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Iphigeneia and the Bears of Brauron

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

T. C. W. Stinton
T. C. W. Stinton
Affiliation:
Wadham College, Oxford
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Extract

In her masterly article on this passge, Dr. Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood goes most of the way towards solving two serious problems: the text of Lys. 645, where the vulgate makes the ‘bears’ more than ten years old, contrary to all other evidence; and the meaning of of A. Ag. 239 . She argues cogently that in Aeschylus means ‘shedding’ the saffron robe, as most editors including Fraenkel have thought, and not ‘letting her robes fall to the ground’ as Lloyd-Jones, followed by Page, has argued.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 26 , Issue 1 , May 1976 , pp. 11 - 13
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1976

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References

1 CQ 65 (1971), 339–42. I am indebted to Dr. Sourvinou-lnwood, and to Mr. W. G. Forrest and Professor H. Lloyd-Jones, for valuable advice and criticism.

2 CR 66 (1952), 135. Cf. J.T. Hooker, Agnon 1(2) (1968), 59–65.

3 See L. Ghali-Kahil, Antike Kunst 8 (1965), 20–33.

4 I do not mean to rule out the sinister overtones of , that it suggests the blood soon to be shed (cf. 1121 ). This is not of course what the words primarily mean, but their ambiguity is characteristically Aeschylean. (Cf. Anne Lebeck, The Oresteia, xxxx, 85, 191; on the kind of ambiguity which should and should not be looked for in Aeschylus, see PCPS n.s. 21, 1975, ad fin.)

5 Pace Hooker, op.cit., there is nothing wrong with the resulting sequence of thought the position of … simply emphasizes the pathetic suppliant act. (That verbal adjj. in are sometimes active does not favour the passive interpretation of in E. Ba. 1361 is surely active; on S.Aj. 907 see Stanford.)

6 Perhaps not only her cries, but the words of supplication which together with her gesture would make her formally a suppliant, and the murder more impious still (cf. J.P. Gould, ‘Hiketeia’, JHS 93, 1973, 74 ff., esp. 82–7).

7 Hooker complains that phigeneia's escape from her captors requires an imaginary stage direction. But this is not a stage-event; in the allusive style of lyric narrative, , ‘shedding’, is enough to show what is meant.

8 ABV 97, 27; cf. P. Maas, CQ 45 (1951), 94.

9 Cf. Jeffery, L. H., Historia 10 (1961), 144.Google Scholar

10 Xen. Hell. 6. 36; P. P. 5. 60; Th. 6. 3. Apollo's connection with Cyrene is a peculiarily intimate one, cf. P. P. 9. 26 ff.

11 Plut. Vit. Alc. 2 . Aristid. 1. 605 Dind. Cf. Σ Ar. Av. 515 .

12 IG2 i 1. 38. The name and the suffix in the key phrase is due to editorial supplement, but as the document deals with the Panathenaea and was found on the south slope of the Acropolis, there is not much room for error: the is Athena Polias.

13 Dittenberger3, 695. 15; 557. 20; 560. 15.

14 These are the stages in the career of an Athenian girl, and two ceremonies in the service of Athena have been mentioned. ( are not explicitly connected any-where with Athena, but the phrase in Σ Lys. 643-almost the only evidence we have-must be intended to refer to her.)

15 Dr. Sourvinou-Inwood points out to me that if the state cult of Brauronian Artemis started with the Peisistratids, as is likely (cf. JHS 91, 1971, 175; L. Ghali-Kahil, op.cit.), would be familiar in Athens as a title of Artemis. But the presumption that the title refers to Athena here is none the less strong.

16 He intends her, presumably, as a suitable goddess to be served by ; but his note is not evidence on this point either.