Preface
THERE HAS BEEN NOTHING quite like this handbook in any language heretofore; this announcement will doubtless arouse various kinds of thankfulness in users. The customary summaries and background materials are here; in addition, more notice than customary has been taken of lost and fragmentary works. A unique feature is the attempt to offer an explanation for every proper name in the complete extant plays, with these exceptions: Persian warriors mentioned by Aeschylus, of whom nothing is known but that they are mentioned by Aeschylus; various Greeks mentioned by Aristophanes, of whom nothing is known, et cetera; some abstract deities whose names are universally Englished in translations; and some places and persons occurring in extremely conjectural readings. The explanations themselves—of myths, for instance—are slanted toward ancient drama, not necessarily toward epic, lyric, or the like.
Line references in plays come from the Loeb Library texts; other references are in the form standard among classicists. Translated phrases, from Greek, Latin, or whatever, are the author's own.
To the innumerable scholars whose work I have plundered, I can only declare that silent gratitude exists; if the plundering itself has been ill-considered or ill-executed, the blame must be mine. Explicit thanks are due to my editors, Edward Tripp—his were the initial conception and the choice of executor-and Rhoda Tripp, who patiently, perspicaciously, and profitably disputed many a passage.