Alcestis and the Ancient Rehearsal Process (P. Oxy. 4546)

Abstract

The exact sense of vnoX?ym is difficult to isolate, but it would appear that Euripides is singing in accompaniment to teach the song,2 or perhaps using a call-and-response tech nique. Even if the story is not true for Euripides, the re hearsal context implied by the anecdote would at least be seen as being plausible for Plutarch's Roman readership in the early second century AD, since the point of the story lies elsewhere?one of the choristers is snickering at Euripides' singing in a mode associated with the New Music. Euripides is functioning here as didaskalos (director), and would no doubt also have taught the chorus its dance steps, as Aeschy lus is described as doing in Athenaeus 2id-22a.3 Proceeding beyond such elementary claims for understanding the an cient rehearsal proves very difficult. In fifth-century Athens,

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