Harry Mortimer Hubbell received his formal education in New Haven, Connecticut: a graduate of Hillhouse High School, he entered Yale to win his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. But his progress to the doctorate was interrupted by periods of teaching in New York State and New Jersey. A combination of teaching and administrative authority in these positions is reflected in his career at Yale, where he was appointed in 1911; here, whether as instructor or Talcott Professor, a full teaching program never blunted his readiness to undertake academic committee work and finally the chairmanship of his department. It is not surprising that his delight in interpreting the values of classical literature led him in 1924 to introduce a course in Classical Civilization designed to interest those who had little or no Latin and Greek in the achievements of the ancient world. In this he was a pioneer, for few classical scholars at that time, not excepting colleagues, found such a program congenial or significant. He remained actively interested in this field throughout his life, and the proliferation of similar or derived courses in this country and elsewhere bears out his judgement. A man of such quiet energy as his could not settle into inactivity. On his retirement in 1950 a Visiting Professorship in the University of California at Berkeley was followed by a Fulbright Fellowship at the American Academy in Rome; he was one of the first John Hay Whitney Professors, joining the faculty at Goucher College, Maryland, where his enthusiasm raised a class of six to forty students.

INTRODUCTION

My purpose here is to analyze Pentheus, not to discuss the Bacchae as a whole. But the psychoanalytic critic suffers from a questionable reputation, and should welcome the chance to show that his credentials as a man of taste, if not as a scholar, are reasonably well in order. Necessity offers that chance, for a few preliminary remarks on the nature of Dionysus are vital to any analysis of Pentheus, psychoanalytic or otherwise; perhaps while making them I shall be able to give some reassurance as to my own literary sanity. After that I want to go through each of the Pentheus scenes as if it were a session on the couch; then a look at one of the case-histories in the psychoanalytical journals may enable us to reconstruct a life-history of Pentheus' illness. I am not threatening to present a completely unfamiliar play: the reader will have to decide whether I have used the facts of another man's life and another man's illness to illuminate or to strait-jacket the life and illness of Pentheus. But the hard evidence I use will all be taken from the play. If there is disagreement – and I have yet to encounter the psychological interpretation that won much initial favor – it will be over how to interpret what is in the play, not over my dragging in hypotheses from outside that have the approval of famous names in psychiatry.

The articles in this volume are addressed primarily to the professional Classicist. Some of them, however, are much less technical than others. E. A. Havelock's study of Aristophanes' Clouds deals with a fundamental aspect of Socratic thought; A. T. Cole introduces new distinctions into the conventional picture of Sophistic relativism; A. Parry infers from the Archaeology Thucydides' theory of history; W. Sale applies psychoanalytic concepts closely to a character of Euripides; and G. S. Kirk examines the definition of ‘myth’ in the light of Greek and other myths. All these articles deal with questions that are bound to be of interest to anyone concerned with the history of thought in the Western World; all are comprehensible to those who are not expert in Greek philology, and even to those who do not know Greek.

A middle ground in this respect is occupied by M. McCall's solution to a perplexing problem in Sophocles' Antigone; by H. Lloyd-Jones' reconstruction of the plot and mood of Menander's Samia; by M. Arthur's study of the independent role of the chorus in Euripides' Bacchae; by D. Tompkins' demonstration that Thucydides does after all adjust his style to individual historical characters, by R. Brumbaugh's brief argument that Socrates, as portrayed by Aristophanes, used scientific models, and by D. Claus' interpretation of a key speech in Euripides' Hippolytus. These articles deal with more specific problems than the previous group, and mostly require a knowledge of Greek texts in the original language to be understood.

The ambiguities surrounding what is called the Socratic Problem are reinforced by the fact that while Old Comedy has preserved a record of the philosopher which is contemporary, it also seems unsympathetic, whereas the testimony which treats him seriously and is also friendly to him is entirely posthumous. To be sure, the posthumous record is itself not consistent. The ‘portraits’ offered by Plato and Xenophon, and the doxographical notices in Aristotle, have received varying estimates in terms of their evidential worth. But scholarly differences in this area of the testimony can be accommodated and compromised, and in recent accounts they usually are. A more challenging division in critical opinion separates all those who have preferred the idealized versions of either Plato or Xenophon and the accommodation built upon them, from those who have looked for possible clues in the cruder testimonies publicized in the philosopher's life-time.

The Socratic Problem is today quiescent. It has perhaps been given up as insoluble. The prevailing scholarly preference is clearly oriented towards Plato's authority, even though the extreme case for this preference has been rejected. The Clouds viewed as a possible source of independent testimony fails to obtain serious consideration.

The present essay, while reviving the claims of the Clouds to some authenticity of record, does not aim to choose between contemporary and posthumous testimony, but rather to match the two, if perchance some congruities may become percepitible.