THE POTIDAEA EPIGRAM AND EURIPIDES’ <i>SUPPLIANT WOMEN</i>: AN INTERTEXTUAL READING

ABSTRACT CEG 1.10 shows striking parallels in language and thought with Euripides’ Suppliant Women 531–6 (c. 423), with both passages describing the departure of the soul into the upper air ( aithêr ) after death. This article argues that rather than being a commonplace in fifth-century Athens, the mention of this eschatology in Suppliant Women is a deliberate reference to CEG 1.10; and that the significance of this reference is the recontextualization of the lines from CEG 1.10 to describe the battle of Delium (423), thus expressing the war-weariness and disillusion of Athens.