A Companion to Euripides

Rhesus is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma: the variety of opinions and responses it has generated borders on the bewildering. Rhesus' action is largely modeled on the so-called Doloneia, namely Book 10 of the Iliad. The Doloneia's authenticity was doubted in antiquity, and it is ironically appropriate that the author of the apocryphal Rhesus took it as his model. Indeed, Rhesus is the only surviving dramatization of a Homeric narrative, with the partial exception of the satyric Cyclops. All in all, Rhesus is in all likelihood the only fully surviving tragedy from what must have been a theatrically vibrant century. Its idiosyncrasies are legion, and although it has its brilliant moments, they hardly make up for its deficiencies. It may have been conceived for performance outside Athens, possibly in Macedon; contra Fries, in which case it would be an even greater rarity of a play. � 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.