The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, Part 68

is a moment of great dramatic tension. The speaker is agitated (and obviously concerned with, perhaps for, himself: fr. 1 ii 11? 14? 16, 17, 19; 2.3, 4? 5?). In his attack, he moves from addressing the chorus to indirect and then direct address of his opponent (who may well be absent). Tension is mounting.

Where does this scene belong? Who are the characters? The speaker is addressed as despōtēs master, king, lord (E. Dickey, Greek Forms of Address: From Herodotus to Lucian (Oxford 1996) 95–8). A king denouncing, perhaps banishing, an hybristic horseman, possibly his son? Feats of equine prowess may suggest the Bellerophontes; there are other possibilities, too — perhaps the following is worth mentioning. The speaker could be Theseus, the target of his abuse Hippolytus. The fragments could come from the Verleumdungsszene slander scene of Hippolytus Kalyptomenos Hippolytus Veiled (with Hippolytus absent; cf. Sen. Ph. 929–44), or from the agōn (with Hippolytus present or just leaving; cf. Barrett’s collection of the fragments of the first Hipp. in his edition of E. Hipp. pp. 18–26, esp. L and M, also N, O, Q). Note that metrical considerations seem to rule out a reference to the curse in fr. 1 ii 9 curse; and that the temptation to supply Lord of Athens at fr. 2.7 should be resisted: despota is “normally used alone” (Dickey 98).

Fr. 1

col. i

]th.[.]c
].ikak.[
] [
]. [
5 ]nous mind
]c
].
foot

col. ii

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