Aeschylus’ portrayal of ritual is no more ‘‘primitive’’ or ‘‘original’’ than is Euripides’ (or, for that matter, Sophocles’). The Persian evocation of the dead in Persians, or the lament that concludes the play, is no more evidence of a genuine Persian ritual than the lament in Iphigenia among the Taurians is a reproduction of rituals indigenous to the Black Sea. Both are fifth-century Athenian recreations of a fictional world. Considering Aeschylus traditional and Euripides innovative is a question of false perspective. Since we can compare the laments of Euripides to those of Aeschylus, and we can see that their form has changed, we assume that it changed because the poet has changed the form. Because the laments in Aeschylus cannot be compared to anything else before them in tragedy, they seem the original tragic representation of a lament. The strong orientalizing touch that Aeschylus chose to add to some of his laments {Persians 120 and 908-1077, Libation Bearers 423) is taken up in later authors {Euripides, Iphigenia among the Taurians 180, for example), but Aeschylus also put on stage non-orientalizing forms of threnos in Seven against Thebes.
Euripides modifies the structure of the lament, reversing the relationship between the chorus and their leader, and assigning to men rather than to women the duty of performing the mourning ritual. This modification is particularly clear in Andromache, where Peleus starts the lament {1172-96), and in Suppliants, where Adrastus takes up the role of exarchos, leader of the female chorus {798-814); both Peleus and Adrastus end up their laments in a subordinate position, responding to the chorus who has taken up a leading role {Andromache 1197-1225), or facing criticism from the chorus members, who direct the lament by themselves {Suppliants 819, 824-36; Battezzato 1995, 144-52).
World History
