Verso Atene. Sul finale ateniese di 11 (12) tragedie

The paper focuses on a peculiar class of mythical innovation in Greek drama: in a substantial percentage of extant tragedies, mythical variants lead the action to end up in Athens. Considering the 32 preserved texts in the tragic production of the 5th Century BC., in 11 cases the final scene is led by dramatists in Athens, or in the immediate surroundings of the city, with a more or less violent twist of the previous consolidated mythical version. To the 11 considered cases, should be added the prototype of Eumenides, considered in this perspective as the ending of the whole Oresteia trilogy. This survey confirms the hypothesis that the overall' endings in Athens' do give an insight both on the sense of the preference accorded by dramatists to some specific mythical, and on the empathetic and political 'connecting device' that ties the drama on stage with the audience of the theatre of Dionysus in Athens, between 472 and 405 BC.