The common view among scholars on Deus ex Machina in tragedy's end seems to be that it was not taken over by Attic New Comedy, unlike some divine prologists whose successors are to be found in Pan in the Dyscolus or Tyche in the Aspis, for example, and became the conventional prologue-speakers in later comedies.(1) The unanimous attack by ancient critics against Deus ex Machina as an inadequate measure to end a play may have contributed to this view.(2) However, I would like to suggest in this paper that Deus ex Machina which seems to be successfully utilized in Euripides' later plays did not just disappear but could have been absorbed and transmitted as one of the most effective dramatic devices in comedy.
If we look at the comedies in the chart below which I think represent the long tradition of Western comedy from Menander to the present, all of them, without exception, end in an unexpected recognition between kindred persons. The hero or heroine or the both are threatened to fail in their plan to get married or reach some similar form of happiness but at the last minute the secret of the birth, for instance, or some hidden personal relationship is disclosed quite accidentally and the trouble is settled. I have given the approximate line number or its substitute in each play to show how near the end of each play this comic cognitio occurs. The structural pattern of the unexpected recognition near the end to resolve the impasse is so stereotyped throughout the centuries that this particular feature may be suspected to have one common origin. And I would like to examine whether Deus ex Machina in some of Euripides' later plays, with its function of bringing a sudden resolution of the problem quite fortuitously without any dramatic motivation, could have given a hint.
Recognition between long-separated family members is a popular theme in tragedy. Euripides had a model when he took up one of the stories of this type, that of Electra. He followed Aeschylus' two-part structure with recognition between sister and brother in the first half and the matricide through an intrigue in the second half. The chronological relationship between his play and Sophocles' Electra is not relevant in the present discussion. So I discuss Sophocles as if coming before Euripides only for convenience' sake. Meanwhile, Euripides, continuing to write in succession at least three plays of a similar design of recognition and intrigue, seems to have deviated from authentic tragedy. The distinct aspects of Iphegina Taurica (413 B.C.?), Helena (412 B.C.) and Ion (411B.C.?) have been noticed. Some scholars have called them tragi-comedy and others romance.(3) Whatever their proper names should be, their departure from tragedy is unmistakable and about Orestes which was produced a short time later Aristophanes of Byzantium says explicitly that the ending of this play is, if anything, 'comical.' The scholiasts also give some similar remarks.(4) At the same time, one can assume from evidence that each of these plays was well received,(5) ---presumably with its Deus ex Machina included. A play's ending largely affects its impression as a whole. If the audience had found the Deus ex Machina clumsy, the plays would not have enjoyed such popularity.
Therefore, in looking at how Deus ex Machina functioned well in these tragedies where comic vein becomes noticeable and thus could have given a hint to later comedy writers, I want to begin with a brief look at Euripides' Electra (415 B.C.?) which, still standing in the tragic tradition of recognition theme, has no hint of comedy, yet predicts the departure from tragedy. I will also add Orestes (408 B.C.) to the group, because, though lacking recognition, its Deus ex Machina seems to have given no small hint that it would be a useful device to end a comedy.(6)
