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Sophocles, Oedipus Tyrannus: The Interpretation of the Opening Scene and the Text of 1. 181

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Alan S. Henry
Affiliation:
University of New England, N.S.W.

Extract

In this scene Oedipus receives the delegation of suppliants who have come, under the leadership of the priest of Zeus, to entreat Oedipus to deliver them from the blight and the plague. The issue with which I propose to deal concerns the composition of this delegation.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1967

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References

2 Jebb takes as referring to all the suppliants. It will be seen later that I cannot share this view.

1 solitarium is not in itself difficult with etc., and one does not have to ‘supply’ anything mentally. This idea of a mental supplement comes from too rigid an interpretation of which in the circumstances I have mentioned is indistinguishable from in sense.

2 See Denniston, , The Greek Particles, ed. 2 (1954). P. 381.Google Scholar

3 It is perhaps significant that Denniston does not list our present passage as an example.

4 Note also the strong antithesis suggested by

5 I am not the first to have wished to read . Wecklein suggested paraphrasing ceteri ex ordine lecti deorum sacerdotes. Whether this is palaeographically superior to I would not like to say, but I reject it because it takes into the phrase.

1 It should perhaps be noted that ‘in well-written literary [my italics] papyri abbreviations are rare: in cursively written papyri of all classes they are not uncommon’ (Maunde-Thompson, , Introduction to Greek and Latin Palaeography [1912], p. 78).Google Scholar

2 Maunde-Thompson, , op. cit., pp. 81 and 83.Google Scholar

3 I am indebted to Professor J. H. Bishop for this parallel.

4 See I.G. i2. 91/92 and Tod, , Greek Historical Inscriptions, ed. 2, i, no. 51.Google Scholar

5 C.R. N.s. ii (1952), 24.Google Scholar