The influence of Stesichorus on Greek tragedy is generally accepted. 1 Indeed, scholars have gone as far as to call the poems ‘tragedies in embryo’, 2 or to describe Stesichorean characterisation as ‘a prototype of the tragic principal’. 3 Yet most discussions of the relationship between Stesichorus and tragedy suggest little detailed engagement between the texts. Rather, the focus is confined ...

contamination and perhaps towards women. Plague and leprosy also increased fears of contamination and contagion, and encouraged the association of bodily affliction with moral corruption, although the link between leprosy and "sexual depravity" was not as "inextricable" as the authors assert. But there were many other reasons for changing attitudes towards deviance, sin and the body, and for ne...