Some problems in theEumenidesof Aeschylus

Abstract

In preparing an article on the Erinyes in theOresteia, to be published inJHS1983, I found it necessary to define my attitude to a number of subsidiary issues (whether or not I felt able to solve them). I shall discuss some of these issues here, under two general headings, by way of preface to the main article. I wish to consider three questions: when and how the chorus appears, where Apollo enters, and whether Apollo is accompanied by Hermes. Most scholars have supposed that the chorus, or some of it, is seen by the audience immediately after the Pythia's second exit at 63. Oliver Taplin, however, in his admirable book on Aeschylus, has argued that none of the chorus becomes visible until 140, immediately before the Parodos. His first argument for this later entry is that we have only one parallel, namely Euripides'Supp., for the chorus's presence in the orchestra well before its first song. True enough, but how many parallels do we need? There are only three extant tragedies in which the chorus is so much a party to the action that its silent presence could possess some dramatic point; two of these areEum.and Euripides'Supp., and the third is Aeschylus'Supp., which, since it begins with the Parodos, cannot affect the issue either way. So the anomaly, such as it is, will merely be a by-product of the totally anomalous character of the chorus ofEum.; one could just as well point out that this is theonlyextant tragedy in which the chorus is addressed before its first song in an extended rhesis.

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