Abstract

This passage has long embarrassed interpreters, and many, beginning with Kock, have condemned it as spurious. But this would mean that Aeschylus' only answer to Dionysus' question ‘what safety have you for the city?’ would be, in effect, ‘none’ : and this would hardly justify the general confidence expressed in the final scene that Aeschylus will in fact be able to save the city. The most recent editor, Stanford, rightly rejects the idea of interpolation here.