Travel beyond Athens: Pilgrims and Sanctuaries in Greek Tragedy
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Edmund Stewart
Abstract
This chapter explores evocations of place by the Greek tragedians, specifically sanctuaries or sites of religious or mythological significance. We will consider the importance of travel to such places (in Greek theoria or in English ‘pilgrimage’) both as a theme within the dramas (as the heroes of tragedy become pilgrims on the road) and also as the means by which knowledge of myth and sacred places, assumed by the poets on the part of their audience, was disseminated. I demonstrate that the tragic poets, in their descriptions of sacred sites, assumed substantial topographical knowledge on the part of their audiences. This knowledge was most probably gained through actual travel to the sites evoked by the poets.
Abstract
This chapter explores evocations of place by the Greek tragedians, specifically sanctuaries or sites of religious or mythological significance. We will consider the importance of travel to such places (in Greek theoria or in English ‘pilgrimage’) both as a theme within the dramas (as the heroes of tragedy become pilgrims on the road) and also as the means by which knowledge of myth and sacred places, assumed by the poets on the part of their audience, was disseminated. I demonstrate that the tragic poets, in their descriptions of sacred sites, assumed substantial topographical knowledge on the part of their audiences. This knowledge was most probably gained through actual travel to the sites evoked by the poets.
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Preface V
- Contents VII
- List of Maps and Figures IX
- Introduction: On Departing the Polis 1
-
Part I: Theatrical Journeys and Travellers
- Travel to Athens’ Dionysia: Ἑλλὰς Ἑλλάδος and the Centripetal Politics of the Athenian Dionysia 19
- Travel beyond Athens: Pilgrims and Sanctuaries in Greek Tragedy 43
- An Archetypical Traveler: Strangers in Distress and Suppliants in Greek Tragedy 89
- Mapping the Cosmos: The Cosmological Imagination of Travelling in Aeschylus’ Persians and the Oresteia 107
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Part II: Travel and the Tragic
- Sophocles’ Triptolemos and other Tragic Globetrotters 141
- Travelling Through Nemea in Euripides’ Hypsipylē 153
- Euripides’ Melanippē Plays and the Politics of Travel 167
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Part III: Comic Travels
- The Voyage of Eternal Return: Extraordinary Travel in Aristophanes and Old Comedy 185
- Perceptions of Travel in Greek Comedy: Exploring some Examples from Middle Comedy 209
- The Importance of Overseas in Menander 225
- Abbreviations
- Bibliography
- List of Contributors 265
- General Index
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Preface V
- Contents VII
- List of Maps and Figures IX
- Introduction: On Departing the Polis 1
-
Part I: Theatrical Journeys and Travellers
- Travel to Athens’ Dionysia: Ἑλλὰς Ἑλλάδος and the Centripetal Politics of the Athenian Dionysia 19
- Travel beyond Athens: Pilgrims and Sanctuaries in Greek Tragedy 43
- An Archetypical Traveler: Strangers in Distress and Suppliants in Greek Tragedy 89
- Mapping the Cosmos: The Cosmological Imagination of Travelling in Aeschylus’ Persians and the Oresteia 107
-
Part II: Travel and the Tragic
- Sophocles’ Triptolemos and other Tragic Globetrotters 141
- Travelling Through Nemea in Euripides’ Hypsipylē 153
- Euripides’ Melanippē Plays and the Politics of Travel 167
-
Part III: Comic Travels
- The Voyage of Eternal Return: Extraordinary Travel in Aristophanes and Old Comedy 185
- Perceptions of Travel in Greek Comedy: Exploring some Examples from Middle Comedy 209
- The Importance of Overseas in Menander 225
- Abbreviations
- Bibliography
- List of Contributors 265
- General Index
