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Other tragic fragments

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

Edited by
Michael Gagarin  and
Paul Woodruff
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Summary

The following fragments are attributed to minor tragedians, or are anonymous tragic fragments plausibly assigned to the period. Authors who are not native Athenians probably wrote their tragedies for production in Athens.

Thespis (TGF 1 F 3)

You see that Zeus is first among the gods in this respect,

that he does not lie or boast or laugh foolishly.

Only he does not know pleasure.

Aristarchus of Tegea, Tantalus (TGF 14 F 1b)

About these matters [the gods] it's all the same to speak well or badly,

to inquire or to remain ignorant.

For the wise (sophoi) know no more about them than the ignorant,

and if one man speaks about them better than another,

his superiority is only in his ability to speak.

Ion of Chios, Alcmene (TGF 19 F 5a)

All things are born ignorant at first

and are taught by experience.

Ion of Chios, Alcmene (TGF 19 F 55)

The maxim “know thyself” is not much to say,

but only Zeus among the gods knows how to do it.

Iophon, Bacchae (TGF 22 F 2)

Being a woman I know this,

that the more one seeks to know matters divine,

the less one knows.

Agathon (TGF 39 F 5)

This thing only is beyond the power of god:

to make it so that what has been done never happened.

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Chapter
Information
Early Greek Political Thought from Homer to the Sophists , pp. 73 - 76
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1995

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