It is odd that the speaker qualifies the messengers in whose stead he has chosen to come as “others.” This adjective’s appositive placement emphasizes it. But what can it mean? If other than primary, who would be meant by primary? The speaker cannot mean himself, as is made clear by his insistence on coming in person. From what messengers, then, can those whom he chose not to send be distinguished? To this question there seems to be no answer. What he seems clearly to want to underscore is that he finds it unacceptable to hear about the suppliants’ problem from anyone else, for he regards this matter to be of the utmost importance and therefore requiring response at the highest level, for which he seems to hold himself to be the sole appropriate instance. [Mp] The judgment that he trusts alone in himself to manage the crisis stands in direct contrast to that of the suppliants, whose posture expresses their belief that the problems they face require the help of a god. Against the backdrop of the supplication, the speaker’s decision to take the matter directly into his own hands points up his expectation that Apollo will not answer the supplication. In presenting himself as the most adequate response to the summons for divine help, he implicitly underlines the god’s unresponsiveness. He must suppose that Apollo either disdains a response or is in fact incapable of responding. [Ad] [Ap] Considering the god’s failure to appear during the interval prior to the palace doors’ opening and sharing the speaker’s view that Apollo is unlikely to materialize, the audience might take the speaker’s exhibition of commitment and god-like self-assurance as evidence that he makes an acceptable substitute for the god. Indeed, for those in the audience who have from the play’s opening tableau thought the supplication pointless, because they think it unreasonable to expect a god to respond either in person or through an intermediary, a man such as this one offers the only reasonable hope of effecting a meaningful resolution to the crisis at hand. From their perspective, the god’s evident incapacity or unwillingness to respond to the supplication can even justify the speaker’s disregard for the conventions of piety. The man’s self-substitution for Apollo might thus leave the audience feeling hopeful and confident, though perhaps still faintly uneasy about the impiety. [P]