οἶδα γὰρ “κ.τ.λ.”: ‘Nay, (I can still offer thee comfort;) for I know that Amphiaraüs, like Agamemnon, was betrayed to death by a false wife; and yet now he is a great spiritual force beneath the earth, and is revered among men.’ Although Orestes is dead, Agamemnon may still be honoured. The Chorus do not directly hint a belief that he can still be avenged,—as Amphiaraüs was. Electra then seizes on this point of contrast, Amphiaraüs found an avenger; her father cannot now find one. Ἀμφιάρεων, scanned “¯˘˘¯”, as in O. C. 1313(n.): ἄνακτα, as the seer Teiresias is so called, O. T. 284(n.). Amphiaraüs, the Argive seer and warrior, married Eriphylè, sister of Adrastus, king of Argos. He had sworn to abide by her decision in any difference between himself and her brother, with whom he had formerly been at feud ( Apollod. 3. 6. 2). When Polyneices sought Argive aid against Thebes, Amphiaraüs opposed the enterprise, foreseeing a fatal issue. Polyneices then bribed Eriphylè with a golden necklace, and she persuaded her husband to join the expedition. The Argives were routed by the Thebans. In the flight, Amphiaraüs was approaching the river Ismenus, near Thebes, when the earth, riven by a thunderbolt, swallowed him up, with his chariot: cp. fr. 873. Sophocles wrote an “Ἐριφύλη”, and also a satyric “Ἀμφιάρεως”.
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Sophocles: The Plays and Fragments, with critical notes, commentary, and translation in English prose. Part VI: The Electra. Sir Richard C. Jebb. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1894.
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