The Alexandros was staged in 415 BC in the same production as the Palamedes, Trojan Women and the satyr-play Sisyphos². Research on this play has benefited enormously from papyrus-finds preserving a large number of fragments (P.Stras. 2342-44) and a major part of its narrative hypothesis (P.Oxy. LII 3650, col. i)³.

The latter mentions that when Alexandros was born, Hecabe had him exposed due to an ill-omened dream, according to which he would bring disaster to Troy. The child was raised by a herdsman, who named him Paris (4-7). Hecabe, still grieving over his exposure, persuaded Priam to establish athletic games in his memory (7-12). When twenty years had passed, the boy excelled among his fellow herdsmen, who accused him of arrogance in front of Priam. After defending himself before the king, Alexandros was allowed to participate in his own funeral games (12-21). Having been crowned winner, he infuriated his brother Deiphobus and his companions who, realizing that they had been defeated by a slave, demanded that Hecabe should kill him (21-25). The hypothesis then reports that Cassandra recognized him in a state of prophetic frenzy and foretold the forthcoming disaster (25-28), and that Hecabe was prevented from killing him (29-30)⁴. His fosterfather arrived and because of the danger was compelled to tell the truth (30-32). Alexandros thus returned to the Trojan palace.

This survey focuses on fr. 46a K. (P.Stras. inv. 2342, 1; see fig. 1), which is perhaps the most tantalizing fragment of the Alexandros in terms of dramatic context; it aims at reinspecting its text and revisiting the evidence for its location and function within the dramatic plot⁵.

2 χοὰc x ] τάc[δε κηλητη]ρίο̣υ̣c̣ conieci, cf. Eur. Hec. 535     3 πι]κράν Wilamowitz: μα]κράν Crönert     4 ]HN pot. qu. ]MN cκύ]μ̣ν[ον], ὃ̣c [πο]λ̣λοῖc ἔριν Kannicht: cυ̣[μβ]ά̣λοιc ἔριν conieci, cf. Eur. Med. 521, Bacch. 837, Dictys fr. 338 K.     5 ἔ[ρ]δηιc Snell     6 ἐνθέ]νδε̣ Lefke     7 ὄ]νταc̣ <–> τη[λίκ]ουc legi, cf. Eur. Alc. 643, Meleagros fr. 533 K.     10 ΟΙΠ[Α]̀ÉΡ | πόν[οι Crönert: πόν[ωι Kannicht     11 ΑΦΑΓΝΙΖΕÌĆ́     12 κἀπικηδείουc Kannicht     14 ἢν χρ]όνωι Сrönert: cυντ]ό̣νωι cπουδῇ Schadewaldt apud Snell     15 ο]ὐ̣δὲ̣ν ὦ νέμων πόλιν Crönert: ο]ὐ̣δὲ̣ν ὢν ἐμῶν (an ἐμὴν) πόλιν Kannicht     16 εἰc ἀνάc]ταcιν Kannicht     17 ἀποcτροφὴν δ’ ἂν τῶνδε π]ορc̣[ύν]οιc κακῶν Snell post Crönert     18 παιδὶ τ]ῶ̣ι Crönert     21 ]ξαμην Janko: ]κ̣αμην Crönert     

4 paragraphus     5 aut Ζ[ aut Ξ[ vel T[     7 vel KO[     9 γόω[ν conieci     13 aut ἱερόc̣ aut ἱερόν̣ vel ἱεροί̣     

(...) [these appeasing offerings] (...) wretched (...) [bitter] (...) [may you (not) set] strife [5] (...) servant (...) in a horse-drawn carriage (...) to die at such a young age (...) the child you have honoured (...) family [10] (...) the games which have been established (...) you are purifying this land (...) and funeral games (...) already the city (...) eagerness seizes [you] [15] (...) o ruler of this city (...) [the destruction] of the land (...) you could offer [an escape] from harm (...) for the dead (...) this [is / is not] right (...) [20] offspring (...).

The text of the first column is better preserved and has widely been regarded as coming from a scene in which Priam participates⁶. More specifically, he enters upon a horse-drawn carriage (6), which is an exclusive means of royal transport, and is then addressed as parent of the child commemorated in the games (8) and probably also as ruler of the city (15)⁷. Priam is also attested to have established the funeral games, which is congruent with lines 12 and 10 (cf. hyp. 10-12). In this fragment he is additionally mentioned as having undertaken the task of purifying the Trojan land (11) and as protecting it from disaster (16-17).

According to the hypothesis (16-21), Alexandros is brought to Priam by his fellow herdsmen and the king grants him permission to participate in the funeral games. This fragment is suggestive of Priam’s entry and participation in the performance of a ritual preceding the athletic contest and accords with the hypothesis regarding his on-stage appearance before the games. It is therefore likely that the trial of Alexandros before Priam follows this scene⁸. A reinspection of the papyrus may shed more light on the text and this particular dramatic situation.

2 ταc[………]pιoυc. A possible supplement could be χοὰc x ] τάc[δε κηλητη]ρίουc, which occurs within a funerary context and at the same position in the trimeter also in Hec. 535: δέξαι χοάc μοι τάcδε κηλητηρίουc. Libation offering was a constituent part of funerary ritual. See e.g. Alexiou (2002) 7-8; Burkert (1983) 54-55; Gregory (1999) 110-111. The task of pouring libations was, as a rule, undertaken by women (as by Atossa in Aesch. Pers. 609 ff. and Electra in Cho. 84 ff.) and Hecabe as the grieving mother of the exposed child could be the best candidate for this role. For the funerary references of this fragment, see the comments on lines 11-12 and col. ii, 15.

4 c .[…]α̣λοιc ἔριν. The missing letters between e and α̣ seem to be three and not two, as reported until now (cf. similarly the three missing letters of the same lacuna in 7: τη[λίκ]ουc). The slight trace of the letter after C is congruent with a Y. I would suggest cυ̣[μß]ά̣λοιc ἔριν, in view of Med. 521: φίλοι φίλοιcι cυμßάλωc’ ἔριν; 44-45: cυμßaλὼν | ἔχθραν; Dictys fr. 338 K: ἔχθραν μεγίcτην coῖcι cυμβάλλων τέκνοιc; Bacch. 837: cυμßαλὼν βάκχαιc μάχην. The use of the optative in combination with the effort to eliminate any threat against Troy in 16-17 entails the use of negation to express the hope that the city is not to get involved into any kind of disastrous strife. The supplement πι]κράν suggested by Wilamowitz at the end of 3 is congruent with the sense of ἔριc «strife», as πικρόc tends to describe strife and situations bringing disaster; see Aesch. Cho. 80-81: πικρὸν φρενῶν | cτύγoc; Eum. 832: πικρὸν μένoc; Eur. Andr. 291: πικρὰν δὲ cύyχυcιν βίου Φρυγῶν πόλει; Soph. Aj. 1239-1240: πικpoὺc (...) | ἀγῶναc. As far as the line can be restored, it could hypothetically be translated as: «may you not involve our land in bitter strife». This address may have been conveyed to the gods of the Underworld, who are often invoked in funerary contexts, or even to the seemingly dead child, as a prayer to avert calamity. Similar invocations to the gods below and the dead honoured with offerings occur in Eur. Hec. 525-541, Aesch. Pers. 621-622 and 627-628 (see also Garvie [2009] 250 and 258-260; Broadhead [1960] 163-164), Cho. 124-151 (and Garvie [1986] 75-82). The reference to ἔριc within a ritual context aptly corresponds to a purification-scene, as civil strife is commonly attributed to pollution or divine anger. In fact, in Aesch. Ag. 699-716 the Trojan War is mentioned as having occurred in order to fulfill the anger of Zeus Xenios against Alexandros for his violation of the unwritten law of hospitality. See Eur. fr. inc. 1082 K. For strife as a consequence of miasma, see Parker (1983) 257-258 and n. 5; Bacon (2001) 50-58; Easterling (1988) 99-100; Adkins (1960) 96; Burkert (1985) 77. Hence this fragment in combination with Hecabe’s ill-omened dream perhaps mentioned in the prologue interestingly projects this type of anxiety for the possibility of a Trojan plight (for which see also 11, 16 and 17) into the future disaster which is to occur after Alexandros’ return to the palace, as foreseen by Cassandra in this play and fulfilled in the third tragedy of the trilogy, the Trojan Women. For Cassandra’s prophecies in the Alexandros, see hyp. 25-28, frr. 62e-h K.; cf. Ennius Alexander, frr. 17, 25, 26 Jocelyn.

7 ὄ]νταc̣ < ᴗ > τη[λίκ]oυc θανεῖν. There are traces of a letter between ὄ]ντα and τη[λίκ]ουc, which has not been reported so far. It is most likely to be a C, thus providing the reading ὄ]νταc̣ τη[λίκ]oυc, for which see Alc. 643: ὃc τηλικόcδ’ ὤν; Meleagros fr. 533 K.: ἐγὼ μὲν οὖν γεγῶcα τηλικήδ’. A short syllable is needed before τη[λίκ]oυc, otherwise the line is unmetrical. Scribal omissions of short words are very common; see e.g. West (1973) 24. Nonetheless, some unclear traces of ink above the line should be noted, perhaps pointing to a supralinear addition, as in ἀφαγνίζεὶć́ (11). I would suggest an emphatic particle, such as γε underlining the baby’s untimely death. Δέ is also feasible, if the sentence begins with ὄ]νταc; cf. Alc. 799: ὄνταc δὲ θνητοὺc θνητὰ καὶ φρονεῖν χρεών.

11-12 τ̣ήνδ’ ἀφαγνίζειc χθόνα | [x – ᴗ – x κα]ὶ̣ ἐπικηδείoυc πόνoυc. Most critics have aptly interpreted ἀφαγνίζω as referring to ritual cleansing; see Coles (1974) 42; Scodel (1980) 28; Huys (1995) 128-129; Di Giuseppe (2001) 72-73; Collard / Cropp / Gibert (2004) 74. Nonetheless, the reasons for this ritual purification have not been sufficiently investigated so far and are worth exploring towards a deeper understanding of this fragment. The verb ἀφαγνίζω means «to deconsecrate»; its opposite, ἀγνίζω «to consecrate», conveys the sense of dedication to the Gods of the Underworld. Accordingly, in Eur. Alc. 76 Death consecrates Alcestis to the gods below by cutting off a lock of her hair, while in 1145-1146 she needs to be deconsecrated, as she has just returned from the dead. See Garland (1985) 46-47; Rudhardt (1992) 171-172; Parker (2007) 67-68 and 280-281. Deconsecration thus involves the ritualized removal of any ties with the Underworld.

This verb with its particular funerary connotations is better interpreted in conjunction with the reference to ἐπικηδείουc πόνουc «funeral games» in the next line. Several fragments, probably from the first episode, underline Hecabe’s mourning for her seemingly dead child and her consolation by the chorus-leader⁹. Mourning involves pollution, as it is closely connected with death; as the mourners and the participating community are in a liminal, metaphysically polluted state, they need to be purified through the regular performance of ritual, which diminishes the ties between the dead person and the living, while lifting the miasma surrounding the mourners¹⁰. Funerary ritual and the games that follow thus lead to the reintegration of the living community and the reaffirmation of the structure of the society which has participated in mourning¹¹. In the case of Troy, this periodically performed ritual, in combination with the aforementioned invocations for blessings conferred by Hades (see on line 4, above), also seems to function towards ensuring the welfare of the Trojan people against the foretold disaster.

At the same time, funeral athletic contests have an expiatory role corresponding to the need for atonement for the untimely death of a child. The foundation of a regularly held civic festival often gives expression to a feeling of parental guilt, especially when a parent is directly or indirectly responsible for the child’s demise. Alexandros is exposed in the wilderness by his parents, like baby Opheltes who is incautiously left in the meadow and killed by a snake in Euripides’ Hypsipyle, and Linos who is exposed by his mother and torn apart by sheepdogs¹². In each of these cases, a ritual is established to appease the anger of the dead and atone for the guilt of the living: like Alexandros, Opheltes is honoured with the establishment of funeral games, the well-known Nemean Games, and the Linos-song is created to purify Argos from the plague sent by Apollo for Linos’ unjust death¹³. Hecabe’s distress at the loss of her baby son thus contains elements from myths of child-heroes: the emphasis on mourning, the ritualization of maternal grief in the cases of both Hecabe and Opheltes’ mother Eurydice and the establishment of athletic games in compensation for the child’s death.

Infant exposure was not regarded legally as murder¹⁴; inscriptional evidence, however, demonstrates that the exposure of a newborn is not free from pollution and thus requires a purification period¹⁵. Moreover, miasma tends to befall the community neglecting to honour its baby-victims, which emerges from Linos’ story. Hence, considering the death impurity incurred even from baby corpses, the land as the place in which the baby was exposed and presumably met its death could be perceived as needing purification regularly performed along with the games held in his memory¹⁶.

On the whole, this ritual purification seems to acquire a multifaceted function. It aims at offering «deconsecration» by formally separating the living from the dead and lifting the pollution of the mourners, as well as by purifying the land which received the baby’s corpse. Accordingly, the performance of funeral games leads to the reaffirmation of social structure, providing, at the same time, expiation for the baby’s early demise. Priam as king of Troy undertakes the task of its ritual purification and is the symbolic vehicle of his people’s welfare¹⁷. He seems to be addressed in solemn vocative (15: ὦ νέμων πόλιν; cf. Eur. IT 1255 and Soph. OT 201), which matches the ritual context of this fragment. The performance of this ritual is ironically linked to the scene which follows, in that by granting permission to Alexandros to participate in the games, Priam unknowingly leads to disaster for the city which he has been striving to protect¹⁸.

The coronis in the margin of the second column (15) indicates the start of a choral passage. Each column of this papyrus is estimated to have contained 35-40 lines¹⁹; thus this lyric passage is located about 33-38 lines after the end of the first column. The cry ἒ ἔ of the chorus (15) is typical of ritual lamentation revolving around a hero’s death. It occurs in the sung exchanges (amoibaia) between Hypsipyle and the chorus for Opheltes’ death (Eur. Hypsipyle fr. 753e-754 K.), between Admetus and the chorus upon Alcestis’ funeral procession (Alc. 873 and 891), between Peleus and the chorus over Neoptolemus’ corpse (Andr. 1188) and between Hecabe and the chorus at the burial of Astyanax ( Tro. 1216, 1303 and 1318)²⁰. The word γόω̣[ν (9) is a reference to γόοι «grieving cries» which are closely associated with ritual lamentation²¹. This type of collective lament usually aims at evoking a strong emotional response from the audience, though in this case it functions ironically, since the supposedly dead child is not only alive, but is to cause communal damage.

The first episode seems to have comprised Hecabe’s consolation by the chorus (fr. 44-46 K.) introducing the audience to her feeling of distress for the loss of her baby and her conversation with Cassandra (fr. 46, 11-12), perhaps with reference to the oracle which led to the exposure²². The ritual purification and lament of this fragment could also be allocated to the first episode, since they correspond to the idea of mourning for the loss of the child. Hecabe as the grieving mother is likely to have participated in the ritual lamentation for the boy and would be a good candidate for addressing the lines of the first column to Priam²³. Hecabe’s lament for her seemingly dead baby son interestingly mirrors her ritual lamentation during the actual funeral of her grandchild Astyanax in the third tragedy of the same trilogy (Tro. 1156-1255); ironically enough, the fate of Astyanax is sealed by Alexandros’ survival.

As already noted, this scene is likely to be followed by the entry of Alexandros and the secondary chorus of his fellow herdsmen (for which, see ΣEur. Hipp. 58). The rhetorical elaboration and the contrasting arguments in the fragments assigned to this conflict (fr. 56, 61, 48, 60, 50 K.) point to a trial-debate held between Alexandros and an eloquent opponent (fr. 56 K.) accusing him of arrogance in front of Priam as a judge ( hyp. 16-21)²⁴. The first episode would have been of unusual length, had it comprised this agon as well. In the Ion, which has a similar plot-structure, the first episode focuses on maternal distress for the loss of a child, while the second motivates the plot by giving the exposed boy an active role in the dramatic incidents²⁵. Likewise, the first episode of the Alexandros seems to illustrate the theme of maternal grief, which is closely associated with the ritual lamentation for the exposed child in the present fragment. Subsequently, the second episode could have comprised the agon, in which the unknown herdsman Alexandros gets actively involved in the dramatic plot. His entry may thus provide an ironic reflection of the previous episode which focused on the mourning for his loss. The long first episode of the Helen also closes ironically²⁶.

In the re-examination of this papyrus fragment, I have attempted to explore its ritual character and assess its dramatic implications. The ritual purification and lamentation illustrate the theme of mourning and the parental need for atonement for the baby’s untimely death, as well as the anxiety for the ill-omened fortune of Troy. From this viewpoint, the fragment closely coheres with the background of the play and its possible opening with Hecabe’s portrait as the distressed mother. At the same time, the veiled ironies of the ritual performed in memory of the exposed baby connect the fragment with the following scene of Alexandros’ on stage appearance, which shifts the dramatic plot towards his homecoming and the impending disaster.