‘Lest we forget’: inventions and their memory on the Greek tragic scene

The chapter aims to explore how fifth-century tragedians reflected on the theme of memory in referring to mythical πρῶτοι εὑρεταί (first inventors) and their discoveries. Based on a corpus of select tragic passages, the chapter seeks to analyse the function and typology of a number of heurematological accounts, and to highlight the significance of sharing cultural memory related to the invention of human technai on the tragic stage. By considering instances of (1) first- and third-person accounts coeval with the age of the εὑρετής (all related to the discoveries of Greek hero Palamedes), and then by analysing (2) accounts from a (mythical) later time, the chapter places particular emphasis on the varying degrees of (mythical) temporal distance attached to such typologies and the implications thereof. Accounts of type (2), it is argued, qualify as an act of sharing cultural memory on the part of a character, who, by being far removed in time from the ‘mythical’ era of the πρῶτοι εὑρεταί, is in a position to expose the limits of the particular invention(s) dealt with, thus ultimately reappraising such cultural memory and testing its validity.