Il nome dei Persiani : Δαναής τε γόνου / τὸ παρωνύμιον γένος ἡμέτερον (Aesch. Pers., 144-146, ed. West)

All the Aeschylean editors agree that in vv. 144-146 of the Persians where the codes have transmitted the text πῶς ἄρα πράσσει Ξέρξης βασιλεὺς / Δαρειογενής, τὸ πατρωνύμιον γένος ἁμέτερον, a single or a double corruption has intervened. The solution generally adopted is to clean up the corrupt text area and, in fact, consider it a locus desperatus (such is the case up to the last important edition of Garvie 2009). However, Martin West, in his 1990 Teubner edition, proposed an intervention as bold as it was brilliant: assuming the hypothesis of a double corruption, he restored the mention of the “lineage from Danaë” in the indicted text along with the idea of the paronymia Perseus-Perses-Persae: πῶς ἄρα πράσσει Ξέρξης βασιλεὺς / Δαναής τε γόνου / τὸ παρωνύμιον γένος ἡμέτερον; The essay reconstructs the genesis of the proposal by West, which could constitute a further tile in the mosaic of the Aeschylean drama, and particularly in the topic of the genealogical relationship between Greece and Persia. Danaë, the Greek princess Danaë, was the first receptacle of the “golden seed” from which Perseus was born and from him his son Perses, ancestor of Xerxes. Therefore, the chorus of the old Persians would confirm that Danaë herself is the matrix of “our lineage, which takes its name from her”. The text reconstructed by West would also be a confirmation of the importance of the theme of “eponymy” in the Aeschilean dramaturgical composition: the Appendix provides a review of the occurrences of eponymy / paronymy in the text of all seven preserved Aeschylean tragedies.