The regular increase in the proportion of resolved feet in the iambic trimeters of Euripides' later plays was first commented upon in 1807 by J. Gottfried Hermann, who therefrom deduced the principle that the date of any play of Euripides could be directly determined from the frequency of its resolutions. This criterion he restated in several of his works in the following years, and when Elmsley objected that it was of uncertain value on account of the small number of plays (...) of certain date by which it might be verified, he replied with a strong defence of his case: he did not, however, develop his principle in detail or give figures in its support. The first scholar to publish the totals of trisyllabic feet in each play was Zirndorfer: relying largely on these, he produced a chronology of Euripides' dramatic composition in several respects superior to any predecessor's. His conclusions were questioned by C. F. W. Müller, who, while accepting Hermann's thesis as being in general correct, doubted its reliability for determining the exact period of a tragedy's composition. Consequently, although he gave the totals of trisyllabic feet en passant, Müller made no attempt to suggest dates. At almost the same time as Müller's treatise appeared, J. Rumpel published an article giving a full and detailed list of references to all trisyllabic feet in Euripides: from this evidence he divided the dramas into four age-groups, but did not go so far as to assign specific dates. (shrink)

Nearly every edition of Aeschylus published between 1782 and 1852 contained readings from what were called ‘Askew's collations’ or the ‘Askew MSS.’—usually referred to as Ask. A, Ask. B, Ask. C, Ask. D, Ask. a, Colb. 1, and Colb. 2. These MSS., which were very briefly described, were stated in these editions to be Paris MSS. which had been collated by Askew. Blomfield, however, discovered that Askew had transcribed all the collations from a note-book that had belonged to Needham, and (...) Pierron accused Askew of deliberate plagiarism and unscrupulous dishonesty. The late Prof. H. W. Smyth in a recent note on the subject attempted to identify the ‘Askew MSS.’, and maintained the charge of plagiarism; but his conclusions were based on inadequate evidence, and were consequently partly incorrect. A full study of all the available evidence, a summary of which I give below, not only clears Askew's name of any plagiarism, but also establishes the identity of the MSS. (shrink)

The distribution of the parts among the actors in the O.C. is a problem that has long defied solution. In all the other extant plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides the dramatis personae can without difficulty be divided between three actors: but the construction of the O.C. is so complex that it does not admit any such simple allocation. When the part of Oedipus has been assigned to the first actor, and that of Antigone to the second, the roles of (...) the Stranger , Ismene , Creon , and Polyneices must clearly belong to the third: who, then, is to play Theseus ? It seems impossible to allot the part complete to any one of the three actors. Faced by this crux, all those who have dealt with the subject have chosen one or the other of two clear-cut alternatives, either the assumption of a fourth regular actor, or else the splitting-up of the single part of Theseus between two or three actors. These two alternatives, both of which are far from satisfactory—the former infringing the three-actor rule, the latter offending against scenic probability and realism—are fully examined below; at the end of the paper a new part-distribution is suggested, which, it is hoped, avoids both these faults. (shrink)