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The Danaid Tetralogy of Aeschylus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

A. Diamantopoulos
A. Diamantopoulos
Affiliation:
Athens
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Extract

The humour of the passage in the Frogs (1419 ff.), in which the tragic poets reply with riddles on burning political issues, is explicable: research on the Eumenides shows that in this play Aeschylus projected political notions in much the way that he is presented by Aristophanes speaking in the Frogs: concentrating the attention of the spectator on the past of the Areopagus and on the circumstance of its foundation, he touches directly on the question which arose in 462–1 through the abolition of the political competence of this body, but he replies to it through a parable which is enigmatic for us. It is obviously such an expression as this that Aristophanes had in mind. It rests with philological and historical criticism to show whether in surviving tragedies other than Eumenides themes of an immediate public interest are put forward under the cover of myth, themes which, through ignorance of the date or of the exact conditions of the composition of the plays, have so far not been revealed. This essay examines from this point of view the Danaid tetralogy of Aeschylus.

The subject of the Danaid tetralogy is taken from the story of Danaos and his daughters. For this, Aeschylus could draw on both a literary source, the Danais, and probably also on Argive traditions.

Very little is known about the Danais. It did, however, include an account of the events which took place in Egypt between the houses of Danaos and Aigyptos, and it is likely, therefore, that it traced the course of this quarrel from the beginning.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 77 , Issue 2 , November 1957 , pp. 220 - 229
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1957

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References

1 On the Myth of the Danaids, see Waser, art. ‘Danaides’, in R.E. iv, 2087 ff.; Meyer, E., Forsch. zur Alten Geschichte, i (1892), pp. 67 ff.Google Scholar; Megas, G., von Danaos, Die Sage und den Danaiden, , Hermes lxviii (1933), 415–28Google Scholar.

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