From dlupher@ups.edu Sat Nov  6 12:22:26 1999
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Date: Sat, 6 Nov 1999 13:26:56 +0800
To: classics@u.washington.edu
From: David Lupher <dlupher@ups.edu>
Subject: Re: Iophon (tan to Alzheimer's thread)

Patrick Rourke writes, re. the story of Sopohocles' refutation of a
filial charge of "Alzheimer's":
>At a wild guess: "*Sophocles* subsequently wrote about this incident in a
>play" (I'm assuming that DL is paraphrasing closely from his provision of
>"en dramati") might conceal the name of an Old Comedy writer who was the
>source of the story; by the time the Vita got to us, Sophocles was
>substituted for the Comic writer with the OC in mind. [snip]

Well, your "wild guess" seems to be pretty much what Lefkowitz---and,
I gather, Radt and Jebb  before her---assumed: "The source of Satyrus'
anecdote about Sophocles and Iophon appears to be a comedy about
Sophocles' family...The anecdote preserves the names of the characters:
Sophocles, Iophon, his son by Nicostrate, Ariston, his son by Theoris
of Sicyon, her child Sophocles.  The subject of the dispute--distribution
of attention or affection--is a comic reduction of real-life litigation
among step-children over distribution of property."  ("Lives of the
Greek Poets," p. 85---she cites Radt ad loc., and Jebb 1900, xxxix-xliii).
Lefkowitz compares the way Satyros used the "Thesmopohoriazousai" and
a quotation from Euripides "Melanippe" to concoct an incident in the
life of Euripides: "that the women of Athens threatened him but let
him off when he promised never again to say anything bad about them;
he even cites the 'decree' against Euripides from Thesm. 335ff."

David Lupher
Classics Dept.
Univ. of Puget Sound




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