CHAPTER FOURTEEN

LOOKING FOR OMPHALE

Pat Easterling

Introduction

How much can we say for certain about Ion’s Omphale? Not a great deal, but even that is considerably more than we can recover about most of the hundreds of lost satyr plays performed at the Athenian dramatic festivals and elsewhere, and it is worth trying to go a little further. The known facts can be set out brie y:1 1. Omphale is well attested as a play by Ion, and speci cally identi ed as a satyr play in 23 Leurini = TrGF 19 F18 = Strabo 1.3.19: Strabo, in a passage on offshore islands, cites “Ion in the satyr play Omphale” for a reference to and the Euripus. 2. The play is quoted or referred to by a range of ancient writers. Athenaeus is the richest source with seven quotations of whole lines or more, suggesting that he may have had access to a com- plete text (25, 38, 26a, 26b, 27, 32, 31 Leurini = TrGF 19 F20, F21, F22, F23, F24, F26, F29). The other fragments come from the usual sources,1 contexts where ancient scholars are discussing exotic words or unfamiliar usages, but this does not tell us much about the survival of the whole play. However, there are hints that Omphale attracted more than usual attention: Athenaeus 634cf, in a discussion of the scholarly debate over the correct identi cation of the musical instrument called magadis by the Lydians (26a, 26b Leurini = TrGF 19 F22, F23), mentions Aristarchus as the author of a note on the relevant line, and cites a work by Didymus entitled

1 Hesychius (24; 34 Leurini = TrGF 19 F19; F31 = 1515; 5919, 6050), Et. Gen. (33; 30 Leurini = TrGF 19 F27; F28 = s.v. ; s.v. ), Pollux (29* Leurini = TrGF 19 F*30 = 2.95), Harpocration (35 Leurini = TrGF 19 F32 = s.v. ), Hero- dian (36 Leurini = TrGF 19 F33 = Katholike prosodia 1.25.18 Lentz). In addition to the standard references (22–38 Leurini = TrGF 19 FF17a–33a), fragments and testimonia can be found in Pechstein and Krumeich (1999) 480–90 [cited as Satyrspiel]. looking for OMPHALE 283

Counterexplanations on Ion ( . . .); while another fragment which quotes the open- ing of the play is from a papyrus preserving an unnamed scholar’s notes on literary problems (22 Leurini = 19 F17a = Gramm. Ign. POxy 13. 1611 (fr. 2, col. 1, ll. 121–7)).2 3. There is no doubt about the outlines of the story on which the play is based,3 though this tells us little about the plot. After treacherously killed Iphitus, son of King Eurytus of , he suf- fered a severe illness, consulted the Delphic oracle, and was required to be sold as a slave for a period (the sources vary between one and three years) to atone for his crime; Hermes took charge of the sale, and he was bought by Omphale queen of Lydia. In some versions he was set free by Omphale and became her lover and the father of her son Lamus (or Agelaus, identi ed by Apollodorus 2.7.8 as an ancestor of the house of Croesus).4 4. The three characters known to have been involved in the play are Heracles, Omphale and Hermes, and there must have been a role for Silenus. The “Lydian harpists” mentioned in 26a Leurini = TrGF 19 F22 = Ath. 634ef may refer either to the chorus or to a secondary group. 5. The play is set in Lydia, and aspects of Lydian lifestyle gure in the fragments. 6. From Aristophanes Peace 832–5, which makes a gracious ‘obituary’ reference to Ion, we know that he was dead by the Dionysia of 421; this implies that 422 must have been the latest possible date for the composition and (presumably) staging of the play. There is no other indication of date; if we can trust the Suda entry (T4 Leurini = TrGF 19 T1 = Suda 487), which says that Ion rst began competing in the dramatic festivals in 451–48, we have a period of twenty- ve to thirty years during which it might have been composed.

2 37* Leurini = TrGF 19 F33a = Gramm. Ign. POxy 13.1611 (fr. 16), from the same papyrus, probably also refers to discussion of the play. 3 The story of Heracles’ dealings with Eurytus and Iphitus is alluded to at Od. 21.22–37; the schol. on this passage gives detail of the enslavement of Heracles, quoting Pherecydes (FGrH 3 F82b). For later résumés, with variations, cf. Diod. Sic. 4.31.5–8 and Apollod. 2.6.3 (the passages from Pherec. and Diod. Sic. are conveniently cited in Satyrspiel 481–2). Cf. Davies (1991) xxvii–xxx; Boardman (1994). 4 Cf. the reference to “Acheles who ruled over the Lydians”, as son of Heracles and Omphale by Schol. Il. 24.616b.