IPHIGENIA IN AULIDE
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 December 2010
Summary
It is allowed by all modern critics, that the Iphigenia at Aulis lias come down to us in an imperfect state. There are good grounds for believing that it has been extensively interpolated by a later writer, after the decline of the true Attic drama; and that the form in which we have it is due to a desire to complete what had been left by the poet himself imperfect, or to remodel it (ἀνασκευάξειν) for exhibition after his death. We are expressly told by the Schol. on Ar. Ran. 67, who quotes the authority of the Didascaliae, that after the death of Euripides his son of the same name (some say, his nephew) exhibited at the City Dionysia (ἐν ἄστει) the Iphigenia at Aulis, the Alcmaeon, and the Bacchae. There is no improbability therefore in. the opinion entertained by many, that the younger Euripides completed what the elder had left imperfect. This indeed is more than probable; because the interpolations, which can be detected by internal evidence alone, are by no means badly written in general, and are, many of them at least, just such as a somewhat inferior genius might have supplied, especially towards the decline of the art.
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- EuripidesWith an English Commentary, pp. 441 - 550Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010First published in: 1860