This edition and commentary provides an invaluable introduction to one of Euripides' less well-known plays, and describes the enormousvalue of the text for our understanding of Athenian drama, religion,and society. Heraclidae is one of Euripides' `alphabetical' plays, preserved exclusively in a Laurentian manuscript, and therefore not selected in antiquity. Neither in modern times, despite the excellent commentaries of Elmsley (1821) and Pearson (1907), and powerful articles by Wilamwitz, has the play been given the prominence it deserves. This edition interprets the play in a wide cultural setting, considering unorthodox aspects of the structure of the drama, but placing particular emphasis on the cults and myths of Heracles in Attica, on his apotheosis and marriage, on his association with the young, and most of all on the two most striking rituals in the play: the voluntary self-sacrifice of the daughter of Heracles, and the conversion of Eurystheus from an enemy of Athens to a hero whose dead body will protect the city-state.The text is James Diggle's (Oxford Classical Texts 1984)
The commentary is largely philological - dense, detailed, and scholarly, with a great deal here for the advanced reader ... he certainly earns our thanks for making this play more accessible and thus more appreciated.
Brian Vickers, Zurich; founding President of the International Society for the History of Rhetoric) Vickers, Brian (Professor of English and Renaissance Literature, Professor of English and Renaissance Literature, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology
H. C. G. Matthew, Oxford) Matthew, H. C. G. (late Professor of Modern History, University of Oxford, and Fellow, late Professor of Modern History, University of Oxford, and Fellow, St Hugh's College
J. L. Austin, University of Oxford) Austin, J. L. (late White's Professor of Moral Philosophy, late White's Professor of Moral Philosophy, J. I. Austin, J. O. Urmson, G. J. Warnock, Geoffrey J. Warnock, James O. Urmson
Ellen T. Harris, University of Chicago) Harris, Ellen T. (Chairman of the Music Department and Professor of Music, Chairman of the Music Department and Professor of Music