Per una ricostruzione degli 'Sciri' di Sofocle

Abstract

The few fragments of the Scyrians by Sophocles we have left and the lack of sources certainly traceable back to it make it very hard for us to reconstruct the plot of the play, dealing with the fetching of Neoptolemus from Scyros by Odysseus and probably Phoenix. Some more information might come from the fr. 555b Radt², which is part of a papyrus (P.Oxy. 2077) published by Hunt in 1927. In particular, scholars thought it may point to a μηχάνημα somehow played out during the drama: Pfeiffer (1933), followed by some others, guessed it was a plan to hide Neoptolemus from the Greeks who were looking for him, while Carden (1974) proposed it could be a plan conceived by Odysseus to carry out his task and bring Achilles’ son to Troy. None of them, however, tried to really understand how this supposed μηχάνημα could fit in the play. Thus, the aim of this paper is to reconsider some old studies and proposals about the Scyrians in order to deepen some aspects and possibly open new research paths: in particular, I will propose an overall reconstruction of the play and I will make some considerations about the placement of the preserved fragments. Also, based on it, on the other literary and artistic sources about the myth and on what we know about Sophocles’ production, I will make some remarks about the characters, the themes, the dating, the tradition and the reception of the play.