[34] Cf. Jacoby, Das Marmor Parium, p. 14: ἀφ’ οὖ Θέσπις ὁ ποιητὴς [ὑπεκρίνα]το πρῶτος, ὃς ἐδίδαξη [δρ]ᾶ[μα ἐν ἄ]στ[ει καὶ ἆθλον ἐ]τέθη ὁ [τ]ράγος, ἔτη ΗΗ𐅄[ΔΔ·], ἄρχοντος Ἀθ[ήνησι] ... ναιου τοῦ προτέρου.
[35] Cf. op. cit., ρ. 468: “An der Tatsache, dass in älterer Zeit dem Tragödenchor ein Bock als Preis (der als Opferthier und Opferschmaus dienen sollte), gegeben wurde, wie dem Dithyrambenchor zu gliechem Zwecke ein Stier, daran zu zweifeln ist kein Grund.”
[36] Cf. op. cit., p. 59: “Since the interpretation of τραγῳδία as the ‘song of the men in goat-costume’ must be given up, the word can be interpreted as the ‘song around’ or ‘for the goat’—whether the goat be sacrifice or prize.”
[37] Cf. Eusebius’ Chronica, Ol. 47, 2 (591-590 B.C.; Armenian version, Ol. 48, 1): τοῖς ἀγωνιζομένοις παρ’ Ἕλλησι τράγος ἐδίδοτο, ἀφ’ οὖ καὶ τραγικοὶ ἐκλήθησαν. Jerome’s Latin version reads: “his temporibus certantibus in agone (de voce add. R) tragus, id est hircus, in praemio dabatur. Unde aiunt tragoedos nuncupatos.”
[38] Contrary to Herodotus, these choruses were τραγικοί only after the transfer, not before—a negligible error.
[39] Of course, it is possible to argue that goats may have been sacrificed to Adrastus and that τραγικός and τραγῳδός were consequently older terms than is maintained in the text; this would also explain why the goat was continued as a prize after the sacrifice proper had been given over to Melanippus. Cf., however, Farnell, Cults of the Greek States, V, 233 and note d.
[40] Cf. Plato Minos 321A: ἡ δὲ τραγῳδία ἐστὶ παλαιὸν ἐνθάδε, οὐχ ὡς οἴονται ἀπὸ Θέσπιδος ἀρξαμένη οὐδ’ ἀπὸ Φρυνίχου, ἀλλ’ εἰ θέλεις ἐννοῆσαι, πάνυ παλαιὸν αὐτὸ εὑρήσεις ὂν τῆσδε τῆς πόλεως εὕρημα.
[41] Cf. Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion² (1908), p. 568. Of course, I do not mean to deny that impersonation was subsequently borrowed from true drama by rites of various kinds which had not contained it at first. This situation probably obtained with reference to the Eleusinian mysteries in their later forms.
The indebtedness of tragedy to epic poetry for subject matter, dignity of treatment and of diction, and development of plot, including such technical devices as recognition (ἀναγνώρισις) and reversal of situation (περιπέτεια) is too well established to require argument. Aeschylus is said to have declared that his tragedies were “slices from Homer’s bountiful banquets” (Athenaeus, p. 347E). The pertinent passages from Aristotle’s Poetics have been conveniently assembled by Throop, “Epic and Dramatic,” Washington University Studies, V (1917), 1 ff.
[42] Cf. Plutarch Solon xxix. If Thespis treated the traditional myths with some freedom, that may have added to Solon’s anger.