We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
So far as I am aware, the commentators on the above passage(Horace, Epp. I. 16, 73 sqq.)all say that it is imitated from Euripides, Bacchae 492 sqq., and the commentators on Euripides, loc. cit., agree. It seems to me, however, that there is reason to suppose them all wrong; not of course that there is no connexion between the two passages, for there most obviously is, but that Horace is not imitating the Greek directly, but an imitation or adaptation of it by Pacuvius.
page 206 note 1 See Aberystwyth Studies, IV. (1922), pp. 24, 26Google Scholar.
page 206 note 2 See Roscher in Roscher's Lexiskon, s.u. Acoetes Of the Bacchae of Accius we know only that it contained(frags, xii. and xiii., Ribbeck)in interview between Pentheus and either Dionysos or one of his followers.
page 206 note 3 This resembles Ovid, Met. III. 697, solidis Tyrrhenus Acoetes | clauditur in tectis; et dum crudelta iussae | instrumenta necis ferrumque ignesque darantur, etc. I have to thank Mr. A. D. Nock and my colleague, Mr. R. A. Pope, for helpful criticism and suggestions throughout.
