Euripides

The suppression of the Bacchanalia in Rome 186 BCE was the first major religious persecution in Europe. The essay provides a new analysis, referring to the political theory of Eric Voegelin. It shows that the suppression was a reaction of the Roman commonwealth to a cult which challgenged the meaning of political existence within the republic. Ultimately, the Bacchanalian affair is a collision of two types of religiosity, the political religiosity of the public cult and the orgiastic and apolitical religiosity of the Bacchic underground. Both types are based on particular religious experiences, the experience of gods preserving and fostering the political community and the experience of a god promoting the fulfilment of bodily desires. As the essay shows at the example of Euripides’ Bacchae, the worship of Bacchus-Dionysus had always represented the apolitical dimension of human existence; already in the ancient myths the “alien god” appears as the enemy of rulers and politicians. Finally, this reconsideration of the Bacchanalia helps to understand why the early Christians were likened to the Bacchants.

This thesis aims to recount the performance history of Euripides’ Bakkhai with special reference to nine eminent productions of the 20th century. First, I deal with methodological issues on how one gathers together the pieces of evidence from an ‘invisible’ performance. Given that the Bakkhai was only revived in the 20th century,
the review of its textual reception in Chapter 1 covers the gap between the textual and the theatrical re-usage of the play. Moreover, to review the literature would prove that
there is indeed a structural model already inbuilt in the text and subsequently applied to performance not necessarily as a footnote to classicist theories. Chapter 2 retells the
stage history of the Bakkhai through nine of the least documented productions of this ‘forgotten’ Euripidean tragedy. My Conclusions decipher the structural model of the Bakkhai and provide an explanation for its ‘otherness’ as a tragedy intended for the theatre of the mise-en-scène.

En el marco de numerosos cuestionamientos contemporáneos en torno de la noción de naturalezay sus vínculos y tensiones con las creencias instituidas por el accionar humano, una vuelta a los orígenes se revela como una instancia ineludible para comprender los complejos entramados que condicionaron el decurso de estas nociones en épocas posteriores. Es por ello que las Primeras Jornadas de Pensamiento Antiguo que dieron a los textos de este volumen se dedicaron al estudio de
las nociones de legalidad cósmica y legalidad humana en el pensamiento clásico, con el propósito de que fueran abordadas las distintas aristas que las conforman, desde las perspectivas filosófica, histórica y literaria. Así, al rastrear la dinámica de los discursos de la época clásica desde una mirada actual, se constata que, como en un juego especular, volver a la tensión entre naturaleza y cultura entre los antiguos es hacer filosofía contemporánea y reencontrar en gestación las mismas vicisitudes que hoy nos desafían.


Índice
Prólogo

Armando Poratti: Díke: causalidad, política y ontología arcaicas
Graciela Marcos: Hombre-medida versus dios-medida. Trazas de la polémica con Protágoras en Leyes IV
José Luis Álvarez - Las prácticas políticas y religiosas y la comprensión filosófica
Gastón Basile - La ley de Díke en las Historias de Heródoto: un enfoque narrativista
Mariana Battaglini - Estrategias para validar la legalidad: aproximaciones desde la épica homérica
Yanina Benítez Ocampo - Potencia, privación y pobreza: una aproximación al no ser de la pobreza y la
indigencia
Esteban Bieda - Lo natural no quita lo acordado. Tensiones entre phýsis y nómos según Antifonte Sofista
Emiliano Buis - Impiedad, sacrilegio y misterios femeninos: fracasos de la justicia divina en Tesmoforiantes de
Aristófanes
Luis Ángel Castello - Una radicalización del nómos: la graphè parà nómon en la Grecia clásica
María Cecilia Colombani - Hesíodo: justicia y castigo; los rostros de aletheia. En torno a la noción de
legalidad
Marisa Divenosa - Protágoras y la autoría de la Constitución de Turios
María Angélica Fierro - La inocencia del dios y la responsabilidad humana en República, X
Martín Forciniti - La desobediencia de los dioses como disolución del kósmos divino y humano”
María Teresa Gamito - Identidad y alteridad en Golpes a mi puerta de J.C. Gené como relectura de Antígona
Juan Gatti - Conflicto de legalidades en Suplicantes de Esquilo
Rodrigo Illarraga - El Ática primigenia y la Atlántida: sociedades utópicas en el Critias de Platón
Hernán Inverso - Diálogos con el contractualismo antiguo: el necio hobbesiano a la luz del tratamiento de la
anarquía en Tucídides
Adrián Lastra - Polémicas en torno de la legalidad y la autoridad política tras el sinecismo griego en la obra
sofoclea Ayax
Ezequiel Ludueña - El mito de Aristófanes en el Banquete, según Leo Strauss
Sandra Maceri - La ley platónica del bien común: el meollo del ataque popperiano
Jorge Mainero - El concepto de religión en los tratados filosóficos ciceronianos
Claudia Mársico - Formas megáricas y paradojas: el naufragio de la conexión entre hombre y naturaleza
Hernán Martignone - Conflicto entre legalidad divina y legalidad humana en el Hipólito de Eurípides
Carlos Martín - La ciudad de los individuos: la justicia social y la oikonomía de la pólis
Luciana Martínez-Laura Pelegrin - Alma y Tiempo en Física IV
Gabriel Martino - Providencia divina y circunstancias humanas en la concepción plotiniana de la acción
voluntaria
Pablo Marzocca - Las nociones de acto y potencia a la luz de la polémica con Diodoro Crono
Gariel Masip - Nómos y phýsis en Heráclito
Gabriela Müller - Dios y materia: los principios del universo y del hombre en la filosofía de Numenio
Daniel Perrone - La tesis del oikeîos lógos entendida como una respuesta nominalista al problema de los
universales
Andrés Racket - Concepciones del lógos en el Filoctetes de Sófocles
Gabriela Rossi - ¿Sostiene Aristóteles que la teleología natural es antropocéntrica?
Silvina Schvartz-Patricia Fernández - Transgrediendo la ley del Hades: Aristófanes y Calímaco
Claudia Seggiaro - Las leyes de la pólis en el Protréptico de Aristóteles
Malena Tonelli - Eros y psykhé en la interpretación plotiniana del Banquete de Platón. Un análisis de Enéada III 5
Florencia Zayas - La teoría aristotélica de las virtudes: acerca de la acción edípica como modelo de responsabilidad
humana
Gustavo Zito - El silogismo práctico en Aristóteles. Su esencia e inexistencia

The chorus was a standard feature of Greek tragedy (see Choral Interactions and the Structure of Tragedy). Aristotle argued that tragedy originated from Dithyramb (see the Tragic Chorus in Ancient Literary and Philosophical Theory, and Dithyramb), and this may explain its pervasive presence, but tragic authors make the chorus allude to and perform in several other lyric genres (see Relation to Lyric Genres). Recent research on the tragic chorus has focused on performance (see Music, and Dance) and on the social interpretation both of choruses within the play (see Choral Identity) and of the chorus in social life (see Political and Ritual Dimensions, and Performance, Competition, and the Dramatic Festivals). Most of the choral sections were sung (“lyric sections”); they were written in meters that were sharply different from those of recited speech, and much more complex (see Lyric Meters). The language of sung sections was also distinctive (see Style). Choral sections are especially long and complex in Aeschylus (see especially Agamemnon), but their role is equally crucial for the interpretation of the plays of Sophocles and Euripides (see e.g., Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex and Antigone; Euripides’ Medea, Trojan Women, and Bacchae). The chorus virtually disappeared from 4th-century tragedy, except for short interludes, but in the only extant 4th-century tragedy, the Rhesus attributed to Euripides (see Pseudo-Euripides, Rhesus), the chorus still has a crucial part in the plot.
The entry has the following sections:
Choral Identity;
Political and Ritual Dimensions;
Performance, Competition, and the Dramatic Festivals;
Collections of Essays;
The Tragic Chorus in Ancient and Literary and Philosophical Theory;
Choral Interactions and the Structure of Tragedy (with subsections);
Relation to Lyric Genres (with subsections);
Music;
Dance;
Style;
Lyric Metres (with subsections);
Editions;
Aeschylus (with subsections for each play);
Sophocles (with subsections for each play);
Euripides (with subsections for each play);

In Euripides’ Medea, Medea’s hesitation to kill her children in her deliberative monologue is startling in its new concern for a mother’s love for her children. This paper examines how motherhood is constructed in the tragedy up to the monologue. I argue that Jason and Medea both see motherhood primarily as a familial role, albeit a role with different emphases. The Nurse, in contrast, has a primarily affective view of the mother-child relationship. The monologue brings these two views into conflict.

This article offers a new interpretation of Athenian tragedy, in which the poets competed for their audience's favour by constructing stories in which the protagonists suffer and die because they act within a world which lacks the institutional compensations of which fifth-century Athenians were so proud. Far from being a subversive or apolitical art form (the most popular current poles of scholarly interpretation), Athenian tragedy was heavily and positively involved in its contemporary social and political discourse.

En el Orestes de Eurípides, en la primera parte de la tragedia, presenciamos el desvinculamiento del héroe con la realidad. Atormentado por las Erinias, diosas por excelencia de la venganza, Orestes es asaltado por el delirio que ellas le provocan y el debilitamiento físico que de éste deriva y su alma se encuentra ajena a su entorno, cegada y debilitada. Pero en la última parte de la obra, se apodera de él un nuevo ímpetu recobrado por el ánimo de buscar y cobrar venganza. De esta manera, se pretende investigar hasta qué punto en esta pieza trágica la locura del héroe es síntoma de arrepentimiento por el matricidio cometido y si las diosas, vengadoras de este crimen, son producto de la imaginación delirante de Orestes, ya que en una parte de la obra ésta le atormentan con crueldad y luego desaparecen de la obra para que el héroe tome, de nueva
forma, el destino en sus manos.

ABSTRACT: This article considers how the erotics of the real, of Bataille, might contribute to the ethics of the real, of Lacan, and also to the genealogy of morals disclosed by Nietzsche. Combining Bataille’s anthropological understanding of a taboo-transgression correlation with Lacan’s analytic episteme of the real, symbolic, and imaginary, I trace a recessive loss of the erotic function of being through the Platonic, Christian, and Modern Science epochs that Nietzsche’s revaluations of the Good also centre on. What emerges is the possibility that like Bataille, figuratively speaking, the brothels of Paris should become our churches again.

La dualità o complessità caratteriale di Medea non risiede solo nell'antica tragedia omonima di Euripide. Essa possiede una sua irriducibile psicologia archetipica, che in parte già si intravede nel mito originario e si riverbera in quasi tutti i rifacimenti o opere ispirate al personaggio e alla sua storia, fino all'epoca moderna e contemporanea. Nel saggio presente si cerca di analizzare la natura di tale vario dualismo, attraverso la produzione letteraria e artistica o filosofica pertinente, dall'antichità ai giorni nostri.

This paper aims to critically analyse the testimonies concerning Athenian impiety trials of the classical period. First, it reaffirms the arguments that some of them must have been an invention of Hellenistic and later authors. Second, it presents a likely political background behind the historical cases. Third, it discusses a number of legal issues, along with new arguments concerning the procedures employed. Finally, it examines some less well-known material from the fourth century BCE. Overall, it seeks to provide a possibly coherent and comprehensive framework of Athenian impiety trials based on their shared characteristics.

Fourth-century Athenian orators of epitaphioi logoi and other Athenian panegyric attempt to portray fifth-century tragedy as fundamentally encomiastic of Athens. This is borne out by the rhetorical reception of two ‘epitaphioi mythoi’, i.e. myths handled by both tragedians and orators: Erechtheus’ repulsion of Eumolpus’ invasion of Athens and Theseus’ efforts to secure the burial of the ‘Seven against Thebes’. The orators’ ‘encomiastic’ view of tragedy marks a new departure in Athenian intellectual history and should be read against the background of other attempts to curate the city’s tragic heritage in the third quarter of the fourth century.

Eurípides dedica tres tragedias a la guerra de Troya
(Andrómaca, Hécuba y Troyanas) centradas en sus
víctimas, en especial, las mujeres que, en su condición
de cautivas de guerra, duplican la condición de
subordinación propia de su género. El presente libro
se centra en estas mujeres-botín a fin de calibrar la
riqueza con la que el autor trabaja las situaciones de
sometimiento y las estrategias que los vencidos ensayan
para sobrevivir al colapso de sus sociedades. Para
ello se plantean tres escenarios cruciales para las mujeres-
botín: el violento traspaso de lechos, por sorteo
o reclamo de los vencedores, y por el cual entrarán en
conflicto con otras mujeres; el lamento fúnebre que
conformaba un área discursiva femenina pero que, en
el contexto de la proliferación de muertes producida
por la derrota, choca con la desaparición de las
estructuras sociales que precisamente la habilitaban; la
animalización como un recurso que tanto facilita a
los vencedores imponer su dominación como permite
a las vencidas reflexionar sobre la nueva identidad
y las posibles vías de acción en el estado al que se
hallan sujetas. Lecho, thrénos y animalización, entonces,
se revelan como temas medulares para el estudio
del discurso femenino en Eurípides y hallan en las
obras escogidas un fértil campo de desarrollo.

Uno dei massimi problemi della filosofia è certamente rappresentato dalla figura dell’uomo nel suo complesso: la sua origine, la sua natura e la sua destinazione. Nel presente lavoro abbiamo voluto prendere in considerazione le risposte date a tali questioni da parte di alcune culture antiche, generalmente considerate pre-filosofiche:  la cultura sumerica, assira, babilonese, ebraica (tenendo conto della sola Bibbia ebraica) e greca (pre-platonica). L’ordine di esposizione delle tematiche è il seguente: i) concezioni della morte e del regno dei morti; ii) concezioni relative alla possibilità di raggiungere una qualche forma di immortalità; iii) concezioni della nascita, o creazione, dell’umanità e del suo scopo, o missione.

This paper deals with some questions concerning the iconography, iconology and date of execution of the famous mosaic pavement from Sheikh Zoueide in Sinai, now exibited in the Ismailiya Museum. The author analyses both the mythological mosaic with the representation of various subjects, like Dionysiac procession, Nilotic theme, Hippolytos and Phaedra, and another geometric mosaic. The iconological study of all symbolic elements sheds light on the mentality of Nestor who lived in this house and of other inhabitants of the city.  The author sees the great influence of Egypt probably of Alexandria, in the mosaic's style. He also discusses stylistic problems and suggests a date of its execution in the first half of the 5th century.
On the iconological study of the mosaic see also: M.T. Olszewski, Mauvais œil et protection contre l'envie dans la mosaïque de Cheikh Zouède au Sinaï (IV-Ve siècle), published in: Paunier, D., Schmidt, Ch (ed. by), la Mosaïque gréco-romaine VIII. Actes du  VIIIe Colloque international de la mosaïque antique et médiévale, Lausanne 1997 (2001), pp. 276-301.
M.T.Olszewski, Two Late Antique synonymous mosaics from Sheikh Zuweid (Egypt) and Vinon (France) (translated) / Deux  mosaïques  synonimiques  de l’antiquité tardive: Cheikh  Zouède  (Egypte)  et  Vinon  (France) / Dwie późnoantyczne mozaiki synonimiczne z Szeikh Zued (Egipt) i Vinon (Francja) - (in Polish), Światowit IV-A, 2002, pp. 99-105.

Ever since the Homeric poems, Helen’s proverbial beauty had to face the sense of fear and hostility aroused by her own figure, as proved by some terms used by Homer connecting the heroine with fear, hatred and death. Through the centuries, this feature came to V century Attic tragedy: in particular, it was retrieved by Aeschylus in the Agamemnon and, above all, by Euripides in several plays. This paper aims to highlight how Helen’s characterisation as image of fear turns out to be a real Leitmotiv in the Euripidean production, especially in the plays where she is physically present on the scene. This is made clear by the terms related to this semantic field and referred to her, as well as by other characters’ attitude towards her. Thus, Helen is constantly perceived as a danger because of her ambiguity and otherness, which make her an exotic character, frequently associated to magic and supernatural. Moreover, such a topical portrayal is also supported by the heroine’s ‘scandalous’ characterisation in the Helen: for the first time, the Tyndarides, generally impudent and smart, is tormented by fear because of her misleading reputation.

In this paper I propose to investigate how Euripides frames the phenomena of wisdom and folly, in order to distinguish between mortals and the gods. Both the triumph of reason and its breakdown are subject to the relativism that derives from human ideas of good judgement, which are apparently different from the gods’. In his tragedies, Euripides outlines characters who wonder whether it is possible to define wisdom unambiguously, as the result of cognitive effort. We will look at examples of a plausible double system of values, and at the difficulty of being able to attach coherent definitions of both wisdom and folly to the very same phenomena, which indicates the inadequacy of human language and its incapability of signifying reality. These examples bring out an interesting aspect of Euripides’ incessant exploration of the meaning of the divine.

The Derveni Papyrus has been often misread and misunderstood for six main reasons. (1) First, because the papyrus was falsely labeled as ‘Orphic’ in the very first report. (2) Second, because another misleading label – ‘Presocratic’ – was soon after that attached to its author. (3) Third, because the rhetorical/grammatical terms of the Derveni author τὰ κοινά καὶ τὰ ἴδια (sc. ὀνόματα or ῥήματα) “common and peculiar names” that provide a clue for understanding his theory of language and the origin of religion have been misunderstood as alleged ‘echoes’ of Heraclitus’ own terminology. (4) Fourth, because of the failure to distinguish between two types of pantheism in early Greek thought, the naturalistic and the ethico-religious. (5) Fifth, because of the failure to distinguish between two types of allegoresis of myth: constructive (friendly and apologetical in purpose) and deconstructive (polemical or atheistic). (6) And, last but not least, the widespread (after Tsantsanoglou [1997]) misinterpretation of πάριμεν in PDerv., col. V as an alleged indication of the author’s religious profession. Mistake (1) is addressed in § (II), mistake (3) in § (IV), mistake (5) in § (II), mistake (6) in § (XI).
    The attribution of PDerv. to Prodicus of Ceos proposed in this article is based on verbal coincidences of peculiar phrases and terms in PDerv. and Prodicus’ fragments; Prodicus’ peculiar theory of the origin of the names of gods and religion from agriculture and other τέχναι ‘useful’ for human race is directly attested in PDerv.; there is also the evidence found in both Aristophanes and Themistius that Prodicus wrote an allegorical interpretation of the Orphic theogony.
  The demonstration of our thesis is presented in 11 sections (§) and three appendices (App.). After preliminary remarks on the necessary distinction of the two types of pantheism and allegoresis in Greek thought (§ [I]) we define in § (II) the literary genre, the general purpose, and the hermeneutical method of the Derveni treatise, and draw a preliminary intellectual portrait of its author describing his peculiar features, a kind of ‘composite image.’ In § (III), we argue for Prodicus as the author of PDerv. and present the 19 testimonia on which this attribution is based. These include both the verbatim quotations with Prodicus’ name that find an exact correspondence in the text of PDerv and the common peculiar features of language and style.
  In § (IV), we propose a reconstruction and interpretation of the text of col. IV that contains a quotation from Heraclitus. This column is of primary importance for understanding the aims and allegorical method of the author in general, as well as for his theory of names. In § (V), the problems of the original title and the date of the Derveni treatise are addressed, as well as its relation to the psephisma of Diopeithes (432 BC). In § (VI), the philosophical sources of Derv.T are discussed. Apart from the Anaxagorean source of the Derveni author’s cosmology and theory of matter recognized long ago, we discuss the possible influence of Democritus while dismissing “Leucippus”, Diogenes of Apollonia, and the Eleatics. We point to Protagoras as an important source of anthropology for the Derveni author and to Heraclitus as the source of his philosophy of language (including functionalist semantics) and criticism of popular religion. In § (VII), we briefly present our reasons for rejecting the ascription of PDerv. to other authors (Epigenes, Stesimbrotos, Euthydemus, Diagoras of Melos). § (VIII) expands the discussion of Prodicus’ atheistic sobriquet ‘Tantalos’ in § (III) by focusing on two cryptic Tantalos passages in Euripides’ Orestes. Taking the torture of Anaxagoras before his trial as a historical fact (which the new reconstruction of Philodemus’ account by Eduardo Acosta Méndez has brought to light, and which Christian Vassallo confirms in this volume, DAPR, T7), we interpret the tortures of Tantalos as an allusion to Anaxagoras’ trial, a cryptic commemoration of the 20th anniversary of his death, and a makarismos of the heroic martyr of science, analogous to Euripides’ cryptic commemoration of Protagoras’ death in Ixion. § (IX) searches for further reflections of the ‘avian’ theme (ὀρνίθειον in PDerv., cols. ΙΙ and VI) in Aristophanes’ Birds and Clouds. It starts with the attribution of a neglected comedy fragment in the Suda Lexicon to Aristophanes’ Seasons and connects the comic passages in the Clouds on ἀλεκτρυών with Prodicus’ orthoepeia. The passage on ‘Persian cock’ as a prehistoric king in Birds 481–492 is interpreted as a parody of Prodicus’ theory of the origin of religion and civilization. § (X) discusses three ‘Heraclitizing’ passages (apart from col. IV) in cols. V, XX, and XXII, and arrives at the conclusion that cols. V and XX contain either hidden verbatim quotations from Heraclitus or paraphrases close to the original text with authentic terms and phrases, whereas col. XXII contains a summarizing exposition of Heraclitus’ philosophy of lan- guage and religion (the invention of polytheism by poets due to their ‘ignorance’). In § (XI), the hypothesis that Euripides may have taken with him to Macedonia a copy of Prodicus’ work on religion, since he quotes it in the Bacchae on which he worked at that time, is advanced. A copy of it may have been made for the library of Archelaus in Pella. In App. (1) we defend the traditional 5th cent. date and the Preplatonic character of PDerv. in response to Luc Brisson’s Stoic hypothesis. App. (2) clarifies our use of the term peritrope and explains the Derveni treatise as a naturalistic peritrope of a religious text. App. (3) identifies a neglected reflection of Prodicus’ benefaction theory of religion in Xenophon’ Memorabilia with parallels from PDerv.

"This book investigates one of the most characteristic and prominent features of ancient Greek literature – the scene of debate or agon, in which with varying degrees of formality characters square up to each other and engage in a contest of words – and sets out for the first time to trace its changing representations through Homeric epic, historiography and tragedy. Combining literary dialogic theory with sociological approaches towards structure, it makes the claim that debate is best understood in relation to an institutional framework, in which issues of authority and dissent are variously set out and worked through. Intersecting with key recent scholarship, it shows that the Homeric poems establish, and scrutinise, the assembly as an institution which accommodates dissent, in line with an understanding of epic narrative as foundational; that the historians’ marginal status as writers in an oral culture manifests itself in their representing debate as a challenge to the utility of public institutions; and that tragedy marks the formal institutionalisation of dissent in its adversarial structure with an onus on speaking back, which offers a new way of thinking about tragic politics in terms of the process by which dissent is enacted and managed.

Aimed at both scholar and student, including anyone interested in the origins of political thought, this book demonstrates not only the fundamental importance of debate to these genres, but also the ways representations of debate construct an agonistic mentality which intersects with and informs the broader cultural construction of a citizen community.
"

Summary. Section (1) explains why the Derveni papyrus has often been misunderstood: among the main reasons are the wrong label «Orphic» and the confusion of two types of pantheism in Greek thought: the ethico- religious and the naturalistic. The Orphic hymn to Zeus is a classical example of the first type, the Derveni commentary – of the second which is incompatible with the immortality of the soul and afterlife. Section (2) deals with the literary genre, the general purpose and the hermeneutical method of the Derveni treatise, and draws a preliminary intellectual portrait of its author describing his peculiar features, a kind of a «composite image». In the section (3) we argue for Prodicus as the author of PDerv and present 18 testimonia on which this attribution is based. These include both the verbatim quotations with Prodicus’ name that find an exact correspondence in the text of PDerv and the common peculiar features of the language and style. In the section (4) we propose a reconstruction and interpretation of the text of the col. IV that contains a quotation from Heraclitus. This column is of primary importance for the understanding of the aims and allegorical method of the author in general as well as for his theory of names. Section (5) detects a neglected (polemical) peritrope of Prodicus’ benefaction theory of the origin of religion in Xenophon’s Memorabillia 4.4. In the section (6) the problems of the original title and date of the Derveni treatise are addressed, its relation to the Psephisma of Diopeithes (432 BC) as well as to the trial and death of Anaxagoras. The last section (7) clarifies our use of the term peritrope and explains the Derveni treatise as a polemical naturalistic peritrope of a religious text (Orphic theogony).
Key-terms: Ancient philosophy, Derveni papyrus, Prodicus, Sophists, Orphism, Orpheus, Anaxagoras, Archelaus, Heraclitus, theogony, origin of civilisation, origin of religion, origin of language, origin of mythology, allegory, psephisma of Diopeithes, ancient atheism, Greek Enlightenment, philosophy of language, ancient Athens.

The paper focuses on a peculiar class of mythical innovation in Greek dra-
ma: in a substantial percentage of extant tragedies, mythical variants lead
the action to end up in Athens. Considering the 32 preserved texts in the
tragic production of the 5th Century BC., in 11 cases the final scene is led by
dramatists in Athens, or in the immediate surroundings of the city, with a
more or less violent twist of the previous consolidated mythical version. To
the 11 considered cases, should be added the prototype of Eumenides, con-
sidered in this perspective as the ending of the whole Oresteia trilogy. This
survey confirms the hypothesis that the overall ‘ endings in Athens’ do give
an insight both on the sense of the preference accorded by dramatists to some
specific mythical, and on the empathetic and political ‘ connecting device’
that ties the drama on stage with the audience of the theatre of Dionysus in
Athens, between 472 and 405 BC.

""On the base of the third part of Ion’s monologic prologue (vv. 154-183), where the homonymous young guardian of the Delphic temple, through a strongly realistic, mimetic-pantomimic movement, tries and manages to drive away from the temple some 'birds‛ that threaten its purity, I shall advance the hypothesis that this particular passage (if not Ion in its entirety) recalls intertextually –on verbal and visual level– and alludes critically to the Parodos of Aristophanes’ "Birds" (if not to "Birds" in their entirety). The hypothesis of paracomic referentiality in the case of "Ion" has several implications: First of all, and very obviously, it forces us to exclude the possibility that " Ion" dates before 414 BC. Secondly, this hypothesis adds –or rather confirms– one more ‚comic‛ trace among the many that have been so far sought and identified in Ion’s textual surface. Thirdly, it reinforces the reasonable assumption of ‚mutual‛ artistic influence between Euripides and Aristophanes, who followed parallel paths for a long time in the last decades of the 5th century. Last but not least, such a possibility of paracomic referentiality presupposes a further expansion of the limits of the receptive openness and the readily available decoding abilities of the ancient audience, who were invited to identify and distinguish between the different
inter-textual and inter-performative references employed not only by the more blatant, articulate and denotative ancient comic performance but also by the more discrete, allusive and connotative tragic performance.""

El presente trabajo gira alrededor de la naturaleza transgresora de las heroínas trágicas Antígona y Medea, sin embargo, plantea la pregunta de si el hecho de que sean representantes de la transgresión del ideal femenino basta para que signifiquen una ruptura con respecto al ideal clásico y un cambio de percepción sobre la mujer en el siglo V. a.C. El objetivo de esta investigación es por ello el análisis y el estudio de las transgresiones cometidas por estas heroínas, tales como su carácter heroico y la valoración de virtudes eminentemente masculinas, así como de los elementos de sus respectivas tragedias que apoyan o rechazan el ideal femenino ateniense, en especial con respecto a la crítica interna en forma de personajes, y al arco argumental que atraviesan.

Dionysus, whose name we came across  on a tablet belongs to the third century  B.C., is the son of  Zeus  the divinity and Semele the mortal. Dionysus, called after many  names, was worshiped as the god of spring celebrations, theatre, viniculture and wine. There are many opinions about his origin of being Phrygian. Tragedies of Euripides and epics of Homeros  maintain this idea. As the god of nature, Dionysus symbolizes fertility. His main characteristic is his wish the people to drink wine and reach the secrets of nature. Dionysus festivals make a connection between both human to human and human to nature. Teos Dionysus Temple, where the rituals were performed in the name of god, is  the greatest temple  which was built in his  name in Greek History.