With the exception of the Phrygian slave in Euripides’ Orestes (Maas 1962, 53-54), slaves and characters of low social standing are not important enough to be given a lyric section. They deliver anapests and hexameters, but they are not exalted enough to be given proper singing parts (on the delivery of hexameters in tragedy see Pretagostini 1995). On the other hand, song is generally not sufficiently dignified for male Greek heroes. Since song expresses uncontrolled emotion, it is more appropriate for the female sex, or for barbarians such as Xerxes in Aeschylus’ Persians, Polymestor in Euripides’ Hecuba, and the Phrygian slave in Euripides’ Orestes. As a rule, male heroes in their prime do not sing. In Euripides, boys, young adults, and old men often have lyric parts. In order of age, we can mention the young children of Alcestis (Alcestis) and Andromache (Andromache), the title characters of Ion and Hippolytus (young adults), and the old men Peleus (Andromache) and Oedipus (Phoenician Women; see Hall 1999a, 112). Theseus briefly laments the death of Phaedra in Hippolytus, and Menelaus sings a few lines in a lyric dialogue with his wife in Helen; Adrastus laments the death of the heroes fallen at Thebes in a lyric dialogue with their mothers (Suppliants); Orestes repents the killing of his mother in a dialogue with his sister and accomplice Electra (Electra). These characters are swayed to a display of lyric emotionalism either by their wives or by other women.
Sophocles is the important exception to this rule. His male heroes sing on stage, and they engage in lyric dialogues with male choruses or companions. This happens especially when they are overtaken by extreme physical suffering (Oedipus in Oedipus the King, Heracles in Women ofTrachis) or psychological anguish (Ajax and Philoctetes in their name-plays, Creon in Antigone). This reversal is rather surprising. Aristophanes mocks Euripides with some justice for discussing everyday subjects in his monodies (Frogs 1329-63) and for presenting kings in rags (Acharnians412-34, Frogs 842, 1063); but Euripides does not go as far as Sophocles in giving his male heroes a large lyric presence. Euripides is more of an innovator in the visual presentation of the play, whereas Sophocles explores the range of expressive possibilities in assigning lyric sections to his male protagonists. Hippolytus is the most important Euripidean experiment in this direction, with two monodies for the two male protagonists, Theseus and Hippolytus; this innovation might reflect the influence of Sophocles.
Sophocles’ choices struck some ancient critics as provocative. Cicero criticized Sophocles for his portrayal of the suffering Heracles in Women of Trachis, as well as Aeschylus for his portrait of Prometheus (Tusculan Disputations 2.19-25); some of the passages he objects to are in lyric meters. Cicero praised the Roman tragedians, who showed male characters bearing physical suffering with ‘‘stoic’’ patience and without abject lamentation (Tusculan Disputations 2.38-39, 48-50).
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