¹ See Verrall, A. W., Euripides the Rationalist: A Study in the History of Art and Religion (Cambridge, 1895), 138–176Google Scholar, and Kitto, H. D. F., Greek Tragedy, 2nd ed. (London, 1950), 327–347Google Scholar. Verrall’s essay was, of course, instrumental in precipitating debate on the Ion as other critics responded to his views, for example, Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorf in his edition of the play (Euripides Ion [Berlin, 1926], 10–22).

² A number of perceptive studies have confronted this problem, which is complicated considerably by the obvious dramatic irony. Imhof’s, MaxEuripides’ Ion: Eine Literische Studie (Bern, 1966Google Scholar) is perhaps the most extensive study, though its intricate explication of the play’s interrelated structures of theme, metrics, and plot sometimes results in rather strained conclusions. Of importance also is Wasserman, Felix, ‘Divine Violence and Providence in Euripides’ Ion.’ TAPA 71 (1940), 587–604Google Scholar. Burnett, Anne P. has touched on these issues both in ‘Human Resistance and Divine Persuasion in Euripides’ Ion’, CP 57 (1962), 89–103Google Scholar, and Catastrophe Survived: Euripides’ Plays of Mixed Reversal (Oxford, 1971), 101–129Google Scholar. Also see Wolff, Christian, ‘The Design of Myth in Euripides’ Ion,’ HSCP 69 (1965), 169–194Google Scholar, and Conacher, D. J., ‘The Paradox of Euripides’ Ion,’ TAPA 90 (1959), 20–39Google Scholar, and Euripidean Drama, Myth, Theme and Structure (Toronto, 1967), 267–285Google Scholar. Whitman, Cedric H. has much to say on this subject in Euripides and the Full Circle of Myth (Cambridge, Mass. 1974CrossRefGoogle Scholar), for example, 77–78 and 148–149. Another recent study, Vellacott, Philip, Ironic Drama: A Study of Euripides’ Method and Meaning (Cambridge, 1975Google Scholar), despite its treatment of related problems in Euripides as a whole, is not directly applicable to the Ion and this study.

³ This feature is prominent in both the Helen and the Iphigeneia in Tauris. Scholars disagree, of course, on the dating of these pieces. We can, however, place the Helen in 412 and the Iphigeneia in Tauris to c. 411–409; the Ion seems to belong to the period 420–410. Gregoire, Henri, Euripide, III (Paris, 1923), 167–168Google Scholar, defends the date 418, though on rather weak evidence. Owens, A. S., Euripides Ion (Oxford, 1939Google Scholar) is certainly correct that we cannot establish an exact date (p. xxxvi), but a year in the mid-410’s is not unlikely. See Conacher, Euripidean Drama, 273–275, for a good summary of the problems. As for the theme of appearance and reality, its place in the Helen has been shown well by Zuntz, Günther, ‘On Euripides’ Helena: Theology and Irony,’ in Euripides (Geneva, 1960), 201–227Google Scholar, for example: This interplay of narrower and wider spheres of understanding which reveals error to be truth and truth, however firmly held on to, to be error; this irony gives the play its lightness and verve as well as its profundity; it connects, dissociates, mingles gods and men; it also determines its structure, dominated as it is by the scene in which hero and heroine face knowledge personified, and leading up to and flowing from this central scene with ever new aspects of the basic theme (p. 223).

⁴ Again, the Helen has been more carefully examined from this perspective. See Solmsen, Friedrick, ‘ONOMA and PRAGMA in Euripides’ Helen,’ CR 48 (1934), 119–121Google Scholar.

⁵ The contradictions led originally to the ‘rationalizing’ view, in which Euripides’ play was seen as a direct attack on the chicanery (and hence religious emptiness) of Apollo’s oracle, represented by Verrall. Two primary alternatives to this position have attempted to soften its extremes. One could be called the ‘historical’ school, in which the play is seen within a specific historical setting and with a political message (cf. Gregoire, Wilamowitz [154–181], or Delebecque, Edouard, Euripide et la Guerre de Péloponnèse [Paris, 1951], 223–241Google Scholar). The other seeks to explain into consistency the contradictions (cf. for example Wassermann and Burnett [‘Human Resistance and Divine Persuasion’]). Although few would now accept the rationalizing view in its extreme form, as Willetts, R. F. notes in the introduction to his translation, ‘Now the “rationalizing” view … had the merit of recognizing that this problem exists.’ (Euripides, III ed. Grene, David and Lattimore, Richmond [Chicago, 1958], 198Google Scholar).

⁶ Whitman, 77–79, explicates well his development.

⁷ The text throughout is Gilbert Murray’s Oxford Classical Text (3rd ed., 1913).

⁸ Xuthus’ greeting, ö teknon, leads into a comic exchange which approaches slapstick. Ion can only assume that Xuthus’ overtures are meant as a proposition, and a rather light mood prevails until the scene is quite advanced (see Wilamowitz, 111, and Knox, Bernard, ‘Euripidean Comedy,’ in The Rarer Action Essays in Honor of Francis Fergusson, ed. Cheuse, Alan and Koffler, Richard [New Brunswick, NJ, 1970], 68–69Google Scholar; especially, 80–83).

⁹ The question of Ion’s succession is important to his role as an eponymous hero and the significance of the play for exalting Athens (cf. Gregoire, 170–172, 177–180), but the passage remains central to his character development as well.

¹⁰ Cf. Willett’s stage direction at line 1606 in the Grene-Lattimore series: ‘Ion (ironically)’ (276).

¹¹ We should remember that such questions concerning the nature of knowledge were a popular subject for contemporary philosophical speculation in Euripides’ Athens (cf. Solmsen, ‘Euripides Helen’).

¹² Euripides’ handling of children has been noted often. For a survey of the exceptional place they have in the Medea see Golden, Leon, ‘Children in the Medea,’ CB 48 (1971), 10–15Google Scholar.

¹³ The problem of proper legal succession lurks in the background; see Burnett, Catastrophe Survived, 106, n. 6.

¹⁴ Whitman, 81.

¹⁵ Wassermann, 595–596.