Ethnicity and the Stage 257Greeks and barbarians are occasionally blurred through the element of disguise and faking
of identities (e.g., Pseudartabas inAcharnians), but also through hints that well-known
Athenian citizens are actually of foreign descent (see MacDowell 1993: 359–71).
Drama draws on a rich array of ethnographic materials (Bacon 1961; Long 1986),
borrowing freely from Herodotus and the Ionian logographers (compare, e.g.,Oedipus
at Colonus337–45 withHistories2.35), to create effects of realism or “exoticism.” In
the case of language, non-Greek speech is commonly identified with unintelligibility,
frequently expressed through the swallow metaphor (Agamemnon1050–1,Antigone
999–1002,Acharnians1011,Birds199–200). In Aristophanic comedy, (real or fake)
barbarians are distinguished by their failure to speak proper Attic (Friedrich 1919:
274–303), which commonly results in gibberish. Greeks from different regions are at
the same time (actually or allegedly) distinguished in terms of language (e.g.,Libation
Bearers560–4) (see further, Colvin 1999 and Willi 2003). Attic drama also makes
frequent reference to the geography, physical appearance, distinctive habits, and dress of
non-Greeks, all of which may be deployed to add weight to etiologies and mythography,
while often encompassing cultural symbols charged with ideological implications.
A thorough study of ethnicity in theater should take into account each drama’s
date of composition, particular theme, and reception, as well as the ways in which the
Greek–barbarian contrast intersects with other polarities (pertaining to gender, age,
social status, conflicting values), which are themselves far from simple. Still, we could
map out certain trends that mark the dramatic genres as a whole. Athenian drama has
been commonly considered a vehicle of ethnocentric statements; in the light of recent
historical events, and particularly the Persian invasions, the fifth-century barbarian (and
especially the Easterner) is viewed as not simply the foreigner or the Other but the
anti-Greek, someone by contrast with whom Greeks can identify themselves and assert
their cultural superiority (Saïd 1978; Long 1986; E. Hall 1989, 1996 [cf. E. Hall 2010],
Cartledge 1993; Harrison 2000). On the other hand, a fair part of recent scholarship
(which mostly focuses on Euripides) opposes this tendency to overemphasize the
Greek–barbarian polarity by highlighting the nuances, ambiguities, and complications
involved in both the definition of ethnicity and its ideological implications (Vidal-Naquet
1997: 109–19; Saïd 2002: 62–100; Wright 2005).
Drama’s exploration of Greek virtues in opposition to non-Greek vices may indeed, in
several cases, straightforwardly reflect or promote (the popular belief in) the superior-
ity of either Greek institutions and morality in general or of Greek heroes in particular.
At the same time, however, the theme of ethnicity is, in many contexts, employed in
ways that complicate this premise, an example of the Greek tendency both to invoke
and to problematize polarities (Lloyd 1966). In part, the complexity of this problema-
tizing of Greek–barbarian relations is due to the fact that the concept of ethnicity is
itself fluid.
Ethnicity, Genealogy, Culture
Ethnicity is indeed treated as something variable in classical literature; several examples
suggest that the ethnic status of a given group or individual can be defined on the basis of
different qualifiers, such as descent, culture, language, or religion, on different occasions