1. The Iphigeneia at Aulis has received a fair degree of critical attention. Prominent among the various studies are those of Knox, B. M. W., Word and Action (Baltimore and London 1979), 275–94Google Scholar and 343ff., and the translation with introduction by Merwin, W. and Dimock, G., Iphigeneia at Aulis (New York 1978 Google Scholar). The studies of Kitto, H. D. F., Greek Tragedy (London 1961), 362–69Google Scholar, Grube, G. M. A., The Drama of Euripides (London and New York 1973), 421–38Google Scholar, Conacher, D. J., Euripidean Drama: Myth, Theme and Structure (Toronto 1967), 249–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Pohlenz, M., Die Griechische Tragodie (Leipzig and Berlin 1930), 495ff.Google Scholar, have been influential. The exodos has received attention from Page, D. L., Actors’ Interpolations in Greek Tragedy, Studied with Special Reference to Euripides’ Iphigenia in Aulis (Oxford 1934 Google Scholar), Parmentier, L., ‘L’Iphigénie à Aulis d’ Euripide’, Académie royale de Belgique. Bulletins de la classe des lettres 5(e) 12 (1926), 266–73Google Scholar, and Headlam, C.E.S., Euripides, Iphigenia at Aulis (Cambridge, UK 1889), 126 Google Scholar note Norwood, B. G., Greek Tragedy (London 1959 Google Scholar), Wasserman, F. M., ‘Agamemnon and the Iphigenia in Aulis ’, TAPA 80 (1949), 174–86Google Scholar, Ferguson, J., A Companion to Greek Tragedy (Austin 1972), 449–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Lesky, A., Greek Tragedy, H. A. Frankfort (New York 1979 Google Scholar) and Roussel, P., ‘Le role d’Achille dans l’phigénie à Aulis ’ REG 28 (1915), 234–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar, have all proved useful on different points.

2. Many critics have remarked on these inversions, and generally they do so in terms of ‘mind changes’. Knox (n.l above), 278, says that the myth is ‘presented as a fast-moving, complicated plot which was kept in motion by a succession of sudden changes of mind in the principal characters’. And on Aristotle’s censure, Poetics 1454a, 26: ‘One cannot help feeling that he might have picked a better example, for Iphigenia’s change of mind has been well prepared for in Euripides’ play — it comes as the climax to a series of swift and sudden changes of decision which is unparalleled in ancient drama’ (ibid. 243f.). This last comment is closest to my own position. It is Kitto’s failure (n.l above, 364 and 366f.) to recognise the significance of these reversals that renders the play for him so slight.

3. On Agamemnon see Wasserman (n.l above)passim. On Agamemnon and Menelaos see Conacher (n.l above), 254–56, Grube (n.l above), 423–28, and Kitto (n.l above), 362–64. On Achilleus see Roussel (n.l above), passim, and Grube, 436.

4. Norwood (n.l above), 288f., remarks that in this play Euripides has drawn nearer to the comedy of Menandros, and hence, I would infer, further than either Aischylos or Sophokles from Homer. Grube (n.l above), 422, notes that Norwood’s use of the term ‘ordinary’ on page 287 to describe the five main characters is ‘especially suitable’, although I disagree strongly with Grube’s corollary to this — that ‘there is something ordinary in the treatment of the characters as well …’ The treatment of character in this play is surely extraordinary by whatever standard.

5. The exodos has been condemned on textual and literary grounds. For accounts of the various problems see Parmentier (n.l above), passim, Page (n.l above), Part 2, and Headlam (n.l above), 126 note B. For Grube (n.l above), 421, the uncertainty of the text, both prologue and exodos, is such that it is impossible to establish dramatic unity. However, the corruption of the language of the exodos is not so great as to render the scene senseless. A messenger informs Klytaimestra that her child was not killed, but taken up to heaven, with a hind being sacrificed in her place (cf. Ailianos 7.39). Is this the subject matter of Euripides’ original? Linguistic grounds alone are not enough to render the content of the exodos spurious. The mixture of Byzantinisms, fourth and fifth century diction, iambics and anapaests precludes conscious and single-handled interpolation. The linguistic evidence alone indicates ultimately only that the ending of the play has been very badly copied, and on occasion interfered with. There is nothing to prove that what we have here is not simply a linguistically corrupt version of original subject matter (this is the view of both Headlam toe. cit. andConacher [n.l above], 248), and as such it remains a legitimate area for the identification of thematic concerns. For a discussion of Ailianos see Knox (n.l above), 289 n.5.

6. I take both prologues as genuine, but unrevised. See Parmentier (n.l above), 267ff., and Pohlenz (n.l above), i.496 and ii. 183. Knox (n.l above), 275–94, provides a most extensive discussion.

7. Critics have tended to moralise with regard to Agamemnon’s actions. Ferguson (n.l above), 453, says ‘Agamemnon is a weak man who wants to do right, but lacks the courage to act consistently.’ Kitto (n.l above), 362, comments, ‘[Agamemnon] is not a man of firm character.’ Pohlenz (n.l above), i.496, refers to Agamemnon’s ‘innere Konflikte gestellt’. Grube (n.l above), 427, has suggested that Agamemnon’s primary concern is not to save his daughter, but to ensure that Klytaimestra does not discover his plans. Such comments may well be justified, but my concern is far more with the pattern of changes that Agamemnon’s actions reveal than it is with the passing of judgement on the commendability or otherwise of those actions. Agamemnon already has a history of child-killing (see Klytaimestra’s speech, 1151f.), and the important questions from my point of view are to do with the ways in which Agamemnon continues or discontinues to function in this regard.

8. Kitto (n.l above), 363; Knox (n.l above), 245; Grube (n.l above), 426f.

9. Knox (n.l above), 245, says that ‘nothing can save Iphigenia now’.

10. Iphigeneia’s role inversion is most famous, principally, I suppose, because it was the subject of an Aristotelian stricture (see n.2 above). However, Iphigeneia’s sudden change of mind regarding her willingness to be the subject of the coming sacrifice is not, pace Aristotle, an inconsistent inconsistency. Iphigeneia’s sudden change is fully a part of the pattern of role reversals deployed within the play, and to that extent is no more inconsistent than the actions of Agamemnon and Menelaos, who frequently change their minds, or of Achilleus, who first defends Iphigeneia and then assists in the sacrifice, or indeed of Artemis herself, who, according to the messenger, decides not to have Iphigeneia sacrificed after all. Of course, all of these actions display inconsistency, but it is without doubt that since they all do so in the same way they do so quite consistently. Others have given different accounts of Iphigeneia’s actions. Kitto’s comment (n.l above, 66) on Iphigeneia’s inversion verges on the fatuous: ‘Why then does she speak and sing so passionately on the other side? Because nothing else would have been interesting.’ Lesky (n.l above), 196, sees no problem, although he maintains that the transition is not easily handled. For Grube (n.l above, 437) there is no problem at all. Iphigeneia makes a virtue out of necessity, and shows that she has been influenced by her father. All these critics miss the point, which is that the contradiction is both a deliberate and integral part of the patterning of similar instances throughout.

11. Grube(n.l above), 431, remarks that Achilleus is shy. With regard to Patroklos, it is only fair to mention also Briseis. It is true that Achilleus risks all for her sake in the Iliad, but there it is much more a matter of the insult offered by Agamemnon in attempting to take her from him that excites his anger and determination, rather than any overwhelming infatuation with Briseis herself. In this his behaviour in the Iliad compares to some degree with his behaviour in this play, since it is the deceit, and hence the insult, of Agamemnon that initially rouses him to wish to defend Iphigeneia. See however Iliad 9. 334–43, where Achilleus does declare love for Briseis.

12. Kitto (n.l above), 368; Orube (n.l above), 266; Ferguson (n.l above), 355.

13. There is a tendency, as with Agamemnon and Menelaos, to view Achilleus’ inversion in terms of simple hypocrisy — see Ferguson (n.l above), 458, who quotes and agrees with Gilbert Murray.

14. Grube (n.l above), 431.

15. Grube (n.l above), 432.

16. Palamedes, the inventor of writing, is destroyed by a lying note. See Nauck vol. Ill frag. 5 pp. 582–93.

17. Kitto (n.l above), 364, sees no such significance: ‘What happened to Iphigeneia remains what happened to Iphigeneia. We are no wiser; this combination of an unexplained demand from a goddess, an incompetent father and a frenzied army is a particular and not a universal, ha egeneto but not hoia an genoito.’ My sympathies are far more with Dimock’s point of view (n.l above, 13). Artemis’ alleged rescue of Iphigeneia ‘is presented in a way and in a context which only deepens the negative implications of the sacrifice, indicting gods as well as men for the insanity of aggressive war’. Bonnard, A., ‘ Iphigénie à Aulis: Tragique et poésie’ MH 2 (1945), 96 Google Scholar, terms the play ‘ce tragique du désordre du monde’.

18. Grube (n.l above), 438. Cf. Vellacott, P., Ironic Drama: A study of Euripides’ Method and Meaning (London 1975), 100 Google Scholar. See also Knox (n.l above), 347.

19. The conventional observation that the episodic nature of the Hekabe does not lead to structural dislocation due to the unifying nature of Hekabe’s suffering is well put by William Arrowsmith in his introduction to the Chicago series translation (Grene, D. and Lattimore, R. [eds.], Euripides III: Hecuba, Andromache, The Trojan Women, Ion [Chicago 1958], 5f.Google Scholar) This, however, has always struck me as rather a thin point. In fact, every scene is ostensibly devoted to an examination of the different ramifications of child-killing, a fact which appears to have been overlooked by the various commentators and critics. The prologue is spoken by the ghost of the murdered Polydoros; Polyxena is killed by the Greeks; the body of Polydoros is discovered; the revenge is planned, Agamemnon’s tacit approval gained, and the children of Polymestor killed by the Trojan women; and finally, the agon between Polymestor and Hekabe is presided over and adjudicated upon by Agamemnon, himself a child-killer.

20. The messenger in the exodos of the Herakleidai is shown not to be a disinterested observer. Alkmene has made it clear that she is very concerned for Iolaos’ safety, for her own safety depends upon it. Yet her response to the messenger’s initial announcement of victory goes a long way towards precluding any account which might entail additional news of any disaster that may have befallen Iolaos. She tells the messenger that since he has brought her such good news this day has set him free (788f.). We should not expect the messenger to relinquish his sudden good fortune by responding to her next question (790f.: ‘You do not yet set me free [oupō eleutherois] from one anxiety. I am afraid; are they alive whom I wish to be?’) in anything other than the most favourable terms. The word play on eleutheroō is significant: ‘I have set you free from slavery, now you set me free from anxiety.’ Such is the proposal which no slave would not feel tempted to fulfil. Also, as to the messenger speech itself, the messenger does not report the rejuvenation as an event which he saw personally, but as one of which he was informed by others (847f.). This is impossible to verify. As if to emphasise the messenger’s vested interest in what he has to say, his closing words carry a clear reminder to Alkmene of her promise to liberate him (888–91).

21. Knox (n.l above), 347; Dimock (n.l above), 3f.