Of the fragment of papyrus that preserves information about the first production of the Danaid tetralogy, the part that would have contained the titles of the first two plays has not been preserved; what does survive tells us only that the third play was The Danaids and that it was followed by the satyr drama Amymone. It is almost universally accepted that in addition to these two and to The Suppliants, the other play in this production was The Egyptians; the Danaid story is intimately bound up with Egypt, and no other Aeschylean tragedy is known to have had any significant connection with that country. But only one word of the play’s text survives – the name Zagreus for the underworld god Hades/Pluto; we have no direct information whatever about its content, and as a result it remains in dispute whether The Egyptians preceded or followed The Suppliants.
The majority of scholars have held that The Egyptians was the second play of the production, following The Suppliants. In that case its subject must have been the events leading from the conclusion of the Argive–Egyptian war (in which, it is generally accepted, King Pelasgus must have been killed, with Danaus perhaps being appointed to, or seizing, the vacant throne) to the arrangement and celebration of the marriages between Danaus’ daughters and Aegyptus’ sons.
The alternative view, supported by several nineteenth-century scholars and revived in recent times by Wolfgang Rösler and myself (respectively in Rheinisches Museum 136 (1993), pp. 1–22 (English version, with postscript, in M. Lloyd, ed., Oxford Readings in Classical Studies: Aeschylus (Oxford 2007), pp. 174–98) and B. Zimmermann, ed., Griechisch-römische Komödie und Tragödie (Stuttgart 1995), pp. 111–23 (see also A. H. Sommerstein, Aeschylean Tragedy (Bari 1996), pp. 143–7)), is that The Egyptians was the first play of the tetralogy, was set in Egypt (with a chorus of male Egyptians, perhaps elders), and presented the quarrel between Danaus and Aegyptus. The most important, though not the sole, argument in support of this view is that it explains a curious feature of The Suppliants. As is shown above (see pp. 112–13), it is possible to infer from various things said in The Suppliants, especially towards the end, that the Danaids’ objective and desire, supported and apparently inspired by their father, is not merely to avoid marriage with their cousins but to avoid marriage altogether; but this important fact is never made explicit. It is as if it were being assumed that the audience knew it already, though it is certainly not an invariable, let alone a logically necessary, feature of the Danaid myth. Nor is there any explanation within The Suppliants of what Danaus’ motive might be for a determination that his daughters should remain permanent virgins – a determination which to any ancient Greek would be incomprehensible except in very extraordinary circumstances.
In some other surviving accounts, however, we learn of a story element that would provide such an explanation. Ancient commentators on Prometheus Bound (line 853) and on five other passages by various authors speak of an oracle that had told Danaus he would meet his death at the hands of his son-in-law (according to some) or of a son of Aegyptus (according to others). If in Aeschylus’ treatment he was told that he would be killed by the bedfellow of one of his daughters, that would be quite sufficient motivation for him to do his best, or his worst, to ensure that none of them ever had one. There is, however, no hint within The Suppliants itself of the existence of such an oracle, and since not all versions of the myth contained it, the poet cannot simply have assumed that the audience would take it for granted; therefore it must have been mentioned in a preceding play, which can only have been The Egyptians.
The issue remains unsettled. It affects crucially our understanding of the position of Danaus and his daughters in The Suppliants, and of the merits of their plea; it makes, however, relatively little difference to our attempts to reconstruct the course of events in the latter part of the trilogy, except that if Aeschylus did have Danaus receive the oracle mentioned in the previous paragraph, that oracle must of course have been fulfilled and Danaus have ultimately met his death through the action of his one surviving son-in-law, Lynceus (as we shall see, there is some indirect evidence that he did indeed perish in The Danaids).
We know two things about The Danaids, apart from the obvious fact that, very unusually, the Danaids themselves formed the Chorus for the second time in the trilogy. One is that it began on the morning after the fatal weddings: fr. 43, while corrupt, clearly refers to the rising of the sun and to the ceremonial, musical ‘awakening’ of the bridal couples. The other is that, doubtless later in the play, Aphrodite appeared and made a speech which contained an eloquent affirmation of the universality of mutual sexual desire in nature with particular reference to the primal union of Heaven and Earth (fr. 44) – clearly with a view to vindicating Hypermestra (who had spared the life of her husband, Lynceus), or to condemning Danaus, or both, but certainly also to condemning the sons of Aegyptus, who, in The Suppliants, are represented – by their own Herald as much as by their enemies – as unilaterally demanding the satisfaction of their desires regardless of anyone else’s. It would be highly fitting if this were followed up by the marriage of the Danaids other than Hypermestra to new husbands with whom they could form a union as true as that of Heaven and Earth; it is likely too that before the end of this play Danaus had met his death (the phraseology of an ancient note on Suppliants 37 strongly suggests that its author knew that Danaus was put to death later in the trilogy). The rest is speculation. I attempted a reconstruction of the play in Zimmermann, Griechischrömische Komödie und Tragödie pp. 123–30 (see also Sommerstein, Aeschylean Tragedy, pp. 147–51).
43 And then will come the brilliant light of the sun, and I will graciously awake the bridal couples, enchanting them with song with a choir of youths and maidens.
Presumably from the prologue of the play, spoken by someone unaware of the plot to murder the sons of Aegyptus.
44
APHRODITE: The holy Heaven passionately desires to penetrate the Earth, and passionate desire takes hold of Earth for union with Heaven. Rain falls from the brimming fountains of Heaven and makes Earth conceive, and she brings forth 5 for mortals grazing for their flocks, cereals to sustain their life and the fruit of trees: by the wedlock of the rain she comes to her fulfilment.1 Of this, I am in part the cause.
The story behind this satyr drama is told, with some variations, by several later mythographers, notably pseudo-Apollodorus (Library 2.1.4) and Hyginus (Fabulae 169a). Amymone, one of the daughters of Danaus, was sent into the Argive countryside to fetch water and there attracted the attention of a satyr (accounts differ as to how this happened) who attempted to rape her. She called for help to Poseidon, who appeared at once, put the satyr to flight and then himself lay with Amymone; afterwards he created the spring of Lerna for her by striking the ground with his trident. In the play there must of course have been a whole chorus of satyrs, and they can have been driven off (if at all) only at the end of the drama; a series of vase paintings from the late fifth and early fourth centuries suggest that at one stage – as we might expect in this genre – Amymone was besieged lustfully by the whole band, but that eventually Poseidon pacified them and the play ended with them joining in celebration of his union with Amymone. Echoes of the preceding tragic trilogy are evident, as Amymone, like her sisters, is placed by her father in a dangerous situation, is threatened with and resists forcible violation by an arrogant, shameless band of males, and is finally joined in an apparently willing union with an honourable suitor who becomes a benefactor of Argos; it may also be significant that in The Suppliants (1023–9) the Danaids are made to praise the rivers of Argos as givers of both vegetal and human fertility.
13 It is your fate to be wedded and mine to wed.
Evidently spoken to Amymone, either by Silenus or by Poseidon.
14 And I < >2 your powders and perfumes.
Since Amymone would hardly have powdered and perfumed herself when going to fetch water, this is probably Silenus (or the Chorus leader, if the two were not one and the same) commenting on the fragrance of Poseidon, god of the aristocratic pursuit of horsemanship, here evidently presented as a luxurious habitué of symposia.