This reference work is designed to provide concise summaries of the major figures ofclassical mythology, and, at the same time, synopses and discussions of major works ofGreek and Roman literature from the eighth century b.c.e. through the second centuryc.e. While there are many reference works on classical mythology, the distinctive feature of this encyclopedia is the inclusion of extensive discussion of classical authors andliterary works to enable the study of ancient mythology in the light of ancient literature. In addition, we have selectively documented the representation of the classical myths in visualart, ranging from ancient statues to famous paintings of the Renaissance and later eras.
Finally, she orders Creusa to cherish in secret the knowledge that Ion is her son. Ion is convinced by Athena, and Creusa praises Phoebus and retracts her complaints. Creusa and Ion begin to make their way to Athens. All exit.
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CoMMEntARy The plays probable date (ca. 410 b.c.e.) late in Euripides career and its persistent display of interest in Athens and the etiology of Athenian cult and tradition link it on some key points with the Alcestis (ca. 413 b.c.e.). In the Ion, Hermes makes the prologue speech, first giving his genealogy, while Iphigenia begins the prologue speech in Iphigenia among the Taurians by giving her own genealogy. In both plays, one family member, through the design of a god, goes to the foreign sanctuary where another family member, unbeknown to either, serves in the temple. They are eventually reunited through a complex recognition sequence, but only after one (or each of the two) nearly brings about the death of the other. Each had thought the other 0
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In both cases, moreover, key characters (Iphigenia, Orestes, Creusa) experience severe doubt regarding the designs and basic decency of the gods. Finally, at the close of both plays, the goddess Athena makes an appearance ex machina to bring about a satisfactory plot resolution and, at the same time, to reassure the main characters of the rationality of the gods designs. In both instances, she sends the two family members to Athens, where they will lay some of the foundations of Athenian civilization. We are seeing here the conjunction of a set of concerns specific to Euripides later work, in particular, an interest in etiology, Athenian and non-Athenian cults, and the self-consciousness of Athens in relation both to other Greek cities and to the broader world.
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Yet whereas the mythological content of Iphigenia among the Taurians, as of most Euripidean tragedies, belongs to the broader mythological fabric of the Trojan War, and turns emphatically toward Athens only at the close, the Ion concerns a specifically Athenian set of myths. Euripides demonstrates that Athens, like other states with tragic myths, can boast of its own doomed royal house with a cross-generational history of violence. This tragic vision of Athenian legend is significant, given that the Ion, like other late Euripidean dramas, has been occasionally characterized as more comic than tragic, or somehow occupying a transitional point between the two genres. As always, such characterizations are misleading. Whether or not a play has a broadly unhappy ending does not necessarily constitute the chief criterion of tragedy, and here we might note in particular the guiding framework of the inherited familial taint or curse so central to tragic mythology.
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