Dating Drama: Euripidean Resolution Chronology Revisited

Abstract

Most plays by the tragedian Euripides lack a precise date provided by an ancient source. In many cases, however, we can assign a date range to individual plays – both to plays which survive in full, and to those for which only fragments are extant – because of Euripides’ tendency to become more permissive over time as regards certain metrical phenomena, especially the resolution of long syllables into two short syllables, and the substitution of anceps syllables by two short syllables. The present article, first, scrutinises a challenge to the Euripidean resolution chronology made by a prominent modern scholar of tragedy; and, second, employs a recent papyrological discovery concerning Euripidean chronology to reassess the resolution chronology. It turns out that this recent papyrological discovery provides external validation of the methodology used in the resolution chronology – the first such external validation which the chronology has received since Gottfried Hermann noticed the phenomenon in question more than two centuries ago.