Iakovos Kambanellis's The Supper: Heterotopia, Intertextuality and Metatheatre in a Modern Tragic Trilogy

The aim of this paper is to throw new light on Iakovos Kambanellis' trilogy The Sup­per (Ό Δείπνος) by analyzing its intertextual relations to ancient Greek tragedies about the Atreid myth, by exploring its metatheatrical aspects, and by discussing its construction of theatrical space as a heterotopia. Kambanellis' trilogy is shot through with metatheatrical devices (role-play, make-believe action, references to dramatic convention) and with sustained references (explicit, oblique or cleverly distorted) to ancient Greek tragic versions of the Atreid myth. The trilogy's elaborate and sophis­ticated fusion of lived reality and dramatic fiction is enhanced by its construction of space as a heterotopia, a locus that is at once physically real and phantasmatic

"Nothing that is not Zeus" the unknowability of the Gods and the limits of human knowledge in Sophoclean tragedy

In the present thesis the author professes to offer neither a systematic account of Sophoclean theology (if indeed there is such a thing) nor a study of the epistemological problem per se in Sophoclean tragedy. His purpose is rather to illuminate - partly expanding on a brief but suggestive study by Hans Diller ("Gottliches und menschliches Wissen bei Sophocles", Kiel 1950) - the ways in which the epistemological chasm between Man and God in Sophoclean tragedy becomes manifest through a 'collision' between the incompleteness and limitedness of human knowledge on the one hand and the transcendence and the unknowability of the gods on the other. An introductory chapter is prefixed which deals with the development of the idea of divine unknowability in archaic Greek literature and in Presocratic philosophy. There follows a detailed examination of the extant plays one by one (with special emphasis on the close reading of practically all the choral odes), by means of which the author endeavours to demonstrate that the centrality of the epistemological problem (in relation, always, to the inscrutability of the Godhead) in Sophocles, far from reducing his dramas to abstract philosophical treatises, contains a tremendous tragic potential and makes for powerful plays. Aspects of each play's structure, of its thematic articulation and of its vocabulary are studied, while a variety of methodological approaches are employed in order to illuminate problems of interpretation. All important secondary literature is cited and / or discussed. Thus, while never losing sight of its central concern (divine unknowability, limitedness of human knowledge), the present thesis also aims to be a thorough study of Sophoclean tragedy as a whole

The Thracian Cult of Rhesus and the Heros Equitans

A survey of the available evidence for the Thracian cult of Rhesus, mainly on the basis of the pseudo-Euripidean Rhesus and of Philostratus’ Heroicus, shows that the identification of Rhesus with the so-called Heros Equitans, or “Thracian Horseman” (first proposed almost a century ago by G. Seure) rests on firmer ground than is sometimes assumed. The paper also reviews significant portions of the pictorial and epigraphic evidence for the Heros Equitans. It concludes that the parallels between Rhesus and the Heros Equitans are too striking to be ignored.Un relevé analytique de la documentation disponible sur le culte thrace de Rhésos, se fondant surtout sur le Rhésos du pseudo-Euripide et sur l’Heroikos de Philostrate, montre que l’identification de Rhésos avec le prétendu « Heros Equitans » ou « Cavalier thrace » (d’abord proposée, il y a près d’un siècle, par G. Seure) repose sur des fondements plus assurés qu’on ne le pense parfois. Cet article passe également en revue des parties significatives de la documentation iconographique et épigraphique pour le Heros Equitans. On en conclut que le parallélisme entre ce dernier et Rhésos est trop frappant pour être ignoré

Notes on Rhesus

This is a set of philological notes on the text of [Euripides’] Rhesus. They are intended as a companion to my forthcoming commentary on the play (Oxford University Press, 2012). They are concerned mainly with textual problems: they discuss manuscript variants and offer, where possible, new emendations. They also include some metrical discussions.En este artículo se presenta una serie de notas filológicas al texto de [Eurípides] Rhesus. Se trata de un addendum a mi próximo comentario de esta obra (Oxford University press, 2012). Son fundamentalmente notas sobre problemas textuales: se discuten variantes textuales y se ofrece, cuando es posible, nuevas conjeturas. También se incluyen algunas discusiones sobre métrica

An Ancient Hypothesis to <i>Rhesus</i>, and Dicaearchus’ <i>Hypotheseis</i>

The claim of a hypothesis to Euripides&rsquo;&nbsp;Rhesus&nbsp;that Dicaearchus knew of two prologues to the play can help clarify the context, scope, and authenticity of his introductions to classical tragedies. </span