Euripides, Tragedy and Macedon: Some Conditions of Reception

Abstract

The comic Aeschylus emerges as the winner over the comic Euripides at the end of the agon in Aristophanes' Frogs. Pretty soon after, there is a steady flow of evidence which points to the extreme popularity of the loser of the Aristophanic agon: vase paintings, fourth-century comic poets writing plays entitled OitaupuuSriq, New Comedy appropriating Euripidean motifs and techniques, and so forth. The story of success continues. Anthologies, wall paintings, Roman tragedy, Clement of Alexandria, Heliodorus: Where there is contact with Greek tragedy, it is normally being appropriated in its Euripidean guise.1 In the course of time, the loser of the Aristophanic agon totally eclipses his rival in that contest, with Sophocles being relegated to a clear second place.2 I do not think that we have been startled enough, if at all, by this remarkable historical process. As naive 0a\)|xd^evv may open up paths to be explored further or evoke fruitful dissent, I wish to ask, Why and how? Before I can proceed, this all-too-crudely put question calls for at least some refinement. It hardly needs saying that the evidence of the agon of the Frogs, and of comedy as a whole, for questions of the mental and social history of literature is, to put it mildly, tricky. The picture of Euripides as a trendy and morally dubious musical innovator, who has a pernicious effect on the morals of his audiences and is hated by the gods, cannot be accounted for other than as the result of a fascinatingly complex process of comic filtering, transformation and distortion. Indeed, there is a strong case for taking the very prominence and notoriety of Euripides in Frogs, Thesmophoriazusae and elsewhere as indicators of a commonly acknowledged artistic achievement and hence for inferring a correspondingly high status of the poet in the society that constitutes the audience. In other words, far from taking the Euripides of Frogs as a marginalized, if boastful, underdog, it should be interpreted as underlining Euripides' status as a classic by the end of the fifth century. This picture

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