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An Edition of Aristophanes' Peace

mother's 'sin' (pp. 40-3). None of these ideas can convincingly be inferred from the text. Of the passages adduced as evidence of Hippolytus' hatred of his mother, 1082f. expresses not hatred but pity; 1378-83 does not refer to his parents at all, as D. later shows himself to be well aware (p. 96); and 1144-6 is not, as D. seems to think (p. 42), spoken by Hippolytus. The argument that Hippolytus keeps his oath of silence with the (at least unconscious) purpose of destroying himself (pp. 81-3) is contradicted by Hippolytus' statement that Theseus would not have believed him if he had broken it (1060-3). D.'s failure to appreciate the rhetorical elements of Hippolytus' defence (e.g. p. 66) leads him to exaggerate the extent to which it is deliberately provocative. Finally, there is not only no evidence for D.'s suggestion that Hippolytus infects his horses with his own panic, but the Messenger actually emphasizes his expertise in controlling them (1219ff.). D.'s argument that Hippolytus is a latent invert is no more convincing. He thinks that Phaedra legitimately doubts his sexual identity (351), and criticizes Barrett for suggesting that Phaedra here pretends not to know Hippolytus' name (pp. 28-32). What Barrett actually writes is 'Ph., in her reluctance to utter Hipp.'s name, speaks as she might if she were ignorant of it', and that this is correct is shown by her insistence in the next line that she has not actually spoken the name. D. finds further evidence of Hippolytus' homosexuality in 997-9 (pp. 74-5), but apart from the fact that Hippolytus is denying the disreputable behaviour here described, any reference to homosexuality would be totally out of place in this context. D. thinks that the masculine plurals in these lines restrict the reference to male friends, but the masculine is standardly used in generalizations, even those which apply primarily to women. It is important to D.'s case to deny that Hippolytus has any real friends, and he describes him as 'the most isolated person in surviving Greek drama' (p. 59). That this is not true is shown most clearly by the Messenger (1179f.). The Hippolytus described in this book is a coherent, if repulsive, character. But he ^ is not Euripides' Hippolytus, and, in the attempt to find evidence in the play for his P view of the character, D. resorts to many dubious arguments and unwarranted inferences from the text. This book might thus better be read as a new version of the myth than as an interpretation of Euripides' play.