''The Suppliants'' ( grc, Ἱκέτιδες, ''Hiketides'';

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

: ''Supplices''), also called ''The Suppliant Maidens'', ''The Suppliant Women'', or ''Supplices'' is a play by

Aeschylus Aeschylus (, ; grc-gre, Αἰσχύλος ; c. 525/524 – c. 456/455 BC) was an ancient Greek tragedian, and is often described as the father of tragedy. Academic knowledge of the genre begins with his work, and understanding of earlier Greek ...

. It was probably first performed "only a few years previous to the ''

Oresteia The ''Oresteia'' ( grc, Ὀρέστεια) is a trilogy of Greek tragedies written by Aeschylus in the 5th century BCE, concerning the murder of Agamemnon by Clytemnestra, the murder of Clytemnestra by Orestes, the trial of Orestes, the end of th ...

'', which was brought out 458 BC." It seems to be the first play in a tetralogy, sometimes referred to as the ''Danaid Tetralogy'', which probably included the lost plays ''The Egyptians'' (also called ''Aigyptioi''), and ''The Daughters of Danaus'' (also called ''The Danaïdes'' or ''The Danaids''), and the

satyr play The satyr play is a form of Attic theatre performance related to both comedy and tragedy. It preserves theatrical elements of dialogue, actors speaking verse, a chorus that dances and sings, masks and costumes. Its relationship to tragedy is stro ...

''Amymone''. The 1952 publication of Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 2256 fr. 3 confirmed the existence of a trilogy, probably produced in 463. See Garvie 163-97, Friis Johansen/Whittle 1.23-25 and Sommerstein 141-52 for discussions of the trilogy's date, constituent plays and a hypothetical reconstruction of the plot. It was long thought to be the earliest surviving play by Aeschylus due to the relatively anachronistic function of the

chorus Chorus may refer to: Music * Chorus (song) or refrain, line or lines that are repeated in music or in verse * Chorus effect, the perception of similar sounds from multiple sources as a single, richer sound * Chorus form, song in which all verse ...

as the

protagonist A protagonist () is the main character of a story. The protagonist makes key decisions that affect the plot, primarily influencing the story and propelling it forward, and is often the character who faces the most significant obstacles. If a st ...

of the

drama Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has been ...

. However, evidence discovered in the mid-twentieth century shows it one of Aeschylus' last plays, definitely written after ''

The Persians ''The Persians'' ( grc, Πέρσαι, ''Persai'', Latinised as ''Persae'') is an Greek tragedy, ancient Greek tragedy written during the Classical Greece, Classical period of Ancient Greece by the Greek tragedian Aeschylus. It is the second and on ...

'' and possibly after ''

Seven Against Thebes The Seven against Thebes were seven champions in Greek mythology who made war on Thebes. They were chosen by Adrastus, the king of Argos, to be the captains of an Argive army whose purpose was to restore Oedipus' son Polynices to the Theban th ...

''.

"Those at least who judge by the style, the simplicity of the plot, the paucity of the characters, and the predominance of choric action, will be reluctant to believe that the ''Suppliants'' was composed more than ten years after the ''Prometheus'', ''Persians'', and ''Seven against Thebes''. It may be remarked, though not as an evidence of date, that the play is rather a melodrama than a tragedy. It ends happily, and has no other claim to the latter title than from the pathos excited and sustained by the helpless condition of the fugitive maidens in a foreign land. On the whole, it is rather a good play; and though it has obtained a bad name among scholars on the score of its many corruptions, yet there is a grace and a dignity in the choruses, and a general tenderness, virtue, and artlessness in the characters, that impart a very pleasing tone to the whole composition."

Plot

The Danaids form the chorus and serve as the protagonists. They flee a forced marriage to their

Egyptian Egyptian describes something of, from, or related to Egypt. Egyptian or Egyptians may refer to: Nations and ethnic groups * Egyptians, a national group in North Africa ** Egyptian culture, a complex and stable culture with thousands of years of ...

cousins. When the Danaids reach

Argos Argos most often refers to: * Argos, Peloponnese, a city in Argolis, Greece ** Ancient Argos, the ancient city * Argos (retailer), a catalogue retailer operating in the United Kingdom and Ireland Argos or ARGOS may also refer to: Businesses ...

from Egypt, they entreat King

Pelasgus In Greek mythology, Pelasgus ( grc, Πελασγός, ''Pelasgós'' means "ancient") was the eponymous ancestor of the Pelasgians, the mythical inhabitants of Greece who established the worship of the Dodonaean Zeus, Hephaestus, the Cabeiri, and ot ...

to protect them. He refuses pending the decision of the Argive people, who decide in the favour of the Danaids.

Danaus In Greek mythology, Danaus (, ; grc, Δαναός ''Danaós'') was the king of Libya. His myth is a foundation legend of Argos, one of the foremost Mycenaean cities of the Peloponnesus. In Homer's ''Iliad'', "Danaans" ("tribe of Danaus") and " ...

rejoices the outcome, and the Danaids praise the Greek deities. Almost immediately, a herald of the Egyptians comes to attempt to force the Danaids to return to their cousins for marriage. Pelasgus arrives, threatens the herald, and urges the Danaids to remain within the walls of Argos. The play ends with the Danaids retreating into the Argive walls, protected.

Themes

George Thomson, expanding on D. S. Robertson, interpreted the tetralogy as a defence of the Athenian law requiring widows to marry a brother or cousin of their deceased husband in some circumstances in order to keep his property within the family. According to this interpretation, the Danaids' predicament of being forced into a marriage with their cousins would not have generated so much sympathy with the initial audience, which was accustomed to such marriages, as it might today. This is reflected in the question Pelasgus asks of the Danaids' in ''The Suppliants'' that echoes Athenian law on the subject: "If the sons of Aigyptos are your masters by the law of the land, claiming to be your next-of-kin, who would wish to oppose them?" Thomson speculates that as ''Oresteia'' ends by validating the contemporary Athenian law regarding trial for murder by the court of

Areopagus The Areopagus () is a prominent rock outcropping located northwest of the Acropolis in Athens, Greece. Its English name is the Late Latin composite form of the Greek name Areios Pagos, translated "Hill of Ares" ( grc, Ἄρειος Πάγο� ...

, the Danaid plays may have ended by validating the contemporary Athenian law regarding marriage of next-of-kin when the husband dies without an heir. Thomson further suggests the possibility that as ''Oresteia's'' ending dramatizes the establishment of the court of Areopagus, the Danaid plays may have ended by dramatizing the establishment of the festival of the

Thesmophoria The Thesmophoria ( grc, Θεσμοφόρια) was an ancient Greek religious festival, held in honor of the goddess Demeter and her daughter Persephone. It was held annually, mostly around the time that seeds were sown in late autumn – though ...

, a festival reserved for women that was based on the cult of

Demeter In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Demeter (; Attic: ''Dēmḗtēr'' ; Doric: ''Dāmā́tēr'') is the Olympian goddess of the harvest and agriculture, presiding over crops, grains, food, and the fertility of the earth. Although s ...

which, according to

Herodotus Herodotus ( ; grc, , }; BC) was an ancient Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus, part of the Persian Empire (now Bodrum, Turkey) and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria ( Italy). He is known f ...

, was brought to Greece from Egypt by the Danaids. Ridgeway, on the other hand, interpreted the plays as a dramatization of the conflict between

matrilineal Matrilineality is the tracing of kinship through the female line. It may also correlate with a social system in which each person is identified with their matriline – their mother's Lineage (anthropology), lineage – and which can in ...

and

patrilineal Patrilineality, also known as the male line, the spear side or agnatic kinship, is a common kinship system in which an individual's family membership derives from and is recorded through their father's lineage. It generally involves the inheritanc ...

inheritance. The French scholars

Jean-Pierre Vernant Jean-Pierre Vernant (; January 4, 1914 – January 9, 2007) was a French historian and anthropologist, specialist in ancient Greece. Influenced by Claude Lévi-Strauss, Vernant developed a structuralist approach to Greek myth, tragedy, and ...

and

Pierre Vidal-Naquet Pierre Emmanuel Vidal-Naquet (; 23 July 1930 – 29 July 2006) was a French historian who began teaching at the ''École des hautes études en sciences sociales'' (EHESS) in 1969. Vidal-Naquet was a specialist in the study of Ancient Greece, but ...

argued that the Danaïds objected to cousin marriage because they saw it as incest; this theory has, however, been discredited.

Lost plays of the tetralogy

The remaining plays of the tetralogy have been mostly lost. However, one significant passage from ''The Danaids'' has been preserved. This is a speech by the goddess of love

Aphrodite Aphrodite ( ; grc-gre, Ἀφροδίτη, Aphrodítē; , , ) is an ancient Greek goddess associated with love, lust, beauty, pleasure, passion, and procreation. She was syncretized with the Roman goddess . Aphrodite's major symbols include ...

praising the marriage between the sky (the groom) and the earth (the bride) from which rain comes, nourishing cattle, corn, and fruits. As the plot of the remaining plays has been generally reconstructed, following a war with the Aegyptids in which Pelasgus has been killed, Danaus becomes tyrant of Argos. The marriage is forced upon his daughters, but Danaus instructs them to murder their husbands on their wedding night. All do except for

Hypermnestra Hypermnestra ( grc, Ὑπερμνήστρα, ''Hypermnēstra''), in Greek mythology, was a Libyan princess as one of the 50 Danaids the daughter of King Danaus, son of King Belus of Egypt. Her mother was Elephantis and full sister to Gorgophone ...

, whose husband, Lynceus, flees. Danaus imprisons or threatens to kill Hypermnestra for her disobedience, but Lynceus reappears and kills Danaus; Lynceus becomes the new king of Argos, with Hypermnestra as his queen. Opinions differ as to the ending, although certainly

was involved in the denouement. One opinion is that Lynceus now must decide how to punish the forty-nine homicidal Danaids, when

appears in ''

deus ex machina ''Deus ex machina'' ( , ; plural: ''dei ex machina''; English "god out of the machine") is a plot device whereby a seemingly unsolvable problem in a story is suddenly and abruptly resolved by an unexpected and unlikely occurrence. Its function ...

'' fashion and absolves them of the murders, as they were obeying their father; she then persuades them to abandon their celibate ways, and the trilogy closes with their marriages to forty-nine local Argive men. An alternative opinion is that Hypermnestra is put on trial for disobeying her father and Aphrodite successfully defends her similarly to

Apollo Apollo, grc, Ἀπόλλωνος, Apóllōnos, label=genitive , ; , grc-dor, Ἀπέλλων, Apéllōn, ; grc, Ἀπείλων, Apeílōn, label=Arcadocypriot Greek, ; grc-aeo, Ἄπλουν, Áploun, la, Apollō, la, Apollinis, label= ...

's defense of

Orestes In Greek mythology, Orestes or Orestis (; grc-gre, Ὀρέστης ) was the son of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon, and the brother of Electra. He is the subject of several Ancient Greek plays and of various myths connected with his madness an ...

in ''

''. The trilogy was followed by the

''Amymone'', which comically portrayed a seduction of one of the Danaids by Poseidon.

Notes

Sources

* F. A. Paley, ''Aeschylus Translated into English Prose.'', Cambridge, 1864 *F. A. Paley, ''The Tragedies of Aeschylus.'', London, 1879 *Friis Johansen, H. and Whittle, E.W. ''Aeschylus:'' ''The Suppliants.'' 3 vols. Copenhagen, 1980. * Garvie, A.F. ''Aeschylus Supplices'', Play and Trilogy''. Cambridge, 1969. * Sommerstein, Alan. ''Aeschylean Tragedy''. Bari, 1996.

Translations

Theodore Alois Buckley Theodore Alois William Buckley (1825–1856) was a translator of Homer and other classical works. In 1852 Buckley published the book "''The great cities of the ancient world in their glory and their desolation''". This book depicts stories, descri ...

, 1849 - prose
full text
* F. A. Paley, 1855 - prose
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* F. A. Paley, 1864 - prose
full text
* Anna Swanwick, 1886 - verse:

full text In text retrieval, full-text search refers to techniques for searching a single computer-stored document or a collection in a full-text database. Full-text search is distinguished from searches based on metadata or on parts of the original texts ...

E. D. A. Morshead Edmund Doidge Anderson Morshead (1849 – 24 October 1912) was an English classicist and teacher. Biography He was the son of John Philip Anderson Morshead, educated at Winchester College and New College, Oxford; and later returned to teach cla ...

, 1908 - verse
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* Walter George Headlam and C. E. S. Headlam, 1909 - prose *

Herbert Weir Smyth Herbert Weir Smyth (August 8, 1857 – July 16, 1937) was an American classical scholar. His comprehensive grammar of Ancient Greek has become a standard reference on the subject in English, comparable to that of William Watson Goodwin, whom he s ...

, 1922 - prose
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* G. M. Cookson, 1922 - verse *

Gilbert Murray George Gilbert Aimé Murray (2 January 1866 – 20 May 1957) was an Australian-born British classical scholar and public intellectual, with connections in many spheres. He was an outstanding scholar of the language and culture of Ancient Greece ...

, 1930 - verse * S. G. Benardete, 1956 - verse *

Philip Vellacott Philip Humphrey Vellacott (16 January 1907 – 24 August 1997) was an English classical scholar, known for his numerous translations of Greek tragedy. He was born at Grays, Essex and educated at St Paul's School, London and Magdalene College, Ca ...

, 1961 - verse * Peter Burian, 1991 - verse * Christopher Collard, 2008 * George Theodoridis, 2009 - prose
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* Ian C. Johnston, 2013, verse
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External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Suppliants Plays by Aeschylus Mythology of Argos Plays set in ancient Greece Plays based on classical mythology