Αἰγύπτῳ. Her. 2.35 “τὰ πολλὰ πάντα ἔμπαλιν τοῖσι ἄλλοισι ἀνθρώποισι ἐστήσαντο ἤθεά τε καὶ νόμους: ἐν τοῖσι αἱ μὲν γυναῖκες ἀγοράζουσι καὶ καπηλεύουσι, οἱ δὲ ἄνδρες κατ οἴκους ἐόντες ὑφἀίνουσι”. Soph. certainly seems to have had this passage of his friend's work in view: else it would be strange that v. 341 should correspond so exactly with the special tasks ascribed to the women by Her. So the reference in El. 62 to the (supposed) dead returning recalls the Thracian Salmoxis in Her. 4.95, and the disputed passage Ant. 905 ff. recalls the wife of Intaphernes in Her. 3.119. Nymphodorus of Syracuse (275 B.C.?), in the 3rd book (read “γ᾽” for “ιγ᾽” in the schol. here, Müller fr. Hist. 2. 380) of his “Νόμιμα Βαρβαρικά”, repeated the statement of Her., adding (prob. of himself) that Sesostris had thus sought to tame the men of Egypt to his sway. Anaxandrides, of the Middle Comedy (circ. 340 B.C.), in his Πόλεις, represented the Athenians as rejecting an Egyptian alliance on the ground of the opposition between the manners of Greece and Egypt: — “οὔθ᾽ οἱ τρόποι γὰρ ὁμονοοῦς᾿, οὔθ᾽ οἱ νόμοι ι ἡμῶν” （Fragm. Com. Bothe p. 426).
This text is part of:
Sophocles: The Plays and Fragments, with critical notes, commentary, and translation in English prose. Part II: The Oedipus Coloneus. Sir Richard C. Jebb. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1899.
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