Abstract
The present article aims to show that several passages of Greek tragedy make use of language present in theGetty Hexameters, especially in contexts where incantations and protection of the city are mentioned. TheGetty Hexameterswere written on a lead tablet at the end of the fifth century BC in Sicily (Selinus or, more likely, Himera). The article argues that the composition of the text predates the lead tablet by several decades (section 2). It focuses on similarities in structure and language that involve Soph. fr. 535 (section 4), Aeschylus’Oresteia(section 5), Sophocles’Oedipus Tyrannus(section 6) and Euripides’Hecuba(section 8). It also suggests that Plato (section 7) and late antique poetry and prose (section 9) reuse some of the linguistic elements of the incantatory tradition of theGetty Hexameters.
Highlights
A passage of Timaeus of Tauromenium discusses the importance of the myth and cults of Demeter and Persephone in Sicily
On the basis of these palaeographic and linguistic considerations, it is very likely that the tablet itself was written in Sicily at the end of the fifth or beginning of the fourth century BC
The complex allusions of tragedy to magic texts (‘linguistic intimations’) suggest that some linguistic elements that surface in the Getty Hexameters
Summary
A passage of Timaeus of Tauromenium (fourth/third century BC) discusses the importance of the myth and cults of Demeter and Persephone in Sicily. He claims that Carcinus, a fourth-century BC tragic poet (from Athens or possibly from Akragas), knew the cults of Demeter and Persephone as practised in Syracuse, and was influenced by them in his poetry. This is the fragment of Carcinus quoted by Timaeus: λέγουσι Δήμητρός ποτ’ ἄρρητον κόρην Πλούτωνα κρυwίοις ἁρπάσαι βουλεύμασιν δυναί τε γαίας εἰς μελαμwαεῖς μυχούς⋅
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