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The Euripidean Catalogue of Ships
T. W. Allen
The Classical Review / Volume 15 / Issue 07 / October 1901, pp 346 - 350 DOI: 10.1017/S0009840X00030936, Published online: 27 October 2009
Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0009840X00030936
How to cite this article: T. W. Allen (1901). The Euripidean Catalogue of Ships. The Classical Review, 15, pp 346-350 doi:10.1017/S0009840X00030936
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Downloaded from http://journals.cambridge.org/CAR, IP address: 138.251.14.35 on 12 Apr 2015 346 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW. than 9 ft. when harnessed to the chariot. whisperings of the chorus or his own The axle, according to Smith's Diet. Antt., servants. But if a-iyav avtaya is spoken to was 7 ft. long. Thus the 6poi wouldElektra, so must KavaSeucvvvai be also. It not project more than 1 ft. beyond the end is with a reference to this command that of the axle. In Buenos Ayres, at the Elektra says, so soon as Aigisthos has present time, carts are driven with teams of finished speaking (1464), nal 8rj rekeirai ram-' as many as eleven horses. Of these one is ifiov, ' My duty I do perform,' and with the in the shafts, and one is harnessed in front words flings the doors open. The combina- of him as leader. The rest, abreast of the tion KOU Srj now has its proper force; cp. leader, are attached to the body of the cart, Ar. Av. 175 ftkefov KOLTU>.—KTHE EURIPIDEAN CATALOGUE OF SHIPS.
THE Chalcidian women who are the the Myrmidons, and ends with Ajax child chorus of Euripides' „ Iphigenia in Aulis of Salamis on the left. We are familiar narrate, in the first stasimon, how they left with this order from @ 224-226, A 7-9. their home to view the Greek fleet at Aulis, In particular Euripides differs from or and describe (231 sq.) the position and _ agrees with Homer on the following points : number of the contingents : 1. The Myrmidons. He agrees with Homer as to the leader (Achilles) and the vcuov 8' cis apiO/jLov rjkvBov number of the ships (50); he adds the (cat diav aOiatfaarov, figure-head of twenty of the ships. Tav yvvaiKeiov oij/iv o^t/taTtov 2. The Argives. Eur. agrees with Homer a>S TrXrjcraifii, //.elKivov aSovdv. as to the leaders, Sthenelus and Euryalus There are obvious differences between (though he omits Diomede, to whom Homer this list and Homer's; the discrepancies gives a prominent position), but differs over have been noticed by the commentators the number of ships. Homer gives it as on Euripides, but a single explanation of oyStoKOVTa, Euripides says Apyeiiov Se TCULeitus, is taken from the five in not that of the Catalogue ; he has trans- Homer. Figure-heads are added. ferred the arrangement of the camp at Troy 5. 6. The account of the Phocians in to the harbour at Aulis. His list begins Euripides has suffered a lacuna, which has with the right wing, held by Achilles and not escaped the scribes of our two MSS., THE CLASSICAL REVIEW. 347 who leave a space of two lines, while one of where there is nothing to call for Hermann's them writes XeiV. The Locrians are said to alteration r/yefiwv for rjytv mv. have the same number of ships as the 12. Euripides closes the formation with Phocians, and this agrees with Homer, who Ajax SaAajouvos • evrpoipos and 12 ships, gives 40 to both. agreeing with Homer. 7. Mycenae. The numbers and the leader agree with Homer. How are these divergencies to be ac- The lines that follow (268 sq.), o-w 8' counted for? If they are conscious why d8«\s <£iA.os Menelaus' subjects, suggest that he find them 1 he was co-commander with Agamemnon, The source of the Iphigenia in Aulis is and that Euripides brought no Lacedae- usually said to be the Cypria, and this may monians to Troy, especially as Homer says be accepted, in the sense that we have no of them airdrepOe Se Owprjo-o-ovTO. However, knowledge of any other early work which both the expressions already quoted (268) contained this part of the Tale of Troy. and The Cypria, according to Proclus' abstract, TSS vyovv \dpiv yd.fi.wv I am aware that Proclus' account has been trpa^iv 'EAAas a>s Aa/Joi considered defective, and Fick (Ilias p. 384) has definitely asserted that he omitted to seem so clear a paraphrase of Homer's 586 e mention the Greek Catalogue. However, it TWV oi dScA.<£cos VPX P»r)V dyaOos McvcAaos is plain that if we are to employ Proclus' and 589 /xaAtora Se UTO 6V/JLU> \ Tio-aaOcuanalysis for any purpose at all, we must 'EAeViys opfi.TJfia.Td re crTova^as TC that it iabids e by his silence as much as by his difficult to suppose Euripides at once statement; and the fact that he winds up followed Homer's wording and departed his lengthy account by the sentence xal from his sense. Perhaps therefore it is KardXoyos ru>v TOIS Tpoxri (rvfi[ui)(r]v only a case of loose expression. warrants the inference that there was no 8. The number of the Pylians has fallen list of the Greek armament. Moreover, out in another lacuna, first detected by general considerations shew that in M. Weil. The figure-heads are added. Euripides' age there was not more than one 9. The Aenianes. This people are the ' Catalogue' in existence. The stories of 'Eviijvcs of Homer and Herodotus. Euripides the historical importance of the Catalogue gives them the Homeric leader, Fowevs, but as a document (which go back to Herodotus) a different number of ships. Homer says and of tampering with it, imply that there (B 748) Toweiis 8' t/c K.vov i)ye 8vw KO.1 was only one such; further, the various eiKoo-i vrjas, Euripides states poems of the Cycle appear, and have usually been considered, to presuppose the existence Auaavttfv 8c SwScica crroXoi of the Iliad and Odyssey, and therefore it vaSiv, would be singular to find the Homeric or as Hermann would write it, 8O>SCKElis. Euripides gives no number of the Iliad, or a wish to include Penthesilea their ships, but he calls their leader Eurytus, and Memnon who are outside Homer's view. who in Homer is the father of one of the It is impossible to deny that there may two leaders. have been in the Cypria details and figures 11. The Taphians are not so called by of the forces scattered up and down in the Homer in the Catalogue; Euripides means poem, but there is all the less reason for by the name the inhabitants of Dulichium supposing Euripides to have deserted the and the Echinades. He gives no number obvious Iliad-Catalogue and to have collected of their ships, but names the same leader, his details from the body of the Cypria, that Me'yijs. Euripides adds de suo that they he follows the order not of the mustering at were dependent on the Eleans. Aulis—the scene of the Cypria—but of the camp at Troy. It seems, therefore, beyond 283 XevKrjptTfiov 8' apr] proof or probability there was in Euripides' Tdiov rjyev &v Mc'y^s avaarcrtv, 348 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW. time more than one Catalogue of the Greek Aeschylus (Ag. 45), Euripides (Andr. 106, host; the Homeric SiaKoayto";, which we Electra 2, Orest. 352) and Lycophron possess, whatever its age or its ultimate (Cassandra 210) talk of ^i\tat raCs, and origin, had certainly stood in its place since the phrase mille rates with equivalents the establishment of the KOIVJ;—or to employ passes through the Latins from Virgil no questionable terms, since the sixth to Juvenal and I do not know how many century, and Euripides (whose statements late writers before Marlowe displayed the agree with it in the main) can have used no value of the a.irqpTurft.ivo'i apiO/tos—as the other. We have still to explain why he scholiasts on Euripides have it. An historian diverges from it in certain points. or a poet may say 1200 or 1000 for a sum The selection of a minority of the Greek which exactly is 1186, but no such reason contingents for mention is due to the neces- holds for altering details.2 sity of space ; no chorus could contain the I pass to the variations in the leaders. whole catalogue. Their arrangement, begin- The omission of Diomede and the apparent ning with Achilles and ending with Ajax, transference of Menelaus to Mycene may be and the transference of the order of the the result of careless writing, but in the case vavo-TaOfios to the assembly at Aulis, mayof Athens the discrepancy is complete. be due to the same class of considerations, Menestheus son of Peteos was an offence to the wish for variety or contrast to Homer, the ancients on the ground of his obscurity ; that is to say to literary and artistic reasons. Zenodotus athetised vv. -553, 554, in which The probability that this is so is increased his qualities are stated in hyperbolical terms. by the reflection that we can hardly con- It is therefore important that Euripides ceive a version of the Homeric catalogue gives a different chief, the son of the national so different from the vulgate as to contain hero Theseus. The lawfully begotten sons all Euripides' peculiarities. The detail of of Theseus were Demophon and Acamas ;3 the figure-heads, which Euripides adds in the 'JXiov 7repHecuba 125, Troades 31). tingents can hardly be explained on these I would not fall into history, but it may grounds. If we take the numerals we find seem as if there were two versions of the the following differences in the number of Athenian contingent current in the fifth ships. century, and that one sent the Theseid Euripides Homer princes to Troy. The point occupied ancient Argives 50 80 historians, among others Hellanicus fr. 45, Athenians ... 60 50 Plutarch Theseus 35, Eustathius 284, 29. Aenianes 12 22 In tlie case of the Eleans it would be a very gross instance of carelessness if we Euripides' total is thirty less than were to suppose Euripides' statement Evpvros Homer's. We cannot suppose that Euripides o" dvao-o-e a hasty copy or reminiscence of made these alterations designedly. The Homer's lines iw filv ap' 'A/A<^)i/ia^os (cat numerals have no literary value in them- ©aXirtos yyr] (Oxyrhynchus Pap. II. no. come} I suggest that Euripides' source 221). It is remarkable that such informa- was really responsible for these divergencies, tion as we have about the EupurtScios belongs but that his source was still Homer. He exclusively to the Catalogue. Eustathius used Homer but in a version which was not stated that Euripides added after 866 the the vulgate. line Ty«oAa> viro vi6ei>Ti "YST^S iv TWI SiJ/xa), a The variants upon the Catalogue which verse recognised by Strabo, who however we know of are mostly geographical, and weakened Euripides down to rives. Blass' consist of the substitution of one place- conjecture makes Euripides and other name for another. They are to be found in editors add the line n^Xeyovos 0' ulos irepi- Strabo and Eustathius and as a rule have Sefios 'AorepcMraios to 848 ; here too the not affected the MSS. There are a few existence of the line was remembered, but variants upon other subjects : of these such the name of its sponsor forgotten (ov iv as are concerned with numerals are Eus- iroXXais TW 'IXidSiov epea-6ai schol. Ton$ tathius' statement that some read dyev 140). If then the nephew of Euripides rpuTKaiSeKa for ayev SuoKaiSeica vijas B 557 inincluded in his edition lines of the Catalogue the account of Ajax's contingent (a read- which were absent from the vulgate, it ing confirmed by Matro's parody 95 TTCIIS Se would not be out of character for him to TIS «K SaXa/m-os ayev rpuTKaihiKO. vijas), anduse for his play a text of the Catalogue of the lection in Oxyrhynch. Pap. I. no, xx. like character. p. 46 xai 8e« for 8vio KOX tiKotn B 748 to I suggest that the younger Euripides was which I have referred above. Then we are like Antimachus at once poet and editor, told that there was a mention of Stentor in and that in composing or arranging the the Arcadian section and of Asteropaeus portion of his uncle's play which was among the Paeonians, neither of which are directly Homeric he drew upon his own in our MSS. edition. It is not difficult to transfer some I suggest that the edition of Homer used of the variants of the chorus into Homer, by the author of the Iphigenia in Aulis was and to call the result the Euripidean text. of the same character. It contained varia- The numerals are not obstinate : B 568 TOIO-I tions in the number of the contingents, and 8' afi.' oySwKovTa /ucXourai v>}es IITOVTO will added some and omitted others, of the become TOICTI 8i Trevr^Kovra, and l^qKOVTa. heroes who led them. If this suggestion isi may take the place of irevT^/covra in the probable, we have so much information as Athenian section without much violence. to the character of a fifth century edition It is a more serious undertaking to substi- of Homer which was not the vulgate. I tute Theseus' son for Menestheus son of will make a guess at what edition it was. Peteos, but if we choose Demophon rS>v av The Iphigenia in Aulis is stated, by a Arj/j,o6o)v ©jjerews mus rjye/ioveve may serve scholiast on the Frogs (67), to have been our turn, and irais may perhaps commend brought out after the poet's death by his the line. Acamas I will leave to his backers. Into Euripides' ideas and sources son of the same name, and the critics have 1 enjoyed the justification for dividing the I do not wish to inquire, but here he may play between the father and the supposed have wished to remove the discrepancy diasceuast the son. The part of the first between the Homeric Catalogue and Cyclic stasimon which we have examined is 1 A preference for the Cycle, as historical evidence, bracketed by some editors, printed in small over the Iliad, is obvious, and not peculiar to the type by others, as the work of the junior younger Euripides. 350 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW.
Legend, and to give the house of Theseus logue, namely, evOa iSov TACIOTOUS py its definite place at Troy, in the same way aVepas aio\o5rov rjye' Ammonius' quotes it, in the first or 8vON THE FRAGMENTS OF EURIPIDES.
(NAUCK'S NUMEUATION.) Fr. 262 : i.e. ' but the darkness under earth not one irdXal cncewroS/iiai TO.% Tvxas ras TS>V fiporuiv, knoweth, having come among mankind from irplv eirv^iov irirvei. been frankly accepted : ci.fr. 555]. tv cannot stand, but extant conjectures do not account for themselves. Read 8 ij K T a i, KVVES O7r(os, clvr)T€pav Srj TrjvB' iyw SiSwfii croi Oeoi X i.e. ' the vengeance of the Gods is not hasty; Read civ r/rp iav ('the blow that gives they are not like dogs always ready to bite.' thy quietus ') and cf. Soph. O.T. 961 o-fUKpaCf. aKpofxavrji, d/cpocri^aXijs, iraXaua aw/iar' evvdfci poirrj, Track. 1041 fwairoi', tvvacrov p' WKVirera /iop think, is p. TJ K V V U> V. (TKOTO'S ov8' ets oveipov ov&' €is avOpanrovs fioXtivf Fr. 730: Read aVacra tllEAoTroVv^cros ivTV\ii iroXis. TtpTTVOV TO (j>U>S jJiOV TO 8' VTTO -f}]V "AlSoV Read v rj
