Tragic Time Time in Greek Tragedy by Jacqueline de Romilly Review by: Hugh Lloyd-Jones The Classical Review, New

Series, Vol. 20, No. 3 (Dec., 1970), pp. 302-304 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/706319 . Accessed: 15/03/2012 11:40
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exploring the tension between oIKOs and individual. In the primitive world the survival of the otKOsdepended in large measure on the survival of the avip -rdAEoS, but by the time of Euripides it was possible to set up the honour and happiness of individuals in competition with it. But readers of Wilson's collection will have plenty to think about without help from me. A. D. FITTON BROWN University of Leicester

TRAGIC

TIME

DEROMILLY: Timein GreekTragedy.(Messenger Lectures, JACQUELINE 1967.) Pp. viii+1-8o. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press (London: Oxford University Press), 1968. Cloth, 57s. net.
THE concept of time in various early civilizations has been the subject of a vast literature, many of whose authors have been led by an exact study of terminology to conclude that the people they have studied had a notion of time which was in some way peculiar or abnormal. Some of the pitfalls into which such an approach may lead have been well indicated by J. Barr, Biblical Wordsfor Time (London, 1962). The most influential contribution to the topic by a classical scholar has been Herman Frankel's paper 'Die Zeitauffassung in der griechischen Literatur', first published in I931 and reprinted with changes in Denkens (Munich, I960). Frinkel rightly points Wege und Formenfriihgriechischen out that Homer is indifferent to exact chronology and to temporal sequences in general; when Homer needs to express the passage of time in general fashion, he uses the more concrete notion of 'the day'. In Archilochus 'das Ich konstituiert sich eigentlich erst jetzt, in seiner Gefahrdung durch den Tag, als eine besondere Welt, die mit der Aussenwelt, die nun erst zum Gegenpart geworden ist, in Beziehung tritt' (p. 8) ; during the lyric age the ego becomes conscious of itself as trying to escape being carried along by the stream of time. Time is first accorded 'den Rang und strahlenden Glanz der erfiillenden, vollendenden Zuktinftigkeit' (p. 9) by Solon, who paves the way for the coming greatness of Athens. Here first we find an abstract conception of time; Frdnkel is oversceptical about the Chronos of Pherecydes (see Kirk in Kirk-Raven 56). Pindar also entertains such a conception, but remains an archaic author, but Aeschylus ceases to be archaic and becomes classical; in his earlier works Xpdvosmeans only the future or the interim, but in the Oresteia it is used also of the past (p. 12). This approach involves grave dangers, as has nowhere been better pointed out than by Momigliano in his paper 'Time in Ancient Historiography' (in History and Theory: Studies in the Philosophy of History, Wesleyan University Press, 1966), 8 f. It is one thing to point out that the early epic deals with time and the passage of events in terms of certain well-marked literary conventions; it is another to conclude that its authors were unaware of time as ordinary people know it, but held some mysterious conception of its nature peculiar to themselves. In so far as Frdinkel's paper describes the manner of referring to time and temporal sequences in Greek authors from Homer to Aeschylus, it is a valuable analysis; in so far as it draws from literary conventions, and what may be accidents of verbal usage, the conclusion that Solon, Pindar, and Aeschylus progressively invented the concept of time as we know it-and

THE CLASSICAL REVIEW 303 whether Friinkel meant that or not, that is how he has been interpreted by his followers-its method and results are open to objection. Mme de Romilly begins by invoking Friinkel; he ended and she begins with Aeschylus. If the consciousness of time was acute and ripe during the fifth century, she says (p. 4), then each of the great tragedians must have had views about it, both spoken and unspoken. Tragedy deals with change, and therefore with time (p. 5); it suggests a perpetual reflection about the events which it describes in connection with the past and future, and it discusses and meditates about intricate causes and responsibilities (p. i i). 'Therefore', Mme de Romilly continues, 'it always presents us with a more or less conscious philosophy of time.' But does it ? Aeschylus often-not 'always' (p. 7)-wrote in continuous trilogies and, as Mme de Romilly shows in the chapter she devotes to him and as others have shown before her, moves between past, present, and future in a way greatly facilitated by the presence of the chorus; in his works time tends to appear as the power that will eventually bring justice. Sophocles writes single plays, and tends to concentrate on the catastrophe of their central figures; time in Sophocles, Mme de Romilly says (p. 88), is 'not, as in Aeschylus, the means ofjustice, but the cause of unsteadiness and lability in human life'. In the little of his works which we possess Aeschylus indeed tends to consider time as the bringer ofjustice; but it follows from his view of human life that human beings may see time as something inscrutable and unreckonable, for time will reveal what is the will of Zeus. Sophocles tends to stress this second aspect of time's nature, but it still follows from his view of life that time may be seen as the bringer of justice, as it is seen, to take an obvious example, in his Electra (see, e.g., 179; cf. O.C. 614 etc.). The works of Euripides are, as Mme de Romilly acknowledges, so numerous and various that it is not easy to single out a definite attitude towards time. It would be easier if he had written less. The book's general conclusions are summed up (p. 141) in these words: 'Homer had known but a fragmented and disorderly kind of time, where as Frankel says "the day" was the main notion. Then arose the idea of a continuous time, including a whole sequel of events. This idea culminated in Aeschylus' tragic time. Through Sophocles' alternate changes, we have seen time dissolving into an uncertain drift so that in Euripides "the day" again becomes all that we know. Yet there is a difference (time demands that there should be one!). This new "day" has now become tragic, precisely because it is felt as an isolated fragment of a broken chronos,it is not that one does not think of chronosas a whole, but that this chronos finally turns out to be irrational, and to evade all human calculations. For we are left with our emotions, which implies both the feeling of something amiss and the growth of new interests.' The first sentence echoes Friinkel, whose theory as we have seen gives rise to doubts. Did the idea of a continuous time, 'including a whole sequel'I think the writer means 'sequence'-arise only after Homer? Did Sophocles and Euripides not describe a whole series of events set in continuous time? Did Aeschylus and Euripides not connect time with the mutability of human fortune ? Were Aeschylus and Sophocles unaware that mortals cannot know the future? The truth is that a certain attitude to time-attitude to, not conception of-was bound to be expressed by poets holding the general view of the universe, man, and the gods which was common to Aeschylus and Sophocles and, to a large extent, to Euripides also. That obvious fact is only obscured by the

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of Greek thought that is so excessive preoccupation with the development characteristic of Frankel and others of his generation. This book contains much that is true and useful about the poetical and metaphorical use of time in the tragediansand about the dramatic exploitation of its passage. This is particularlytrue of the second chapter, on the personification of time, and the sixth, on 'Young and Old in GreekTragedy', though both chapters sometimes suffer from a tendency to generalize about the poet's attitudes on the basis of limited material; may not, for example, the absence from extant Aeschylus of any complaint about old age (note Ag. 72!) or any suggestion that old men are not always reasonable (see pp. 151 and 154) be ? But when Mme de Romilly tries to tell us something significant fortuitous about the different 'philosophies' of time supposed to have been held by the three great tragedians, it seems to me that she is not successful. Although the friends employed to check Mme de Romilly's English might have served her better-there are many small mistakesin idiom, and sentences like 'The past can be mentioned as being of similar features to the present' or 'Hippolytus ... is a sweet, idealistic youngster'should never have been allowed to stand-much of the speaker's charm comes through even in a foreign language. P. Ii : did Medea kill more than one brother? P. I8, 1. 4: for 'Teiresias' read 'Calchas'.
Christ Church, Oxford HUGH LLOY D-JONES

TRAGIC

ELUCIDATIONS

H. D. BROADHEAD: of Passagesin GreekTragedy. Tragica:Elucidations N.Z.: University of Canterbury, 1968. Cloth, Pp. 179. Christchurch,
(2. 2S.

THE

late H. D. Broadhead was an intelligent and honest textual critic. He lacked the flair which marks a critic of the highest order; only contrast his
treatment of Tr. II99 (p. 105) with that of Jackson (Marg. Scaen. 158) or his treatment of Hipp. 327 and 503 f. (pp. I51, 152) with that of Barrett. The law

of diminishing returns makes it unlikely nowadays that anyone who is not a Jackson or a Barrettwill find a decisive solution to a long-establishedproblem in a play transmittedin Byzantine manuscripts;but Broadheadoften reminds us of serious difficultieswhich have been neglected, at least by recent editors, and even where his own solution may not convince, he is almost always worth reading with attention. The book seems to have sufferedsomewhat from the deficienciesof the New Zealand libraries.Broadheadmentions R. D. Dawe's supplement to Wecklein's list of conjecturesupon Aeschylus; but he seems to have made little, if any, use of Prinz-Wecklein's apparatus to Euripides, nor did he realize that in the absence of any similar work on Sophocles we must supplement Jebb with and his Sophocleum, Blaydes's editions of Tr., El., and Phil., his Spicilegium in Sophoclem. P. 18: 7av^oi at Ag. 497 belongs to Starkie (Dawe, Adversaria Critica
i.c., 92). P. 83: Broadhead's suggestion on Soph. El. I301 f. had been made by at Ph. 43 and uO8', Blaydes on p. 226 of his edition. Pp. 96 and 98 : 'trcq opo-v E'V )3, ib. 276, belong to Burges. P. io8: T7rELcTErV irdvoLS at Alc. 487 belongs to Lenting. P. I II : ~rLS"El9L, ib. 107I belongs to Nauck. P. 126: at Eur. El. 251