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The date of Euripides' Cyclops

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2013

Richard Seaford
Richard Seaford
Affiliation:
The University of Exeter
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Extract

There is still considerable disagreement about the date of Euripides' Cyclops. The most common view seems to be that it was written in the last ten years of Euripides' career. And yet in the only recent detailed study D. F. Sutton argues that it was produced in 424 BC. And so the Cyclops is perhaps the only extant Euripidean play about whose date there is still serious disagreement. This is largely because it is the only one to which the metrical dating criteria formulated by Zieliński and others have never been properly applied. This I now propose to do, as part of a case for about 408 BC as the date of the play.

The principle that the frequency and nature of resolution in the iambic trimeter can be an indication of the date of a Euripidean play is generally accepted. Taking the plays of known date, in Alcestis (produced in 438 BC) the number of resolved feet expressed as a percentage of the number of spoken trimeters is 6.2, in Medea (431 BC) 6.6, Hippolytus (428) 4.3, Hecuba (c. 12.7, Troades (415) 21.2, Helen (412) 27.5, Phoenissae (411–09) 25.8, Orestes (408) 39.4, Bacchae (posthumous) 37.6, Iphigeneia in Aulis (posthumous) 34.7. In Cyclops it is 35.0, which would entitle us to place the play after 412 BC, were it not that the figure may express no more than the greater metrical freedom that satyric drama has over tragedy. After all, Cyclops has 17 anapaests (not involving proper names) outside the first foot, and three irredeemable violations of Porson's Law—a degree of licence impossible in tragedy.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 102 , November 1982 , pp. 161 - 172
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1982

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References

1 E.g. Ussher, R. G., who in his recent Commentary (Rome 1978), p. 204Google Scholar, suggested 412 BC, on the curiously slender basis of comparing Cyc. 236 with Ar. Lys. 368, and Cyc. 675–86 with Ar. Thesm. 1223 ff. Most influential has been Marquart, R., Die Datierung des Euripideischen Kyklops (Leipzig 1912)Google Scholar, who made the fatal error of taking all the trimeters of Cyc. as comparable for chronological purposes with tragedy (cf. below).

2 The Date of Euripides' Cyclops (University Microfilms, Ann Arbor 1974)Google Scholar, hereafter ‘Sutton’; summarised in his The Greek Satyr Play, Beitr. z. kl. Phil, xc (Meisenheim am Glan 1980)Google Scholar. I am very grateful to the author of these works for his comments on this paper, although it must be said that he does not agree with its conclusion.

3 Zieliński, T., Tragodumenon Libri Tres ii: De Trimetri Euripidei Evolutione (Cracow 1925)Google Scholar, hereafter ‘Zieliński’; Webster, T. B. L., The Tragedies of Euripides (London 1967) 2–5Google Scholar.

4 These figures are from Ceadel, E. B., ‘Resolved Feet in the Trimeters of Euripides’, CQ xxxv (1941) 66–89CrossRefGoogle Scholar (hereafter ‘Ceadel’) and do not include proper names.

5 AJP i (1880) 191 ffGoogle Scholar.

6 Here and in the following discussion ‘tragedy’ should be taken to refer to Euripidean tragedy unless stated otherwise.

7 Sutton 65–71.

8 συμφορὰ. . . κατείληφε . . .πόλεις.

9 288 μή τλῆς πρὸς ἄντρα αούς ἀφιγμένους φίλους L; … σοι ἐσαφιγμένους … Radermacher, Murray (read by Sutton presumably as with hiatus not crasis); read probably … οἴκους σούς ἀφιγμένους … (Heimsoeth; cf. 252). See my forthcoming commentary.

10 For Eur. see Platnauer on IT 580.

11 S. Aj. 1101 ἡγεῖτ᾿ οἴκοθεν:ἥγετ Elmsley; S. Phil. 22 σήμαιν᾿ εἴτ᾿ ἔχει μάνθαν᾿ Dawe, , Studies on the Text of Sophocles iii (Leiden 1978) 122Google Scholar; E. Hcld. 529 κατάρχεσθ᾿, εἰ δοκεῖ (‘nec κατάρχϵτ’ nec κϵἰ κατάρχεσθαι δοκεῖ [Paley] placet’ Murray).

12 The comparative data from tragedy are taken from the work of Zieliński, who included resolutions involving proper names, and Ceadel, who excluded them. Figures for the Cyc. will include or exclude them according to whose data on tragedy are being used. The basis of my calculations differs slightly from Sutton's, in that there are a few places in Cyc. in which Murray's text seems to me entirely unacceptable; and I ignore 395 as too corrupt (this is not inconsistent with using Murray-based data for tragedy). But this makes no real difference to my conclusion. Where appropriate figures are rounded off to the nearest integer.

13 Sutton 65–6, 8.

14 Sutton 66–7, 18–21, based on Ceadel 72. Sutton gives 33%, presumably excluding Ζεῦ ξένι ᾿ (354) as involving a proper name: but on Ceadel's own criterion (69 n.6) it does not.

15 Sutton 66–7, 23–4, based on Ceadel 72.

16 Sutton 68, 29–30, based on Zieliński 144–5, 155–6, 167–70, 187–90.

17 Cf. n. 14 (and anyway the tragic data, from Zieliński, do not exclude proper names).

18 Sutton 68, 32, based on Zieliński 201.

19 Where Sutton appears to have miscounted, I have double checked my own figures. Here 445 and 590 (even a word-group is ‘broken’: Sutton 31) are certainly of the fourth type; Sutton has also mistakenly included proper names (where here Zieliński excludes them).

20 Sutton, 69, 37, based on Zieliński 152, 161, 181–5, 196–8.

21 Sutton 69, 41–2, based on Zieliński 152, 161, 181–5, 196–8.

22 Sutton 70, 46, based on Zieliński 152–3, 161, 173, 193.

23 Sutton, it seems, makes the mistake of counting (unlike the comparable data of tragedy) only the words which begin with the resolution.

24 Sutton 70, 47–8.

25 The exceptions are dactyls as a proportion of all resolutions, and (naturally) internal change of speaker.

26 Number of resolutions, of multiple resolutions, tribrachs as a proportion of all resolutions, third foot resolutions as a proportion of all resolutions, distribution of first foot tribrach word-forms, etc., etc.

27 Numbered headings refer to (ii) above. The trimeters concerned are 1–309 (lines square-bracketed in Murray's text are excluded).

28 Figures from Sutton 37, Zieliński 152, 161–2, 181–5, 196–8. First foot anapaests (the only substantial anomaly in Od.'s lines: 23% of all resolutions) form 10% of all resolutions; but there are 12 cases, only two less than are uttered by Od.

29 Zieliński; Dale, A. M., Euripides Helen (Oxford 1967) xxvGoogle Scholar. Dale prefers Zieliński to the subsequent work of e.g. Ceadel, inasmuch as Z. starts not from ‘feet’ but from word-shapes in the trimeter: ‘the really crucial patterns start in the middle of the “foot” and cross the bar into the following one—naturally, since the words with which the dramatist operates are in overwhelming majority so distributed …’.

30 With careful although perhaps insufficient consideration of the evidence and criteria for colloquialisms (‘the kind of language that in poetic or prosaic context would stand out however slightly as having a distinctly conversational flavour’): Hermes Einzels. xxxviii (1976)Google Scholar.

31 Stevens' total (p. 65) is 48, presumably because he excludes what he refers to as ‘non-tragic features of vocabulary, apart from colloquialisms in the present sense’. But this makes no difference to our argument.

32 There are in fact no trochaic tetrameters in Cyc.

33 See e.g. 103–5, 175–86, 310–15.

34 Aesch. has 4 resolutions in 41 complete trimeters, Soph. 16 in 134 (of which Ichn. has 11 in 93). Sutton is forced to suppose that E.'s satyr-plays may have developed metrically in a manner similar, but not exactly parallel, to tragedy.

35 Zuntz, G., The Political Plays of Euripides (Manchester 1955) 66–71Google Scholar; Dale (n. 29) xxiv–xxv.

36 Zieliński 140–1.

37 Ceadel 82.

38 Zieliński 142, 154, 164, 186.

39 Ceadel 71–2.

40 Zieliński 145, 155, 169, 187.

41 Zieliński 147, 159, 175, 193.

42 Op. cit. (n. 29) xxvi.

43 Dale (n. 29) xxvi–xxvii.

44 Dale (n. 29) xxvii–xxviii.

45 Zieliński 144, 155, 166, 187.

46 Zieliński 146, 157, 170–3, 192.

47 Zieliński 146, 157, 174, 191.

48 Zieliński 207–8. He did not count cases where a vowel in one word is followed by two syllables in the next.

49 Zieliński 151, 160, 179, 195.

50 Zieliński 148, 159, 176, 194.

51 Zieliński 152, 161, 181, 196.

52 Sutton 24, based on Ceadel 72.

53 Ceadel 72.

54 Zieliński 147, 159, 175, 193.

55 Ceadel 72.

56 Zieliński 148, 159, 175–6, 193.

57 Zieliński 142, 154, 165, 187.

58 Dale overemphasised the importance of G, perhaps because she expressed its frequency as a percentage not of resolutions but of trimeters. There is no case of I in Od.'s lines, but neither is there in e.g. Phoen. As for F and N, the number of cases, at least in Od.'s lines, is too small; and in N the development is not a definite one.

59 Paintings: the Richmond Vase (415–10 BC?): Trendall, A. D., The Red-Figured Vases of Lucania, Campania and Sicily (Oxford 1967) i 27Google Scholar. Timanthes: Pliny, NH xxxv 74Google Scholar. Other satyric Cyclops: e.g. Aristias'.

60 E.g. van Leeuwen, in Mnemos. xvi (1888) 429 ffGoogle Scholar. (Wasps); cf. Roos, E., Die Tragische Orchestik im Zerrbild der Altattischen Comödie (Lund 1951) 190–9Google Scholar.

61 Sutton, , GSP (n. 2) 114–20Google Scholar: this develops the work of Grégoire, H. in AC ii (1933) 131Google Scholar, Delebecque, E., Euripide et la Guerre du Péloponnèse (Paris 1951) 161–77Google Scholar, and Kaibel, G. in Hermes xxx (1895) 82–5Google Scholar.

62 Hec. 1035–1295; Cyc. 655–709.

63 Cf. Cyc. 299–303, 338–40, with Hec. 291, 299–331. νόμος as a desirable standard of action occurs also at Hec. 800; cf. 866, 976.

64 Sutton, , GSP (n. 2) 115Google Scholar; on repetitions in drama see e.g. Parry, Milman, HSCP xli (1930) 97–114Google Scholar (repr. in The Making of Homeric Verse [Oxford 1964] 285–98)Google Scholar.

65 Cf. also E. fr. 907N, Alc. 542. On detailed similarities between Cyc. and Ba. see Seaford, , CQ xxxi (1981) 252–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

66 Cf. Cyc. 89–90 with IT 479, Cyc. 91 with IT 94, Cyc. 249 with IT 258, Cyc. 300 with IT 276, Cyc. 353–5 with IT 1082–8 (and Hel. 1093–1106), Cyc. 594 with IT 725; Cyc. 198–9 with Hel. 808, 845, 948–9, Cyc. 299 with Hel. 832. More similarities of plot: Sutton 104–9.

67 Cf. Cratin. fr. 143 … Φρύξας, ἑψήσας, κἀπ᾿, ἀνθρακιᾶς ὀπτήσας with Cyc. 358 ἐφθὰ καὶ ὀπτὰ καὶἐφθὰ καὶ ὀπτὰ καὶ ἀνθρακιᾶς ἄπο …, both of the cooked Greeks; Cratin. fr. 135 with Cyc. 412; Epich. fr. 83 (Kaibel) with Cyc. 568; other examples of verbal similarities with an earlier dramatist's treatment of the same or similar theme: E. Ba. and A. Lycurg. (Dodds, , Euripides Bacchae xxviii–xxxii)Google Scholar; S. El. and A. Cho.: Thomson, G. on Cho. 691–9Google Scholar.

68 Cf. e.g. Supp. 378, 526, 571, Or. 523, fr. 337.2; Paganelli, L., Echi Storico-Politici nel ‘Ciclope’ Euripideo (Padua 1979) 53Google Scholar.

69 Sutton points out that it does not occur in IT or Helen. But that is because there is no such confrontation as is required by the plots of the Hec. and Cyc. Did it occur in those satyr-plays in which there probably was such a direct confrontation? Sutton anticipates the question (GSP [n. 2] 119): ‘there is no reason, for example, to think that Euripides developed the idea of civilised versus barbaric behaviour as explicitly in such similar satyr-plays as Sciron and Syleus, or that he expressed this contrast in terms of nomos.’ But there is of course equally no reason to suppose that he did not.

70 Sutton, , GSP (n. 2) 47–8Google Scholar, and Arethusa iv (1970) 60, 67Google Scholar. In fact there are only similarities of the kind already discussed.

71 Murray, G. in Mélanges Glotz (Paris1932) ii 646Google Scholar; Ferguson, J., TAPA c (1969) 110Google Scholar; Scodel, R., The Trojan Trilogy of Euripides (Göttingen 1980)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. No less of a guess is it to say that it parodied Od.'s cunning in Palamedes and Troades.

72 Cf. V. Aen. iii 41–68Google Scholar; Serv. in V. Aen. iii 15Google Scholar; Plin., NH iv 18.41Google Scholar; Méridier, Budé, Hecuba p. 173Google Scholar.

73 For other explanations of the name see s.v. ‘Polymestor’ in Roscher, Lex. Myth.

74 HSCP xli (1930) 140–1Google Scholar ( = Making of Homeric Verse [n. 64] 319).

75 Kühner–Gerth (i 15) give only one parallel for the singular σῶμα with a plural: HF 703 πέπλοις κοσμεῖσθε σῶμα , where the plurality is unimportant. At IT 1155 σῶμα λάμπονται πυρί read σώμαθ' ἅπτονται (Heimsoeth).

76 Seaford, , CQ xxv (1975) 198Google Scholar.

77 WS lxix (1956) 106Google Scholar ( = Collected Papers 129): ‘It may be objected that the nightmare of the closed cave is thereby spoilt; not more, however, than by the earlier necessity of letting Odysseus out on the stage (426–7) to give his narrative speech and lay the plot with the satyrs.’ At the end of the play Polyphemos has to be got off the stage somehow. Cf. also Dale, in Maia xv (1963) 313Google Scholar ( = Collected Papers 183); Sutton, , GSP (n. 2) 120 fGoogle Scholar.

78 There is nothing wrong with the text: Schmidt, V. in Maia xxvii (1975) 202Google Scholar; Zwierlein, O. in Gnomon xxxix (1967) 453–4Google Scholar.

79 Except perhaps in 60, where the satyrs are persuading the sheep to enter the cave. L has εἰς αὐλὰν πότ᾿ ἀμφιβαίνεις, but responsion requires a short penultimate. Almost all emendations ignore the fact that ἀμϕι- with verbs of motion suggests encompassment. Read perhaps ἀμϕίθυρον (for the ellipse of the verb of motion—which may have caused the corruption—in a shepherd's orders to his flock cf. Theoc. viii 45–50, et al.)Google Scholar; if so, this would be a parodic allusion to S. Phil. 159Google Scholarοἶκον μὲν ὁρᾷς τόνδ᾿ ἀμφίθυρον πετρίνης κοίτης.

80 Op. cit. (n. 68).

81 Paganelli (n. 68) 121–2; Cyc. 316 ff., 214 ff., 241ff.; Seaford (n. 76) 200–2; Συρακοσία τράπεζα. Pl. Rep. 404d, etc.; despotism: Thuc. vi 38.3Google Scholar.

82 Thuc. vi 82–3; cf. vi 76.4, vii 63.4 (cf. Cyc. 297); Hdt. vii 157.2, 159, 161.3; Diod. Sic. xiii 25.2.

83 Though not Paganelli, who chooses 414–13 BC, on the slender grounds that the Greek triumph over the Sicilian Polyphemos expresses an optimism impossible after that time.

84 Thuc. says merely that the diet of corn and water lasted ἐπὶ ὄκτω μῆνας.

85 Gomme-Andrewes-Dover HCT cite Cicero's description of the quarries three and a half centuries later: ‘nihil tam clausum ad exitum, nihil tam saeptum undique, nihil tam tutum ad custodianm nec fieri nec cogitari potest’ (Verr. ii 5.68).

86 Xen., Hell. i 2.14Google Scholar; they soon escaped by digging through the rock.

87 Seaford (n. 76) 200–2.

88 He is described, more specifically, as living under Aetna (20, 298, etc.). For much of the Sicilian expedition the Athenians were based under Aetna, which can in clear weather be seen from Syracuse.