Nauplius at Troy: Aeschylus fr.

451k (Radt)∗

C. Michael Sampson (Winnipeg, Manitoba)

Abstract: Reanalysis of a fragment of Aeschylus ascribed by Sommerstein to the prologue of Pala-

medes. It is suggested the fragment comes from the latter part of the play.

Keywords: Aeschylus, P.Oxy. XX 2253, Palamedes, Nauplius

[Διὸϲ µ]ὲν εὐ̣χαῖϲ̣ πρῶτα πρε̣ϲ̣β̣ε̣ύ̣ων ϲέβ[αϲ

[× – ἱ]κν̣οῦµ̣αι φ̣έγγ̣[ος] ἡλίου̣ τ̣ὸ νῦ̣ν
[× – αµ]εῖψαι ξὺ[ν] τύχαιϲ ε̣ὐ̣ηµέρ[οιϲ
[× – ⏑ – ×] ̣ ̣[ ̣] Ἑλλ̣άδ̣ οϲ λοχαγέταιϲ,
[οἱ ξὺν Με]ν̣έλεῳ τὴν βίαιον ἁρπαγὴν
[γυναικὸϲ ἐκ]π̣ρά ̣ ϲ̣ ϲουϲι Π̣ρ̣[ι]α̣µ̣[ί]δη̣ν̣ Πάριν̣
[× – ⏑ – × ]ϲ εὐµενῆ ϲ̣υνα̣[λ]λ̣[α]γήν·

Apparatus:11 [Διὸϲ µ]ὲν Vaio: ([µ]ὲν] Lobel) ϲέβ[αϲ] Snell 2 [αἰτῶν θ’ ἱ]κνοῦµαι Snell:
[ἔπειθ’ ἱ]κνοῦµαι Mette 3 [πόνουϲ ἀµ]εῖψαι Snell: ([ἀµ]εῖψαι Lobel) 5 [οἵπερ Με]νέλεῳ
Snell: [οἱ ξὺν Με]νέλεῳ Stark 6 [γυναικὸϲ ἐκ]πράϲϲουϲι Snell 7 [νείκηϲ βαρεία]ϲ Lloyd-
Jones εὐµενῆ: ευµενηι Π

Prioritizing in prayer my reverence for [Zeus]… I beg that the present light of the
sun [?]… change with kind fortune [?]… to/for the captains of Greece, [who with]
Menelaus are avenging the violent theft of his wife on Priam’s son Paris [?]… a
kind reconciliation… (Aesch. fr. 451k, 1–7 Radt = P.Oxy. XX 2253a, 1–7 = MP3
030).

Over a half-century following its publication, P.Oxy. XX 2253 continues to

pose interpretive difficulties. Its trimeters, which are reasonably ascribed to

_________
∗ I am grateful to Lyndsay Coo, Rory Egan, Johanna Hanink, and Mark Joyal for comments on
earlier versions of this paper, and especially to Alan Sommerstein, who graciously considered an
argument that departs from his own. The argument was first presented to a seminar on fragmentary
tragedy at Rutgers University, where I was supported by a New Faculty Fellows Award from the
American Council of Learned Societies and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
1 Apparatus as in A.H. Sommerstein, ed. Aeschylus: Fragments, Cambridge (Harvard Univer-
sity Press) 2008, 184.

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34 Archiv für Papyrusforschung 59/1, 2013

Aeschylus on palaeographical grounds,2 mention both Menelaus and Paris, and

plausibly derive from a tragedy set at or concerning Troy, but since the titles of a
dozen Aeschylean tragedies on the Trojan saga beyond the Oresteia survive,3
attribution remains vexed. Myrmidons and Iphigenia have been unconvincingly
proposed,4 and, most recently, Alan Sommerstein has argued that the fragment
preserves the opening of the prologue to Palamedes.5 The following note aims
both to supplement and to modify this position: although I ultimately concur with
the assignment to Palamedes, I offer a new analysis to argue that it more probably
derives from the appearance of the title character’s father Nauplius in the latter
portion of the play.
As early as the editio princeps of Lobel, the similarity of the fragment’s first
verse to that of the Eumenides has invited what I call the ‘prologue hypothesis’ –
the assumption that that papyrus similarly preserves the opening of a prologue
speech.6 Lobel, for his part, was skeptical in this regard,7 but since then, the
critical pendulum has swung sharply in the other direction: Bruno Snell,8 Rudolph
Stark,9 and Hugh Lloyd-Jones all inclined in this direction.10 Its most recent
proponent is Alan Sommerstein, who asserts that “This is clearly the opening of
the prologue of a Trojan War play”,11 before arguing by way of its contents that
Palamedes is the only plausible setting for a speech of this kind. In his recent
Loeb edition, he rechristens it fr. 180a and places it at the head of the fragments of

_________
2The fragment is written in the same hand as numerous other Aeschylean papyri. See Johnson
(2004: 18–20) on the hand (which he labels ‘Scribe A3’), as well as for a table of the fragments
attributed to it (2004: 61). Radt relegates the papyri to the body of fragmenta dubia in his TrGF
out of caution (palaeographical similarity being the sole criterion for attribution), but his doubts are
not insurmountable: “quamquam veri simile est etiam ex his multa, fortasse etiam omnia Aeschylea
esse” (p. 11).
3 Sommerstein (2000: 120) counts eleven plays: Myrmidons, the Judgment of the Arms, Iphige-
neia, Memnon, Nereids, Palamedes, Philoctetes, Phrygians, Phrygian Women, the Weighing of the
Souls, and Thracian Women. One might also add Telephus to the list.
4 See Lloyd-Jones (1957: 582–4) and Stark (1954), respectively. Sommerstein (2000: 119–21)
assesses the problems with both.
5 Sommerstein (2000); also (2008: p. 185); (2010: 67), for which, see my nn. 12–13 (infra).
6 [Διὸϲ µ]ὲν εὐ̣χαῖϲ̣ πρῶτα πρε̣ϲβ
̣ ̣εύ̣ ̣ων ϲέβ[αϲ; cf. πρῶτον µὲν εὐχῇ τῇδε πρεϲβεύω θεῶν (Eum.
1).
7 “Cf. Eum. 1, but there is nothing to show that this is the beginning of a play” (1952: ad l. 1,
p. 15).
8 “Wenn diese Ergänzungen auch zum großen Teil durch andere ersetzt werden können, so zei-
gen sie doch die Situation: offenbar am Anfang einer Tragödie wünscht sich jemand im griechi-
schen Heer vor Troja ein Ende des Kampfes. (Die Szene ist offensichtlich ein schwächerer Vorläu-
fer zur Eingangsszene des Agamemnon.)” (1953: 437).
9 Stark’s evaluation is as blunt as his title (“Ein neuer Aischylosprolog”): “Berücksichtigt man
das zu v. 1 Bemerkte, so wird man kaum zweifeln, daß uns ein gütiges Geschick den Anfang eines
Prologs erhalten hat” (1954: 374).
10 “This looks very like the beginning of a prologue of a play; it recalls Eum. 1ff.” (1957: 582).
11 Sommerstein (2000: 119).

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 C.M. Sampson, Nauplius at Troy: Aeschylus fr. 451k (Radt) 35

Palamedes.12 The rhetoric of Sommerstein’s affirmation (“This is clearly…”) is

strong – necessarily so, since his argument for the attribution to Palamedes
depends upon placing the fragment at the opening of a play. Nevertheless, his
confidence cannot mask the fact that, like the hypothesis’ other advocates, he is
more or less begging the question. Only in more recently published comments on
the fragment does Sommerstein elaborate by suggesting that lines 5–6 are exposi-
tory in tone, and therefore inappropriate outside of a prologue.13 The hypothesis,
curiously, continues to lack a properly detailed and scholarly justification.
Armed with the skepticism of Lobel, who saw no reason to locate the text in a
prologue speech, I would question the assumptions on which this interpretive
status quo rest; of the few reasons for identifying the fragment as a prologue
speech, none to my mind are particularly compelling. Take, for example, the
opening line’s similarity to that of the Eumenides: both texts open with a prayer
that similarly employs postpositive µέν, εὐχή in the dative, and a form of the verb
πρεϲβεύω coupled with the adverb πρῶτον/πρῶτα. The lexical similarity is
undeniable, but why it should render the papyrus text the opening of a prologue
(as opposed to, say, merely reinforce its ascription to Aeschylus) is unclear. As
Denniston notes, the presence of µέν is far from decisive; although the
postpositive is certainly typical in the openings of tragedies Aeschylean and
otherwise, it is equally so for speeches within a play, and does not mark the prayer
specifically as a prologue speech.14 The same goes for the participle πρεϲβεύων
and the adverb πρῶτα; they are certainly consistent with the prologue hypothesis,
but are by no means themselves evidence for it.15 There is nothing in the language,
in other words, that would restrict the possible contexts of the fragment so
drastically. What is more, there exists a simple interpretive alternative for the two
verses’ lexical similarity, namely, that they are of a common type, drawing on
shared (or formulaic) language to highlight one divinity over and against others.16
Nor do other formal considerations lend themselves to the prologue hypothesis:
the speaker’s emphasis on the present (φ̣έγγ̣[ος] ἡλίου̣ τ̣ὸ νῦ̣ν, v. 2) calls to mind

_________
12 “The beginning of the play: apparently the accusation of treason against Palamedes has al-
ready been made, and a Greek not himself involved in the quarrel (Calchas? Nestor?) prays that it
may be resolved peacefully.” (2008: p. 185).
13 “In the second play of a trilogy the audience would not need to be told that they were
watching an episode of the Trojan war, and lines 5–6 would thus be superfluous” (2010: 67).
14 Denniston (1950: 382–3).
15 Aeschylean characters also employ the verb outside of prologues: Ag. 1300; Ch. 488, 631.
So also in Sophocles (Aj. 1389; Ant. 720; Tr. 1965; OC 1422) and Euripides (Alc. 282; Heracl.
479; Suppl. 173; cf. Heracl. 45; Hipp. 5).
16 The fact that the prayer begins by invoking Zeus (if the conjectured supplement [Διὸϲ µ]έν is
accepted) should not be unduly stressed. While one might discern something resembling a more
hymnic appeal (cf. Theoc. 17.1; Aratus, Phaen. 1) and suggest that many poems begin with Zeus
or another god, there is no reason to restrict prayers in tragedy to the context of a prologue: cf., for
example, Ag. 160–83.

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36 Archiv für Papyrusforschung 59/1, 2013

the messenger’s joyous arrival in Agamemnon,17 which two exclamations Fraenkel

has grouped together as being of a similar type,18 and the latter of which occurs
well outside of a prologue. We should conclude, rather, that the parallel with
Eumenides is a matter of coincidence, and ought to have no bearing on the place-
ment of our fragmentary text.
Other considerations related to the Eumenides are no more compelling. For one
thing, we should not forget that it is Euripides (and not Aeschylus) who is
pilloried in the Frogs for composing formulaic openings to his plays (vv. 1198–
1248): the fact that Aristophanes has Aeschylus personally make the joke (and
that Euripides does not counter with a similar charge) suggests that Aeschylean
prologues were not as susceptible to these charges in antiquity, a stylistic variety
well borne out by his six extant plays.19 At stake, in other words, is also a question
of Aeschylean style and poetic personality, issues which ought not to be dismissed
as irrelevant, no matter how subjective their analysis may be. On this point, I
would suggest that even though the prologue hypothesis provides an attractive
interpretive cornerstone, maintaining it has consequences for our impression of
Aeschylus qua playwright: while similar phrasing is to be expected across a
corpus of more than 100 plays, what kind of poet would ape himself by
composing two so similarly worded incipits? I’m not sure, in other words, that the
prologue hypothesis is so valuable that it justifies maligning Aeschylus as a poet
and craftsman.
The other consideration that would potentially support the prologue hypothesis
derives from the layout of the papyrus. As was first emphasized by Stark, the frag-
ment contains a sizable upper margin (ca. 4.9 cm), beneath which the extant text
begins a new column. For his part, Stark only hinted at the significance of this
space, but his implication seemed to be that the vastness of the margin was meant
to displace the initial column of text in order to leave room for the initial book-
title which would identify it.20 Such guesswork is undone by several matters of
fact. For one, there are no traces of a title – or any ink – within the space (no
minor detail). Furthermore, comparison with other fragments of the Oxyrhynchus
_________
17 ἰὼ πατρῷον οὖδαϲ Ἀργείαϲ χθονόϲ, / δεκά τουυ ϲ (‘Lo, the
φέγγ γ ει τ ῷδ ’ ἀφικόµην ἔ το
δε κάττ ου ϲε φέ
ancestral threshold of Argive soil, I’ve reached you on this day of a tenth year,’ Ag. 503–4).
18 Fraenkel (1950: ad 503) describes these as belonging to a “returning traveller.” I will return
to the matter of the traveller shortly, in offering my own interpretation.
19 The openings vary in their introduction of the play: in Persae, the chorus’ anapaests broad-
cast an immediate intertext with Phrynichus; in Septem, Eteocles exhorts the citizen body to
prayer; and the Danaids’ anapaests in Supplices provide a deluge of reasons for their arrival in
Argos. The Oresteia prologues are particularly rich: the watchman in Agamemnon foreshadows the
trilogy as a whole; Orestes arrives at his father’s tomb in Choephori; and, most pertinently, the
Pythia’s prayer in Eumenides (itself multivalent and of thematic importance) serves as a prelude to
the rapid sequence of events in the prologue. If there is a stylistic tic to be found in Aeschylus, it is
the presence of a vocative in the first line (e.g. Ch. 1; Th. 1; fr. 143; fr. 249). Such a vocative,
however, is absent in the papyrus text in question.
20 “Vielleicht ist es nicht unangebracht, auf den längeren freien Raum, der sich vor unserem
Text auf dem Papyrus findet, hinzuweisen” (1954: 374).

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 C.M. Sampson, Nauplius at Troy: Aeschylus fr. 451k (Radt) 37

Aeschylus scribe reveals nothing unusual about this layout; of the fragments
whose upper margin survives, a space of roughly 5 cm is well within established
parameters.21 Comparative evidence suggests that this column of text is unlikely
to have been displaced in any way, a conclusion that is consistent with the typical
placement of initial book-titles in papyrological texts.22 The fragment, in other
words, most likely originates from a typical, professional roll; while one is
certainly permitted to propose that the column marks the beginning of a new text,
the case that this is necessarily so is anything but compelling.
It should already be clear that there is good reason to entertain other possi-
bilities regarding the trimeters, and there survives sufficient text to support a
literary analysis.23 The first line initiates a prayer which privileges a god (v. 1,
typically restored as Zeus) and which requests that this be the day for a change,
from negative circumstances to happy ones (i.e. the τύχαιϲ εὐηµέροιϲ of v. 3).
Given that the speaker then turns to the Achaean leaders (in the dative, no less:
Ἑλλ̣άδ̣ οϲ λοχαγέταιϲ, v. 4), one assumes that the prayer makes a request on their
behalf, which, in the context of the subsequent relative clause invoking the
campaign against Paris for the theft of Helen (vv. 5–6 – admittedly including
editorial supplement), presumably appeals for success at Troy. Even so bare a
summarizing reconstruction makes clear one thing: this prayer is in no way akin to
its supposed relative in the Eumenides. There, the Pythia’s history of the Delphic
oracle’s previous owners (a mythologically innovative sequence for which
Aeschylus is likely to be personally responsible24) serves the clear poetic purpose
of establishing precedent not only for the peaceful transmission of divine offices,
but for the ascendance of the male principle over the female, as well (vv. 1-20).
Dramatically speaking, the prologue’s subsequent action – the Pythia’s horror at
the sight of the Furies, Apollo’s instructions to Orestes, and the rousing of the
Furies by the ghost of Clytemnestra – proceeds rapidly and complicates the

_________
21 Johnson (2004: 19) estimates that the upper margin for the texts of the Oxyrhynchus
Aeschylus scribe range from 4.8–5.4 cm, and notes the general concinnity and harmony in both the
hand and the texts it laid out. Thanks to the Imaging Papyri Project at Oxford University
(http://www.papyrology.ox.ac.uk/POxy), where digital images of papyri held in the Sackler Lib-
rary are publicly available, these calculations can be checked. I estimate a slightly larger range:
P.Oxy. XX 2245 = ca. 5 cm.; P.Oxy. XX 2246 = ca. 6 cm.; P.Oxy. XX 2254 = ca. 4.6 cm; P.Oxy.
XX 2255 = ca. 5.2 cm. Admittedly, the scribe’s practice can vary (P.Oxy. XX 2249 and XX 2250
= ca. 2 cm.), but the papyri support neither Stark’s implication nor the prologue hypothesis that it
endorses.
22 Menico Caroli’s recent study of book-titles in papyri has shown that while an initial book-
title can appear above the first column of the text (i.e. in the upper margin), there are no examples
of a title appearing as part of a column of text, with the text displaced. The more typical scribal
practice is to place the title in the agraphon to the left of the first column. See Caroli (2007: 13–79,
esp. 52–60).
23 I assume in the following that the trimeters are part of a single speaker’s speech, even
though it must be admitted that, in the absence of the left edge of the column, we cannot be certain
that there were no paragraphoi or other marginalia distributing the verses.
24 See Sourvinou-Inwood (1987).

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38 Archiv für Papyrusforschung 59/1, 2013

prayer’s themes of peace and harmony amongst the genders and generations. So
different are the plays’ respective contexts that if an intertext (or any kind of self-
reference) is at work, its purpose is opaque.25
In contrast to the Eumenides-prologue, the papyrus’ trimeters seem to respond
to a dramatic concern involving an arriving character, who calls on the light of the
present day (φ̣έγγ̣[ος] ἡλίου̣ τ̣ὸ νῦ̣ν, v. 2) before mentioning an unspecified alter-
nation of fortune (vv. 2–3). As was noted, the obvious implication, bolstered by
the ensuing reference to the Achaean leaders (vv. 4–6), is that the situation
involves the war, and that the prayer requests better fortune for the army. The
problem, however, is that a most curious detail soon follows, namely, the
speaker’s reference to ‘friendly reconciliation’ (εὐµενῆ ϲ̣υνα̣[λ]λ̣[α]γήν, v. 7). Al-
though the first third of the line is lacunose, the reference has little obvious
bearing on the Achaean military objective: the speaker is unlikely to be suggesting
or praying that they make peace with Troy, even if the action is set shortly after
the army arrives.26
As it survives, then, the speech has three discernible elements: an appeal for
better fortune, followed by references to both the army’s leaders (and possibly
their campaign’s larger objective), and to the aforementioned ‘friendly recon-
ciliation.’ An interpretation overlooks one of these elements at its own risk. For
his part, Sommerstein follows Lloyd-Jones in assuming that the reconciliation in
question involves the Achaean leaders,27 whose internal bickering (with
occasionally disastrous consequences for the larger campaign) is mythologically
unobjectionable. In this reading, the speaker’s request for a change of fortune
would be bound up with the reconciliation and, therefore, the success of the
expedition. It would identify him, furthermore, as a member of the army.28 And
because Sommerstein interprets vv. 5–6 as expository details establishing the
dramatic setting, he proceeds on the assumption that the fragment comprises a
prologue speech. I am not so sure, however, whether the elements fit so neatly
together, and am particularly hesitant on three fronts: whether the appeal on the
Achaean captains’ behalf and the ‘friendly reconciliation’ are at all related;
whether the speaker’s identity can be restricted so decidedly; and whether the
fragment is necessarily so expository in tone.
The alternative I propose is that the speaker’s appeal pertains to the army’s
leaders and the larger campaign against Troy only indirectly, that is to say, only as
a rhetorical maneuver. Consider, for example, the programmatic request that
launches the Iliad, which provides a helpful comparandum:

_________
25 Cf., for example, the intertextual relationship between the openings of Aeschylus’ Persae
and the Phoenissae of Phrynichus.
26 Tentatively discussed by Lloyd-Jones (1957: 582).
27 Sommerstein (2000: 119); see also Lloyd-Jones (1957: 582–3).
28 Sommerstein (2000: 124) hypothesizes that Nestor was the speaker, and notes Maas’ sug-
gestion [apud Lloyd-Jones (1957: 583)] that it was Calchas.

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 C.M. Sampson, Nauplius at Troy: Aeschylus fr. 451k (Radt) 39

Ἀτρεΐδαι τε καὶ ἄλλοι ἐϋκνήµιδεϲ Ἀχαιοί,

ὑµῖν µὲν θεοὶ δοῖεν Ὀλύµπια δώµατ’ ἔχοντεϲ
ἐκπέρϲαι Πριάµοιο πόλιν, εὖ δ’ οἴκαδ’ ἱκέϲθαι·
παῖδα δ’ ἐµοὶ λύϲαιτε φίλην, τὰ δ’ ἄποινα δέχεϲθαι,
ἁζόµενοι Διὸϲ υἱὸν ἑκηβόλον Ἀπόλλωνα (Il. 1.17–21).

Sons of Atreus and you other well-greaved Achaeans, may the gods who have
their homes on Olympus allow you to sack the polis of Priam, and to come home
well. But may you release my beloved daughter, and receive my ransom, dreading
Zeus’ son, the far-shooter Apollo.

Although Chryses prays for Achaean success at Troy, he has no personal

interest in the war itself and does so for purely rhetorical purposes: his objective is
to secure the return of his daughter. By emphasizing first the campaign against
Troy, in contrast to which the matter of a single woman is hoped to appear small
and trivial, the rhetorical structure of the appeal is clear – even if also ironic and,
ultimately, self-defeating.29 But whether or not he is aware of its shortcomings,
Chryses does not rely on rhetoric alone, addressing himself to the army at large,
offering a compensatory ransom, and also emphasizing his priestly office.30
The parallel provided by Chryses’ request bolsters the alternative approach to
the Aeschylean fragment. For one thing, the structure of the former is revealing
inasmuch as it blurs the line between prayer (ὑµῖν µὲν θεοὶ δοῖεν) and appeal
(παῖδα δ’ ἐµοὶ λύϲαιτε), which two things are otherwise aimed at entirely different
ends. Chryses’ rhetoric stitches them together, as though the achievement of the
one depended upon the granting of the other: i.e. ‘give me my daughter in order to
win the war’. But the example of Chryses also reminds us that we need not blindly
identify the papyrus’ speaker as a member of the army. Inasmuch as it is equally
possible that an outsider or non-combatant (however defined) has a request to
make of the army and attempts to ingratiate himself to that end, the fact that the
Trojan campaign is mentioned in the fragment (and even if its success is wished
for) determines nothing; like Chryses, the petitioner may invoke the campaign
against Troy despite having little to no direct investment in it.
No longer must we conflate the prayer’s request for better fortune with both the
larger Trojan campaign and with friendly reconciliation, and no longer need its
reference to avenging the abduction of Helen appear to be straightforward exposi-
_________
29 At the start of the epic, and particularly in the context of the Trojan campaign, women are of
principal importance: the dispute over Chryseïs recalls the importance of Helen for the war as a
whole. The subtext, in other words, is that reclaiming a woman to whom one has a particular claim
is never an easy or routine task: Chryses’ rhetoric unwittingly undermines the achievement of his
objective.
30 The rhetoric of the prayer aims at achieving a tripartite reciprocity of sorts between the perti-
nent parties: he asks the gods to help the army, while his compensation becomes as much a favor
to Apollo as it is to him, a reality made all too clear in the plague that follows Agamemnon’s
rejection of the request.

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40 Archiv für Papyrusforschung 59/1, 2013

tion. The campaign at Troy and the reconciliation mentioned by the speaker are
potentially unrelated; they could be the discrete goals of different parties knitted
together only for rhetorical purposes, and it could be the case that only one of the
subsequent topics relates to the speaker’s desired alternation of fortune. No one,
after all, would assert that Chryses is seriously invested in the downfall of Troy.
Thus, we can break down the prayer’s possible rhetorical structures as follows:
• The prayer requests an alternation of fortune (from bad to good), which is
unrelated to Menelaus, the campaign against Troy, as well as to the
‘friendly reconciliation’ mentioned in line 7. The speaker’s identity cannot
be pinpointed.
• The prayer’s request for an alternation of fortune involves both success in
the campaign against Troy as well the ‘friendly reconciliation’ mentioned
in line 7. The speaker is a member of the Achaean army praying for the
dissolution of internal strife, which is currently an impediment to military
success.
• The prayer’s request for an alternation of fortune involves success in the
campaign against Troy, but not the ‘friendly reconciliation’ mentioned in
line 7. The speaker is still, presumably, a member of the Achaean army.
• The prayer’s request for an alternation of fortune involves the ‘friendly
reconciliation’ mentioned in line 7, but not the campaign against Troy. The
speaker is, like Chryses in the Iliad, an outsider appealing to the army (in
whose power the reconciliation possibly rests), and rhetorically invokes
their larger campaign to this end.

My interest lies with the easily overlooked fourth possibility: in the absence of
any clear indication that the speaker is a member of the army or that the references
to campaign and friendly reconciliation are related, other interpretations should
not be discarded.
Making a compelling case requires both that the speech be placed within a
particular Trojan tragedy of Aeschylus and that a candidate for its speaker be
identified. While it must be acknowledged that the fragmentary nature of these
plays poses a daunting obstacle and that arguments from silence are, regrettably,
the best we can do, only two alternatives appear particularly compelling. The
fragments of the eponymous plays of Telephus,31 Philoctetes,32 or perhaps even
Iphigenia,33 for example, do not suggest that their plots stressed or included

_________
31In Euripides’ Telephus, at least, Telephus and Achilles were reconciled, but even though
Telephus seeks (and ultimately receives) the assistance of the army in return for his service, his
entreaty in Aeschylus’ play seems to be more the suppliant’s: see Csapo (1990).
32 The testimony and extant fragments suggest that Odysseus’ deception and theft of the bow
(rather than the prospect of Philoctetes’ reconciliation with the army) were major themes in this
play. See Müller (2000: esp. 56–59).
33 Only a single fragment survives, and if the plot paralleled that of Sophocles’ Iphigenia and
the Euripidean Iphigenia at Aulis, the brewing conflict between Agamemnon and Clytemnestra

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 C.M. Sampson, Nauplius at Troy: Aeschylus fr. 451k (Radt) 41

reconciliation (or even a prayer for reconciliation). Of other Trojan plots,

Myrmidons,34 Phrygians,35 and Thracian Women36 are all potential candidates for
some sort of reconciliation, though even if its presence could be ascertained from
the fragments, it is in no case integral to their respective poetic actions. A third
group of plays – Memnon, Nereids, and the Weighing of the Souls – provide little
opportunity for any dramatically significant reconciliation at all. But all is not lost:
if one persists in identifying the speaker as a member of the army, the Judgment of
the Arms provides a likely candidate. Frr. 175–177 are plausibly attributed to the
debate or quarrel of Ajax and Odysseus or its aftermath, which could well induce
another’s longing for reconciliation given that the war effort now lacks Achilles.37
Indeed, there is no decisive reason to exclude the Judgment of the Arms from
the potential settings for the speech, but if we consider that the speaker’s concern
may well be some lack of social cohesion not directly related to the war itself, but
whose remedy is nonetheless within the capacity of the Achaean leaders to realize,
it becomes less ideal. There remains a dramatic candidate that more suitably
satisfies these criteria, and as in Sommerstein’s analysis,38 it is Palamedes. For
_________
(and a desire for its prompt resolution), could be posited. There is, however, no particular reason
for positing that Aeschylus addressed this issue.
34 Achilles’ great grief and ultimate desire to reenter the fray – if the latter was developed
beyond the recognition of fr. 139 – would have come towards the play’s end, and may have
required (as it does in Homer) reconciliation with Agamemnon. But while the extant fragments
attest well Achilles’ social isolation (e.g. fr. 131–2, 132c), there is no evidence for positing the
reconciliation at play’s end.
35 This play, which dramatized Priam’s ransoming of Hector’s body, is at first glance an
attractive candidate, as Priam might be a plausible speaker for the papyrus’ prayer. The prayer’s
language, however, pales in comparison to the gravity of the Homeric Priam’s µνῆϲαι πατρὸϲ ϲοῖο
(Il. 24.486), nor does it seem likely that the ceasefire forged towards the end of the Iliad could
plausibly be called a ϲυναλλαγή. Most crucially, one is hard pressed to imagine Priam opening his
prayer by wishing for his enemies’ success against his own city.
36 The anger of Ajax is another situation begging for a reconciliation, but while one could
conceive of Teucer or Tecmessa pleading with the hero to relent following the award of the arms
and its aftermath (as in Sophocles’ play), not enough evidence survives about Aeschylus’ play to
posit such a scene.
37 While I will pursue the case of Palamedes, it should be noted that the only real objection to
attributing the fragment to the Judgment of the Arms is the fragment’s language: the identity of
‘returning traveller’ to whom Fraenkel attributes this kind of prayer cannot be ascertained for that
play. While it seems likely that Thetis was a character in the play, she would make an odd
candidate: one strains to explain why she would be interested in either the army’s success or in the
reconciliation of its generals following the death of her son.
38 Sommerstein explains his reasoning as follows: “If our fragment was the opening of the
play, then it began at a stage of the story when the dispute between Palamedes and his enemy or
enemies had become public – in other words, the accusation of treason had been made – but it was
still possible to hope for a peaceful resolution of it. That is to say, the hatching of the plot, whether
by Odysseus alone or in conjunction with one or more others, was part of the ‘prehistory’ of the
play, not of its action; that the play should start in the middle of the story, rather than at its
beginning, is consistent with the evidence that it continued beyond the execution of Palamedes to
include scenes involving Nauplios. If, like all the mythographic accounts likely to derive from

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42 Archiv für Papyrusforschung 59/1, 2013

one thing, the contrivances of Odysseus resulting in the conviction and execution
of Palamedes would plausibly involve some degree of collusion and strife within
the army, a suspicion reinforced by the evidence that the play dramatized the
aftermath of his death:39 in light of fr. 181, which asks “because of what mischief
did you kill my son?” (τίνοϲ κατέκταϲ ἕνεκα παῖδ’ ἐµὸν βλάβηϲ;), it is certain that
Palamedes’ father Nauplius arrived at Troy in the latter portion of the play, as he
did in Euripides’ Palamedes.40 Nauplius makes for an intriguing figure: like the
Homeric Chryses, he is not directly involved in the campaign, even if his agenda
at Troy is thoroughly bound up with the army, its leaders, and their actions.
Furthermore, if the prayer belongs, as Fraenkel suggested, to the type of joyful
exclamation delivered by travellers returning home from a campaign or a
journey,41 it belongs more plausibly to him than to another already at Troy.
Although Nauplius’ expedition to Troy, it must be admitted, does not qualify as a
nostos, homecoming entails voyage, and the similarity of the invocation of the
present day (ἱ]κν̣οῦµ̣αι φ̣έγγ̣[ος] ἡλίου̣ τ̣ὸ νῦ̣ν, l. 2) and the oblique expression
with which the Agamemnon-messenger expresses his relief on reaching home is
striking.42 Several of the parallels listed by Fraenkel, moreover, are not
homecomings in the usual, transparent sense, and the irony of this particular
arrival (Nauplius is a substitute for Palamedes, who has been deprived of a nostos
and of such an exclamation) is perhaps telling.43
In considering the extent to which Nauplius makes for an appropriate speaker,
one must also be mindful of how Aeschylus’ dramatization relates to the
mythological tradition: according to other sources, Nauplius comes to Troy in
response to Palamedes’ execution,44 having been informed of it by another of his
sons. Some sort of legal action ensues: he pleads his son’s case or requests
compensation for the murder of his kin, but his appeal is roundly rejected as a
favor to Agamemnon, who was complicit in Odysseus’ plot.45 Leaving Troy

_________
tragic sources, Aeschylus’ version involved a search in which planted evidence was discovered, it
is thus likely to have begun at a moment when the search had been ordered but its results were not
yet known” (2000: 124).
39 On stoning as Palamedes’ punishment, see Sommerstein (2000: 125).
40 See TrGF ad loc. (the alternative context for the fragment is Odysseus addressing Pala-
medes, since the traditional source of their enmity was the latter’s placing Telemachus in front of
Odysseus’ plough as a means of exposing his feigned madness. But Palamedes did not actually kill
Telemachus). Thanks to the hypothesis to Euripides’ Palamedes, we know that Nauplius could
number among the dramatis personae of a Palamedes-play: see Luppe (2011).
41 See n. 18 (supra).
42 ἰὼ πατρῷον οὖδαϲ Ἀργείαϲ χθονόϲ, / δεκά τουυ ϲ (‘Lo, the
φέγγ γ ει τ ῷδ ’ ἀφικόµην ἔ το
δε κάττ ου ϲε φέ
ancestral threshold of Argive soil, I’ve reached you on this day of a tenth year,’ Ag. 503–4).
43 Fraenkel (1950: ad 503ff.).
44 Σ MTAB ad Eur. Or. 432: Ναύπλιοϲ δὲ ἀκούϲαϲ ἧκεν εἰϲ Ἴλιον δικάϲαι τὸν φόνον τοῦ
παιδόϲ (‘and when he heard, Nauplius came to Troy to plead in the case of his son’s murder’). A
judicial setting echoes the trial in which Palamedes would have been convicted.
45 On the quasi-legal setting, see the scholion in the previous footnote, as well as Tzetzes ad
Lyc. 384: τότε δὲ µάθων τὴν τούτου ἀναίρεϲιν ὁ τούτου πατὴρ Ναύπλιοϲ ἔπλευϲε πρὸϲ τοὺϲ

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 C.M. Sampson, Nauplius at Troy: Aeschylus fr. 451k (Radt) 43

empty-handed and angry, Nauplius goes on to plot the deaths of the army’s
leaders, revenge which provides the plot for a further tragedy.46
The question of which elements derive from which tragic productions remains
open,47 and while it is hard to pinpoint how Aeschylus would have dramatized
Nauplius at Troy, the papyrus’ reference to friendly reconciliation offers a telltale
clue. I would argue on its basis that the speech preserved in Aeschylus fr. 451k
was delivered by Nauplius, upon his dramatic arrival at Troy (and physical arrival
onstage). At this point, the same actor who portrayed Palamedes earlier in the play
reappears in the guise of Nauplius, intensifying the dramatic echo of the earlier
scene in which Palamedes defended himself (frr. 181a–182). Agamemnon or
Odysseus (or both, depending on the play’s date and its number of actors), would
need to arrive before the appeal could formally begin, but fr. 451k precedes that
scene and contains the new character’s initial words. Entering the scene on which
the Achaean army which would have comprised the play’s chorus was assembled
(and perhaps even before identifying himself), Nauplius makes all gestures of
goodwill before a divine witness, and the altered fortune to which he refers
plausibly has two distinct elements – success for the army, and satisfaction for
himself.48 The latter involves ‘friendly reconciliation’: in articulating immediately
that he bears neither the Greeks nor their captains any ill will (for the time being,
anyway), Nauplius establishes his intentions and opens the door for the settlement
and return to normalized relations at which his trip is aimed. And although we
cannot be certain whether it was financial compensation or simply an explanation
_________
Ἕλληναϲ καὶ τὴν τοῦ παιδὸϲ ἀπῄτει ποίνην, ἄπρακτοϲ δὲ ὑποϲτρέψαϲ, ὡϲ πάντων χαριζοµένων τῷ
βαϲιλεῖ Ἀγαµέµνονι, µεθ’ οὗ τὸν Παλαµήδην ἀνεῖλεν Ὀδυϲϲεύϲ --- (‘and then, having learned of
[Palamedes’] execution, his father Nauplius sailed to the Greeks and requested blood-money for
his son. But having turned back without accomplishing his goal – since all were obliging the king
Agamemnon, with whom Odysseus had put Palamedes to death…’).
46 This plot is usually attributed to Sophocles’ Nauplius Fire-starter, as distinguished from
Nauplius Sailing In. I will discuss the latter play in further detail shortly, and note that Sophocles,
in addition, wrote a Palamedes play, as well.
47 The loose scholarly consensus is that the report of [Apollodorus] (Ep. 3.7–8) is most likely
to reflect Aeschylus’ plot. I offer no opinion on this topic, but note simply that this passage says
nothing of Nauplius, whom it is certain was not only a character in the play, but who is also of
principal importance for my discussion of it.
48 For a sense of how such a prayer might look, consider the following supplement in line 7:

[Διὸϲ µ]ὲν εὐ̣χαῖϲ̣ πρῶτα πρε̣ϲβ ̣ ̣εύ̣ ̣ων ϲέβ[αϲ

[× – ἱ]κν̣οῦµ̣αι φ̣έγγ̣[ος] ἡλίου̣ τ̣ὸ νῦ̣ν
[× – αµ]εῖψαι ξὺ[ν] τύχαιϲ ε̣ὐ̣ηµέρ[οιϲ
[× – ⏑ – ×] ̣ ̣ [ ̣] Ἑλλ̣ά̣δοϲ λοχαγέταιϲ,
5 [οἱ ξὺν Με]ν̣έλεῳ τὴν βίαιον ἁρπαγὴν
[γυναικὸϲ ἐκ]π̣ρά ̣ ̣ϲϲουϲι Π̣ρ̣[ι]α̣µ̣[ί]δη̣ν̣ Πάριν̣,
[κἀµοὶ δὲ ‒ ×]ϲ εὐµενῆ ϲ̣υνα̣[λ]λ̣[α]γήν·

Prioritizing in prayer my reverence for [Zeus]… I beg that the present light of the sun [?]… change with kind
fortune – [success for all] the captains of Greece, [who with] Menelaus are avenging the violent theft of his
wife on Priam’s son Paris [and/but] a kind reconciliation [for me]…

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44 Archiv für Papyrusforschung 59/1, 2013

that he sought, whatever it was, the army’s response proved unsatisfactory. The
rest, we might say, is mythology.
Nauplius cuts a particularly compelling figure for the papyrus’ prayer because
of the contrast in the mythological tradition between a judicial or quasi-judicial
setting for the appeal and his subsequent, angry retribution. Even if Nauplius
arrives with suspicions about his son’s death, he appears initially to pursue a legal
solution, venturing to Troy in search of both an explanation for his son’s
execution and its appropriate compensation. Only after the court fails to satisfy
does his anger get the better of him, which ultimately results in vendetta and the
plots against the Achaeans on their homecomings.49 A cynical observer might
object that it was perhaps a tall order that a jury which had already ruled against
Palamedes would change its mind on appeal, but this observation only makes
Nauplius’ speculative journey and petition all the more curious. The intrigue
seems at home in Aeschylus’ play: as fr. 181 makes clear, he does not know why
his son was executed, and his application to the army and its generals may
therefore have deepened the dramatic contrast between Palamedes’ past bene-
ficence and his innocent ignorance of his alleged treachery.50
The character of Nauplius that I attribute to Aeschylus’ play is optimistic,
reasonable and rational, who (not unlike the Homeric Chryses) pursues his
objective via the civilized avenues and institutions available to him. Like Chryses,
it is only when he is unduly rejected in a matter involving his offspring that a
different course of action is contemplated. I am not blind to the amount of
speculation involved in this reconstruction and contextualization of the frag-
ment,51 but there is good reason to stress its crucial element, namely, that the
reconciliation in question is between Nauplius (or his family) and the Achaean
host. For, towards the end of the fragmentary hypothesis to Sophocles’ Nauplius
Sailing In, which concerns precisely this plot, mention is similarly made to ‘asso-

_________
49 I cannot but think of the conclusion of the Eumenides, and the violence initially threatened
by the Furies in response to the verdict. There will be no appeasing of Nauplius, however.
50 In dramatic versions of the myth – Aeschylus’ included (i.e. fr. 181a–182) – Palamedes is
typically a great benefactor of the army. In fact, if fr. 181 is given to Nauplius, one could well
place fr. 181a somewhere in its wake, since the grammatical person of its verb is ambivalent
(unlike the transparently first-person singulars of fr. 182) and since Nauplius would be well placed
to ridicule or attack the alleged βλάβη by listing his son’s many achievements and benefactions.
The reassignment of the second fragment would further emphasize the parallelism with the play’s
earlier trial (already hinted at by the likely distribution of roles to the same actor). For Palamedes’
beneficence elsewhere in tragedy, see Soph. fr. 432, 479; Eur. fr. 578.
51 For one thing, the significant temporal gap between the execution of Palamedes and Nau-
plius’ subsequent arrival at Troy would have strained the limits of dramatic verisimilitude: even
the implausible nostos of the Agamemnon makes a poor parallel, as the fall of Troy in that play is
not dramatized, but only reported onstage. But if Palamedes included both the trial of Palamedes
(frr. 181a–182) and Nauplius’ failed appeal (fr. 181) – as it seems it must have – we must posit
some dramaturgical mechanism (an intervening episode, or perhaps a choral song of epic propor-
tion as in Agamemnon) that would disguise the timeline. Euripides would have faced the same
difficulty in his Palamedes.

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 C.M. Sampson, Nauplius at Troy: Aeschylus fr. 451k (Radt) 45

ciating well’ with an unspecified ‘them’, before a command is given and Nauplius
departs:
[ca. 14 Να]ύπ̣λι̣ ̣οϲ̣, ὃϲ τὴν κρίϲ̣ιν ἀθ̣ετ̣ ε̣ ῖ̣ [ca. 16] ̣ [̣ ̣ ]̣ ̣ϲ̣ ὑπάρχειν τού̣τ[̣ ̣] ̣ ̣ µὲ̣ν
[ca. 15] κ̣αὶ̣ π̣ρ̣ὸϲ̣ α̣ὐ̣τοὺ̣ϲ κ[α]λ̣ῶ̣ϲ ὁ̣µ̣ει̣ λ̣ῆ[̣ ϲαι ca. 13] κελε̣ύ̣ει̣ ̣. κατοδυροµέ̣ν̣ου δ’
Οἴα̣[κοϲ ca. 10 Ναύ]π̣λι̣ ̣οϲ̣ ἀποπλεῖ τοῖϲ Ἕλληϲιν̣ α̣ [ca. 14] (P.Oxy. LII 3653 fr.1.1–6).52

“Nauplius, who rejects the decision… [ca. 16 letters] to begin… [ca. 15 letters] and to
associate with them well… [ca. 13 letters] commands. But as/when/if/
since/although Oiax was lamenting… [ca. 10 letters] Nauplius sailed away… for the
Greeks [ca. 14 letters].”

Reconstructions of the end of the hypothesis, as Sommerstein notes, incline in

the direction of a typically open-ended conclusion to the drama, i.e. that Nauplius
leaves “with threats on his lips.”53 More interesting, from my perspective, is the
reference to ‘associating well with them’ (π̣ρ̣ὸϲ̣ α̣ὐ̣τοὺ̣ϲ κ[α]λ̣ῶ̣ϲ ὁ̣µ̣ει̣ λ̣ῆ[̣ ϲαι)
which follows the decision (κρίϲιν) and Nauplius’ rejection of it. In light of the
plural αὐτούϲ, which denotes either the army or members of Nauplius’ family, the
conclusion that relations between the two groups soured after the verdict seems
unavoidable. But as I have argued regarding fr. 451k and its place within
Aeschylus’ play, such souring assumes the possibility of a mutually satisfactory
conclusion – that the two sides could either have been reconciled or have
continued in their friendly relations.54 The mythological tradition, which presu-
mably reflects the tragic myths at least in part, similarly juxtaposes Nauplius’
optimistic recourse to legal institutions and his disappointed retribution.
We may never untangle the plots of the various tragic treatments of the Pala-
medes-Nauplius myth satisfactorily, but it is more than probable that the
Aeschylean Nauplius comes to Troy in the hope of resolving the situation
involving his son, either by receiving compensation for the execution of his kin or
by satisfying himself as to its necessity. If we place fr. 451k in Aeschylus’
Palamedes and consider the larger mythological context, the fragment fittingly
describes Nauplius’ arrival at Troy, where he begins by ingratiating himself to the
army, hoping for, but perhaps not expecting, a positive outcome.

_________
52 Included by Radt amongst the addenda to Sophocles (1999: 756).
53 Sommerstein (2010: 258): possible supplements proposed for the alpha following τοῖϲ
Ἕλληϲιν̣ are ἀ̣[πειλῶν (Maehler) and ἀ̣[πώλειαν ἀπειλῶν (Parsons). So also the hypothesis to Euri-
pides’ Palamedes concludes Ναύπλι[οϲ] ἀπειλήϲαϲ Ἀγα̣µέµνον[ι] πα[λι]ν ἐξέπλευϲεν (‘Nauplius
sailed away, threatening Agamemnon’).
54 Regarding the Sophoclean hypothesis, Sommerstein (2011: 161) argues for the latter, name-
ly, that Nauplius instructs Oiax to associate well with the army, ignoring the wrongs done to their
family. He speculates that this may be for Oiax’s own safety, or to disguise his own malevolent
intentions.

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46 Archiv für Papyrusforschung 59/1, 2013

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