Euripides and the Gods by Mary Lefkowitz

Abstract

BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 177 (hence the hypertrophied notes). Like that of the rhapsodes, his is an expansion aesthetic. The resulting composition is monumental but with enough small gaps and seams to provide purchase for rival narrators for decades to come. Stanford University Richard P. Martin Euripides and the Gods. By Mary Lefkowitz. New York: Oxford University Press (Onassis Series in Hellenic Culture). 2016. Pp. xviii, 294. This is a book worth noting, and not just because its sober analysis of Euripides’ religious beliefs will be required reading for anyone interested in tragedy or Greek religion. Of particular importance are the argument’s underpinnings, as Lefkowitz demonstrates that the longstanding tradition of labeling Euripides as a reformer, a radical, a sophist, or even an atheist is problematic because it has its origins in the comic appropriation (and manipulation) of individual verses in his oeuvre. Intriguingly, she diagnoses an anachronism as the cause of that tradition’s persistence: foreign to the plays’ ancient context is the monotheistic conception of God’s relationship to and interest in humanity. Thus, while her principal argument—that Euripides is as traditional in his religious thinking as Aeschylus or Sophocles (or Homer and Hesiod)—is noteworthy, more striking is its assault on the rationale for asserting otherwise. Even detractors will have to engage with her arguments. The study consists of six chapters. In the first, Lefkowitz explores the comic origins of the tradition linking Euripides, Socrates, and the radical ideas of the sophists (her conclusions will surprise no reader of her recently revised The Lives of the Ancient Greek Poets [Baltimore 2012]). With the basis for an ironic interpretation undermined, the rest of the book analyzes Euripidean tragedy with a view to demonstrating that his religious thinking was traditional: for Euripides (as for other poets), she argues, the Greek gods are largely disinterested in human affairs yet exert profound control over them. Heracles (Chapter Two, “Piety and Impiety in Euripides”) provides a principal case in point: when Iris and Lyssa victimize the protagonist at Hera’s behest, neither his father Zeus nor any other divinity intervenes to save his family. Critics have long seized upon the assertions that Heracles makes in the aftermath (lines 1341–44) as evidence of an authorial critique of religion. But although Lefkowitz agrees that these lines would have initially appeared radical, she interprets them, in the dramatic context of despair, as denials of reality: Heracles is walking proof, for example, that Zeus has sought out illicit affairs. The conclusion is frank: “To allow the audience to see what the gods are like, however, is not the same as advocating that they should no longer be worshiped” (72). Subsequent chapters consider the Euripidean corpus more broadly. The frequency with which Athena (Chapter Three) appears reflects the plays’ performance context and a desire to emphasize Athenian religious traditions; in Euripides, she is primarily concerned to defend Athens. Apollo (Chapter Four), by contrast, is more inscrutable and less willing to interact directly with mortals. Behind the scenes, however, he is in control of the dramatic action even as he lacks empathy for its mortal participants. Bacchae and Hippolytus (Chapter Five) demonstrate that all gods demand respect and devotion from mortals, but lack compassion—even for innocent victims of their retribution. In Andromache, Suppliants, Electra, Orestes, Helen, Ion, and Iphigenia among the Taurians, individual gods provide knowledge or direction, though their interventions may appear 178 PHOENIX unsatisfying or merely to limit the harm that mortals accomplish. Lastly, in Chapter Six, Lefkowitz considers plays in which offstage divinities shape the drama: the timely appearance of Aegeus in Medea (not to mention that play’s conclusion), Polymestor’s prophecies in Hecuba, and the need for child-sacrifice in Erechtheus, Heraclidae, Iphigenia at Aulis, and Phoenissae all indicate how human affairs are controlled by gods over whose whims mortals have neither influence nor control. There is a lot of ground covered in this book: all eighteen extant tragedies figure in it, as do Erechtheus, the pseudo-Euripidean Rhesus, and a host of other fragments and testimonia. The nature of the argument also means that attention is paid to the history of scholarship. That scope is important: the book...