[17] The fortunes of the hero after his return to Troy
1
formed the subject of another play by Sophocles (
Φιλοκτήτης ὁ ἐν Τροίᾳ
). The healing of Philoctetes, and his slaying of Paris, must have been the principal incidents; but the few words which remain give no clue to the treatment. It is only a conjecture— though a probable one—that Asclepius himself was introduced as aiding the skill of his sons
2
.Besides the three great dramatists, other tragic poets of the
3
same period wrote on the story of Philoctetes
4
. Nothing of interest is known concerning these lost works,—except, indeed, one curious detail. Theodectes, whose repute stood high in the time of Aristotle, represented the sufferer as wounded in the hand, not in the foot
5
. The motive of this innovation is not difficult to divine. Aristophanes touches on the predilection of Euripides for maimed heroes; and in the comedies which had been written on the subject of Philoctetes his disabled foot had doubtless been made a prominent trait
6
. Theodectes wished to avoid all associations of burlesque. His expedient for dignifying the warrior's misfortune is very characteristic of the decadence.
7
§ 18. In the best age of Roman Tragedy, Attius (
c. 140 B.C.) composed a
Philocteta, of which some small fragments remain,— less than fifty lines in all. Much ingenuity has been expended on conjectures as to the plot. But the evidence is too scanty to warrant any conclusion
8
. Many of the verses have a rugged power,—as these, for instance, spoken by the hero in his agony:—
Heu! qui salsis fluctibu' mandet Me ex sublimo vertice saxi? Iamiam absumor: conficit animam Vis vulneris, ulceris aestus.
The adventures of Philoctetes after the Trojan war were
9
related by Euphorion of Chalcis (
c. 220 B.C.), in a short epic (
Φιλοκτήτης
), of which only five lines, preserved by Stobaeus, are extant, but of which the contents are partly known from a note of Tzetzes on Lycophron
10
. Philoctetes arrived in southern Italy, and there founded the city of Cremissa, near Crotona. He raised a shrine to Apollo the protector of wanderers
11
, and dedicated in it the bow of Heracles. He was slain while aiding an expedition of Rhodians against some Achaeans of Pellene who had settled in Italy. Introduction to Commentary on Sophocles: Philoctetes. Sir Richard C. Jebb. Cambridge. 1932.
Sponsored by Perseus Project, Tufts University.
Funding provided by National Endowment for the Humanities.