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Updated: June 16, 2025
The preference was given to subjects derived from the siege of Troy and the legends immediately connected with it, evidently because this cycle of myths alone was familiar to the Roman public through instruction at school; by their side incidents of striking horror predominate, such as matricide or infanticide in the -Eumenides-, the -Alcmaeon-, the -Cresphontes-, the -Melanippe-, the -Medea-, and the immolation of virgins in the -Polyxena-, the -Erechthides-, the -Andromeda-, the -Iphigenia- we cannot avoid recalling the fact, that the public for which these tragedies were prepared was in the habit of witnessing gladiatorial games.
As an example of motiveless degradation of character, we have Menelaus in the Orestes: of character indecorous and inappropriate, the lament of Odysseus in the Scylla, and the speech of Melanippe: of inconsistency, the Iphigenia at Aulis, for Iphigenia the suppliant in no way resembles her later self.
For while he yet swayed and jolted upon the back of the restive Hannibal, and even endeavored to discuss with the fair young scholar who rode beside him, the "Melanippe" of Euripides, the same fair scholar who, in spite of all her Greek learning was only a mischievous and sometimes very rude young girl faced him with a sober countenance.
Here once when Melanippe, daughter of Ares, had gone forth, the hero Heracles caught her by ambuscade and Hippolyte gave him her glistening girdle as her sister's ransom, and he sent away his captive unharmed. In the bay of this headland, at the outfall of Thermodon, they ran ashore, for the sea was rough for their voyage.
Interesting is also the introduction to the drama Melanippe: “Zeus, whoever Zeus may be; for of that I only know what is told.” Aeschylus begins a strophe in one of his most famous choral odes with almost the same words: “Zeus, whoe’er he be; for if he desire so to be called, I will address him by this name.” In him it is an expression of genuine antique piety, which excludes all human impertinence towards the gods to such a degree that it even forgoes knowing their real names.
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