ABSTRACT

This view was indeed challenged, notably by E.C.Yorke.2 Yorke analysed a certain metrical phenomenon in the seven playsresolution of a long syllable in the iambic trimeter-and showed that if the frequency of such resolution increased with the poet’s increasing years then the Persae (472 B.C.) is the earliest play, and that the Supplices would fall between it and the Septem (467). But the assumption is hazardous; closer inspection suggests that the dramatic quality of a scene had something to do with the incidence of these resolutions-as is certainly the case in Sophocles.