The Riddles of Aeschylus' Theoroi or Isthmiastai

Revised and expanded English version of an earlier paper published in Italian (Sonnino 2018). In reviewing the contents of Aeschylus' Theoroi fr. 78a, col. I.1-22 (= P.Oxy. 2162), showing generous portions of the lost satyr play Theoroi or Isthmiasthai of Aeschylus, the author suggests: a) how to reconstruct several lost sections, and fill gaps; b) that satyrs were not fixing masks or tablets on the front of the temple of Poseidon, as is commonly believed, but nailing a βασκάνιον, a particular kind of statue used as charm against the evil eye; c) that ll.. 11-12 should be assigned to the same character speaking ll. 1-2; d) that this character, variously identified in past times, is actually a traveller; e) that Theoroi, far from being late, was an early Aeschylean play, whose staging was more similar to, e.g., Seven against Thebes (a play without the use of the skenè) than Agamemnon (where the skenè was used).