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The Early Chronology of Attic Tragedy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

M. L. West
M. L. West
Affiliation:
Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, London
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Extract

City archives, mined by Aristotle for his Didaskaliai, preserved a reasonably complete record of dramatic productions in the fifth century. But how far back did these archives go? The so-called Fasti, an inscription set up c. 346 and listing dithyrambic, comic and tragic victors year by year, must have been based on the same archives, but went back, it is thought, only as far as 502/1. Its heading πρ⋯]τον κ⋯μοι ἦσαν τ[⋯ι διονὑσ]ωι τραγωιδο⋯ δ[, however supplemented, implies an intention of going back to the beginning of things, in other words to the beginning of the archival record. This raises serious doubt as to whether that record went back to the alleged date of Thespis' première, or indeed to those given for Choerilus' and Phrynichus'.

Type
Shorter Notes
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 39 , Issue 1 , May 1989 , pp. 251 - 254
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1989

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References

1 1IG ii2.2318; see Capps, E., Hesperia 12 (1943), 10f.CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Pickard-Cambridge, A. W., The Dramatic Festivals of Athens (2nd edn, rev. Gould and Lewis, 1968), pp. 71f., 101 ff.Google Scholar; TrGF i2.22–5. If another column is lost at the beginning, and if the dithyrambic victories (both men's and boys' choruses) began in 509 or 508 (Marm. Par. FGrHist 239 A 46), and if a choregic system already existed under the tyrants, there would have been space for tragic victories going back to 522 or 520; or, if the heading τραγωιδ⋯ν was not repeated in each entry in that section, 528 or 526.

2 This epoch is also mentioned in Suda s.v. αἰσχὑλος (= Aesch. T 2 Radt): ἠγων⋯ζετο…⋯ν τ⋯ι ο' (θ codd.) ‘Ολυμπι⋯δι ⋯τ⋯ν ⋯ν κε’. The age of twenty-five, in conjunction with the birth-date implied by other ancient reckonings, fixes the year as Ol. 70.2 = 498. Eusebius gave αἰσχὑλος τραγωιδοποι⋯ς ⋯γνωρ⋯ζετο under 497/6 (Armenian) or 496/5 (Jerome), and again under 477/6 or 475/4.

3 Aristophanes' work πρ⋯ς τοὐς καλλιμ⋯χου Π⋯νακας may come into question. Cf. Vila Sophoclis 18 ἔχει δ⋯ δρ⋯ματα, ὥς φησιν ‘αριστοφ⋯νης, ρλ’.

4 Fr. 157 Wehrli (ap. ps.-Plut. De musica 1131F ff.); cf. fr. 159.

5 Ps.-Plut. ibid.

6 Jacoby ad FGrHist 550.

7 Cf. Arist. Poet. 1448a30–5 ⋯ντιποιο⋯νται τ⋯ς τε τραγωιδ⋯ας κα⋯ τ⋯ς κωμωιδ⋯ας ο⋯ δωριεῖς τ⋯ς μ⋯ν γ⋯ρ κωμωιδ⋯ος ι⋯ μεγαρεῖς…κα⋯ τ⋯ς τραγωιδ⋯ας ἔνιοι τ⋯ν ⋯ν Πελοπονν⋯σωι.

8 Cf. Apostol. 13.42. Snell in TrGF 1 T 18 gives precedence to the fuller form in the proverb-collection of Paris. Coisl. 177; but see the warning of Bühler, W.. Zenobii Athoi proverbia i (1987), 278Google Scholar.

9 D.L. 5.92 χαμαιλ⋯ων τε {τ⋯} παρ' ⋯αυτο⋯ φησι κλ⋯ψαντα αὐτ⋯ν τ⋯ περ⋯ 'ησι⋯δου κα⋯ 'Ομ⋯ρου γρ⋯ψαι = l fr. 57 Giordano.

10 Aristoxenus accused Heraclides of forging plays of Thespis (D.L. ibid. = Aristox. fr. 114 W., TrGF 1 T 24). Aristoxenus was given to making charges of forgery, cf. Wehrli ad he.

11 Cf. Jacoby ad FGrHist 241; Pfeiffer, R., History of Classical Scholarship, i (1968), 163f., 169Google Scholar; Fraser, P. M., Ptolemaic Alexandria (1972), i. 456fGoogle Scholar.

12 Fr. 22 Powell; cf. Pfeiffer, op. cit. 169 n. 2.

13 Jacoby, , Das Marmor Parium (1904), p. 172Google Scholar; FGrHist 239 A 43; TrGF 1 T 2. There is no justification for assuming, as is commonly done, that the Parian chronicle placed Thespis in the same Olympiad as does the Suda. (Sometimes one actually sees it cited as the source for this date.) What is preserved of its dating is ἔτη

[ ] (sc. years before 264/3). The number of letter-spaces in the gap is assessed at three, but it must be borne in mind that in these numerals two or three unit-signs can fit into one letter-space. Possible restorations are accordingly: [Δ;Δ;Π;] = (Dionysia) 538 or 537 (the chronicler is inconsistent as to whether he uses inclusive or non-inclusive reckoning), [Δ;Δ;III] = 536 or 535, [Δ;Δ;II] = 535 or 534, [Δ;Δ;I] = 534 or 533, [Δ;ΠIII] = 531 or 530, [ΔΠII] =; 530 or 529, [Δ;ΠI] =; 529 or 528, [ΔIIII] = 527 or 526. But the archon-name, ] να⋯ου το⋯ προτ⋯ρου, rules out 527 and 526, as the archons for these years are known.

14 Not 541 as in TrGF i DID D 3. The tragedian whose name has fallen out cannot be anyone but Thespis.

15 A strict reckoning from Ol. 70.2, however, would only have reached back to Ol. 62.1 (= 531). It is not certain whether Eratosthenes subdivided Olympiads. Possibly 531, arrived at by a parallel (but non-Olympiadic) calculation from 498, was the date on the Parian Marble.

16 The figure of 160 dramas attributed to him in the Suda would presuppose a long career; but it is scarcely credible. It contrasts violently with the figures of four for Thespis and nine for Phrynichus (even though the nine listed represent only a fraction of an alphabetic list). And if the Didaskaliai began in 502/1, there simply cannot have been room for so many titles of Choerilus.