Etymology

Welcker suggested in 1826 that the tragos (‘‘billy goat’’) element in the word tragoidia referred to goat-like satyrs and that satyrs of this type were the performers of Aristotle’s saturikon, notions that were later widely accepted through the advocacy ofWilamowitz (Burkert 1966, 88 n. 2). Two pieces of evidence are cited. The first is from the Etymologicum Magnum, a Byzantine lexicon, which among other explanations of the term ‘‘tragedy’’ offers this: ‘‘Or because for the most part the choruses consisted of satyrs, which they called ‘billy goats’ mockingly, or because of the hairiness of their bodies, or because of their enthusiasm for things sexual, for that is the kind of creature they are’’ (764.5-9). The second is from the lexicographer Hesychius: ‘‘ ‘Billy goats’: satyrs, because of having billy goats’ ears’’ (t 1237 Schmidt). Here ‘‘billy goats’’ and ‘‘satyrs’’ are in the accusative case, indicating that the first is a quotation which is being glossed by the second. The Hesychius passage reveals the background in ancient scholarly exegesis of the apparent attestation of satyr-choruses for tragedy that is found in the Etymologicum Magnum.

Three extant passages from satyr-play that connect satyrs with goats or goatskins exemplify the sort of literary text that prompted and guided the exegetical commentary. In Euripides’ Cyclops (78-82) satyrs shepherding for Polyphemus wear goatskins, but these are garments typical of shepherds, not evidence for satyric costume. In Sophocles’ Trackers (Ichneutae, fr. 314.367-68) a satyr is compared to a goat in point of beard and lust, and in a fragment of Aeschylus (fr. 207), though we lack the context, there is no reason to assume that the satyr is actually (as opposed to metaphorically) a billy goat (Pickard-Cambridge 1927, 153-55; Burkert 1966, 90 n. 5; Lesky 1983, 13-14). Hesychius is clearly glossing a comparable passage in which a group of satyrs were called ‘‘billy goats.’’ The explanation of‘‘tragedy’’ in the Etymologicum Magnum is just as clearly based on such passages rather than on a tradition that early tragedy was performed by goat-like satyrs. The author cites the fact that satyrs were ‘‘called ‘billy goats’ mockingly’’ to account for the notion of satyr-choruses in tragedy; in other words he is citing precisely the use of the term ‘‘billy goat’’ as simile or metaphor that we have seen in our passages from satyr-play. That is not evidence that satyrs were billy goats; on the contrary, it contradicts that claim. Nor does it suggest that the author has information about the remotest origins of tragedy, merely that he is familiar with classical satyr-drama. It is not then that the author has made a bad job of explaining the proposition that tragic choruses ‘‘for the most part’’ consisted of satyrs, but that the proposition is a guess based on, not information independent of, the metaphorical usage he was familiar with; the telling qualification ‘‘for the most part’’ betrays the not very confident guesswork. That is the full ancient evidence for tragedy as ‘‘the song of the goats = satyrs’’ and for the existence of goat-like satyrs in the classical period. Such creatures emerged in the Hellenistic period (and were perhaps known to the author of the passage glossed in Hesychius), but, as Furtwangler observed long ago, the satyrs of the classical period resembled not goats but horses (Pickard-Cambridge 1927, 149-54; Burkert 1966, 90 with n. 5).

A second fatal objection to the goat-satyrs theory is linguistic (Burkert 1966, 9293 with n. 12). In determinative compounds of the type tragoidos (‘‘tragedian,’’ which, rather than tragoidia, ‘‘tragedy,’’ is the primary form) the first component determines the second rather than vice versa; that is, the word does not mean ‘‘singing goat’’ or ‘‘goat that sings’’ but must denote a ‘‘singer’’ who sings about, or in some kind of connection with, a goat. ‘‘Singer for the goat-prize’’ is the only possibility that makes sense, and there is an excellent ancient parallel for it. Dionysius of Argos, in the fourth or third century bce, said that arnoidos was an earlier term for rhapsoidos, ‘‘rhapsode,’’ explaining the term on the basis of ‘‘a lamb [arnos] being appointed as the prize for the victors’’ (FrGHist 308 fr. 2).

There is abundant ancient evidence for tragoidia understood as ‘‘song for the prize goat.’’ The best-known evidence is Horace, Arspoetica 220-24 (‘‘he who with tragic song competed for a mere goat’’); the earliest is the Parian Marble, a chronicle inscribed about 264/63 bce, which records, under a date between 538 and 528 bce: ‘‘Thespis the poet.. .first produced.. .and as prize was established the billy goat’’ (FrGHist 239A, epoch 43); the clearest is Eustathius 1769.45: ‘‘They called those competing ‘tragedians’ [tragOidoi], clearly because of the song over the billy goat [epi tragOi... Oiden]’ (cf. Dioscorides, Anthologia Palatina 7.410.3-4; Diomedes 1: 488 Keil; Euanthius 13-14 Wessner 1902-5).

Convinced nevertheless that Aristotle thought the performers of the earliest tragic drama were got up as goat-like satyrs, most twentieth-century scholars went on to assume that this was a central issue in an ancient debate about the origins of tragedy (Lesky 1983, 1-24, is again representative). On their construction, Aristotle and his peripatetic successors consistently maintained his (that is, their) view of the name and original nature of tragedy against the opposition of those who interpreted the name as ‘‘song for the goat-prize’’ and regarded satyr-drama as a novelty of the late sixth century, introduced to Athens by Pratinas from Argive Phlius.