Prometheus Bound and Sophocles’ Inachos: New Perspectives

Abstract The paper consists of three chapters. In the first, Soph. Inachos fr. 269c.16–24 is presented as the earliest testimony to the authenticity of Prometheus Bound (PV). The verses declare that the one of the elders who named here Hermes trókhis was wise. The word describing mockingly Hermes was employed only in PV 941. And it is very unlikely that Sophocles would name ‘wise predecessor here’, i. e. in the theater, any other tragedian than Aeschylus. In the second chapter, the numerous divergences from Aeschylean practice are explained by reference to the fourth-place drama, which was usually covered by the satyr-play, but frequently with other plays aimed at the uneducated and unrefined spectators. Thus, PV is dated in 472 BC, contemporary with the Persae, in whose didascalia Προμηθεύς is named as the fourth drama of the production. It is unanimously identified with the satyr-play Προμηθεὺς Πυρκαεύς, but the author identifies it with PV, which as a fourth-place drama presents many stylistic peculiarities. Προμηθεὺς Πυρκαεύς is then the satyr-play of the Prometheus tetralogy that was staged not long after 472. It is possible that Aeschylus restaged PV in Syracuse at the same time as Persae. A relationship with Pindar’s Pyth. 1 and with Epicharmus reinforces the dating in 472. The third chapter deals with the problem of the third speaking actor in the prologue of PV. The problem is approached through the technical contrivance of ὀκρίβας, which also answers the question of frontality in the staging of the prologue.