ΚΑΙ ΚΑΤΑΨΕΥΔΟΥ ΚΑΛΩΣ: Wagering on Divinity in Euripides' Bacchae

Abstract

In the late work of Euripides, a strong contrast is established between belief in divinity characterized by sincere, affective commitment, and belief that is founded on reasoned calculation. This paper studies this contrast, focussing on Bacchae, Euripides’ last surviving work. Two recent approaches to the agency of human subjects and their disposition to evaluate are introduced and compared as models. Charles Taylor’s contemporary philosophy of ethics, of will and orders of value is briefly outlined and applied to the situation dramatized by the poet. Subsequently, Stuart Guthrie’s cognitive science model of the wager on the presence of divine agents as instrumentally advantageous, is also shown to pertain to an attitude discernible in the tragedy of Pentheus and Dionysus at Thebes. In a work of public theatre, one concerning the complex figure of Dionysus, this endorsement of the quality of sincerity as a condition for validity is significant in the course of Greek religiosity. The widely attested shift to increasing individualism in the Athenian fifth century finds striking expression in the definitive emphasis laid on personal feeling and emotional sincerity in dealings with divinity.