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The number of literary works dealing with the Amphitryon legend in the course of the last two millennia is startling. Undoubtedly, the motif of the Doppelgänger (double) and the possibilities resulting from this ambiguous twilight of psychic manifestations has not ceased to attract the minds of creative writers. Plautus was probably the first author to weld the legendary material into a masterpiece of classical dramatic art. It is not known whether the source material was ab initio monolithic or whether he had to cope with diffuse legendary strata which he managed to link for the sake of dramatic unity. He produced his drama Amphitruo approximately 201 B. C.
The dramatic plot unfolds as Amphitryon returns from the battle field and, according to the legend, is told by the seer Teresias that he has been cuckolded by Jupiter who impersonated him. Thus the motif of double is brought into play which has assumed new relevance in the light of modern research in the field of anthropology and especially psychology. The works of Levy-Bruhl, Malinowsky, Otto Rank and Robert Rogers are but a few examples of the popularity of the topic in contemporary research.
It is the aim of this paper to delineate the cultural vicissitudes reflected in this prismatic diffraction of the original Amphitryon material and to discuss the psychological implication of the ‘double’ connected with a dramatic premiss of this sort within the context of the psychoanalytic method.
Amphitryon, husband of Alcmene and commanding general of the Thebans, goes to war against the Taphians and