"WHAT'S   HECUBA  TO   HIM,
OR  HE  TO   HECUBA  .   .   .?"
 

EUAS J.   TH EODORAt:OPOUI.OS
 

I
 

am currently engaged in writing a
philological and literary commen-
. tary on Euripides' tragedy Hecuba,
which was first performed in the Theater of Dionysus in Athens in 424 B.C.
The function of such a commentary is to provide the advanced reader of the
play with help in the following matters: the author's use of language, i^oth
within the confines of the specific work and in the context of his entire
extant oeuvre; the similarities and differences between this author's style
and the style of other contemporary practitioners of the genre of tragedy;
the author's place in the development of the Greek language and thought
of the classical period, both before and after him; and, no less importantly,
help in understanding Euripides' imaginative world within the play itself
and in its relation to the contemporary realities of life in fifth-century
Athens.

For this commentary electronic resources have been invaluable,
although they have their limitations. The primary electronic database that I
use is the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae {TLG) on CD-ROM, a full-text database
that ultimately aims to contain all of Greek literature from Homer to the fall
of Constantinople in 1453. It is published by the University of California at
Irvine and in its current form consists of one CD-ROM, version D of which
became available in early 1996. Accompanying it in book format is the
Thesaurus Linguae Graecae: Canon of Greek Authors and Works, 3rd ed., by Luci
Berkowitz and Karl A. Squitier (New York; Oxford University Press, 1990),
which lists alphabetically by author the ideal table of contents of the
completed Thesaurus and provides inter alia full bibliographic information
on the editions of individual works used in compiling the Thesaurus.
However, not all authors or works listed in the  Canon are at present