037, PV 17, 196, 515, 721, 818, Eur. Phoen. 9, 37, 65, 73, 97–8, 406, 437, 636, 842, 868, 964, 1079, 1082, 1158, 1170, 1379, 1403, 1666. I have relied for these examples on the collations of Dawe, R.D., The Collation and Investigation of Manuscripts of Aeschylus (Cambridge, 1964)Google Scholar and Mastronarde, D.J. and Bremer, J.M., The Textual Tradition of Euripides' Phoinissai. University of California Publications in Classical Studies 27 (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London, 1982)Google Scholar.