Euripides, Electra 1093–5, a nd Some Uses of δικάζειν

J. H. Kells

doi:10.1017/S0009838800024472

Euripides, Electra 1093–5, a nd Some Uses of δικάζειν

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009

J. H. Kells

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J. H. Kells: Affiliation:
University College, London

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All commentators on these lines make two assumptions about the first clause, (i) that means ‘sitting in judgement’, ‘punishing’, or the like, (2) that the which is its subject as well as that of is the second in a series of two: the subsequent slaying punishes or sits in judgement on the previous; thus the slaying of Cly taemnestra herself will sit in judgement upon that of Agamemnon, just as that had sat in judgement upon the of Iphigenia. Then opinions differ as to whether is to be taken as the object of both verbs, or of one but not the other.

Type: Research Article
Information: The Classical Quarterly , Volume 10 , Issue 1-2 , May 1960 , pp. 129 - 134

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0009838800024472 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © The Classical Association 1960

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^{page 129 note 1} Jebb's note on that passage reads as follows: (prop, “tries”, as a judge tries a cause here, “brings to justice”, punishes: a perhaps unique poetical use, for in Pind. Olymp. 2. 59, which Mitchell quotes, = simply “tries”. Aesch. has another poet. use, Ag. 1412 There seems to be a confusion in the first sentence between trying a case and trying an offence ; cf. Aesch. Suppl. 230 f. ) But Ag. 1412 is, as we shall see, the true parallel to our passage.Google Scholar

^{page 129 note 2} As in etc., (S El. 134). See the examples in Kühner-Gerth, , i. 293 ff.Google Scholar

^{page 129 note 3} The person whose case is judged is normally put in the dative, a usage which goes back to the Iliad (σ 506 where seems to belong also to , and 574 ). The facts suggest that was originally an intransitive verb (= state the right, according to H. J. Wolff's exhaustive study, ‘The Origin of Judicial Litigation among the Greeks’, Traditio iv [1946], 75)Google Scholar. But cf. Arist. Const. Ath. 53. 2

^{page 130 note 1} As in Ag. 1412 I do not know of an instance in prose of this accusative of the penalty (which Ed. Fraenkel, ad loc, takes as internal). But a command-infinitive is not uncommon after this use of (e.g. lex Gort. iii. 6, ) (Since writing I have noticed an instance of the accusative at Isocr. 17. 52 ) The use of the passive in Lysias 21. 18 ( (= ‘that I have had shameful verdicts pronounced against me’ (?)) and Plat. Rep. 558a might seem to imply an active usage of (in this sense) with the accusative of the person against whom an award is made. But I know of no clear instance of such an accusative.Google Scholar

^{page 130 note 2} Cf. the twin of our passage in S. El. 577,ff.:

To paraphrase: Clytaemnestra, by her argument, sets up a A dispensing justice under this could give snly one adjudication (= ) in a case of sc. another Compare the picture provided by the Gortyn Code of the commanded by law to pronounce a specified sentence in a specified case. So here the first itself, which leaves the judge no choice but to pronounce sentence of another might be said, figuratively, that Sophocles has exactly the same argument in mind as Euripides; but he expresses it in extenso, whereas Euripides is spigrammatic.

^{page 130 note 3} The phrase illustrates the Greek fondness (to be illustrated later) for the idea of by-passing judicial proceedings and becoming ‘one’s own judge’, cf. Hdt. 1. 45,

^{page 131 note 1} Il. Ψ 579, discussed below. LSJ. also quote Dio Cassius, 69. 18, for = plead. But examination of the passage will show that this depends upon a misreading, and that there means ‘sit as a judge in court’.

^{page 131 note 2} So that the whole sub-section I. 2b in LSJ. under should be cancelled. The fact is of the greatest importance for the interpretation of the famous Shield TrialScene (Il. σ 497 ff.), where the theory that refers to the litigants ( 506), and that the gold talents are to give to them () is thus seen to be impossible. It should be added that can be used of a litigant, but then (see below) it means ius dicere, and is metaphorical.

^{page 131 note 3} That means the murder of Aga memnon by Clytaemnestra, not that of Clytaemnestra by Orestes, is shown by considering the rhetorical function of Orestes' exclamation and parenthesis. Had he been thinking of his own killing of Clytaemnestra (and of himself as a defendant), to draw attention to its pollutive qualities and to his own carelessness in breaking the taboos on a suspected homicide would be to aggravate the charge against him and to weaken his own case. This cannot be what Euripides intended. The point of the parenthesis is to draw attention to the pollutive qualities of Clytaemnestra's murder of Agamemnon: it expresses indignation, the indignation of the judge, not of the litigant. This is an inescapable fact of language; whether, dramatically speaking, Orestes has any right to assume this role, is another matter.

^{page 131 note 4} Like Zeus in the Iliad (A 541 f. though Zeus does his weighing-up apart, and his situation is otherwise so unlike that of Orestes.

^{page 131 note 5} Cf. Arist. Const. Ath. 57. 4,

^{page 131 note 6} Which do not, of course, claim to be exhaustive, even for the orators.

^{page 132 note 1} Which may explain the persistence with which the image recurs. But see p. 130, n. 3 above.

^{page 132 note 2} For this curious difference between the arbitration-proceedings and the court-proceedings, and the more primitive attitude to evidence in the former, see Gernet, L., L'Institution des arbitres publics (in Droit it société dans la Gréce ancienne, pp. 163 ff.).Google Scholar

^{page 132 note 3} Loc. cit.

^{page 133 note 1} For lack of such an accommodating attitude Athena spikes the guns of the Eumenides (Aesch. Eum. 429 ff.):Google Scholar

^{page 133 note 2} Admin, of Justice, i. 28.Google Scholar

^{page 133 note 3} Hence they wish to dispense with the distinction in the Shield-Trial-Scene, , op. cit. i. 36.Google Scholar

^{page 133 note 4} Heiligss Recht, p. 8 n. 8.Google Scholar

^{page 133 note 5} Loc. cit.

^{page 133 note 6} Two important differences, however, between the Menelaus-passage and them should not be minimized: (1) that Menelaus is the challenger, whereas in them it is the challenged who is said to ‘judge his own case’; (2) in them the litigants are ordinary people subject to the laws of a city-state, whereas Menelaus is a senior- among his peers in a loosely knit aristocratic community. There is therefore perhaps something in E. Wolf's suggestion (Griechi-sches Rechtsdenken i. 88)Google Scholar that Menelaus proposes to give his verdict ‘als -kundiger und -übender ’. Even so, would still mean ius (not causam) dicere.