Euripides, Hippolytus 88

Author(s): M. L. West
Source: The Classical Review, New Series, Vol. 15, No. 2 (Jun., 1965), p. 156
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/708290 .
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I56 THE CLASSICAL
EURIPIDES, HIPPOLYTUS
JvaS---0oS yVp SE(71dTas KXad
XPaeW Y.
'LoRD-(I address you thus because) it is
the gods whom one should call master.' So
Barrett, wrongly. Why should the slave
abstain from using the word 'master' in its
proper, everyday sense? No reason. What
is more appropriate about 'lord'? Nothing.
The meaning is, 'for we should call our
masters gods'. Outside poetry, dvra survived
PLATO ON PRIESTS
Plato, Politicus, 290 d-e
warc 7ept Afyvir'rov otS' iEfEGT iauata
jay
xwps LEpaTLKqS apXELV, IAA' idv Jpa Kal
TVX?ITpd••pov E5 iAAovycvovs filaiUFcdro,
VOTEpov rvay oraOv Els 700j70 Elt77EAErWaLL
a7d0v 7E yivos.
I
J. B. Skemp, Plato's Statesman (London,
1952), 190o, n. I, rightly says that in Egypt
'the King was by virtue of his office also a
priest',' and this statement justifies Plato's
first dictum unless one rigidly makes it con-
form with the second by translating (with
Skemp), 'in Egypt none can be king unless
he belongs to the priestly class'. Perhaps
need not imply power con-
XOpis iEpa7TK1g
ferred simply by caste, although royal birth
often brought priestly functions, eventually,
with it. Such functions had to be formally
assumed, however. In Urkundendes Neuen
Reiclhs,iv. I57. 9, Tuthmosis III speaks of
the time 'before I was initiated to become
a prophet'.2 In the 21st Dynasty (c. Io85-
950 B.c.) a special situation prevailed at
Thebes in that the priests of Amfin became
the sole rulers in what was tantamount to a
theocracy. Kienitza has suggested that this
theocracy may be reflected in Plato's state-
ment, as well as in the picture given by
' Cf. H. Kees, Das Priestertumim
igypti-
schen Staat vom .VeuenReich bis zur Spitzeit
(Leiden, 1953), I: 'Priestertum ist in
Agypten K6nigsdienst.'
2 I owe this reference to Dr. Dieter
Miiller.
a
Die politischeGeschichteAgyptensvom7. bis
zum 4. Jahrhundert (Berlin, 1953), 49 ff.
Gernl in Parker, A Saite OraclePapyrusfrom
Thebes in the BrooklynMuseum (Providence,
1962), 36, describes it as 'a sacerdotal state
with Amon-rf' as its head and his High
Priest in a position not much below that of
a real king'.
* Geschichtedes Altertums,ii. 2 (Stuttgart,
REVIEW
88
only as an appellationof deities.That Hip-
polytus'servantshould addresshim as &vaf
is a normaltraditionalusage of poetry; but
to a fifth-centuryear it suggestedan address
to a god. Euripidesjustifiesit by an ad hoc
philosophicalreflection:the masteris a god
to the slave.
University
College,Oxford M. L. WEST
AND KINGS IN EGYPT
Diodorus Sic. i. 70 r ft. of a kingship which
was confined by priestly rules and itself
performed some priestly functions. Eduard
Meyer* rightly found a more general signifi-
cance in the statements; to him they show
a desire to portray a monarchic Utopia, much
as Xenophon created a Utopian picture of
Persian life in his history of Cyrus. 'Das
Idealbild des aigyptischen K6nigtums' is
Meyer's appropriate designation of what is
implied. Chronologically he would place its
origins as far back as the late Ramesside era,
with a gradual elaboration in the sub-
sequent period.s
The second part of Plato's statement has
appeared to be so un-Egyptian in reference
that commentators have doubted its validity
as applied to Egypt. Skemp asks, 'Who
could such usurpers be?' and goes on,
'Hardly the Persian Achaemenids,... for
there is no evidence of their becoming
priests'.6 He wonders whether the Hyksos
are meant. Meyer, op. cit. 44 suggests that
the sudden throne-changes of Plato's time,
under the dynasties which rose against the
Persians, may be reflected. More apposite
than these nationalist anti-Persian affirma-
tions would be instances in Egyptian history
1931), 42 if.
s There is no valid reason why a still
earlier tradition may not be implicated. Both
Meyer and Kienitz assume, by the way, that
Diodorus is following Hecataeus of Abdera.
W. Spoerri, SpiithellenistischeBerichte iiber
Welt,KulturundGCtter(Basel, I959) has shown
that this is unlikely; cf. the present writer's
review in J.H.S. lxxxii (1962), 182 f.
6 A. D. Nock in A.J.A. liii (1949), 283,
n. 40, wondered whether the Achaemenids
in a Persian background were not behind
the description ('a reflection of what was
now believed of the Persian king').