This volume, the first in a projected series of commentaries on fragmentary Greek plays, offers a full-scale study of the slim surviving evidence for Sophocles’ Laocoon. It contains a thorough discussion of the literary sources for the Laocoon myth; a detailed commentary on the handful of fragments that survive of Sophocles’ tragedy; an examination of the couple of vase-paintings arguably inspired by the play; and a conjectural reconstruction of the plot. The book is rounded off with an appendix on the mythic accounts of Aeneas’ flight from Troy and a bibliography; there are no indexes.
Part I offers a discussion —generally judicious albeit at times prolix— of the relatively scant literary sources on the Laocoon myth. The sources are cited in the original Greek or Latin, followed by the editors’ English translations. Centanni and Cipolla (p. 30) consider it “[i]n principle … quite probable” that the essentials of Sophocles’ treatment of the myth accorded, generally, with Arctinus’ epic Sack of Ilion, our earliest source for the myth, whose plot outline is known to us from the summary in Proclus’ Chrestomathy. This is a reasonable assumption given the importance of the Epic Cycle as a source of material for fifth-century Greek tragedy. Indeed, the assumption seems to me to be corroborated —despite the editors’ arguments to the contrary (p. 32)— by Dionysius of Halicarnassus’ statement that in Sophocles’ Laocoon Aeneas took to Mt. Ida in obedience to earlier injunctions given to his father by Aphrodite but also because he took the attack of the serpents against Laocoon’s sons as a sign of imminent doom (Roman Antiquities 1.48.2). In Arctinus’ poem, too, Aeneas and his people took refuge to Mt. Ida in their disconcertment at the prodigy of the serpents. In the pre-Virgilian tradition, Aeneas was evidently less than supremely heroic during the last hours of Troy; the relevant sources are discussed in the volume’s appendix on “Aeneas’ Flight from Troy”.
The authors maintain that the serpents which attacked Laocoon and/or his progeny somehow turned into humans. This is largely based on what is, to my mind, an unreasonable reading of a passage in Servius (on Verg. Aen. 2.201), who reports that Bacchylides, in a now-lost poem (fr. 9 Maehler), de Laocoonte et uxore eius vel de serpentibus a Calydnis insulis venientibus atque in homines conversis dicit. Although “(the snakes) metamorphosed into men” is a linguistically possible rendition of in homines conversis, such a metamorphosis would serve no purpose in the story. Surely, the Latin means that the snakes turned against their human targets, whose identity may easily be inferred from the mention of Laocoon and his wife a little earlier in the Servius passage. That those serpents appear to have had names in Sophocles’ play is no evidence for their (post-metamorphosis) human identity, as the editors argue (p. 31) following Welcker. Names are not an exclusively human prerogative in myth; and Sophocles’ serpents, for all we know, may have been given names on account of their noteworthy genealogy (they are descendants of Typhon in Quintus of Smyrna 12.449–52).
Part II largely consists of an edition and commentary of the surviving fragments (TrGF 4, F 370–377), which the editors partly reorder and renumber as F1–F6a-b.[1] The commentary is generally judicious and packed with information (esp. on philological matters), although one would wish for greater conciseness.
The fragments are beset with textual problems, which the editors discuss in detail and with generally good judgement. In their discussion of F1 (= 370 Radt), which describes an altar on which myrrh, “the barbarian(’s) fragrance”, is burned, the editors make a good case for restoring βαρβάρων εὐοσμίας (thus Harpocration, A 22 Keaney) for βαρβάρους εὐ-, printed by Pearson and Radt. In view of the surrounding accusatives (σταλαγμούς [-μοῖς Harpocr.], εὐοσμίας), βαρβάρων would be easier to give way to βαρβάρους than the other way around.
The hymn or prayer to Poseidon in F 2 (= 371 Radt) appears to belong towards the beginning of the play, probably in the parodos as the editors hypothesise, as a thanksgiving to the god for helping drive away the Greeks. The oddity of σπιλάδεσσι στομάτων in the fragment’s final verse presents, to my mind, a more difficult problem than the editors allow: “sea-cliffs” (σπιλάδες) do not pertain specifically to the “entrances of straits or inlets” (assuming this is what στομάτων means); and the run of the sentence suggests that στομάτων has probably ousted a participle. The metre is uncertain; the editors might have explored the possibility of a dactylo-epitrite sequence, which would necessitate Bergk’s transposition στομάτων (or whatever word was ousted by it) σπιλάδεσσι. For dactylo-epitrites in Sophoclean parodoi cf. Ajax 172–92, Trachiniae 94–111.
In F 5 (= 373 Radt), a messenger describes Aeneas as he is about to leave Troy: he is carrying his father Anchises on his back and is accompanied by his house servants and a large crowd. This difficult fragment is exhaustively discussed by the editors, although in a spirit of rather excessive textual conservatism. For instance, in line 5, the editors are at pains to salvage συμπλάζεται: the crowd accompanying Aeneas, they say, would be “wandering about with” him because their leader was presumably uncertain about their destination. But Aeneas’ destination (Mt. Ida) is perfectly clear in Arctinus, which as we saw is likely to have been Sophocles’ principal source for the myth. In the same line, πλῆθος οὐχ ὅσον δοκεῖς cannot mean “(Aeneas is accompanied by) a larger crowd than you suppose”, as the editors argue on the strength of Plato, Republic 608b μέγας … ὁ ἀγών … μέγας, οὐχ ὅσος δοκεῖ. In the Plato passage, the repeated μέγας makes all the difference. The transmitted text calls for emendation, and Pearson and Radt print Herwerden’s attractive πλῆθός οἱ πόσον δοκεῖς, “you’ve no idea how large a crowd”; the colloquial style would suit the messenger’s probable status as a commoner.
The editors offer a sensible and thorough-going discussion of what is arguably this fragment’s most difficult portion, namely lines 2–3: (Aeneas) ἐπ’ ὤμων πατέρ’ ἔχων κεραυνίου | νώτου καταστάζοντα βύσσινον φάρος. They convincingly argue that καταστάζοντα βύσσινον φάρος must refer to discharge dripping from Anchises’ wound onto his mantle. However, “discharge” is inconveniently absent from the Greek. One wonders if it could be hiding in plain sight in one of our sources for the fragment, namely Plutarch, De virtute et vitio 100d τοῦ δ’ Ἀγχίσου τὸ σῶμα ἰχῶρα πονηρὸν ἐξεδίδου. In such a case, we would have to posit a lacuna, probably after line 3, to accommodate a reference to “seropurulent discharge” (ἰχώρ).
For F 6a (= 374 Radt) πόνου μεταλλαχθέντος οἱ πόνοι γλυκεῖς, the editors urge the meaning “exertions transformed become sweet exertions”: μεταλλαχθέντος, they argue, refers to an alteration rather than a cessation of labours. They also brilliantly suggest that the fragment refers to the pains of the Trojan War being succeeded by the “sweet” labour of emigrating from Troy (presumably the line was spoken towards the end of the play). However, I do not share the editors’ confidence that their F 6a was immediately followed by their F 6b (= 375 Radt). The latter fragment (“toils past are taken no account of”) concerns troubles that are over and done with, whereas in the former the emphasis is on new (and welcome) labours replacing old (and unwelcome) ones.
Part III is particularly useful as it offers a detailed and perceptive discussion of the iconographic evidence that may reasonably be supposed to reflect Sophocles’ Laocoon. The evidence is exceedingly slim: it consists of only two vases (a third one is rightly dismissed by the editors as irrelevant). Both vases depict, each in its own way, what must have been the climactic event of the play, namely the serpents’ attack (as reported by a messenger) against one of Laocoon’s sons, possibly inside the temple of Apollo Thymbraeus. Specifically, the vases depict two serpents twining around a statue of Apollo, with the boy’s mangled remains lying around. That only one boy is depicted is not necessarily evidence for Laocoon having only one son in Sophocles, as the editors argue (p. 82): it is possible that in Sophocles, as in Arctinus, only one of Laocoon’s two sons was devoured by the serpents, and he would naturally be the one the vase-painters were interested in. Puzzlingly, the editors do not say much about a surprising detail on one of the vases, namely Artemis standing next to her brother. The goddess is never mentioned in the play’s fragments or in the literary sources of the Laocoon myth.
In both vase-paintings, the iconographic focus is a distraught female figure, surely Laocoon’s wife, who holds an axe in her raised hands and rushes in the direction of Apollo’s statue, apparently with the intention of striking the serpents down. This dramatic centerpiece, which the editors call “a freeze-frame” (p. 80) capturing the climax of the action, may well evince theatrical influence. The female figure is followed by a bearded man (fully visible on one of the vases, barely preserved on the other), whose right hand clasps his head in a gesture of desperation: surely Laocoon himself.
In Part IV, the editors offer a conjectural reconstruction of the plot of Laocoon on the basis of the few extant fragments, testimonies, and artistic depictions examined in the previous sections. Although no complete plot-outline may be reconstructed, it seems likely that the play opened with a description of Trojan festivities after the false departure of the Greek fleet. At some later point, there was a hymn or prayer to Poseidon, presumably in thanksgiving for the departure of the Greeks. A play on Laocoon could not have omitted the attack of the serpents; and if the two vase-paintings described above actually reflect Sophocles’ play, then the messenger’s speech describing the event (for it can hardly have been enacted onstage) will have related how serpents sent by a god (no doubt Apollo) attacked and killed Laocoon’s son, possibly in the temple of Apollo Thymbraeus, as suggested by the god’s statue on the vase-paintings. The boy’s mother will have attempted a doomed last-minute intervention, trying to kill the snakes with an axe. Probably towards the end of the play, Aeneas, carrying his father on his back and accompanied by a large crowd, repaired to Mt. Ida in an attempt to escape the imminent destruction of the city.
The editors seem confident (pp. 85, 88) that the reason for Laocoon’s punishment was that he disobeyed Apollo’s command to refrain from producing offspring, or that he committed sacrilege by copulating with his wife in the temple of Apollo Thymbraeus. True, it would be nicely symmetrical for the latter transgression to be punished by the death of Laocoon’s child in the same temple (if indeed this is where the serpents’ attack occurred in the play). But in Proclus’ summary of Arctinus’ Sack of Ilion, the attack of the serpents follows right after the debate among the Trojans on whether to admit the Wooden Horse into the city or not: one gets the impression that Laocoon’s punishment must have been (as it is in the Aeneid) a consequence of his warnings that the Horse might be a ruse, not of any offence against Apollo.
The English is generally readable, despite occasional infelicities of style and a few Italianisms, of which “scotomises” (= “suppresses”, p. 99) is perhaps the most objectionable. Production standards are high, there are very few misprints (but invisus divisus for invisus divis on p. 60 may give pause), and the reproductions of vase-paintings are of good quality.
The volume combines textual, philological, and iconographic commentary to offer a detailed, up-to-date, and balanced examination of Sophocles’ Laocoon. It will be an eminently useful aid for the study of Greek fragmentary drama.
Notes
[1] The editors rightly omit fr. 376 Pearson, which Radt plausibly assigned to Sophocles’ Women of Laconia (fr. *369a).