Εμφανίζονται 10 τίτλοι με αναζήτηση: Βιογραφίες στην ευρύτερη περιοχή: "ΑΜΠΕΛΑΚΙΑ Δήμος ΣΑΛΑΜΙΝΑ" .
ΣΑΛΑΜΙΣ (Αρχαία πόλη) ΑΤΤΙΚΗ
Solon was the son of Execestides and his family was of Salamis in Attica
Solon. A celebrated Athenian legislator, born about B.C. 638.
His father Execestides was a descendant of Codrus, and his mother was a cousin
of the mother of Pisistratus. Execestides had seriously crippled his resources
by a too prodigal expenditure; and Solon consequently found it either necessary
or convenient in his youth to betake himself to the life of a foreign trader.
It is likely enough that while necessity compelled him to seek a livelihood in
some mode or other, his active and inquiring spirit led him to select that pursuit
which would furnish the amplest means for its gratification. Solon early distinguished
himself by his poetical abilities. His first effusions were in a somewhat light
and amatory strain, which afterwards gave way to the more dignified and earnest
purpose of inculcating profound reflections or sage advice. So widely indeed did
his reputation spread that he was ranked as one of the famous Seven Sages, and
his name appears in all the lists of the seven. The occasion which first brought
Solon prominently forward as an actor on the political stage was the contest between
Athens and Megara respecting the possession of Salamis. The ill success of the
attempts of the Athenians to make themselves masters of the island had led to
the enactment of a law forbidding the writing or saying anything to urge the Athenians
to renew the attempt. Soon after these events (about 595) Solon took a leading
part in promoting hostilities on behalf of Delphi against Cirrha, and was the
mover of the decree of the Amphictyons by which war was declared. It does not
appear, however, what active part he took in the war. According to a common story,
which, however, rests only on the authority of a late writer, Solon hastened the
surrender of the town by causing the waters of the Plistus to be poisoned. It
was about the time of the outbreak of this war that, in consequence of the distracted
condition of Attica, which was rent by civil commotions, Solon was called upon
by all parties to mediate between them, and alleviate the miseries that prevailed.
He was chosen archon in 594, and under that legal title was invested with unlimited
power for adopting such measures as the exigencies of the State demanded.
In fulfilment of the task intrusted to him, Solon addressed
himself to the relief of the existing distress. This he effected with the greatest
discretion and success by his celebrated "disburdening ordinance" (seisachtheia),
a measure consisting of various distinct provisions, calculated to relieve the
debtors with as little infringement as possible on the claims of the wealthy creditors.
He also changed the standard of the monetary system from the Phidonian to the
Euboic, which was the one generally in use in the great centres of commerce, Chalcis
and Eretria, so that Athenian trade might be simplified in its exchanges. A limit
was also set to the rate of interest and to the accumulation of land. The success
of the Seisachtheia procured for Solon such confidence and popularity that he
was further charged with the task of entirely remodelling the constitution. As
a preliminary step, he repealed all the laws of Draco (q.v.), except those relating
to bloodshed. The principal features of the Solonian Constitution may be briefly
summarized for the benefit of the reader. The State as he left it was a timocracy
(timokratia), that is to say, a form of oligarchy (oligarchia) in which the possession
of a certain amount of property is requisite for admission to the ruling class.
Solon established a sort of timocratic scale, so that those who did not belong
to the nobility received the rights of citizens in a proportion determined partly
by their property and their corresponding services to the State. For this purpose
he divided the population into four classes, founded on the possession of land.
(1) Pentacosiomedimni (Pentakosiomedimnoi), who had at least 500 medimni (750
bushels) of corn or metretae of wine or oil as yearly income. (2) Hippeis (Hippeis,
Hippes), or knights, with at least 300 medimni. (3) Zeugitae (Zeugitai) (possessors
of a yoke of oxen), with at least 150 medimni. (4) Thetes (Thetes) (workers for
wages), with less than 150 medimni of yearly income. Solon's legislation only
granted to the first three of these four classes a vote in the election of responsible
officers, and only to the first class the power of election to the highest offices;
as, for instance, that of archon. The fourth class was excluded from all official
positions, but possessed the right of voting in the general public assemblies
which chose officials and passed laws. They had also the right of taking part
in the trials by jury which Solon had instituted. The first three classes were
bound to serve as hoplites; the cavalry was raised out of the first two, while
the fourth class was only employed as light-armed troops or on the fleet, and
apparently for pay. The others served without pay. The first three classes alone
were subject to direct taxation. The holders of office in the State were also
unpaid. Solon established as the chief consultative body the Council of the Four
Hundred (see Boule), in which only the first three classes took part, and as chief
administrative body the Areopagus, which was to be filled up by those who had
been archons. A Council of 401 members is said to have been part of Draco's constitution
(about B.C. 621), the members being selected by lot from the whole body of citizens.
Solon reduced the Council to 400, one hundred from each of the four tribes; and
extended in some particulars the powers already possessed by the Areopagus. Besides
this, he promulgated a code of laws embracing the whole of public and private
life, the salutary effects of which lasted long after the end of his constitution.
He also rectified the calendar, and regulated the system of weights and measures.
He forbade the exportation of Attic products, except olive oil. Among his other
regulations were those giving to child less persons the power of disposing of
their property by will, punishing idleness, inflicting atimia on those citizens
who in the time of any sedition remained neutral, and giving great rewards to
the victors in the Olympian and Isthmian Games.
The laws of Solon were inscribed on wooden cylinders (axones)
and triangular tablets (kurbeis), and set up in the Acropolis, and later in the
Prytaneum. Solon himself spoke of them as being not the best laws conceivable,
but the best that the Athenians could be induced to accept. His Constitution was,
in fact, a compromise between democracy proper and oligarchy, and it gives to
Solon a title to rank with the great constructive statesmen of all time.
The great lawgiver's later history must be regarded as more
legendary than authentic. After completing his task of legislation he left Athens
for ten years, after exacting from the people a promise that they would leave
his laws unaltered for that space of time. After visiting Egypt, he is said to
have gone to Cyprus, where he was received by the king of the little town of Aepea.
Solon persuaded the king, Philocyprus, to remove from the old site and build a
new town on the plain. The new settlement was called Soli, in honour of the illustrious
visitor. He is further said to have visited Lydia; and his interview with Croesus
was one of the most celebrated stories in antiquity. "Who is the happiest
man you have ever seen?" asked the magnificent king, fishing for a compliment.
"I can speak of no one as happy until I have seen how his life has ended,"
replied the philosopher, thus giving deep offence to the monarch. During
the absence of Solon the old dissensions were renewed, and shortly after his arrival
at Athens the supreme power was seized by Pisistratus. The tyrant, after his usurpation,
is said to have paid considerable court to Solon, and on various occasions to
have solicited his advice, which Solon did not withhold. Solon probably died about
558, two years after the overthrow of the Constitution, at the age of eighty.
There was a story current in antiquity that, by his own directions, his ashes
were collected and scattered round the island of Salamis. Of the poems of Solon
several fragments remain. They do not indicate any great degree of imaginative
power, but their style is vigorous and simple; and those that were called forth
by special emergencies appear to have been marked by no small degree of energy.
This text is from: Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. Cited Nov 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Solon, the celebrated Athenian legislator.
For our knowledge of the personal history of this distinguished man we are dependent
chiefly on the unsatisfactory compilations of Plutarch and Diogenes Laertius.
The former manifestly had valuable and authentic sources of information, which
makes it the more to be regretted that his account is not fuller and more distinct.
According to the almost unanimous testimonies of the ancient authorities
Solon was the son of Execestides, a man of but moderate wealth and political influence,
though he belonged to one of the highest families in Athens, being a descendant
of Codrus. The mother of Solon was a cousin of the mother of Peisistratus. The
date of the birth of Solon is not accurately known, but it was probably about
B. C. 638. Execestides had seriously crippled his resources by a too prodigal
expenditure, which some writers were well pleased to set down to the credit of
his generosity. Solon consequently found it either necessary or convenient in
his youth to betake himself to the life of a foreign trader. It is likely enough
that while necessity compelled him to seek a livelihood in some mode or other,
his active and inquiring spirit, which he retained throughout his life (gerasko
d aiei polla didaskomenos, Solonis Fragm. 20), led him to select that pursuit
which would furnish the amplest means for its gratification. The desire of amassing
wealth at any rate does not seem to have been his leading motive. The extant fragments
of his poetry contain various dignified sentiments on the subject of riches, though
a sufficient appreciation of their advantages is also perceptible. Solon early
distinguished himself by his poetical abilities. His early effusions were in a
somewhat light and amatory strain, which afterwards gave way to the more dignified
and earnest purpose of inculcating profound reflections or sage advice. So widely
indeed did his reputation spread, that he was ranked as one of the famous seven
sages, and his name appears in all the lists of the seven. It was doubtless the
union of social and political wisdom which marked him in common with the other
members of this assemblage and not his poetical abilities, or any philosophical
researches, that procured him this honour.
The occasion which first brought Solon prominently forward as an actor
on the political stage, was the contest between Athens and Megara respecting the
possession of Salamis. The ill success of the attempts of the Athenians to make
themselves masters of the island, had led to the enactment of a law forbidding
the writing or saying anything to urge the Athenians to renew the contest. Solon,
indignant at this dishonourable renunciation of their claims, and seeing that
many of the younger and more impetuous citizens were only deterred by the law
from proposing a fresh attempt for the recovery of the island, hit upon the device
of feigning to be mad, and causing a report of his condition to be spread over
the city, whereupon he rushed into the agora, mounted the herald's stone, and
there recited a short elegiac poem of 100 lines, which he had composed, calling
upon the Athenians to retrieve their disgrace and reconquer the lovely island.
To judge by the three short fragments that remain, the poem seems to have been
a spirited composition. At any rate either by itself, or, as the account runs,
backed by the eloquent exhortation of Peisistratus (who however, must have been
extremely young at the time), it produced the desired effect. The pusillanimous
law was rescinded, war was declared, and Solon himself appointed to conduct it.
The expedition which he made was a successful one, though the accounts of its
details varied. Certain propitiatory rites seem to have been performed, by the
direction of the Delphic oracle, to the guardian heroes of the island. A body
of volunteers was landed on the island, and the capture of a Megarian ship enabled
the Athenians to take the town of Salamis by stratagem, the ship, filled with
Athenian troops, being admitted without suspicion. The Megarians were driven out
of the island, but a tedious war ensued, which was finally settled by the arbitration
of Sparta. Both parties appealed, in support of their claim, to the evidence of
certain local customs and to the authority of Homer (Arist. Rhet. i. 16), and
it was currently believed in antiquity that Solon had surreptitiously inserted
the line (Il. ii. 558) which speaks of Ajax as ranging his ships with the Athenians.
Some other legendary claims, and the authority of the Delphic oracle, which spoke
of Salamis as an Ionian island, were also brought forward. The decision was in
favour of the Athenians. Solon himself, probably, was one of those who received
grants of land in Salamis, and this may account for his being termed a Salaminian
(Diog. Laert. i. 45.) The authority of Herodotus (i. 59, comp. Plut. Sol. 8) seems
decisive as to the fact that Solon was aided in the field as well as in the agora
by his kinsman Peisistratus. The latter, however, must have lived to a great age,
if he died in B. C. 527, and yet served in the field about B. C. 596, or even
earlier.
Soon after these events (about B. C. 595) Solon took a leading part
in promoting hostilities on behalf of Delphi against Cirrha, and was the mover
of the decree of the Amphictyons by which war was declared. It does not appear
however what active part he took in the war. We would willingly disbelieve the
story (which has no better authority than Pausanias, x. 37.7. Polyaenus, Strateg.
vi. 13, makes Eurylochus the author of the stratagem), that Solon hastened the
surrender of the town by causing the waters of the Pleistus to be poisoned.
It was about the time of the outbreak of this war when Solon's attention
was turned more forcibly than ever to the distracted state of his own country.
He had already interfered to put a stop to the dissension between the Alcmaeonidae
and the partisans of Cylon, and had persuaded the former to abide by the result
of a judicial decision. It was very likely also at his recommendation, and certainly
with his sanction, that, when the people were suffering from the effects of pestilential
disorders and superstitions excitement, and the ordinary religious rites brought
no relief, the celebrated Epimenides was sent for from Crete. But the sources
of the civil dissensions by which the country was torn required a more thorough
remedy. Geographical as well as political distinctions had separated the inhabitants
of Attica into three parties, the Pedieis, or wealthy aristocratical inhabitants
of the plain, the Diacrii, or poor inhabitants of the highlands of Attica, and
the Parali, or mercantile inhabitants of the coast. These last, in point both
of social condition and of political sentiment, held a position intermediate between
the other two. It is difficult to say how far we are to trust Plutarch, when he
says that the Pedieis and Diacrii differed in being respectively of oligarchical
and democratical tendencies. The difficulties arising from these party disputes
had in the time of Solon become greatly aggravated by the miserable condition
of the poorer population of Attica - the Thetes. The great bulk of these had become
sunk in poverty, and reduced to the necessity of borrowing money at exorbitant
interest from the wealthy on the security of their estates, persons, or families;
and by the rigorous enforcement of the law of debtor and creditor many had been
reduced to the condition of slavery, or tilled the lands of the wealthy as dependent
tenants. Of the rapacious conduct of the richer portion of the community we have
evidence in the fragments of the poems of Solon himself. Matters had come to such
a crisis that the lower class were in a state of mutiny, and it had become impossible
to enforce the observance of the laws. Solon was well known as a man of wisdom,
firmness, and integrity; and his reputation and influence had already been enhanced
by the visit of Epimenides. He was now called upon by all parties to mediate between
[p. 859] them, and alleviate the miseries that prevailed. He was chosen Archon
(B. C. 594), and under that legal title was invested with unlimited power for
adopting such measures as the exigencies of the state demanded. There were not
wanting among the friends of Solon those who urged him to take advantage of the
opportunity thus afforded him, and make himself tyrant of Athens. Plutarch has
preserved some passages of the poems of Solon, referring to the feelings of surprise
or contempt with which his refusal was met by those who had suggested the attempt.
Indeed there can be no doubt that it would have been successful had it been made.
That Solon should have had firmness enough to resist such a temptation, argues
the possession on his part of a singular degree of virtue and self-restraint.
In fulfilment of the task entrusted to him, Solon addressed himself
to the relief of the existing distress. This he effected with the greatest discretion
and success by his celebrated disburdening ordinance (seisachtheia), a measure
consisting of various distinct provisions, calculated to lighten the pressure
of those pecuniary obligations by which the Thetes and small proprietors had been
reduced to utter helplessness and misery, with as little infringement as possible
on the claims of the wealthy creditors. The details of this measure are, however,
involved in considerable uncertainty. Plutarch speaks of it as a total abolition
of debts. This is in itself in the highest degree unlikely; and, as is acutely
remarked by Mr. Grote, would have rendered a debasement of the coinage unnecessary
and useless. On the other hand it was certainly more than a reduction of the rate
of interest, accompanied by a depreciation of the currency (which was the view
of Androtion ap. Plut. l. c.). The extant fragments of the poems of Solon imply
that a much larger amount of relief was afforded than we can conceive likely to
be produced by a measure of that kind, even if the reduction of interest was made
retrospective, which is in fact only another way of saying that certain debts,
or portions of debts, were wiped off. We gather from Solon himself , that he cancelled
all contracts by which the land, person, or family of a debtor had been pledged
as security, so that the mortgage-pillars were removed, slave-debtors released,
and those who had been sold into foreign countries restored. But it does not seem
necessary to suppose that in every such case the debt was cancelled, as well as
the bond, though such may have been the case with regard to some of the most distressed
class. At the same time Solon abolished the law which gave the creditor power
to enslave an insolvent debtor, or allowed the debtor to pledge or sell his son,
daughter, or unmarried sister, excepting only the case in which either of the
latter was convicted of unchastity. Most writers seem to admit, without any question,
the statement that Solon lowered the rate of interest. This, however, rests only
on the authority (or conjecture) of Androtion, and as his account is based upon
an erroneous view of the whole matter, it may fairly be questioned whether any
portion of his statement is to be received, if the essential features of his view
of the whole measure be rejected. On the whole we are disposed to deny that Solon
did any thing to restrict the rate of interest. We know that Solon's measures
introduced a lasting settlement of the law of debtor and creditor at Athens, and
so far from there being any evidence that the rate of interest was ever limited,
we find that the rate of interest was declared free by a law which was ascribed
to Solon himself. To have introduced a restriction as a temporary measure of relief
would have been merely a roundabout mode of wholly or partially cancelling debts,
and would have required it to be retrospective, and not prospective. But for this
last view of the case there is no authority whatever.
With respect to the depreciation of the coinage, we have the distinct
statement that Solon made the mina to contain 100 drachmae instead of 73; that
is to say, 73 of the old drachmae produced 100 of the new coinage, in which obligations
were to be discharged; so that the debtor saved rather more than a fourth in every
payment. Respecting the story about the abuse made by three of the friends of
Solon of their knowledge of his designs see Callias. The probity of Solon himself
was vindicated, as he was a considerable loser by his own measure, having as much
as five talents out at interest, which he set the example of giving up.
Though some of those who lost most through the operation of the Seisachtheia were
incensed at it, as was natural, its benefits were so great and general that all
classes united ere long in a common festival of thanksgiving, which was also termed
Seisachtheia. Wachsmuth asserts very confidently that one effect of the Seisachtheia
was to transform the serfs, or villein tenants, into landed proprietors. Of this
there is no proof. Another measure of relief introduced by Solon was the restoration
of all who had been condemned to atimia to their full privileges as citizens,
except those who had been condemned by the Ephetae, the Areiopagus, or the Phylo-basileis,
for murder, homicide, or treason.
It seems that in the first instance nothing more was contemplated
in the investment of Solon with dictatorial power than the relief of the existing
distress. But the success of his Seisachtheia procured for him such confidence
and popularity that he was further charged with the task of entirely remodelling
the constitution. As a preliminary step to his further proceedings he repealed
all the laws of Draco except those relating to bloodshed. With our imperfect knowledge
of the earlier political constitution of the people of Attica it is impossible
to estimate with any certainty the magnitude of the change which Solon effected.
Till it can be settled whether the division into four tribes was restricted to
the Eupatridae, or included the Geomori and Demiurgi, it is impossible to ascertain
in what position the ruling class stood to the unenfranchised demus, and consequently
how far the latter was affected by the legislation of Solon. The opinion of Niebuhr,
which is supported by Mr. Maiden, was, that the division into phylae, phrariae,
and genea, was restricted to the Eupatridae. All analogy confirms this view, which
certainly is not opposed by more numerous or authentic testimonies on the part
of ancient writers than are the universally acknowledged views of Niebuhr with
respect to the Roman curie and tribes. If it be the correct one, the demus in
Attica must have been destitute of any recognized political organization, and
must have profited by the legislation of Solon in very much the same way as the
plebs at Rome did by that of Servius Tullius.
The distinguishing feature of the constitution of Solon was the introduction
of the timocratic principle. The title of citizens to the honours and offices
of the state was regulated (at least in part) not by their nobility of birth,
but by their wealth. All the citizens were distributed into four classes. (If
the tribes included only the Eupatridae, it will be a mistake to speak of these
classes as divisions of the citizens of the tribes; they must have been divisions
in which the Eupatrid tribes and the demus were blended, just as the patricians
and plebeians were in the classes and centuries of Servius Tullius.) The first
class consisted of those who had an annual income of at least 500 medimni of dry
or liquid produce (equivalent to 500 drachmae, a medimnus being reckoned at a
drachma, Plut. Sol. 23), and were called Pentacosiomedimni. The second class consisted
of those whose incomes ranged between 300 and 500 medimni or drachmae, and were
called Hippeis (Hippeis or Hippes), from their being able to keep a horse, and
bound to perform military service as cavalry. The third class consisted of those
whose incomes varied between 200 and 300 medimni or drachmae, and were termed
Zengitae (Zengitai). The fourth class included all whose property fell short of
200 medimni or drachmae. Plutarch (Sol. 18) says that this class bore the name
of Thetes. Grote questions whether that statement is strictly accurate. There
is no doubt, however, that the census of the fourth class was called the Thetic
census (Thetikon telos). The first three classes were liable to direct taxation,
in the form of a graduated income tax. The taxable capital of a member of the
first class was estimated at twelve times his yearly income, whatever that was.
The taxable capital of a member of the second class was estimated at ten times
his yearly income; and that of one of the third class at five times his yearly
income. Thus upon any occasion on which it became necessary to levy a direct tax,
it was assessed at a certain per centage on the taxable capital of each. It is
not correct, however, to say that the taxable property of one of the pentacosiomedimni
was estimated at 6000 drachmae. It was at least that, but it might be more. In
like manner, the taxable capital of one of the Hippeis might range from 3000 to
5000 drachmae, and so on. A direct tax, however, was an extraordinary, and not
an annual payment. The fourth class were exempt from direct taxes, but of course
they, as well as the rest, were liable to indirect taxes.
To Solon was ascribed the institution of the boule, or deliberative
assembly of Four Hundred. Probably he did no more than modify the constitution
of an earlier assembly of the same kind, Plutarch (Sol. 19) says that the four
hundred members of the Boule were elected (epilexamenos perhaps implies an election
by the popular assembly), one hundred from each of the four tribes. It is worth
noting that this is the only direct statement that we have about the Boule of
Solon's time. It must be settled whether the the Boule is an arche, and if it
is, whether it is one of the archai spoken of by Plutarch, and Aristotle (Pol.
ii. 9.2), before it can be affirmed that a member of any of the first three classes
might belong to it, but not one of the fourth, or that it was elected by the popular
assembly. Plutarch does not say that the members of the Boule were appointed only
for a year, or that they must be above thirty years of age. In fact we know nothing
about the Boule, but that its members were taken in equal proportions from the
four genealogical tribes, and that the popular assembly could only entertain propositions
submitted to it by the Boule. Here again we feel greatly the want of more certain
knowledge regarding those genealogical tribes, with the internal organisation
of which Solon does not seem to have interfered. We are strongly inclined to the
opinion that even Mr. Grote represents the Boule of Solon's constitution as a
far less aristocratical assembly than it really was, and that in point of fact
it was an exclusively Eupatrid body, closely analogous to the Roman senate under
the constitution of Servius Tullius. The most authentic and valuable statement
that we have respecting the general nature of Solon's constitutional changes is
that of Solon himself, from which it is clear that nothing can be more erroneous
than to speak of Solon's institutions as being of a democratical character. To
the demus he gave nothing more than a defensive power, sufficient to protect them
from any tyrannous abuse on the part of the noble and wealthy classes, with whose
prerogatives, in other respects, he did not interfere (Demoi men gar edoka toson
kratos hoson eparkein, times out aphelon out eporexamenos: hoi d eichon dunamin
kai chremasin esan agetoi, kai tois ephrasamen meden aeikes echein). According
to the view commonly taken of the four tribes, there seems no reason why a large
proportion of the Boule might not have been members of the demus, for it is not
credible that the Attic demus was entirely included in the lowest class, and if
(according to the common view) the Boule was elected by the ecclesia, where the
fourth class would be the most numerous, it seems that the result must almost
necessarily have been, that the Boule should be little more than the exponent
of the feelings and will of the demus. In the most moderate view of the case the
constitution and working of such an assembly must have been a large infraction
of the previous power and prerogatives of the Eupatrids, and seems equally inconsistent
with the passage of Solon quoted above, and with the statement of Plutarch that
the Boule was designed as a check upon the demus. Both these statements, and all
that we learn of the Innovations of Cleisthenes, become far more intelligible
on the hypothesis that the four Ionian tribes were Eupatrid tribes, and the Boule
of Solon an Eupatrid body, whose action, however, was so far controlled by the
demus, that its measures required the ratification of the popular assembly to
make them valid. Mr.Grote expresses an opinion that before the time of Solon there
was but one aristocratical council, the same which was afterwards distinguished
from the Council of Four Hundred as the Upper Council, or the Council of Areiopagus.
But his remark that the distinctive title of the latter, "Senate of Areiopagus,"
would not be bestowed until the formation by Solon of the second senate or council,
seems at variance with the quotation from one of the laws of Solon himself, by
which Plutarch shows that the council of Areiopagus was not instituted by Solon.
We incline more to the opinion of Dr. Thirlwall, that the Boule of Solon was only
a modification of a previously existing institution.
There was no doubt a public assembly of some kind before the time
of Solon, though probably possessed of but little more power than those which
we find described in the Homeric poems. Solon undoubtedly greatly enlarged its
functions. He gave it the right of electing the archons and other magistrates,
and, what was even more important, made the archons and magistrates accountable
directly to it when their year of office was expired. He also gave it what was
equivalent to a veto upon any proposed measure of the Boule, though it could not
itself originate any measure. Nor does it seem at all likely that, as constituted
by Solon, it even had the power of modifying any measure submitted to it. Every
member of all the four classes might vote in the popular assembly (see Dict. of
Antiq. art. Ecclesia),
and all votes seem to have had the same weight, which forms an important point
of difference between the Ecclesia of Athens and the Comitia Centuriata of Servius
Tullius.
Plutarch remarks that it was an error to attribute to Solon the establishment
of the council of the Areiopagus (see Dict. of Antiq. art. Areiopagus).
He does not seem even to have made any change in its constitution, though he enlarged
its powers, and entrusted it with the general supervision of the institutions
and laws of the state, and the religion and morals of the citizens.
Athenians in the age of unmitigated democracy were extremely fond
of speaking of all their institutions either as originated by Solon, or as the
natural expansion and application of his principles. Some even carried them back
to Theseus. The orators of course were not slow to fill in with this popular prejudice,
and various palpable anachronisms in their statements show how little reliance
can be placed on any accounts of the institutions of Solon that come from such
a source. For instance, the oath of the Heliastic dicasts, which is quoted by
Demosthenes and ascribed to Solon, mentions the Cleisthenean senate of Five hundred.
Several other curious examples of similar anachronisms are collected by Mr. Grote
who has some excellent remarks on the practice of connecting the name of Solon
with the whole political and judicial state of Athens, as it existed between the
age of Pericles and that of Demosthenes; many of the institutions thus referred
to the great legislator, being among the last refinements and elaborations of
the democratical mind of Athens. We entirely coincide in his opinion that the
whole arrangement of the Heliastic courts and the transference to them of the
old judicial powers of the archons bespeaks a state of things utterly inconsistent
with the known relations of the age of Solon. " It would be a marvel, such as
nothing short of strong direct evidence would justify us in believing, that in
an age when even partial democracy was yet untried, Solon should conceive the
idea of such institutions: it would be a marvel still greater, that the half-emancipated
Thetes and small proprietors for whom he legislated -- yet trembling under the
rod of the Eupatrid archons, and utterly inexperienced in collective business
-- should have been found suddenly competent to fulfil these ascendent functions,
such as the citizens of conquering Athens in the days of Pericles -- full of the
sentiment of force, and actively identifying themselves with the dignity of their
community -- became gradually competent, and not more than competent, to exercise
with effect." The term Heliaea he thinks was in the time of Solon no more than
the name of the popular assembly, which is in fact the original meaning of the
word. The number of 6000, which was that of the whole body of dicasts in after
times, had reference to the Cleisthenean division into 10 tribes. It is to be
observed, that Plutarch, who after all is our best authority, says nothing of
any such dicastic organisation as that of the later Heliaea. Mr. Grote even questions
the statement of Plutarch, that Solon allowed an appeal to the ecclesia from the
sentence of an archon, considering that Plutarch has been misled by the recollection
of the Roman provocatio.
The idea of the periodical revision of his laws by the Nomothetae
being a part of Solon's plan is even in contradiction to. the statements of our
authorities. The institution of the Nomothetae was one of the most ultra-democratical
that can well be imagined. It was a jury appointed by lot out of a body of dicasts
who were appointed by lot, with power to rescind any law with which any one could
find sufficient fault to induce an assembly of the people to entertain the idea
of subjecting it to revision. It is to be observed too that Demosthenes and Aeschines
mention, in connection with this procedure, as one of the regulations appointed
by Solon to be observed by the proposer of a new or amended law, that he should
post up his proposed law before the Eponymi, that is, the statues of the ten heroes
from whom the ten tribes of Cleisthenes derived their names.
Besides the arrangement of the general political relations of the
people Solon was the author of a great variety of special laws, which do not seem
to have been arranged in any systematic manner. Those relating to debtors and
creditors have been already referred to. Several had for their object the encouragement
of trade and manufactures. Foreign settlers were not to be naturalized as citizens
unless they carried on some industrious pursuit. If a father did not teach his
son some trade or profession, the son was not liable to maintain his father in
his old age. The council of Areiopagus had a general power to punish idleness.
Solon forbade the exportation of all produce of the Attic soil except olive oil.
The impulse which he gave to the various branches of industry carried on in towns
had eventually an important bearing upon the development of the democratic spirit
in Athens. Solon was the first who gave to those who died childless the power
of disposing of their property by will. He enacted several laws relating to marriage,
especially with regard to heiresses. Other regulations were intended to place
restraints upon the female sex with regard to their appearance in public, and
especially to repress frantic and excessive manifestations of grief at funerals.
An adulterer taken in the act might be killed on the spot, but the violation of
a free woman was only punishable by a fine of one hundred drachmae, the seduction
of a free woman by a fine of twenty drachmae. Other laws will be found in Plutarch
respecting the speaking evil either of the dead or of the living, respecting the
use of wells, the planting of trees in conterminous properties, the destruction
of noxious animals, &c. The rewards which he appointed to be given to victors
at the Olympic and Isthmian games are for that age unusually large (500 drachmae
to the former and 100 to the latter). The law relating to theft, that the thief
should restore twice the value of the thing stolen, seems to have been due to
Solon. (see Dict. of Ant. art. klopes
dike). He also either established or regulated the public dinners at the Prytaneium.
One of the most curious of his regulations was that which denounced atimia against
any citizen, who, on the outbreak of a sedition, remained neutral. On the design
of this enactment to shorten as much as possible any suspension of legal authority,
and its connection with the ostracism, the reader will find some ingenious and
able remarks in Grote. The laws of Solon were inscribed on wooden rollers axones)
and triangular tablets (kurbeis), in the boustrophedon fashion, and were set up
at first in the Acropolis, afterwards in the Prytaneium.
The Athenians were also indebted to Solon for some rectification of
the calendar. Diogenes Laertius (i. 59) says that "he made the Athenians regulate
their days according to the moon," that is to say, he introduced some division
of time agreeing more accurately with the course of the moon. Plutarch gives the
following very confused account of the matter: "Since Solon observed the irregularity
of the moon, and saw that its motion does not coincide completely either with
the setting or with the rising of the sun, but that it often on the same day both
overtakes and passes the sun, he erdained that this day should be called hene
kai nea, considering that the portion of it which preceded the conjunction belonged
to the month that was ending, the rest to that which was beginning. The succeeding
day he called noumenia." According to the scholiast on Aristophanes Solon introduced
the practice of reckoning the days from the twentieth onwards in the reverse order.
Ideler gathers from the notices that we have on the subject, that Solon was the
first who introduced among the Greeks months of 29 and 30 days alternately. He
also thinks that this was accompanied by the introduction of the Trieteris or
two-year cycle.
We have more than one statement to the effect that Solon exacted from
the government and people of Athens a solemn oath, that they would observe his
laws without alteration for a certain space -- 10 years according to Herodotus,
-- 100 years according to other accounts. According to a story told by Plutarch,
Solon was himself aware that he had been compelled to leave many imperfections
in his system and code. He is said to have spoken of his laws as being not the
best, but the best which the Athenians would have received. After he had completed
his task. being, we are told, greatly annoyed and troubled by those who came to
him with all kinds of complaints, suggestions or criticisms about his laws, in
order that he might not himself have to propose any change, he absented himself
from Athens for ten years, after he had obtained the oath above referred to. He
first visited Egypt, and conversed with two learned Egyptian priests -- Psenophis
of Heliopolis, and Sonchis of Sais. The stories which they told him about the
submerged island of Atlantis, and the war carried on against it by Athens 9000
years before his time, induced him to make it the subject of an epic poem, which,
however, he did not complete, and of which nothing now remains. From Egypt he
proceeded to Cyprus, and was received with great distinction by Philocyprus, king
of the little town of Aepeia. Solon persuaded the king to remove from the old
site, which was on an inconvenient and precipitous elevation, and build a new
town on the plain. He himself assisted in laying out the plan. The new settlement
was called Soli, in honour of the illustrious visitor. A fragment of an elegiac
poem addressed by Solon to Philocyprus is preserved by Plutarch. We learn from
Herodotus that in this poem Solon bestowed the greatest praise upon Philocyprus.
The statement of the blundering Diogenes Laertius that Solon founded Soli in Cilicia,
and died in Cyprus, may be rejected without hesitation.
It is impossible not to regret that the stern laws of chronology compel
us to set down as a fiction the beautiful story so beautifully told by Herodotus
(i. 29--45, 86; comp. Plut. Sol. 27, 28) of the interview between Solon and Croesus,
and the illustration furnished in the history of the latter of the truth of the
maxim of the Athenian sage, that worldly prosperity is precarious, and that no
man's life can be pronounced happy till he has reached its close without a reverse
of fortune (see Croesus).
For though it may be made out that it is just within the limits of possibility
that Solon and Croesus may have met a few years before B. C. 560, that could not
have been an interview consistent with any of the circumstances mentioned by Herodotus,
and without which the story of the interview would be entirely devoid of any interest
that could make it worth while attempting to establish its possibility. The whole
pith and force of the story would vanish if any interview of an earlier date be
substituted for that which the episode in Herodotus requires, namely one taking
place when Croesus was king, at the height of his power, when he had a son old
enough to be married and command armies, and immediately preceding the turn of
his fortunes, not more than seven or eight years before the capture of Sardis.
" In my judgment," observes Mr. Grote, "this is an illustrative tale, in which
certain real characters --Solon and Croesus, -- and certain real facts -- the
great power and succeeding ruin of the former by the victorious arm of Cyrus,
together with certain facts altogether fictitious, such as the two sons of Croesus,
the Phrygian Adrastus and his history, the hunting of the mischievous wild boar
on Mount Olympus, the ultimate preservation of Croesus, &c. are put together so
as to convey an impressive moral lesson."
During the absence of Solon the old oligarchical dissensions were
renewed, the Pedieis being headed by Lycurgus, the Parali by Megacles, the Diacrii
by Peisistratus. These dissensions were approaching a crisis when Solon returned
to Athens, and had proceeded to such a length that he found himself unable, to
repress them. For an account of the successful machinations of Peisistratus, and
the unsuccessful endeavours of Solon to counteract them, the reader is referred
to the article Peisistratus.
The tyrant, after his usurpation, is said to have paid considerable court to Solon,
and on various occasions to have solicited his advice, which Solon did not withhold.
We do not know certainly how long Solon survived the overthrow of the constitution.
According to Phanias of Lesbos (Plut. Sol. 32), he died in less than two years
after. There seems nothing to hinder us from accepting the statement that he had
reached the age of eighty. There was a story current in antiquity that, by his
own directions, his ashes were collected and scattered round the island of Salamis.
Plutarch discards this story as absurd. He himself remarks, however, that Aristotle,
as well as other authors of credit, repeated it. Diogenes Laertius quotes some
lines of Cratinus in which it is alluded to. The singularity of it is rather an
argument in its favour.
Of the poems of Solon several fragments remain. They do not indicate
any great degree of imaginative power, but the style of them seems to have been
vigorous and simple. Those that were called forth by special emergencies appear
to have been marked by no small degree of energy. Solon is said to have attempted
a metrical version of his laws, and a couple of lines are quoted as the commencement
of this composition; but nothing more of it remains. Here and there, even in the
fragments that remain, sentiments are expressed of a somewhat more jovial kind
than the rest. These are probably relics of youthful effusions. Some traced them,
as well as Solon's some-what luxurious style of living, to the bad habits which
he had contracted while following the profession of a trader. The fragments of
Solon are usually incorporated in the collections of the Greek gnomic poets, as,
for example, in those of Sylburg, Brunck, and Boissonade. They are also inserted
in Bergk's Poetae Lyrici Graeci. There is also a separate edition by Bach (Lugd.
Bat. 1825). The select correspondence of Solon with Periander, Peisistratus, Epimenides,
and Croesus, with which Diogenes Laertius has favoured us, is of course spurious.
Respecting the connection of Solon with the arrangement of the Homeric
poems, see the article Homerus.
The story told by Plutarch respecting Solon and Thespis cannot be
true, since dramatic entertainments were not introduced into Athens till 20 years
(B. C. 535) after Solon's death. It is related that Solon asked Thespis, after
witnessing one of his pieces, if he was not ashamed of telling such untruths before
so large an audience. Thespis replied, that as it was done for amusement only,
there was no harm in saying and doing such things. Which answer incensed Solon
so much that he struck the ground vehemently with his staff, and said that if
such amusement as that were to be praised and honoured, men would soon begin to
regard covenants as nothing more than a joke.
An inscription on a statue set up in honour of Solon spoke of him as born in Salamis
(Diog. Laert. i. 62). This can hardly have been the case, as Salamis was not incorporated
with Attica when he was born. The statue was set up a long time after Solon's
death, and probably by the Salaminians themselves.
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited July 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
,
, 480 - 406
Ευριπίδης. Ο τελευταίος κατά χρονολογική σειρά από τους τρεις μεγάλους τραγικούς
ποιητές της αρχαιότητας, γεννήθηκε στη Σαλαμίνα, σύμφωνα με το «Πάριο Μάρμαρο»,
όταν άρχων των Αθηνών ήταν ο Φιλοκράτης, την 73η Ολυμπιάδα - δηλ. το 485 πΧ -
ή, σύμφωνα με το ανώνυμο Βίο και το λεξικό Σούδα, όταν άρχων ήταν ο Καλλιάδης,
την 75η Ολυμπιάδα, δηλ. το 480 πΧ. Η τελευταία αυτή πληροφορία που έχει την απαρχή
της στους αρχαίους χρόνους, συνετέλεσε ώστε να συνδεθεί, σαν σε θρύλο το όνομα
και των τριών μεγάλων τραγικών με το λαμπρό πολεμικό κατόρθωμα των Ελλήνων, με
τη Ναυμαχία και τη νίκη της Σαλαμίνας: την ημέρα που γεννιόταν ο Ευριπίδης, ο
Αισχύλος πολεμούσε μαζί με τους άλλους Έλληνες οι οποίοι καταναυμαχούσαν τους
Πέρσες, ενώ ο Σοφοκλής, έφηβος ακόμη ήταν επικεφαλής του χώρου που έψαλλε τα επινίκια.
Πληροφορίες για τη ζωή του Ευριπίδη μας παραχωρούν, εκτός από το λεξικό
Σούδα και τον Ανώνυμο Βίο, που αναφέρθηκαν προηγούμενα και ο Αύλος Γέλλιος, καθώς
και ο Περιπατητικός βιογράφος Σάτυρος στο βιβλίο του Βίος Ευριπίδου από το οποίο
εκτεταμένα αποσπάσματα διασώθηκαν στους Οξύρρυγχους. Για κανέναν άλλο τραγικό
ποιητή δεν διασώθηκαν τόσες πληροφορίες όσες για τον Ευριπίδη, πληροφορίες που,
ωστόσο, είναι σε πολλά σημεία αντιφατικές. Κατά την μακρά ποιητική σταδιοδρομία
του ο Ευριπίδης προκάλεσε πολλά μίση και πολλές αντιπάθειες τον συγχρόνων του
με το μοναχικό και κλειστό χαρακτήρα του, καθώς και για τις τολμηρές ιδέες του.
Αποτελούσε μόνιμο και αδιάλειπτο στόχο των αιχμηρών σκωπτικών βέλων των κωμωδιογράφων,
που με τη συστηματική πολεμική τους εναντίον του συνετέλεσαν όχι μόνο στο να διασυρθεί
το έργο του, αλλά και στο να σπιλωθεί ο βίος, η καταγωγή, και η οικογενειακή ζωή
του. Γι' αυτό και οι πληροφορίες που διασώθηκαν για τη ζωή του είναι αντικειμενικές
σε πολύ μικρό βαθμό, ανακριβείς και συγκεχυμένες. Σε πολλά σημεία δεν ανταποκρίνονται
στη πραγματικότητα. Ο πατέρας του αναφέρεται άλλοτε ως Μνησαρχίδης (Βίος), άλλοτε
ως Μνήσαρχος ή Μνησαρχίδης (λεξικό Σούδας) και ήταν «κάπηλος» (μικροπωλητής, έμπορος),
σύμφωνα με τον Ανώνυμο Βίο, αλλά η πληροφορία αυτή δεν είχε διασταυρωθεί από άλλη
πηγή. Η μητέρα του λεγόταν Κλειτώ και κατά τους βιογράφους, ήταν λαχανοπώλιδα.
Αλλά και αυτή η πληροφορία έχει, χωρίς αμφιβολία, την πηγή της στα σκώμματα των
κωμικών ποιητών και ιδιαίτερα του Αριστοφάνη, ο οποίος κάνει επανειλημμένως υπαινιγμούς
για την ταπεινή καταγωγή του Ευριπίδη. Όπως αναφέρεται στο λεξικό Σούδα, την ανακρίβεια
της πληροφορίας αυτής είχε αποδείξει ο Ατθιδογράφος Φιλόχορος ο οποίος έγγραψε:
ουκ αληθές δε ως λαχανώπολις ήν η μητήρ αυτού. Εξάλλου δύο μαρτυρίες επιβεβαιώνουν
ότι δεν έχει ταπεινή καταγωγή και ότι, αντίθετα ανήκε σε ευγενή οίκο: κατά των
Αθήναιο, ο ποιητής μετείχε στις εορτές του Δηλίου Απόλλωνος, ενώ σύμφωνα με τον
Ανώνυμο Βίο - που κατά άλλα περιέχει πολλές αντιφάσεις - διατέλεσε όταν ήταν παιδί
«Πυρφόρος του Ζωστηρίου Απόλλωνος». Φαίνεται ότι οι γονείς του Ευριπίδη είχαν
μετοικίσει κάποτε στη Βοιωτία, αλλά επανήλθαν στην Αττική. Ο πατέρας του, όπως
και ο ποιητής ανήκε στο Δήμο της Φλείας. Ενδεικτικό για την ευπορία του είναι
ότι ο Ευριπίδης ήταν κάτοχος μιας πλουσιότατης βιβλιοθήκης. Κατά τον Ανώνυμο Βίο,
όταν ο πατέρας του έλαβε χρησμό ότι ο γιος του επρόκειτο να νικήσει σε στεφανηφόρους
αγώνες, ο Ευριπίδης πηρε μέρος σε αγώνες «Παγκρατίου» και «Πυγμής», στους οποίους
και βγήκε νικητής. Στην ίδια πηγή περιέχεται η πληροφορία ότι ασχολείτο με τη
ζωγραφική και ότι οι ζωγραφικοί πίνακές του επιδεικνύονταν στα Μέγαρα.
Όλες οι πληροφορίες των αρχαίων βιογράφων συμπίπτουν σε ότι αφορά
τη μόρφωση και την παιδεία του: Ο Ευριπίδης παρακολούθησε μαθήματα του Αναξαγόρα,
ήταν μαθητής του φυσικού φιλόσοφου Αρχελάου, του ρήτορα και σοφιστή Προδίκου,
καθώς και του Σωκράτη, με τον οποίο συνδέθηκε με πολύ στενή φιλία και ο οποίος
τον επηρέασε στο ηθικό μέρος της Φιλοσοφίας του. Λέγονταν μάλιστα ότι ο Σωκράτης
υπήρξε θαυμαστής των τραγωδιών του. Ο Ευριπίδης, ζωηρό και ανήσυχο πνεύμα, με
έντονη ανανεωτική διάθεση και αγάπη για το καινούργιο, δεν ήταν δυνατό να μη δεχτεί
επίσης στην επίδραση των Φιλοσοφικών αντιλήψεων του Αναξαγόρα και της Σοφιστικής
τέχνης του Προδίκου και του Πρωταγόρα, καθώς της Σωκρατικής μεθόδου του ορθολογικού
κριτικού ελέγχου. Και οι επιδράσεις αυτές είναι καταφανείς στο έργο του. Χάρη
σ' αυτές κατόρθωσε να συλλάβει πιο ουσιαστικά από κάθε άλλον και να εκφραστεί
τον βαθύτερο παλμό και το βαθύτερο πνεύμα της εποχής του.
Η άποψη που περιέχεται στο λεξικό Σούδα και σύμφωνα με την οποία «επί
τραγωδία ετράπη τον Αναξαγόρα ιδών υποστάντα κινδύνους δι' άπερ εισήξε δόγματα»
κρίνεται ως αφελής, γιατί αγνοεί τα βαθύτερα κίνητρα της καλλιτεχνικής δημιουργίας
του. Αναφέρεται επίσης ότι ο Ευριπίδης, για να αποφεύγει το πλήθος και την οχλαγωγία,
αποσυρόταν συχνά όλη την ημέρα σε ένα σπήλαιο στη Σαλαμίνα, όπου μελετούσε και
συνέθετε τις τραγωδίες του. Αρχισε να διαγωνίζεται όταν άρχων ήταν ο Καλλίας,
την 81η Ολυμπιάδα, δηλαδή το 455 πΧ και δίδαξε στη σκηνή τη τραγωδία του Πηλιάδες,
με την οποία κέρδισε το τρίτο βραβείο. Το πρώτο βραβείο έλαβε - κατά το «Πάριο
Μάρμαρο» - το 441. Και σε όλη την πενηντάχρονη ποιητική σταδιοδρομία του δεν κέρδισε
παρά μόνο 4 πρώτες νίκες.
Συγκεχυμένες είναι οι πληροφορίες που αναφέρονται στην οικογενειακή
ζωή του ποιητή. Σύμφωνα με τον Ανώνυμο Βίο, νυμφεύθηκε 2 φορές, η πρώτη σύζυγός
του ονομαζόταν Μελιτώ και η δεύτερη Χοιριλή ή Χοιρίνη. Απέκτησε τρία παιδιά, τον
Μνήσαρχο, που έγινε έμπορος, Μνησίχολο, που έγινε υποκριτής (ηθοποιός), και τον
Ευριπίδη που αναδείχτηκε σε ποιητή και που δίδαξε από τη σκηνή, μετά το θάνατο
του πατέρα του, τις τραγωδίες του τελευταίου Ιφιγένεια έν Αυλίδι, Βάκχαι και Αλκμαίων
στη Κόρινθο. Έτσι, ο μεγάλος τραγωδός κέρδισε μετά το θάνατο την πέμπτη και τελευταία
νίκη του στους δραματικούς αγώνες. Με τη συμβολή των κωμωδιογράφων δημιουργήθηκε
η φήμη ότι η ιδιωτική ζωή του ποιητή ήταν δυστυχισμένη. Λεγόταν ότι Χοιρίλη επέδειξε
ακόλαστη διαγωγή, γι' αυτό και ο Ευριπίδης την έδιωξε και στη συνέχεια συνέθεσε
τον πρώτο Ιππόλυτο, στον οποίο επιχειρούσε να καταδείξει την αναισχυντία των γυναικών.
Σύμφωνα με μια άλλη εκδοχή ο ποιητής συνέλαβε τη Χοιρίλη να τον απατά με έναν
νεαρό οικογενειακό δούλο Κηφισοφώντα. Γι αυτό την εγκατέλειψε παραδίδοντάς την
στο δούλο. Μνεία για τον Κηφισοφώντα υπάρχει στην κωμωδία του Αριστοφάνη Βάτραχοι,
όπου όμως, χωρίς να γίνετε υπαινιγμός για τις συζυγικές ατυχίες του ποιητή, ο
Κηφισοφών αναφέρεται ως συγκάτοικος του Ευριπίδη που τον βοηθούσε στη σύνθεση
της μουσικής των τραγωδιών του. Το 408 πΧ, ο Ευριπίδης εγκατέλειψε την Αθήνα,
ίσως εξαιτίας της εχθρότητας που του έδειχναν οι Αθηναίοι και των συνεχών ανηλεών
σκωμμάτων των κωμωδιογράφων. Στον Ανώνυμο Βίο απαντούν δύο σημεία που αναφέρονται
στη εχθρική αυτή στάση :Υπό γαρ Αθηναίων εφθονείτο» και «Επέκειντο δε και οι κωμικοί
φθόνω αυτόν διασύροντες». Στην αρχή πήγε στη Μαγνησία όπου τιμήθηκε ως πρόξενος
«πρόξενος» και του παραχωρήθηκε ατέλεια, και στη συνέχεια στην αυλή του βασιλιά
της Μακεδονίας Αρχελάου.
Προς τιμήν του Μακεδόνα βασιλιά συνέθεσε την τραγωδία Αρχέλαος, η
οποία έχει χαθεί. Στη Μακεδονία επίσης συνέθεσε ή συμπλήρωσε την τραγωδία Βάκχαι,
την οποία, μετά το θάνατο του, δίδαξε ο ομώνυμος γιος του. Πέθανε και ετάφηκε
στη Μακεδονία, τον κατασπάραξαν, σύμφωνα με πληροφορία που περιέχεται στον Ανώνυμο
Βίο, οι σκύλοι του βασιλιά Αρχελάου. Η ίδια πηγή αναφέρει ότι η είδηση του θανάτου
του προκάλεσε θλίψη στην Αθήνα και ότι ο λαός δάκρυσε όταν ο Σοφοκλής, φορώντας
«φαιό Ιμάτιο» σε ένδειξη πένθους εισήγαγε στο θέατρο τον χορό και τους υποκριτές
αστεφάνωτους.
Το κείμενο παρατίθεται τον Ιούνιο 2005 από την ακόλουθη ιστοσελίδα του Δήμου Σαλαμίνας
Euripides. A celebrated Athenian tragic poet, son of Mnesarchus and Clito.
He was born B.C. 480, in Salamis, on the very day of the Grecian victory near
that island. His mother, Clito, had been sent over to Salamis, with the other
Athenian women, when Attica was given up to the invading army of Xerxes; and the
name of the poet, which is formed like a patronymic from the Euripus, the scene
of the first successful resistance to the Persian navy, shows that the minds of
his parents were full of the stirring events of that momentous crisis. Aristophanes
repeatedly imputes meanness of extraction, by the mother's side, to Euripides.
He asserts that she was an herb-seller; and, according to Aulus Gellius, Theophrastus
confirms the comedian's insinuations. Whatever one or both of his parents might
originally have been, the costly education which the young Euripides received
implies a certain degree of wealth and consequence as then at least possessed
by his family. The pupil of Anaxagoras, Protagoras, and Prodicus (an instructor
famous for the extravagant terms which he demanded for his lessons), could not
have been the son of persons at that time very mean or poor. It is most probable,
therefore, that his father was a man of Euripides. (Naples Museum.) property,
and made a mesalliance. In early life we are told that his father made Euripides
direct his attention chiefly to gymnastic exercises, and that, in his seventeenth
year, he was crowned in the Eleusinian and Thesean contests. Even at this early
age he is said to have attempted dramatic composition. He seems also to have cultivated
a natural taste for painting, and some of his pictures were long afterwards preserved
at Megara. At length, quitting the gymnasium, he applied himself to philosophy
and literature. Under the celebrated rhetorician Prodicus, one of the instructors
of Pericles, he acquired that oratorical skill for which his dramas are so remarkably
distinguished. Quintilian, in comparing Sophocles with Euripides, strongly recommends
the latter to the young pleader as an excellent model. Cicero, too, was a great
admirer of Euripides. From Anaxagoras, Euripides imbibed those philosophical notions
which are occasionally brought forward in his works, and for which reference may
be made to the monograph of Parmentier, Euripide et Anaxagore (Paris, 1893). Here,
too, Pericles was his fellow-disciple. With Socrates, who had studied under the
same master, Euripides was on terms of the closest intimacy, and from him he derived
those maxims so frequently interwoven into his dramas that Socrates was suspected
of largely assisting the tragedian in their composition.
Euripides began his public career as a dramatic writer in B.C.
455, the twenty-fifth year of his age. On this occasion he was the third with
a play called the Pleiades. In B.C. 441, he won the prize. In B.C. 431, he was
third with the Medea, the Philoctetes, the Dictys, and the Theristae, a satyric
drama. His competitors were Euphorion and Sophocles. He was first with the Hippolytus,
B.C. 428, the year of his master's (Anaxagoras's) death; second, B.C. 415, with
the Alexander (or Paris), the Palamedes, the Troades, and the Sisyphus, a satyric
drama. It was in this contest that Xenocles was first. Two years after this the
Athenians sustained the total loss of their armament before Syracuse. In his narration
of this disaster, Plutarch gives an anecdote (Nicias) which, if true, bears a
splendid testimony to the high reputation which Euripides then enjoyed. Those
among the captives, he tells us, who could repeat any portion of that poet's works
were treated with kindness, and even set at liberty. The same author also informs
us that Euripides honoured the soldiers who had fallen in that siege with a funeral
poem, two lines of which he has preserved. The Andromeda was exhibited B.C. 412;
the Orestes, B.C. 408.
Soon after this time the poet retired into Magnesia, and from
thence into Macedonia, to the court of Archelaus. As in the case of Aeschylus,
the motives for this self-exile are obscure and uncertain. We know, indeed, that
Athens was by no means the most favourable residence for distinguished literary
merit. Report, too, pronounced Euripides unhappy in his own family. His first
wife, Melito, he divorced for adultery; and in his second, Choerile, he was not
more fortunate. To the poet's unhappiness in his matrimonial connections Aristophanes
refers in his Ranae. Envy and enmity among his fellow-citizens, infidelity and
domestic vexations at home, would prove powerful inducements to the poet to accept
the invitations of Archelaus. Perhaps, too, a prosecution in which he became involved,
on a charge of impiety, grounded upon a line in the Hippolytus, might have had
some share in producing this determination to quit Athens; nor ought we to omit
that, in all likelihood, his political sentiments may have exposed him to continual
danger. In Macedonia he is said to have written a play in honour of Archelaus,
and to have inscribed it with his patron's name, who was so much pleased with
the manners and ability of his guest as to appoint him one of his ministers. He
composed in this same country also some other dramatic pieces, in one of which
(the Bacchae) he seems to have been inspired by the wild scenery of the land to
which he had come. No further particulars are recorded of Euripides, except a
few apocryphal anecdotes and apophthegms. His death is said to have been, like
that of Aeschylus, of an extraordinary kind. Either from chance or malice the
aged dramatist was exposed, according to the common account, to the attack of
some ferocious hounds, and was by them so dreadfully mangled as to expire soon
afterwards, in his seventy-fifth year. This story, however, is clearly a fabrication,
for Aristophanes, in the Ranae, would certainly have alluded to the manner of
his death had there been anything remarkable in it. He died B.C. 406. The Athenians
entreated Archelaus to send the body to the poet's native city for interment.
The request was refused, and, with every demonstration of grief and respect, Euripides
was buried at Pella. A cenotaph, however, was erected to his memory at Athens.
We have some cutting sayings of Sophocles concerning Euripides,
although the former was so void of all the jealousy of an artist that he mourned
over the death of his rival; and, in a piece which he shortly after brought upon
the stage, did not allow his actors the ornament of a garland. The jeering attacks
of Aristophanes are well known, but have not always been properly estimated and
understood. Aristotle, too, brings forward many important causes for blame; and
when he calls Euripides "the most tragic of poets", he by no means ascribes
to him the greatest perfection in the tragic art generally; but he alludes, by
this phrase, to the effect which is produced by his dramatic catastrophes. In
Euripides we no longer find the essence of ancient tragedy pure and unmixed; its
characteristic features are already partly effaced. These consisted principally
in the idea of destiny which reigns in them, in ideal representation, and the
importance of the chorus. The idea of destiny had, indeed, come down to him from
his predecessors as his inheritance, and a belief in it is inculcated by him,
according to the custom of the tragedians; but still, in Euripides, destiny is
seldom considered as the invisible spirit of all poetry, the fundamental thought
of the tragic world. On the other hand, he derived it from the regions of infinity,
and, in his writings, inevitable necessity often degenerates into the caprice
of chance. Hence he can no longer direct it to its proper aim--namely, that of
elevating, by its contrast, the moral free-will of man. Very few of his dramas
depend on a constant combat against the dictates of destiny, or an equally heroic
subjection to them. His men, in general, suffer, because they must, and not because
they are willing. The contrasted subordination of idea, loftiness of character
and passion, which in Sophocles, as well as in the graphic art of the Greeks,
we find observed in this order, are in him exactly reversed. In his plays passion
is the most powerful; his secondary care is for character; and if these endeavours
leave him sufficient room, he seeks now and then to bring in greatness and dignity,
but more frequently amiability. Euripides has, according to the doctrine of Aristotle
, frequently represented his personages as bad without any necessity--for example,
Menelaus in the Orestes. More especially, it is by no means his object to represent
the race of heroes as pre-eminent above the present race by their mighty stature,
but he rather takes pains to fill up the chasm between his contemporaries and
the olden time, and reveal the gods and heroes of the other side in their undress.
This is what Sophocles meant when he said that he himself represented men as they
should be, Euripides as they were. It seems to be a design of Euripides always
to remind his spectators, "See, these beings were men; they had just such
weaknesses, and acted from exactly the same motives as yourselves, and as the
meanest among you does." In other words, Euripides is the first of the realists
among the Greeks.
In his dramas the chorus is generally an unessential ornament,
its songs are often altogether episodical, without reference to the action. The
ancient comic writers enjoyed the privilege of sometimes making the chorus address
the audience in their own name, this being called a Parabasis. Although it by
no means belongs to tragedy, yet Euripides, according to the testimony of Iulius
Pollux, often employed it, and so far forgot himself in it that in the Danaides
he made the chorus, consisting of women, use grammatical forms which belonged
to the masculine gender alone. In the music of the accompaniments he adopted all
the innovations of which Timotheus was the author, and selected those measures
which are most suitable to the sensuous nature of his poetry. He acted in a similar
way as regarded prosody; the construction of his verses is rather florid, and
approaches irregularity. He strives after effect in a degree which can not be
conceded even to a dramatic poet. Thus, for example, he seldom lets any opportunity
escape of having his personages seized with sudden and groundless terror; his
old men always complain of the infirmities of old age, and are particularly given
to mount, with tottering knees, the ascent from the orchestra to the stage, which
frequently represented the declivity of a mountain, while they lament their wretchedness.
His object throughout is emotion, for the sake of which he not only offends against
ancient decorum, but sacrifices the symmetry of his plays. He likes to reduce
his heroes to a state of beggary; makes them suffer hunger and want; and brings
them on the stage with all the external signs of indigence, covered with rags,
as Aristophanes so humourously throws in his teeth in the Acharnians (410-448).
Euripides, as already stated, had studied philosophy, and prided
himself upon his familiarity with philosophical doctrine. Hence, as contrasted
with his two dramatic predecessors, Aeschylus and Sophocles, his rationalistic
method of treatment seemed to his audiences startling and almost impious. His
allegorical interpretations must often have had a flavour of sacrilege about them,
and the whole spirit and temper of his plays were an embodiment of the "higher
criticism" of the day. The Athenians were prone to identify the sentiments
of his characters with those of the author himself. It is related of him that
he made Bellerophon come on the stage with a panegyric on riches, in which he
preferred them before every domestic joy; and said, at last, "If Aphrodite
(who had the epithet of ‘golden’) shone like gold, she would indeed deserve the
love of men". The audience, enraged at this, raised a great tumult, and were
proceeding to stone the orator as well as the poet. Euripides, on this, rushed
forward and exclaimed, "Wait patiently till the end; he will fare accordingly."
Thus, also, he is said to have excused himself against the accusation that his
Ixion spoke too abominably and blasphemously, by replying that, in return, he
had not concluded the piece without making him revolve on the wheel. He has also
great command of that sophistry of the passions which gives things only one appearance.
The following verse is notorious for its expression of what casuists call mental
reservation: "My tongue took an oath, but my mind is unsworn."
In the connection in which this verse is spoken, it may indeed
be justified, as far as regards the reason for which Aristophanes ridicules it
in so many ways; but still the formula is pernicious on account of the turn which
may be given it. Another sentiment of Euripides, "It is worth while committing
injustice for the sake of empire; in other things it is proper to be just,"
was continually in the mouth of Caesar, in order to make a wrong application of
it. Seductive enticements to the enjoyment of sensual love were another article
of accusation against Euripides among the ancients. Thus, for example, Hecuba,
in order to incite Agamemnon to punish Polymnestor, reminds him of the joys Cassandra
had afforded him; who, having been taken in war, was his slave, according to the
law of the heroic ages: she is willing to purchase revenge for a murdered son
by consenting to and ratifying the degradation of a daughter who is still alive.
This poet was the first to take for the principal subject of a drama the wild
passion of a Medea or the unnatural love of a Phaedra, as, otherwise, it may be
easily understood, from the manners of the ancients, why love, which among them
was far less ennobled by delicate feelings, played merely a subordinate part in
their earlier tragedies. Notwithstanding the importance imparted to female characters,
he brings out a multitude of sayings concerning the weaknesses of the female sex
and the superiority of men, as well as a great deal drawn from his own experience
in domestic relations. A cutting saying, as well as an epigram, of Sophocles have
been handed down to us by Athenaeus, in which he explains the pretended hatred
of Euripides for women by supposing that he had the opportunity of learning their
frailty through his own unhallowed desires.
That independent freedom in the method of treating the story,
which was one of the privileges of the tragic art, frequently, in Euripides, became
caprice. It is well known that the fables of Hyginus, which differ so much from
the relations of other writers, are partly extracted from his plays. As he often
overturned what had hitherto been well known and generally received, he was obliged
to use prologues, in which he announces the situation of affairs according to
his acceptation, and makes known the course of events. These prologues make the
beginnings of the plays of Euripides monotonous, and produce the appearance of
deficiency of art.
The style of Euripides is, on the whole, not sufficiently compressed,
and it has neither the dignity and energy of Aeschylus nor the chaste grace of
Sophocles. In his expressions he frequently aims at the extraordinary and strange,
and, on the other hand, loses himself in commonplace. For these reasons, as well
as on account of his almost ludicrous delineation of many characteristic peculiarities
(such as the clumsy deportment of Pentheus in a female garb, when befooled by
Bacchus, or the greediness of Heracles, and his boisterous demands on the hospitality
of Admetus), Euripides was a forerunner of the New Comedy. Menander, in fact,
expressed admiration for him, and declared himself to be his scholar; and there
is a fragment of Philemon, full of extravagant admiration of him. "If the
dead," he says, or makes one of his personages say, "really possessed
sensation, as some suppose, I would hang myself in order to see Euripides."
Of the 120 dramas which Euripides is said to have composed,
we have remaining in their complete form only eighteen tragedies and one satyric
piece. The following are the titles and subjects: (1) Hekabe, Hecuba. The sacrifice
of Polyxena, whom the Greeks immolate to the shade of Achilles, and the vengeance
which Hecuba, doubly unfortunate in having been reduced to captivity and deprived
of her children, takes upon Polymnestor, the murderer of her son Polydorus, form
the subject of this tragedy. The scene is laid in the Grecian camp in the Thracian
Chersonesus. The shade of Polydorus, whose body remains without the rites of sepulture,
has the prologue assigned it. Ennius and L. Attius, and in modern times Erasmus,
have translated this play into Latin verse. (2) Orestes, Orestes. The scene of
this play is laid at Argos, the seventh day after the murder of Clytaemnestra.
It is on this day that the people, in full assembly, are to sit in judgment upon
Orestes and Electra. The only hope of the accused is in Menelaus, who has just
arrived; but this chief, who secretly aims at the succession, stirs up the people
in private to pronounce sentence of condemnation against the parricides. The sentence
is accordingly pronounced, but the execution of it is left to the culprits themselves.
They meditate taking vengeance by slaying Helen; but this princess is saved by
the intervention of Apollo, who brings about a double marriage by uniting Orestes
with Hermione, the daughter of Helen, and Electra with Pylades. Some commentators
think that they recognize the portrait of Socrates in that of the simple and virtuous
citizen who, in the assembly of the people, undertakes the defence of Orestes.
This play is ascribed by some to Euripides the Younger, nephew of the former.
(3) Phoinissai, Phoenissae. The subject of this piece is the death of Eteocles
and Polynices. The chorus is composed of young Ph?nician women, sent, according
to the custom established by Agenor, to the city of Thebes, in order to be consecrated
to the service of the temple at Delphi. The prologue is assigned to Iocasta. The
subject of the Phoenissae is that also of the Thebais of Seneca. Statius has likewise
imitated it in his epic poem. (4) Medeia, Medea. The vengeance taken by Medea
on the ungrateful Iason, to whom she has sacrificed all, and who, on his arrival
at Corinth, abandons her for a royal bride, forms the subject of this tragedy.
What constitutes the principal charm of the play is the simplicity and clearness
of the action, and the force and natural cast of the characters. The exposition
of the plot is made in a monologue by the nurse: the chorus is composed of Corinthian
women. It is asserted that Euripides gave to the world two editions of this tragedy,
and that, in the first, the children of Medea were put to death by the Corinthians,
while in the second, which has come down to us, it is their mother herself who
slays them. According to this hypothesis, the 1378th verse and those immediately
following, in which Medea says that she will impose on Corinth, contemptuously
styled by her the land of Sisyphus, an expiatory festival for this crime, have
been retained by mistake in the revision in which they should have disappeared.
Medea has no expiation to demand of the Corinthians, if they are not guilty of
the murder of her sons. Aelian informs us that the Corinthians prevailed upon
Euripides to alter the tradition in question. According to others, they purchased
this compliance for the sum of five talents. (5) Hippolutos stephanophoros, Hippolytus
Coronifer, "Hippolytus Crowned."The subject of this tragedy is the same
with that which Racine has taken for the basis of his Phedre, a subject eminently
tragical. It presents to our view a weak woman, the victim of the resentment of
Aphrodite, who has inspired her with a criminal passion. An object of horror to
him whom she loves, and not daring to reveal her own shame, she dies, after having
compelled Theseus, by her misrepresentations, to become the destroyer of his own
son. The title of this tragedy is probably derived from the crown which Hippolytus
offers to Artemis. Euripides at first gave it the name of Hippolutos kaluptomenos.
He afterwards retouched it, and, changing the catastrophe and the title, reproduced
it in the year that Pericles died. It gained the prize over the pieces of Iophon
and Ion, which had competed with it in the contest. It is sometimes cited under
the title of the Phaedra, and the celebrated chef-d'oeuvre of Racine is an imitation
of it, as is also the tragedy of Seneca. (6) Alkestis, Alcestis. The subject of
this tragedy is moral and affecting. It is a wife who dies for the sake of prolonging
her husband's existence. Its object is to show that conjugal affection and an
observance of the rites of hospitality are not suffered to go without their reward.
Heracles, whom Admetus had kindly received while unfortunate, having learned that
Alcestis, the wife of the monarch, had consummated her mournful sacrifice, seeks
her in the shades, and restores her to her husband. The play, by reason of its
happy ending, is hardly to be considered a tragedy, but more of a tragi-comedy.
The story of Alcestis has inspired a number of fine poems in English literature,
notably Balaustion's Adventure, by Robert Browning. Others who have treated the
same theme are William Morris, W. S. Landor, Palgrave, Mrs. Hemans, and W. M.
W. Call. (7) Andromache, Andromache. The death of the son of Achilles, whom Orestes
slays, after having carried off from him Hermione, forms the subject of the piece.
The scene is laid in Thetidium, a city of Thessaly, near Pharsalus. Some have
asserted that the aim of Euripides in writing this tragedy was to render odious
the law of the Athenians which permitted bigamy. (8) Hiketides, Supplices, "The
Suppliants"The scene of this tragedy is laid in front of the temple of Demeter
at Eleusis, whither the Argive women, whose husbands have perished before Thebes,
have followed their king Adrastus, in the hope of persuading Theseus to take up
arms in their behalf, and obtain the rites of sepulture for their dead, whose
bodies were withheld by the Thebans. Theseus yields to their request and promises
his assistance. In exhibiting this play in the fourteenth year of the Peloponnesian
War, Euripides wished, it is said, to detach the Argives from the Spartan cause.
His attempt, however, failed, and the treaty was signed by which Mantinea was
sacrificed to the ambition of Lacedaemon. (9) Iphigeneia he en Aulidi, Iphigenia
in Aulide, "Iphigenia at Aulis." The subject of this tragedy is the
intended sacrifice of Iphigenia, and her rescue by Artemis, who substitutes another
victim. It is the only one of the plays of Euripides that has no prologue, for
it is well known that the Rhesus, which also lacks it, had one formerly. (10)
Iphigeneia he en Taurois, Iphigenia in Tauris, "Iphigenia among the Tauri."
The daughter of Agamemnon, rescued by Artemis from the knife of the sacrificer,
and transported to Tauris, there serves the goddess as a priestess in her temple.
Orestes has been cast on the inhospitable shores of this country, along with his
friend Pylades, and by the laws of the Tauri they must be sacrificed to Artemis.
Recognized by his sister at the fatal moment, Orestes conducts her back to their
common country. A monologue by Iphigenia occupies the place of a prologue and
exposition. The scene where Iphigenia and her brother became known to each other
is of a deep and touching interest, and has been imitated by Guimond de la Touche
and Goethe. (11) Troades, Troades, “The Trojan women.” The action of this piece
is prior to that of the Hecuba. The scene is laid in the Grecian camp, under the
walls of Troy, which has fallen into the hands of the foe. A body of female captives
have been distributed by lot among the victors. Agamemnon has reserved Cassandra
for himself; Polyxena has been immolated to the manes of Achilles; Andromache
has fallen to Neoptolemus, Hecuba to Odysseus. The object of the poet is to show
us in Hecuba a mother bowed down by misfortune. The Greeks destroy Astyanax, and
his mangled body is brought in to the mother of Hector, his own parent being by
this time carried away in the train of Neoptolemus. Ilium is then given as a prey
to the flames. This succession of horrors passes in mournful review before the
eyes of the spectator; yet there is no unity of action to constitute a subject
for the piece, and consequently the play has no denouement. Poseidon appears in
the prologue. Seneca and M. de Chateaubrun have imitated this tragedy. (12) Bakchai,
Bacchae, "The female Bacchanalians," sometimes quoted as the Pentheus,
for Euripides seldom names his plays after the chorus. The arrival of Bacchus
at Thebes and the death of Pentheus, who is torn in pieces by his mother and sister
form the subject of this drama, in which Bacchus opens the scene and makes himself
known to the spectators. The Bacchae is regarded by Jebb as "in its own kind,
by far the most splendid work of Euripides that we possess." It is a succession
of rich paintings, of tragic situaations, of brilliant verses, unique among existing
Greek plays in picturesque splendour. The spectacle which this tragedy presented
must have been at once imposing and well calculated to keep alive curiosity. Some
have held that the play is a recantation by the poet of his former irreligious
sentiments; but on this see Tyrrell in the introduction to his edition of the
Bacchae (1892). It is related that the Bacchae was performed before Orodes and
his court, when the actor sustaining the part of Agave gave a hideous reality
to the action by holding up the bloody head of the Roman general Crassus, just
slain in battle by the Parthian warriors of the king. (13) Herakleidai, Heraclidae.
The descendants of Heracles, persecuted by Eurystheus, flee for refuge to Athens,
and implore the protection of that city. The Athenians lend aid, and Eurystheus
becomes the victim of the vengeance he was about bringing upon them. Iolaus, an
old companion of Heracles, explains the subject to the spectators. The poet manages
to impart an air of great interest to the piece. (14) Helene, Helena. The scene
is laid in Egypt, where Menelaus, after the destruction of Troy, finds Helen,
who had been detained there by Proteus, king of that country, when Paris wished
to convey her to Ilium. The action passes at the isle of Pharos, where Theoclymenus,
the son and successor of Proteus, keeps Helen in custody with the view of espousing
her. She employs a stratagem in order to escape from his power. The denouement
of this piece resembles that of the Iphigenia in Tauris. (15) Ion, Ion. Ion, son
of Apollo and Creusa, daughter of Erechtheus, king of Athens, has been brought
up among the priests at Delphi. The design of Apollo is to make him pass for the
son of Xuthus, who has married Creusa. The interest of the play consists in the
double danger which Creusa and Ion run, the former of being slain by Ion and the
latter of perishing by the poison prepared for him by a mother who is ignorant
of his being her son. The play, however, is somewhat complicated, and has need
of a long exposition, which is assigned to Hermes. The scene is laid at the entrance
of Apollo's temple in Delphi, a place expressly chosen in order to give to the
spectacle an air of pomp and solemnity. A religious tone, full of gravity and
softness, pervades the whole piece. There is much resemblance between this tragedy
and the Athalie of Racine. (16) Herakles mainomenos, Hercules furens. After having
killed, in his frenzy, his wife and children, Heracles proceeds to submit himself
to certain expiatory ceremonies, and to seek repose at Athens. Amphitryon appears
in the prologue: the scene is laid at Thebes. (17) Elektra, Electra. The subject
of this play has been treated also by Aeschylus and Sophocles, but by each in
his peculiar way. Euripides transfers the scene from the palace of Aegisthus to
the country near Argos: the exposition of the play is made by a cultivator, to
whom Electra has been compelled to give her hand, but who has taken no advantage
of this, but has respected in her the daughter of a royal line. (18) Rhesos, Rhesus.
A subject derived from the tenth book of the Iliad. Some able critics have tried
to prove that this piece was never written by Euripides.--Phaethon, Phaethon.
Of this play we have about eighty verses remaining. Clymene, the mother of Phaethon,
is the wife of Merops, king of the Ethiopians, and Phaethon passes for the son
of this prince. The young man, having conceived some doubts respecting his origin,
addresses himself to the Sun. The catastrophe, which cost him his life, is well
known. In the tragedy of Euripides, the body of her son is brought to Clymene,
at the very moment when Merops is occupied with the task of procuring for him
a bride.--Danae, Danae. Of this play we have the commencement alone, unless the
sixtyfive verses, which commonly pass for a part of the prologue, are to be considered
as the production of some imitator.
A production deserving especial mention is the satyric drama
entitled Cyclops (Kuklops). The story is drawn from the Odyssey. The subject is
Odysseus depriving Polyphemus of his eye, after having intoxicated him with wine.
In order to connect with the story a chorus of satyrs, the poet supposes that
Silenus, and his sons, the satyrs, in seeking over every sea for Bacchus, whom
pirates have carried away, have been shipwrecked on the coast of Sicily, where
they have fallen into the hands of Polyphemus. The Cyclops has made slaves of
them, and has compelled them to tend his sheep. Odysseus, having been cast on
the same coast, and having been, in like manner, made captive by Polyphemus, finds
in these satyrs a willing band of accomplices. They league with him against their
master, but their excessive cowardice renders them very useless auxiliaries. They
profit, however, by his victory, and embark with him.
Of the numerous incomplete remains of Euripides that have reached
us, some notice must be taken. In 1890, papyri discovered by Mr. Petrie at Tel
Gurob in Egypt were found to contain fragments of a lost play of Euripides--the
Antiope. These fragments are reproduced and edited by Mahaffy in The Flinders
Petrie Papyri (Dublin, 1891).
The ancient writers cite also a poem of Euripides, Epikedeion,
"Funeral Hymn,"on the death of Nicias and Demosthenes, as well as of
the other Athenians who perished in the disastrous expedition against Syracuse.
We possess also two epigrams of Euripides, each consisting of four verses, one
of which has been preserved in the Anthology and the other in Athenaeus. There
have, besides, come down to us five letters, ascribed to Euripides, and written
with admirable purity and simplicity of style. There are also many fragments from
the lost plays of Euripides scattered among the writings of antiquity. Of these
fragments Nauck collected 1117, some, however, being of doubtful authenticity.
The best known of the lost plays are the Andromeda, Bellerophon, Cresphontes,
Erechtheus, Oedipus, and Telephus.
The popularity of Euripides was very great in antiquity, as
in modern times, as is shown by the number of ancient scholars who wrote commentaries
on his works--among them being Dicaearchus, Callimachus, Aristophanes of Byzantium,
Callistratus, and especially Didymus. An inscription at Tegea shows that his plays
were represented as late as the second century B.C., winning victories at Athens,
Delphi, and Dodona (Bulletin de Correspondance Hellenique, January-April, 1893).
At Rome, Euripides was translated and adapted by Ennius and by Pacuvius. In the
fourth century A.D. a curious cento, the Christos Paschon (Christus Patiens),
of 2610 verses, was made from the plays of Euripides. Later, Dante, who mentions
neither Aeschylus nor Sophocles, praises Euripides; and from the sixteenth century
to the present time he has been a popular favourite, giving inspiration to many
imitators in French, English, and German.
This text is from: Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. Cited Oct 2002 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Euripides. The distinguished tragic writer, of the Athenian demus
of Phlya in the Cecropid tribe, or, as others state it, of Phyle in the tribe
Oeneis, was the son of Mnesarchus and Cleito, and was born in B. C. 485, according
to the date of the Arundel marble, for the adoption of which Hartung contends.
This testimony, however, is outweighed by the other statements on the subject,
from which it appears that his parents were among those who, on the invasion of
Xerxes, had fled from Athens to Salamis (IIerod. vii. 41), and that the poet was
born in that island in B. C. 480. Nor need we with Miller set it down at once
as a mere legend that his birth took place on the very day of the battle of Salamis
(Sept. 23), though we may look with suspicion on the way in which it was contrived
to bring the three great tragic poets of Athens into connexion with the most glorious
day in her annals. Thus it has been said that, while Euripides then first saw
the light, Aeschylus in the maturity of manhood fought in the battle, and Sophocles,
a beautiful boy of 15, took part in the chorus at the festival which celebrated
the victory. If again we follow the exact date of Eratosthenes, who represents
Euripides as 75 at his death in B. C. 406, his birth must be assigned to B. C.
481, as Miller places it. It has also been said that he received his name in commemoration
of the battle of Artemisium, which took place near the Euripus not long before
he was born, and in the same year; but Euripides was not a new name, and belonged,
as we have seen, to an earlier tragic writer (See, too, Thuc. ii. 70, 79). With
respect to the station in life of his parents, we may safely reject the account
given in Stobaeus, that his father was a Boeotian, banished from his country for
bankruptcy. His mother, it is well known, is represented by Aristophanes as a
herb-seller, and not a very honest one either (Ach. 454, Thesam. 387, 456, 910,
Eq. 19, Ran. 839; Plin. xxii. 22 ; Said. s. vv. Skandix, diaskandikiseis; Hesych.
s. v. Skandix); and we find the same statement made by Gellius (xv. 20) from Theopompus;
but to neither of these testimonies can much weight be accorded (for Theopompus,
see Plut. Lys. 30 ; Ael. V. H. iii. 18; Clem. Alex. Strom. i. 1 ; Joseph. c. Apion.
i. 24; C. Nep. Alc. 11), and they are contradicted by less exceptionable authorities.
That the family of Euripides was of a rank far from mean is asserted by Suidas
(s. v.) and Moschopulus (Vit. Ear.) to have been proved by Philochorus in a work
no longer extant, and seems, indeed, to be borne out by what Athenaeus (x. p.
424, e.) reports from Theophrastus, that the poet, when a boy, was cup-bearer
to a chorus of noble Athenians at the Thargelian festival,--an office for which
nobility of blood was requisite. We know also that he was taught rhetoric by Prodicus,
who was certainly not moderate in his terms for instruction, and who was in the
habit, as Philostratus tells us, of seeking his pupils among youths of high rank
(Plat. Apol.; Stallb. ad loc. ; Arist. Rhet. iii. 14.9; Philostr. Vit. Sop/h.
Prodicus). It is said that the future distinction of Euripides was predicted by
an oracle, promising that he should be crowned with " sacred garlands," in consequence
of which his father had him trained to gymnastic exercises; and we learn that,
while yet a boy, he won the prize at the Eleusinian and Thesean contests, and
offered himself, when 17 years old, as a candidate at the Olympic games, but was
not admitted because of some doubt about his age (Oenom. ap. Euseb. Praep. Evan.
v. 33; Gell. xv. 20). Some trace of his early gymnastic pursuits is remarked by
Mr. Keble in the detailed description of the combat between Eteocles and Polynices
in the Phoenissae. Soon, however, abandoning these, he studied the art of painting
(Thom. Mag. Vit. Eur. ; Suid. s. v.), not, as we learn, without success; and it
has been observed that the veiled figure of Agamemnon in the Iphigeneia of Timanthes
was probably suggested by a line in Euripides' description of the same scene (Iph.
in Aul. 1550). To philosophy and literature he devoted himself with much interest
and energy, studying physics under Anaxagoras, and rhetoric, as we have already
seen, under Prodicus (Diod. i. 7, 38; Strab. xiv.; Heracl. Pont. Alleg. Homer.
22). We learn also from Athenaeus that he was a great book-collector, and it is
recorded of him that he committed to memory certain treatises of Heracleitus,
which he found hidden in the temple of Artemis, and which he was the first to
introduce to the notice of Socrates (Athen. i.; Tatian, Or. c. Grace; Hartung,
Eur. Rest.). His intimacy with the latter is beyond a doubt, though we must reject
the statement of Gellius (l. c.), that he received instruction from him in moral
science, since Socrates was not born till B. C. 468, twelve years after the birth
of Euripides. Traces of the teaching of Anaxagoras have been remarked in many
passages both of the extant plays and of the fragments, and were impressed especially
on the lost tragedy of Melanippa the Wise (Orest. 545, 971; Pors. ad loc. ; Plat.
Apol.; Troad. 879, Hel. 1014; Fragm. Melanip.; Cic. Tusc. Disp. i. 26). The philosopher
is also supposed to be alluded to in the Alcestis (v. 925; comp. Cic. Tusc. Disp.
iii. 14). " We do not know," says Mluller, " what induced a person with such tendencies
to devote himself to tragic poetry." He is referring apparently to the opposition
between the philosophical convictions of Euripides and the mythical legends which
formed the subjects of tragedy; otherwise it does not clearly appear why poetry
should be thought incompatible with philosophical pursuits. If, however, we may
trust the account in Gellius (l. c.), it would seem,--and this is not unimportant
for our estimation of his poetical character,--that the mind of Euripides was
led at a very early period to that which afterwards became the business of his
life, since he wrote a tragedy at the age of eighteen. That it was, therefore,
exhibited, and that it was probably no other than the Rhesus are points unwarrantably
concluded by Ilartung, who ascribes also to the same date the composition of the
Veiled Hippolytus. The representation of the Peliades, the first play of Euripides
which was acted, at least in his own name, took place in B. C. 455. This statement
rests on the authority of his anonymous life, edited by Elmsley from a MS. in
the Ambrosian library, and compared with that by Thomas Magister; and it is confirmed
by the life in the MSS. of Paris, Vienna, and Copenhagen. In B. C. 441, Euripides
gained for the first time the first prize, and he continued to exhibit plays until
B. C. 408, the date of the Orestes.
Soon after this he left Athens for the court of Archelaus, king of
Macedonia, his reasons for which step can only be matter of conjecture. Traditionary
scandal has ascribed it to his disgust at the intrigue of his wife with Cephisophon,
and the ridicule which was showered upon him in consequence by the comic poets.
But the whole story in question has been sufficiently refuted by Hartung, though
objections may be taken to one or two of his assumptions and arguments. The anonymous
author of the life of Euripides reports that he married Choerilla, daughter of
Mnesilochus, and that, in consequence of her infidelity, he wrote the Hippolytus
to satirize the sex, and divorced her. He then married again, and his second wife,
named Melitto, proved no better than the first. Now the Hippolytus was acted in
B. C. 428, the Thesmophoriazusae of Aristophanes in 414, and at the latter period
Euripides was still married to Choerilla, Mnesilochus being spoken of as his kedestes
with no hint of the connexion having ceased. But what can be more unlikely than
that Euripides should have allowed fourteen years to elapse between his discovery
of his wife's infidelity and his divorce of her? or that Aristophanes should have
made no mention of so piquant an event in the Thesmophoriazusae? It may be said,
however, that the name Choerilla is a mistake of the grammarians for Melitto;
that it was the latter whose infidelity gave rise to the Hippolytus ; and that
the intrigue of the former with Cephisophon, subsequent to 414, occasioned Euripides
to leave Athens. But this is inconsistent with Choerilla's age, according to Hartung,
who argues thus :-- Euripides had three sons by this lady, the youngest of whom
must have been born not later han 434, for he exhibited plays of his father (?)
in 404, and must at that time, therefore (?), have been thirty years old; consequently
Choerilla must have become the wife of Euripides not later than 440. At the time,
then, of her alleged adultery she must have been upwards of fifty, and must have
been married thirty years. But it may be urged that Choerilla may have died soon
after the representation of the T/hesmophoriazusae (and no wonder, says Hartung,
if her death was hastened by so atrocious an attack on her husband and her father
!), and Euripides may then have married a young wife, Melitto, who played him
false. To this it is answered, that it is clear from the Frogs that his friendship
with Cephisophon, the supposed gallant, continued unbroken till his death. After
all, however, the silence of Aristophanes is the best refutation of the calumny.
With respect to the real reason for the poet's removal into Macedonia,
it is clear that an invitation from Archelaus, at whose court the highest honours
awaited him, would have much temptation for one situated as Euripides was at Athens.
The attacks of Aristophanes and others had probably not been without their effect;
there was a strong, violent, and unscrupulous party against him, whose intrigues
and influence were apparent in the results of the dramatic contests; if we may
believe the testimony of Varro (ap. Gell. xvii. 4), he wrote 75 tragedies and
gained the prize only five times; according to Thomas Magister, 15 of his plays
out of 92 were successful. After his death, indeed, his high poetical merits seem
to have been fully and generally recognized; but so have been those of Wordsworth
among ourselves even in his lifetime ; and yet to the poems of both, the phonanta
sunetoisi of Pindar is perhaps especially applicable. Euripides, again, must have
been aware that his philosophical tenets were regarded, whether justly or not,
with considerable suspicion, and he had already been assailed with a charge of
impiety in a court of justice, on the ground of the well-known line in the Hippolytus
(607), supposed to be expressive of mental reservation (Arist. Rhet. iii. 15.8).
He did not live long to enjoy the honours and pleasures of the Macedonian court,
as his death took place in B. C. 406. Most testimonies agree in stating that he
was torn in pieces by the king's dogs, which, according to some, were set upon
him through envy by Arrhidaeus and Crateuas, two rival poets. But even with the
account of his end scandal has been busy, reporting that he met it at the hands
of women while he was going one night to keep a criminal assignation,--and this
at the age of 75! The story seems to be a mixture of the two calumnies with respect
to the profligacy of his character and his hatred of the female sex. The Athenians
sent to ask for his remains, but Archelaus refused to give them up, and buried
them in Macedonia with great honour.
The regret of Sophocles for his death is said to have been so great,
that at the representation of his next play he made his actors appear uncrowned
(Ael. V. H. xiii. 4 ; Diod. xiii. 103; Gell. xv. 20; Paus. i. 20; Thom. Mag. Vit.
Eur.; Suid. s. v. Euripides; Steph. Byz. s. v. Bormiskos) The statue of Euripides
in the theatre at Athens is mentioned by Pausanias (i. 21). The admiration felt
for him by foreigners, even in his lifetime, may be illustrated not only by the
patronage of Archelaus, but also by what Plutarch records (Nic. 29), that many
of the Athenian prisoners in Sicily regained their liberty by reciting his verses
to their masters, and that the Caunians on one occasion having at first refused
to admit into their harbour an Athenian ship pursued by pirates, allowed it to
put in when they found that some of the crew could repeat fragments of his poems.
We have already intimated that the accounts which we find in Athenaeus
and others of the profligacy of Euripides are mere idle scandal, and scarcely
worthy of serious refutation (Athen. xiii., 603; comp. Suid. l. c.; Arist. Ran.
1045; Schol. ad loc). On the authority of Alexander Aetolus (ap. Gell. xv. 20;
comp. Ael. V. H. viii. 13) we learn that he was, like his master Anaxagoras, of
a serious temper and averse to mirth (struphnos kai misogelos); and though such
a character is indeed by no means incompatible with vicious habits, yet it is
also one on which men are very apt to avenge themselves by reports and insinuations
of the kind we are alluding to. Certainly the calumny in question seems to be
contradicted in a great measure by the spirit of the Hippolytus, in which the
hero is clearly a great favourite with the author, and from which it has been
inferred that his own tendency was even to asceticism. It may be added, that a
speculative character, like that of Euripides, is one over which such lower temptations
have usually less power, and which is liable rather to those of a spiritual and
intellectual kind. Nor does there appear to be any better foundation for that
other charge which has been brought against him, of hatred to the female sex.
The alleged infidelity of his wife, which is commonly adduced to account for it,
has been discussed above; and we may perhaps safely pass over the other statement,
found in Gelliuis (xv. 20), where it is attribulted to his having had two wives
at once,--a double dose of Matrimony! The charge no doubt originated in the austerity
of his temper and demeanour above mentioned (Suid. s. v.); but certainly he who
drew such characters as Antigone, Iphigeneia, and, above all, Alcestis, was not
blind to the gentleness, the strong affection, the self-abandoning devotedness
of women. And if his plays contain specimens of the sex far different from these,
we must not forget, what has indeed almost passed into a proverb, that women are
both better and worse than men, and that one especial characteristic of Euripides
was to represent human nature as it is. (Arist. Poet. 46)
With respect to the world and the Deity, he seems to have adopted
the doctrines of his master, not unmixed apparently with pantheistic views. To
class him with atheists, and to speak in the same breath, as Sir T. Browne does,
of " the impieties of Lucian, Euripides, and Julian," is undoubtedly unjust. At
the same time, it must be confessed that we look in vain in his plays for the
high faith of Aeschylus, which ever recognizes the hand of Providence guiding
the troubled course of events and over-ruling them for good; nor can we fail to
admit that the pupil of Anaxagoras could not sympathise with the popular religious
system around him, nor throw himself cordially into it. Aeschylus indeed rose
above while he adopted it, and formally retaining its legends, imparted to them
a higher and deeper moral significance. Such, however, was not the case with Euripides;
and there is much truth in what Muller says, that " with respect to the mythical
traditions which the tragic muse had selected as her subjects, he stood on an
entirely different footing from Aeschylus and from Sophocles. He could not bring
his philosophical convictions with regard to the nature of God and His relation
to mankind into harmony with the contents of these legends, nor could he pass
over in silence their incongruities. Hence it is that he is driven to the strange
necessity of carrying on a sort of polemical discussion with the very materials
and subjects of which he had to treat" (Herc. Fur. 1316, 1317, Androm. 1138, Orest.
406, Ion, 445: Clem. Alex. Protrept. 7). And if we may regard the Bacchae, written
towards the close of his life, as a sort of recantation of these views, and as
an avowal that religious mysteries are not to be subjected to the bold scrutiny
of reason, it is but a sad picture of a mind which, wearied with scepticism, and
having no objective system of truth to satisfy it, acquiesces in what is established
as a deadening relief from fruitless speculation. But it was not merely with respect
to the nature and attributes of the gods that Euripides placed himself in opposition
to the ancient legends, which we find him altering in the most arbitrary manner,
both as to events and characters. Thus, in the Orestes. Menelaus comes before
us as a selfish coward, and Helen as a worthless wanton; in the Helena, the notion
of Stesichorus is adopted, that the heroine was never carried to Troy at all,
and that it was a mere eidolon of her for which the Greeks and Trojans fought
(comp, Herod. ii. 112--120); Andromache, the widow of Hector and slave of Neoptolemus,
seems almost to forget the past in her quarrel with Hermione and the perils of
her present situation; and Electra, married by the policy of Aegisthus to a peasant,
scolds her husband for inviting guests to dine without regard to the ill-prepared
state of the larder. In short, with Euripides tragedy is brought down into the
sphere of every-day life, ta oikeia pragmara, hois chrometh', hois xunesmen (Arist.
Ran. 957); men are represented, according to the remark of Aristotle so often
quoted (Poet. 46), not as they ought to be, but as they are; under the names of
the ancient heroes, the characters of his own time are set before us; it is not
Medea, or Iphigeneia, or Alcestis that is speaking, says Mr. Keble, but abstractedly
a mother, a daughter, or a wife. All this, indeed, gave fuller scope, perhaps,
for the exhibition of passion and for those scenes of tenderness and pathos in
which Euripides especially excelled; and it will serve also to account in great
measure for the preference given to his plays by the practical Socrates, who is
said to have never entered the theatre unless when they were acted, as well as
for the admiration felt for him by the poets of the new comedy, of whom Menander
professedly adopted him for his model, while Philemon declared that, if he could
but believe in the consciousness of the soul after death, he would certainly hang
himself to enjoy the sight of Euripides (Aelian, V. H. ii. 13; Quint. Inst. Or.
x. 1). Yet, even as a matter of art, such a process can hardly be justified: it
seems to partake too much of the fault condemned in Boileau's line: Peindre Caton
galant et Brutus dameret; and it is a graver question whether the moral tendency
of tragedy was not impaired by it,--whether, in the absence especially of a fixed
external standard of morality, it was not most dangerous to tamper with what might
supply the place of it, however ineffectually, through the medium of the imagination,--whether
indeed it can ever be safe to lower to the common level of humanity characters
hallowed by song and invested by tradition with an ideal grandeur, in cases where
they do not tend by the power of inveterate association to colour or countenance
evil. And there is another obvious point, which should not be omitted while we
are speaking of the moral effect of the writings of Euripides, viz. the enervating
tendency of his exhibitions of passion and suffering, beautiful as they are, and
well as they merit for him from Aristotle the praise of being " the most tragic
of poets" (Poet. 26). The philosopher, however, qualifies this commendation by
the remark, that, while he provides thus admirably for the exciteument of pity
by his catastrophes, " he does not arrange the rest well " (ei kai ta alla me
en oikonomei); and we may mention in conclusion the chief objections which, artistically
speaking, have been brought with justice against his tragedies. We need but allude
to his constant employment of the " Deus ex machine," the disconnexion of his
choral odes from the subject of the play (Arist. Poet. 32; Hor. Ep. ad Pis. 191),
and the extremely awkward and formal character of his prologues. On these points
some good remarks will be found in Muller and in Keble. Another serious defect
is the frequent introduction of frigid gnomai and of philosophical disquisitions,
making Medea talk like a sophist, and Hecuba like a freethinker, and aiming rather
at subtilty than simplicity. The poet, moreover, is too often lost in the rhetorician,
and long declamations meet us, equally tiresome with those of Alfieri. They are
then but dubious compliments which are paid him in reference to these points by
Cicero and by Quintilian, the latter of whom says that he is worthy to be compared
with the most eloquent pleaders of the forum (Cic. ad Fam. xvi. 8; Quint. Inst.
Or. x. 1); while Cicero so admired him, that he is said to have had in his hand
his tragedy of Medea at the time of his murder (Ptol. Hephaest. v. 5)
Euripides has been called the poet of the sophists,--a charge by no
means true in its full extent, as it appears that, though he may not have escaped
altogether the seduction of the sophistical spirit, yet on the whole, the philosophy
of Socrates, the great opponent of the sophists, exercised most influence on his
mind.
On the same principles on which he brought his subjects and characters
to the level of common life, he adopted also in his style the every-day mode of
speaking, and Aristotle (Rhet. iii. 2.5) commends him as having been the first
to produce an effect by the skilful employment of words from the ordinary language
of men (comp. Long. de Subl. 31), peculiarly fitted, it may be observed, for the
expression of the gentler and more tender feelings.
According to some accounts, Euripides wrote, in all, 75 plays; according
to others, 92. Of these, 18 are extant, if we omit the Rhesus, the genuineness
of which has been defended by Vater and Hartung, while Valckenaer, Hermann, and
Muller have, on good grounds, pronounced it spurious. To what author, however,
or to what period it should be assigned, is a disputed point. A list is subjoined
of the extant plays of Euripides, with their dates, ascertained or probable:
Alcestis. B. C. 438. This play was brought out as the last of a tetralogy,
and stood therefore in the place of a satyric drama, to which indeed it bears,
in some parts, great similarity, particularly in the representation of Hercules
in his cups. This circumstance obviates, of course, the objection against the
scene alluded to, as a " lamentable interruption to our feelings of commiseration
for the calamities of Admetus,"--an objection which, as it seems to us, would
even on other grounds be unenable. While, however, we recognize this satyric character
in the Alcestis, we must confess that we cannot, as Muller does, see anything
farcical in the concluding scene.
Medea. B. C. 431. The four plays represented in this year by Euripides,
who gained the third prize, were Medea, Philoctetis, Dictys, and Messores or Theristai,
a satyric drama.
Hippolytus Coronifer. B. C. 428. In this year Euripides gained the first
prize. For the reason of the title Coronifer (stephanephoros). There was an older
play, called the Veiled Hippolytus, no longer extant, on which the present tragedy
was intended as an improvement, and in which the criminal love of Phaedra appears
to have been represented in a more offensive manner, and as avowed by herself
boldly and without restraint. For the conjectuad reasons of the title Kaluptomenos,
applied to this former drama, see Wagner, Fragm. Eurip. p. 220, &c.; Valcken.
Praef. in Hippol. pp. 19, 20; comp. Hartung. Eurip. Rest. pp. 41, &c., 401, &c.
Hecuba. This play must have been exhibited before B. C. 423, as Aristophanes
parodies a passage of it in the Clouds (1148), which he brought out in that year.
Miller says that the passage in the Hecuba, stenei de kai tis k. t. l., " seems
to refer to the misfortunes of the Spartans at Pylos in B. C. 425." This is certainly
possible ; and, if it is the case, we may fix the refresentation the play in B.
C. 424.
Heracleidae. Miller refers it, by conjecture, to, B. C. 421. Supplices.
This also he refers, by conjecture, to about the same period.
Ion, of uncertain date.
Hercules Furens, of uncertain date.
Andromache, referred by Muller, on conjecture, to the 90th Olympiad.
(B. C. 420--417)
Troades. B. C. 415.
Electra, assigned by Miiller, on conjecture and from internal evidence,
to the period of the Sicilian expedition. (B. C. 415--413.)
Helena. B. C. 412, in the same year with the lost play of the Andromeda.
(Schol. ad Arist. Thesm. 1012)
Iphigeneia at Tauri. Date uncertain.
Orestes. B. C. 408.
Phoenissae. The exact date is not known; but the play was one of the
last exhibited at Athens by its author.
Bacchae. This play was apparently written for representation in Macedonia,
and therefore at a very late period of the life of Euripides.
Iphigeneia at Aulis. This play, together with the Bacchae and the Alcemaeon,
was brought out at Athens, after the poet's death, by the younger Euripides.
Cyclops, of uncertain date. It is interesting as the only extant specimen
of the Greek satyric drama, and its intrinsic merits seem to us to call for a
less disparaging criticism than that which Muller passes on it.
Besides the plays, there are extant five letters, purporting to have
been written by Euripides. Three of them are addressed to king Archelaiis, and
the other two to Sophocles and Cephisophon respectively. Bentley, in a letter
to Barnes, mentions what he considers the internal proofs of their spuriousness,
some of which, however, are drawn from some of the false or doubtful statements
with respect to the life of Euripides. But we have no hesitation in setting them
down as spurious, and as the composition of some later aretalogos, though Barnes,
in his preface to them, published subsequently to Bentley's letter, declares that
he who denies their genuineness must be either very impudent or deficient in judgment.
The editio princeps of Euripides contains the Medea, Hippolyts, Alcestis,
and Andronache, in capital letters. It is without date or printer's name, but
is supposed, with much probability, to have been edited by J. Lascaris, and printed
by De Alopa, at Florence, towards the end of the 15th century. In 1503 an edition
was published by Aldus at Venice: it contains 18 plays, including the Rhesus and
omitting the Electra. Another, published at Heidelberg in 1597, contained the
Latin version of Aemil. Portus and a fragment of the Danae, for the first time,
from some ancient MSS. in the Palatine library. Another was published by P. Stephens,
Geneva, 1602. In that of Barnes, Cambridge, 1694, whatever be the defects of Barnes
as an editor, much was done towards the correction and illustration of the text.
It contains also many fragments, and the spurious letters. Other editions are
that of Musgrave, Oxford, 1778, of Beck, Leipzig, 1778--88, of Matthiae, Leipzig,
1813--29, in 9 vols. with the Scholia and fragpments, and avariorum edition, published
at Glasgow in 1821 in 9 vols. 8vo. The fragments have been recently edited in
a separate form and very satisfactorily by Wagner, Wratislaw, 1844. Of separate
plays there have been many editions, e. g. by Porson, Elmsley, Valckenaer, Monk,
Pflugk, and Hermann. There are also numerous translations of different plays in
several languages, and the whole works have been translated into English verse
by Potter, Oxford, 1814, and into German by Bothe, Berlin, 1800. The Jocasta,
by Gascoigne and Kinwelmarsh, represented at Gray's Inn in 1566, is a very free
translation from the Phoenissae, much being added, omitted, and transposed.
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited June 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Euripides and his Tragedies. "The sure sign of the general decline
of an art", says Macaulay, "is the frequent occurence, not of deformity,
but of misplaced beauty. In general tragedy is corrupted by eloquence." This
symptom is especially conspicuous in Euripides, who is constantly sacrificing
propriety for rhetorical display; so that we are sometimes in doubt whether we
are reading the lines of a poet or the speeches of an orator. Yet it is this very
quality which has in all ages made him a much greater favorite than Aeschylus
or Sophocles; it is this which made tragi-comedy so easy and natural under his
treatment; which recommended him to Menander as the model for his new comedy,
and to Quintilian as the model for oratory. In the middle ages he was far better
known than his two great contemporaries; for this was an era when scholastic subtleties
were mistaken for eloquence, minute distinctions for science, and verbal quibbles
for proficiency in dramatic art. Pitiable also is his habit of punning, as in
the Bacchae, where his Greek may be rendered, "Take heed lest Pentheus makes
your mansion a pent-house of grief." Even Shakespeare, the most incorrigible
of punsters, has nothing worse than this. Yet Aeschylus is fully as bad, speaking
for instance of Helen in his Agamemnon as "a hell to men, a hell to ships
and a hell to cities."
The Art of Euripides
The works of Euripides have been more variously judged than those
of the other two great masters. His art, it has been said, is tamer than theirs,
and his genius rhetorical rather than poetical, while the morality that he teaches
belongs to the school of Sophists. On the other hand his admirers claim that he
is the most tragic of the Greek tragedians, the most pathetic of the Attic poets,
the most humane in his social philosophy and the most skillful in psychological
insight. Doubtless he owed to Socrates the philosophy interwoven in his tragedies,
causing him to be named the "stage philosopher," one haunted by the
demon of Socrates. Though he did not live in the most stirring period of the nation's
life, he was, both in spirit and in choice of themes, intensely patriotic, and
to him is due the spread of dramatic literature more than to any other of the
ancient bards. Tragedy followed in his footsteps in Greece
and Rome; comedy owed him
much, even in the style of Aristophanes, who ridiculed him, and in Menander, who
borrowed his sentiments. When the modern drama grafted the classical element on
its crude growth, the plays of Euripides were, directly or indirectly, the most
powerful influence in the establishment of a living connection between them.
When Attica was
given over to the invading army of Xerxes the women and children were transferred
to the island of Salamis,
and here, according to Plutarch and Suidas, Euripides was born on the day of the
great victory. In the table known as the Parian marble his birth is given as a
few years earlier, and some have placed it on the day of the battle of the Euripus,
from which was formed his patronymic. His father, Mnesarchus, was a man of means
and respectability; but his mother was probably of lowly origin--a seller of herbs,
if we can believe Aristophanes, who treats the matter as one of public notoriety.
The Career of Euripides
It is related that his father was promised by the oracle a son who,
honored by all men, should win great reputation and bind his brows with consecrated
wreaths. Hence he was trained for an athlete and won some prizes at the public
games; he was also known as a painter; but it was as a dramatist that he was destined
to achieve enduring fame. He was well educated, attending the lectures of Anaxagoras,
Prodicus and Protagoras, to whom he probably owed many of his sophistical and
rhetorical mannerisms. He was on terms of intimacy with Pericles and Socrates,
both of whom were his fellow-pupils. While taking a lively interest in the questions
of the day, he lived a retired and somewhat misanthropic life, happy in the possession
of a valuable library, and passing most of his time in dramatic composition. As
Philochorus relates, most of his tragedies were composed in a dark cave in the
isle of Salamis, which was an object of curiosity many years after his death.
Euripides was a voluminous writer, the number of his plays being variously
stated at from seventy-five to ninety-two, including several satyric dramas. Of
these nineteen have survived, with numerous fragments of others, though many of
his best works have been lost and more have suffered from interpolations. He began
his public career as a dramatist when twenty-four years of age, but was nearly
twice as old when he gained his first decisive victory, winning the first prize
only four times during his life and once after his death. Yet he was highly esteemed,
not only in Athens but throughout the Hellenic world, and as Plutarch tells us,
some of the Athenian captives, after the disaster of Syracuse,
obtained their liberty by reciting passages from his dramas.
The last years of Euripides were passed in Magnesia
and in Macedonia, where he
was the guest of Archelaus, though the motive for his self-exile cannot be clearly
ascertained. We know that Athens
was not always the most favorable spot for eminent literary merit. The virulence
of rivalry reigned unchecked in that fierce democracy, and the caprice of the
petulant multitude would not afford the most satisfactory patronage to a high-minded
and talented man. Report, too, insinuates that Euripides was unhappy in his own
family. His first wife, Melito, he divorced for adultery; and in his second, Chaerila,
he was not more fortunate. Envy and enmity among his fellow-citizens, infidelity
and domestic vexations at home, would prove no small inducements for the poet
to accept the invitation of Archelaus. In Macedonia he is said to have written
a play in honor of that monarch, and to have inscribed it with his patron's name,
who was so pleased with the manners and abilities of his guest as to appoint him
one of his ministers. No further particulars are recorded of Euripides, except
a few apocryphal letters, anecdotes and apophthegms. His death, which took place
B.C. 406, if the popular account be true, was, like that of Aeschylus, in its
nature extraordinary. Either from chance or malice, the aged dramatist was exposed
to the attack of ferocious hounds, and by them so dreadfully mangled as to expire
soon afterward, in his seventy-fifth year.
The Athenians entreated Archelaus to send the body to the poet's native
city for interment. The request was refused; and, with every demonstration of
grief and respect, Euripides was buried at Pella.
A cenotaph, however, was erected to his memory at Athens.
Reputation
Euripides, in the estimation of the ancients, certainly held a rank
much inferior to that of his two great rivals. The caustic wit of Aristophanes,
whilst it fastens but slightly on the failings of the giant Aeschylus and keeps
respectfully aloof from the calm dignity of Sophocles, assails with merciless
malice every weak point in the genius, character and circumstances of Euripides.
The comedian banters or reproaches him for lowering the dignity of tragedy, by
exhibiting heroes as whining, tattered beggars; by introducing the vulgar affairs
of ordinary life; by the sonorous platitudes of his choral odes; the voluptuous
character of his music; the feebleness of his verses, and the loquacity of all
his personages, however low their rank. He laughs at the monotonous construction
of his clumsy prologues; he imputes to his dramas an immoral tendency, and to
the poet himself contempt for the gods and a fondness for new-fangled doctrines.
He jeers at his affectation of rhetoric and philosophy. In short he seems to regard
Euripides with sovereign contempt, bordering upon disgust.
The attachment of Socrates and the admiration of Archelaus may perhaps
serve as a counterpoise to the insinuations of Aristophanes against the personal
character of Euripides. As to his poetic powers, there is a striking diversity
of opinion between him and the later comedians, for Menander and Philemon held
him in high esteem. Yet Aristotle, whilst allowing to Euripides a preeminence
in the excitement of sorrowful emotion, censures the general arrangement of his
pieces, the wanton degradation of his personages and the unconnected nature of
his choruses. Longinus, like Aristotle, ascribes to Euripides a great power in
working upon the feelings by depiction of love and madness, but he certainly did
not entertain the highest opinion of the genius. He even classes him among those
writers who, far from possessing originality of talent, strive to conceal the
real meanness of their conceptions, and assume the appearance of sublimity by
studied composition and labored language.
For the tragedians of later times Euripides was the absolute model
and pattern, and equally so for the poets of the new comedy. Diphilus called him
the "Golden Euripides," and Philemon went so far as to say, with some
extravagance, "If the dead, as some assert, have really consciousness, then
would I hang myself to see Euripides." He had warm admirers in Alexander
the Great and the Stoic Chrysippus, who quoted him regularly in several of his
works. Among the Romans, too, he was held in high esteem, serving as a model for
tragedy, as did Menander and Phrynichus for comedy.
In his survey of the shades of departed poets, Dante makes no mention
of Aeschylus or Sophocles, but classes Euripides and Agathon with the greatest
of the Greeks. Those who are familiar with the literature of the middle ages can
easily understand why the works of Euripides became so popular among the nations
of Europe. The pupil and friend of the most eminent of the sophists who succeeded
the rhapsodes of the Homeric age, he was himself a sophist, supplanting with his
precepts the rhapsodical element in the Hellenic drama. He also gave to his audience
some of the physical doctrines of his master, Anaxagoras, going out of his way
to show that the sun is nothing but a great ignited stone, that the overflow of
the Nile is caused by the melting of the snow in Aetheopia,
and that the aether or sky is an embodiment of the diety.
Euripides was the first one to introduce women on the stage, not as
heroines but as they are in actual life. Yet he is often far from complimentary
to the other sex, the result, probably, of his two unhappy marriages. Thus, for
instance, after a burst of indignation before the nurse, who approaches him with
overtures of love on behalf of Pheadra, he makes Hippolytus express his opinion
of womankind:
O Zeus, why hast thou brought into the world
To plague us such a tricksy thing as woman?
If thou didst wish to propagate mankind,
Couldst thou not find some better way than this?
We to the temples might have brought our price
In gold or weight of iron or of brass,
And purchased offspring, each to the amount
Of that which he has paid; and so have dwelt
In quiet homes unvexed of womankind.
Now, to import a plague into our homes,
First of our substance we make sacrifice,
And here at once we see what woman is.
The father that begot her gladly pays
A dowry that he might be rid of her,
While he may bring this slip of evil home.
Fond man adorns with costly ornament
A worthless idol, and his living wastes
To trick her out in costly finery.
Ha has no choice. Are his connections good,
To keep them he must keep a hated wife;
Are his connections bad, he can but weigh
Against that evil a good bedfellow.
His is the easiest lot who has to wife
A cipher, a good-natured simpleton;
Quick wits are hateful. Ne'er may wife of mine
Be wiser than consorts with womanhood.
In your quick-witted dames the power of love
More wickedness engenders; while the dull
Are by their dullness saved from going wrong.
This is sufficiently bitter, but nor more so than the words which
Euripides is accustomed to use when speaking of women.
In the time of Euripides the Attic drama reached the zenith of its
glory, when the works of the great classic triad--Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides--followed
each other in rapid succession.
Alfred Bates, ed.
This text is cited July 2003 from the TheatreHistory URL below.
Euripides. The youngest of the three sons of the above, according to Suidas. After the death of his father he brought out three of his plays at the great Dionysia, viz. the Alcmaeon (no longer extant), the Iphigeneia at Aulis, and the Bacchae. (Schol. ad Arist. Ran. 67.) Suidas mentions also a nephew of the great poet, of the same name, to whom he ascribes the authorship of three plays, Medea, Orestes, and Polyxena, and who, he tells us, gained a prize with one of his uncle's tragedies after the death of the latter. It is probable that the son and the nephew have been confounded. Aristophanes too (Eccles. 825, 826, 829) mentions a certain Euripides who had shortly before proposed a property-tax of a fortieth. The proposal made him [p. 108] at first very popular, but the measure was thrown out, and he became forthwith the object of a general outcry, about B. C. 394. It is doubtful whether he is to be identified with the son or the nephew of the poet.
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