The Early Chronology of Attic Tragedy Author(s): M. L. West Reviewed work(s): Source: The Classical Quarterly, New Series, Vol. 39, No. 1 (1989), pp. 251-254 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/639257 . Accessed: 25/11/2012 07:44 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Cambridge University Press and The Classical Association are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Classical Quarterly. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded by the authorized user from 192.168.82.218 on Sun, 25 Nov 2012 07:44:25 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions SHORTER NOTES 251 THE EARLY CHRONOLOGY OF ATTIC TRAGEDY Books give three dates earlier than 500: 535/3 Thespis' first production 523/0 Choerilus' first production 511/08 Phrynichus' first victory. Can we trust them? 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 502/1.1 Its heading pcj]-rov KC/LOL 7TUcaLV7[tL ALovVU]wjL [, however supplemented,implies an 7•tpyWLot'01 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' premiere, or indeed to those given for Choerilus' and Phrynichus'. We also note that in the list of victorious tragedians in IG ii2.2325 (TrGF DID A 3a) there is space only for about eight poets before Aeschylus, whose name is the first preserved; that is, for eight who won victories before Aeschylus' first win in 484. If records reached back to c. 533, eight is a remarkably small number. The 112 years after 484, according to the same monument, produced 33 new victors, an average of one every 3.4 years. Extrapolation from this figure would put the beginning of the list c. 511. If it had begun in 533, we should expect fourteen or fifteen pre-Aeschylean victors by the same reckoning. If there were only eight in 49 years, we should have to assume that the literary tradition ignores several pre-Aeschylean tragedians who were on record as having won many victories. Suspicions wax when we inspect the foundations on which those dates for Thespis, Choerilus, and Phrynichus rest. They come from the Suda entries on the respective poets. Each is given in terms of an Olympiad, without specification of the year or mention of an archonship. They are equidistant: Thespis comes three Olympiads before Choerilus, Choerilus three Olympiads before Phrynichus; while Phrynichus comes three Olympiads before Pratinas, who (again according to the Suda) TE ?7Tt17)S (= 499/6). Thislast dclVTryWVE-Tro AIXV'Auw• KaLXotp(Awt o"'OAv~nrtd3o date is perhaps soundly based. It certainly falls within the archival period, and the appearance of the three famous names in the same year in the Didaskaliai might well be seized upon by a chronographer as a starting-point.2 But the three earlier dates look very much like a schematic construction designed to place the three known seniors of Aeschylus and Pratinas in their right order at suitable intervals. ' IG ii2.2318; see E. Capps, Hesperia 12 (1943), 10f.; A. W. Pickard-Cambridge, The Dramatic Festivals of Athens (2nd edn, rev. Gould and Lewis, 1968), pp. 71f., 101ff.; 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 rpaywOL8b3was not repeated in each entry in that section, 528 or 526. 2 This epoch is also mentioned in Suda s.v. AiT'XaAos(= Aesch. T 2 Radt): 7y/ovw'LE-ro... v -r7Lo'(0' codd.) 'OAvt1Td& TJ-rbvc'v KE'. The age of twenty-five, in conjunction with the birth- date implied by other ancient reckonings, fixes the year as 01. 70.2 = 498. Eusebius gave yVWpeL'Trounder 497/6 (Armenian) or 496/5 (Jerome), and again underAlXoAo•ros 477/6opaywt807woLoS or 475/4. This content downloaded by the authorized user from 192.168.82.218 on Sun, 25 Nov 2012 07:44:25 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 252 SHORTER NOTES The immediatesource of the Sudaentries was an epitomeof Hesychiusof Miletus' 'OvotzaroAoytKOVorOHtva TV7 Ev votzarTwV.The questionof Hesychius' sourcesis murky.One of themappears 7ratWELt•atto have been some derivativeof Callimachus' Pinakes.This will be the sourceof the play-titleswhich the Sudacites for Thespisand Phrynichus,and for the numbers given for Choerilus'and Pratinas' plays and victories."Besides these, the entriescontain excerptsfrom a presumablyPeripatetic accountof the earlytragedians' individual innovations, especially in regardto masks and costumes: Thespis 7rpWTrovLzEv XptCaT OttzvO/tVWL 7paywtSt-crEv, ELTadvt3pdXvrl- "r7rrpdoaworov TavTa EtIT7VE7KEKaL T7)Tv XpWI7UtV,EV /LOV7rLtOodvrL EUKEITaacLEV.../•idETa T"rV TpoaoWITELl•oV KaTaaCKEvauas. Choerilus Ka-rdaTLtvaS TOLS 7rpOW7rELotLS Kat 7tL K7)VlVLt(1. UKEV•L) "TcV UTro,•tV EiTEXELP7)Ev. PhrynichusTrpTroS yVvaLKEiOV Trpd rWrTOV EtLU7yayEV lv 7El T UK7'V~VL.Kat EvpETr•7/ 70 rTETpa/E"rpove 7E Tro. Pratinas7rpWTroSg EypaE ZarTvpovS. This is the sort of history that Aristotle alludes to in Poet. 1449a37ff.: the identificationof those responsiblefor each developmentin the art of tragedy,who inventedmasks, prologues, plural actors, etc. The Thespis entry also contains the curious information that Thespis was TO EKKat8EKaTO•r O17r 7TpTOU EVO/OU7PEYvovov TpWL07o0to0rot 'E7rmyE'vov To706 LKVWVL'OV - TLtOE"lEvos gE rvTwE, 'ErylE7TLY`vr-'~AAot 8E a'Vo'v W•s •"erTEpoS/rd 7rp•Trov TpaytLKO• yElvcaOatObaaLv. What kind of sourcewas it thatwas able to namefifteen predecessors of Thespis,beginning with Epigenesof Sicyon? I nominatethe fanciful Heraclides Ponticus, who in his yT S filled out early Zvvaywy(4YV7 v IovUaLKEt OKL~I7)o'aTdvwv literaryhistory with crowdsof legendaryand semi-legendarypoets and singers,'and who cited as one of his authorities EV Ta dvaypacq47 LKVC•VLdrTOKELcZ~/E, 8' Td• E lepELaSTr iv TTOS Kcl TO IVULKOVS This "ApyELK(at 7TOUr7TSa v •o dVO/ca1E.5 Sicyonianinscription was itself a ratherimaginative chronicle, set up by some local dilettantepresumably earlier in the fourthcentury.6 No doubt it promotedSicyonian claimsto have inventedtragedy (for whichthe famousreference in Herodotus5.67.5 provideda handle),naming Epigenes and others in this connection.7 But against Heraclides'account of Thespisas the sixteenthtragedian the Suda's sourceset the contraryview that he was the first.So hereis an opponentof Heraclides who dismissesthe tzLEv-vdyKa"prqva of Sicyonian vanity and concentrateson historical Attic developments.We find a parallelto this in Suda/Phot. s.v. o8E'v 7rp6~rvT Aldvvoov:8a firstexplanation that connectsthe sayingwith Epigenesof Sicyon,and then a preferredalternative (fATrLov Si o0r7ws)that connectsit with the (supposed) evolutionof tragedyfrom TarvptKd.This is an Aristotelianperspective; and in this case the source is named: Ka'L XaLzatAEwy lv rltTWLpt aEpl rrtiSo "rdTrapa7rrA-acta laropEi (fr. 48 Giordano). ' Aristophanes' work rrpo TrobVKaAAthLdxov HLvaKas may come into question. Cf. Vita Sophoclis 18 E'XEL6 SpdaTra, c•bs 77Lw 'ApLraro pA'. Fr. 157 Wehrli (ap. ps.-Plut. De musica 1131f dvr1,ff.); cf. fr. 159. 5 Ps.-Plut. ibid. 6 Jacoby ad FGrHist 550. 7 Cf. Arist. Poet. 1448a30-5 ivTL-rotOvraTL r7j r 7)S OL - 7paywCLa•K Kat KWcIOtILSa /JWPLEiS, T7)S V yap KWKC.LW0CL'aS o MEyQpEiS...Kai T7)Sr TpayWL'aSg EVLOL TWcY El IEAoITovv77rUwL. 8 Cf.Apostol. 13.42. Snell in TrGF1 T 18gives precedence to thefuller form in theproverb- collectionof Paris.Coisl. 177; but see the warningof W. Biihler,Zenobii Athoi proverbia i (1987), 278. This content downloaded by the authorized user from 192.168.82.218 on Sun, 25 Nov 2012 07:44:25 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions SHORTER NOTES 253 Chamaeleon's essay on Thespis was one of several he devoted to drama: 7rEpl TrEpt Alax;Aov, 7rEp'Lpaipaas (this in at least six books) are also Zar-Vpwv,cited. We know of at least one other KoKJl•WtLaSoccasion on which he criticized his fellow- Heracleot Heraclides;9 though he was not the only one to assail the latter's ebullient frauds. 10 The bulk of the Suda's information on Thespis, then, may go back to Chamaeleon - author of the only known work 7eptE OE'E7rtoSL - reflecting his polemic against Heraclides Ponticus. The parallel entries on Choerilus, Phrynichus, and Pratinas perhaps derive from the same original account, if not from other Peripatetic work. The Olympiadic chronology attached to them, however, must be attributed to a later source. It is not only expressed in Olympiads in the Suda but must have been conceived in Olympiads from the beginning, as the twelve-year intervals between poets do not represent natural units by any other reckoning. Timaeus was the first who made use of Olympiads for purposes of universal chronology, and the practice is foreign to the Peripatetics.