The Suppliants

Suppliants, The (Gk. Hiketidğs, Lat. Supplicēs, ‘suppliants’ or ‘suppliant women’).

1. Greek tragedy by Aeschylus, of uncertain date, but in a year, possibly 463, in which Sophocles was also a competitor (the latter's first dramatic production was in 468). It was the first play of its trilogy; the others were Aegyptii (‘sons of Aegyptus’) and Danaidğs (‘daughters of Danaus’); the satyr-play was the Amymōnē.

The suppliants are the fifty daughters of Danaus who have fled from Egypt to avoid marriage with their cousins, the fifty sons of the usurping king Aegyptus. They have come with their father Danaus to Argos, with which they claim connection through their descent from Io, to ask for protection from their pursuers. The king of Argos hesitates and consults his people. These vote in favour of the suppliants, and the demand of the enemy herald for their surrender is rejected.

The role of the suppliants themselves is taken by the chorus, which thus becomes virtually the protagonist; it is not therefore inappropriate that choral lyrics occupy more than half the play. The reason for the suppliants' flight from marriage, not made unambiguously clear by Aeschylus, has been much debated, but inconclusively; it does not seem to be of importance to the poet or essential to the plot. The trilogy probably ended with the confirmation of marriage as a natural institution, exemplified by Hypermnestra's sparing of her husband.

2. Greek tragedy by Euripides produced probably c.422 BC; the goddess Athena's words at the end relate to an Argive alliance, actual or in view at the time of writing.

The Thebans have refused to allow the burial of the bodies of the Argive chieftains (the ‘Seven against Thebes’) who have unsuccessfully attacked the city, thus violating the sacred custom of the Greeks. The mothers of the chieftains (who form the chorus of suppliants from whom the play is named) have come with Adrastus, king of Argos, surviving leader of the expedition, to Eleusis in Attica and made supplication at the shrine of Demeter to Aethra, mother of Theseus, king of Athens. Theseus rejects the arrogant demand of the Theban herald for their surrender; he yields to the prayer of the suppliants and recovers the bodies for burial by force. Evadnē, widow of Capaneus, one of the chieftains, throws herself on his funeral pyre.