λογίαν as cognate accusatives, and to suppose that the subject to the infinitive is the poet; "he began the practice of (the poet) competing with play against play," etc. We might then compare Herod. 5. 22 ἀγωνιζόμενος στάδιον, contending in a foot-race. Thus δρᾶμα would be equivalent to δραματικὸν ἀγῶνα, and τετραλογίαν to τετραλογικὸν ἀγῶνα. But δρᾶμα and τετραλογία are opposed to each other, merely as different instruments of the same contest; and therefore, if the poet were the subject to the infinitive, we should rather have expected the dative, δράματι, τετραλογίᾳ. It is true that Aristides (ii. 422) has the phrase Σοφοκλῆς...ἡττᾶτο τὸν Οἰδίπουν, "Sophocles was defeated with his Oedipus"; but there the accusative seems rather analogous to the cognate accusative in such phrases as νικᾶν μάχην. It will appear bye and bye that, although the general sense of the passage is not affected by the question as to the subject of the infinitive, yet this point is perhaps not wholly without significance.
I propose to discuss the interpretations which have been placed upon the statement of Suidas, and then to offer my own[1].
- ↑ Since the literature bearing on this passage is a somewhat large one, it may be well to give at the outset a chronological list of the writings which have been chiefly used for this paper.
- 1819. G. Hermann, On the Composition of Tetralogies.
- 1824. Welcker, The Aeschylean Trilogy Prometheus.
- 1839. A. Schöll, Contributions to the History of Greek Poetry; also his "Full Exposition of the Tetralogy" (1859).
- 1839. Heinrich Bode, History of Greek Dramatic Poetry.
- 1841. Boeckh, An Essay to show "That single plays also were exhibited by the Greek Tragedians."
- 1857. Bergk, A Commentary on the Art of Sophocles.
- 1858. C. F. Hermann, Greek Antiquities, vol. ii. § 59, n. 23, 2nd ed.: where he says that his view of the passage in Suidas was first expounded in Jahrbuch für Wissenschaftliche Kritik for 1843, vol. ii. p. 834.
- 1877. H. Richards, "Some Doubts as to the performance of Trilogies or Tetralogies at Athens," in the Journal of Philology, vol. vii. p. 279.
- 1885. A. T. S. Goodrick, "On certain Difficulties with regard to the Greek Tetralogy," in the Journal of Philology, vol. xiv. p. 133.
- 1885. G. Günther, Principles of the Tragic Art.
- 1886. A. E. Haigh, "On the Trilogy and Tetralogy in the Greek Drama," in the Journal of Philology, vol. xv. p. 257.
- 1886. Albert Müller, Handbook of Greek Scenic Antiquities.
