[177] Supposing Tecmessa appeared as champion for the dead Ajax, everyone would acknowledge this, and no one would find the situation dull: only people will not understand that Teucer meant as much, and more, to the Greeks, than Tecmessa would to us.
[178] The position of Alcestis has already been partly discussed on [p. 57].
[179] Vide Call. Hymn. in Apoll. 49; Panyasis, Fr. 15 (Dübner); Schol. ad Eur. Alc. 2; Lact. i. 10, 3.
[180] Cp. supra, [pp. 24, 31].
[181] When the Scholiast (ad Eur. Alc. 1) says that the version of the story of Apollo’s servitude given in the Prologue is the usual one (ἡ διὰ στόματος καὶ δημώδης), he need mean no more by this than the fact that this was the case at the time of writing, when the influence of Euripides had naturally superseded all others. The Scholiast cannot be taken as throwing light on the state of feeling in Athens at the time when the Alcestis was produced.
[182] I am not concerned here to write an apology for Admetus, or I might add much that would militate against the ordinary, somewhat flippant, view taken of his character. One point, however: many readers do not seem to notice that the original question of dying or not is never in the play left to Admetus at all, but is settled by Apollo on his own responsibility. Cp. Eur. Alc. 11 seqq., 32 seqq.
[183] Cp. Eur. Alc. 10, etc.
[184] Cp. the lengthy comments on the play in Lucian, Amores 47, vol. ii. p. 450.
[185] On this point cp. above, [p. 48].
[186] An exception to this general rule is, perhaps, Theocritus; whether, or how far, this was due to the influence of Aratus is an interesting question, but one for the discussion of which the evidence has yet to be collected.