Early Tragedy

A commemorative inscription of the third century bce seems to have listed at most eight poets, and possibly as few as four, who won tragic victories at the Dionysia before Aeschylus, and three whose first victories fell between those of Aeschylus (484) and Sophocles (468). The latter are the virtually unknown Euetes and ‘‘—ippus’’ (Nothippus?), and Phrynichus’ son Polyphrasmon. The lost names before Aeschylus must have included Choerilus, Phrynichus, and Pratinas. According to later tradition, tragedy was in some sense established at Athens in the late 530s, but there may have been no official competition, or records, before the first years of the democracy, and earlier recorded ‘‘facts’’ may be fourth-century factoids. The traditional inventor of tragedy was Thespis, who was supposed to have added a speaking part for an actor or ‘‘respondent’’ (hupokrites) to what had previously been narrative choral performances. Aristotle’s Poetics adds that Aeschylus introduced a second actor and Sophocles a third. These assertions probably reflect at least an underlying truth that tragedy developed out of choral performance through the successive introductions of a first, a second, and a third actor, and that one-actor tragedy was the norm until or beyond the beginning of Aeschylus’ career in the early 490s. Apart from this there is little usable information about Thespis: four play-titles which might possibly be genuine (Pelias’ Funeral Games or Phorbas, Priests, Youths, Pentheus), and five fragments probably from plays forged under his name in the late fourth century. Choerilus is hardly more substantial, with one title (Alope), two fragments comprising riddling phrases, and a tradition that he produced 160 plays, won thirteen prizes (possibly a record-based detail), and competed from the 520s to perhaps as late as the 460s. The first non-Athenian tragedian appears to have been Pratinas of Phlius, a versatile composer and choreographer who probably died before 467, when a production of his plays by his son Aristias, including Perseus, Tantalus, and a satyric Wrestlers, came second to Aeschylus’ Theban tetralogy. None of his few surviving fragments is likely to be from a tragedy.

For the better-attested Phrynichus, the record shows a first victory between 511 and 508 and (more reliably) another in 476 with a production financed by the politician Themistocles. His son Polyphrasmon won his first prize in or about 471. Ten plays are known by title, and two dozen brief fragments give substance to four of them. Alcestis anticipated Euripides’ treatment of the story, including Apollo’s trading of Alcestis for Admetus and Death’s appearance to claim her. Pleuronian Women may have concerned the suicide of Althaea after she had burned the brand on which her son Meleager’s life depended. More notable than these, however, are two or three recorded tragedies that dramatized contemporary events. Phoenician Women was apparently the model for Aeschylus’ Persians, and was probably part of Phrynichus’ winning production in 476. The hypothesis to Aeschylus’ play says that Phoenician Women began with a eunuch preparing for a council meeting following the news from Salamis, and this suggests a setting in the royal capital with a chorus of councilors, whereas the play’s title indicates a chorus of Phoenician women and a setting in the naval base of Sidon. Perhaps the eunuch-scene belonged to a different play known as Just Men or Persians or Councilors (unless, as some scholars suppose, all four titles refer to a single play). At any rate, here are one or two plays about a recent event, and the earlier Capture of Miletus has the added distinction of being about a Greek rather than a Persian disaster, the capture and depopulation of Miletus by the Persians, which ended the Ionian revolt in 494. Our information about this tragedy comes from Herodotus (6.21), who implies that it was produced soon after the disaster and says that the Athenians were so upset by it that they fined Phrynichus ‘‘for calling to mind troubles that were their own [oikeia kaka],’’ and banned further ‘‘use’’ of the play (which may mean reuse of Phrynichus’ material rather than reperformance: Mulke 2000). This anecdote has provoked endless speculation about Phrynichus’ reasons for choosing the subject and the Athenians’ reasons for condemning it, but it may be simply that the playwright’s sympathetic commemoration of a terrible event proved too painful for an Athenian audience that felt strong ties with the doomed city. The episode provides a revealing insight into the emotional power of tragedy even in its early days, and it helps to explain why the tragedians generally avoided contemporary subjects. Apart from the plays about Salamis, no other such play is recorded.1

Any generalization about the early form and style of tragedy relies essentially on extrapolation from Aeschylus’ surviving plays. Later recollections emphasized the distinction and variety of its music and choreography, and the fragments suggest that Aeschylus’ elevated and abstruse poetic diction was characteristic of early tragedy. So perhaps were the dramatization of ritual forms and human interactions with the divine or supernatural, which we see in Persians, Libation Bearers, and Eumenides (cf. Mastronarde, chapter 20 in this volume). Later sources such as Aristotle’s Poetics and the anonymous Life of Aeschylus credit Aeschylus with major advances in dramatic form, including the second actor, ‘‘reducing’’ tragedy’s choral elements, and ‘‘giving the leading role to logos,” that is, to the spoken word delivered by actors. Such schemata should not be pushed too far, but the broad picture is consistent and plausible. Aeschylus’ Persians, Seven against Thebes, and Suppliants are two-actor plays with a simple development and a chorus closely connected with a primary character (respectively queen, king, and father), no doubt played by the first actor (who would also have played the returning king at the end of Persians). The chorus, or chorus and primary character together, propound and discuss the dramatic situation, and react to new events and information. Persians and Suppliants, uniquely in extant fifth-century tragedy, begin with the chorus’s entrance. In Persians and Seven against Thebes the second actor (Messenger and Ghost of Darius; Scout and Messenger) merely brings new information, whereas in Suppliants he participates in the dramatic action (Pelasgus; Egyptian herald); but in all three plays interaction between the two actors is very limited. From such characteristics and their gradual attenuation one can plausibly posit an earlier one-actor form in which a chorus awaited the outcome of a crisis while explaining its background to the audience (parodos and stasimon), news of the outcome was brought by an actor (report-speech and perhaps question-and-answer dialogue), and its impact provoked displays of sorrow or joy, perhaps accompanying a procession or tableau. The emotional profile is anxiety and suspense, then shock (or relief), then sorrow (or joy). (On this ‘‘dynamic structure’’ see West 1990b, 3-25.) What one-actor drama presumably lacked was the elaboration and complication of these ingredients through debate and emotional conflict, deception and persuasion, surprise and changes of mind, conveyed largely through the discourse of individual characters. Another kind of elaboration was the linking of the plays in a production in a narratively connected tetralogy, which is particularly associated with Aeschylus. There is no evidence that his practice was at all widely imitated; in his time only Polyphrasmon’s Lycurgus tetralogy is recorded, coming third behind Aeschylus’ Theban tetralogy in 467.