This pdf of your paper in Greek Drama IV belongs to the publishers Oxbow

Books and it is their copyright.

As author you are licenced to make up to 50 offprints from it, but beyond
that you may not publish it on the World Wide Web until three years from
publication (May 2015), unless the site is a limited access intranet (password
protected). If you have queries about this please contact the editorial department
at Oxbow Books (editorial@oxbowbooks.com).
 An Offprint from
greek drama iv
texts, contexts, performance

Edited by

David Rosenbloom and John Davidson

With the assistance of Arthur Pomeroy and Babette Pütz

© Aris & Phillips and imprint of Oxbow Books

Oxford and Oakville

ISBN 978-0-85668-870-6
 contents

Preface v
Contibutors vii
Introduction 1

I. Performance as Meaning and Action

Homer, Helen, and the Structure of Euripides’ Trojan Women 31
C. W. Marshall
Shaming Words: Performing the Name in Sophocles’ Electra 47
Jane Montgomery Griffiths
Polyshocks: The Dramatic and Rhetorical Functions of Polyxena,
Polydorus, and Polymestor in Euripides’ Hecuba 72
Harry Love

II. Texts as Fragments of Performance

The Persian War Tetralogy of Aeschylus 95
Alan H. Sommerstein
The Archelaus of Euripides: Reconstruction and Motifs 108
Georgia Xanthakis-Karamanos
Diversity and Common Ground: Euripides’ Iphigenia in Aulis and Bacchae
as Companion Plays 127
Christiaan L. Caspers

III. Genre and Performance

Paeanic and Epinician Healing in Euripides’ Alcestis 149
Laura Swift
Dionysos, Polyphemos, and the Idea of Sicily in Euripides’ Cyclops 169
Patrick O’Sullivan
Astrateia and Lipostration on the Attic Comic Stage 190
Giulia Torello
iv Contents

IV. Dramatic Performance as Interrogation

On Blurring Boundaries in Sophokles’ Trachiniai 204
Sue Hamstead
Law and Spectacle in Euripides’ Hecuba 225
Judith Fletcher
The Politics of Enmity in Euripides’ Orestes 244
Victoria Wohl

V. The Political Contexts of Dramatic Performance

Athenian Drama and Democratic Political Culture 270
David Rosenbloom
From Chorêgia to Agônothesia: Evidence for the Administration and Finance
of the Athenian Theatre in the Late Fourth Century BC 300
Peter Wilson and Eric Csapo

Indices 322
 DIONYSOS, POLYPHEMOS, AND THE IDEA
OF SICILY IN EURIPIDES’ CYCLOPS

Patrick O’Sullivan

The most famous account of the Cyclopes in Greek literature is in Book 9 of Homer’s
Odyssey, which tells of the blinding of the cannibalistic Polyphemos by Odysseus on his
way home from Troy – a triumph of human cunning over bestial violence and brute
strength. The appeal of the story is evident in its widespread treatment in varied media and
genres over the centuries. It featured in Archaic and Classical Greek art from the Eleusis
amphora of c. 660 to the so-called Richmond vase of c. 400.1 Fifth-century dramatists such
as Epicharmos (frs 70–72 K-A) and Kratinos (frs 143–157 K-A) retold the story, as did
Aristias (TrGF 1 fr. 4) and Euripides in satyr plays. So, too, did Timotheos in a dithyramb
(frs 780–81 PMG). After Homer, Euripides’ satyric Cyclops is our fullest treatment of the
episode. Thematically, the Odysseus-Polyphemos interlude is particularly good fodder for
satyric drama, one of whose major themes involves the downfall of an ogre in a distant
locale at the hands of a wandering hero who frees the subjugated satyrs and reunites them
with Dionysos, their patron and god of theatre.2 A major source for Euripides’ satyric
Cyclops is, inevitably, Homer. Yet, there are important differences in the epic and satyric
accounts. While the presence of satyrs in Euripides’ account is one obvious difference,
this paper explores another notable difference: the treatment of Sicily in Euripides’ satyric
version and its dramatic implications for the play overall, notably the characterization of
Polyphemos and the plight of the satyrs.
Homer nowhere identifies the location of the Cyclopes’ land.3 But Euripides’ Cyclops, as
has been noted, refers to its Sicilian location at least 14 times in a play of only 709 lines,
sometimes focusing on Mt. Aetna, which often functions as synecdoche for the island itself.4
1
LIMC VIII.2 s.v. ‘Polyphemos’ I 16, 17, 18, 20; cf. I 40–44, 46, etc. All dates are BC unless otherwise
stated.
2
For discussion of these and other themes, see Sutton (1980) 145–59; Seaford (1984) 33–44; O’Sullivan
(2000) 354–55, 365–66; Ambrose (2005) 21–38. Such themes as captivity and liberation, family betrayal and
loyalty, trickery, a distant/barbaric setting can co-exist within one drama, as Cyclops demonstrates.
3
Interestingly, it is Thrinakia, the island of the cattle of Helios (Od. 11.107), which becomes associated with
Sicily in the post-Homeric tradition (e.g. Th. 6.2.2; Call. Hymn 3.57). Sicily as the home of Polyphemos may
have been the invention of Epicharmos (a conjecture based on the poet’s place of origin; cf. K-A 1 p.49).
4
O’Sullivan (2005) 132; see also Cyc. 20, 62, 95, 114, 130, 298, 366, 395, 599, 660 (references to
Aetna); 95, 106, 114, 703 (references to Sicily). While there is more to Sicily than Mt. Aetna, in the Cyclops
170 Patrick O’Sullivan

The repeated mentioning of Sicily in the Cyclops has been noticed by some commentators,
who interpret its significance, albeit briefly, in various ways. Jacqueline Duchemin suggested
that the recurrent references to Sicily indicated 412 as a likely date for the play: one year
after the Athenian disaster in Sicily, the Athenian audience could derive some consolation
from laughing at Sicily and her inhabitants.5 Robert Ussher thought the emphasis on Sicily
simply served to remind the audience of the play’s locale in the absence of any detailed scenic
background.6 Leonardo Paganelli, like Duchemin, linked the play to the Sicilian expedition,
and went further to suggest that Polyphemos’ rhetorical style in his debate with Odysseus
(Cyc. 285–346) reflected the style of Gorgianic rhetoric.7 This view is treated sceptically
by Richard Seaford, who does suggest that the plight of Odysseus’ men in Polyphemos’
cave could have reminded the audience of the sufferings of their fellow citizens in the
Syracusan quarries, as told so graphically by Thucydides (7.87).8 This possibility has its
attractions in increasing the villainy of Polyphemos and audience sympathy for Odysseus
and the satyrs, and Seaford elsewhere made a detailed case using metrical and other criteria
for c. 408 as the date of the play – a view which is emerging as the communis opinio.9 The
implications of such a chronology are certainly consistent with my approach here; but a
date of 408 (or any other proposed chronology for that matter) is hardly necessary for my
overall argument, which will, for different reasons, aim to show that the Sicily of Euripides’
Cyclops is presented as a barbarous backwater of dramatic significance.
It is not the purpose of this paper to discuss the reception of Sicily in Greek drama as a
whole, let alone in Greek literature generally; still less is it my intention to mine Euripides’
Cyclops for what it may tell us about the historical Sicily. My concern here is the dramatic
significance of Sicily within the Cyclops. But a few points about what was known of Sicily
in the Classical period are worth making to contextualize Euripides’ portrayal of the island
and its native inhabitants and thus to reveal the features of this satyric depiction in greater
relief.10 It is worth noting that the island was inhabited by different ethnic and political
the volcano becomes emblematic of the island as a whole; the re-founding and re-naming of Catana as ‘Aetna’
by the tyrant Hieron (D.S. 11.49.1–2) is consistent with this.
5
Duchemin (1945) x. Some have postulated a date of 424–423; Maxwell-Stuart (1973) 399, for instance,
asserts 423, without any discussion. Others, largely on the basis of thematic connections to Euripides’ Hecuba,
have also suggested 424–423 or earlier: Kaibel (1895) 84–85; Arrowsmith (1956) 2; Sutton (1980) 108–20.
For critiques of this methodology, see Ussher (1978) 196–97; O’Sullivan (2005) 158 n. 102; Seaford (1982)
esp. 168–70, who argues for a date of c. 408; see also n. 9 below.
6
Ussher (1978) 194 does not explore the possible thematic relevance of the location.
7
Paganelli (1979) 121–22; he suggested a date of 414–413.
8
Seaford (1982) 172; (1984) 55.
9
While aware that some metrical considerations are more telling than others, Seaford (1982) 165 notes,
for instance, that the frequency of resolution in Odysseus’ diction in Cyc. occurs on average once every 3.8
trimeters, comparable to that in Euripides’ Helen of 412 (3.6) and Phoenissae of 409 (3.9); he further adduces
(pp. 168–72) close verbal parallels with other plays of similar date: first with Ar. Th. 1105–06 (dated 411) – itself
a parody of Euripides’ Andromeda fr. 125 – and Cyc. 224, and second with S. Ph. 19 (dated 409) and Cyc. 707.
10
The following instances of Hellenic culture in Sicily in the late Archaic and Classical periods are not
meant to be exhaustive; I merely cite some of the more conspicuous examples of the richness and variety of
Sicily’s Hellenism.
 Dionysos, Polyphemos, and the Idea of Sicily in Euripides’ Cyclops 171

groups, and by the mid-fifth century there can be no doubt of the sophisticated Hellenism
of many parts of Sicily.11 The island was the home of such luminaries as Epicharmos,
Empedokles, and Gorgias;12 it was considered the birthplace of rhetoric in the pioneering
work of Teisias and Korax (Arist. Rh. 1402a17) and the birthplace of comedy (Arist. Poet.
1448a33). It attracted poets such as Simonides (Pl. Ep. 2.311a; Paus. 1.2.3), Pindar (O.
1–6, 10–15; P. 1, etc.), Bacchylides (3, 4, 5 and fr. 20c) and Aeschylus (Aitnaiai, etc.) to
the court of such powerful figures as Hieron of Syracuse.13 There are also, of course, the
impressive remains of Doric temples, some dating to the mid-sixth century, at Syracuse,
Himera, Egesta, Selinous and Akragas. Syracuse appears to have become a democracy as
early as 466, soon after Hieron’s death (D.S. 11.67–68; cf. Arist. Pol. 1315b34–38), as it
may have been before his accession to the tyranny;14 and Sicilian receptivity to Attic theatre
is evident not only in Aeschylus’ productions for Hieron, but also in Epicharmos’ parody
of Aeschylean language (fr. 221 K-A), and the vast numbers of vases from Magna Graecia
and Sicily representing Attic drama.15
All this is a far cry from the Sicily of the Cyclops, which describes only one branch of
native Sicilians: man-eating monsters. Euripides, I shall argue, gives the location overtones
of harshness, barbarism and cosmic monstrosity by making it a remote dystopia, well
suited to the figure of Polyphemos and his hostility to Olympian religion and Greek
nomoi (‘laws’, ‘customs’). These and other less palatable associations would, for mainland
Greeks, represent the other side of the coin as far as their image of Sicily was concerned.
Sicily was a home to a number of tyrants from the seventh to third centuries, including
the infamous Phalaris;16 and in Thucydides’ day the island was still considered home to
Greeks and ‘barbarians’ alike (6.1.1), consistent with its description in Euripides’ Trojan

11
Thucydides’ brief ethnography of Sicily (6.2–5) depicts it as a melting pot of different cultural and ethnic
groups – comprising non-Hellenic groups such as Phoenicians, Sicanians descended from Iberians, Elymians
descended from Trojan refugees, and Sicels from mainland Italy – well before the extensive period of Greek
colonization from the eighth century on. For fuller discussion of Thucydides’ Sicilian ethnography and his
sources, see HCT 4 esp. 198–210; Smith (2004) esp. 33–38.
12
Xenophanes was active in Zankle (fr. A1 D-K). Some traditions make Epicharmos a native of Kos or
Samos (D.L. 8.78; Suda ε 2766), who emigrated to Sicily; some say he wrote about Hieron (e.g. Islands fr. 96
K-A; cf. Plut. Mor. 68a); for discussion of biographical sources concerning Epicharmos, see Pickard-Cambridge
(1962) 230–39; for other fifth-century dramatists active in Sicily, such as Phormis/Phormos and Deinolochos,
see Pickard-Cambridge (1962) 289–90.
13
We are told that Aeschylus’ Persians was reproduced for the tyrant (Vit. Aesch. 1.18).
14
Akragas and Syracuse may have been democracies before they were taken over by tyrants Theron (in
488) and Gelon (c.485) respectively; see Robinson (1997) 78–80, 120–22; (2000).
15
For fuller discussion of such imagery and the reception of Athenian drama in the western Greek world, see
Trendall and Webster (1971) 11–13; Csapo (1986); Taplin (1993) 12–20; Easterling (1994); Allan (2001).
16
For the consistently hostile reception of the tyrant within Athenian democratic ideology, see Raaflaub
(2003). For Polyphemos as a transgressively tyrannical figure in the Cyclops, see O’Sullivan (2005). As is well
recognized, not all figures labelled tyrant were thereby condemned in Greek thought: Epicharmos’ Islands (fr.
96 K-A) evidently portrayed Hieron as a good tryant; cf. Pi. P. 2.18–20. Other recent scholarship has explored
the complexities of tyranny in Greek thought; see e.g. McGlew (1993); Luraghi (1994) 354–68; Saïd (1998);
Wohl (2002) 215–69; Seaford (2003); Kallet (2003).
172 Patrick O’Sullivan

Women as ‘lying opposite Carthage’ (220–23).17 Moreover, Thucydides, who sees himself as
lacking the gullibility of many of his contemporaries, tells us in the same passage that the
first inhabitants of Sicily were Cyclopes and Laestrygonians. Other monsters and enemies
of Greek civilization are associated with Sicily, too. Typhon, the great enemy of Olympian
order (Hes. Th. 820–80), was finally crushed under Mt. Aetna.18 The giant Enkelados
was likewise imprisoned under the Sicilian volcano.19 This monster’s demise is already
mentioned in the prologue (Cyc. 5–9), and may be a proleptic device to hint at the nature
and eventual downfall of Polyphemos – who emerges by the play’s end as another Zeus-
defying giant, defeated and confined within the folds of Aetna. Polyphemos can be seen not
only as a violator of Greek nomoi and xenia (hospitality), but also as a monstrous opponent
of Olympian religion, especially of Dionysos, the patron god of the largely democratized
festival where the Cyclops was first performed.20 While Polyphemos’ hostility to Dionysos
has been recognized,21 more can be said on how much of his anti-Dionysian persona is
connected to his dwelling place of Sicily which, in the play, is as harsh, uncultivated and
brutal as the monsters who inhabit it.
Why does Euripides make Sicily a negative paradigm in the play, even at the risk of
confounding his audience, some of whom would have been metics, and possibly from
Sicily itself? An answer can, I think, be found when taking into account issues of narrative,
characterization, and the general tenor of satyric drama, aptly designated by ancient and
modern critics as ‘tragedy at play’.22 Satyric dramas involving an ogre in remote settings
include Aeschylus’ Lykourgos (frs 124–126), set in Thrace, Sophocles’ Amykos (frs 111–112)
set in the land of the Bebrykes (or Bosporos), Euripides’ Bousiris (frs 312b–315), set in
Egypt, and Sositheos’ Daphnis or Lityerses (TrGF 1 fr. 1a–3), set in Phrygia.23 Dana Sutton
has written on the importance of locale within the Cyclops and other satyric dramas and
plausibly sees how ‘[I]n plays with exotic settings the theme of barbarism versus Hellenism
could always be exploited.…Cyclops contrasts heroic values, surely implicit in the idea of
nomos, with Polyphemos’ barbaric savagery’.24 The negative paradigm of Sicily in the play,

17
Sophocles’ Kamikoi (TrGF 4 frs 323–327) was set in Sicily and, as Hall (1989) 166 notes, ‘seems to
have portrayed a rare species of barbarian.’ Epicharmos may have distinguished cultivated and non-cultivated
inhabitants of Sicily (fr. 219 K-A), and may have made being a Sicel a byword for being a rogue or trouble-maker
(fr. 207 K-A; the tradition here seems to be corrupt). See the glosses by Photios (511.5) and Suda (σ 389) on
Epicharmos’ use of σικελίζεις; cf. Hesychios (σ 612). In Ar. V. 911, Sosias uses the imperfect of κατασικελίζω
in his formal charge against the dog for stealing cheese (cf. Suda κ 987).
18
Pi. O. 4.6–7; P. 1. 13–28; [A.] Pr. 363–72; [Apollod.] 1.6.3.
19
Call. Aet. 1.36; [Apollod.] 1.6.2; cf. E. Ion 205–13. The scene is depicted already in late Archaic vase
painting; see LIMC IV.2 s.v. ‘Gigantes’, 170, 342, etc.
20
Griffith (2005) 161–62 with nn., for a brief overview of scholarly positions on this aspect of Greek
drama.
21
Sutton (1980) 128; Seaford (1981) 252–75; (1984) 57–59.
22
E.g. Demetr. Eloc. 169.
23
See Sutton (1980) 153–54 for a list of plays typically set in remote, ‘uncivilized’ regions, to which add
Aeschylus’ Circe (frs 113a–115); see also above, n. 2.
24
Sutton (1980) 154.
 Dionysos, Polyphemos, and the Idea of Sicily in Euripides’ Cyclops 173

then, works effectively on a number of levels: it emphasizes the savagery of Polyphemos,

it underlines the isolation of the satyrs from their natural master, Dionysos, and it adds
to the sense of release and exuberance, typical of satyric drama, which is won for them by
Odysseus, that hero famous for his wanderings into non-Greek realms.

Sicily: Nothing to Do with Dionysos

From the outset the Sicilian setting of the Cyclops repeatedly serves to underscore the
uncivilized nature of the land and its inhabitants, and also the misery of the satyrs, who
are isolated from their patron god, Dionysos. In the prologue Silenos makes clear the
connection between the remoteness of the land, glossed as the rock of Aetna, and the
savagery of the Cyclopes, when he explains how a storm-wind:
ἐξέβαλεν ἡμᾶς τήνδ᾿ ἐς Αἰτναίαν πέτραν,
ἵν᾿ οἱ μονῶπες ποντίου παῖδες θεοῦ
Κύκλωπες οἰκοῦσ᾿ ἄντρ᾿ ἔρημ᾿ ἀνδροκτόνοι.
τούτων ἑνὸς ληφθέντες ἐσμὲν ἐν δόμοις
δοῦλοι∙ καλοῦσι δ᾿ αὐτὸν ᾧ λατρεύομεν
Πολύφημον∙ ἀντὶ δ᾿ εὐίων βακχευμάτων
ποίμνας Κύκλωπος ἀνοσίου ποιμαίνομεν. (20–26)
drove us onto this rock of Aetna, where the one-eyed children of the sea-god, the man-killing
Cyclopes, inhabit their isolated caves. We were caught and are slaves in the house of one of
them. They call the master we serve Polyphemos. And instead of Bacchic revels we tend the
flocks of a godless Cyclops.
In this vignette of Sicily we first encounter a number of important themes that recur
throughout the play: the harshness of the environment (‘the rock of Aetna’), the monstrous
inhabitants, their man-eating ways, the slavery of the satyrs at the hands of a godless Cyclops,
and the absence of Dionysos and his rites. These sentiments are echoed in the plaintive
strains of the parodos, where the chorus of young satyrs – immediately after referring to
Αἰτναίων σκοπελῶν (‘the headlands of Aetna’, 62) – lament their isolation from their god
and from their joyous rituals of singing and dancing, drinking and sex (63–81). Notable
here and at Cyc. 62 is the reduction of Sicily to the harsh and volcanic Mt. Aetna, which
effectively functions as synecdoche for the island as a whole and recalls Cyc. 20. Such
bleak and reductive references fly in the face of the Homeric Odysseus’ description of the
Cyclopes’ dwelling place and the small island opposite (Od. 9.105–41, 181–86), which
virtually functions as an early locus amoenus in Greek literature. In Homer’s account there
are extensive forests on the island (118) and herds of wild goats (124); the land could have
been cultivated and is ‘not bad in any way’ (οὐ μὲν γάρ τι κακή γε, 131). By way of contrast
with the bleak, barren environment Euripides presents in the Cyclops some Homeric details
are worth quoting:
... φέροι δέ κεν ὥρια πάντα∙
ἐν μὲν γὰρ λειμῶνες ἁλὸς πολιοῖο παρ᾿ ὄχθας
174 Patrick O’Sullivan

ὑδρηλοὶ μαλακοί∙ μάλα κ᾿ ἄφθιτοι ἄμπελοι εἶεν∙

ἐν δ᾿ ἄροσις λείη∙ μάλα κεν βαθὺ λήϊον αἰεὶ
εἰς ὥρας ἀμῷεν, ἐπεὶ μάλα πῖαρ ὑπ᾿ οὖδας.
ἐν δὲ λιμὴν εὔορμος, ἵν᾿ οὐ χρεὼ πείσματός ἐστιν,
οὔτ᾿ εὐνὰς βαλέειν οὔτε πρυμνήσι᾿ ἀνάψαι,...
αὐτὰρ ἐπὶ κρατὸς λιμένος ῥέει ἀγλαὸν ὕδωρ,
κρήνη ὑπὸ σπείους· περὶ δ᾿ αἴγειροι πεφύασιν. (Od. 9.131–37, 140–41)
…(this place) could produce all things in season, for there are meadows near the shore of the
grey sea, well-watered and soft; grapes could really grow there endlessly; there is smooth land
for ploughing; people really could always reap a full crop in season, since there is very fertile
soil beneath. And there is a ready harbour where there is no need for a ship’s cable or need
to throw anchor stones from the prow to attach to the land…But at the head of the harbour
splendid water flows, a spring beneath a cave; and around it black poplars grow.
These benign features are all left unexploited by the Homeric Cyclopes – a sign of their
backwardness which they at least have in common with their Euripidean counterparts.
Although the Euripidean Polyphemos boasts in passing of the island’s ability to provide
him with all his needs (esp. Cyc. 332–33), this is cold comfort to the satyrs who consider
the location a literally rock-hard dystopia.
The harshness of Euripides’ Sicily is not just evident in its barren and volcanic features.
During the parodos, the satyrs, like their father, make clear the complete absence of
Dionysian worship and emphasize the isolation they feel in such an alien locale (63–81,
esp. 63–66):
οὐ τάδε Βρόμιος, οὐ τάδε χοροὶ
Βάκχαι τε θυρσοφόροι,
οὐ τυμπάνων ἀλαλαγμοί,
οὐκ οἴνου χλωραὶ σταγόνες
κρήναις παρ᾿ ὑδροχύτοις· (E. Cyc. 63–66)
There is no Bromios here, no choruses either, no Bacchants wielding thyrsoi, no rapturous cries
from drums, no gleaming drops of wine beside the rushing waters of springs.
A corollary of such an anti-Dionysian environment is the despotism which the satyrs must
endure at the hands of Polyphemos, which they include in the litany of their sufferings.25
Interestingly, the satyrs draw a distinction between being the servant (πρόπολος) of Dionysos
as opposed to being a slave (δοῦλος) of the monster.26 Moreover, they poignantly recall the
φιλία they share with the absent Dionysos, which naturally characterizes their relationship
with him (435–36), as well as their interaction with Odysseus, their eventual saviour (176,
437, etc.).27 The upshot of this is that Sicily is a land bereft of the φιλία of Dionysos:
25
See above, n. 16.
26
By contrast, the satyrs look forward to being the slaves of Dionysos, their natural master, at the play’s
end (709), just as Euripides’ Ion enjoys his role as slave of Apollo (e.g. Ion 128–35, 181–83). For analysis of
the slavish elements of satyrs generally, see Griffith (2002) esp. 195–227.
27
Some have considered lines 73–75 corrupt on the basis of metrical and, less cogently, stylistic features;
see Seaford (1984) ad loc. for discussion. The mere repetition of φίλος and the form Βαχεῖος, well attested in
Greek drama (S. OT 1105, fr. 255.2; E. Hec. 686; Ar. Th. 988, etc.), are not fatal to the genuinness of the
 Dionysos, Polyphemos, and the Idea of Sicily in Euripides’ Cyclops 175

ἐγὼ δ᾿ ὁ σὸς πρόπολος

Κύκλωπι θητεύω
τῷ μονοδέρκτᾳ δοῦλος ἀλαίνων
σὺν τᾷδε τράγου χλαίνᾳ μελέᾳ
σᾶς χωρὶς φιλίας. (76–81)
I, your very own servant, am serf to the Cyclops, wandering in exile as a slave to this one-eyed
monster, and wearing this miserable goat skin cloak, far away from your friendship.
This separation from Dionysos is something that Polyphemos savagely brags about (203–
11), underscoring the fact that both he and the land he inhabits are alien to Dionysos
and the god’s rites.
Silenos’ reaction to the arrival of Odysseus and his crew again unites the harshness
of Sicily and its murderous native inhabitants. In a display of sympathy for others, as
uncharacteristic as it is proves to be short-lived, Silenos exclaims:
... ὦ ταλαίπωροι ξένοι·
τίνες ποτ᾿ εἰσίν; οὐκ ἴσασι δεσπότην
Πολύφημον οἷός ἐστιν ἄξενόν τε γῆν
τήνδ᾿ ἐμβεβῶτες καὶ Κυκλωπίαν γνάθον
τὴν ἀνδροβρῶτα δυστυχῶς ἀφιγμένοι.
ἀλλ᾿ ἥσυχοι γίγνεσθ᾿ , ἵν᾿ ἐκπυθώμεθα
πόθεν πάρεισι Σικελὸν Αἰτναῖον πάγον. (89–95)
…O unhappy strangers! Whoever are they? They have no idea what our master Polyphemos is
like, and that the land they have reached is hostile to strangers and that they have come, by an
ill fate, right into the man-eating Cyclopean jaws. [To his sons] But quieten down so that we
can learn where they’ve come from to be here at Sicilian Aetna’s rocky outcrop.
The opening exclamation here is a paratragic parallel of Euripides’ Iphigeneia in Tauris (479),
another play involving escape from a barbaric location and ogre, and often cited as satyric
in its tenor and structure.28 Also, the old satyr unites the character of the harsh land, or
at least the dwelling of the monster, and its inhabitant: arrival at this land, which again
involves a conflation of Sicily and its volcano as ‘Sicilian Aetna’s rocky outcrop’ (95), is
tantamount to arrival at the jaws of the Cyclops. We also see the inseparability of this harsh
island, its inhabitant, and the hostility to Greek values of both land and monster, especially
the custom of xenia. Polyphemos the despot here (90) inhabits a land (or dwelling, 91)29
that is inhospitable (ἄξενος). Thus, ξένοι (‘strangers’, 96), the first word of Odysseus – that
most rhetorically accomplished of heroes30 – has ironic, even foreboding resonances. For
it announces that the new arrivals are ‘strangers’ as well, and Silenos has just stated that
lines, which are accepted by Duchemin (1945); Paganelli (1981); Biehl (1983). In any event, the importance
of the friendship between Dionysos emerges clearly here.
28
For discussion, see Burnett (1971) 71–72; Sutton (1980) 184–90.
29
Jacobs emended L’s στέγην (‘dwelling’) to τε γῆν (‘land’), which is accepted by Diggle (1981); cf.,
however, Ussher (1978) and Biehl (1983), who retain the MS reading. In any event, the essential point about
the inhospitality of the Cyclops’ environment remains.
30
E.g. Il. 3.204–24; Pi. N. 7.20–26 is a less praiseworthy acknowledgement. Odysseus’ verbal skill is also
sardonically alluded to at Cyc. 104, 313–15.
176 Patrick O’Sullivan

the land is hostile to xenoi and its inhabitants are man-killers and man-eaters (22, 92–93).
The hero’s view that he has stumbled across Βρομίου πόλιν (‘a city of Bromios’, 99) is
similarly undercut by the complaints of Silenos and the chorus noted above on the absence
of Dionysos and his worship (20–26, 63–81), which is brutally confirmed by Polyphemos
later (203–05). The satyrs’ presence naturally brings associations of Dionysian ritual to the
sophisticated Odysseus; but in Sicily under the despotism of Polyphemos, they are out of
their natural element, cut off from their god.
Much of the lengthy stichomythia between Silenos and Odysseus (102–62) focuses
on the nature of their current location, mentioned four times (106, 114 bis, 130),31 and
illustrates its isolated position and the barbaric nature of the creatures that inhabit it.
The liminal status of Sicily at the fringes of the Greek world is brought out in Odysseus’
explanation that he was driven there by storm winds, just as the satyrs were (108–12; cf.
11–22). The play’s setting is identified once more with specific reference to Aetna, again
seen as the focal point for Sicily:
Οδ. τίς δ᾿ ἥδε χώρα καὶ τίνες ναίουσί νιν;
Σι. Αἰτναῖος ὄχθος Σικελίας ὑπέρτατος. (113–14)
Od. What land is this and who are its inhabitants?
Si. The mound of Aetna, the highest in Sicily.
From here we find out just how backward the location is and how murderous its inhabitants
are. There are no buildings, nor any community to speak of, as in the Homeric account
(Od. 9.112–15); but, in contrast to Homer’s virtual locus amoenus, the promontories in this
Euripidean drama are as desolate as the caves inhabited by the Cyclopes themselves:
Οδ. τείχη δὲ ποῦ ᾿στι καὶ πόλεως πυργώματα;
Σι. οὐκ ἔστ᾿· ἔρημοι πρῶνες ἀνθρώπων, ξένε.
Οδ. τίνες δ᾿ ἔχουσι γαῖαν; ἦ θηρῶν γένος;
Σι. Κύκλωπες, ἄντρ᾿ ἔχοντες, οὐ στέγας δόμων. (115–18)
Od. But where are the city-walls and fortifications?
Si. There are none. The headlands are empty of men, stranger.
Od. Who occupies the land? A race of beasts?
Si. Cyclopes, who live in caves, not dwellings in the form of houses.
There is much of interest here in Odysseus’ apparently innocent question, which is predicated
on a major strand of Greek thought about human progress. Housing and architecture were
understood as among the essential signifiers of even a basic human community. Prometheus,
one of the great culture heroes of Greek myth, taught humans the art of house-building
when they had previously lived in caves (Pr. 450–53, 469–71); in Sophocles’ famous ‘Ode
to Man’ in the Antigone (332–75), the provision of shelter from the elements is rated one of
many great human achievements (356–59). In Protagoras’ myth of the origins of communal
life in the polis, house-building occurs again as a defining feature of human progress even

31
By line 130 the location has been mentioned eight times.
 Dionysos, Polyphemos, and the Idea of Sicily in Euripides’ Cyclops 177

before the rise of democracy and political technê (Pl. Prt. 322a5–8). The absence of housing
in the Sicily of the Cyclopes, emphasized in the periphrasis of στέγας δόμων, underscores
the barbaric and primitive nature of the land’s occupants.
A further irony is at work here, too. Elsewhere in Greek thought,32 Cyclopes were
associated with building monumental works of architecture of the heroic age – whence
the adjective Κυκλώπιος to explain the vast architectural remains from what we now call
the Bronze Age.33 These satyric Cyclopes, however, produce nothing of the sort at all; the
answer to Odysseus’ question thus illustrates the particular backwardness of these Cyclopes
compared with even others of their ilk in different mythic accounts.34 Euripides’ Cyclopes
draw heavily on their Homeric counterparts; these man-killing, indeed man-eating, sons of
Poseidon (20–21, 126–28) are unlike Hesiod’s Cyclopes, who are the sons of Ouranos and
Gaia (Hes. Th. 139–46).35 The hostility to Zeus and other Olympians, notably Dionysos,
shown by the Euripidean Polyphemos (esp. 203–05, 320–46, etc.) also puts him at odds
with the Hesiodic Cyclopes, who end up as allies of Zeus in his war against the Titans,
by providing him with thunderbolts (Th. 501–06). It has been noted that the Hesiodic
Cyclopes ‘could scarcely be more different from those encountered by Odysseus in Book 9
of the Odyssey’.36 Yet this difference from the Hesiodic model applies a fortiori to Euripides’
Cyclopes, whose barbarism and harshness is further reflected in the very land they inhabit
and their living conditions.37
Almost as if evoking the thought-patterns of Protagoras, Euripides has Odysseus ask
about the political system on the island. So far the Cyclopes have not managed architecture,
a feature of even an elementary Protagorean polis.38 But Odysseus specifically asks about
the existence or otherwise of democracy:
Οδ. τίνος κλύοντες; ἢ δεδήμευται κράτος;
Σι. μονάδες· ἀκούει δ᾿ οὐδὲν οὐδεὶς οὐδενός. (119–20)
Od. Whose subjects are they? Or is power shared among the people?
Si. They’re loners. Nobody is subject at all to anyone else.

32
See e.g. B. 11.77–78 and other passages from Euripides (HF 15, 998; Tr. 1088; El. 1158); cf. [Apollod.]
2.2.1.
33
As Seaford (1984) ad 92 suggests, the Κυκλωπίαν γνάθον (‘Cyclopean jaw’) mentioned by Silenos (92)
may thus be a joke on the sheer size of the monster’s bite.
34
In, for instance, Call. Hymn 3.46–50 and Verg. A. 8.416–23 the monsters are workers at the anvils of
Hephaistos/Vulcan, Olympian god of technê involving fire.
35
The Homeric Polyphemos is the son of Poseidon (Od. 9.519–36) and his hostility to Zeus is emphasized
by Homer (Od. 9.272–78).
36
Gantz (1993) 12.
37
For Homer’s more idyllic description of the monsters’ habitat in the Odyssey, compared with the
descriptions of it in Cyclops, see above.
38
We need not accept the tradition that Euripides was a student of the great Sophist (TrGF 5.1 Test. F 40),
but it is plausible to see Odysseus’ question as reflecting, albeit perfunctorily, the contemporary interest in
political institutions shown by e.g. Protagoras (frs B5, 8a D-K, etc.); cf. Gorgias (fr. A 29 D-K); Antiphon (frs
B72–77 D-K); Thrasymachus (B1 D-K).
178 Patrick O’Sullivan

The question surely seems otiose, especially when we consider that Silenos has just said that
the land is inhabited by one-eyed, cave-dwelling monsters. But if we accept that Euripides is
following the satyric trope of making the setting of his satyr-play antithetical to the norms
of the Athenian polis, some light is shed on the dramatist’s work here. In fact, Euripides
is echoing Homer’s description of the Cyclopes as lacking any communal institutions,
with each one being a law unto himself (Od. 9.112–15), but the playwright is doing so in
a way that will resonate more tellingly for his fifth-century audience. Obviously, Homer
cannot make a point about the absence of democracy among the Cyclopes. But Euripides
can, and does so here.39
Odysseus’ questions about the Cyclopes’ livelihood have civic and religious
implications:
Οδ. σπείρουσι δ᾿ – ἢ τῷ ζῶσι; – Δήμητρος στάχυν;
Σι. γάλακτι καὶ τυροῖσι καὶ μήλων βορᾷ.
Οδ. Βρομίου δὲ πῶμ᾿ ἔχουσιν, ἀμπέλου ῥοάς;
Σι. ἥκιστα· τοιγὰρ ἄχορον οἰκοῦσι χθόνα. (121–24)
Od. Do they sow Demeter’s crop? Or what do they live on?
Si. On milk, cheese and the meat of sheep.
Od. Do they have the drink of Dionysos, the streams of the grape-vine?
Si. Absolutely not. For that reason they inhabit a land where there is no dancing.
The absence of agriculture and hence the cult of Demeter is the corollary of the absence
of wine and Dionysos’ cult on the island. But it also forms an interesting detail here, as
Euripides is directly going against the grain, so to speak, of the historical reality of Sicily
not only as the ‘bread basket’ of the Mediterranean world, but as the centre of a major
cult to Demeter stretching well back into the archaic period.40 Such a blatant contrast to
the historical Sicily effectively underlines the chasm that separates this fictive Sicily from
Olympian religion and Greek values. For both agriculture and viticulture were understood
as gifts from the Olympians, with the former bestowed on Triptolemos by Demeter, as
we learn from the Homeric Hymn to Demeter (470–79) and Sophocles’ Triptolemos (frs
597–598); wine was a gift from Dionysos to king Oineus, ‘the wine man’.41 Wine and grain
are, according to Teiresias in Euripides’ Bacchae, the finest blessings for mortals (275–83,
285). In Prodicus’ theological speculations (fr. B5 D-K) wine and grain are considered
so beneficial that they are spoken of as gods; and wine is variously called ‘Bromios’,
‘Dionysos’ or the ‘Bacchic one’ in the Cyclops (156, 415, 454, 519–29, etc.). Such immortal
gifts, then, underscore a bond between humans and the Olympian gods. The Cyclopes’

39
In the production of Cyclops, put on by staff and students of the University of Canterbury in Christchurch,
New Zealand, in 2008, line 119, translated as ‘Are they democrats?’ got a noticeable laugh from the audience
on each occasion. They seemed possibly to understand the forced, anachronistic nature of the question.
40
On the importance of the cult of Demeter in Sicily, see White (1964) and Hinz (1998) esp. 55–167.
The island’s status as a grain-producing centre was well-known to mainland Greeks (Hdt. 7.158.4; Th. 6.20.4,
etc.).
41
See [Apollod.] 1.8.1; Hyg. Fab. 129.
 Dionysos, Polyphemos, and the Idea of Sicily in Euripides’ Cyclops 179

ignorance of such blessings, however, points to a gulf between them and the Olympians,
reflected in Polyphemos’ disdain for the gods, especially Dionysos (e.g. 203–05), and
Zeus (esp. 316–46); the monster’s apparent autarkeia, or self-sufficiency, blinds him to
the ultimate importance of the Olympians.42 There are also connotations of Polyphemos’
un-Greek primitiveness here as an imbiber of milk rather than wine (122). As Seaford
notes, Polyphemos’ milk drinking, alluded to elsewhere in the play (216–19, 327), was at
times considered the preserve of barbarians in Greek thought,43 and is a suitable practice
for an ogre living in a land ignorant of Dionysos’ grape, and by corollary, the niceties of
Greek nomos.44 A land like the Sicily of the Cyclops, then, which does not know the gifts
of the Olympians will produce creatures, like Polyphemos, not merely ignorant of the gods
(521–29, etc.) but positively hostile to them.
In fact, Silenos himself sees some of the significance in all this, by pointing out that,
as a result of the absence of wine, the Cyclopes ‘inhabit a land devoid of dancing’ (τοιγὰρ
ἄχορον οἰκοῦσι χθόνα, 124). The satyrs at least know the Dionysian joys of wine and dance,
which puts them on a different level from Polyphemos, who is more than once berated for
his ignorance. After his joyful reacquaintance with his wine, Silenos calls Polyphemos τὴν
Κύκλωπος ἀμαθίαν (‘the ignorance of Cyclops’, 173); likewise the satyrs gleefully see his
punishment as a form of education for ‘the ignoramus’ (492–93).45 Predictably enough,
Polyphemos makes a travesty of a symposiast, not merely in his own grotesque behaviour
culminating in the rape of Silenos (576–89), but in his own woeful singing. Compared with
him, the satyrs, as followers of Dionysos, are accomplished revellers, musicians and singers.
This gives them scope to deride the tuneless cacophony of the monster’s singing (489–93).
Polyphemos’ tone-deaf, drunken attempts at song have already been mentioned by Odysseus
(425–26); he ‘sings…a cacophany’ (ᾄδει... ἄμουσα: literally ‘Muse-less things’) – a further,
now comic, torment for his men in the cave. Moreover, the monster’s inability to sing neatly
reflects the nature of his homeland which, as we have seen, Silenos has described as alien to
the Dionysian ritual of dance (124). A land without dance will inevitably produce creatures
who cannot sing.46 The Cyclopes’ lack of skills associated with the Muses not only points to
their general lack of culture, but suggests connections with another Sicilian-based monster,
Typhon, who is so removed from the world of the Muses that he even shows terror at the
sound of their song (Pi. P. 1.13–28);47 nor is this the only point of connection between this

42
For a discussion, see Konstan (1990) esp. 216–17, 224 n. 39, who rightly sees its implications for the
despotic nature of the ogre. It would be naïve to assume that Polyphemos’ lifestyle unequivocally evokes a
Golden Age, as described in Hes. Op. 109–20, since the monster deludes himself into thinking he has no need
of the gods and can disdain them with impunity.
43
Il. 13.5–6; Hes. fr. 150.15 (M-W); Hdt. 1.216; Galen 6.765.
44
Seaford (1984) ad 136. At Cyc. 326–28 Polyphemos mentions milk drinking as a prelude to his post-
prandial habit of masturbation – another example of excessive autarkeia (self-sufficiency!).
45
For choral performance as moral education in Athens, see Swift, this volume.
46
The assonance of ἄχορον for the land (124) and ἄχαριν (‘charmless’) for the noise made by Polyphemos
(489) suggests a further connection here.
47
I am grateful to the anonymous reader for this last point.
180 Patrick O’Sullivan

great chthonic beast and the Sicilian Polyphemos.48 The direction of Odysseus’ questioning
now turns from what Cyclopes lack to what they delight in. Here we are told again (cf. 93,
etc.) that they delight in eating the flesh of strangers (125–26). In so doing the monsters
combine two transgressions at once: cannibalism combined with violating xenia, a precept
sacred to Zeus himself. But the most blatant statement about the non-Dionysian nature of
Sicily comes straight from the monster’s mouth on his blustering arrival.

Sicily and Polyphemos against the Olympians

From barbarism to monstrous impiety is a short step in the Athenocentric imagination
of the fifth century, and what we have so far learnt of Sicily in the Cyclops serves as a
fitting introduction to the ogre of the piece. Just as Sicily is backward and remote from
Greek values, so, too, its chief inhabitant is a barbarous and despotic figure.49 Immediately
barking out three tribrachs50 at the terrified satyrs, Polyphemos evinces his antipathy to
Dionysos:
ἄνεχε πάρεχε∙
τί τάδε; τίς ἡ ῥᾳθυμία;
τί βακχιάζετ᾿; οὐχὶ Διόνυσος τάδε,
οὐ κρόταλα χαλκοῦ τυμπάνων τ᾿ ἀράγματα. (203–05)
Get out of the way! Make way! What’s this? What’s this idleness? Why are you performing
Bacchic rites? There’s no Dionysos here, no castanets of bronze, no rattle of the drums.
The monster’s assertion of the absence of Dionysos extends the laments of Silenos (20–26)
and the chorus (63–81), but now he conveys this in brutal and even triumphant tones.
Odysseus’ conversation with Silenos has already identified Sicily as being antithetical to the
civic ways of the Athenian polis: there are no city walls or housing (115–18), no democracy
or social organization (119–20), no agriculture or viticulture (121–24). Thus, the hostility
of Polyphemos to Dionysos – whose cult was celebrated on so many levels in Attica51 – is
a corollary of living in such an environment. The monster’s question τί βακχιάζετ᾿; (204)
does not prove the existence of the cult of Dionysos on Sicily. We have been told enough
already by the chorus and Silenos to know that the satyrs cannot perform their rites there.
Polyphemos’ hostile questioning thus indicates how little he understands of the cult, and
that he will assume that the satyrs are engaging in Bacchic rites whenever they appear to
him not to be carrying out his orders.
When Odysseus tries to dissuade the monster from his murderous intent (286–312),

48
See the discussion below on the cognates of τύφω (Cyc. 655, 659).
49
With some justification Hall (1989) 54 writes: ‘… the most important distinction fifth-century literature
draws between Greeks and barbarians, [is] the polarity between democracy and despotism.’
50
As Seaford (1984) ad loc. notes, the occurrence of three successive tribrachs is unparalleled in extant
tragedy, and here expresses the monster’s agitation, evident again at 210.
51
For discussion, see Pickard-Cambridge (1968) 1–25, 57–101, 180–209; Parke (1977) esp. 77–80,
98–120, 125–36; Hedreen (1992) 67–85; Seaford (1994) 235–80, esp. 262–75.
 Dionysos, Polyphemos, and the Idea of Sicily in Euripides’ Cyclops 181

the significance of place again comes to the fore. But the Homeric hero misreads this
significance. Nor would this be the first time in the play that Odysseus has misunderstood
the significance of his environment, as his remarks on supposedly encountering a ‘polis of
Bromios’ (99) have shown. In attempting to explain how Polyphemos has benefited from the
Trojan war, Odysseus invokes the idea of Hellenism, claiming that it ensured the protection
of the sites where Poseidon, the monster’s father, was worshipped. He mentions the harbour
of Tainaron, cape of Malea, Geraistos, and, with an eye to the Athenian audience, Sounion
(290–96).52 The line of this rather tenuous argument culminates in Odysseus’ ironic appeal
to Aetna itself – described as an active volcano – as a manifestation of Greekness: ὧν καὶ
σὺ κοινοῖ· γῆς γὰρ Ἑλλάδος μυχοὺς / οἰκεῖς ὑπ᾿ Αἴτνῃ, τῇ πυριστάκτῳ πέτρᾳ (‘You share in
these things, too. For you inhabit the recesses of a land that is Greek, under Aetna – the
rock that streams with fire’, 297–98).
Needless to say, the hero fails. Odysseus’ rhetoric here certainly becomes more specious,
and many find it comically inept, but it perhaps was goaded by a sense of desperation,
given his brutish, simple-minded interlocutor.53 Odysseus’ failure to win Polyphemos over
by appealing to a shared Greekness – based on the Greek location of his father’s temples
and Mt. Aetna (of all things!) – only serves to underline the very un-Greek nature of
Sicily and her inhabitants. Polyphemos’ status as non-Greek ogre, like others of the satyric
stage, is confirmed.54 Indeed, the monster feels the need to respond explicitly to Odysseus’
arguments, and even seems to take umbrage at the suggestion that the location of his
father’s temples therefore makes him Greek (318–19). The monster, then, is anything
but Greek, and such a rejection of Odysseus’ claim likewise shows that Sicily, referred to
periphrastically as ‘land…under Aetna’, is equally barbaric. Odysseus’ appeal to Sicily as a
centre of Greek values is profoundly undercut as a result.
Another manifestation of Polyphemos’ impious nature emerges in his arrogant, indeed
grotesque, dismissal of the power of Zeus’ thunderbolts (320–21, 325–28). These boasts,
as has been recognized, are comparable to that of another giant, Kapaneus, one of the
Seven attackers of Thebes.55 And such impiety is practised by another satyric villain, namely
Sophocles’ Salmoneus (S. Salmoneus frs 537–541a), who set himself up as another Zeus.56
Inevitably, these three transgressors are defeated by the Olympians and through the agency
of fire.57 The hostility to Olympian religion shown by Polyphemos continues in his stated
intention to commit the taboo of cannibalism, which assumes the form of a corrupted
52
All sites are attested as places of worship for Poseidon; for Tainaron, see Str. 8.5.1; for Malea, see Paus.
3.23.2, etc.; for Geraistos, see Ar. Eq. 561. The ruins of the temple of Poseidon at Sounion are famous today,
but a temple to Athena also existed there in antiquity; see Paus. 1.1.1.
53
For an excellent corrective to the often hostile reception that Odysseus in the play gets from commentators,
see Goins (1991).
54
See nn. 2, 23 above for references to satyr plays set in distant locales.
55
A. Th. esp. 427–31; cf. E. Ph. 1128–33. For discussion, see O’Sullivan (2005) 136–38.
56
Hesiod (fr. 30 M-W; cf. fr. 15) is the earliest extant source for his story.
57
Both Kapaneus (A. Th. 444–51; S. Ant. 131–37; E. Ph. 1180–86) and Salmoneus (Hes. fr. 30 M-W;
D.S. 6.6–7; [Apollod.] 3.6.7) are killed by Zeus’ thunderbolt. For the role of fire in Polyphemos’ blinding, see
below; at Cyc. 599–600 Odysseus calls on Hephaistos in his role as fire personified.
182 Patrick O’Sullivan

sacrifice (340–46). Moreover, both his manner of cooking his victims and even his actual
equipment, put to murderous uses, resonate with Sicilian overtones. It has been suggested
that Polyphemos’ dwelling place in Sicily evokes another Sicilian ogre, the tyrant Phalaris
of Akragas, notorious by the time of Pindar (e.g. P. 1. 95–98) for his habit of roasting
people alive in his bronze bull.58 Polyphemos adds a cannibalistic touch to the demise of
his victims whom he will cook in his bronze cauldron (243–46, 343, 392, 399, 403),
thus contrasting with the eating habit of the Homeric Polyphemos who eats his victims
raw. Indeed, in seeing this activity as a kind of sacrifice (335, 345–46), the Euripidean
Polyphemos adds to the impiety of his crime, and thus resembles another satyric ogre living
on the fringes of the Greek world depicted by Euripides, the Egyptian Bousiris (Bousiris
frs 312b-315) who carried out human sacrifice.59 Odysseus, who witnesses the monster’s
cannibalism, likewise refers to the cooking vessels, but draws attention again to their place
of origin in speaking of ‘sacrificial bowls of Aetna for the jaws of his axes’ (Αἰτναῖά τε
σφαγεῖα πελέκεων γνάθοις, 395).
Some have identified textual problems in this line,60 but the idea of sacrifice involving
the transgressive shedding of human blood clearly emerges here nonetheless. These ‘bowls
of Aetna’ catch the blood of the victims of a slaughter which becomes a sacrilegious meal
for a godless monster. The horrific nature of this bloodshed is further conveyed in the
description of the axes as having ‘jaws’, as if these implements are somehow animated
and as monstrous as the uses to which they are put. This habit of endowing inanimate
objects with qualities of savagery is as old as Homer who will frequently talk of weapons
of ‘pitiless bronze’ (Il. 3.292, etc.) or other weapons ‘raging’ to kill (Il. 21.168, etc.).61
Given the harshness and brutality of Sicily and Aetna consistently evoked in the play, the
description of the bowls here as ‘Aetnaean’ has similarly grim, brutal overtones, and thus
neatly parallels the periphrastic expression for the axes and their ‘jaws’.
On re-emerging after his grisly meal and his first encounter with wine, Polyphemos
continues in his general antipathy to Greek custom and religion, especially Dionysos. But
the tone in the drama becomes more ominous as the presence of Dionysos is asserted
through the wine, which will lead to the monster’s downfall. At the same time, much
the same irreverence and greed characterizes Polyphemos’ shallow attempt to understand
Dionysos. As Odysseus plies Polyphemos with wine, their exchange reveals the monster’s
ignorance:

58
Cf. also Heraclid.Lemb. Excerpta politiarum 69.1 Dilts; see also Andrewes (1956) 129; Berve (1967)
128–54, esp. 129–32; Luraghi (1994) 21–36. For connections between Phalaris and Polyphemos, see O’Sullivan
(2005) 132–34. Polyphemos as a cannibalistic gourmand occurs in Kratinos (fr. 150 K-A), but this need not
preclude associations with Phalaris and Euripides’ monster.
59
For discussion of Euripides’ Bousiris, see KPS 413–19.
60
The line is daggered by Diggle (1981), but is accepted by Duchemin (1945); Ussher (1978); Biehl (1983).
Paganelli (1981) emends γνάθοις to γνάθους. Seaford (1984) ad loc. suggests that 395 be transposed to follow
398 in the MS (which refers to the bronze cauldron), so that it would function as an appositional phrase.
61
For fuller discussion of this feature of Homeric poetry, see Kokolakis (1981).
 Dionysos, Polyphemos, and the Idea of Sicily in Euripides’ Cyclops 183

Κυ. ὁ Βάκχιος δὲ τίς; θεὸς νομίζεται;

Οδ. μέγιστος ἀνθρώποισιν ἐς τέρψιν βίου.
Κυ. ἐρυγγάνω γοῦν αὐτὸν ἡδέως ἐγώ. (521–23)
Cy. So who is Dionysos? Is he acknowledged as a god?
Od. The greatest for men’s enjoyment of life.
Cy. Anyway, I belch him out with pleasure.
It is perhaps surprising that Polyphemos asks about Dionysos’ identity, given that he
has disparaged him earlier (203–05), and is familiar enough with at least Zeus to insult
his powers; and he has even heard of the Trojan War (280–81, 283–84). In any case,
Polyphemos’ contempt for the god is clear in his belching which becomes impious in its
overtones. For the monster, Dionysos is simply a name for something to be consumed
excessively and as a source of instant gratification (523), just as he disparagingly allegorized
Zeus as pure greed and self-indulgence (336–37).
As has been noted, Odysseus’ gradual enticing of the monster here and for much of
the rest of the scene (530–75 – Silenos’ antics aside) neatly parallels Dionysos’ enticing of
Pentheus in the Bacchae (esp. 811–46), likewise in stichomythia, whereby each transgressor
is lulled into a false sense of security before his punishment.62 In the Bacchae the god is
an actual presence in the process of ensnaring his enemy, while in Cyclops Dionysos can
be understood to be present on a number of levels. He functions as the wine itself, an
aspect exploited by Odysseus since he knows that this is the only way the monster can
comprehend the god. But Dionysos can also be understood as a divine presence guiding
events, as Odysseus implies (573–75). Overall, then, the exchange between Odysseus
and the monster reiterates the ignorance of Polyphemos – not least about Dionysos – on
which Silenos and the satyrs commented earlier (173, 492–93). The monster’s ignorance
of this god thus further reflects the anti-Dionysian nature of Sicily, emphasized elsewhere
in the play, both in the laments of the satyrs (20–26, 63–81, etc.) and in the boasts of
the monster himself (e.g. 203–05). The satyrs once more make clear the anti-Dionysian
nature of Polyphemos and the remoteness and barrenness of his habitat, in anticipating
the demise of the monster through the agency of Maron, the son of Dionysos, who is,
like his father, wine personified (616–19).63 In reprising their earlier longing to escape the
Κύκλωψ Αἰτναῖος (‘Cyclops of Aetna’, 366), the chorus now yearn for reunion with their
much-desired god, expressed in almost erotic terms, which amounts to escape from the
god-forsaken habitat of Polyphemos:
κἀγὼ τὸν φιλοκισσοφόρον Βρόμιον
ποθεινὸν εἰσιδεῖν θέλω,
Κύκλωπος λιπὼν ἐρημίαν·
ἆρ᾿ ἐς τοσόνδ᾿ ἀφίξομαι; (620–23)

62
Sutton (1980) 28.
63
The choral plea for the wine to do its work need not, pace Seaford (1984) ad 616–18, indicate the
cowardice of the satyrs here, which becomes explicit later (635–48); Odysseus would wish for the wine to
have the same effect.
184 Patrick O’Sullivan

And I want to look on Bromios, my desire, who loves to wear the ivy, and to leave the Cyclops’
desolate land. Will I ever arrive at such bliss?
The use of allegories for the gods, whereby they are treated as little more than personifications
of certain elements – or lifestyles in the case of Polyphemos’ allegory of Zeus – occurs again
with implications once more for the character of the monster and the land he inhabits. As
Odysseus prepares to blind his enemy, he invokes the help of the fire god Hephaistos:64
Ἥφαιστ᾿ , ἄναξ Αἰτναῖε, γείτονος κακοῦ
λαμπρὸν πυρώσας ὄμμ᾿ ἀπαλλάχθηθ’ ἅπαξ,
σύ τ᾿, ὦ μελαίνης Νυκτὸς ἐκπαίδευμ᾿, Ὕπνε,
ἄκρατος ἐλθὲ θηρὶ τῷ θεοστυγεῖ,... (599–602)
Hephaistos, lord of Aetna, be rid of your evil neighbour, once and for all, burning out his
bright eye. And you, O Sleep, child of black Night, come with undiluted power to this beast,
so loathsome to the gods,...
While Hephaistos is apostrophized as ‘lord of Aetna’, it is likely that, rather than be
considered as an anthropomorphic Olympian persona, he is meant to be understood here
as metonymy for fire, just as Dionysos has been wine personified earlier in the drama.
Elsewhere in Homeric epic and sixth- and fifth-century Greek thought Hephaistos is fire
personified (Il. 2.426, 21.342–82).65 This aspect of the fire-god is certainly paramount
in Pindar’s description of Typhon’s raging under Aetna (κεῖνο δ᾿ Ἁφαίστοιο κρουνοὺς
ἑρπετόν / δεινοτάτους ἀναπέμπει∙, ‘That monster sends up most terrible streams of fire’
[lit. ‘Hephaistos’], Pi. P. 1.25–26). The personification of Hephaistos as fire would be in
keeping with the other figures of Night and Sleep also invoked here, primordial deities
who inspire fear (Hes. Th. 755–59). In other words, Odysseus is here invoking the agency
of fire to bring about the blinding of Polyphemos, as is frequently done elsewhere in the
play, where the burning or scorching of the monster’s eyeball is emphasized.66 And there is
irony and significance here in that fire will bring about his downfall; for the ἄναξ Αἰτναῖος
– fire associated with the volcano itself – will help defeat the Κύκλωψ Αἰτναῖος, as the
chorus have called Polyphemos (366).67 Odysseus’ invocation of Hephaistos reiterates the
status of the monster as an anti-Olympian figure, who will now have to contend with the
power of another Olympian god, in the form of fire personified, just as he had earlier felt
the effects of Dionysos in the form of wine personified. In any event, we see in this passage
again the barbaric and un-Greek nature of Polyphemos: he is loathed by the Olympian
gods, and the importance of his geographical origins is broached in the description of him
as the ‘evil neighbour’ of the ‘lord of Aetna’.
On another level, Polyphemos may be seen further to resemble the greatest threat to
64
For the efficacy of this and other prayers of Odysseus in contrast to the false and blasphemous language
of Silenos and Polyphemos, see Fletcher (2005).
65
Theagenes fr. A2 D-K; Prodicus fr. B5 D-K.
66
See below, n. 70.
67
Just as fire was a significant feature in the demise of Kapaneus and the satyric ogre, Salmoneus; see
above, n. 57.
 Dionysos, Polyphemos, and the Idea of Sicily in Euripides’ Cyclops 185

Olympian order, the chthonic beast, Typhon. Again the link each monster has with Aetna
is significant. Typhon met his demise in being scorched by the thunderbolt of Zeus and
then crushed under Aetna, as we are told by Pindar and [Aeschylus].68 In fact, the identity
of Aetna is inseparable from that of Typhon in that the volcano’s activity was consistently
explained as the struggles of the giant underneath to escape from it, as we have seen from
Pindar (P. 1. esp. 25–26). In addition to both being enemies of Zeus dwelling by Aetna,
and being alien to the world of the Muses,69 there may be further specific assimilation
between Polyphemos and Typhon in the Cyclops in the choice of words used to signify the
imminent destruction of the satyric beast. In the choral injunctions for Polyphemos to be
destroyed, there is play on the cosmic monster’s name in the use of cognates of τύφω:
κελευσμάτων δ᾿ ἕκατι τυφέσθω Κύκλωψ.
ἰὼ ἰώ∙ γενναιότατ᾿ ὠ-
θεῖτε σπεύδετ᾿, ἐκκαίετε τὰν ὀφρὺν
θηρὸς τοῦ ξενοδαίτα.
τύφετ᾿ ὦ, καίετ᾿ ὦ
τὸν Αἴτνας μηλονόμον. (655–60)
May the Cyclops be consumed in smoke on the strength of our encouragement! In! In! Push
it in most nobly, hurry, burn out the eye of the beast who dines on his guests! Burn him in
smoke! O burn the shepherd of Aetna!
As already noted, this idea of scorching and burning – an inevitable result of being blasted
by Zeus’ thunderbolt – recurs frequently in references to Polyphemos’ imminent and
hoped-for punishment.70 This punishment not only links Polyphemos with other god-
defying, menacing figures, such as Salmoneus and Kapaneus, both blasted by the fire of
Zeus’ thunderbolt, but also links him to a beast of cosmic proportions. For the specific
terminology for ‘burning’, involving cognates of τύφω (655, 659), recalls the actual name
of Typhon, who is also recalled in the glossing of Polyphemos as ‘the shepherd of Aetna’,
which was the final resting place of the cosmic monster. The Cyclops, then, is put on a
level of primordial and chthonic monstrosity. Such a level is consistent with Polyphemos’
hostility to Greek norms and Olympian religion, especially his threats to the power of
Zeus and his antipathy to Dionysos. All these features are underlined by reference to his
barbaric status as a native, indeed shepherd, of Aetna here, just as he was also ‘the Cyclops
of Aetna’ (366) earlier in the play.

68
Pi. O. 4.6–7; P. 1.13–28; [A.] Pr. 363–72; cf. [Apollod.] 1.6.3. His defeat by Zeus is also widely depicted
in art from the Archaic period onward; see, for instance, LIMC VIII.2 s.v. ‘Typhon’ 14, 15, 16, 20, etc.
69
Cf. Pi. P. 1.13–28 and Cyc. 425–26, 489–93.
70
Cyc. 456–63, 475, 599–600, 610–12, 627–28, 648, 655, 657, 659.
186 Patrick O’Sullivan

Conclusion
Much in Euripides’ depiction of Sicily in the Cyclops departs from other accounts in
antiquity, defying what the play’s original audience is likely to have known or imagined.71
Silenos’ blunt answer to Odysseus, for instance, that Cyclopes are the inhabitants of the
island (118) does not even suggest that other kinds of creatures or humans might exist
there also. The satyric version pays not the slightest lip-service to the multiplicity of ethnic
groups on the island, which Thucydides describes (6.2–5). In other words, the Sicily of the
Cyclops is a product of comic and dramatic distortion we might expect of a genre known
as ‘tragedy at play’. But such distortion should not be considered simplistic or lacking in
its own nuances, and I have tried to discuss the elements comprising the negative image
of Sicily in the drama, which are dramatically rich and effective in unfolding the satyric
narrative.
Sicily in the Cyclops appears as a symbol of things barbaric, un-Greek and un-Olympian,
existing on the fringes of the civilized Greek world. Thus, in the Cyclops the negative spectre
of Sicily looms large: in the laments of Silenos and the chorus bewailing their captivity, the
exchange between Silenos and Odysseus on the savage and backward nature of the land and
its inhabitants, and the desire of the chorus to escape their godless habitat. Sicily, conversely,
is a home worthy of its monstrous natural occupants. The despotic and godless behaviour
of Polyphemos, whose Aetnaean identity is emphasized at important moments in the play
(366, 660, etc.), can be read as a further manifestation of a barbaric Sicily, confirming
what has been said before his actual appearance. As an enemy of Dionysos, living in a land
alien to the god’s cult, Polyphemos comes close to being a satyric variant on the theomachos
figure, who, like Pentheus or Lykourgos, resists the gods, notably Dionysos, and suffers
the consequences.72 Moreover, his actions and impiety evoke the behaviour associated with
infamous figures connected to Sicily, especially chthonic monsters and enemies of Olympian
order such as Enkelados and Typhon, with the latter becoming the embodiment of Mt.
Aetna itself. There is a deep-running analogy between the one-eyed ogre and the land he
inhabits based on the brutally inhospitable, non-Greek and anti-Olympian nature of each.
Like the volcano he inhabits, Polyphemos is violent and destructive, and aptly designated
‘Aetnaean’ by the chorus.73 Euripides’ Polyphemos, in keeping the followers of Dionysos

71
Smith (2004) views sceptically Thucydides’ claim of Athenian ignorance of Sicily’s size and population
prior to the Sicilian expedition (6.1); Harrison (2000) mostly explores Herodotean influences on Thucydides’
account of the Sicilian expedition.
72
For discussion, see Kamerbeek (1948); cf. also Segal (1997) 129–30. Aeschylus’ satyric Lykourgos and
Sophocles’ Salmoneus seem likely to have had such characteristics, too.
73
Later poets developed this feature of his persona; Ovid’s Polyphemus, enraged at being snubbed by
Galatea, assimilates himself to the Sicilian volcano in his passion and fury (Met. 13.867–69): uror enim, laesusque
exaestuat acrius ignis / cumque suis videor translatam viribus Aetnen / pectore ferre meo... (‘For I’m burning and my
fire, whipped to a frenzy, flares up more savagely and I seem to carry Aetna, transposed with all its violence, in
my breast’). At times the monster even terrifies Aetna itself (13.877), another instance of Polyphemus’ brutality
made clear by reference to the volcano.
 Dionysos, Polyphemos, and the Idea of Sicily in Euripides’ Cyclops 187

enslaved at the foot of Mt. Aetna, is thus far removed from the democratic Athenian polis
geographically, politically and culturally.
Whatever else can be said about satyrs, Euripides’ Cyclops makes it clear that Sicily is
no more suited to these followers of Dionysos than it is to heroes such as Odysseus or
the Olympians themselves. In their antipathy to Polyphemos, in their longing to celebrate
Dionysos, and their friendship with Odysseus, the chorus of satyrs reveal sympathetic
traits.74 Not least among these is their desire to escape Sicily; even the incorrigible Silenos
has good reason to bemoan his captivity. Rather, it is Aetnaean Polyphemos who is truly
at home in this Sicily, a land consonant with his own brutal persona. With this portrait of
Sicily, the playwright, then, neatly combines a number of well-known satyric tropes. One is
the downfall of an ogre hostile to Dionysos, and distant from Greek culture in more ways
than one – an ogre who, like Thracian Lykourgos, would curb your enthousiasmos at any
opportunity. Another is the victory of Hellenism over barbarism, endorsing Greek norms
and celebrating the imminent reunion of the satyrs with the god of the City Dionysia
himself. Underlying the exuberance that ends the Cyclops, typical of satyr dramas generally,
is the sense of escape not just from a monstrous ogre, but from a monstrous environment
altogether.75

References
Abbreviations
D-K H. Diels and W. Kranz eds, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker. 3 Vols. Berlin, 1956–1959, 8th
edn.
HCT 4 A. W. Gomme, A. Andrewes and K. J. Dover, A Historical Commentary on Thucydides. Vol.
4. Oxford, 1970.
K-A R. Kassel and C. Austin eds, Poetae Comici Graeci. 8 Vols. Berlin, 1983–2001.
KPS R. Krumeich, N. Pechstein and B. Seidensticker eds, Das griechische Satyrspiel. Darmstadt,
1999.
LIMC Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae. 8 Vols. Zurich, 1981–.
M-W R. Merkelbach and M. L. West eds, Fragmenta Selecta, in F. Solmsen ed., Hesiodi Opera.
Oxford, 1970.
PMG D. Page ed., Poetae Melici Graecae. Oxford, 1962.
TrGF 1 R. Kannicht and B. Snell eds, Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta. Vol. 1 Göttingen 1986,
2nd edn.
TrGF 3 S. Radt ed., Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta: Aeschylus. Vol. 3. Göttingen, 1985.
TrGF 4 S. Radt ed., Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta: Sophocles. Vol. 4. Göttingen, 1999, 2nd edn.
74
This is not the place to offer a detailed discussion of the role of satyrs in Greek myth, art and drama;
suffice to say that scholars continue to see in these creatures transgressive and more positive features, many
of which are found in the Cyclops. Notable discussions of satyrs as comical or negative paradigms include:
Lissarague (1990a); (1990b); KPS 34–39; Hall (1998) passim, esp. 29; her position is essentially restated in
Hall (2006) 142–69. More nuanced views of satyrs and their abilities to function on a number of levels have
been gaining ground; Lissarague (1993) notes the ambivalence of satyrs’ ‘wildness’; see also Voelke (2001) esp.
211–59; Gibert (2002); Griffith (2005) 172–86.
75
I am grateful to the anonymous reader for comments on an earlier version of this paper.
188 Patrick O’Sullivan

TrGF 5.1 R. Kannicht ed., Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta: Euripides. Vol. 5.1. Göttingen,
2004.
TrGF 5.2 R. Kannicht ed., Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta: Euripides. Vol. 5.2. Göttingen,
2004.

Works Cited
Allan, W. (2001) ‘Euripides in Megale Hellas: some aspects of the early reception of tragedy’, G&R
48, 67–86.
Ambrose, Z. P. (2005) ‘Family loyalty and betrayal in Euripides’ Cyclops and Alcestis: a recurrent
theme in satyr play’, in Harrison, 21–38.
Andrewes, A. (1956) The Greek Tyrants. London.
Arrowsmith, W. trans. (1956) Euripides II. Chicago.
Berve, H. (1967) Die Tyrannis bei den Griechen. Vol. 1. Munich.
Biehl, W. ed. (1983) Euripides: Kyklops. Leipzig.
Burnett, A. P. (1971) Catastrophe Survived: Euripides’ Plays of Mixed Reversal. Oxford.
Csapo, E. (1986) ‘A Note on the Würzburg bell-crater H5697 (“Telephus Travestitus”)’, Phoenix
40, 379–92.
Diggle, J. ed. (1981) Euripidis Fabulae. Tomus 1. Oxford.
Duchemin, J. ed. (1945) Le Cyclope d’Euripide. Paris.
Easterling, P. E. (1994) ‘Euripides Outside Athens: A Speculative Note’, ICS 19, 73–80.
Fletcher, J. (2005) ‘Perjury and perversion of language in Euripides’ Cyclops’, in Harrison, 53–66.
Gantz, T. (1993) Early Greek Myth. A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources. 2 Vols. Baltimore.
Gibert, J. (2002) ‘Recent Work on Greek Satyr-Play’, CJ 87, 79–88.
Goins, S. (1991) ‘The heroism of Odysseus in Euripides’ “Cyclops” ’, Eos 79, 187–94.
Griffith, M. (2002) ‘Slaves of Dionysos: Satyrs, Audience, and the Ends of the Oresteia’, ClasAnt
21, 195–258.
Griffith, M. (2005) ‘Satyrs, citizens, and self-representation’, in Harrison, 161–99.
Hall, E. (1989) Inventing the Barbarian. Oxford.
Hall, E. (1998) ‘Ithyphallic Males Behaving Badly; or, Satyr Drama as Gendered Tragic Ending’, in
M. Wyke ed., Parchments of Gender. Deciphering the Bodies of Antiquity. Oxford, 13–37.
Hall, E. (2006) The Theatrical Cast of Athens. Interactions between Ancient Greek Drama and Society.
Oxford.
Harrison, G. ed. (2005) Satyr Drama: Tragedy at Play. Swansea.
Harrison, T. (2000) ‘Sicily in the Athenian Imagination: Thucydides and the Persian Wars’, in C.
Smith and J. Serrati eds, Sicily from Aeneas to Augustus. Edinburgh, 84–96.
Hinz, V. (1998) Der Kult von Demeter und Kore auf Sizilien und in der Magna Graecia.
Wiesbaden.
Kaibel, G. (1895) ‘Kratinos’ ΟΔΥΣΣΗΣ und Euripides’ ΚΥΚΛΩΨ’, Hermes 30, 71–88.
Kamerbeek, J. C. (1948) ‘On the Conception of ΘΕΟΜΑΧΟΣ in relation with Greek tragedy’,
Mnemosyne 1 (4th series), 271–83.
Kallet, L. (2003) ‘Dēmos Tyrannos: Wealth, Power and Economic Patronage’, in Morgan, 117–53.
Kokolakis, M. M. (1981) ‘Homeric Animism’, MPhL 4, 89–113.
Konstan, D. (1990) ‘An Anthropology of Euripides’ Kyklōps’, in Winkler/Zeitlin, 207–27.
Lissarague, F. (1990a) ‘Why Satyrs are Good to Represent’, in Winkler/Zeitlin, 228–36.
Lissarague, F. (1990b) ‘The Sexual Life of Satyrs’, in D. Halperin, J. Winkler and F. Zeitlin eds, Before
Sexuality: The Construction of Erotic Experience in the Ancient Greek World. Princeton, 53–81.
 Dionysos, Polyphemos, and the Idea of Sicily in Euripides’ Cyclops 189

Lissarague, F. (1993) ‘On the Wildness of Satyrs’, in T. Carpenter and C. Faraone eds, Masks of
Dionysus. Ithaca, 207–20.
Luraghi, N. (1994) Tirannidi Arcaiche in Sicilia e Magna Grecia. Florence.
Mastronarde, D. ed. (1994) Euripides Phoenissae. Cambridge.
Maxwell-Stuart, P. (1973) ‘The dramatic poets and the expedition to Sicily’, Historia 22, 397–
404.
McGlew, J. F. (1993) Tyranny and Political Culture in Ancient Greece. Ithaca.
Morgan, K. ed. (2003) Popular Tyranny: Sovereignty and its Discontents in Ancient Greece. Austin.
O’Sullivan, P. (2000) ‘Satyr and Image in Aeschylus’ Theoroi’, CQ 50, 353–66.
O’Sullivan, P. (2005) ‘Of sophists, tyrants and Polyphemos: the nature of the beast in Euripides’
Cyclops’, in Harrison, 119–59.
Paganelli, L. (1979) Echi Storicho-Politici nel ‘Ciclope’ Euripideo. Padua.
Paganelli, L. ed. (1981) Euripidis Cyclops. Bologna.
Parke, H. W. (1977) Festivals of the Athenians. London.
Pickard-Cambridge, A. W. (1962) Dithyramb, Tragedy and Comedy. Oxford, 2nd edn. rev. T. B. L.
Webster.
Pickard-Cambridge, A. W. (1968) The Dramatic Festivals of Athens. Oxford, 2nd edn. rev. J. Gould
and D. M. Lewis.
Raaflaub, K. (2003) ‘Stick and Glue: The Function of Tyranny in Fifth-Century Athenian
Democracy’, in Morgan, 59–93.
Robinson, E. (1997) The First Democracies. Popular Government Outside Athens. Stuttgart.
Robinson, E. (2000) ‘Democracy in Syracuse, 466–412 BC’, HSCP 100, 189–205.
Saïd, S. (1998) ‘Tragedy and Politics’, in D. Boedeker and K. Raaflaub eds, Democracy, Empire and
the Arts in Fifth-Century Athens. Cambridge, Mass., 275–95.
Schmidt, V. (1975) ‘Zu Euripides Kyklops 120 und 707’, Maia 27, 193–208.
Seaford, R. (1981) ‘Dionysiac drama and the Dionysiac mysteries’, CQ 31, 252–75.
Seaford, R. (1982) ‘The Date of Euripides’ Cyclops’, JHS 102, 161–72.
Seaford, R. ed. (1984) Euripides: Cyclops. Oxford.
Seaford, R. (1994) Reciprocity and Ritual. Homer and Tragedy in the Developing City-State.
Oxford.
Seaford, R. ed. (1996) Euripides: Bacchae. Warminster.
Seaford, R. (2003) ‘Tragic Tyranny’, in Morgan, 95–115.
Segal. C. (1997) Dionysiac Poetics and Euripides’ Bacchae. Princeton, expanded edn. Originally
published Princeton, 1982.
Smith, D. (2004) ‘Thucydides’ Ignorant Athenians and the Drama of the Sicilian Expedition’,
Syllecta Classica 15, 33–70.
Sutton, D. F. (1980) The Greek Satyr Play. Meisenheim am Glan.
Taplin, O. (1993) Comic Angels: and Other Approaches to Greek Drama through Vase-Painting. Oxford.
Trendall, A. D. and T. B. L. Webster (1971) Illustrations of Greek Drama. London.
Ussher, R. G. ed. (1978) Euripides: Cyclops. Rome.
Voelke, P. (2001) Un théâtre de la marge. Aspects figuratifs et configurationnels du drame satyrique
dans l’Athènes classique. Bari.
White, D. (1964) ‘Demeter’s Sicilian Cult as a Political Instrument’, GRBS 5, 261–79.
Winkler, J. and F. Zeitlin eds (1990) Nothing to do with Dionysos? Athenian Drama in its Social
Context. Princeton.
Wohl, V. (2002) Love Among the Ruins: The Erotics of Democracy in Classical Athens. Princeton.