Parallela Graeca et Romana 20A: Sources and Narrative Structure

This paper focuses on the Greek tale of Parallela Graeca et Romana’s chapter 20. The differences in the Greek story between the direct and the indirect tradition perhaps depend on the intent of Parallela’s author to emphasize its parallelism with the Roman tale. As for the source, the direct tradition indicates Euripides’ Erechtheus, while the indirect tradition (Stobaeus and Clement of Alexandria) indicates Demaratus’ Tragodoumena. The Greek tale is probably founded on the account of Erechtheus’ plot in Lycurgus’ Adversus Leocratem 98-100, perhaps integrated with information from other sources. The divergence between the direct and the indirect tradition regarding the source can be explained (according to Jacoby’s theory) by the presence in the originary text of both the names of Demaratus and Euripides (the latter introduced by μέμνηται, as in the pairs of sources in De fluviis). It is possible that in the originary text Demaratus was introduced to justify the presence in the story of information missing in Euripides.