Phineus, the blind prophet of Thrace, was persecuted by the Harpies, who persistently snatched his food from the table or even from his mouth (fr. 258), until they were driven away, and in some accounts killed, by Zetes and Calaïs, sons of the North Wind (Boreas) and of the Athenian princess Oreithyia, when Phineus’ land was visited by the Argonauts; the fullest presentation of the story is by Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica 2.176–499. From a passage of Philodemus’ treatise On Piety, it appears that Aeschylus’ version of the story was one of those that ended with the death of the Harpies; there is little more that we can say about its content.
258 And there have been many meals that proved not to be meals, which they pillaged from my [or his] ravenous jaws just when my [or his] mouth was taking its first delight in them.
A description of the Harpies’ depredations, probably but not certainly by Phineus himself.
258a There is no lack of wailing over my [or his] getting no food.
Perhaps from the same speech.
259 They have ankle-supports2 inside their well-fitting shoes.
Probably from a description of the swift-footed sons of Boreas.
Glaucus of Potniae (a town just south of Thebes) was famous for having been devoured by his own mares during the chariot race at the funeral games for Pelias (the uncle of Jason) at Iolcus. Our sources give various explanations of how this came to happen, which are not necessarily incompatible. The fourth-century scholar Asclepiades, in his Tales Told in Tragedy, says that Glaucus had reared the mares on human flesh, to make them fiercer in war, and that they turned on him when they ran short of this food; Asclepiades’ source was almost certainly Aeschylus’ drama, since no other major tragic dramatist made this story the subject of a play. Virgil, however (Georgics 3.266–8), in a passage on the power of sexual desire in horses and other animals, ascribes the madness of Glaucus’ mares to the influence of Venus/Aphrodite, and his commentator Servius says this was because he had neglected her worship and/or because, in order to increase the mares’ speed, he had not allowed them to mate. In the fragments of the play, we can probably detect Glaucus departing for the games (cf. fr. 36.5–6), perhaps after an attempt to dissuade him (fr. 37 may be his reply to this); the catastrophe will have been narrated in a messenger-speech (frr. 38 and 39, and parts of fr. 36b), apparently to Glaucus’ wife. If fr. 25a is rightly assigned to this play, the god Poseidon (whose sphere of interest included everything to do with horses) appeared in the play – perhaps near the end, to explain why Glaucus had suffered as he did – and during his speech referred to a recent visit he had made to Himera in Sicily, perhaps in order to prophesy the great victory gained there in 480 BC over the Carthaginians by Gelon of Syracuse (see p. 6).
Aeschylus wrote another play about an entirely different mythical character also called Glaucus, and ancient scholars distinguished the two as Glaukos Potnieus (Glaucus of Potniae) and Glaukos Pontios (Glaucus the Sea God). Owing to the similarity of these titles, several fragments are assigned by one source or manuscript to one of the two plays, by another to the other; several more are simply quoted from Glaucus without it being specified which play is meant. It is usually, though not always, possible to assign such fragments to one or the other play on the basis of their content. I have included here all the substantial fragments (and one that is less substantial) that seem likely to belong to Glaucus of Potniae.
Several fragments of the same papyrus copy (frr. 36 and 36a–b) have been discovered at Oxyrhynchus in separate Italian and British excavations; the Italian fragments (PSI 1210) are known to be from Glaucus of Potniae because they contain part of a phrase quoted from the play by an ancient commentator on Aristophanes, the British fragments (Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 2160) because they contain the name of Glaucus and several words connected with chariot-racing. Only those papyrus fragments which may give us some significant information about the play are presented or mentioned below.
36
GLAUCUS(?):
… ] having taken [the prize of victo]ry with my horses…
[…]
CHORUS(?):
[S]o may it be; and we pray (?) that you may [… ] because of your excellence (?) first in… [… get a good] omen on [this] journey.
[Singing.]
5–6 First of all we pour from our lips,
all together, our wishes for a good journey3…
36b This ‘fragment’ actually consists of several separate sections of the papyrus. Section 1 possibly narrates a dream (of Glaucus’ wife?) about a chariot race; phrases that can be understood are ‘for he seemed’ (line 1), ‘wearing a garl[and]’ (line 2) and ‘horses’ or ‘horseman’ (line 3). The first column of section 2 contains mostly short lines, doubtless sung or chanted by the Chorus and perhaps commenting on the dream (line 10 contained the word visions) and hoping it would prove to bode well rather than ill (would turn out ‘as is desired’, line 11); in its second column we seem to be well into the ‘messenger-speech’ describing the fatal race (‘with their teeth’, line 2; ‘drag’, line 4; ‘to strike’, line 8; ‘Glaucus’, line 10; ‘at the turning-post(s)’, line 11; ‘and the last [lap]’, line 12; ‘to gain [the glory(?)] of victory’, line 13; ‘of the man’, line 14). It seems as though, as in the fictitious chariot race at Delphi described in Sophocles’ Electra (680–763), the race went well for the central figure until nearly the end: but in section 3 the disaster seems to be happening (‘with their teeth’, line 3; ‘the bit’, line 4; ‘carries’, line 5; ‘striking’, line 6; ‘look(s) at’, line 7; ‘of the contest’, line 8; ‘to heal’, line 9; ‘to the sacrificer’, line 11 – the sacrifice was apparently offered ‘to [the] protecting gods, a[s] is cus[tomary]’ (line 12)). Perhaps the chariot was first overturned (together with, or after, a number of others? Compare fr. 38 and Sophocles, Electra 724–30), and only then did the mares attack their driver; section 4 contains likely traces of this in ‘to ta[ke] in their [j]aws’ (line 3) and ‘charioteer’ (line 4). Section 7, though two or three lines are more than half complete, is enigmatic:
But no [… ] on dry land… [… ]
But in the sea [… ] is fearsome [… ]
What a thing [is] this [that has appeared (?)… ]
like an indigenous (?) mountain [lion (??)]
5 For whence [… ]?
For it is natural (?) that [… ] should beget [… ]
And for myself… […
Little can be gathered from the remaining sections, except that section 8 appears to contain a hymn to Hermes, the ‘messenger of Zeus’ (line 17), and the only intelligible words in section 9 are ‘(of ) the salt waters of the sea’, possibly said in connection with the arrival of Poseidon.
37 For a contest does not wait for men who arrive late
Probably Glaucus, rejecting an attempt (by his wife?) to dissuade him from going to the games.
38
MESSENGER:
For chariot on chariot, corpse upon corpse, horses on horses, were piled in confusion.
39
MESSENGER:
They dragged him up in the manner of wolves, the way a pair of wolves carry off a fawn by the shoulders.
40a the harbour of Xiphirus (?)
According to the ancient lexicographer who records that Aeschylus in Glaucus of Potniae referred to this harbour, it was near Rhegium at the toe of Italy; it may therefore have been mentioned by Poseidon in his ‘Himera’ speech. Also from this speech may be another fragment (fr. 402), cited by Strabo (Geography 6.1.6) from an unspecified play of Aeschylus; Strabo says that, according to Aeschylus, Sicily was once part of the Italian mainland until it was broken off as the result of an earthquake (Poseidon was the god of earthquakes), ‘whence it is called Rhegium’ (as if from rhēgnunai ‘to break’).
25a Having thoroughly washed myself in its fair streams,4 I came to Himera on its high cliffs.
Poseidon speaking about a visit he has made to Sicily?
Apart from the surviving Prometheus Bound, the considerable information we possess about Prometheus Unbound (see pp. 199–203), and a scattering of quotations ascribed to an unspecified Prometheus play, we have four further packages of evidence about Prometheus plays attributed to Aeschylus. (1) The medieval catalogue of his plays lists a Prometheus Pyrphoros (Prometheus the Fire-Bearer), and we have one quotation attributed to it (fr. 208) and one statement reported from it (fr. 208a). (2) The lexicologist Pollux (9.156) states that there was an Aeschylean play called Prometheus Pyrkaeus (Prometheus the Fire-Kindler), and elsewhere (10.64) he quotes a line from this play (fr. 205); a metrical licence in this line proves that the play must have been a satyr drama, not a tragedy. (3) The ancient headnote (‘Hypothesis’) to The Persians states that in the production of which it formed part, in 472 BC, the fourth play (i.e. the satyr drama) was Prometheus. (4) There are several papyrus fragments (frr. 204a–d; only 204b and 204d have enough intelligible material to justify inclusion in this volume), two quotations (frr. 206 and 207), one other reference (fr. 207a, from the ancient commentary to Hesiod, Works and Days 89), and several vase paintings that connect satyrs with Prometheus and/or with fire.
From this evidence it is clear that there was an Aeschylean satyr play, presumably the one produced in 472, in which Prometheus brought fire to the satyrs, who had never seen it before and were greatly delighted by it (particularly because they hoped its possession would make them more attractive to nymphs: fr. 204b) but who had no idea how to handle it safely (frr. 206 and 207). In exchange for fire, it would seem, they gave Prometheus a gift that he, and the human race, could have done without (see fr. 207a).
It has usually been supposed, on the basis of (2), that Prometheus the Fire-Kindler was the satyr drama, while Prometheus the Fire-Bearer was a serious play forming a trilogy with Prometheus Bound and Unbound. There are, however, two serious objections to this view. On the one hand, there is no possible place for Prometheus the Fire-Bearer in a tragic Prometheus trilogy. It cannot have come first, because the exposition of the initial situation in Prometheus Bound (especially in lines 199–241) is so full and detailed as to preclude the possibility that the audience are being told all this for the second time. It cannot have come second, because Hermes’ prophecy in Prometheus Bound 1014–29 allows for no other events to intervene between Prometheus’ return to the daylight and the beginning of his torment by the eagle. And it cannot have come third, because Prometheus Unbound is known to have wound up the story of Prometheus so completely that there can have been no scope for a further play about him. On the other hand, since epithets were attached to play titles precisely for the purpose of distinguishing between plays of the same name by the same author, it is very unlikely that two different Prometheus plays should be given epithets so similar, in meaning as well as in form, as ‘Pyrphoros’ and ‘Pyrkaeus’. More probably, one of these epithets is a corruption of the other, and all the evidence summarized under (1–4) above relates to the same play, the satyr play of 472. Andrew Brown (Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 37 (1990), pp. 50–56) has argued convincingly that the proper title of this play is Prometheus Pyrphoros, and that the epithet ‘Pyrkaeus’, known only to Pollux, is an error caused by the existence of a Sophoclean play entitled Nauplios Pyrkaeus (Nauplius the Fire-Raiser). Nauplius, to avenge the murder of his son Palamedes, lured the Greek ships returning from Troy on to the rocks of Euboea by lighting a fire which they mistook for a harbour beacon; Prometheus, by contrast, never lights a fire – he finds it already burning, steals it and brings it to men or satyrs as the case may be. I have accordingly presented all the fragments attributable to the satyr drama under the title Prometheus the Fire-Bearer, in addition to those actually ascribed to a play so named.
204b
CHORUS OF SATYRS: And friendly [Ny]sian (?) delight5 will set me dancing:
| <I will wear (?)> a g[l]eami[n]g | |
| tunic by the unwearying brilliance of the fire. | |
| And one of the Naiads,6 when she hears about it from me, | |
| 5 | will chase me hard by the light that shines at my hearth! |
| And I am confident, I tell you, that the nymphs | |
| will join in choral dances | |
| because they honour the gift of Prometheus. | |
| 9–10 | And [I have good hope (?)] that they will chant |
| a fine song about its giver, saying this – | |
| that Prometheus is to humans | |
| a bringer of life [and] eager to provide gifts. | |
| My hope is that they will dance [… | |
| …] of winter chill [… ] | |
| 15 | And I am confident, I tell you, that the nymphs |
| will join in choral dances | |
| because they honour the gift of Prometheus. | |
| There follow remains of nine further lines including ‘that it is proper for shepherds (?)’ (line 18), ‘wandering by night’ (lines 19–20), ‘thickly wooded’ (line 24). | |
204d A lyric refrain (lines 2–4) containing ‘and, I tell you’
(line 2; cf. fr. 204b.6), ‘near the fire’ (line 3) and ‘drunk (?)’ (line 4); then a new stanza containing ‘snow like the best horses’7 (line 6) and ‘my (?) head from’ (or ‘in’?) a shower’ (line 7). The satyrs are evidently continuing to exult in the benefits of having a fire in their home in winter (cf. fr. 204b.13–14).
205 Linen plugs and long strips of raw flax
Possibly a recommendation (by Prometheus?) for how to treat a burn.
206 Take care the round drop8 doesn’t touch your mouth; it’s bitter and very dangerous to the throat (?)
Presumably Prometheus warning Silenus (?), who has never before seen a pot boiling over a fire. Silenus, father of the satyrs, featured as a character in every satyr drama.
207
PROMETHEUS:
Then you’ll be mourning for your beard, like a billygoat!
To a satyr (or Silenus?) who, on first seeing fire, is eager to kiss and embrace it.
207a He9 says that Prometheus received the jar of evils from the satyrs and deposited it with Epimetheus,10 instructing him not to accept any gift from Zeus, but he disregarded the warning and accepted Pandora.
207b A mortal woman created by the fashioning of clay.
Referring to Pandora (so the ancient commentator who cites the line).
208 Staying silent when appropriate and saying what suits the occasion.11
208a For in the Fire-Bearer he [Aeschylus] says that he [Prometheus] was bound for thirty thousand years.12