Daimonopylai: essays in classics and the classical tradition presented to Edmund G. Berry 9780973498202, 097349820X

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DAIMONOPYLAI ESSAYS IN CLASSICS AND THE CLASSICAL TRADITION PRESENTED TO EDMUND G. BERRY

edited by

Rory B. Egan and Mark Joyal

University of Manitoba Centre for Hellenic Civilization Winnipeg, Manitoba

This edition copyright

€ 2004 by Rory Egan and Mark Joyal

Published by University of Manitoba Centre for Hellenic Civilization All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means,

electronic, mechanical, photocopied, recorded, or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher. Cover design by Kristen McLure Printed by Hignell Book Printing

ISBN 0-9734982-0-X

Contents Preface Contributors

Edmund Grindlay Berry

Dancing at the Spirit Gates: A Mithraic Ritual Recovered from Proclus (in Remp. 2.128.26ff. Kroll) Roger Beck

The Crucifixion of the Poet: Catullus and Eldridge Cleaver David F. Bright

Vir Magnus ac Memorabilis Fuit: Livy on the Death of Cicero

21

James T. Chlup "The Appearance of History": Making Some Sense of Plutarch Craig Cooper

33

An Early Bronze Age Findgroup from Eleusis Michael B. Cosmopoulos

57

Eros, Eloquence and Entomo-psychology in Plato's Phaedrus

65

Rory Egan Bis Grauidae Pecudes: Vergil, Georgics 2.150 and Genesis 31:7-8 Michael Fox

89

Epictetus as Therapist

97

John J. Gahan

Words Without a Song: The Challenge of Carmina Burana 62

105

Robert Glendinning 10. lovis Ira: Allusion and the Relegation of Ovid

Robert D. Gold

127

11. The Literate Revolution in Greece and its Canadian Causes: Eric Havelock and Harold Innis

143

Mark Golden 12.

Self-Fashioning in the Classical Tradition: Ronsard's

"De l'Élection de son sépulcre"

155

Alex L. Gordon 13. Textual Criticism of Classical Texts in Erasmus' Adagia

165

John N. Grant 14.

Erasmus and More, Jaeger and Berry: The Renaissance Model for a Humanist DeLloyd J. Guth

183

15. Τέχνη and Θεία Μοῖρα in Plato's Ion John P. Harris

189

16. Christians, "Schools" and Greek Literacy lan H. Henderson

199

Centaurs in Love: An Old Man's Memory Ben Hijmans

209

17.

18. The Language and Style of the Old Oligarch

221

Mark Joyal 19.

Nothing to do with Mendaian Amphoras? Athenaeus 11.784C

241

Mark Lawall 20.

Similarities in Generic Variations in Euripides’ Jon and

Sophocles' Philoctetes

251

Brad Levett 21. Mythmaking and the Construction of the Feminine in Sappho

and Eavan Boland

269

Kristin Lord

22.

Dido's Court Philosopher

297

Alexander G. McKay 23.

Manitoba, “Δαιμονοπύλαι" David H. Pentland

309

24.

Biblical Remnants in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and Old English

319

Phyllis Portnoy

26.

Longing for Victory: The Erotic Coercion of Victoria Pauline Ripat

341

Politics and Personalities in Classical Thebes

347

Albert Schachter

27. Dancing and Dying: The Display of Elephants in Ancient Roman Arenas

363

Jo-Ann Shelton 28. City Slicker versus Country Bumpkin: Farmers in the Acharnians

of Aristophanes and the Dyskolos of Menander Carol E. Steer

383

29. Circulus, Triangulus, Epidonicus: Geometrical Difficulties with

Latin Lexicography

397

Wesley M. Stevens

Archaeological Evidence for Food Offerings in the Graves of Roman North Africa

427

Lea Stirling 31. Roman Drinking Silver: Terms, Forms, and Functions

Some Notes

453

John Tamm

32. Euclid’s Non-Euclidean Geometry R.S.D. Thomas

469

33. Gladiator Representations on Egyptian Lamps in Vancouver Hector Williams

479

The Legend of Constantine the Relic-Provider John Wortley

487

PREFACE

Dr. Edmund G. Berry, FRSC, assumed his appointment in the Department of Classics in 1940. He has served his entire professional career as a member of that Department where he is currently Professor Emeritus,

having retired from full-time teaching in 1979. This volume was originally conceived as a tribute to Professor Berry on the sixtieth anniversary

of his arrival in Manitoba. Various exigencies have meant that it appears several years later than that. That is regrettable for several reasons, but a happy consequence is that Daimonopylai now commemorates an even longer period of Professor Berry's membership in the scholarly commu-

nity of Manitoba, a base from which he has made his numerous and varied contributions to his academic discipline and to the cause of learning in this province and beyond.

The contributors to this volume and the variety of their contributions are a reflection of Professor Berry's career and his wide intellectual inter-

ests. The contributors also reflect his career-long association with this province. All of them have had some connection with the schools, colleges or universities of Winnipeg during the course of Professor Berry's

presence here. Several of them are former students of his who are pursuing academic careers in classical studies or in related disciplines. Many of them are colleagues or former colleagues from the University of Win-

nipeg or the University of Manitoba. Some belong in both categories. There are several individuals who, because of constraints of time and circumstance, have not been able to make the contribution to Daimono-

pylai that they would have liked to. Daimonopylai, the title of the volume, is a Hellenization of the native word that is believed to have given Manitoba its name. We were aware

that the etymology was controversial but decided that it had, in any case, a certain poetic aptness for a volume dedicated to a Manitoban Hellenist.

Happily, the decision also appears to have been vindicated by the philological work of David Pentland presented within.

We have chosen Giambologna's statue of Mercury as the cover illustration for its multiple emblematic associations. Representing both the classical world and the vitality of the classical tradition, the Mercurio also has special associations with the province of Manitoba since it was the

model for the Golden Boy atop the dome of the Manitoba legislature. Our immediate source for the photograph of the Mercurio is www. thais.it. We are most grateful to Thais for their consenting to reproducvii

viii

PREFACE

tion of the image in this publication. Kristen McLure, communications coordinator in our Faculty of Arts, generously provided her expertise in designing the cover for Daimonopylai. The congratulations and appreciation that this volume communicates are tempered with sadness. George P. Goold, once Professor Berry's colleague at the University of Manitoba and his friend of many years, provided valuable advice and encouragement to the editors during the planning stages of Daimonopylai. He promised a contribution on the

Homeric problem but his final illness and death prevented him from completing it. Another early consultant for the project was Dr. Virginia Berry, Edmund's late wife of sixty years. Her advice to us was only typical of the

numerous contributions that she made during her many years of active participation in the cultural life of this community as a scholar and supporter of the arts. We are confident that Edmund will appreciate our wish to have her memory honoured in this dedication as well. To Julia Berry Melnyk and Margaret Berry, we are grateful for the

congenial biographical sketch of their father, our friend and colleague. Daimonopylai could not have been produced without the financial and technical support of the Centre for Hellenic Civilization and the Department of Classics at the University of Manitoba. The Editors

CONTRIBUTORS Roger Beck, Professor Emeritus of Classics at the University of Toronto,

was a member of the Department of Classics at the University of Manitoba from 1963 to 1964 Margaret Berry, Edmund's daughter, lives in Victoria.

David Bright, a graduate of the University of Manitoba, is a member of the Department of Classics at Emory University.

James Chlup is a member of the Department of Classics at the University of Manitoba.

Craig Cooper is Head of the Department of Classics at the University of Winnipeg. Michael Cosmopoulos, Hellenic Government-Karakas Foundation Profes-

sor of Greek Studies at the University of Missouri at St. Louis, holds an external appointment in the Department of Classics at the University of Manitoba where he taught from 1989 to 2001. Rory Egan is a member of the Classics Department at the University of Manitoba.

Michael Fox, a graduate of the University of Manitoba, is a member of the Department of English at the University of Alberta.

John Gahan is Senior Scholar in the Department of Classics at the University of Manitoba Robert Glendinning, a graduate of United College (now the University of

Winnipeg), is Professor Emeritus of German at the University of Manitoba. Robert Gold is retired from the Department of Classics at the University of Winnipeg.

Mark Golden is a member of the Department of Classics at the University of Winnipeg. Alexander Gordon is Professor Emeritus of French at the University of Manitoba. John Grant, Professor Emeritus of Classics, University of Toronto, was a

member of the Department of Classics at the University of Manitoba from 1965 to 1967.

DeLloyd Guth is a Professor of Law at the University of Manitoba. ix

x

CONTRIBUTORS

John Harris holds an M.A. in Classics from the University of Manitoba. He is a member of the Department of History and Classics at the University of Alberta. Ian Henderson, a graduate of the University of Manitoba, is a member of

the Department of Religion at McGill University. Ben Hijmans, now retired from the Rijksuniversitet Groningen, was a member of the Classics Department at the University of Manitoba from

1961 to 1970. Mark Joyal is a graduate of the University of Manitoba where he is Head

of the Department of Classics. Mark Lawall is a member of the Department of Classics at the University of Manitoba Brad Levett, now at Carleton University, was a member of the Department of Classics at the University of Manitoba in 2002-2003. Kristin Lord, a member of the Department of Archaeology and Classics at Wilfrid Laurier University, was a member of the Department of Classics at the University of Manitoba from 1989 to 1991. Alexander

MacKay,

FRSC,

LL.D.

(Manitoba),

Classics at McMaster University, was

Professor

Emeritus

of

a member of the Department of

Classics at the University of Manitoba from 1951 to 1952 and from 1955 to

1957. Julia Berry Melnyk, Edmund's daughter, lives in Calgary. David Pentland is a member of the Department of Anthropology and the Department of Linguistics at the University of Manitoba. Phyllis Portnoy is a member of the English Department at the University

of Manitoba where she has occasionally taught Latin in the Department of Classics. Pauline Ripat, a graduate of the University of Winnipeg, is a member of the Department of Classics at the University of Winnipeg. Albert Schachter, a native of Winnipeg, is Professor Emeritus of Classics at McGill University. Jo-Ann Shelton, a graduate of the University of Manitoba, is a member of

the Department of Classics at the University of California at Santa Barbara. Carol Steer holds an M.A. in Classics from the University of Manitoba where she serves as Classics bibliographer in Dafoe Memorial Library and teaches Latin and Greek in the Department of Classics.

CONTRIBUTORS

xi

Wesley Stevens is Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Winnipeg.

Lea Stirling holds the Canada Research Council Chair of Roman Archaeology as a member of the Department of Classics at the University of Manitoba. John Tamm Manitoba.

is a member

of the Department of Classics, University of

R.S.D. Thomas is a member of the Department of Mathematics at the University of Manitoba. Hector Williams, a graduate of the University of Manitoba, is a member of the Department of Classical, Near Eastern and Religious Studies at the

University of British Columbia. John Wortley is Professor Emeritus of History, University of Manitoba.

EDMUND GRINDLAY BERRY, MA, PHD, FRSC

Edmund was born in 1915 at the manse in Leslie, Aberdeenshire, Scotland where his father James Berry was a minister of the Church of Scotland. James Berry was an Honours Classics graduate of St. Andrews

University and had a Bachelor of Divinity from Edinburgh University. Edmund spent most of his first eleven years in Kirkcudbrightshire in the south of Scotland where his father had a seaside parish. Edmund and his sister Elise were taught at home, learning Latin, Greek and "sums" from their father, and learning how to darn socks from their mother. When Edmund was ten and Elise eight, they boarded in Dumfries while attending Dumfries Academy. Edmund and Elise especially enjoyed the

chance to be with other children. Edmund immigrated to Canada with his family in 1926. After attending high school and first-year university in Fredericton, New Brunswick, he transferred to Queen's University in 1933. Although Edmund started out in Honours English, he was persuaded to change to Honours Classics by a professor who had noted that Edmund had studied Greek in high school. While at Queen's, Edmund acted in several plays produced by the Dramatic Society and was Book Editor for the Queen's Journal. It was as an actor that he got to know Robertson Davies (not yet a famous author), and actor Lorne Greene (not yet of "Bonanza"

fame), facts that later made a big impression on Edmund's daughters. Edmund graduated from Queen's with First Class Honours in Classics

and the Prince of Wales Prize for the highest standing in the Faculty of Arts. The next year Edmund did his MA with a thesis on "The Influence of Greek Epigram on Latin Elegy." He then went on to the University of

Chicago with a graduate fellowship. The University of Chicago next played an important part in Edmund's life. There he did his PhD in Classics, graduating in 1940, and met his future wife, Virginia Gingerick, a fellow graduate student, from

Indiana. The story handed down in the family is that the two met in paleography class, poring over ancient manuscripts. While a student at

Chicago, Edmund taught freshman Greek and worked under Werner Jaeger to complete his dissertation The History and Development of the Concept of Theia Moira and Theia Tyche down to and including Plato. Professor Werner Jaeger was the great attraction about the Classics

Department at Chicago. He was a recent arrival, filling the vacancy caused by the death of the great Paul Shorey. Edmund attended all Jaeger's seminars and started work on his dissertation, a topic suggested by xiii

xiv

EDMUND GRINDLAY BERRY

Jaeger. When Jaeger, after only two years at Chicago, was appointed to a

University Professorship at Harvard, specially created for him, the Department reluctantly agreed that Edmund would have to move with him in order to complete his dissertation. So at Harvard Edmund worked hard on "Moira and Tyche," read his work to Jaeger weekly and, when Jaeger approved, went back to Chi-

cago for the final oral examination and award of the PhD degree. Edmund

was appointed Lecturer in Classics at the University of

Manitoba that same year. He and Virginia were married in 1943 and she joined him in Winnipeg. In 1951 Edmund received a Guggenheim Fellowship for a study of Ralph Waldo Emerson's use of Plutarch, a topic which combined Edmund’s interest in classics and literature in English. So the family, now consisting of Virginia and two daughters, Julia and Margaret, moved to Boston for a year. At Harvard, Edmund read Emerson's journals and letters and began work on the manuscript that became Emerson's Plutarch, published by Harvard University Press in 1961. Back in Winnipeg, Edmund was made Professor in 1956 and Head of

the Department in 1961. During those years, Julia and Margaret remember having many of their father's students for dinner in their home, in particular students from the Caribbean who could not return to their own homes for the holidays. Another memory from those years is Ed-

mund and Virginia speaking Latin to each other when they did not want their daughters to understand what they were saying. In 1962 the family travelled to Europe and visited Greece and Italy. On seeing the Acropolis, Julia is quoted as saying "How come you guys never told us about this?" It seemed much more interesting than the classical history and Latin she had been studying in high school. This incident reminded Edmund of a New Yorker cartoon of an American father pointing out the ruins on the Acropolis and remarking, "See, this is

what happens when eggheads take charge!" It was a thrill for Edmund finally to see places he had read so much about, especially since a trip to Greece in 1939 had not happened as he had originally planned. Edmund had received a Shorey Fellowship from the University of Chicago but, due to the impending war, his travels were cancelled and he worked on his dissertation at Harvard instead. At the University of Manitoba, Edmund served as Director of the University Summer School (1946-49), and Assistant Dean of Arts and

Science (1949-51). He was President of the Humanities Association of Canada

(1961-63),

a member

of the Academic

Panel of the Canada

Council (1966-69), President of the Classical Association of Canada (1970-71) and Chairman of the Humanities Research Council (1974-75).

He was Head of the Classics Department at the University of Manitoba for 17 years. During this time, Edmund developed the department in

EDMUND GRINDLAY BERRY

xv

many ways, bringing in young, talented academics. He encouraged them

in their research and several graduate students went on to join universities in Canada and the U.S. Edmund actively looked for scholarships and funding to help them in their careers. He also served on the Council of St. John's College, the Queen's University Council, and the Editorial

Board of the journal Mosaic. Edmund was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1971. He retired from the university in 1980 and was elected Professor Emeri-

tus. (Edmund points out that the title does not derive from the Latin emeaning "out" and meritus meaning "deservedly" or "rightly so.") Retirement allowed Edmund

and Virginia to travel more and visit

many historic sites, especially in the UK. Their daughters attribute their own addiction to travel to the trips they made at an early age with their parents and the abundance of ruins and "old houses" they visited. Edmund still reads widely and enjoys a good discussion on classical

and non-classical topics. Always a stickler for correct grammar and spelling, Edmund has been known to proofread everything he lays his

hands on, including the All Saints’ church bulletin. He shares his enjoyment of the funnier faux pas with others and can be depended upon to entertain and amuse with a timely anecdote or joke.

Virginia's death in 2003 brought many changes but Edmund continues to look forward not back. He quotes an incident where a colleague

was celebrating his 98" birthday with friends. When a newspaper reporter said "I hope I'll see you on your 100",” the professor's reply was “Well, young fella, you look pretty fit to me. I think you'll make it."

Throughout his career, Edmund's involvement in research and academia has been paralleled by his care and concern for his students and younger faculty members. He remains interested in the careers of his former students and new developments in the Classics Department. Since his retirement, Edmund has taken great pleasure in attending the annual Edmund G. Berry lecture sponsored by the department. He con-

tinues to enjoy the breadth of vision provided by outstanding scholars in the field of classics. JULIA BERRY MELNYK AND MARGARET BERRY 2003

DANCING AT THE SPIRIT GATES: A MITHRAIC RITUAL RECOVERED FROM PROCLUS (IN REMP. 2.128.26 FF. KROLL) ROGER BECK

In 2000 it was my deeply felt privilege to give the Twelfth Edmund G. Berry Lecture. My topic, "Getting to Heaven—the Mithraists' Way," concerned certain theories, both ancient and modern, about the celestial

route and the celestial gate through which one must pass in order to "get to heaven." On learning that "Manitoba" means "spirit gate" and that the title of Edmund's Festschrift would accordingly be Daimonopylai, I realized that

my contribution should concern the gates by which, in a theory of the ancients, souls descend to earth and ascend to heaven. To run with the coincidence was irresistible. To reproduce my lecture would be impractical, both because it would be too long and because it would require too many illustrations. Instead,

I shall focus on the ritual by which the ancient initiates of the Mithras cult (first to fourth centuries A.D.) enacted entry and exit through their

postulated soul gates. ANCIENT SOUL GATES AND THEIR LOCATION

Widespread in antiquity, especially in late antiquity, was the belief that the soul descends to birth from the heavens, construed literally as the celestial sphere(s), and ascends back there again at death.! On this view,

genesis into mortality and apogenesis back into immortality are journeys

through cosmic space rather than, as common sense now dictates, the events which define our life span in the actual world. Journeys are best undertaken with maps, and since the soul journey is

a celestial journey it will be found plotted, if anywhere, on a map of the heavens. There, the prudent voyager will want to look first for the start and end points of the journey. ! The literature on this topic is extensive. I cite the major treatments in Beck (1988) nn. 12, 180. (This study is itself largely concerned with manifestations of the theory of the soul's celestial journey in the literary testimonia and on the monuments of Mithraism: see esp. 41-42, 73-85, 92-100.) Add Segal (1980).

1

2

ROGER BECK Among

ancient itineraries for the celestial journey was one which

located the start or entry gate at the summer solstice in Cancer and the finish or exit gate at the winter solstice in Capricorn. The solstices, spa-

tially defined, are the northern and southern extremes of the Sun's annual journey, the celestial path known as the ecliptic. Since "north" here correlates with "up high" and "south" with "down low" (at least for northern hemisphere viewers), at the summer solstice the Sun reaches his "high" point and starts to descend southwards and at the winter solstice he reaches his "low" point and starts to ascend again northwards. There is, then, a certain logic in locating the soul gate of descent and entry into mortality at the summer solstice and the gate of ascent and exit into immortality at the winter solstice. The solstitial location of the soul gates is attested by Porphyry, Macrobius, and Proclus? From Porphyry and Proclus it is clear (by explicit attribution) that the earliest intellectual to make use of this cosmological factoid was the Neopythagorean Numenius of Apamea (second century

A.D.)? From Porphyry it is also clear that the location of the soul gates at the solstices was a tenet of the mystery cult of Mithras.‘ In this contribution, I shall argue that Mithraism's use of this tenet can also be inferred from Proclus. More important, Proclus reveals that the soul gates and their location were not just inert pieces of Mithraic doctrine but integral elements in the ritual of the initiates. THE SOUL GATES IN MITHRAISM

In his essay On the cave of the Nymphs in the Odyssey (De antro) Porphyry tells us that the Mithraists designed their sacred space as an "image of the universe" (εἰκόνα κόσμου), calling the place a "cave" because caves, real or artifical, symbolize the universe (De antro 6). With that intent,

"the contents [of the mithraeum], placed at the proper intervals, provided symbols of the universe's elements and climes” (τῶν δ᾽ ἐντὸς κατὰ

συμμέτρους ἀποστάσεις σύμβολα φερόντων τῶν κοσμικῶν στοιχείων xal κλιμάτων). The mithraeum, in other words, is a scale model of the uni? Porphyry, On the Cave of the Nymphs in the Odyssey (De antro) 21; Macrobius, Commentary on the Dream

of Scipio (In Somn.) 12; Proclus, Commentary on Plato's

Republic (in R.) 2.128-31 (Kroll).

>The attribution to Numenius is explicit in both sources. Porphyry adds Cronius, Numenius'

"associate" (ératpoc). As Numenian

fragments

the two pas-

sages are nos. 31 (from Porphyry) and 35 (from Proclus) des Places. * This has been denied on a priori grounds that the philosophers, rather than

borrowing it from the Mithraists, must have invented it themselves and then imputed it to the Mithraists in order to bring external religious validation to their cosmology. I have refuted this view, for which there is not a shred of evidence, most recently and at greatest length in Beck (2000) 178-80.

DANCING AT THE SPIRIT GATES

verse in that its interior is isomorphic Elsewhere,’ I have demonstrated and from extant mithraea bears out also demonstrated that later chapters

3

with the universe? that the archaeological evidence of Porphyry's characterization. I have (21-24) in Porphyry's essay convey

important information not only about Mithraic cosmology but also, indi-

rectly, about the specifics of the cosmology's instantiation in the design of the mithraeum. Explicitly, ch. 24 tells us that Mithras was assigned "his own seat (οἰκείαν καθέδραν) ... at the equinoxes ... on the [celestial]

equator" and that the two esoteric torchbearing deities, Cautopates and Cautes,’ were placed to his right and left at the solstices: Cautopates with lowered torch to his right at the northern (i.e. summer) solstice and Cautes with raised torch to his left at the southern (i.e. winter) sostice.

Clearly, these are macrocosmic settings. By referring back to the de-

sign principle in ch. 6 and to the layout of actual excavated mithraea, one may

deduce

the corresponding

locations in the microcosm

of the

mithraeum. The microcosmic equivalent of Mithras' location at the equinoxes/on the equator is his command of the central aisle of the mithraeum by his representation as bull-slayer in the cult-niche. To his right and left extend the side-benches on which the initiates reclined for their cult meal: on his right the "northern" bench and on his left the "southern" bench. Representations of the torchbearers, when not part of the bull-killing icon but placed separately at or near the bench ends, are always found on their "proper" sides of the mithraeum, Cautopates to the right of the tauroctonous Mithras, Cautes to his left. In the most cosmologically explicit mithraeum recovered, the Seven Spheres Mithraeum at Ostia, the "northern" bench is identified by a mosaic of the northern signs of the zodiac, the "southern" bench by a corresponding mosaic of the southern signs? It follows that the niches usually found opposite 5 The universe is the Ultimate Interior: it is an inside without an outside. So too, in miniature, insula.

is a cave; so too a mithraeum

within, for example,

an urban

$ Beck (2000) 158-165. ? The torchbearers' names were restored to the text by the editors of the Arethusa edition (Buffalo 1969); the fact that they carry torches is not mentioned in the text, but it is known from numerous extant monuments that lowered and

raised torches are their primary attributes. * The orientation is symbolic, not actual; hence "northern" and "southern" in quotation marks. ? For a plan of the mithraeum, exhibiting these cosmological features, see Beck (2000) 161 fig. 2. (The order of signs on the "southern" bench should be revised: add Scorpius between Libra and Sagittarius; delete the spurious doublet of Capricorn between the "southern tropic" and Aquarius. The fault was entirely mine.)

4

ROGER BECK

each other at the mid-point of each bench represent the solstices which are midway between the equinoxes. Reciprocally, this confirms the equinoctial identities of the two ends of the mithraeum, the spring equinox at the cult-niche end ("Aries" is to the tauroctonous Mithras' immediate right) and the autumn equinox at the far end ("Libra" is on the immediate right of the entrance).

We are fortunate indeed that Porphyry in De antro 6 reveals not only the mithraeum's blueprint but also its function as an "image of the universe," not only how it realizes the macrocosm in microcosm but also

why. The mithraeum must replicate the cosmos because it is the place where the Persians [i.e. the Mithraists] perfect their initiate by inducting him

into a mystery of the descent of souls and their exit back out again [οὕτω xai Πέρσαι τὴν εἰς κάτω κάθοδον μυσταγωγοῦντες τελοῦσι τὸν μύστην].

τῶν

ψυχῶν

xal πάλιν

ἔξοδον

Simply put, the mithraeum's function is to realize this mystery of the soul's descent and return. Since the soul enters the world through the summer solstice and leaves it through the winter solstice, it is only logical that the mithraeum should have—as it does—authentic replicas of those gates. Note that Porphyry does not speak of the mithraeum as a kind of teaching aid to instruct initiates about the soul journey, which is the way his text has been construed by moderns,” but as an instrument of induction into a mystery. Presumably, the soul journey is replicated in

ritual, not just taught." THE TESTIMONY OF PROCLUS

So far I have been tracking over ground covered already, as the necessary preliminary to introducing the testimony of Proclus about the soul

gates and the religious uses to which they were put. Proclus discusses the soul gates in his Commentary on Plato's Republic (in R. 2.128.26ff. Kroll) in the context of the "Myth of Er" with its vision

10 For example, Robert Lamberton (1983) 25 translates: "Likewise the Persian

mystagogues initiate their candidate by explaining to him the downward journey of souls and their subsequent return." There is no textual warrant for "ex plaining": it rests on an assumption,

conscious or not, that the only way

to

"mystagogue" something (the participle's object is the "downward journey," etc.) is to explicate

it. Besides,

which takes place before one's

how

else can one be initiated

into something

birth and after one's death? The answer, "by mi-

metic ritual," has not been seriously considered—up to now. Nn my lecture and in Beck (2000) 154-165 I argue that the scene of the "Sun-

Runner's Procession" on one side of the Mainz Mithraic vessel is part of this ritual.

DANCING AT THE SPIRIT GATES

5

of the posthumous judgement, departure and return of souls. He, or rather Numenius whom he is criticizing, locates the "actual" soul gates, which Plato more obscurely describes as underworld or otherworld

“chasms” (R. 10.614), at definite points in the celestial sphere, namely the northern (summer) solstice in Cancer and the southern (winter) solstice

in Capricorn.

Proclus castigates Numenius for taking interpretive liberties with the text of his beloved Plato. His characterization of Numenius' would-be explanations is accordingly quite hostile. Numenius says that this place [i.e., the site of posthumous judgement] is the centre of the entire cosmos, and likewise of the earth, because it is at once in the middle of heaven and in the middle of the earth .... By "heaven" he means the sphere of the fixed stars, and he says there are two chasms in this, Capricorn and Cancer, the latter a path down into genesis, the former a path of ascent, and the rivers under the earth he calls the planets, ... and introduces a further enormous fantasy (repatoAoylav) with leapings (πηδήσεις) of souls from the tropics to the equi-

noxes and returns from these back to the tropics—leapings that are all his own and that he transfers to these matters, stitching the Platonic utterances together with astrological concerns and these with the mysteries (συρράπτων τὰ Πλατωνιχὰ ῥήματα τοῖς γενεθλιαλογιχοῖς xal ταῦτα τοῖς τελεστικοῖς). He invokes the poem of Homer [i.e. Od. 13.109-12] as

a witness to these two chasms ...."

Specifically, Proclus’ complaint is that Numenius has constructed a “monster discourse" (reparoAoyí(a) by cobbling together (1) Platonic discourse, (2) astrological discourse and (3) the discourse of mystery cult initiations.

Let us consider first the “astrological discourse.” Proclus uses a technical term for horoscopal astrology, “genethlialogy” or “discourse about

births.” In context, this is highly appropriate, for Numenius has appropriated not just neutral astronomical matters (the solstices), but the re-

lating of astronomical matters to human “genesis.” And so, next and finally, to tà τελεστικά, "the discourse of initiations

into mysteries.” Whose mysteries? Obviously, the mysteries of Mithras, since Mithraism, as we have seen, was the cult which “inducted their initiates into a mystery of the soul’s descent and departure back out

again” and which mapped that down-and-up route through gates of entry and exit at the solstices. Identifying the mystery cult helps clarify the sense of what Proclus 12 Trans. Lamberton (1986) 66f., with minor changes and a correction (lonuepivé = “equinoxes,” not "solstices"). The last sentence quoted shows that Proclus is drawing on the same passage of Numenius as Porphyry, i.e., an alle-

gorization of Homer's cave of the nymphs in Odyssey 13.

6

ROGER BECK

says earlier about the "leapings (nnôñoeic) of souls from tropics to eqinoxes and back again to tropics." Intuitively,

a modern reader might

suppose that "leapings" is merely Proclus' pejorative characterization of Numenius' theory of the soul's descent into mortality and ascent into immortality, a protest at the lack of dignity and seriousness in the Numenian scenario. To the contrary, I would claim that Proclus probably,

and Numenius certainly, intended something far more precise. The “leapings,” I suggest, were ritual actions, performative elements in the

Mithraic initiation into the mystery of the descent and ascent of souls. They

acquire

meaning

and

efficacy

solely

in the

context

of the

mithraeum and by virtue of the mithraeum's isomorphism with the cosmos. Within an authentic mithraeum hopscotch becomes celestial soul travel. To "leap" from the mithraeum's "northern" side-bench to its "southern" side-bench

across its "equatorial" aisle is to replicate

the soul's journey from its entry into the world at the northern tropic, Cautopates presiding,

to its exit from the southern tropic, Cautes presiding,

through a life under the tutelage of Mithras on the equator at the equinoxes.

REFERENCES

Beck, R.L. 1988. Planetary Gods and Planetary Orders in the Mysteries of Mithras. Leiden. Beck, R.L. 2000. "Ritual, myth, doctrine, and initiation in the Mysteries of Mithras: New evidence from a cult vessel." JRS 90: 145-180.

Lamberton, R. 1983. Porphyry, On the Cave of the Nymphs. Barrytown, NY. Lamberton, R. 1986. Homer the Theologian. Berkeley. Segal, A.F. 1980. “Heavenly ascent in Hellenistic Judaism, early Christianity and their environment.” ANRW IL23.2: 1333-1394.

THE CRUCIFIXION OF THE POET: CATULLUS AND ELDRIDGE CLEAVER DAVID F. BRIGHT

Catullus 85 is so familiar that it has become well-nigh impossible to read with either any shock of recognition or appreciation of its uniqueness. Odi et amo. quare id faciam fortasse requiris. nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior.

I hate and I love. Perhaps you wonder why I do this. I know not, but I feel it happen and I am tortured.

The couplet seems unalterably right, the product of unerring artistic choices, so that it dominates our sense of how to express this condition of anguish. We hardly know how to step back from it and ask how else the poet might have handled his theme.! Yet light can come from the most unexpected quarter, even for so intimate a confession as this poem. In this paper, my aim is to examine Catullus' artistic strategy in 85 by setting his poem beside a kindred work, far distant in time and place and style yet startlingly evocative. THE LESBIA POEMS

Catullus' poems to, for, on and against Lesbia account for only about

one-fifth of the extant corpus: 26 of 119 poems (counting the usual fragments as separate poems), only one (68) of the long poems, and 428 lines out of 2,272 verses. Yet for many readers the relationship with Lesbia

defines the book and even the poet, creating an apparently constant temptation to see other poems (most notably 63 and 64) as fraught with reference to this group. But a handful of poems dominate our sense of the relationship be-

tween these two characters: 8 and 11 in the polymetra, and the crescendo of frustration and despair from 70, 72, 75 and 76 to the masterful, mini! Among the myriad treatments of the poem apart from commentaries, three may be mentioned here: Weinreich (1926) 32-83—which surely holds the record for ratio of pages of scholarship to lines studied; Bishop (1971); and Newman

(1990), esp. 251-256.

8

DAVID F. BRIGHT

malist 85^ The epigrams grow steadily denser, less detailed but more focused on the conflict between intellect and emotion. The statements gain power from that greater density, even as the speaker's grip on the

emotions they depict grows more impotent. When we reach 85 we are familiar with the language of the relationship and can appreciate the cri du coeur in all its brevity. SOUL ON ICE

The other poem in this study comes from a very different setting: Eldridge Cleaver's Soul on Ice? Cleaver (1935-1998) was one of the chief

luminaries—or incendiaries—of Black Power in the 1960s, as an editor of Ramparts, a founder of the Black Panthers and its Minister of Informa-

tion. He ran for President of the U.S. on the Peace and Freedom Party ticket in 1968, yet he spent the majority of his life either in reform school or, starting in 1954, in prison; or ranging from Cuba to Algeria to North

Korea and China, in exile or flight (depending on who was describing the situation) from waiting authorities at home.‘ Cleaver had grown up as a Catholic, but as a young man converted to

Islam. However, the wheel of his faith turned yet again, although he is much less remembered for his evolving identity as a conservative, born-

again Christian. Cleaver voluntarily returned to the US in 1975, repudiated Islam and Communism, wrote a palinode symmetrically titled Soul

on Fire (Cleaver 1978), and moved dramatically to the right: so much did his position shift that in 1984 he ran for the California senate as a Republican. By the time of his death in May, 1998, he was as much remembered for his writings as for his inflammatory activism three decades earlier. Soul on Ice was published in 1968. It comprised writings from prison

dating back to 1965, letters and meditations on the issue of race in America. The book was an iconic work, selling over two million copies,

and gained stature and impact in 1970 when Cleaver was awarded the Martin Luther King Memorial Prize. The title almost certainly came from Robert Frost's poem "Fire and

Ice”*: 2See especially Fitzgerald (1995) 135-137 and Greene (1998) 1-36 for the set-

ting provided by these precedent poems.

3 Cleaver (1968); Cleaver (1999), with addition of preface by Ishmael Reed.

* For a vivid report of the years abroad, see Lockwood (1970). 5 On Ice, see Rout (1970) 16-41—who nowhere mentions the poem under con-

sideration here but offers an extensive and useful scrutiny of the entire book.

* Harper's Magazine (December, 1920).

CATULLUS AND ELDRIDGE CLEAVER

9

Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice. From what I’ve tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate

5

To know that for destruction ice

Is also great And would suffice.

In prison, Cleaver read voraciously and widely, and honed a power-

ful writing style that handled rage and intellectual reflection, social criticism and personal confession with equal effect. The reader is as fascinated by its swooping changes of style, mood and topic as by the

autobiography that emerges from its pages. The first chapter, “On Becoming”

(Ice 21-36)’ is datelined

“Folsom

Prison, June 25, 1965,” and contains the poem at issue. In discussing his conflicting views of white women, Cleaver looks back to a moment in Soledad that epitomized his feelings: when he posted a white pin-up beauty on his cell wall. The guards told him pin-ups were forbidden and

tore it down, but then said he could have a black pin-up. Cleaver was enraged—and

then wondered why that was his reaction (Ice 26-7). The

moment of epiphany came for him in 1955 when a young black man in Mississippi was murdered for allegedly flirting with a white woman. Cleaver happened to see a picture of the young women.

“I was dis-

gusted and angry with myself,” he says. “I looked at the picture again and again, and in spite of everything and against my will and the hate I felt for the woman and all that she represented, she appealed to me” (Ice 29-30).

In 1957 he left Soledad. At that moment, he recalls from Folsom eight years later, "my

feelings toward white women

in general could be

summed up in the following lines: To A WHITE GIRL

Ilove you Because you're white,

Not because you're charming Or bright. Your whiteness Is a silky thread Snaking through my thoughts In redhot patterns Of lust and desire. I hate you ? All citations refer to Cleaver (1999).

5

10

10

DAVID F. BRIGHT Because you're white.

Your white meat

is nightmare food. White is The skin of Evil. You're my Moby Dick, White Witch, Symbol of the rope and hanging tree, Of the burning cross. Loving you thus And hating you so, My heart is torn in two. Crucified.

15

20

(Ice 32-3)

It is not possible to demonstrate that Cleaver was directly indebted to Catullus' couplet for his final lines; but neither should we rule out his

having seen it in the course of his readings and co-opting it to formulate his own emotional agony. We should begin however with the more accessible task of comparing the two poets' strategies as mutually illuminating, before returning briefly to the probability of direct influence or even literary paternity. FORM AND LANGUAGE

Catullus' two lines comprise fourteen words, of which eight are verbs; six of those are first person singulars. With three elisions, the aural effect is of only eleven utterances. The verbs hardly suggest any action, any link to the exterior world or to another person in touch with this emotional world—except for requiris, on which more anon. There are no nouns, no adjectives, not even a pronoun to emphasize the poet's focus

on self, or at least to provide an object for the opening verbs. Not "I hate her / 1 love her," but merely a declaration of a state so all-consuming it

needs no referent. This claustrophobic mode of expression contrasts sharply with e.g. Anth. Pal. 12.172 (attributed to Euenus), who starts similarly but expands

the thought into a neatly turned reflection, more notable for its cleverness than its intensity: el μισεῖν πόνος ἐστί, φιλεῖν πόνος, ἐκ δύο Avypüv αἱροῦμαι χρηστῆς ἕλκος ἔχειν ὀδυνῆς. If hating is pain, and loving is pain, of two miseries I prefer the wound of the pain that has benefits. (trans. Gow)

8 On the absence of the crucial object for odi et amo, cf. Quinn (1973) 107-108; Bishop (1971) 634.

CATULLUS AND ELDRIDGE CLEAVER

11

The impact of the Catullan couplet stems in part from three devices. First, its shift from four active verbs in the first line to a virtually passive second line (nescio and sentio are as inert as active forms can be). Catullus

moves from declaring his own emotions which, however agonizing, are

at least what he does, to being at the mercy of the forces closing him round. The most and least he can do is feel and not understand. Second, the familiar unifying rhythms of the elegiac couplet are infused with lyrical subunits that emphasize key words. Observe, for instance, that four choriambs mark the poet's decline in four stages from first word to last: odi et amo; id faciam; sed fieri; excrucior. The two verbs of

his despair are free-standing dactyls: nescio; sentio; and the caesura in the pentameter must be ignored in order to make sense of the words: fieri / / sentio. The perfection of the couplet derives in no small measure from the

skill with which its internal mechanisms are manipulated." Third, the mix of parallel and opposition between the first and second lines. As odi et amo, a statement of overwhelming emotions, is set against nescio, the denial of any understanding of those emotions, so the active faciam turns to its inverse fieri sentio. But consider again those opening and closing verbs in two linked

pairs, odi / amo and sentio / excrucior. Are they parallel or chiastic? If the former, then odi goes to sentio, while amo matches excrucior. The fact that odi comes first gives it a privileged place, the default position: the hate is

what Catullus feels ahead of anything else. The love that won't leave that hate alone is, in the end, the crossbeam on which he is tormented. This is the more common reading, and a possible model passage in Terence also places the negative emotion first: O indignum facinus! nunc ego et illam scelestam esse et me miserum sentio: et taedet et amore ardeo, et prudens sciens vivus vidensque pereo, nec quid agam scio. (Eunuchus 70-3)

What an outrageous way to behave! Now I realize that she's a scoundrel and I'm in misery. I’m fed up with her, but I'm on fire with love. I’m going to my ruin awake and aware, alive and with my eyes open. And I’ve no idea what to do."

In the Greek tradition, it appears that love is usually mentioned before ? Cf. Newman (1990) 256. ? Bishop (1971) 635 argues for enforcing the caesura, taking sed as postpositive and thus reading nescio sed fieri as a unit of thought: "but I do not know that

it is happening." The resulting sentence would seem to contradict the rest of the

couplet.

!! Trans. Barsby (2001) 323.

12

DAVID F. BRIGHT

hate. Bishop (636) mentions eight poems from the Palatine Anthology, of which all but Euenus' couplet quoted above follow the pattern. But already in Theognis 1091-4 we find the reverse order: ἀργαλέως uot θυμὸς ἔχει περὶ σῆς φιλότητος" οὔτε γὰρ ἐχθαίρειν οὔτε φιλεῖν δύναμαι, γινώσκων χαλεπὸν μὲν ὅταν φίλος ἀνδρὶ γένηται ἐχθαίρειν, χαλεπὸν δ᾽ οὐκ ἐθέλοντα φιλεῖν. My heart is in torment over your affection; for I can neither love nor hate, Knowing it's hard, when one has become a friend, to hate—but hard as well to love where love's not welcome.

On the other hand, the chiastic pattern is what we might expect in so Alexandrian a construct as 85. From the central words, marking both

sentence and line break (requiris / nescio), we work outward to the edges, giving the chiasmus of sentio / amo and odi / excrucior, and abruptly reversing the associations." Love is what allows Catullus to feel at all, and

hate is the torment that denies what We are surely not required to but should rather appreciate both herent in the form of the couplet, possible world Catullus inhabits.

he must cling to, come what may. adjudicate between these two effects, as subtly emphasized by qualities inand together contributing to the im-

Cleaver likewise uses a traditional, formal structure, of strophe, an-

tistrophe and epode. The poem is the only one in the book apart from a brief quotation of Shakespeare, and comes as a surprise in this epistolary

essay which is otherwise somewhat informal in tone and largely narrative, popping up by a kind of Menippean flip-flop.

The parallel opening lines bind strophe and antistrophe as tightly as the love and hate. The formality—or formalism—is immediately under-

cut by the colloquial "you're," and the jingly rhyme (white / bright) tinues the demolition. White is then immediately abstracted into whiteness, which feels oddly like a sardonic form of address. Note that love comes first here, because it is the overwhelming intolerable emotion in Cleaver that prompts the poem, for the same

conyour but rea-

son that Catullus' acknowledgment of his repellent but still insufficient

hate came first. As with Catullus, the poem moves in simple, complete sentences, something of an atavism by 1968—two under Love and four staccato utterances, more violent and almost spit out, for Hate. The tapering from longer to shorter statements, and the progress to increasingly violent

images, finishes in the syntactically disconnected Crucified (23). 12 Bishop (1971) 635 diagrams the poem as a Hinge Poem, which requires the

chiastic reading.

CATULLUS AND ELDRIDGE CLEAVER

13

The weight of the thought is carried very differently in the two poems. Whereas the Roman poet's verbs advance in precise gradation, Cleaver's are almost invisible. Except for hate and love, they are all simply forms of to be. Instead, Cleaver spits out nouns and adjectives that, to

re-apply his words, snake through his thoughts in redhot patterns. Even visually, the whole poem is built like a snake: we follow its long narrow form down the page, ending at the lethal final word. Although Cleaver's poem is hardly lengthy, it is far more spacious than Catullus' epigram, not merely because of its greater size but because it opens out to a host of sensory words, both tactile and visual, and

forces the reader to encounter the poet's world rather than simply try to imagine what it must be like inside Catullus' emotional prison cell. As

Fitzgerald neatly observes ([1995] 136): In a sense, this is an anti-epigram. "Odi et amo" is proposed as a paradox to be expounded, a riddle to which the epigrammatist holds the key, as the leisurely invitation to the reader indicates. But the point is that there

is no point, and the poet abdicates his position of control.

ADDRESSEE

Cleaver's poem declares its addressee: "To a White Girl.” Singular. But

he leads in by saying that this sums up his view of white women in general. Is the girl then specific, to wit the girl from Mississippi with whom the murdered man had flirted? Or is she a generic white girl, standing in

for all but without any specific identity? The dialogic choice of addressing the poem to a woman is a way of engaging the reader at the fringe of a conversation. We overhear him and we hope to hear the unspoken other half of the dialogue implicit in the poem itself. The poem is in effect an open letter, cast as from one black man to one

white woman, and in that way sets up a polarity with the final chapter of the book, which is an extended apostrophe “To All Black Women, From All Black Men”

(Ice 236-42). It also sets us up for Cleaver's calm re-

sumption of his story immediately after this poem: "I became a rapist" (Ice 33).

For Catullus, we have no hint of whom he addresses. Requiris is just enough to show that the poet is not purely introspective. Who is intended? Lesbia herself? The poem would then be as much accusation as confession. But nowhere does the poet speak to Lesbia without naming

her early in the poem (e.g. poems 72 and 75). A second possibility is some unnamed acquaintance, but again the poet's practice in speaking

about Lesbia to others is to name his addressee. Poem 11 to Furius and Aurelius shows the alternative: a message to her through third parties:

14

DAVID F. BRIGHT

pauca nuntiate meae puellae | non bona dicta (11.15-16).? There remains the hypothetical interlocutor. Newman underscores the capabilities of the dialogic manner'* the expression of mixed feelings, the state of aporia, and sometimes, as here, the extreme step of reducing

the whole world of dialogue to the expression of a question. Posing a question purely for the creation of an interlocutor is a way of giving the

poet himself a voice.5 Now the poem speaks to whoever can or will lend an ear. The use of a single elegiac couplet spoken by one who has fallen, addressing an unknown reader, recalls the long tradition of epitaphs, literal

and literary, addressing the passer-by who pauses to read, the most familiar being Simonides' couplet for those who fell at Thermopylae.'* ὦ ξεῖν᾽, ἀγγέλλειν Λαχεδαιμονίοις ὅτι τῇδε κείμεθα, τοῖς κείνων ῥήμασι πειθόμενοι. (92 D.)"

The inscription allows the dead to hint at his story, give the cause of his demise, or perhaps offer some admonition. The goal "is to present in the smallest possible compass the essence of a life, to achieve a final order of

a sort."? So here; but Catullus pushes the limits of terseness, virtually eliminating any information about the cause of his situation and reduces his life, not yet over, to a couplet far bleaker than most epitaphs. Yet paradoxically, in this way Catullus makes the intensely intimate declaration of his anguish more accessible: the subject of the singular

? Cf. Bright (1976). 4 Newman (1990) 251-252.

5 Weinreich (1926) 44-46 argues for seeing the response as a specifically Roman invention, reflecting the dialogue of magister and discipulus. It would be characteristic of Catullus to pose subtly as expertus amoris at the moment of ad-

mitting his utter incapacity to teach or even learn. More on the place of the audience in Pedrick (1986).

© Cf. Weinreich (1926) 33ff. for an extensive treatment of precedents. But see now the ingenious arguments by Bing (2002) that undercut the notion that inscribed epigrams were actually read or indeed intended literally for reading by passers-by. This argument does not deny the literary conceit of the epigram addressed to the passerby; and indeed it may even sharpen the poignancy and irony of Catullus trying to engage in dialog with a passerby who isn't interested or even there. 7 Never more affectingly rendered than in Housman's biting adaptation for the fallen of the British Empire (More Poems [1936] 436): Here dead we lie because we did not choose

To live and shame the land from which we sprung. Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose;

But young men think it is, and we were young.

* Commager (1965) 93.

CATULLUS AND ELDRIDGE CLEAVER

15

requiris is implicitly not just an intended reader but all readers. Both

authors, by positing an addressee who is integral to the making of the poem itself and not just its reading, have in turn made the "actual" intended reader seem to be a secondary, overhearing audience. We both drawn in and held at a distance by this strategy.

are

SYMBOLS AND IMAGES

If we consider devices of elaboration or allusion, once again the contrast

is striking. Catullus' lines have no amplifying or associative terms, with the vital exception of excrucior. The word comes all the more powerfully at the end of the couplet precisely because the rest of the vocabulary has been so studiously bland. But its final position, its tautometry with odi et

amo, its sheer size, equal to these three and the longest in the poem, bring the reader up short. Excrucior in the classical period tends towards figurative meanings: "mental anguish" or "indecision," or (to use the obvious) "excruciating

pain," rather than suggestion of the root sense. When Lucretius (5.1443) uses it of the discomfort for early humanity from wearing animal skins, it seems almost trivial. Many interpreters accordingly sink to a banal

image such as "going through hell." But it is important to recognize the frequency and visibility of violent,

grisly punishment in first-century Rome, especially in the punishment of slaves”; and in particular the prominent use of crucifixion for executing rebellious or runaway slaves, not least the 6,000 crucifixions in the wake of Spartacus’ uprising only about 15 years earlier (cf. App. BC 1.11920)?! The cross could even cast its shadow over traitorous citizens: the

arbor infelix as the mode of execution for perduellio (cf. Livy 1.26)? had since the third century come to mean crucifixion, and even C. Rabirius in 63 had potentially faced this punishment, or so Cicero would have his audience believe (Rab. Perd. 10-17). But for citizens it was a very remote prospect. It applied mainly to ? Few would reduce it as far as Bishop (1971) 635: "I am thoroughly upset.” Ὁ Vividly evoked by Wiseman (1986) 5-10. Cf. also Hengel (1977) 51-63; Latte (1940). For Valerius Maximus (2.7.12) crucifixion was the servile supplicium.

21 Cf. Hengel (1977) 54-56 for fuller references on this event. Indeed, Hengel's whole study makes for some of the grimmest reading imaginable. 2 Oldfather (1908) established that the arbor infelix did not refer to either

hanging or crucifixion, but death by scourging while tied to the tree. See also Ogilvie (1965) ad loc. 3 See Tyrrell (1978) ad loc. for very full references and discussion; Hengel 39-45 on crucifixion as punishment for citizens. On the larger picture see also Bradley (1994) and Fitzgerald (2000).

16

DAVID F. BRIGHT

slaves, and in some circumstances to non-citizens. The impact of excrucior here then is precisely to underscore Catullus' standing as a runaway slave. Copley, arguing that servitium amoris was an invention of the elegists, simply dismissed Catullus in one short sentence: "Catullus did

not use it."* But Lesbia is domina often enough to raise the image, and excrucior here introduces the figure from a more oblique angle. For Catullus, crucifixion was quite real and contemporary. It was remote from

the poet's condition, but not from the speaker of 85. His use of the image is a deliberate abasement of his status to cast himself as a prisoner, a slave, a rebel, a captured runaway. We do the poet's vigor of imagination a grave disservice by taking this to mean angst rather than agony. Cleaver, by contrast, offers a kaleidoscope of images that intensify

from the first stanza to the second: the silky thread in 6 is replaced by the rope on the hanging tree (18); in place of the "redhot patterns of lust and desire," perilous but not lethal, stands the burning cross. And after a

glimpse of the snake (7) we have the overwhelming Moby Dick (16). The forbidden temptation in the first stanza has lapsarian hints (snake, lust and desire) and focuses like Catullus on how the speaker feels and reacts, but the second stanza relies on both literary and historical images to

show destruction from without: the Great White Whale, the lynching tree and that perversion of religious symbolism, the burning cross. Cleaver's individual demon of obsession is a playing out of the collective African American experience of slavery, abuse and unavenged murder.

The closing lines then, which are so like the Catullan piece, stand as a summary of the more discursive meditation. In the end, unlike Catullus, Cleaver even abandons syntax, and the last word stands like an epitaph

on the whole: Crucified. It is remarkable however that the two poems end with the very same word. The third stanza is at least as close a rendering of the Catullan poem as most English translations of Catullus himself. It is hardly possible for a contemporary reader to hear of crucifixion

without being at least vaguely aware of its religious, specifically Christian connotations. In that setting, it is intended as an ennobling image,

with its suggestions of high eternal Cleaver's Catholic education serves age irony with which he employed tends all the Christian resonances to

purposes and access to salvation. him vividly, underscoring the savit in 1965. But even though he inbe felt by the reader, here Crucified

is also a cultural image, a dire symbol picking up on the burning cross of line 18. Its use evokes the brutalities of the slaving past and their persistent aftermath, not religious notions of salvation; indeed, it both evokes

the suffering of the African American past and indicts those who so mis^ Copley (1947) 291. Lyne (1980) further elaborated the argument that the Roman elegists invented the poet-as-slave trope.

CATULLUS AND ELDRIDGE CLEAVER

17

used their putatively sacred symbol to advance unholy purposes. The differences in strategy produce two strikingly different effects on

the reader. Catullus' extreme compression means that the reader who encounters the poem in the context of the liber Catulli is prompted to understand this as a particular experience, decodable only by reference to the persona and relationship presented in other poems in the liber. Paradoxically, the couplet is almost more powerful in isolation from any

other piece that might give the illusion of greater accessibility. But we play by his rules, drawing on our encounter with the same narrator in earlier self-accounts. At the same time, Catullus makes it easier for the reader to read the couplet in isolation, universalizing his position precisely by the almost complete absence of specifics. His poem is like an irresistible gravity drawing all experience into the dark collapsed core. Cleaver makes the opposite demand, first drawing the reader willynilly into the lurid details of his imaginings until we feel we already

know too much, and then pushing outward into his perception of the outer world that he wants the reader to share with him. Although the fact of Cleaver's incarceration is never alluded to in the poem, it is of

course the context in which we have met him, and we read accordingly. The result is a kind of enraged Boethius in his cell, writing a Menippean meditation on how to endure what cannot be altered. Certainly next to Catullus, Cleaver's poem is both more person- and culture-specific and therewith more frightening. INFLUENCE?

Where does this leave us on the question of influence? Despite the overall differences in artistic strategy, Cleaver's final stanza is startlingly close to Catullus in its content, its structure, its density and its final word. Might Cleaver have encountered Catullus? It seems unlikely that

he would have studied Latin in secondary school: the segregated school systems of the 1940s in Phoenix and Los Angeles were not good prospects for such opportunities, and Cleaver was by his own assessment not

a model pupil. Did the bright Catholic youth encounter enough Latin through his involvement in the Church to prompt readings beyond the Missal? Neither of these paths can take us very far beyond speculation. It was

apparently in prison that Cleaver covered so much intellectual ground.” For example, he gives an account of his reading in 1955 (when he was in Soledad and twenty years old): 3 The eponymous second chapter of Soul on Ice (37-44) is a letter dated Octo-

ber 9, 1965, and begins: "I'm perfectly aware that I'm in prison, that I’m a Negro, that I’ve ben a rapist, and that I have a Higher Uneducation."

18

DAVID F. BRIGHT During this period I was concentrating my reading in the field of economics. Having previously dabbled in the theories and writings of Rousseau, Thomas Paine, and Voltaire, I had added a little polish to my

iconoclastic stance, without, however, bothering too much to understand their affirmative positions .... Pursuing my readings into the history of socialism, I read, with very little understanding, some of the passionate, exhortatory writings of Lenin; and I fell in love with Bakunin and Nechayev's Catechism of the Revolution ... (Ice 30-1).

It is tempting to say that if the public schools were an unlikely source for exposure to Catullus, Soledad was even less so, but the books Cleaver lists should encourage us to keep an open mind. In the end, of course,

the question could be settled only if we still had the distribution lists from the various prison libraries. While classical allusions are not common in Cleaver, in Ice there are allusions to Caesar, Brutus and Antony (albeit via Shakespeare). But the

range of his readings shows a roving and inquisitive mind fascinated with both style and content over various cultures. It seems rash to reject the possibility that Cleaver encountered the famous Catullan couplet, and took up the vivid final image of excrucior for his own purposes.

In the end, these two poems send us back to Frost's fire and ice: Cleaver, one is tempted to say, is the fire of lashing images and historical rage. As Frost says, "from what I’ve tasted of desire / I hold with those who favor fire." Catullus on the other hand is the ice of immobilized emotions, frozen beyond response or recovery. "I think I know enough of hate / to know that for destruction ice / is also great / and would suffice."?

REFERENCES

Barsby, John, ed. and trans. 2001. Terence, The Woman Tormenter, the Eunuch. Cambridge MA / London.

Bing, Peter. tiquity," Leuven/ Bishop, J.D.

of Andros, The Self-

2002. "The Un-read Muse? Inscribed epigram and its readers in anin M.A. Harder, R.F. Regtuit, G.C. Wakker, eds. Hellenistic Epigrams. Paris. 39-66. 1971. "Catullus 85: Structure, Hellenistic parallels and the topos,"

Latomus 30: 633—642.

Bradley, K.R. 1994. Slavery and Society at Rome. Cambridge. Bright, D.F. 1976. "Non bona dicta: Catullus' poetry of separation," QUCC 21: 105-119. Cleaver, Eldridge. 1968. Soul on Ice. New York. . 1978. Soul on Fire. New York. # | am most grateful for the astute comments of my colleague Kevin Corrigan on an earlier draft of this paper.

CATULLUS AND ELDRIDGE CLEAVER

19

. 1999. Soul on Ice, with new preface by Ishmael Reed. New York. Commager, H.S. 1965. "Notes on some poems of Catullus," HSCPh 70: 83-110. Copley, F.O. 1947. "Servitium Amoris in the Roman Elegists,” TAPhA 78: 285-300. Fitzgerald, William. 1995. Catullan Provocations. Berkeley.

. 2000. Slavery and the Roman Literary Imagination. Cambridge. Frost, Robert. 1920. "Fire and Ice," in Harper's Magazine: December. Greene, Ellen. 1998. The Erotics of Domination. Male Desire and the Mistress in Latin

Love Poetry. Baltimore.

Hengel, Martin. 1977. Crucifixion in the Ancient World. Philadelphia. Latte, K. 1940. "Todesstrafe," RE Suppl. VII: 1599-1619. Lockwood, Lee. 1970. Conversation with Eldridge Cleaver. Algiers. New York.

Lyne, R.O.A.M. 1979. "Servitium Amoris," CQ n.s. 29: 117-130. Newman, J.K. 1990. Roman Catullus and the Modification of the Alexandrian Sensibility. Hildesheim. Ogilvie, R.M. 1965. A Commentary on Livy Books I~V. Oxford. Oldfather, W.A. 1908. "Livy 1, 26 and the Supplicium de more maiorum," TAPhA 39: 49-72. Pedrick, V. 1986. "Qui potis est, inquis? Audience roles in Catullus," Arethusa 19: 187-207. Quinn, K. 1973. Catullus. An Interpretation. New York.

Rout, Kathleen. 1991. Eldridge Cleaver. Boston. Tyrrell , W.B. 1978. A Legal and Historical Commentary to Cicero's Oratio pro C. Rabirio Perduellionis Reo. Amsterdam. Weinreich, O. 1926. Die Distichen des Catullus. Tübingen. Wiseman, T.P. 1986. Catullus and His World. Cambridge.

VIR MAGNUS AC MEMORABILIS FUIT: LIVY ON THE DEATH OF CICERO! JAMES T. CHLUP Ancient history was not the history of the longue durée but of individual actors, usually members of the ruling élite or their antagonists, whose deeds formed a linked chain of achievements that sustained and propelled the state forward?

From the Suasoriae of Seneca? are preserved two substantial fragments

from book 120 of Livy's Ab Vrbe Condita (= AVC). These fragments cover the death of Cicero in 43 B.C.E., perhaps the most important political murder contained in the civil war portion of the AVC

(books 91-120).

The periocha‘ of book 120 suggests this: in qua proscriptione plurimi equites Romani, CXXX senatorum nomina fuerunt, et inter eos L. Pauli, fratris M. Lepidi, et L. Caesaris, Antonii avunculi, et M. Ciceronis. Huius occisi a Popillio legionario milite, cum haberet annos LXIII, caput quoque cum dextra manu in rostris positum est.

! | would like to thank the editors for inviting me to contribute to this volume,

and for their comments on an earlier version of this paper. My interest in the periochae and fragments of Livy can find its origins in a research seminar I gave at the University of Birmingham in March 1999. I would like to thank the

participants for the discussion on that occasion.

? CS. Kraus, "Sallust: The Historiae," in eadem and A.J. Woodman, Latin Historians (Oxford 1997) 32-33.

3 The text used is that of H.J. Müller, L. Annaei Senecae Oratorum et Rhetorum (Hildesheim 1887). See Appendix to this article.

* The standard works on the periochae are C.M. Begbie, "The epitome of Livy," CQ 17 (1967) 332-338; L. Bessone, "La tradizione epitomatoria liviana in età imperiale," ANRW 11.30.2 (1982) 1230-1263; P. Jal, Abrégés des livres de TiteLive (Paris 1984). On historical fragments and summaries in general, see the

masterful article by P.A. Brunt, "On historical fragments and epitomes," CQ 30 (1980) 477-494. On the reading and interpretation of fragments, see H.U. Gumbrecht, "Eat your fragment! About imagination and the restitution of texts," in G. Most, ed., Collecting Fragments / Fragmente Sammeln (Góttingen 1997) 315327. See also DS. Potter, Literary Texts and the Roman Historian (London 1999) 70-

78.

21

22

JAMES T. CHLUP

The second sentence distinguishes Cicero's:death from the others proscribed by the triumvirs: the abbreviator identifies the executioner, he states Cicero's age and what happens to his body. Such a focus on a single death in the summary suggests that Livy's account of the demise of Cicero was a noteworthy narrative? The emphasis is understandable: as Livy moved closer to his own time, the task became more personal: he was not so much writing history as recasting recent memory, his his-

tory. Cicero's death occurred in the historian's lifetime, and it may have shaped Livy's outlook. His outlook would surely have been shaped in one way, for one of the people involved, the emperor Augustus, was still alive when the historian was writing and then published this portion of

the AVC.’ Cicero is perhaps the most important character in the AVC. This is suggested by the historian's placement of Cicero's death in book 120—where some believe that the historian may have planned to end his

history? Livy may have built the narrative of this book around Cicero's >The magnitude of Cicero's death is also suggested by the final sentence of this summary, which covers the important preparatory military campaign of Brutus in Grecce in a single dismissive sentence (praeterea res a M. Bruto in Graecia gestas continet). See Jal (above, n. 4) 93.

$ Livy's relationship with the history of his own times is not an easy one. In his preface (9), he laments the fact that many readers will prefer to read the account of the recent past (haec tempora) and thus skip over Rome's early history

which the historian covers so well. 7 Augustus is present in the first fragment: M. Cicero sub adventum triumvirorum urbe cesserat. Livy's death is estimated at 12 or 17 CE, which means he died a few years before or after Augustus. It has been suggested that the AVC from 121 onwards appeared after Augustus' death, on the basis of the following comment that precedes the periocha of book 121: qui editus post excessum Augusti dicitur; see Jal (above,

n. 4) cxx-cxxi.

P.G. Walsh,

Livy: His Historical Aims and

Methods (Cambridge 1961) 11 argues against the view that Livy was overly concerned with Augustus' opinion about the historian's approach in the AVC. The portrait of Cicero, therefore, would not have been tailored to suit Augustus' opinion. * Note J. Henderson, Fighting for Rome (Cambridge 1998) 314-319 on ending the AVC with the death of Cicero, and the possible effect of "adding" books 121-142. Cicero's death in book 120 appears to re-establish the pentad-decade system of arranging Roman history that is so prevalent in the surviving books. See also A.J. Woodman, Rhetoric in Classical Historiography: Four Studies (London 1988) 136-140, esp. 136: “it means that the final episode ... was the murder of

Cicero in December 43 B.C.E., the event with which Book 120 is closed and which Livy dignified by a laudatory obituary notice for the dead orator and statesman. Since Cicero had come almost to symbolise the Republic, this was a most appropriate finale for an historian who had set out, in the dark days of the civil wars, to trace the decline of Rome.” On the structure of the missing books of the AVC

(46-142), see T.J. Luce, Livy: The Composition of His History (Princeton

LIVY ON THE DEATH OF CICERO

23

death. Despite the brevity of these fragments, we can get a sense of how Livy portrays Cicero, and how the historian perceived the history of the late Republic? Moreover, I argue that these fragments position Livy as a

direct respondent to Cicero's own writings, which has implications for how we perceive Livy as an author. I The first fragment covers in a rapid denouement Cicero's departure from Rome, his attempt to leave Italy, his decision to accept his fate, his decapitation, and the display of his severed head and hands in Rome. The

second fragment is the obituary of Cicero. These two fragments, when taken together, provide the reader with a full assessment of Cicero,

including as they do both of the primary modes of characterisation.? The first fragment permits study of Livy's Cicero in action and in

words. The historian broadly portrays Cicero in a positive manner. Cicero's departure from Rome and his behaviour are not described by Livy as the actions of someone determined to survive at any cost. Rather, when it proves not to be possible for Cicero to sail from Italy, he accepts

his fate. He is tired of his journey and his life (taedium tandem eum et fugae et vitae cepit)." This passivity, while perhaps not praiseworthy, appears to be a consistent trait of Cicero in Livy. In the summary of book 111,

Cicero is described as vir nihil minus quam ad bella natus. Such descriptive comments are exceptionally rare in the periochae, and here given the brevity of the later summaries makes its cially noteworthy. The comment therefore may be from text. Livy’s Cicero is conceived as a passive character at

its appearance presence espeLivy’s original a time of rapid

1977) 9-24.

? Walsh (above, n. 7) 136 argues that Livy's approach was strongly influenced by Pollio. Seneca discusses Pollio's presentation of Cicero at Suasoriae 6.15. ? Kraus (above, n. 2) 30-41, at 33 identifies the two primary modes of characterisation as direct (explicit comments by the author, formal character sketches, etc.) or indirect (showing character through the person's words and actions). The direct mode includes obituaries. On obituaries in Greco-Roman historiography, see A.J. Pomeroy, The Appropriate Comment: Death Notices in the Ancient Historians (Frankfurt 1991).

" Livy appears to condense the final moments of Cicero's life. Valerius Maximus

records a scene (1.4.6) that leads directly to Cicero's murder. While at

his villa a raven picks up the iron pin from the sundial and grabs hold of Cicero's tunic. In the second version recorded by Valerius Maximus, the assassins at this point rush in to kill Cicero: M. Tullius or. cum in agro Caietano proscriptus lateret insectante Antonio, corvus virgulam ferream, qua distinguebantur horae, sic conscidit rostro ut eam excuteret, togamque Tullii apprehendit et traxit. sub momento ad eum

percussores irruerunt. Cf. Plu. Cic. 47; App. BC 4.19.

24

JAMES T. CHLUP

and disturbing activity in Roman history. Livy may have perceived Cicero's inaction as a form of political resistance, the best way he could

detach himself from the inexcusable actions of Pompey, Caesar and others. It is perhaps surprising that the historian does not record a lengthy speech by Cicero, an oration in which the character carries out one last exercise in self-advertisement or a final defence of the res publica. Passivity in action appears to be matched by passivity in speech, as Livy only attributes a brief utterance by Cicero at the very end of his life: "moriar," inquit, “in patria saepe servata"

Livy succinctly conveys Cicero's thinking on Cicero. Quality of words

clearly means more to Livy and Cicero than quantity. The choice of patria over urbs in this utterance is important. As Cicero is not in urbs Roma

when he makes this statement (he leaves the city at the beginning of the episode—urbe cesserat —which excludes the use of urbs later on), patria seems appropriate. In fact, the journey that Livy records—from Rome to Tusculum to Formiae to Caieta—serves to move Cicero rapidly farther

and farther away from the urbs. The use of patria has wider implications as well. Patria servata is Cicero's equivalent to urbs condita for Romulus or Camillus," who found and refound the city of Rome, respectively. While

Livy labels Cicero's actions as different from those of Camillus, they are important: Cicero's actions in the past enabled the Roman nation, not just

the physical city, to continue. And whether that nation will continue is doubtful, as Cicero says saepe not semper. Cicero is thinking of things he has done, several individual actions, not a continuous process. For Rome to be saved semper is to Cicero perhaps a collective effort, and clearly at

this time it is not possible. The presentation of Cicero's final words in direct discourse is signifi-

cant. Cicero's final action is to speak, and the historian does Cicero the honour of recording the actual final words spoken by him. Cicero speaks for Cicero. Recording this utterance in direct discourse therefore gives this history a final confirmation of its existence as truthful republican

history, before the necessary recasting of the past that will occur in the emerging Augustan regime." 12 Note the differences between how Camillus uses patria and urbs in his speech in favour of the refoundation of Rome at 5.51-54: he begins by using patria (e.g., three times at 5.51.2), but rapidly moves towards urbs. Livy uses both patria (twice) and urbs in the obituary of Camillus (7.2.9-10, felicitate qua restitutus in patriam secum patriam ipsam restituit ... fuit dignusque habitus quem secundum a

Romulo conditorem urbis Romanae ferrent). Here urbs appears to refer to the physical city of Rome; the Roman nation is covered by patria. 5 Granted, it is not so much "distortion" as "correction." Livy suggests the

LIVY ON THE DEATH OF CICERO

25

Cicero is not the only Roman of importance in this scene. While he is clearly built up by his final actions and words, the Romans who carry out his execution are presented in a negative light. To execute Cicero is

not enough: they must degrade his body as well. Livy prefaces the soldiers' mutilation of the body with the comment

nec id satis stolidae

crudelitati militum fuit, which clearly establishes that even if one might excuse the soldiers for carrying out Cicero's execution, as they are fol-

lowing the orders of the triumvirs, the soldiers go too far by what they do to Cicero's corpse. The mutilation of Cicero's body contrasts with

what he does for Rome, and what he says he has done for Rome, namely preservation of the patria. By degrading the body of someone who preserved the state, the soldiers and their leaders attack Rome herself. Through the display of Cicero's head and hands in the rostrum Livy

can point to the effect of this act on the Romans: vix attollentes lacrimis oculos humentes intueri truncata membra civis poterant. It is an effective final sentence to this scene. By describing the reaction of the Roman citizens

to the gruesome display of Cicero's severed head and hands, Livy conveys the feelings the Romans had for Cicero and that they understand the situation in which they find themselves. As consul Cicero represented the political city of Rome; his corpse is a new, negative represen-

tation of that city. Moreover, this display of his decapitated head, and the acknowledgement of what it signifies, might cause the reader to reflect upon the discovery of a human head during the regal period, described by Livy in the first book of his history. The Romans understand the head to signify that Rome will become the capital of a world empire (1.55.6 quae visa species haud per ambages arcem eam imperii caputque rerum fore portendebat)."

These early Romans can look forward to the rapid expansion of their nation. The message about the rise of Rome represented clearly by the

first head is replaced by this new, negative message represented by the head of Cicero. Rome is not going to expand into a world empire, to gain

a body for the head. Rather, it is contracting: the head has been taken from the body. One cannot survive without the other.

What is particularly impressive in this passage is that in a short texinvolvement of Augustus in the narration of Rome's republican past through the "correction" offered at 4.20.7 on Cornelius Cossus: hoc ego cum Augustum Caesarem, templorum omnium conditorem ac restitutorem, ingressum aedem Feretri lovis quam vetustate dilapsam refecit, se pisum in thorace linteo scriptum legisse audissem, prope scarilegium ratus sum Cosso spoliorum suorum Caesarem, ipsius templi auctorem, subtrahere testem. * And it is mentioned by Camillus as a sign of Rome's importance at 5.54.7: hic Capitolium est, ubi quondam capite humano invento responsum est eo loco caput rerum summamque imperii fore.

26

JAMES T. CHLUP

tual space Livy offers three different perspectives of Cicero's death: that

of Cicero himself, the soldiers who execute him, and the citizens who look upon Cicero's remains. These three perspectives cover the full scope of Roman society: the leader, the army and the populi Romani. In textual space, Rome appears to be shrinking, as so many perspectives from a diverse range of Romans are offered in such a short passage. The histo-

rian moves rapidly from the positive to the negative to the horrific; he moves from one noble Roman in full control of his life as it is taken from

him, to many Roman citizens helplessly looking on.” So this scene effectively conveys what the death of Cicero means for the Romans of the late Republic. These brief fragments also clearly indicate the admiration felt for Cicero by one Roman of that time: Livy. In

the first fragment the historian provides the following assessment of Cicero when his head is displayed on the rostrum: quanta nulla umquam humana vox cum admiratione eloquentiae auditus fuerat. It sums up the life

of Cicero that has just ended, and it prepares the reader for the public's reaction to the display of Cicero's head in the next sentence. Livy notes that the head of Cicero is displayed at the same place where he had spoken, both as consul, ex-consul, and as an enemy of Antony (ubi ille consul,

ubi saepe consularis, ubi eo ipso anno adversus Antonium). Writing eo ipso

anno connects what happens to Cicero here with what he has done in the recent past, possibly recorded by the historian in the same book of the AVC. Ubi establishes the place—the place—where Cicero did these exemplary acts. The use of ubi three times forces the reader to come to terms with Rome, both what happened there, what is happening now, and what will happen in the future. That Cicero often (saepe) spoke in the

city recalls what Cicero speaks about himself just prior to his death, that he often (saepe) saved the state. What Cicero says and what Livy writes therefore appear to be the same. Saepe works with ubi also. It marks off a beginning and ending point to a journey, Cicero's journey back to Rome, the place where (ubi) he should be.

While the historian appears sympathetic to Cicero, he is clearly aware of his faults. In the obituary fragment Livy notes that si quis tamen virtutibus vitia pensarit, vir magnus ac memorabilis fuit. Livy's point is this: 5 Cf. 27.51.11-12, where Hannibal gazes upon the decapitated head of Hasdrubal. See M. Jaeger, Livy's Written Rome (Ann Arbor 1997) 94—96. Cf. also Lucan 9.1035-49, where Caesar gazes upon the mummified head of Pompey. This scene builds upon the grotesque detailed explanation of Pompey's decapitation and mummification at 8.663-91. Suetonius provides significant detail on Galba's death and what happens to his head (Gal. 20.2).

16 Pomeroy (above, n. 10) 147-148: "Livy, who admired Cicero's literary skills if not his politics, aims at a total evaluation—matching virtues with vices, Cicero

was a great and memorable man, and, with a sting in the tail which surpasses

LIVY ON THE DEATH OF CICERO

27

Cicero was a man with many virtues, but he was also a man with vices. The historian suggests that Cicero is less than wholly admirable by his comment

that, apart from his death, Cicero did not deal with these

misfortunes in his life in an appropriate manner (nihil ut viro dignum erat tulit praeter mortem). Livy also notes that Cicero was capable of violent

political attack, if he had the chance. The historian here is referring to the animosity between Cicero and Antony. What Antony does to Cicero,

Livy feels, is justified given that Cicero would have done the same if he could (quae vere aestimanti minus indigna videri potuit, quod a victore inimico nil crudelius passus erat, quam eiusdem fortunae compos victo fecisset). The impression of Cicero is partially redeemed by the vitia displayed not by

Cicero but by the soldiers who defile his body. The phrase vir magnus ac memorabilis fuit, which comes at the end of the obituary, redirects the reader's gaze on Cicero to take in the whole life of this Roman."

The final phrase of the obituary is perhaps the most significant section of these two fragments. Livy writes that in cuius laudes exequendas

Cicerone laudatore opus fuerit. The historian does not refer specifically to Cicero's abilities as a speaker or his abilities as a writer—he refers to Cicero's eloquence in general. If the historian is praising Cicero's abilities as a speaker, then he is referring the reader to Cicero's speeches, some of which may have appeared in some form in Livy's text. Cicero's actions Pollio's final judgement, Livy pronounces that it would take another Cicero to sing his praises." Cf. Cremutius Cordus' comment, which is wholly positive (recorded by Seneca at 6.23): civis non solum magnitudine virtutum sed multitudine quoque conspiciendus. On Seneca's opinion of Cordus' account of Cicero's death, see section II below. " By writing vir magnus, the historian appears to be referring to his concept of the unus vir. By using magnus instead of unus, he is able to suggest a difference between Cicero and his contemporaries, and between Cicero and the citizens of early Rome such as Camillus. The phrase vir magnus is also used of Viriathus (Per. 54, Viriathus ... vir duxque magnus). See Pomeroy (above, n. 10) 156. On unus

vir, see F. Santoro L'hoir, "Heroic epithets and recurrent themes in Ab Urbe Condita," TAPA 120 (1990) 221-241. Cicero, it is interesting to note, is not the only Roman identified by Livy as a vir memorabilis: the historian writes the same of Scipio at (38.53.9). On Livy's obituary of Scipio, see Pomeroy (above, n. 10) 164-165. ?? The most likely candidates are Cicero's Philippics. In recording Cicero's words and deeds, Livy would have had to decide whether to quote Cicero's speeches directly, either in part or in full, or to put his own words in Cicero's mouth. The latter seems to me unlikely, for Livy would have been aware that his reader could compare his version to Cicero's original. One option here would have been for the historian to limit Cicero's speech acts to a minimum. Livy could provide short excerpts from Cicero's speeches, or he could summarise them in his own words. This would allow him to convey the content of the speeches while displaying his own abilities as a writer.

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JAMES T. CHLUP

in his death scene are therefore intratextual"; that is, what Cicero does and says in his final moments reiterates what he has done and said in the

books of the AVC leading up to this point. Livy in this sentence could also be referring to Cicero's writing (the soldier who cuts off Cicero's hand is rebutting Cicero as an author), or

he could be referring to a specific speech or dialogue. The ideal candi-

date is the De Oratore. In this dialogue Cicero puts in the mouth of Antonius an intricate explanation of what history-writing should be: a deft combination of content and style (ipsa autem exaedificatio posita est in rebus et verbis).? This is what Roman historians had failed to achieve before

Cicero's time.” The prescription for good history offered in this dialogue must have been at the front of Livy's mind when he began to write the AVC. The evidence for this may be found in the opening lines of the preface: Facturusne operae pretium sim si a primordio urbis res populi Romani perscripserim nec satis scio nec, si sciam, dicere ausim, quippe qui cum veterem tum volgatam esse rem videam, dum novi semper scriptores aut in rebus certius aliquid allaturos se aut scribendi arte rudem vetustatem superaturos credunt. (Prae. 1-2)

The underlined portion of this passage clearly shows that Livy was concerned about his place in the tense relationship between historical accuracy and literary style (he is possibly thinking of himself in the novi scriptores). With the AVC he clearly sought to offer both historical accuracy and good prose, and as he wrote, published, and received public re? On intratextuality in classical literature, see the introduction to A. Sharrock

and H. Morales, eds., Intratextuality (Oxford 2000) 1-39. See also the essay in the same volume by A. Laird, "Design and designation in Virgil's Aeneid, Tacitus' Annals, and Michelangelo's Conversion of Saint Paul," 143-170. Laird discusses (153-161) how death scenes of literary figures such as Petronius, Lucan, Seneca

and Cremutius Cordus relate to the wider narrative. ? De Oratore 2.63. Antonius gives his manifesto for historiography at 2.62-4. See Woodman

(above, n. 8) 78-95; R.H. Martin

and

A.J. Woodman, Tacitus:

Annals IV (Cambridge 1989) 1-10. On the literary aspects of Livy in general, see Walsh (above, n. 7) 20-45, and 173-190, esp. 173: "Livy's achievement largely fulfils the requirements which Cicero posited." Pliny the Younger also defines what history-writing should be at Ep. 5.8.9-11; see Woodman (above, n. 8) 143-144.

7 Martin and Woodman (above, n. 20) 7: “it was not until the work of Livy ... that Antonius’ prescriptions for both content and style were fulfilled." 2 Gee J.L. Moles, "Livy's Preface," PCPhS 39 (1993) 141-168, at 141-145. C.S. Kraus, "Livy," in C.S. Kraus and A.J. Woodman, eds., Latin Historians (Oxford

1997) 51-81, at 51 suggests a more self-confident Livy (on the basis of the future facturus). This verb "looks ahead, towards the moment of publication and

beyond, to the reaction readers will have to his book."

LIVY ON THE DEATH OF CICERO

29

sponse to his history, he must have felt that he was meeting the challenge he set for himself. Coming to the career of Cicero, Livy's concern that he was fulfilling Cicero's formula may have resurfaced. Self-doubt,

whether explicitly stated or not, frames the first one hundred and twenty

books of the AVC on a stylistic level. I

If Livy is playing literary critic in the final phrase of his obituary to Cicero, we can extend this literary exploration to look at the elder Seneca's comments on Livy. Seneca frames the fragments with comments

that indicate his high opinion of this historian. While Livy may lack selfconfidence in his ability to meet Cicero's expectations of history, Seneca displays confidence in Livy. Not only does Seneca have confidence in

Livy, but the AVC also compares most favourably with the histories of other writers. It emerges that Seneca considers the AVC to be as good as

Asinius Pollio's history, and better than the history of Cremutius Cordus. These men are the leading writers of the history of the late Republic, the historians against whom Livy must compete. Seneca uses the death of Cicero as a sample narrative to judge the worth of each author, both on individual merit and in relation to each other. Seneca's lead-in to the obituary of Cicero in Livy is of particular inter-

est. It serves to link the two fragments, if it is the case that the obituary does not immediately follow on from the death scene in Livy's original

text. Seneca notes that when an historian records the death of a great man (magni ... viri mors), he provides a summary of the whole life (consummatio totius vitae). By writing magni viri, a phrase that occurs in the obituary, Seneca links his comments about history-writing to the example he is about to quote. In effect he provides advance notice to the reader regarding what Livy writes about Cicero. Seneca also writes up the AVC when he notes that Livy works within established tradition: hoc, semel aut iterum a Thucydide factum, item in paucissimis personis usurpatum a Sallustio, T. Livius benignus omnibus magnis viris praestitit. (6.21)

It is not magni viri here, but the more impressive omnibus magnis viris. Here Seneca plays literary critic as he observes an established feature in historical writing, and he contrasts leading historical writers. Seneca identifies Thucydides, Sallust and Livy as leading writers of obituaries, and possibly by implication Seneca means for us to perceive these three

as leading writers of history. The obituary of Cicero is offered as proof of Livy's ability. Livy's placement as the third of these writers and Seneca's

appropriation of the phrase omnibus magnis viris, and the fact that it is

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JAMES T. CHLUP

Livy whom Seneca quotes, make Livy appear as the historian who perfects the art of the obituary. Seneca reinforces this by his comment after the obituary: ut est natura candidissimus omnium magnorum ingeniorum aestimator T. Livius, plenissimum Ciceroni testimonium reddidit (6.22). These

two passages establish Livy's obituaries as leading examples of this very

important feature of history-writing. Superlatives surround the obituary of the superlative Roman: paucissimis in the first passage and candidis-

simus in the second. While in the first passage Livy is figured as part of the established historical tradition, in the passage following the obituary

Seneca appears to have gained confidence in Livy's ability. The historian is appreciated for his fair judgement of great talent (candidissimus omnium magnorum ingeniorum aestimator). Omnium magnorum recalls what Seneca writes before the obituary (omnibus

magnis viris). Seneca's cit-

ing—and re-reading of the obituary of Cicero—appears to (re)affirm his belief in Livy's outstanding skill as a writer.? That Livy is candidissimus

is an important credential for the historian: he is impartial and honest—or as close to impartial as someone who lives in Neronian Rome thinks is possible. And Livy's efforts exceed the efforts of later historians. To recall

Livy's preface, the novi scriptores, his rivals are now cast firmly into the future (the worst possible place to be for an historian!), and their works risk being judged inadequate in comparison to Livy's superior history.

Seneca tell us this: another writer of the history of the Republic, Cremutius Cordus, is not so highly regarded by Seneca when he writes that it is not worth

recording

Cordus'

obituary of Cicero. The

phrase

is as

damning of Cordus as it is (high) praise of Livy: Cordi Cremuti non est operae pretium referre redditam Ciceroni laudationem; paene nihil enim in ea Cicerone dignum est ac ne hoc quidem, quod paene maxime tolerabile est (6.23).

The portions I have placed in bold type are critical to our reading. This section of Cordus' work is not operae pretium; Livy's treament is operae pretium, and it serves well the dignitas of Cicero.“ Using their respective 2 On Seneca's comment on Livy, see J. Marincola, Authority and Tradition in Ancient Historiography (Cambridge 1997) 170-171. He notes (170) that "Livy was impartial within an overall favourable treatment." This sums up the historian's portrayal of Cicero exquisitely, especially given the historian's overall judgement of Cicero which I discuss above: si quis tamen virtutibus vitia pensarit, vir magnus ac memorabilis fuit. ?* Tacitus in his Annals writes about the trial and suicide of Cordus, who is

accused of incorrect praise of republican figures (4.34.1-35.4). Cicero may have been one of these—Tacitus mentions Brutus and Cassius. Seneca criticises Cordus' style; Tacitus applauds the content of Cordus' history. On Cordus' defence

speech

in Tacitus,

see Martin

and

Woodman

(above,

n. 20)

177-184;

Laird (above, n. 19) 157-161. Note that Cordus remarks on the eloquence of Livy's history (Ann. 4.343, Titus Livius, eloquentiae ac fidei praeclarus in primis).

LIVY ON THE DEATH OF CICERO

31

treatments of Cicero as a test case, therefore, Seneca suggests the superiority of Livy's history over Cordus'. III To return to Cicero's De Oratore: in his explanation of what history should be—the careful combination of res and verba—within the scope of res he makes clear the importance of character (2.63). Had he been able to

read the AVC, Cicero probably would have felt that Livy met this requirement of history.” The sophistication of Livy's presentation of Cicero should not surprise us, nor should the praise that Livy receives from Seneca. Livy is a sophisticated historian; Seneca is well-suited to appreciate such sophistication. By focusing on Cicero's death, Livy was

able to uphold the overarching means of his historical presentation, and at the same time to express his feelings on the recent past. Rome was about to experience dramatic change. Even the past would be different? Writing about Cicero enables Livy to preserve something of the Republic and Rome's past, before it collapses into the turmoil of the 30s B.C.E. If an historian could not accurately and eloquently account for the career

and murder of Cicero, Seneca might have thought, how could the reader place faith in the history as a whole? Appendix Text of Fragments of Book 120 M. Cicero sub adventum triumvirorum urbe cesserat, pro certo habens, id quod erat, non magis Antonio eripi se quam Caesari Cassium et Brutum posse; primo in Tusculanum fugerat, inde transversis itineribus in Formianum ut ab Caieta navem conscensurus, proficiscitur. unde aliquotiens in altum provectum cum modo

venti

adversi

rettulissent,

fluctu pati non posset, taedium superiorem villam, quae paulo "jn patria saepe servata." satis ad dimicandum; ipsum deponi

modo

ipse iactationem

navis caeco

volvente

tandem eum et fugae vitae cepit, regressusque ad plus mille passibus a mari abest, "moriar," inquit, constat servos fortiter fideliterque paratos fuisse lecticam et quietos pati quod sors iniqua cogeret

Even though Cordus could not write good history, at least he could recognise good history when he read it. 5 Kraus (above, n. 22) 60 tells us that this is indeed achieved by Livy: "one of

the large-scale techniques with which Livy links the parts of the history is the repeated returning of the narrative focus to its main actors." 6 Henderson (above, n. 8) 317 points out that if we take books 121-42 as a "supplement" to the original 120 books, "they complete but undo the story, for supplements are revisionary ratios, and this supplement alters the end of history

along with the end of the History."

32

JAMES T. CHLUP

iussisse. prominenti ex lectica praebentique inmotam cervicem caput praecisum

est. nec id satis stolidae crudelitati militum fuit. manus quoque scripsisse in Antonium aliquid exprobrantes praeciderunt. ita relatum caput ad Antonium iussuque eius inter duas manus in Rostris positum, ubi ille consul, ubi saepe con-

sularis, ubi eo ipso anno adversus Antonium quanta nulla umquam humana vox cum admiratione eloquentiae auditus fuerat. vix attollentes lacrimis oculos humentes intueri truncata membra civis poterant.

vixit tres et sexaginta annos, ut, si vis afuisset ne inmatura quidem mors videri possit. ingenium et operibus et praemiis operum felix, ipse fortunae diu prosperae; sed in longo tenore felicitatis magnis interim ictus vulneribus, exsilio, ruina partium, pro quibus steterat, filiae morte, ... exitu tam tristi atque acerbo, omnium adversorum nihil ut viro dignum erat tulit praeter mortem, quae vere aestimanti minus indigna videri potuit, quod a victore inimico nihil crudelius passus erat quam quod eiusdem fortunae campos victo fecisset. si quis tamen virtutibus vitia pensarit, vir magnus ac memorabilis fuit et in cuius laudes exequendas Cicerone laudatore opus fuerit.

"THE APPEARANCE OF HISTORY": MAKING SOME SENSE OF PLUTARCH CRAIG COOPER

Though biography was a popular form of literature in antiquity, the first

full extant examples of the genre appear only late in the tradition, during the Roman period. Our earliest examples are by Cornelius Nepos, an

acquaintance Men around of Trajan and same period

of Cicero, who published in Latin a work On Illustrious 34 B.C. Then there is Plutarch, who wrote during the reign published parallel lives of Greeks and Romans; during this Suetonius was active, famous for his biographies of the

Caesars. Their antecedents, however, survive only as fragments, the

largest of which is Satyros' life of Euripides. But biography was a popular genre of literature during the Hellenistic age and by 200 B.C. there flourished a number of professional biographers, who published lives of famous intellectuals, whether of poets, orators, or philosophers. In some cases these biographers were connected with the Alexandrian library and availed themselves of the library's vast resources. The biographer Hermippos, for instance, published an array of lives. He was the student of the great Librarian Kallimachos, who had catalogued in 120 books all known Greek literature. His index, the Pinakes as they were called, pro-

vided a brief biography of each author followed by a list in alphabetical order of all his works. In many respects Hermippos' biographies should be regarded as a popular supplement to the more esoteric work of his

master. But this form of literary biography, which has its roots in ancient philology and literary history, is far different from the type of political

biography written by Plutarch which is grounded in history. For Plutarch, what is meant by biography can be gathered from the preface to his Life of Alexander (1.1); there he begs his reader's indulgence, should he not relate in detail all of Caesar's or Alexander's most celebrated

deeds but choose only to summarize them; for, he comments, he is not writing "histories" (historiai) but "lives" (bioi). According to Plutarch, the most notable deeds of war, like battles where thousands die or sieges, the stuff of serious history, often reveal less of a man's virtues or vices

than "a small incident, saying or jest." Plutarch's concern is character, 33

34

CRAIG COOPER

and what he includes in his narrative are the kinds of insignificant details not often mentioned by historians but found in other types of sources. Plutarch goes on to compare himself to a painter who does not

concentrate on the other parts of the body but on the fine details of the eyes and face which reveal character, and like a painter Plutarch himself must be permitted to concentrate on the signs of the soul, that is the small details, and by these means shape the bios of each subject, leaving

to others, namely historians, "the magnitudes of contests." In this context two things seem to mark out Plutarch's Lives as distinct from history, the kinds of details he includes and the emphasis he places on character. But Plutarch's goal, to produce something that moves beyond history to study character, has varied results. In some cases we get a full biography; in others only an abbreviated historical account of a certain

period of man's life. What we find is that Plutarch's Lives cover a wide spectrum spectrum breviates produces

between history and biography, and where a life falls on that depends to a large extent on the kinds of sources Plutarch aband introduces into his narrative. In the end what Plutarch is something familiar and unfamiliar, something like history

but not history, something like biography but not biography, at least in its traditional form. HISTORY OR BIOGRAPHY OR SOMETHING IN BETWEEN: THREE EXAMPLES?

In the past, scholars have taken Plutarch's remarks in Alexander as a programmatic statement of his general approach to the writing of biography and have even regarded them as reflecting some broadly accepted defi-

nition of the distinction between history and biography.” But as T. Duff has argued,’ this programmatic statement belongs specifically to the context of the Life of Alexander, as a means to distinguish this particular

life from other historiographical works on the same theme, in particular large-scale history. What Plutarch leaves out is as important as what he includes: "the magnitudes of contests." Beginning with Herodotos, every

historian commented on the magnitude of his subject, which was greater than any that had gone before.‘ Plutarch has instead chosen to empha-

size the small details outside mainstream history. To this end he turned to Onesikritos' How Alexander was Raised and to Khares' Stories of Alexander to provide him with details about Alexander's childhood and other ! See Duff (1999) 17 for his discussion of this image. The metaphor is used again in Kimon 2.4—5 to justify including a hero's blemishes in his bios.

? Wardman (1971) 254, (1974) 4; Pelling (1980) = (2002) 102. 3 Duff (1999) 15-21. * On this point see Marincola (1997) 34-43.

MAKING SOME SENSE OF PLUTARCH

35

types of small events and sayings? The former was an encomium modeled on Xenophon's Kyropaidia.* According to Polybios (10.21.8), in con-

trast to history which "being a balance between praise and blame, seeks a true exposition of the causes", encomium "demands a summary and an exaggerated account of deeds" of its subject; it also "explains who he and his family were ... stating his education and most famous deeds"

(10.21.5-6)." Though related to history, encomium was not history, since it described a man's origins and education, details not usually found in history, and provided only a selective and exaggerated account of a man's political and military accomplishments. Evidence indicates that Onesikritos showed little interest in political

and military matters; he was, however, concerned with Alexander's education"

and

was

intent on praising

him

and

exaggerating

the

strangeness of the lands that he conquered." In a general way, Plutarch follows the pattern of encomium, devoting space to Alexander's pro-

phetic origins (2-3), early years (4-6), and education (7-8), but keeping military operations to a minimum and paying little attention to topogra-

phy and tactics." What is emphasized is Alexander's character, and this * Childhood: purchase of Boukephalas (6: Khares?), sleeping with Aristotle’s edition of the Iliad (8.3: Onesikritos); small events: Kleisthenes' refusal of proskynesis (54.4—6: Khares), death of Boukephalas (61.1: Onesikritos), visit to philosophers (65.1-2: Onesikritos), drinking contest (70.2: Khares); sayings: Al-

exander's comment on crossing the Hydaspes (60.6: Onesikritos), Kleisthenes' remark at not being kissed by Alexander (54.4-6: Khares). For other possible passages which may be based on Onesikritos and Khares see Hamilton (1999) lix; cf. Brown (1949) 20-21, 142 n. 146; Pearson (1983) 56-57, 60-61. $ Brown

(1949) 13-23; Hamilton (1999) Ixiii; Pelling (2002) 165; contrast Pear-

son (1983) 87-111, esp. 89-90, who wants to amend Diogenes’ text to read How Alexander marched up country and compares the work to Xenophon’s Anabasis. ? On prose encomium see Stuart (1928) 60-90; Momigliano (1993) 49-57.

* Momigliano (1993) 82.

? Hamilton (1993) lxiii. ? FGrHist 134 F38 = Plu. Alex. 8.3. Pearson (1983) 89-91 is skeptical about the amount of emphasis put on education. It is possible, however, that other material in Plutarch about Alexander's education and youth came from Onesikritos. See Brown (1949) 20; Hamilton (1993) lix, 14-15. Onesikritos described the death of

Boukephalas, the piquancy of which would be greater, as Brown notes, had he also described the horses' taming, a story which Plutarch, however, seems to have gotten from Khares; cf. FGrHist 125 F 18. !! Pearson (1983) 86. Gellius (4.1-3: T 12) includes Onesikritos among a num-

ber of authors whose books were full of marvelous tales, "of things unheard and incredible." 12 Hamilton (1993) xlvi-xlvii. Extreme examples are the Battle of Issos (20.8),

which is described in a single sentence, and the fighting against Poros (60.10-11),

36

CRAIG COOPER

is Plutarch's own contribution that comes through even when he abbreviates the more romantic tales found in Onesikritos and Khares. For instance, Plutarch's accounts of Alexander's meeting with Taxiles (59)

and with Poros (60.14-15), which likely come from Onesikritos, illustrate Alexander's generosity, an important theme of Plutarch's life.“ But like a historian he downplays the more exaggerated elements” and seeks the historian's "balance between praise and blame," allowing Alexander's

flaws to show through.” Khares' Stories of Alexander (ἱστορίαι περὶ ᾿Αλέξανδρον), another important source for Plutarch, is in many ways like Onesikritos' encomium. He is concerned little with military and political matters but interested in Alexander's education and childhood, in the small events like weddings

and symposia and the exotic aspects of foreign lands." Plutarch's innovation, which sets his Alexander apart from previous historiographical treatments,? comes in combining related but different forms of historiography, encomium, historical romance (if that is what we can call Khare's work) and history to create something that was uniquely his own, more historical than encomium or romance but less historical than history. which takes only two sentences. ? As Pearson notes ([1983] 54, 61), the fragments indicate that Khares showed

little interest in delineating character, whereas Onesikritos' characterization of Alexander as the "philosopher in arms" is ignored by Plutarch. So Hamilton (1993) Ixii and Pelling (2002) 147.

4 Hamilton (1993) xlvii, 161-169. 5 So Plutarch (60.11-12) makes very little of the size of the elephants as we

find in Onesikritos (F 14), and certainly the accounts he has taken over from Khares are less picturesque. See Pearson (1983) 52.

16 Chapters 73-75 highlight his superstition and suspicion. See Hamilton (1993) xlvii-xlviii.

17 Pearson (1983) 50-61. On Onesikritos’ interest in natural history and the exotic see Brown

(1949) 78-104 and Pearson (1983) 86, 94-109. Brown

(105) de-

scribes Onesikritos' work as "an encomium with utopian digressions." 18 On the importance of a historian imitating and innovating on his predecessors see Marcincola

(1997) 12-19 and (1999) 309-320. Wardman

(1974) 154, 160

suggests that Plutarch’s remarks on method in Alexander are prompted for a pragmatic reason, the fact that he had more material than he needed for his biography. Although Plutarch faced practical problems when he came to abbreviate

his source, I still think his programmatic statement was intended, as in other

historiographical works, to mark out the differences between his treatment and those of his predecessors.

"9 See Pelling (1990) = (2002) 143-170, who notes (147) that Plutarch prevents “his biography from drifting into the fictional conventions of its genera proxena,” by which he means literary biography but, as he himself notes, Plutarch's biog-

MAKING SOME SENSE OF PLUTARCH

37

But Plutarch is by no means consistent in his approach. The Life of Casear, for instance, which is paired with Alexander, is itself very historical in its orientation,? including a detailed narration of the Gallic wars as

we would find in a formal history?! And this is not the only life that ap-

proximates history or that Plutarch himself envisions as a form of history. Consider his programmatic statement to the Life of Nikias: Since it is not Philistos have character and misfortunes, I

possible to pass over the recorded, especially when disposition, concealed as have briefly run over the

deeds which Thucydides and they shed light on the man's they were by his many great essentials to avoid being con-

sidered altogether negligent and lazy, and the details that have eluded

many and have been mentioned here and there by others or are found on dedications or ancient inscriptions, I have attempted to collect together, not to accumulate a useless historia but one that adds to the un-

derstanding of his character and temperament.

At first glance, Plutarch's words recall the apology to Alexander. Like Alexander Plutarch seems to envision his Nikias as some kind of historical enquiry that goes beyond history to reveal character. Two sources are

identified here, histories that narrate deeds and other kinds of sources that include details not found in histories. As in Alexander so in Nikias Plutarch has chosen simply to summarize the deeds celebrated in histories.? In the case of Alexander he concentrates on "a small incident, say-

ing or jest" that often proves more revealing of a man's character than the great battles or the sieges narrated by historians, and to that end, as we have seen, has turned to encomium and historical romance for these small details. In the case of Nikias, Plutarch cannot neglect those deeds narrated by Thucydides and Philistos that cast light on Nikias' character, but again, he notes, he has chosen to summarize. The emphasis, instead, is on collecting certain details that have either eluded other writers or

have only been mentioned by them sporadically but nonetheless create a historia that provides a greater understanding of his character. For this he raphies range from those that have a more historical style to those that have a

less historical style.

» Pelling (1980) = (2002) 103-105 and (1990) = (2002) 150-151, where Pelling

shows how Plutarch applies the historiographical principles enunciated in On Herodotus' Malice to his

historical treatment of Caesar.

71 Pelling (1984) 88-103; Duff (1999) 21. 2 Alexander is coupled with Caesar which refers (Cae. 35.2) to Pompey in such a

way (in the future tense) to suggest that a draft of that life was well under way; likewise the cross reference in Brutus (9.9) to Caesar again suggests that Plutarch may have had a draft of Caesar done. All this suggests, as Pelling ([1979] = [2002] 8-9) argues, that Plutarch published these Roman lives in quick succession. Nikias-Crassus was thus published shortly after Alexander-Caesar.

38

CRAIG COOPER

has turned to Aristotle, comic poets and others to help to formulate his opening character sketch (2-6). But as Wardman notes, the nonThucydidean material has not contributed much to the creation of Nikias' character, as Plutarch's opening remarks would have us believe.” The Life of Nikias, which Plutarch himself labels as a history, draws

heavily on Thucydides' narrative, which he supplements at times with details from Philistos and Timaios.* Where Thucydides' narrative is

particularly revealing of the character of Nikias as in the Pylos affair, Plutarch follows Thucydides closely, whereas the great battle of the harbour he summarizes; but in other cases he expands on Thucydides to emphasize the role played by Nikias.? In his description of events in Sicily Plutarch supplements Thucydides with information from Philistos

and Timaios. At 28-29 he describes the fate of the Athenian prisoners of war, and at 28.4 specifically cites Timaios who denies that Demosthenes and Nikias were put to death by the Syracusans, as both Philistos and Thucydides maintained, but committed suicide when they heard the news of the fate of the Athenian prisoners. It is clear from this passage that Plutarch had consulted all three sources for the historical narrative

of his biography. But what is significant is not so much Plutarch's dependency on these histories for much of his narrative—in the opening chapters (2-6) Plutarch cites Aristotle, comic poets, a dialogue of Pasi-

phon—as the focus of the life, which is almost exclusively on the Sicilian years. At least two-thirds of the life are devoted to these events”; there is little on the Archidamian war or on political events during this period and nothing on his origins, upbringing and childhood, as we would expect to find in the opening chapters of a bios and are characteristic of

many of Plutarch's other lives.” The opening section (2-6) is in fact a character sketch of Nikias the politikos.# Plutarch begins by presenting Nikias in terms of Aristotle's

schematization of fifth-century Athenian history, as the champion of "wealthy and notable" against Kleon. Kleon's popularity with the many stemmed from his cajoling and boldness, Nikias' from his timidity and fear of the people. To counter Kleon's verbal buffoonery, we are told ? Wardman (1974) 157. But contrast Pelling (1992) = (2002) 117-141.

^ Gomme (1956) 71-72. 5 Nic. 14.6-7, 16.5, 18.34, 19.5, 21.9-11, 24.1-2. See Gomme

(1956) 71-72 for

these details. 26 Wardman (1974) 155.

27 Leo (1901) 180-182, where he describes the typical biographical scheme of a

Plutarchean life: family, birth, appearance, character, education, political deeds and death; cf. Stadter (1989) xxxiv-xxxv; Geiger (1988) 250-251.

28 On the theme of the politikos in Plutarch see Wardman (1974) 49-104.

MAKING SOME SENSE OF PLUTARCH

39

(3.2), Nikias used his excessive wealth, trying to win over the demos through choral and gymnastic shows. In chapter four Plutarch counters the charge of philotimia raised in chapter three by stating that it would be more in keeping with Nikias' "character and disposition" to interpret such demagoguery

as eusebeia, "piety." At this point Plutarch quotes

Thucydides for the fact that Nikias was inclined to divination and a dialogue of Pasiphon for the fact that Nikias sacrificed daily to the gods and kept a personal diviner in his house.? Both passages indicate Nikias' superstition, but are used by Plutarch to indicate the general's piety. Plutarch concludes chapter four with a string of quotations from comic

poets, each of which are quoted to kias' character, his timidity. The opening section of the on character that a historian would tive.? Thus Nikias appears less like

elucidate an important aspect of Nilife resembles the kind of digression introduce before he began his narraa bios than a historical monograph,

describing the final years of Nikias' political life that bring out most

clearly the character that Plutarch has delineated. Though centred on a particular individual, a political monograph follows the example of history, excluding details about the individual's childhood and upbringing and concentrating its narrative on the big events, battles and sieges,

which in other lives Plutarch can abbreviate or ignore?! Though the stated goals of both Alexander and Nikias are similar, to move beyond a

strictly historical treatment to reveal character, the results are very different. Plutarch has succeeded less well with Nikias than with Alexander in producing what we would call a biography. On his own admission (1.1), his focus in Nikias was determined by Thucydides’ own narration

of events, but his reader must not presume that he will try to outdo the historian in "pathos, vividness and subtlety" as Timaios vainly tried.

Though Plutarch seems unable to escape the narrow constrictions of Thucydides’ historical treatment to produce what to modern sensibilities is a real biography, we must not presume that ancient readers would have excluded Nikias from being considered a "life".

With the Life of Demosthenes Plutarch was faced with a different problem than he faced with Nikias; there was no single historical treatment to draw on for the basic articulation of the narrative, and what historical ? Diller (RE 18.4 2084) dates Pasiphon to the beginning of the third century B.C. He seems to have written Socratic dialogues, of which the passage in Nikias may come from a dialogue in which Nikias participates. In Diogenes Laertios 2.61 Persios is said to have attributed most of the seven dialogues of Aeschines of Sphettos to Pasiphon. 9 See, for instance, Polybios 7.11 for his digression on Philip V's character.

?! Geiger (1985) 16.

40

CRAIG COOPER

narratives there were needed to be supplemented from his own research. There were, however, lives of the orator and to differentiate his life from

previous treatments by literary biographers Plutarch needed to move in the opposite direction from what he did in Alexander, by trying to make the life more historical. At the beginning of Demosthenes

(2.1), Plutarch

remarks as follows: for one undertaking a narrative (suntaxis) and historia assembled from readings not at hand or at home but in many foreign countries and scattered among different owners, it really is necessary first and foremost to live in a city that is famous, fond of the liberal arts and populous, in order to have a wealth of all sorts of books and learn through hearsay and personal enquiry about all those details which have escaped writers but have won a more conspicuous assurance in the safety of men's memory, and in so doing produce a work not deficient in many necessary details.”

σύνταξις is regularly used by Polybios (1.21.10, 3.105.7, 3.118.12) to denote the composition of a history, and this is clearly the sense Plutarch has in mind here when he connects it with ἱστορία. Jones suggests that here "Plutarch appears to disclaim for his work the status of formal history, made as a result of systematic reading and inquiry,"? and though it is true that Plutarch elsewhere distinguishes his Lives from detailed

systematic histories (see below), and in the present case would include material not characteristically found in history, what, in fact, Plutarch sought to produce in the case of Demosthenes, despite the limitations he faced in Chaironeia, was a historical narrative full of details that had eluded others which he had culled from his own readings and learned through hearsay.™ He concludes his account of Demosthenes (Dem. 30.4) # Plutarch's comments here at once remind us of his claim for the Life of Ni-

kias to supplement the historical acccounts with details that have eluded others.

Nikias appears late in the publication of parallel lives (Jones [1966] 68) but still echoes Plutarch's conception of biography articulated in the much earlier Demosthenes: a historical enquiry that goes beyond history. Nikias is coupled with Crassus, which, Pelling argues ([1979] = [2002] 2-11), was prepared (though not

necessarily published) simultaneously with Pompey, Caesar, Cato Minor and Antony and was produced much later than either Lucullus and Cicero, both of which seem less knowledgeable and less rich in narrative detail about the period than these later lives. Demosthenes-Cicero was fifth in the parallel lives (Dem. 3.1); Ki-

mon-Lucullus seems to have appeared even earlier in the series and TheseusRomulus somewhat later but perhaps before Perikles-Fabius, which is tenth in the series. See Jones (1966) 68; Pelling (2002) 2; Blamire (1989) 3; Stoltz (1929).

? Jones (1971) 82. My interpretation of the passage follows that of Duff (1999) 23.

# In the Demosthenes there are three possible examples: Demosthenes’ subterranean study which Plutarch tells us was preserved in his own time (7.3); the

meaning of the Thermodon river in the Sibylline oracle (19.2); and the story of

MAKING SOME SENSE OF PLUTARCH

41

by telling Sossios that "now you have the life (bios) of Demosthenes from the sources which I have read or heard about," and opens the synkrisis (1.1) by commenting that "these are the incidents worth mentioning found recorded

(ἱστορουμένων)

about Demosthenes

and Cicero." It

would seem, then, that Plutarch intended his Demosthenes to be a historical investigation, which would clearly mark out his life as distinctive from earlier biographical treatments. It would assume the "appearance

of history," which was not always the case in past treatments of Demosthenes.

How Plutarch differed from earlier literary biographers of the Hellenistic period, like Hermippos, can be illustrated by comparison of his

biography of Demosthenes with ps.-Plutarch's life found preserved in the Moralia. A comparison of the two lives reveals considerable similarities, but the point of contact between the two works is largely restricted

to the opening chapters (4-11) of Plutarch's Demosthenes, which deal primarily with Demosthenes as orator not as statesman.? The sources on

which Plutarch draws in these opening chapters are Peripatetics, like Demetrios of Phaleron, who included a treatment of Demosthenes in a

treatise on rhetoric, and literary biographers like Hermippos. This is an important point to emphasize because it reveals the essential difference

between Plutarch' treatment of Demosthenes and ps.-Plutarch's, whose biographies originated with grammarians and ultimately derive from the Kallimachean tradition of literary biography. These kinds of biogra-

phies, which often prefaced a collection of orations, though they included highlights of Demosthenes' political career, were interested less in the character of the statesman than in the orator. Their concern was to provide simple historical information about the orator, not to inform the

reader about his character. That was the concern of history. Plutarch, by contrast, is writing what we would call political biography

and

from chapter twelve begins to present Demosthenes

statesman.

Plutarch

himself

recognizes

the

distinction

as a

between

Demosthenes the orator and Demosthenes the statesman, and divides

his treatment of Demosthenes accordingly. He says this much at the end of chapter eleven: "Although we are still able to say more on these things, we will stop here. It is right to consider Demosthenes' other dis-

position and character in light of his political deeds (and τῶν πράξεων the soldier and Demosthenes' statue which is said to have taken place a short time before Plutarch took up residency in Athens (31.1). See Holden (1893) xi.

55 There is also considerable similarity between their respective accounts of Demosthenes’

death (cf. Plu. Dem. 29-30 and ps.-Plu. X orat. 846e-847b), each

drawing on the same sources.

% Geiger (1985) 24.

42

CRAIG COOPER

xai τῆς moAttelac).” The other points on which Plutarch could say more

not only include the witty rejoinders just attributed to Demosthenes, but also his style of oratory which, according to Demetrios of Phaleron, was "mean, vulgar and weak" (11.3), or according to Hermippos was far superior in its "construction and power" (11.4). Now Plutarch will proceed, from chapter twelve onward, to examine the other ethos of Demosthenes as it was revealed by his political deeds, that is to say, Plutarch will describe the character of the statesman as he was presented in the historical narratives of Theopompos, Duris, Marsyas or Aristoboulos. The character of the orator, on the other hand, was revealed in the

speeches of Demosthenes, and so was treated in rhetorical works of the Peripatetics, like Demetrios of Phaleron and Theophrastos, or in literary biographies of grammarians,

like Hermippos.

In the introduction to

Demosthenes (3.1), Plutarch outlines his programme; unlike Kaikilios, the

grammarian and literary critic, he will forgo a comparison of the speeches of Cicero and Demosthenes in the vain attempt to reveal who was "more agreeable or a more powerful orator," but he will compare their "natures and dispositions" revealed ἀπὸ τῶν πράξεων xal τῆς moλιτείας (3.1). The point is that political deeds reveal a totally different

aspect of Demosthenes' character than his speeches. The former reveal his "ambition, love of liberty and lack of courage in the face of wars and

dangers"; the latter his "forcefulness of speaking." The same point is reiterated by Plutarch in the Synkrisis (1.1) to the two lives. What Plutarch has just recalled are the memorable incidents

that are recorded about Demosthenes and Cicero. The emphasis here is on the historical record that detailed their political accomplishments. Plutarch continues. Although he has not attempted a comparison of their "rhetorical styles," he will at least mention that Demosthenes devoted

himself to rhetoric with all the persuasive power that he possessed "by nature and practice." This was a topic that had been discussed by Demetrios of Phaleron (FGrHist

IV A3

(frs. 136-138 Fortenbaugh)

1026: F 53a), both of whom

noted

and by Hermippos that Demosthenes

owed his abilities as an orator more to practice than natural talent. Ac-

cording to Plutarch, what is revealed about Demosthenes in his speeches is the character of the orator, that he surpassed all forensic orators "in effectiveness and force," all epideictic orators "in pomp and majesty of utterance," and all sophists in "precision and skill." Plutarch's innovation lay in presenting Demosthenes not only as the great orator, as he had been in past bioi, but also, and more importantly for him, as the

great statesman, and to this end he had to turn to historical sources. As he himself notes (2.1), what he has undertaken in the Life of Demosthenes is "a narrative and history assembled from readings not at hand."

But the actual historical narrative, which will reveal the character of

MAKING SOME SENSE OF PLUTARCH

43

the statesman, does not begin until chapter 16. The first eleven chapters follow the lines of a literary biography detailing his origins (4), educa-

tion, the defining moment that led him to study rhetoric, hearing Kallistratos (5), his suits with the guardians, his first disastrous addresses to the assembly that prompted him to devote his energies to developing his delivery and voice (6-7),

a number of anecdotes relating to Demosthe-

nes' rhetorical style (8-10), a description of the exercises the orator used to develop his delivery and voice, followed by anecdotes illustrating the

great importance he attached to delivery. So far Plutarch has not moved beyond

the traditional treatment

of literary bioi. For these opening

chapters he used Hermippos, supplementing him with information and anecdotes from Demetrios of Phaleron, Theophrastos (through Ariston of Chios)," Eratosthenes, and perhaps Satyros. Chapters 12-14 provide the sketch of Demosthenes' political character that the historical narrative will illustrate, whereas chapter 15 forms a

highly unusual digression before the actual narrative begins at 16, a digression that seems to have no place in the kind of a political biography Plutarch seeks to write but does in a literary biography or work of liter-

ary history. Far from being irrelevant, however, the digression is inserted by Plutarch to explain why he has chosen a historical orientation

for his life. It is essentially a catalogue of speeches. Such catalogues were characteristic of literary biographies and works of literary history,” and much of the material likely derived either from Kaikilios or Hermippos,” who is known

to have appended

to some of his lives, catalogues of

works.” But Plutarch himself is prepared to engage in this kind of literary scholarship, not for it own sake but to mark out clearly what his life is not about. At the end of the chapter (15.56), based on his own readings of Demosthenes and Aeschines, he raises the question whether Demosthenes 19, On the False Legation, was ever delivered. Idomeneus

maintains that Aeschines was acquitted by thirty votes but, according to Plutarch, this seems improbable (οὐκ ἔοικεν), "if one must judge (τεκμαίρεσθαι) by the words of each orator written on the crown. For

neither one mentions clearly and distinctly about the contest coming to trial."* What has this to do with political biography that seeks to explore

3” See Tritle (1988) 23-27; cf. Cooper (2000) 227, 242 n. 14. 38 See, for instance, the short life of Demosthenes in Dionysios Halikarnassos

Epist. Amm. 1.3-4; it is full of information on the dates of Demosthenes' speeches and is based, according Dionysios, on "those who have left us bioi." ? But not likely Demetrios Magnes who is cited (15.4) for the variation that Demosthenes married a woman from Samos.

*? Bollansée (1999) 163-181. *! On Idomeneus and this particular passage see Cooper (1997).

44

CRAIG COOPER

the character of the statesman? Nothing. But it has everything to do with literary history and was precisely the kind of obscure erudite scholarship undertaken by literary biographers and writers of literary history. Unlike Kaikilios who goes to excess in everything (3.2), Plutarch knows the limit; he concludes (15.6) his digression by stating that he will, "on the

one hand (μέν), leave this question for others to decide," and opens chapter sixteen and his historical narrative by stating that, on "the other hand (δέ), Demosthenes’ political attitude was clear." The uév-6é clause

ties the two chapters together. Far from being irrelevant, the digression

of chapter 15 shows clearly why Plutarch has not engaged in this kind of literary research on Demosthenes, though he could have; it shows us nothing clearly about his character; that is revealed only in history.

I have moved from the assumption that no political biography on Demosthenes had yet been written." Satyros is known to have written on Demosthenes's death (ps.-Plu. Vit. X 847a), and the version in which

Demosthenes ingests poison from his stylus, attributed by Plutarch to Ariston (30.1), is precisely that told by Satyros. And Holden suggests that Satyros was one of Plutarch's authorities and possibly his main source.? In his diverse collection (FHG III frs. 1-19 Mueller) of bioi Satyros included lives of statesmen, philosophers and poets, and the lives may have varied considerably depending on the different sources he

drew upon, from lives that resembled literary monographs, as in the case of the life of Euripides, to monographs on various virtues and vices." Satyros' bios of Euripides, for instance, was composed as a dialogue. In many respects it formally resembles literary monographs of so-called peri-literature by Peripatetics like Chamaileon, employing the very same methods of biographical inference that are based on the poets's writing. The life of Alkibiades (fr. 1: Athen. 12.534b) may have illustrated τὸ καλόν and that of Dionyios the younger (fr. 2: Athen. 12.541c) truphé, and

thus have been modelled after the ethical treatises of the Peripatetics

“2 Here I follow Geiger (1985) 30-65 in assuming that political biographies

were not written in the Hellenistic period. $5 Holden (1893) xxi.

* His work is variously referred to as ἐν τοῖς βίοις, when the collection as whole is meant or ἐν tà περὶ tod βίου for a single life.

$5 On the close affinity between Satyros' biography and the problemataliterature of the Peripatetics see Latte in Dihle (1956) 105 n. 1; between it and the peri-literature of Chamaeleon in particular see Momigliano (1993) 73. On the character of peri-literature see Leo (1901) 104-106, 317-318, (1960a) 369, (1960c) 387-394; Pfeiffer (1968) 217-218; Arrighetti (1964) 12-21, (1977) 31-49; Mo-

migliano (1993) 70 and n. 6. On the biographical method of Chamaileon see Leo (1960a) 368—369, (1960c) 390; Arrighetti (1964) 22, 26, (1977) 31-49.

MAKING SOME SENSE OF PLUTARCH

45

which regularly explored such moral qualities in their dialogues.” Though these lives varied in content and the kinds of works they drew on, Geiger has argued, convincingly I think, that they were all fashioned as dialogues and all akin to the so-called problemata literature." If this is true, Demosthenes was treated as a literary figure by Satryros, as he had been by his contemporary, Hermippos. Hence the innovation in Plutarch's treatment of Demosthenes’ life. Brot As GENRE AND PLUTARCH'S PLACE IN THE GENRE

Plutarch's comments in Alexander that he is not writing "histories" but "lives" would suggest that bios was a recognizable category of historiography with its own conventions that distinguished it from related cate-

gories of historiography like history. The difficulty with this assumption is that the ancients did not have a fixed or static conception of genre“; various flux of that the similar

forms of historiography seem to have been in a "constant state of reaction and revision."? Further complicating things is the fact distinctions between history and political biography and other historiographical works were never clearly drawn.? Conse-

quently various ancients could instance, could historiography,

categories of historiography that were recognized by the overlap considerably! This meant that a historian, for include in his work material from other categories of whether ethnography, paradoxa or antiquarian material,”

“ For instance, Herakleides Pontikos’ treatise On Pleasure explores the theme of pleasure

versus

truphe in a dialogue. See Wehrli

VII (1953) 77 and

Cooper

(2002).

#7 Geiger (1985) 42-43. # On

the question of genre see Marincola

(1999); Conte (1994); Rosenmeyer

(1985); Geiger (1985) 11-18.

* Marincola (1999) 301. Ὁ Duff (1999) 17. Schepens' (1997) 159 observations about Neanthes are worth

mentioning here. The earliest known writer of On wrote a number of types of historiographical works, caution against a tendency in modern literature to lines between political and military historiography

Distinguished Men, Neanthes a fact "which should inspire draw rather sharp dividing on the one hand and biogra-

phy and antiquarian literature on the other." 5! The ancients did recognize certain categories of historical writing such as archaeologica, which covered early history, including genealogies and foundations; war monographs which may have been sub-genre of "history of deeds";

local histories which were not necessarily always annalistic, though they could

be, as the Atthidographers; and finally universal histories. In all cases the emphasis was not form or orientation but subject matter. On these categories and this point see Marincola (1999) 293-294.

% As Flower notes ([1997] 153), Theopompos' Philippika "is a composite of

46

CRAIG COOPER

and the same was no less true of writers of bioi like Plutarch, who drew

on a wide range of historiographical works: histories, biographies, literary and rhetorical treatises, encomium and polemic and historical documents like letters and inscriptions? It is in the unique combination

of these varied sources that determines the character of each life and explains the differences between them, though Plutarch's stated purpose for each life is the same, to produce a historical investigation that moved beyond history to reveal character. Compounding the problem was the fluid use of such labels as "history" and "lives" to speak of related historigraphical works.* Plutarch

can apply the term "history" to his own Lives and to other forms of historiography that are in our minds not history.? At times he uses the word in the sense of inquiry,” but always, it seems, in the sense of an inquiry into the past, and that is precisely what he envisages his Lives to be, inquiries into the past. And in that respect Plutarch sees his own Lives as being closely related to history and on occasion can describe

them as such.” Like a painter, who neither omits nor overemphasizes a every type of historical research that had come before," including genealogy, ethnography, mythology, chronography and the war monograph. 9 On Plutarch's wide range of readings see Ziegler (1949) 277-291; Stadter (1965) 125-140 and (1989) xliv; Russell (1971) 42-62; Geiger (1985) 58-62; Hamilton (1999) xlix-Iv. * Jerome (Comm.

in Zach 3:14.47) can speak of Tacitus' Annals and Histories

as Lives of the Caesars. See Duff's discussion ([1999] 19) for further examples. On the blurred distinctions between history and biography see Gentili and Cerri (1988) 61-84; Geiger (1985) 18-25 and Duff (1999) 17 n. 13 for further references. Momigliano (1993) 6, 103, (1981) 161, by contrast, suggests a separation between

history and biography by the Greeks; but see the objections of Gentili and Cerri (1988) 61-68 to Momigliano's views.

$ This point is particularly clear at Lyk. 1.1, where Plutarch notes that there is little agreement among historiai about Lykourgos' work as lawgiver and statesman, and above all about his chronology. As examples he names Aristotle, Eratosthenes, Apollodoros, Timaios and Xenophon. Only the last two are historians

in our sense. See also Thes. 1.1, where geographers are described as oi ἱστορικοὶ £v ταῖς Yeoypadíatc. 56 Thes.

1.2, Per. 2.5, 13.16. In Thes. 1.1-2, historia is twice used by Plutarch,

first in the sense of history—“in the writing of Parallel Lives, now that I have gone through a period of time accessible to probable reason and the basis of a

historia composed of facts”—and second in the sense of research— "since I have

published an account of the lawgiver Lykourgos and the king Numa, I thought it

not unreasonable to go back further to Romulus, now that I have gotten closer to his times in my historia." See Duff (1999) 18 and Wardman (1974) 5.

?' For examples see Duff (1999) 21. On the close relationship of Plutarch's lives to historiography see Wardman (1971) 257-261, (1974) 2-10, 154-61; Geiger (1985) 18-25; Scardigli (1995) 17, 21-23, 25.

MAKING SOME SENSE OF PLUTARCH

47

blemish in his subject, it is impossible for Plutarch to represent Kimon's bios "as blameless and pure." Like a historian, who seeks that balance between praise and blame, "errors and faults that arise from some misfortune or political necessity and assail his deeds must rather be considered shortcomings in some virtue than vile deeds of wickedness and must not be delineated too excessively in our historia.” Thus Kimon is

described both as a "life" and as a "history," that is, a life that follows the principle of unbiased historical research. The same connection is expressed in the Synkrisis to Perikles-Fabius: "Such is the historia that the men’s bioi contained; and since both have left behind many fine examples of political and military virtue, let us consider first their military

achievements."** Plutarch's Lives contain history, even of the traditional kind—political and military accomplishments—but as in Alexander, they can also contain much more than history. Plutarch's comments in the Synkrisis to Perikles-Fabius may provide a

clue to understanding what Plutarch is up to. His lives are not history as such but they can contain history and as his opening comments to Alexander and to Nikais make clear that comes as a result of abbreviating the

accounts of historians. In some cases like Nikias, he does not get much beyond that and the life resembles a historical monograph centred on a segment of Nikias' career rather than a biography of his whole life. That does not necessarily preclude Nikias from being a bios, as it was con-

ceived by Plutarch or his readers. If we move from the premise that the ancients did not have a fixed or static but rather an elastic conception of genre, particularly when it came to categories of historiography, we may better understand why different bioi even from a single author could vary so markedly in form, content, and range, though the stated purpose

for each life was the same. A better understanding of Plutarch may come from following the ap-

proach adopted by J. Marincola for historiography as a whole. Marincola takes issue with Jacoby’s narrow “teleological view” of the development

of genre that prevented him from seeing historiography as a dynamic and responsive form of writing that both looked back to and innovated on earlier forms of literature.” Following Conte’s approach to Latin po-

etry, with its "empty slots" into which a subsequent writer of a genre can slip and fill a gap in his genre, Marincola (300-301) suggests a more

flexible notion of genre, which sees various forms of historiography in a * Plutarch opens the Life of Fabius by stating, "since such were the memorable things about Perikles as we have received them, let us change our historia to Fabius.” For other references to Plutarch’s work as history see Duff (1999) 18 n. 14.

59 Marincola (1999) 291, 299. 9 Conte (1994) 116-117.

48

CRAIG COOPER

"constant state of flux of reaction and revision." This I suggest is what Plutarch is up to in writing "lives," reacting to and revising earlier historiographical treatments but in a way that is unique to bioi, by abbreviating previous treatments, that is by reproducing and revising previous treatments not in whole but in part. Instead of a "generic taxonomy," Marincola (301-307) suggests five criteria in analysing historical works: narrative / non-narrative, focalization, chronological limits, chronological arrangement and subject matter. This may be a useful point of departure for analysing Plutarch's bioi. Of the five criteria, Plutarch seems to suggest subject matter that revealed character, but there is more to it than

that.“ In Plutarch’s mind, his writing, which he thought was both related to and yet distinct from history, is closely connected with the study of a

man’s character, and accordingly he presents the character of his hero as it is revealed in his deeds. This idea has its roots in Aristotlean ethics, and throughout the Lives Plutarch observes the Aristotelian distinction between phusis, which is the unchanging aspect of a man’s makeup, and ethos, which is shaped by and revealed in his actions.” Phusis is inferred by Plutarch for the youth of his hero, before he has received any formal training, whereas ethos is something acquired and learned and subsequently revealed in his actions. The consistency with which Plutarch

uses Peripatetic terms to describe his biographical method and aims has led some scholars to conclude that Plutarch was following a formalized Peripatetic theory of biography. This, I think, is going too far; Plutarch’s orientation is as much determined by his historical approach to

writing biography than to any theory of what biography should be about. Some bioi, like the life of Demosthenes in the Moralia (844b—848d),

which are not grounded in history but have their roots in the Kallimachean tradition of literary biography, are not ethically oriented at all. Moreover, character study was by no means the prerogative of biographers. History too could have this as a goal. According to Polybios (7.11.1), Philip's change of character is a good example for men of action

*! Marincola (1997) 303 n. 81 suggests that the main difference between his-

tory and biography is "chronological range (biography going from birth to death, history from accession to death or dethronement)" and "subject matter (public deeds in history, public and private in biography ...)." On these two points see below. €? Leo (1901) 188; Hamilton (1999) xliv; Russell (1966) 144, (1995) 81-82, (1973)

105-106.

$ Hamilton (1999) xliv; Russell (1966) 144, (1972) 105.

* Dihle (1956) 63; cf. Scardigli (1995) 10.

MAKING SOME SENSE OF PLUTARCH

49

to study, if they wish to correct their conduct from historia. His "composition of deeds" can give his readers knowledge about Hannibal's nature (9.22.7). On Plutarch's own admission Thucydides and Philistos

wrote narratives that revealed character, and in words that echo Polybios' sentiments about ameliorative value of history, Plutarch comments

at the beginning of the Life of Timoleon (1.1) that historia can be used as a mirror when one attempts to adorn and pattern his life after the virtues

of those depicted therein. Theopompos, according to ancient critics like Dionysios of Halikarnassos (Pomp. 6.7), had the ability to detect the motives of actors in history and reveal their apparent virtue and undetected

vice. Motives most commonly attributed to his characters are akrasia and philotimia,” and philotimia is a character trait that Plutarch attributes to many heroes and illustrates in the narratives of their lives.” So character study alone is not enough to distinguish bioi, as they

were conceived by Plutarch, from history.” Where, however, the writer of bioi and the writer of historia part company is in the "larger elements of historical composition-speeches, battles, geographical excursuses.””

Scale or size is the difference; Plutarch prefers the small things. Where historia describes large battles, bioi either include small events not men-

tioned by historians or abbreviate the historian's account," where historia includes speeches, bioi record sayings not reproduced in histories but in

other kinds of sources,” where historia provides chronological development, bioi are less concerned with chronological progression? but can include a chronological outline.“ Epitomization thus seems to be one of $ On character study in Polybios see Walbank (1972) 91-96. $5 For a discussion Flower (1997) 170.

of this famous

evaluation

see Shrimpton

(1991)

21 and

$' Flower (1997) 170-174; Shrimpton (1991) 136-151. $ Wardman (1974) 115-124; Russell (1973) 106. $ One significant difference noted by Wardman

(1974) 6 between

the histo-

rian's and Plutarch's approach to the study of character is that Plutarch pursues it throughout his narrative, while the historian tends to relegate it to a digression.

7? Russell (1966) 148, (1995) 87. 71 On the various compositional devices used by Plutarch to abridge the narrative see Pelling (1980) = (2002) 91-94.

7 On small events and sayings as the biographer's counterpart to battles and speeches see Wardman

(1971) 254-256 and (1974) 7-8; cf. Pelling (1980) = (2002)

103.

73 On Plutarch's lack of concern for chronology or chronological development see Russell (1966) 148, (1995) 87, (1973) 102-103.

^ Wardman (1971) 256.

50

CRAIG COOPER

the hallmarks of bioi and perhaps helps makes sense of Plutarch’s apology that what he is up to is not "history" but "lives." He is simply summarizing and abbreviating, which is precisely what previous writers of

bioi did.” According to Plutarch (Galb. 2.3), “to report accurately and in detail what has happened belongs to a pragmatic history,”” and “pragmatic history” is the very term that Polybios applies to his own detailed narrative history (1.2.8; cf. 36.17.1). Even though Plutarch avoids the system-

atic approach of a formal history, he cannot, as he notes, pass over events in the deeds and misfortunes of the Caesars worth mentioning, and the Life of Galba proves not to be a real biography but a historical narrative of Galba’s short reign.” In effect, what Plutarch has achieved,

both with this life and with the others like Nikias, is a "compendious history rather than an independent biography." As Wardman argues, Plutarch seems at times almost unable to break free of the conventions and constraints of historiography; he often unfolds his story as a historian does and at times even digresses on character in an apologetic manner of a historian." But Plutarch's historical orientation is not surprising given his starting point was history itself. What set his lives apart from written history is not the presence or absence of any kind of historical orientation but the scale and size. Bioi were never as detailed or as long as the sources they drew on and abbreviated. What this means is that as a category of historiography bioi could overlap with and resemble various other forms of historiography, whether history, literary-history or antiquarian research. It could thus include all kinds of material but not on the same scale or in the same

detail as these other forms of historiography. Whether a biography had a narrative structure or not was not important. Satyros' bios of Euripides, as we noted, was composed as a dialogue and formally resembles liter-

ary monographs. Focus on the individual, though an important criterion, 7 As, for instance, Nepos' brief biographies, which Plutarch on occasion used; see Duff (1999) 133, 228 n. 71. Geiger (1988) 249 argues that Plutarch's in-

novation over Nepos lay in part in the scale of his biographies, which to my mind may have added to the confusion over what Plutarch was up to, history or lives.

76 Cf. Fab. 16.5, where Plutarch cuts off a detailed description of a battle by commenting that “the writers of detailed histories (oi τὰς διεξοδίκας γράψαντες

ἱστορίας) report these things.” 7 Wardman (1974) 8; Holden (1890) xxvii-xxviii, 93. 78 Wardman (1974) 9. See also Pelling (2002) 103-105 on the very historically

oriented Caesar. 75 Wardman

(1974) 9.

MAKING SOME SENSE OF PLUTARCH

51

was not exclusive to bioi; histories too could centre on the individual and bioi could, it seems, also be about nations or cities, as Dikaiarchos’ Περὶ tod βίου τῆς ' EAAáÓoc or as in Klearchos' Περὶ fi(ov.9 Chronological ar-

rangement was less important than perhaps the chronological limits for defining bioi. The limit was obviously the life itself from its beginning to its end: the writer of the bios of an individual would most often begin with the birth of that individual and end with his death. But whether a bios always had to cover an individual's entire life from birth to death is

not absolutely certain.” Plutarch's Galba and Nikias are two examples that did not. Certainly the shape the bios took as it moved within the chronological limits of birth and death would depend largely on the fo-

cus of the writer. Whether he treated Demosthenes, for instance, as a literary or political figure would determine what material from his life he wished to emphasize. In the case of the former more emphasis could be placed on his early education, rhetorical training and literary production, and thus resemble a literary monograph or work on rhetoric; in the

case of the latter, the critical moments of his political career, as would be expected of a history. There was really no chronological system as there was in the case of histories, which arranged their chronologies either along an annalistic pattern or by magistrates or areas.” A bios could in-

clude chronological signposts or synchronisms which highlighted an important moment in the life, but the chronology itself was of secondary importance. What was important was linking that moment with another event of equal or greater significance to emphasize the fame of that individual. What, then, characterized bioi in antiquity as a separate form of histo-

riography distinct from other forms of historiography? It was a brief account of a life from its beginning to end; in the case of a man’s life, from

birth to death. Here we have not moved far, if at all, beyond Momigliano's definition: “An account of a man’s life from birth to death.”™ 8 For this see Cooper (2002).

5! Momigliano (1993) 111-112 notes the possibility that Nicolaus of Damascus’ life of Augustus may have only been a partial biography down to 20 B.C.E., covering the formative years of Augustus. In this he had good precedent in Xenophon's Cyropaedia and books by Onesicritos and Marsyas on Alexander's education. Cf. Wilamowitz-Moellendorf (1995) 64-65.

€ Marincola (1999) 305-306. 9 For instance, Lysias arrived in Athens in the archonship of Kallias, after the Four Hundred had taken power and was banished, when the battle of Aigospotamoi had taken place and the Thirty seized power (Mor. 835e). Isokrates died in the archonship of Chairondos after hearing the news of Chaironeia (Mor. 837e). #4 Momigliano (1993) 11.

52

CRAIG COOPER

As Momigliano points out, though, this definition "has the advantage of excluding any discussion of how biography should be written." Thus a bios could have a narrative structure, be schematically arranged or set as a dialogue; so long as it remained an account of a life, it could follow any form, include any kind of material, borrow from various sources and

thus resemble other forms of historiography, the degree of similarity being dependant on the amount of material included in the bios from

another category of historiography. In Plutarch's case that category was history. In some examples, like Alexander, he tries to move the life away from history by introducing elements from other related forms of historiography, like encomium. In others, like Demosthenes, he tries to move the life toward history by introducing for the first time a historical narrative in a bios of Demosthenes. In still others, like the Nikias, he cannot, it seems, escape the generic conventions of history. But in all cases he is very conscious of what he is up to, engaging in the historiographical game of "reaction and revision."

The Plutarchean form of bios, which Plutarch obviously felt could be mistaken for history or at least bad history, since he adopted an abbreviated format and included small details not normally found in histories,

was possibly a late development. The novelty of Plutarch's biography explains his insistence that what he is up to is "history" but “lives.” He had found the empty slot between biography into which he slipped his own unique collection

approach to not writing history and of lives, but

his very comments that what he is up to is bioi and not history suggests

that an ancient audience knew a category of historiography called Lives which had its own features that made it recognizable to them, and it is these features that Plutarch is reacting to and revising.

REFERENCES Arrighetti, G. 1964. “Satiro, vita di Euripide," SCO 13.

. 1977. "Fra erudizione e biografia," SCO 26: 13-67. Bearzot, C. 1985. Focione tra storia e trasfigurazione ideale. Milan. . 1993.

"Introduzione"

to Focione,

in Bearzot,

Geiger

and

Ghilli

(1993)

91-152. . 1993. Geiger, J. and

L. Ghilli, eds. Plutarco. Vite Parallele: Focione-Catone

Uticense. Milan. Brown, T.S. 1949. Onesicritus: A Study in Hellenistic Historiography.

Berkeley /Los

55 Geiger (1985) and more recently Geiger (1998); contrast Moles' review (1989) 229-233 of Geiger (1985).

# On the novelty of Plutarch's biographical approach see Scardigli (1995) 17.

MAKING SOME SENSE OF PLUTARCH

53

Angeles. Blamire, A. 1989. Plutarch: Life of Kimon. Somerset. Bollansée, J. 1999a. Hermippos of Symrna and His Biographical Writings: A Reappraisal. Leuven.

. 1999b. Hermippos of Symrna FGrHist. IV A 3. Leiden. Brink, K.O. 1946. "Callimachus and Aristotle: An inquiry into Callimachus' IIPOZ IIPAZIDANHN," CQ 40: 11-12. Conte, G.B. 1994. Genres and Readers: Lucretius, Love Elegy, Pliny's Encyclopedia. Trans. G. Most. Italian Original 1991. Baltimore.

Cook, B.L. 2002. "Theopompos not Theophrastos: Correcting an attribution in Plutarch's Demosthenes 14.1," AJP 121: 537-547.

Cooper, C. 1995. "Hyperides and the trial of Phryne," Phoenix 49: 303—318. . 2000. "Philosopher, politics, Academics: Demosthenes' rhetorical reputation in antiquity," in Worthington (2000) 224-245.

. 2002. “Aristoxenos, Περὶ βίων and Peripatetic biography," Mouseion III, 2:

307-339. Dihle, A. 1956. Studien zur griechischen Biographie. Abandlungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften Góttingen, Philologisch-Historische Klasse 37. Góttingen. Dover, KJ. 1988. "Anecdotes, gossip and scandal," in The Greeks and their Legacy: Collected Papers Volume II: Prose Literature, History, Society, Transmission, Influence. Oxford. Duff, T. 1999. Plutarch's Lives: Exploring Virtue and Vice. Oxford.

Fairweather, J. 1983. "Traditional narrative, inference and truth in the Lives of

Greek poets," Papers of the Liverpool Latin Seminar 4: 315-369. Finley, M, ed. 1981. The Legacy of Greece: A New Appraisal. Oxford. Flory, S. 1990. "The meaning of τὸ μὴ μυθῶδες (1.22.4) and the usefulness of Thucydides' History," C] 85: 193-208.

Flower, M.A. 1994. Theopomous of Chios: History and Rhetoric in the Fourth Century BC. Oxford. Frost, F.J. 1980. Plutarch's Themistocles. Princeton.

. 1984. "Plutarch and Theseus," CB 60: 65-73. Gallo, I. 1967. "La vita di Euripide di Satiro e gli studi sulla biografia antica," PP 22: 134-160. . 1968. Una Nuova Biografia di Pindaro. Salerno. Geiger, J. 1985. Cornelius

Nepos

and Ancient

Political Biography. Historia

Ein-

zelschrift 47. Wiesbaden. . 1988. "Nepos and Plutarch: From Latin to Greek political biography,"

ICS 13.2: 245-256. Gentili, B. and G. Cerri. 1988. History and Biography in Ancient Thought. Amster-

dam. Gomme, A.W. 1956: A Historical Commentary on Thucydides, 1. Oxford. Hamilton, J.R. 1999. Plutarch: Alexander. Bristol’. Helmbold, W.C. and ΕΝ. O’Neil. 1959. Plutarch's Quotations. London. Holden, H.A. 1893. Plutarch's Life of Demosthenes. Cambridge.

Jones, C.P. 1966. "Towards a chronology of Plutarch's works," JRS 56: 61-74. . 1971. Plutarch and Rome. Oxford.

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Kraus, C.S., ed. 1999. The Limits of Historiography: Genre and Narrative in Ancient Historical Texts. Aporemata: Kritische Studien zur Philologiegeschichte 1. Góttingen Lefkowitz, M. 1976. "Fictions in literary biography: The new poem and the Archilochus legend," Arethusa 9: 181-189. . 1978. "Poet as hero: Fifth-century autobiography and subsequent biographical fiction," CQ n.s. 28: 459—469. . 1979. "The Euripides Vita," GRBS 20: 187-210. . 1980. “Autobiographical fiction in Pindar," HSCP 84: 29-49. . 1981. The Lives of the Greek Poets. London. Leo, F. 1901. Die griechisch-rómische Biographie nach ihrer literarischen Form. Leip-

zig. . 1960a. "Satyros BIOX EYPITHAOY,” Ausgewählte Kleine Schriften, Il, 32:

365-383 . 1960b. "Zu Satyros BIOZ

ΕΥ̓ΡΙΠΙΔΟΥ͂," Ausgewahlte Kleine Schriften, 11,

33: 385—386. . 1960c. "Didymos ΠΕΡῚ ΔΗΜΟΣΘΕΝΟΥΣ," Ausgewählte Kleine Schriften, ΤΙ,

34: 387-394. Marincola, J. 1997. Authority and Tradition in Ancient Historiography. Cambridge. . 1999, "Genre, convention and innovation in Greco-Roman

historiogra-

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Momigliano, A. 1981. "History and biography," in Finley (1981) 155-183. . 1993. The Development of Greek Biography. Cambridge, MA / London’. Most, G.W., ed. 1997. Collecting Fragments. Aporemata: Kritische Studien zur Philologiegeschichte 1.Góttingen Pearson, L. 1983. The Lost Histories of Alexander the Great. Repr. Chico. Pelling, C. 1979. "Plutarch's method of work in the Roman Lives," JHS 99: 74-96, repr. in Pelling (2002) 1-44.

. 1980. "Plutarch's adaptation of his source-material,” JHS 100: 127-140, repr. in Pelling (2002) 91-115. . 1984. "Plutarch on the Gallic Wars," CB 60: 88-103. . 1990. "Truth and fiction in Plutarch’s Lives," in Russell (1990) 19-52,

repr. in Pelling (2002) 143-170. . 1992. "Plutarch and Thucydides," in Stadter (1992) 10—40, repr. in Pelling (2002) 117-141.

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. 2002. Plutarch and History. London Pfeiffer, R. 1968. History of Classical Scholarship, 1. Oxford. Rosenmeyer, T.G. 1985. "Ancient literary genres: A mirage," Yearbook of Comparative and General Literature 34: 74-84. Russell, D.A.

1966. "On

reading Plutarch's Lives," G&R

13: 137-154, repr. in

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Scardigli (1995) 75-94. . 1973. Plutarch. Bristol. , ed. 1990. Antonine Literature. Oxford.

Scardigli, B., ed. 1995. Essays on Plutarch's Lives. Oxford. Schepens, G. 1997. "Jacoby's FGrHist: Problems, methods, prospects," in Most (1997) 144-172.

Shrimpton, G. 1991. Theopompus the Historian. Montreal / Kingston. Stadter, P.A. 1965. Plutarch's Historical Methods. Cambridge, MA.

. 1989. A Commentary on Plutarch's Pericles. Chapel Hill/ London. . 1992. Plutarch and the Historical Tradition. London/ New York. Stoltz, C. 1929. "Zur relativen Chronologie der Parallelbiographien. Lund. Stuart, D.A. 1928. Epochs of Greek and Roman Biography. Berkely / Los Angeles. Theander, C. 1951. Plutarch und die Geschichte. Lund. Tritle, L.A. 1988. Phocion the Good. London / NewYork /Sydney. . 1992. "Plutarch's 'Life of Phocion': An analysis and critical report," ANRW II 3.6: 4258-4297. Walbank,

F.W.

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AN EARLY BRONZE AGE FINDGROUP FROM ELEUSIS MICHAEL B. COSMOPOULOS Until recently, the earliest stratified remains at Eleusis were the MH houses discovered in 1930 and 1931 by George Mylonas in the southwestern slope of the hill.’ The University of Manitoba excavations at the

site in 1995 brought to light an unexpected find that allows us to push back the origins of human habitation at Eleusis by several centuries: a

closed group of EH pottery, dating back to the middle of the third millennium B.C. In this paper I present the findgroup in detail, in an effort

to shed some light on the earliest phases of occupation of this important site. STRATIGRAPHY

The University of Manitoba excavations at Eleusis were conducted in 1994 and 1995 as part of the Eleusis Archaeological Project, an interdisciplinary research program whose purpose is to study and publish the finds from the old excavations at Eleusis. The excavations, directed by

the present writer, were carried out on behalf of the Athens Archaeological Society and funded by the University of Manitoba and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada? Three trenches were τς. Mylonas, Prehistoric Eleusis (Athens 1932) 17-29 (in Greek).

? | would like to thank Drs. Theodora Karagiorga and Liana Parlama, Ephors of the Third Ephoreia of Antiquities and the Board of the Athens Archaeological Society for the excavation permit. Special thanks are due to Mrs. Kalliope Papaggeli, Epimeletria of Eleusis, for her kind help with numerous practical problems in connection with the dig. Many thanks are also due to Professor Rory Egan, Head of the Department of Classics, University of Manitoba, for his unfailing support of the Eleusis project. The field team consisted of Professor Haskel Greenfield, Depart-

ment of Anthropology, University of Manitoba (faunal analysis, flotation), Dr.

Deborah Ruscillo Cosmopoulos (marine remain analysis), Professor Larry Stene, Department of Geography, the University of Manitoba (geological and geophysical investigations), Ms. Bretta Gerecke, University of Alberta (architectural drawing, photography), Ms. Karen Howard, DHO Design (artifact drawing), and Mr. Chris Mundigler, InCA Research Services (architectural drawing). The botanical remains

were studied by Professor Thomas Shay, Department of Anthropology, and Professor Jennifer Shay, Department of Botany, the University of Manitoba. Ceramic 57

58

MICHAEL B. COSMOPOULOS

Q EU tindgroup

Fig. 1

opened in 1994 and two trenches in 1995 at a distance of 14 m to the west of the New Museum,’ in an area that George Mylonas had left unexcavated for future archaeological excavations (Fig. 1). The excavation folsamples were sent to NCSR Demokritos for scientific analyses under the supervision of Dr. Basileios Kilikoglou. In 1995 the following students participated in the excavation: Desiree Single, Stephanie Middagh, Scarlett Ballantyne, Debbie Edwards, Jean-Paul Grondin, and Kirk Hutton. I would like to express my warmest thanks to each and every member of the team for their hard work and enthusiasm. Abbreviations used in this paper: EH: Early Helladic, MH: Middle Helladic. All elevations are taken from the datum point. ? Excavation

reports: "The

1994 season of the Eleusis excavations,"

Proceedings

(Praktika) of the Athens Achaeological Society (1994) 45-60 (in Greek); "The University of Manitoba excavation at Eleusis, 1994 season," EMC n.s. 14 (1995) 75-94; "Recher-

ches sur la stratigraphie préhistorique d'Eleusis" EMC n.s. 15 (1996) 1-26; “The 1995 season of the Eleusis excavations," Proceedings (Praktika) of the Athens Achaeological Society (1995) 33-49 (in Greek); "The University of Manitoba excavations at Eleusis,” Archaeological Institute of America, 96th Annual Meeting, Atlanta, 27-30

December 1994 (abstract published in AJA 99 [1995] 341). For the MH

period at Ele-

usis see id., "Eleusi nell'età del Bronzo Medio,” in R. de Marinis, A.-M. BiettiSestieri, R. Peroni, and Carlo Peretto, eds., Proceedings of the XIII International Con-

gress of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Sciences, Forli, Italy, 8-14 September 1996. Vol. 4 (Forli 1998) 195-200. For chemical analyses of Bronze Age pottery from Eleusis see

M. Cosmopoulos, V. Kilikoglou, I. Whitbread, and E. Kiriazi, “Physicochemical analyses of Bronze Age pottery from Eleusis,” in P. Betancourt, V. Karageorghis, W.D. Niemeier, and R. Laffineur, eds., Meletemata. Studies in Aegean Archaeology Presented to Malcolm H. Wiener. Aegaeum 20, Annales d'archéologie égéenne de l'Université

de Liége et UT-Pasp (Liege 1999) 131-137.

AN EARLY BRONZE AGE FIND GROUP FROM ELEUSIS

59

lowed natural stratigraphy, distinct features of which were termed loci. The EH findgroup was found in locus 17 of trench 2, at a depth of 2.50 m from

datum,

directly under

the early MH

wall n, under a

thin layer of

ashes and carbonized remains of wood. At that point, the bedrock forms two long and narrow cavities (top level at a depth of 2.20 m, depth of cavities

0.25-0.32

m),

running

in

an

east-west

(a)

and

northeast-

southwest (8) direction (Fig. 2). The EH finds were discovered in cavity fj, which was filled with moist and soft, dark, reddish brown (5 YR 3/3)

soil.

Fig. 2

THE FINDGROUP

The findgroup consists of 40 sherds of various types and fabrics. The vases to which the EH sherds belong are utilitarian everyday vases, well known from other EH sites. The most common type is the sauceboat, which is the most typical EH II shape. It is represented at Eleusis by thirteen sherds: they are all handmade, of clean, good quality and hardfired clay, very pale brown (10YR 8/3), reddish yellow (7.5YR 8/6), 7.5YR 8/4), or pale brown

(7.5YR 6/4). Some sherds have a few lime in-

clusions or silver mica. Their surfaces are covered with a red or black Urfirnis glaze, or are slipped and polished, or have a blueish slip (the socalled faience-ware). The glaze is thick and soapy or thin with cracks (Fig. 3:3). In the latter case, it has traces of the brush used for the coating.

One of the fragments (Fig. 3:1) preserves remains of linear geometric de-

60

MICHAEL B. COSMOPOULOS

signs on the outside surface of the spout, a feature common in the Cyclades.‘ The long and wide spout of the same fragment would seem to indicate a relatively early date, as it is more common in the early phases of Lerna III? On the other hand, the short, wide spouts with sharply everted rims suggest a later date (Fig. 3:2).5 The fragments with a thin glaze of bad quality, which tends to crack (e.g Fig. 3:3), seem also to date

to the latter part of the period. The fragments of bowls are made of hard fired, pink to brown clay.

Their walls are 0.4-0.7 cm thick. Two of them are covered with a thick, good quality black glaze, an indication of an early EH II date. The third has a burnished outside surface on which traces of the burnishing tool are still visible. Bowls are extremely common throughout the Early Bronze Age Aegean and in EH II they usually have curved bodies and

in-curving rims." The fragments of tankards are made of clean, hard fired, reddish yellow clay. Their walls are 0.5-0.6 cm thick. Their surfaces are covered

with black glaze, on which linear patterns in white matt paint have been executed. The tankard is an Anatolian shape which appears in the tran* C. Zervos, L'Art des Cyclades de début à la fin de l'Age du Bronze, 2500-1100 avant

notre Ére (Paris 1957) fig. 152.

$ M. Heath-Wiencke, Lerna IV. The Architecture, Ill. American School of Classical Studies at Athens Early Helladic Period in the Argolid,” Hesperia 29 “Lerna III Pottery: Chronological development and

Stratification, and Pottery of Lerna (2000) 584—592; J. Caskey, “The (1960) 290; M. Heath-Wiencke, context,” paper delivered at the

88th Annual Meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America, Dec. 27-30, 1986,

San Antonio (I would like to thank Dr. Wiencke for providing me with a copy of her paper). Cf. C.W. Blegen, Korakou, A Prehistoric Settlement near Corinth. American

School of Classical Studies at Athens (Boston/New York 1921) fig. 6; id., Zygouries. American

School

of Classical Studies

at Athens

(Boston/New

York

1928)

fig.

79:115; E.A. Smith, “Prehistoric pottery from the Isthmia,” Hesperia 24 (1955) 145; G.E. Mylonas, Aghios Kosmas. An Early Bronze Age Settlement and Cemetery in Attica (Princeton 1959) fig. 158:228. For the Cyclades see Ch. Tsountas, "Kykladika IL" Archaeologike Ephemeris (1899) pl. 9.8 (= Zervos [above, n. 4] figs. 152, 190); G. Papathanassopoulos, "Kykladika Naxou," Archaeologikon Deltion 17.A (1961—62) color plate B. * C.W. Blegen, Zygouries, A Prehistoric Settlement in the Valley of Cleonae (Cambridge, MA 1928) 87; Mylonas (above, n. 5) 121; Caskey (above, n. 5) 289; H. Walter and E. Felten, Alt-Agina, III.1. Die Vorgeschichtliche Stadt (Mainz 1981) 94. ? Caskey (above, n. 5) 290, fig. 1:A; Walter and Felten (above, n. 6) 98, fig. 89 and

pl. 86:146; Mylonas (above, n. 5) 68:C-4, fig. 157:238; D. Theochares, “Excavations in Raphena," Praktika (1953) fig. 9 (left) (in Greek); A. Sampson, Manika I, An Early Helladic Settlement in Chalcis (Athens 1985) 273, fig. 62a:19 (in Greek). Similar types appear in Crete: P. Warren, Myrtos. An Early Bronze Age Settlement in Crete. British

School of Archaeology at Athens (London 1972) fig. 48:P133; and in Troy: C.W. Blegen et al., Troy 1 (Princeton 1950) 226:A12, fig. 377:35.603.

AN EARLY BRONZE AGE FIND GROUP FROM ELEUSIS

61

Fig. 3

sitional Kastri/Lefkandi I phase in the Cyclades and on Euboia, and ends up in the Early Bronze Age 3 on the Mainland? The light-on-dark decoration (e.g. Fig. 3:4) seems

to have been more common

in the Cen-

tral Mainland than in the Peloponnese, where dark-on-light patterned wares appear much more often.” The limited distribution of light-on-

dark pottery in Attica constitutes a puzzle," but the absence of light-ondark decoration would indicate that Eleusis was in the Central Mainland rather than the Peloponnesian sphere of influence. Some coarse sherds belong to storage vessels, but it is difficult to determine their shapes: the bigger one may have belonged to a pithos or a large jar. They are made of coarse, gritty, reddish to yellow and unevenly fired clay. Both bear plastic bands decorated with diagonal incisions, a very common decoration in the Early Bronze Age."

δ}. Rutter, Ceramic Change in the Aegean Early Bronze Age. Institute of Archaeology, UCLA, Occasional Paper 5 (Los Angeles 1979) 6. ? Rutter (above, n. 8) 13. See the discussion in Rutter (above, n. 8) 16 and n. 40.

" Cf. e.g. Blegen (above, n. 5, 1928) pl. 1:1; Mylonas (above, n. 5) figs. 117:10, 118:12-17.

62

MICHAEL B. COSMOPOULOS

ELEUSIS AND THE AEGEAN IN THE EH PERIOD

Although sparse EH sherds had at various times been spotted at Eleusis," they were sporadic surface finds of unknown provenance. The findgroup discovered in 1995 is the first concrete evidence for use of the site in the third millennium B.C. Still, however,

the EH material from

Eleusis remains too small and fragmentary for us to derive any meaning-

ful conclusions about the extent and nature of human habitation on the site. The fact that both early and late EH II sherds have been found could

suggest a long occupation in the period; on the present evidence we can not know whether the EH III sherds indicate continuity or reoccupation of the site.

In general, the third millennium B.C. is a period of intensive developments. Attica seems to have been densely populated, as a considerable number of Early Bronze Age sites are known." For the EH II, which is

better represented by the sherds, the known settlements yield a density of 8.9 settlements per 1,000 km?, which is the highest in Central Greece after the Argolid and Corinthia. The majority of the settlements (more than 80% of the known EH II settlements) are located on low hills or mounds, with access to light soil, fertile lands and good grazing fields; coastal locations are preferred (52%), as they provide access to marine resources. Often a strategic location is selected, commanding a mountain pass or a trade route or a sea channel. The overall settlement pattern in Attica seems to consist of small agricultural settlements All these fea-

tures apply to Eleusis. The settlement is located on the south slope of the hill, it has access to the rich agricultural resources and grazing fields of the Thriasian plain, and commands the route from Athens to Megara as well as the sea pass of Salamis. Accordingly, it has all the typical characteristics of the EH settlements. Only one other EH settlement is known in the immediate area: it is a small agricultural installation, approxi-

mately 1300 m to the northwest of the site, recently discovered by Mrs. Kalliope Papaggeli, Epimelitria of Antiquities of Eleusis. Papaggeli be-

lieves that more such installations could be found in the area, something that would agree with the settlement pattern in various areas of Greece, where clusters of settlements appear. In general, Attica in EH II seems to have maintained close relations not only with mainland Greece, but also with the Cyclades.

The size of the EH settlement is impossible to assess. The sizes of other contemporary settlements in Attica range from 0.5 to 2 ha, and we could "2 Mylonas (above, n. 1) 59-62. ? More than forty sites can be dated to the Early Bronze Age, the majority of which date to the EH II.

AN EARLY BRONZE AGE FIND GROUP FROM ELEUSIS

63

perhaps assume for Eleusis a maximum of 2 ha. The function of the earliest settlement at Eleusis poses another problem. Although the absence of architectural remains may suggest parochial rather than permanent habi-

tation, we have to consider the serious destruction of the earliest buildings by later constructions. Furthermore, analogies to other EH settlements with similar location and natural resources, as well as the long period of occupation suggested by the sherds, may be indications of permanent set-

tlement. Other contemporary sites with such natural advantages as access to arable lands and marine resources are known to have had both agri-

cultural and commercial activities, and Eleusis could have been another link in the chain of such EH settlements along the coasts of Attica.

EROS, ELOQUENCE AND ENTOMO-PSYCHOLOGY IN PLATO'S PHAEDRUS! RORY EGAN

In his palinode to Eros Socrates anticipates his surreal and figurative ac-

count of the soul by noting the need to use similitude (6 δὲ ἔοικεν, 24625) to represent that which only a divinity could describe with complete accuracy. At the end of the palinode, he remarks on the poetic language that he has been constrained to use (257a5-6). The palinode's disquisition on the soul is thus bracketed with reminders that it is based on the inherently imperfect resources of figurative expression and human experience. This essay attempts to show how Socrates applies specific

perceptible phenomena to his metaphorical description of unobservable psychic processes while also, with consummate, self-subverting irony

investing those phenomena with the voice of divinity. The same phenomena, moreover, will be seen to apply to poetic and rhetorical activi-

ties in other parts of the dialogue. The strongest clue, but hardly the only one, to the operation of those phenomena is in the following sequence (258e6-259d9). Socrates. It does seem that we have the time for it, and besides that the cicadas, as they sing and converse with one another in the stifling heat above our heads, seem to be observing us. So if they should see us, like the ordinary run of people at noon-time, not engaging in discourse but nodding off and being bewitched by them in our mental sluggishness, they would be quite right to ridicule us, concluding that we are a couple of louts who

have come into their retreat to spend the noon-time sleeping beside the

spring like sheep. If, though, they should see us busy in discourse and sailing past them, immune as it were to their charms as Sirens, they might unstintingly grant us that privilege which they are empowered by the gods to bestow on humans. Phaedrus. Just what is this that they have? I don't believe that I have ! Parts of this paper were sketched out in Egan (1994) 22-23 and/or presented

to audiences at the meeting of the Classical Association of the Middle West and South, Minneapolis (April, 1985) and at the University of Manitoba Institute for the Humanities (March, 1991). 1 am grateful to several auditors, notably Edmund

Berry, for their comments on those occasions, also to Mark Joyal for guiding and

correcting me in the preparation of the present version. 65

66

RORY EGAN actually heard of it. Socrates. It is not at all right that you, a person so devoted to the Muses, have not heard of a thing like this! Anyway, the story is that these creatures were human beings before the Muses had come into existence. Then, when the Muses came to be and singing was invented, some of them were so overwhelmed with enjoyment that, singing away, they neglected food and drink and inadvertently brought about their own death. Following that the race of cicadas sprang from them. They received from the Muses the privilege of existing without any need for nourishment,

doing nothing apart from singing, without food or drink, until they die. At that time they are to come to the Muses and to report to them on which people here honour which one of them. So they particularly endear to Terpsichore those whom they report on for having honoured her in their dancing; and so to Erato those who have honoured her in love poetry. The same goes for the others according to their particular forms of honour—to the eldest Kalliope, and to the next one, Ourania they report on those people who occupy their lives with philosophy and with honouring the expertise of those Muses who are, indeed, the ones who send forth the most pleasant of utterances pertaining to heavenly matters and the discourses of gods and men. There are, then, a good many reasons indeed why we must converse at mid-day, and not sleep.

This “interlude” or "intermezzo," as it is routinely called? occurs at an

important transitional point, shortly after the conclusion of the three speeches on Eros (one by Lysias through Phaedrus and two by Socrates) and near the beginning of the dialogue on rhetoric; at a point, in fact, where the interlocutors are trying to decide whether or not to pursue that discussion. This is actually the second occurrence of the cicadas in the dialogue, for they had been mentioned near the beginning (230c2) as Socrates and Phaedrus approached the idyllic setting of their discourse in an atmo-

sphere resounding with the chorus of the cicadas. (This initial reference to the cicadas as a "chorus" assumes more significance as the dialogue proceeds) Anyone who has been close to a treeful of cicadas at midday—as all of Plato's contemporaries and compatriots must have been—

will appreciate how conspicuous a feature of the ambience the sound of the insects must have been. It is hardly a matter of a few intermittent chirps and twitters in the background, but rather a loud and incessant din dominating the acoustic environment.’ A third reference to the insects occurs at 262d4 where Socrates attributes the composition of his two speeches to the local divinities and to the inspiration of the prophets of the Muses (μουσῶν προφῆται), namely the cicadas who are singing in the plane tree above him. From this it is clear that as intermediaries of the Muses the cicadas work in 2 Recently, e.g., by Reale (1998) LIV; Gotshalk (2001) 198-203.

3 Davies and Kathirithamby (1986) 116-117 quote several modern descriptions.

EROS, ELOQUENCE AND ENTOMO-PSYCHOLOGY

67

two directions. They not only report to the Muses on the activities of humans; they also communicate inspiration from the Muses to humans, as Socrates also hints in his quasi-epic invocation of the Muses at the beginning of his first speech on Eros (2377-8). There, after describing them with Alyeuu, a conventional poetic epithet for sweet singers, he offers what

might appear to be an unmotivated etymological digression. His suggestion that they are called λίγειαι because they come from a race of Ligyans (Λιγύων) inevitably recalls the cognate Atyupóv (230c2) used earlier of the cicada chorus. The effect of drawing special attention to the

term is to anticipate the explicit linking of the Muses with the cicadas,‘ the agents credited with authorship of both speeches. The Muses are invoked at the outset, the cicadas acknowledged at the conclusion. I shall presently argue that the inspired words of the cicadas, as communicated by Socrates in his palinode, include in the figurative description of the winged soul what is in effect a self-description of the cicadas.

In so intricately constructed a work as the Phaedrus, where features of the setting are given extraordinary attention a single reference to these creatures, let alone three of them at important junctures, is unlikely to be gratuitous or incidental. So the cicadas are to be seen as a vital and systemic

feature of the dialogue, enmeshed in one way or another with all of its diverse major themes. It is not nowadays as unusual as it once was to see

the cicadas implicated in the dialogue's philosophical content. Over the long history of modern scholarship on the Phaedrus, though, there have been many whose simplistic or dismissive comments on the passage about

the insects imply that they read it as a non-essential diversion. Others seem to have been lulled into a reticence that is at odds with the creature's strident and insistent loquacity and its prominence in the dialogue. A potential

antidote to all of that appeared seventy years ago with the publication of Robin's Budé edition and his expansive introductory observations on the

cicada myth.’ That seminal essay, despite significant advances by scholars such as Capra,’ remains one of the most discerning studies of the topic. Since it elaborates major aspects of the cicadas' structural and thematic

integration into the dialogue that underlie the present study, I attempt a * Ct. Zaslavsky (1981) 67; Gottfried (1993) 188; Petropoulos (1994) 84. On the

adjective applied to cicadas see also Davies and Kathirithamby (1986) 117-118; Beavis (1988) 95 and 101.

5 See e.g. Motte (1971) 33; Griswold (1986) 17-44; Ferrari (1987) 1-36; Górgemanns (1993); Capra (2000) 229-231. $ Cf. criticism of earlier treatments by Nawratil (1972) 157 n. 1; Yamuza

(1986)

125-126. ? Robin (1933) xxxvi-xxxvii and cxii-cxiv; (1985) xIvii-xlix and cxxxiii- cxxxvii. 8 Capra (2000).

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RORY EGAN

brief survey of them here. As analogues to the cicadas Robin cites passages from the Phaedo and the

Symposium which represent the philosopher as indifferent to bodily concerns and the material world in general? The cicadas, then, are paradigms of the philosopher and servants of the Muses including, significantly, Kalliope and Ourania as Muses of philosophy." This role for the two Muses traditionally associated, respectively, with epic poetry and astrono-

my clearly places philosophy among the activities under surveillance by the cicadas. Noting Socrates' remark that he is at this point using epic diction (ἔπη, 241e1), Robin recognizes Kalliope as the link between epic and

philosophy. This, by inference, gives the philosopher Socrates interests in common with the cicadas and the appropriate Muses. Socrates, without making that relationship explicit, does express the hope that the Muses will accord

to him

and

Phaedrus

the same

privilege (yépac,

259c3)

as that

(γέρας, 259b1) which they have given to the cicadas. Robin supports his perception of this relationship by likening the cicadas to the swans to whom

Socrates

explicitly

compares

himself

in the

Phaedo

(84e3-85b3),

noting that he is happy as he faces death confident of having, like the swans, played out a role as a prophet and servant of Apollo. Robin also

compares the cicadas to the swans in terms of their pivotal function in the structure of the dialogue. Just as the swan episode returns the Phaedo to its opening Apollinian theme, so the cicada episode, following the second and more elaborate discourse on love, brings the interlocutors back to the still

unfinished subject of rhetoric. They resume discussion of rhetoric with a broader, more elevated, perspective on its connections with eros and the

soul. At the point of entry, then, into a new section of the dialogue, the cicadas and the Muses forge a tight connection with the earlier sections while also setting the goal clearly in sight." Robin's analysis was virtually ignored for about half a century until,

whether by coincidence or not, the years following the re-publication of his Notice in the new Budé edition of 1985 brought a spate of studies initiating,

or repeating, variations on the theme of the pivotal role of the cicadas. These even include a book that accords the insects the dignity of a title

role." Given Robin's work and the more recent proliferation of critical ? Robin (1985) cxxxiii-cxxxiv.

V Robin (1985) xlvii-xlviii. On the ranking of the Muses cf. Yamuza

(1986)

124.

" Robin (1985) xlviii-xlix. 2 Isebaert (1985); Griswold

(1986) 165-168

and passim;

Yamuza

(1986)

122-126; Ferrari (1987) 26-30 and passim; Benardete (1991) 162-163; Górgemanns (1993); Gottfried (1993); White (1993) 183-190 with a useful survey of earlier commentary; Capra (2000); Gotshalk (2001) 199-203; Geier (2002) 184-185.

EROS, ELOQUENCE AND ENTOMO-PSYCHOLOGY

69

attention it might be difficult to imagine how anything further could be claimed for a passage which, on a quick or superficial reading, has some-

times seemed trivial and otiose. On the other hand, all of the attention has created a critical climate that invites further speculation. In joining the

swelling chorus of those who recognize the importance of the cicadas, I shall be proposing that their allusive significance radiates even further and more deeply than has so far been noticed. This will involve exploring phonostylistic and other figurative aspects of the dialogue which derive from the domain of empirical entomology. The process will sometimes lead away from my predecessors on points of detail and emphasis, particularly

from those who see the story of the cicadas as primarily a negative or pejorative exemplum." In general, though, it will be convergent with almost all of them in recognizing that the literary appreciation of the vehicle is helpful, perhaps even essential, to the appreciation of the philosophical content." A necessary propaideutic is a review of salient characteristics of the cicada, both in nature and in literature and lore outside of the Phaedrus. A selective catalogue of fact and belief will acquaint the modern reader with

the sort of background knowledge that Plato might plausibly have assumed on the part of his reader. Without at all suggesting specific sources or models this will indicate that the cicada myth, even if it is, as generally supposed, a Platonic invention,” is based on data whose familiarity ad-

vances an understanding of the myth itself and its allusive extensions through the dialogue. A case in point is the simile at Iliad 3.150-53 where the old men and excellent orators (ἀγορηταὶ ἐσθλοί) on the wall at Troy are compared to cicadas singing in a tree. In order to relate the Homeric simile to the Platonic myth it is not necessary to suppose, as Boehme did, that the former indicates a much earlier existence of the actual story told by Plato's

Socrates, but it is quite probable that in a dialogue largely devoted to the subject of rhetoric and featuring a cicada myth there should be some evocation of a familiar literary comparison between accomplished rhetoricians and cicadas. The Homeric passage, then, is a single element in a great

reservoir of cicada fact and lore that was the common cultural inheritance of Plato and his readers. Readers who knew the entomological code could spontaneously grasp much of the symbolic significance of the myth that Zaslavsky (1981) 63-72 anticipated the trend.

? Cf. Capra (2000) 225. ^ On the generality of this point for Platonic interpretation cf. Rutherford

(1985) ix.

5 So, e.g., Frutiger (1930) 233; Vicaire (1972) 40; Karadagli (1981) 183-184;

Brillante (1987) 62; Droz (1992) 200; Heitsch (1997) 125-126. 16 Boehme (1954) 52-54.

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RORY EGAN

seems to have eluded modern readers. The Platonic cicadas carry numerous reminiscences of the religious and eschatological beliefs and folkloric traditions of diverse peoples and places." They are among

the various insects with conspicuous metamor-

phoses to be associated with the human soul. In Greece itself, where the very word psyche could mean both butterfly and soul, entomo-psychology

was something of a cultural fixture. The cicada is also one of several insects widely known as symbols of resurrection, immortality, metempsychosis or renewable youth.? Greek literature and material culture offer several tes-

timonia to such beliefs in the preternatural attributes of the insect? Some of these, but by no means all, have to do with the myth of the immortalized Tithonus.? So, for example, the carved models of cicada nymphs (that is,

the still un-winged form) found in Bronze Age graves at Mycenae suggest a magical, or symbolic, connection with re-birth.? According to the Hieroglyphica (2.55) of Horapollo, a Greek Egyptian writing in the fourth century,

a cicada hieroglyph represented someone who had been initiated into the mysteries—pvotixdv xai τελεστήν. This in itself has eschatological implications of possible relevance to the cicadas in the Phaedrus given the conspicuous strain of telestic allusion and imagery in the dialogue.”

Early Christians applied the cicada, its metamorphosis and ethology, in various poetic and symbolic functions: to represent, for instance, the resur-

rection of Christ and the rebirth of humans through baptism.” Ancient Chinese custom and belief saw the cicada, like the snake, as a model of renewed vitality, of immortality or the afterlife and as a paradigm of the soul

freed from the restricting confines of its body? This latter notion would be 7 Cf. the brief observations of Karadagli (1981) 188.

8 For a broad and brief survey see Siganos (1985) 66-71 with references to earlier literature. 19 See e.g. Davies and Kathirithamby (1986) 99-100, 103-107.

? Selected examples in Siganos (1985) passim.

21 See Bodson (1978) 16-21; Davies and Kathirithamby (1986) 124; Beavis (1988) 99 and 103; Brillante (1987) 84—87; Cattabiani (2000) 75-77. 2 On this myth and beliefs about the cicada see Brillante (1987) with earlier literature cited. 3 Cf. Brillante (1987) 84-85 with earlier literature cited there. ^ See Nelson (2000). On cicadas and the mysteries see also Cattabiani (2000)

75-77. 5 Gee Perlmer (1964) 282-290; Cattabiani (2000) 80-81. Asterius Sophistes, Hom.

XIV is an Eastertide sermon that elaborates an analogy between newly-baptized Christians and newly-emerged cicadas. | comment briefly on this sermon in Egan (1994) 25. 26 See e.g. Laufer (1912) 301; Waterbury (1942) 83-85; Kóster (1958) 93; Eberhard

EROS, ELOQUENCE AND ENTOMO-PSYCHOLOGY

71

quite at home in Plato, and indeed in the Phaedrus where the image of an oyster confined in its shell (250c6) serves the same purpose (even as it activates and reinforces cicadine allusions which are to be elaborated

below). One early Chinese philosopher even cites the metamorphosis of the cicada into its adult stage as a model of the vital spirit of a dead person leaving the body.” Another Chinese tradition tells of a queen who was transformed into a cicada after her death.” Similar traditions abound among indigenous peoples of the western hemisphere where grasshoppers

and cicadas have strong associations with the primeval world.” The Oraibi Indians of the American Southwest are reported to associate the cicada with immortality and resurrection because of observation of its life cycle.” Other comparanda to the affinities of Plato’s cicadas with humans include a Navajo emergence myth in which cicadas constituted one of twelve

original peoples beneath the earth and the first of them to emerge above the ground into the first world.” If this is to say that the cicadas are ancestors or antecedents of humans, then we have the reverse of what happens in the Platonic myth where the men are antecedent to the cicadas. Still, the com-

parison also reminds us that Plato’s compatriots, the ancient Athenians, saw the cicadas as a symbol of their own autochthonous, earth-born, ancestors.” Plato's conception of primordial humans going without food and drink must obviously be connected with the belief, frequently expressed in Greek literature, that the cicada has a meagre diet of dew and air, or just dew, or nothing at all? Cicadas are also proverbially associated with musical skill and with poetic and rhetorical eloquence in every phase and many genres

of Greek literature. In nature their singing has erotic purposes, and the coincidence of the male cicada's music-making with courtship and mating is easily observable. This, quite probably, accounts for the erotic associa(1970) 214, (1983) 312; Needham (1971) 544-545; Williams (1975) 71; Riegel (1981) 15-20.

? Wang Ch'ung cited by Laufer (1912) 301. % ? 9 ?!

See Eberhard (1970) 312. See Kevan (1983) 19-20. So Clausen (1954) 128. Kevan (1983) 19.

32 Cf. Beavis (1988) 97; Davies and Kathirithamby (1986) 125-126. 3 See Beavis (1988) 98-99; Davies and Kathirithamby (1986) 123-124. Rowe (1988) 194, commenting on Phdr. 259c, cites Arist. HA 532°10-13 for the notion that

cicadas feed only on dew and asks "Had Plato heard something of this?" Certainly it is attested in [Hes.] Sc. 393. ¥ See Davies and Kathirithamby (1986) 116-122; Beavis (1988) 101-102.

55 See e.g. Alexander (1960) 38-92; Leston and Pringle (1963) 392-401.

72

RORY EGAN

tions that the insects display in art and literature as well, particularly in the Hellenistic period Musicality and sexuality, then, give the insect two obvious points of symbolic relevance to a dialogue that contains no fewer

than three speeches on Eros and that uses those same speeches as background to a discussion of eloquence, both rhetorical and dialectic. Thus it is no exaggeration to say that the cicadas represent, in addition to philosophy and philosophers, two of the dialogue's predominant themes or subjects.” In addition to all that, a famous ode (probably itself from late antiquity), a locus classicus for the traditional attributes of the cicada, appears to present

the insect as a paradigm of a philosophical sage? and as a virtual divinity (σχεδὸν ef θεοῖς ὅμοιος, Anacreontea 34.18).

There is another, rather spectacular, feature of cicadine ethology which, although not so well represented in the ancient literary tradition, has been observed by both ancients and moderns. It makes the insects appropriate symbolic representatives of other prominent themes in the Phaedrus such as metempsychosis, the immortality and autokinesis of the soul, and anamnesis. The nymphs, after hatching from eggs deposited in tree branches, drop to the ground and immediately burrow underground to spend a period of months or years growing through several moults.? In time a much larger, though still wingless, insect emerges from the ground.” The next step is metamorphosis from the nymphal to the adult stage. Aristotle (HA 556*14*11, 601*6-10) offers brief but accurate observations on the cycle of pheno-

mena." For the present purposes the passages of the Historia Animalium serve to show that close observation of the insect's ethology was not only a

possibility but a reality in the fourth century (not that there is any reason to suppose that it might not have been”). For the following composite account I draw upon more detailed modern descriptions of the later phases in the insect’s

life-cycle,

some

by

professional

entomologists

and

some

by

popularizing writers.” The parenthetical numerals correspond to the stages % See Egan (1988) 25 n. 12.

? Cf. Capra (2000) 232-235. # See Dihle (1966). ? The length of the subterranean phase is 17 years for the North American Magicicada septendecim but unknown for most other species. *! Plato betrays some knowledge of the emergence of cicadas from under-

ground at Smp.191b7-c2 when he

has Aristophanes speak of the male cicadas

impregnating the earth.

*! Cf. Beavis (1988) 96. 2 On pre-Aristotelian entomology see Bodson (1983) 4.

9 See McCook (1909) 236-237; Fabre (1920) 42-57; Teale (1937) 126-127; Myers (1929) 122-127; Snodgrass (1930) 193-199; Verrill (1937) 42-47; Herbert (1960) 74-87; Beavis (1988) 96.

EROS, ELOQUENCE AND ENTOMO-PSYCHOLOGY

The Final Moulting and Wing Deployment of a Cicada (after Snodgrass [1930] 196)

73

74

RORY EGAN

in the final metamorphosis as numbered on the illustration.“ Within the span of a few minutes and the space of a few square yards hundreds or thousands of the insects have been observed emerging from the ground. As they emerge, often with mud adhering to their still intact exo-skeletons, they are wingless, as in the top row of drawings (1-4). After emergence the nymph crawls away to find some object such as a tree trunk to which, after performing what have been likened to grooming movements with its legs (2-4), it anchors its feet. The final moulting ensues when, under pressure from the moistened and fluid-swollen body, a slit opens up in the cuticle at the top and centre of the thorax (5). The insect executes a series of abdominal contractions accompanied by movements described as undulations, quiverings, twitchings or palpitations and by the

continued secretion of a moulting fluid beneath the exo-skeleton. As one entomologist puts it, the whole body becomes temporarily a large "secreting gland."* The slit soon widens as part of the moist, engorged,

almost white, body bulges out through the dark cuticle. Gradually the rest of the body extrudes itself (6-18), leaving the inert cuticle behind, still anchored in place (19). The objects that are eventually to be the insect's

wings are already visible beneath the cuticle before the actual ecdysis begins, appearing as small pads on the back, at the top and sides of the thorax (1-5). As the moulting continues these pulpy

little masses,

freed

from the constraining integument, gradually deploy as they become engorged with fluid (6-18). As is apparent in the illustration, though, the deployment of the wings is not complete until some time after complete

emergence from the cuticle (16-18). At this time, in contrast to the dark, now empty and immobile cuticle (19), the adult insect is still very pale in colouring over-all, the one conspicuously anomalous feature being its dark and protruding eyes. The wings take on their final form amid further palpitations and twitching as the insect gradually darkens in colour (20-21). Some observers, including Aristotle (HA 601*8-10), have seen

drops of fluid remaining, sometimes on the tips of the wings, after full deployment. At this point, when the insect is ready for the brief adult life that it devotes to eros and eloquence, the wings, when at rest, cover virtually the entire body from the head back (20-21). The final event in the life-cycle is of course the death of the now fully-winged insect.

“ The illustration is adapted from Snodgrass (1930) 196. For a photographic sequence of the ecdysis of another American species (Tibicen dorsata) see Line, Milne and Milne (1983) 54-55. There are many web-sites on cicadas, some with still

photographs or filmed sequences of cicadine ecdysis. Web-sites and their con-

tents, though, tend to be ephemeral. 45 Herbert (1960) 86.

EROS, ELOQUENCE AND ENTOMO-PSYCHOLOGY

75

With the foregoing description of emergence, ecdysis and wing deploy-

ment in mind we can return to the Phaedrus and specifically to the context of the "myth of the cicadas,” recalling that it is presented shortly after Socrates' palinode to Eros, his second speech, with its strikingly elaborate imagery of the winged, self-moving, soul. The imagery of this "mythic hymn" (265c1), and the fact that the cicadas are dominating the scene of the dialogue, are fresh in the mind of the reader encountering the next myth about that earlier generation of men who, in their preoccupation with music, forgot to eat and drink, died, and were transformed into cicadas by

the Muses whom they thenceforth serve as agents and informants on the intellectual and expressive artistry of humans. All of this seems tantamount to saying that the cicadas are men who have transcended corporal needs so as to devote themselves to higher realities, that is that they have become analogous

to incorporeal

beings—that

they

are

souls.

The

figurative

equation of the cicadas with souls is actually noted by early interpreters such as lamblichus, albeit without any reference to cicadine ecdysis. lamblichus says that the men are souls who had once viewed the forms in the realm of the intelligible before entering the sensible world. It is, he says, their memory of the forms that led them to starve to death and to be elevated to their former state. lamblichus' views are preserved in the fifth-

century commentary on the Phaedrus by Hermeias who himself explicitly identifies the cicadas with "godly souls" as well as with daimones, heroes and gods, while also pointing out that the cicadas were believed to get

along without food, except for dew." The Renaissance Platonist Marsilio Ficino, citing Iamblichus and Hermeias, says that the music-loving men were transformed by the Muses into "demons" represented by cicadas. He

then identifies their return to the Muses with the recalling to the heavenly entities (ad celestia) of souls that have philosophized for a long time.“ The conceit of the cicada as both agent of the Muse and as soul of the human singer is actually

12.98.1). Modern

explicitly attested in an epigram

of Posidippos

(AP

interpreters, nevertheless, have generally ignored

the

earlier Platonists' identification of the cicadas as souls, even though the insect-as-soul is a commonplace Greek belief. It is, admittedly, a notion that must, even in the face of so much evidence internal and external to the dia-

logue, strike many a serious interpreter of philosophical texts as frivolously inappropriate. If the identification, though, is not entirely serious, so be it.

Plato, after all, has Socrates himself declare that much of what he has said

*6 lamb. in Phaedrum = Herm. in Phdr. 215.12-26.

47 Herm. In Phd. 213.14-16.; 214.25-2157; 216. 3-5. ** Marsilio Ficino, Commentum cum summis capitulorum 35 and 38.

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RORY EGAN

in the palinode was playful (265c2-3), and indeed much of the dialogue has

a certain ludic character.” As figurative souls, and souls with wings at that, the Platonic cicadas have much in common with the winged souls of the palinode. It must, in any case, be difficult for anyone—including, I hope, the reader who has reached this point in the present essay—with a knowledge of the emergence, ecdysis, and wing deployment of cicadas to read the multiple prominent and explicit references to cicadas without seeing allusions to the

same insects in other parts of the dialogue as well. This is particularly so with regard to the (cicada-inspired) palinode wherein Socrates describes the soul of the lover-philosopher. Although he appears to use quite a lot of bio-scientific terminology here,” his description is not in the simple expository style that we might expect an entomologist to use in recording empirical observations, but in the same diffuse, allusive and lyrical style

used in comparing the soul to a team of horses and a charioteer. I think in particular of several passages in which the wings of the soul are described. One of them is 251a2-d7 where the newly initiated individual gazes on a beautiful person. He begins to palpitate and perspire as an effluence from

the beloved enters through his eyes, flows over him, moistens the buds of his wings, softens the hard parts that had confined the wings and prevented them from growing, so that now the stalks of the wings grow from their roots until they cover the whole form of the soul. In the process, which is likened to the cutting of teeth, the entire soul, Socrates repeats, undergoes throbbing and palpitations until the softening moisture that flows from the beloved provides relief and allows the wings to grow. Much

the same imagery is repeated at 255c1-d3 where the emanation from the beloved flows in profusion onto the lover and into him, overflows out of him and back through the eyes of the beloved, revitalizes the veins of his wings and, even as it causes the wings of the soul to grow, fills it with love. The imagery of the winged souls of lovers recurs with variation at 256b3-e1

where it is said that those lovers in whom the tendency toward the wellordered life and philosophy has prevailed will be winged (ὑπόπτεροι) when they die, whereas those friends who have had a less exemplary and respectable existence will have souls that are still wingless when they leave

the body, even though their souls are on the way to becoming winged and, once having begun the upward journey, will never again have to pass into

the darkness under the earth. It is precisely from the darkness under the earth that the cicada, a model of the human soul as I am arguing, emerges on its way to becoming winged. # De Vries (1969) 18-22 with earlier literature; Rowe (1986) 119.

9! Cf. the scattered lexical observations of De Vries (1969) 153-157 on 151a-e

brought to my attention by M. Joyal.

EROS, ELOQUENCE AND ENTOMO-PSYCHOLOGY

77

The foregoing are what I consider the more striking instances of entomological imagery in the palinode inspired by the cicadas, but there are other places where such imagery is discernible. At 246c2-4, for instance, while discussing the soul's immortality, Socrates says that when the soul has lost its wings it is carried along until it settles on something solid, whereupon it assumes a terrestrial body which has the appearance of moving by its own power even though it is really the soul within the body that causes it to move. I refer again to the sequence of illustrations showing

the autokinetic insect that had once caused the integument to move, to all appearances on its own, before leaving it behind, immobile (19). This leaves us to surmise, with the aid of Socrates’ own words later on (at 249a1-b1),

that that soul, having served a long period in the places of adjustment beneath the earth, will re-emerge (just as the wingless cicada does), free itself from its mortal and inert body (just as the cicada emerges from its integu-

ment), and grow its wings. Then too, the vision of the soul in the train of the immortals moving beyond

the vault of heaven

to contemplate

the

hyper-ouranian realities (246e4-247c2) must also elicit recollections of the cicada in its last struggle (cf. the soul's πόνος te xai ἀγὼν ἔσχατος, 247b5)

emerging from beneath the earth onto another plane of experience where it is transformed from a wingless to a winged state.

To recognize that the imagery of the cicada extends beyond

those

passages that explicitly mention the insect is necessarily to acknowledge

that that imagery, diffuse and lyrical as it is, never achieves complete and consistent representation any more than the imagery of the horses and charioteer does. In fact there are instances in which the two sets of imagery blend together. So, at 246d8-e1, Socrates says that the wing is by nature empowered to lift the weighty part up into the lofty regions where the gods dwell and that it (ie. the wing), among the things pertaining to the body, has a special way of sharing in the divine. The divine is glossed as "the beautiful, wise, good and everything of that sort." With these, Socrates says, the wing-age (mrépoua?) of the soul is particularly nourished and 5! In all, πτέρωμα, πτερόν and cognates occur about 30 times in this part of Phdr. (246c1-256b4). I consistently interpret them in terms of "wing," while others sometimes choose "feather," which of course is not consistent with entomological imagery. There is no conclusive way of avoiding the circularity in the fact that "wing" both supports my arguments for entomological imagery and is supported by them, whereas "feather" precludes them. Most of the individual passages can accommodate avian connotations, the soul is even likened to a bird in a simile at 249d6-7, and perhaps not all readers are as resistant as I am to a "feathered” as opposed to a “winged” Eros (252b8-9), chariot (246e5) or horses and charioteer (246a7), or to the lifting power of the feather as opposed to that of a wing (ἡ πτεροῦ δύναμις, 246d6). In the final analysis "wing" can be favoured as the more

indusive term. I believe that Rowe (1988) 119 inadvertently hits upon entomological imagery, thereby offering some corroboration for the identification of cicada

78

RORY EGAN

increased. So the soul of the lover is winged, the contending horses that correspond to competing tendencies in the soul are also winged, the cicada is winged, some souls become winged. The imagery of the wings seeps impressionistically from one of the related entities into another. As it does so the imagery of the contending team of horses, one white and one dark, undergoes a similar osmosis in the mind of a reader familiar with the struggle of the dark element with the light element in the metamorphosis of the

cicada, that other emblem of the psyche.” The complexity and plurality of the cicadas’ functions are reflected in the division of labour and interests of the Muses whom they serve.? If the several

Muses

represent

among

themselves

domains

that are,

in the

Socratic view, antagonistic, or competitive, or at any rate diverse—rhetoric

and singing on the one hand, philosophy and dialectic on the other—so do the cicadas who both sing and engage in dialectic (ἄδοντες xoi ἀλλήλοις

διαλεγόμενοι, 258e7-259a1), and so too do the countervailing tendencies

within the winged soul as described in the palinode. Among the Muses who are specifically named is Terpsichore to whom the cicadas report on people who honour her in their “choruses’—tob¢ ἐν τοῖς χοροῖς τετιμηκότας (259c7). Here the assonantal phrasing resonates with the earlier, equally assonantal, tà τῶν τεττίγων χορῷ (230c2-3) in the first reference to the cicadas. If Plato's echoic sound effects (which, I believe, he "annotates" with the word ὑπηχεῖ at 230c2) render the cicada chorus more

conspicuous, those effects are also reinforced through other means. So in the first half of the dialogue, where the three speeches represent various rhetorical models, Socrates indicates that he is moving gradually from the choric medium (that is song and dance that would endear him to Terpsi-

chore) towards the philosophic or dialectic art that would endear him to Ourania and Kalliope. As things turn out, there is an intermediate stage in which the philosophical and heavenly themes are explored in the eratonic stage that is the palinode. The staged progression through the specialties of the respective Muses is in any case reflected by the vocabulary and by a protracted series of unusual and evocative metaphors. Together they form a network of imagery with soul ishment?" ? The the adult from the

when he asks "Can birds, then, like cicadas, do without physical nourillustration does not adequately represent the colour contrast between insect and its old integument. Note, however, the strands extending upper thorax of the integument in stages 12 through 19. These parts of

the exo-skeleton, known as Malpighian tubules, have been extracted from the interior of the nymph's body. I am susceptible to seeing in them some resemblance to loose reins. 5 Zaslavsky (1981) 66-67, on the contrary, associates all four of the named Muses with dialectic.

EROS, ELOQUENCE AND ENTOMO-PSYCHOLOGY

79

that is eventually joined and illuminated by the story of the Muses and the cicadas. The first of those metaphors actually occurs before the cicada chorus is even mentioned, when Socrates refers to himself as Phaedrus fellow korybant (συγκορυβαντιῶντα, 228b7). If we gloss this metaphor with Plato's words on korybantism elsewhere (Ion 533e8-534a1), Socra-

tes is saying that he is Phaedrus' companion in non-rational enthusiasm for dancing and music to the neglect of all else. Later, in a cognate image,

Socrates is Phaedrus' divinely inspired fellow Bacchant (συνεβάχχευσα μετὰ σοῦ τῆς θείας κεφαλῆς, 234d5-6). These unusual compounds with

σύν (reflecting a sort of team activity, as does the dual μόνω at 236c8) are accompanied in their context with what strikes me as a repeated pun in the words συγχωρητέον (234e9), συγχωρῶ (235b9) and συγχωρῶ (23627) ex-

pressing agreement between the interlocutors. Although ovyywpéw is not uncommon in Plato's dialogues, it is striking that a word having phonetic affinities with the terminology of cooperative choric activity (e.g. συγχορεύω, ouyxopeuthc) should be used three times within the small compass of a passage that also features other conspicuous synchoreutic

vocabulary, and other quasi-etymological links of near-homophones.* Under the circumstances συγχωρῶ, which is uttered once by each inter-

locutor, means “I am going along with you," while also suggesting "I (as

your fellow korybant and bacchant) am your co-participant in ecstatic song and dance."

With or without such punning, the choric theme is reinforced a little later when Socrates refers to himself as being almost a performer of dithyramb (rà νῦν γὰρ οὐκέτι πόρρω διθυράμβων φθέγγομαι, 238d2-3) under

possession of the nymphs. The korybantic, the bacchantic and the dithyrambic, being choric modes, are all within the domain of Terpsichore. They are also non-rational, involuntary, activities performed under external influence. Indeed Socrates, just before that first mention of dithyrambics,

suggests that he is undergoing some sort of divine experience (θεῖον πάθος πεπονθέναι, 238c6), whereupon Phaedrus agrees that a certain unusual fluency has possessed him (παρὰ τὸ εἰωθὸς ebpou τίς σε εἴληφεν, 238c7-8).

After mentioning his approach to the dithyrambic mode Socrates expresses a wish that the process might be averted (ἴσως yàp κἂν ἀποτράποιτο τὸ

émdv, 238d6). When he later mentions the dithyrambic a second time he is moving away from, rather than towards, that genre. At the end of his first speech, he has just quoted a proverb, almost a complete hexameter verse

5 ἐρρωμένως -ῥωσθεῖσα-ῥώμης-ἔρως,

238c2-3; οἰονοϊστικήν-οἰωνιστικήν,

244c8-d1; μέρη-ἵμερος, 251c6-7; "Epora-IItépota, 252b8-9. On etymologizing in the dialogue cf. Robin (1985) cxxxvii-cxxxviii; Yamuza (1986) 123; Heitsch (1997) 241-247.

80

RORY EGAN

(ὡς λύκοι ἄρνας ἀγαπῶσιν, ὃς παῖδα φιλοῦσιν ἐρασταί, 241d1),? on predatory eros when he observes that he is already uttering epic words and no

longer

dithyrambics

(ἤδη ἔπη φθέγγομαι

GAA’ οὐκέτι διθυράμβους,

241e2). One, but only one, aspect of this polysemantic statement pertains to his quasi-hexameter. Another ostensible point of the statement is to signal

Socrates' intention to break off his speech without matching his praise of the non-lover with criticism of the lover. Epos is long and wordy—ti δεῖ uaxpoÿ λόγου; (241e7)—and he is worried that if he prolongs his speech he

will undergo even stronger influence from the nymphs (who, not incidentally, are sometimes identified with Muses and cicadas*). Socrates does not in fact succumb to epic, the Muse Kalliope being re-

served for her role as patroness of philosophy. As if to underscore his aversion to epic, he explicitly disqualifies Homer as a poetic model and chooses Stesichoros instead (243a3-5). Not only does the latter’s well-known

com-

bination of hymn and palinode provide an obvious model for Socrates’ rhetorical volte-face, his very name, meaning the “leader of the chorus,” or alternatively perhaps “he who stays, or controls the dancing” constitutes one last, choreutic pun at the transition from the terpsichorean to the

eratonic speech. Further pointed onomastic etymologizing deriving from Stesichoros’ personal identity follows in the proem to the palinode (244a2-3). “He who keeps the chorus in check” is, appropriately for the topic, from Himera

(“place of desire”) and he is, appropriately for the

mode, the son of Euphemos (“good speaker”) whose name is echoed when Socrates later describes the palinode as having been well-spoken (εὐφήμως, 265c1). Both Stesichoros and Stesichorean onomastics,” then, are pivotal, pointing back to the terpsichorean and ahead to the eratonic. Socrates' objection to staying, his ostensible fear of possession, also has a proleptic or programmatic dimension, for in the sequel, having repudiated the terpsichorean and the anti-erotic rhetoric of Lysias speech and his own first one, he does actually come once more under the continued influence of

the cicadas. This time, though, they are the cicadas who serve Erato, Muse of erotic poetry, whose special interest covers the recantation in honour of Eros. Once again there are literary devices that reflect the subject and the source of inspiration. So the “hymn to Eros,” as Kenneth Dover has painstakingly demonstrated, contains a rich medley of lyric rhythms, many of them used by earlier erotic poets.* Eros himself is symbolically and allu-

sively connected both with the winged soul and with the winged cicadas, 5 On the "hexameter" see commentators ad loc. such as Rowe (1986) 161. 9 Gee Müller-Graupa (1933) 799; Beavis (1988) 103.

Y Cf. Nussbaum (1986) 472-473. ** Dover (1995) 17-22.

EROS, ELOQUENCE AND ENTOMO-PSYCHOLOGY

81

the models of the soul and the authors of the palinode, when Socrates contrives

an etymology

for his name

from

“Pteros,”

"the

winged

one"

(252b8-9). Eros in turn has implicit links with Kalliope and Ourania who

represent philosophy and godly and human thoughts (259d3-4), for the

palinode associates philosophy earlier with wingedness, with pederasty (249a1-2) and with Eros (257b6). If the erotic theme of the palinode is primarily oriented towards the heavenly and philosophical, the domains of Ourania and Kalliope, the mode is formally still far removed from the dia-

lectic philosophical discourse. The palinode is as rhetorical and poetic as Socrates' first speech was, perhaps even more so, as further examination of its allusive exploitation of the cicadas indicates.

There are two or three passages in the palinode which, since they do not actually mention cicadas, would not be likely to elicit any tettigological

associations by themselves. Under the circumstances, though, there are details in each of them that bring out such associations. The first marks the pivotal juncture between Socrates’ two speeches. As Socrates begins to

depart and is on the point of crossing the river, he is dissuaded by his daimonion, with the result that he stays to deliver his second speech on Eros (242b8-d2). A tradition, frequently attested in literature later than Plato, and variously localized, said that the cicadas on one side of a certain river

(in Magna Graecia or Cephalonia) sang while those on the other side were silent.” Since Socrates credits the cicadas in the plane tree on the one side of the Ilissos with the inspiration for his palinode (262d2-6), might it not be that the detail about refraining from crossing the river alludes to that

tradition? By not crossing the river he remains close to the cicadas who then inspire his eloquent palinode. In this instance, moreover, the explicitly audible character (τινα φωνήν, 242c1-2) of the apotreptic sign might hint at the cicadas as well, giving them a special Socratic association The preternatural cicadas do dominate the auditory ambience, and some of them do have a similar apotreptic effect later on in dissuading Socrates and

Phaedrus from sleeping instead of discoursing (259d8-9). Some peculiarities of the next passage necessitate presenting the full Greek text.

for consideration

(249c4-d3)

διὸ δὴ δικαίως μόνη πτεροῦται ἡ τοῦ φιλοσόφου Sidvora’ πρὸς yao ἐκείνοις ἀεί ἐστιν μνήμῃ κατὰ δύναμιν πρὸς οἷσπερ θεὸς ὧν θεῖός ἐστιν. τοῖς δὲ δὴ τοιούτοις ἀνὴρ ὑπομνήμασιν ὀρθῶς χρώμενος, τελέους ἀεὶ τελετὰς τελούμενος, τέλεος ὄντως μόνος γίγνεται: ἐξιστάμενος δὲ τῶν

ἀνθρωπίνων σπουδασμάτων καὶ πρὸς τῷ θείῳ γιγνόμενος. νουθετεῖται μὲν

ὑπὸ

τῶν

πολλῶν

ὡς

παρακινῶν,

ἐνθουσιάζων

δὲ λέληθεν

τοὺς

9 For sources and discussion see Brillante (1987) 57; Beavis (1998) 97-98.

% On the apotreptic function of the Socratic daimonion in Plato see Joyal (2000) 65—66.

82

RORY EGAN πολλούς.

It is therefore entirely proper that the intelligence of the philosopher alone is winged, for it is always, as far as it is possible by means of memory, in proximity to those things to which a divinity, being divine, is in proximity. The person who rightfully deals with recollections of that sort, being continually initiated into the ultimate mysteries, alone really becomes complete. Placing himself apart from human concerns

and approximating himself to the divine, he is criticized by the ordinary run of people as being unstable whereas, unknown divinely inspired.

to them, he is

Several matters already discussed impinge on the reading of this passage. One is the affinity of the cicada to the winged intelligence of the

philosopher. Another is the symbolic association of the cicada with the mystic initiates among whom the philosopher is included here. Another is the manner in which Socrates and Phaedrus, advised by the story of the cicadas, decide to engage in dialectic, in contrast to the ordinary run

of people (τοὺς πολλούς, 25922) who, owing to the sluggishness of their intellect (δι᾽ ἀργίαν τῆς διανοίας, 259a3-4), are lulled into dormancy by

the cicadas. That point seems to be anticipated in the present passage by the notion that the inspired philosopher, he of the winged διάνοια, is scorned and misunderstood by the ordinary run of people (τῶν πολλῶν,

249d2; τοὺς πολλούς, 249d3). Then, too, the cicadas of the later passage who leave the world of humans to become the winged servants of the

Muses, seem to be anticipated here by the philosopher with winged intelligence who is ecstatically removed from human concerns (ἐξιστάμενος δὲ τῶν ἀνθρωπίνων σπουδασμάτων, 249c8-d1) and, in his enthousi-

asmos, is ever mindful of the things which characterize the divine. The constellation of concepts and motifs that the philosopher's soul shares with its observable correlative the cicada is supplemented here by some strikingly poetic language which defies the translator and seriously

challenges the explicator. I begin by noting that the most common Greek word for cicada, τέττιξ, is onomatopoeic, as are several names for it in

various phases of the language.” With its repeated apical stop consonants and sibilant this imitative word also parallels terms such as tepe-

τίζω, τερετίσματα and cognates which are often applied to the cicada's song in formulae such as étepetiCeto τέττιξ and τεττίγων tepetiCovtwv.”

Now it strikes me that there is a similar exceptional assonantal character to this passage of the Phaedrus. It features a high concentration of apicals (or near-apicals), many of which are initial and stop consonants, while *! On other names see Beavis (1988) 93-95. % Respectively Vit. Aesop. G 6.10; Theodoret. Graec. affect. cur. 4.67.2. The TLG Digital Library currently contains 36 instances, mostly in lexica and Patristic or Byzantine prose, where the two lexemes coincide.

EROS, ELOQUENCE AND ENTOMO-PSYCHOLOGY

83

many others are sibilants, usually in final position in the word. They seem to come in bursts or pulses of varying duration: διὸ δὴ δικαίως ... θεὸς ὧν θεῖός ἐστιν ... τοῖς δὲ δὴ τοιούτοις ... χρώμενος τελέους ἀεὶ τελετὰς τελούμενος τέλεος ὄντως ... ἐξιστάμενος δὲ τῶν ἀνθρωπίνων σπουδασμάτων ... νουθετεῖται ... ἐνθουσιάζων δὲ λέληθεν τοὺς πολλούς.

Even without confirming impressions, that is without ruling out randomness by statistical examination of the dialogue, of the Platonic corpus or of Greek literature, there can be little doubt that the phrases just cited include, climactically I would say, a truly unusual sequence: χρώμενος τελέους ἀεὶ τελετὰς τελούμενος τέλεος ὄντως. The semantic word-play involving "fulfillment, completion" and “initiatory rites" has been noted by at least one commentator,” but not the phonetic distinct-

iveness of the sequence. As printed, with word divisions, the underlined inner portion has four out of five words beginning with the sequence teA, of which three begin with the same two syllables (te-Ae) and all end with

a sibilant:

TEAEoOUZ

ἀεὶ

ΤΕΛΕτὰΣ

TEAoóuevoX,

TEAEoX.

In

addition to that each teA but one is also preceded, across the word boundary, by a syllable closed by a sibilant so as to produce a repetitive cluster of apical sibilant and stop (c-r) χρώμενοξΣ Τελέους ἀεὶ τελετὰΣ͵ ΤελούμενοΣ͵ Τέλεος ὄντως. The effect is reminiscent of modern Greek τζίτζικας, the word for the cicada, or the nonsensical τζιτζί-βιτζί rirC(-BirCl, both of which mime the cicada’s sound. Another perspec-

tive on Plato’s words might isolate the following groups of syllables: voo-te-Aé ... εἰ-τε-λε ... τὰσ-τε-λού ... νοσ-τέ-λε. Still another would em-

phasize that nearly all of the consonants in the sequences excerpted above are apicals (δ, 0, À, v, o, τ): Διὸ Aù ΔικαίωΣ

... ΘεὸΣ ON OcióX

ÉZTIN ... Toth Δὲ Av ΤοιούτοιΣ ... χρώμεΝΟΣ ΤελέουνΣ ἀεὶ TEAETàE ΤελΛούμεΝοΣ TéAgoX ÓNToX .. NovOeTeiTar ... ἐνθουΣιάΖων Δὲ A€An@eN ΤοὺΣ πολλούξ. Within these phrases only an occasional non-

apical consonant interrupts the staccato effect of rapidly repeated contact

of tongue-tip with the upper front part of the mouth. Socrates is, in virtually a literal sense, singing like a cicada here. A

variation of the same cicadine Lautmalerei is then heard in the dedicatory finale to his cicada-inspired palinode (257a3-5). Even as he addresses Eros with an observation on his own poetic language he perpetrates more of the same. αὕτη cot, ὦ φίλε "Ἔρως, εἰς ἡμετέραν δύναμιν ὅτι καλλίστη xal ἀρίστη δέδοταί τε καὶ ἐκχτέτεισται παλινῳδία, τά τε ἄλλα καὶ τοῖς ὀνόμασιν ἠναγκασμένη ποιητιχοῖς τισιν διὰ Φαῖδρον εἰρῆσθαι

9 De Vries (1969) 147. 64 Petropoulos (1994) 50, citing a folk-song from Lesbos.

84

RORY EGAN Dear Eros, this palinode is rendered and disbursed to you, the finest and best one consistent with my ability, not least for having been uttered under compulsion because of Phaedrus, with certain poetic phrasings.

Here I find the same general frequency of apical stops, sibilants and

liquids in another context that features a climactic core (the underlined words). If the phrases καλλίστη xai ἀρίστη and δέδοταί te xai &xtétetotat are semantically pleonastic, that in itself might help to draw attention

to

their

mimetic

eloquence.

The

word

ἐχτέτεισται (like

νουθετεῖται at 249d2, not a particularly common form in classical prose*) calls out for special notice. It means, appropriately, "has been paid out"

but it suggests something like "has been extettigized" or "dispensed by cicadas.”* The palinode has been uttered, under compulsion, with poetic words:

τοῖς ὀνόμασιν

ἠναγκασμένη

ποιητιχοῖς

τισιν. There are many

poetic features to the palinode, including the metrical phrasings that Dover

has

revealed,

but

in this context ὀνόματα

ποιητικά must

be

“onomatopoetics” in some sense of that term, possibly indeed, in the

sense of "verbal imitation of sounds for poetic effect." The phrase ὀνόμασιν ... ποιητικοῖς amounts, then, to a self-referential annotation on

the aural-vocal trope that Socrates has used elsewhere in the palinode and that, in fact, he is now using in the very act of commenting on it. At the conclusion of the palinode, as Phaedrus and Socrates advance from their speeches on Eros to their discussion of eloquence, they enter the

pivotal episode with which this essay opened: the entomo-psychological myth

of the soul-like cicadas who commune

with the Muses, some of

whom are rather pointedly named. The same cicadas, moreover, through their palpable imminence at the scene of the dialogue link Eros, eloquence and the Muses with the interlocutors. The erotics of the singing cicadas at the site, implicit from the commonplace associations of their music and sexuality, are suggestively reinforced by the reference to Erato. They are $6 νουθετεῖται is a hapax before Philo. ἐκτέτεισται occurs here and twice in Demosthenes. % On ἐκτέτεισται in its phonetic context compare ἐχτετείχισται in the context of some bird-talk at Ar. Av. 1164-65: Οὗτος, τί ποιεῖς; "Apa θαυμάζεις ὅτι οὕτω

τὸ τεῖχος ἐκτετείχισται ταχύ; On sustained poetic mimicking of insects (cicada and cricket) by Meleager see Egan (1988) 29-30. 57 The Greek terminology of onomatopoeia is used both for the coining of words in general and for the coining of phonetically mimetic words. Neither of

these pertains to the context under discussion where Plato is not coining words

but using pre-existing words mimetically. For such figurative use of words under the name of onomatopoeia Plu. Mor. 747d2 and Str. 14.2.31-34 provide some evidence. By my reading of Plato’s phrase it would be the earliest evidence for Lautmalerei under the name of onomatopoeia.

EROS, ELOQUENCE AND ENTOMO-PSYCHOLOGY

85

further corroborated and linked with dialectic in the phrase ἀλλήλοις διαλεγόμενοι (25921), likely a double-entendre in its echoing of the earlier

διαλεγόμενοι ἀλλήλοις (232a8-b1) that refers explicitly to what might be called the secondary behavioral characteristics of lovers. I close with brief observations on the venerable question of the unity

of the Phaedrus but without any attempt to review the history of the controversies.” Plato himself seems to anticipate the possibility that the

dialogue's complexity could suggest a lack of coherence when he has Socrates point out, with more general reference, that a discourse (λόγος)

must be like an animal, a (Gov, being neither headless nor footless but having both a body and extremities attached to it (364c3-4). Socrates’

point arises from critical reflections on the speech of Lysias. But if a dialogue, as λόγος, can be a ζῷον, it is not the least of Platonic ironies

that the body and the various articulating appendages of the particular CGov-Adyog that is the Phaedrus are symbolically incorporated by the cicada, the ζῷον that has presided over, inspired and informed so much of the λόγος that reflects its zoomorphology and ethology. The cicadas are also, in a way, the subject of the dialogue, being paradigms of eros

and eloquence and also of the soul of the philosopher, the lover and dialectician who alone among humans has an intellect that is winged (249c4—5). They pervasively reflect and shape the unity of the Phaedrus, comprehending

several major themes, constituents and participants:

eros, rhetoric, dialectic, philosophy, Platonic views of metempsychosis and the soul's immortality, the journey from one plane of existence to another, the dramatic setting, the interlocutors and their rhetorical modes and devices.

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106-125.

Rowe, CJ. 1988. Plato: 'Phaedrus' with Translation and Commentary. Warminster’. Rutherford, R.B. 1995. The Art of Plato: Ten Essays in Platonic interpretation. Cambridge, MA. Siganos, A. 1985. Les Mythologies de l'insecte: Histoire d'une fascination. Paris. Snodgrass, R.E. 1930. Insects: Their Ways and Means of Living. New York. Teale, E.W. 1937. Grassroot Jungles: A Book of Insects. New York. Verrill, A.H. 1937. Strange Insects and Their Stories. London. Vicaire, P. 1972. Platon. Phédre. Paris.

de Vries, G.J. 1969. A Commentary on the Phaedrus of Plato. Amsterdam. Waterbury, F. 1942. Early Chinese Symbols and Literature: Vestiges and Speculations with Particular Reference to the Ritual Bronzes of the Shang Dynasty. New York. White, D.A. 1993. Rhetoric and Reality in Plato's Phaedrus. Albany.

Williams, C.A.S. 1975. Outlines of Chinese Symbolism and Art Motives. Folcroft’.

BIS GRAUIDAE PECUDES: VERGIL, GEORGICS 2.150 AND GENESIS 31:7-8 MICHAEL FOX

Vergil's short passage singing the agrarian praises of Italy in Georgics 2.136-76 has been called a “eulogy of Italy," a "great ‘digression’,” and a

piece which borrows its details from panegyric.! When discussing the Nachleben of the Georgics, L.P. Wilkinson observes that the passage—also known, from Vergil's own words, as the laudes Italiae—is “one of the Vergilian themes that constantly reappears in excursuses."? One half-line in particular, however, not noted by scholars of Vergil, so far as I know,

has been quoted repeatedly outside of passages of praise for the poet's native land: bis grauidae pecudes has been adduced by exegetes from

Jerome to Peter Comestor to help explain Genesis 31:7-8 and the astonishing number of times the flocks under Jacob's care give birth in a short

period. While Jerome was the first to cite Vergil in this context, his citation was adopted by Wigbod, and then Alcuin, who seems to have been

the exegete most responsible for the wide dissemination of the half-line among Carolingian exegetes of the ninth century. From Carolingian exe-

gesis, the phrase found its way into the twelfth-century Glossa ordinaria and, in a somewhat changed form, into the Historica scholastica of Peter Comestor. Vergil's passage begins with a contrast of Italy's glories with other rich regions,’ then celebrates the fruitfulness of the land by a continued

contrast: haec loca non tauri spirantes naribus ignem inuertere satis immanis dentibus hydri,

140

! L.P. Wilkinson, The Georgics of Virgil: A Critical Survey, new ed. with a foreword and bibliography by Niall Rudd (London 1997) 65 and 245-246; and B. Otis, "A new study of the Georgics," Phoenix 26 (1972) 40-62, at 60 n. 8. ? Wilkinson (above, n. 1) 301.

? Sed neque Medorum siluae, ditissima terra, | nec pulcher Ganges atque auro tur-

bidus Hermus / laudibus Italiae certent, non Bactra neque Indi / totaque turiferis Panchaia pinguis harenis (G. 2.136-9). All citations of the Georgics are from R.F. Thomas, ed., Virgil, Georgics, 2 vols. (Cambridge 1988).

89

90

MICHAEL FOX nec galeis densisque uirum seges horruit hastis; sed grauidae fruges et Bacchi Massicus umor impleuere; tenent oleae armentaque laeta. hinc bellator equus campo sese arduus infert, hinc albi, Clitumne, greges et maxima taurus

uictima, saepe tuo perfusi flumine sacro, Romanos ad templa deum duxere triumphos. hic uer adsiduum atque alienis mensibus aestas: bis grauidae pecudes, bis pomis utilis arbos. 150 Never was our country ploughed by fire-snorting bulls for the sowing of the grisly dragon's teeth; nor have its fields bristled with the helms and serried lances of warriors. But the land was filled with teeming crops and Bacchus' Massic juice; it is the home of the olive, the home of fattened flocks. Hence comes the war horse which proudly prances over the plain, hence the milk-white herds of the Clitumnus, and the bull,

noblest of victims, which, bathed often in its sacred stream, have escorted Roman triumphs to shrines of the gods. Here spring is perpetual, and summer extends to months other than her own; twice a year the cows calve, twice a year the trees serve us fruit.

The rhetorical complexity of the passage has long been noted;? and bis grauidae pecudes is central to Vergil's method. Georgics 2.149-50 offers the first judgement upon Italy's fecundity: bis grauidae pecudes is linked to sed grauidae fruges (2.143) through conduplicatio (or simple ploce), homoioptoton and assonance, as well as parallel structure. However, these lines are also clearly connected to Vergil's final statement on the land in 2.173-4 (Salve, magna parens frugum, Saturnia tellus / magna uirum) through the similar use of anaphoric repetition and polyptoton (looking back to 2.143).

Possible models for the passage include Varro's De re rustica, though Varro only ascribes twice-yearly productivity to certain trees and to swine, Dionysius of Halicarnassus' panegyric on the Saturnia tellus, and general descriptions of the Golden Age from Hesiod forward*: the im4G. 2.139—50; translation from H.R. Fairclough, trans., revised by G.P. Goold,

Virgil. Eclogues; Georgics; Aeneid, ? Wilkinson (above, n. 1), for set-piece" (87); Otis (above, n. chiastic arrangement of the bad

I-V1 (Cambridge / London 1999). example, calls the passage a "splendid rhetorical 1) observes that the passage "has a climactically things that Italy lacks and the good things it pos-

sesses, leading into emotional

invocations of Italian objects and

a series of dra-

matic haec's [sic] (haec = Italia), concluding with a final invocation of Italia itself,

the Saturnia tellus, and a triumphant assertion of the poet’s own ego as Hesiodic bard” (60 n. 8).

ὁ Wilkinson (above, n. 1) suggests Varro's De re rustica 1.2.3-8 as a possible inspiration and notes that there is also a passage in praise of Italy "in the contemporary Dionysius of Halicarnassus ([Antiquitatum Romanarum] 1.36-7) and in Strabo (6.4.1)” (87, but see also 52, 65, 154-155 and 245-246). Thomas

(above, n.

3) assesses sources for the particular details: "In the technical tradition there are claims of double productivity for isolated trees (see Varro [De re rustica] 1.7.6)

BIS GRAUIDAE PECUDES

9]

portant fact here, of course, is that Vergil is consciously echoing a long tradition of panegyric about agricultural fecundity.

The scriptural passages which the phrase has been used to explicate are clearly difficult and show great variation among different biblical

versions However, the main point of the story contained in Gen. 30:25-31:13 is that Jacob, wishing to return home after the birth of Joseph, broaches the subject of wages for his long service to Laban. When Laban readily acknowledges his debt—Constitue mercedem

tuam quam

dem tibf—Jacob offers a solution which depends upon a division of the herds according to markings (colour). While the exact mechanism for the

division varies, Jerome, in his Hebraicae quaestiones in Genesim, cites Gen.

30:32 in a form which suggests that Jacob shall have the striped and variegated animals among the sheep and goats and that Laban shall

have the animals of a single colour. The herds are separated: Laban's sons look after the striped and variegated animals, and Jacob guards the animals of a single colour. Jacob, however, being crafty, arranges that

any animals born after the division of the flock shall be allotted according to colour: striped and variegated animals will go to him; animals of a single colour shall be due to Laban. In order to make this arrangement

profitable, Jacob devises a method to ensure that strongest animals accrue to him. Placing variegated moves patches of bark) in the water, Jacob causes the to be mounted: because of the branches, the females

the most and the branches (Jacob reewes and she-goats see variegated im-

ages not only before them, but also in the reflections of the males above.

That the females should then give birth to predominately variegated offspring, Jerome assures his reader, is a well-known fact about reproduc-

tion. and cf. [Georgics] 4.119 biferique rosaria Paesti), but this is very different from the claim that Italy so operates. Varro speaks of sows bearing twice a year ([De re rustica] 2.4.14 bis parit in anno) ..." (1.184); Mynors further suggests Aristotle's De mirabilibus auscultationibus as a parallel (farm animals breeding three times a year) and observes that, overall, Vergil "gives Italy attributes which have belonged since Hesiod ... to the Golden Age, the Hyperboreans or the Fortunate Isles" (R.A.B. Mynors, ed., Virgil, Georgics, Edited with a Commentary [Oxford 1990] 121). 7 Jerome's assessment of the passage is telling: Multum apud LXX interpretes confusus est sensus, et usque in praesentem diem nullum potui inuenire nostrorum, qui ad liquidum, quid in hoc loco diceretur, exponeret (P. de Lagarde, ed., Hebraicae quaestiones in libro Geneseos [Hebraicae quaestiones in Genesim; HQG]. CCSL 72 [1959] at

30:32-33 [37]). ὃ "Decide the wages which I shall give to you" (Gen. 30:28 in B. Fischer, ed., Biblia sacra iuxta uulgatam uersionem [Stuttgart 1969]).

? For obvious reasons, Jerome's explanation is another which has been often repeated by medieval commentators: "Now it is not astonishing that this is the

92

MICHAEL FOX

Though the timing of this arrangement is not made explicit in scripture, Jerome suggests that Laban and Jacob divide the herds in this manner for a further period of seven years of service. At the end of that period, Jacob comments on Laban's behaviour: Et pater uester mentitus est mihi et mutauit mercedem meam decem uicibus, et non dedit ei Deus ut noceret mihi. Si dixerit "hoc uarium pecus erit merces tua," nascetur omne pecus uarium. Et si dixerit "unius

coloris erit merces tua," nascetur omne pecus unius coloris. And your father [Jacob is speaking to Lia and Rachel] has lied to me, and has changed my wages ten tímes, but God did not grant to him that he might harm me. If he said "the variegated flock will be your wages," the whole flock was born variegated. And if he said "[the flock] of one

colour will be your wages,” the whole flock was born of one colour.”

Jerome's citation of Vergil hinges upon the fact that Laban is reported to have changed Jacob's wages decem uicibus. Jerome, after explaining the

Septuagint's "ten sheep" for the Hebrew text's "ten times," makes his final comment on the issue: Et quid plura? usque ad uices decem semper a Laban pecoris sui siue Iacob mutata condicio est. Et quodcumque sibi proposuerat ut nasceretur, in colorem contrarium uertebatur. Ne cui autem in sex annis decem pariendi uices incredibiles uideantur, lege Vergilium, in quo dicitur "bis grauidae pecudes." Natura autem italicarum ouium et Mesopotamiae una esse traditur. And what more? Up to ten times the contract was changed, always by

Laban, in respect of his own flock, or that of Jacob. And whatever he had stipulated should be born for him, he changed into the opposite colour. And lest ten times of giving birth in six years should seem innature of female creatures in the act of conception: the offspring they produce

are of such a kind as the things they observe or perceive in their minds during the most intense heat of sexual pleasure. For this very thing is reported by the Spaniards to happen even among herds of horses; and Quintilian, in that lawsuit in which a married woman was accused of having given birth to an Ethiopian, brought as evidence in her defence that what we have been describing ... is a natural process in the conception of offspring" (HQG 30.32-3, translation in C.T.R. Hayward, Jerome’s Hebrew Questions on Genesis [Oxford 1995] 67).

Gen. 31.7-8, cited according to the version in Jerome's HQG

31:7-8. For

comparison, the Vulgate version of these verses reads: Sed pater uester circumuenit me et mutauit mercedem meam decem uicibus; et tamen non dimisit eum Deus ut noceret mihi. Si quando dixit uariae erunt mercedes tuae, pariebant omnes oues uarios

fetus; quando uero e contrario ait, alba quaeque accipies pro mercede omnes greges alba pepererunt. "See

Hayward’s

comments

(above,

n. 9, 205). The

Vetus Latina, for decem

uicibus, shows the variations decem agnas, decem agnis and decem agnorum, the latter of which likely reflects the genitive form of the Greek (see B. Fischer, ed., Vetus Latina: Die Reste der altlateinischen Bibel 2. Genesis [Freiburg 1951-4]).

BIS GRAUIDAE PECUDES

93

credible to anyone, read Vergil, in which it is said: "Flocks twice in the year great with young." So it is taught that the nature of Italian sheep and those of Mesopotamia is of the same kind."

That Jerome should cite Vergil is, of course, hardly remarkable. Jerome's citations of Vergilian texts are numerous and welldocumented.” However, traces of Vergil are less common within the texts of biblical commentaries. For example, in Jerome's Hebraicae quaes-

tiones in Genesim there are only four further citations of Vergil. The first two appear in the preface, and are not, therefore, used to explicate any

scriptural passage. The final two appear together, and both say something general about the Sabaeans, after Jerome has stated that their origin is to be found in Saba, son of Chus (Gen. 10:7)." In the commentary, therefore, Vergil is only once used directly to support an interpretation

or reading of the biblical text.” On that one occasion, then, what Jerome is doing is citing a respected writer from another tradition in order to

affirm the historical veracity of the hyperfecundity of the sheep, and, on that biological basis, to make a textual point favouring the Hebrew reading.' Jerome's choice of authorities was not deemed inappropriate." The first citation of the Vergilian phrase via Jerome which I know of occurs ? Jerome, HQG 31:7-8; translation from Hayward

(above, n. 9) 68-69.

P? See, for example, H. Hagendahl, Latin Fathers and the Classics: A Study on the Apologists, Jerome and other Christian Writers (Goteborg 1958) 91-328 (Jerome), and

Hagendahl’s update, “Jerome and the Latin classics," VChr 28 (1974) 216-227.

" In the preface, Jerome cites Ecl. 6.9-10 (as he speculates if anyone, captus amore, shall read the work) and G. 4.176 (as he compares himself to Adamantius [Origen]). In his comments on Gen. 10:7, he cites G. 2.117 and A. 1.416-7 on the Sabaeans. 5 Of the commentary as a whole, Hagendahl (above, n. 13 [1958]) 130 notes

that "references to secular authors, unless founded on facts, are rarely to be met with in this work."

Hayward points out that Jerome often uses traditio and tradere in the commentary, and links that use to the quaestio as an act of seeking answers in various ways. Of the comments on Gen. 31:7-8, Hayward (above, n. 9) 5 says specifically:

"Jerome uses the verb [tradere] with particular force at 31:7-8, where he quotes a

line of Vergil as an authoritative statement of fact." " Augustine does not cite the passage in this context. Strangely enough, however, a different citation from Vergil finds its way into Augustine's explication of Gen. 31:7-8: in his Quaestiones in Heptateuchum (Genesis), Augustine uses Ecl. 1.70 (post aliquot aristas) to explain how decem agnis could stand for decem uicibus. Augustine's comment on the fecundity of the flocks cites no authority: Pecudum autem illius regionis fecunditas sicut Italarum tanta fertur, ut bis anno pariant (1. Fraipont,

ed., Quaestio XCV, Quaestiones

[Turnhout 1958] 35-36).

in Heptateuchum

[Genesis]. CCSL

33

94

MICHAEL FOX

in Wigbod's lengthy Liber quaestionum on the Octateuch, prepared for

Charlemagne at Lorsch between 775 and 800. Apparently citing Jerome independently, Alcuin next uses the phrase in his Quaestiones in Genesim (ca. 796), a 281-question commentary on Gen. 1:1 to the blessings of the patriarchs. Where Wigbod quotes Jerome entirely and almost precisely, however, Alcuin, in order to eliminate the discussion of Septuagint variation and turn the passage into a question, has some minor changes

and omissions. Jerome's words are also repeated in the Genesis commentaries of Hrabanus Maurus (d. 856), Angelomus of Luxeuil (d. 855)

and Remigius of Auxerre (d. 908?). Hrabanus seems to work directly from Jerome's text, and, like Wigbod, reproduces the entire comment on Gen. 31:7-8. Angelomus shows the influence of both Alcuin and Jerome. Though it is virtually impossible to determine from which sources

Remigius was working, his version of Jerome is not so much a quotation as a rephrasing, and Remigius seems to have had Augustine's Quaestiones in Heptateuchum (Genesis) (or a text quoting Augustine) to hand as

well. Neither Angelomus nor Remigius reproduce the portion on Septuagint variation.

Citations of the passage from Jerome appear again in the twelfth century, in the Glossa ordinaria and in Peter Comestor's Historia scholastica. The Glossa ordinaria is closest to Hrabanus (and thus contains nearly the complete passage on Gen. 31:7-8); the only significant difference is

that Jerome's comment on the Septuagint's decem agnis has instead become Septuaginta posuerunt "decem annis". In Comestor, the overall explanation is quite different and completely restructured: G. 2.150 becomes bis grauidae fetu and the attribution to Vergil is lost, while material from

Augustine,

somewhat

in the

manner

of Remigius,

has

been

added.” Like the Glossa ordinaria, Comestor attributes decem annis to the Septuagint rather than Jerome's decem agnis, but this discussion comes

well after the half-line from Vergil, thus indicating that Comestor's primary concern in citing Vergil was not textual. In fact, given the usual manner

of citation in these commentaries overall—either Jerome's com-

plete passage is cited (indicating the lack of an editorial hand) or the dis18 For Wigbod, see PL 93.340; for Alcuin, PL 100.551 (Interrogatio 237); for Hra-

banus Maurus, PL 107.606; for Angelomus, PL 115.220; for Remigius, B. Van Name Edwards, ed., Expositio super Genesim. CCCM 136 (Turnhout 1999) 31:7-8, 160; for the Glossa ordinaria, PL 113.157 (among the works of Walahfrid Strabo);

and for Peter Comestor, PL 98.1118. The commentary on the Pentateuch in PL 91.189-394 is probably also influenced by Jerome's citation of Vergil, but does not contain either the complete half-line or the attribution to the poet (PL 91.258). On this interesting commentary, see M. Gorman, "The commentary on the Pentateuch attributed to Bede in PL 91.189-394," Revue Bénédictine 106 (1996) 61-108 and 255-307.

BIS GRAUIDAE PECUDES

95

cussion of Septuagint variation is omitted—it would seem that most subsequent commentators were concerned more with establishing the

literal truth of the claim for the hyperfecundity of Jacob's sheep than with textual matters. In any case, after the citation by Jerome, and only, it would seem, via Jerome, bis grauidae pecudes became a standard part of the early medieval exegesis of Gen. 31:7-8. Richard F. Thomas' assessment of the reliability of G. 2.150 is less than favourable: "More lies, or as good as," he comments darkly.” Whatever our modern opinion of Vergil's view of Italian productivity

may be, however, Jerome considers Vergil a reliable authority on the matter, and Augustine, as well, though he does not cite Vergil on this question, is willing to accept that sheep and goats can be pregnant twice in one year. The reputation of Jerome and Augustine would certainly

have been enough to vouchsafe the statement for later commentators, but it remains an interesting fact that Vergil, once the dangerous distraction of youths such as Alcuin,” should have become, at least on this one occasion, a well-known authority in matters of the literal interpretation

of scripture.”

19 Thomas (above, n. 3) 1.184.

? Alcuin’s attitude toward the classics may be taken as more or less typical, and is well documented. See the evidence of the Vita Alcuini, chapters 2 and 16 (W. Arndt, ed., Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores XV, Pars | [Hannover 1887] 182-197). See also, for example, G. Wieland, "Alcuin's ambiguous attitude towards the Classics," Journal of Medieval Latin 2 (1992) 84-95.

? | am grateful to Rory B. Egan, whose insightful comments and suggestions have much improved this article.

EPICTETUS AS THERAPIST JOHN J. GAHAN Plato, Not Prozac by Lou Marinoff, a Canadian philosopher, appeared in

the self-help section of bookstores across the country in the autumn of 1999.! In it the author, who received his Ph.D. in the philosophy of science from University College London, makes a the case for the recogni-

tion of accredited philosophers as qualified therapists in much the same way that practising psychologists and psychiatrists are so recognized. Marinoff, currently associate professor of philosophy at the City College

of New York, is not alone, however, in pushing for the recognition of philosophers as therapists, for he is also the founding president of a group known as the American Philosophical Practitioners Association (the APPA), whose aim is: to further philosophical practice ... by disseminating literature, cultivating client bases, providing referrals, initiating or approving courses and programs, conducting seminars and workshops, organizing or participating in conferences ... and engaging in other educational and professional activities compatible with the advancement of philosophical practice?

The reaction in psychological and psychiatric circles to this "crusade," as it has sometimes been called, has not been particularly positive, but

Marinoff and his fellow philosophical practitioners could do worse, 1 think, than turn for support for their cause to a writer of modern popular fiction, Tom Wolfe, admittedly an unlikely ally at first glance, and to his

recent novel, A Man in Full (Toronto 1998). A Man in Full, set in contemporary Atlanta, Georgia, is the story of the

climb by one Charlie Croker, the "Man" of the title, up his own sort of cursus honorum. He starts modestly as a college football star, but, by the ! [n full with subtitle: Plato, Not Prozac! Applying Philosophy to Everyday Problems (New York 1999). Curiously enough both Plato and Prozac find their way into the titles of not one but two books in this very same year: cf. Mark Kingwell, Better Living: In Pursuit of Happiness from Plato to Prozac (Toronto 1999). ^For

the

"official

mission

statement"

(www.appa.edu).

97

of the

APPA

see

their

web

site

98

JOHN J. GAHAN

time he reaches the top rung, he has gone on to amass a real-estate empire whose considerable holdings include, among others, a massive frozen-foods corporation and Croker Concourse, an office tower on the outskirts of Atlanta, in an area called, prophetically of course, Edge City.

Charlie for all intents and purposes has “made it”: He has a corporate jet at his disposal, lives with his considerably younger second wife and

their young child in a mansion in the wealthy Buckhead neighbourhood of Atlanta, and still manages, despite his responsibilities, to slip away

regularly to “Turpmtine,” his huge shooting plantation in the southern part of the state. Despite all this he remains, however, the perennial “good ol’ boy,” who has through hard work and a bit of luck done exceedingly well over the years, but Charlie, we learn, also has a problem, having already, as the novel begins, run up debts as massive as his own mega-ego.’ A fall from the top of that ladder of his is imminent, although, when it comes, it proves not to be fatal because about half way through the 742 pages of the novel Epictetus, the Stoic philosopher of the early Roman empire, intervenes. Epictetus, to repeat, the slave turned philosopher of Flavian Rome, and Croker, the real estate mogul turned debtor of late twentieth-century Atlanta, eventually meet, so to speak, in the pages of Tom Wolfe's Man in Full.‘ How, we might ask ourselves, and, more importantly, why?

The "how" is easy. Epictetus and Croker meet through the agency of another of Wolfe's characters, a young man named Conrad Hensley. How Hensley and Epictetus cross paths is another matter, but it happens in a way that can best be described as serendipitous. Unbeknownst to himself and to Croker, Hensley, we learn, at one time worked for Croker as an employee of Croker Global Foods at one of its branch plants in California near Oakland. Let go from his job because of downsizing,

Hensley, through no real fault of his own, soon wound up in jail. To help pass the time there, he ordered a book from a store near the prison, but when it arrived it turned out not to be The Stoics' Game, "a new novel by a writer of spy thrillers, an Englishman named Lucius Tombs, whose

work Conrad particularly enjoyed” (351), but The Stoics, on the title page of which was written: "The complete extant writings of Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, C. Musonius Rufus, and Zeno. Edited with an Introduction 3 As Donna Seaman writes in the digital counterpart (www.ala.org/booklist/ v95/adult/no2/02wolfe.html)

of the American

Library

Association's Booklist

magazine, v. 95 (November 15, 1998). 4 ^Flavian" is used loosely. Epictetus lived from ca. A.D. 55 to ca. 135. When precisely he became a freedman is uncertain, but he would have completed his studies and started teaching under the Flavians. Moreover, he was banished (to-

gether with the other philosophers in Rome) by Domitian in 89. Subsequently Epictetus established a school in Nicopolis.

EPICTETUS AS THERAPIST

99

by A. Griswold Bemis, Associate Professor of Classics, Yale University" (397). Hensley was devastated at first, unable to believe that the book-

store had sent the wrong book. Still, though, it was a book and in reality the only escape he had from the bleak and frightening world of the hardened criminal in which he found himself, and so he reluctantly picked The Stoics up and started reading the introduction. We can turn to

Wolfe, Chapter XVII ("Epictetus Comes to Da House"), to set the scene— which he does here, as so often in the novel, onomatopoetically (397398): Scrack scrack scraaaccck went the ceiling fans .... Thra-goooooom! Gluglugluglug went the toilets ... It was pretty tedious going, this book .... Conrad

was drifting on the swollen river of words when a

detail, a

mere detail, caught his attention. The author happened to mention that this Epictetus had spent time in prison as a young man. He had been tortured and crippled, but he had gone on to become one of the greatest Roman philosophers. Conrad began hurrying through the thick, leisurely prose. Now [he] couldn't read fast enough?

There was, however, still more. Turning from Bemis's introduction to the first chapter of Epictetus himself (1.1.9712), entitled "On Things in Our Power and Things Not in Our Power," Conrad came upon this passage (398): "To ye prisoners on the earth and in an earthly body and among earthly companions, what says Zeus? Zeus says, ‘If it were possible | would have made your possessions (those trifles that you prize) free and untrammelled. But as things are—never forget this—this body is not yours, it is but a clever mixture of clay. I give you a portion of our divinity, a spark from our own fire, the power to act and not to act, the will to get and the will to avoid. If you pay heed to this, you will not groan, you will blame no man, you will flatter none.'"

$ Origen (Cels. 7.53) mentions the torture. Wolfe (writing as Bemis) may himself be responsible (for obvious reasons) for the business about imprisonment (as opposed to enslavement). * We do not of course have the writings of Epictetus himself, but, as is well known, Arrian published his lectures (the Epicteti Dissertationes), of which four

books survive, as well as a brief summary of his philosophy, known as the Enchiridion (‘Eyyetp(6tov, Manual).

Quotations

in Wolfe

are from

P.E.

Matheson's

translation in Whitney J. Oates, ed., "Arrian's Discourses [i.e., Dissertationes] of

Epictetus," The Stoic and Epicurean Philosophers (New York 1940) 221-457. While the novelist tends to follow the translation closely, his quotations are by no means verbatim, and he is not hesitant to paraphrase in order to integrate Epictetus as seamlessly as possible into his own narrative. For the Greek text see H. Schenkl, ed., Epicteti Dissertationes ab Arriano Digestae, which has been reprinted by Teubner (1965) with the Enchiridion and Fragmenta.

100

JOHN J. GAHAN

The mention of prisoners was all that Conrad needed. Taking the figura-

tive language literally, Hensley was mesmerized, and in no time he was transformed into a disciple of Epictetus (and through him of Zeus), with

whose words—not to mention those muscles he had earlier developed in stacking eighty-pound cases of frozen meat at Croker Global Foods—he manages eventually to steel himself to fight a prison bully named Rotto. To quote from the musings of Conrad afterwards (462): Why did I fight Rotto? Because I refused to be dishonored. Outside this hole, this pigsty, no one will ever know that I lived as a man and fought like a man and refused to sell myself at any price. But in this grim little universe, the pod, the only world that is left, they will know, and Zeus will know, and I, a son of Zeus, will know.

In the end it is also through Epictetus that he makes his break from prison, although, again, not entirely on account of the words of the philosopher, but also because of an earthquake that struck as a kind of a deus ex machina.’ By now, however, Hensley was certain that the deus was Zeus (476): [Conrad] made a sweeping gesture with his hand, to indicate the devastation. "You know who did all this?" He caught himself. He remained there on his haunches, his mouth half open, staring at [his cellmate, a Hawaiian, nicknamed] Five-O, not uttering a sound. He knew it would be pointless to bring up the name of Zeus. Five-O believed only in the moment-to-moment strategies of the realist. Five-O said, "You mean [Zeus,] dat buggah you wen tell about before?"

"Yes," [replied Conrad].

Having introduced us in A Man in Full to Charlie Croker first, then to Conrad

Hensley, and finally to Epictetus, Wolfe eventually brings the

two loose threads of his novel together (two because by now, as is apparent, Hensley and Epictetus are practically one) some 200 pages later in Chapter XXIX (entitled "Epictetus in Buckhead").

Through a series of exceptional adventures Conrad Hensley, now an

escaped convict with the alias of Connie DeCassi, makes his way to Atlanta and finds employment as a nurse's aide. His arrival there could not be more opportune, as Charlie Croker has at the same time just undergone knee replacement surgery and as a result is in a great deal of pain,

but he is in a moral dilemma too. The possibility of date rape, involving a black football player and the daughter of one of Charlie's wealthy white friends, is threatening to divide the whole of Atlanta racially un-

less he, known in his own days of football glory as "the sixty-minute 7 Norman Mailer in his review of A Man in Full (The New York Review of Books, 17 December 1998, 22) so describes the earthquake.

EPICTETUS AS THERAPIST

101

man” (because he played both offence and defence) comes forward to

attest to the athlete's strength of character, which Croker has, in fact, found entirely lacking. That Atlanta's PlannersBanc has agreed not to foreclose on Charlie but to restructure some 500 million dollars in loans owed them, if he diffuses racial tensions by backing the athlete, complicates the dilemma even further. It is high time for Charlie and Epictetus to meet through Conrad (alias Connie) (664): Charlie was curious, in spite of himself. What brought a young man to a [nursing] job like this?

He turned his head toward the boy, opened his eyes, and said, "Well ... whataya reading?" "Sir?" The boy looked startled and closed the book. "Whattaya reading?" His voice was so tired. “It’s a book called The Stoics, Mr. Croker.” A little further along their conversation continues (665): "So tell me, do you consider yourself a Stoic?" “I'm just reading about it," said Conrad, "but I wish there was somebody around today, somebody you could go to, the way students went to Epictetus. Today people think of Stoics - like, you know, like they're people who grit their teeth and tolerate pain and suffering. But that's not it at all. What they are is, they're serene and confident in the face of anything you can throw at them."

Then Charlie asks pointedly (665): "What does your Stoic say [about dilemmas]?" ... There was embarrassment on the boy's face. He hesitated ... then said: "To a Stoic there are no dilemmas. They don't exist."

Finally Conrad illustrates his point (666) by recalling the following story from Epictetus (1.2.12-18): The boy said, "Well, there was a famous Stoic named Agrippinus, if that's the way you pronounce it. I've never heard anybody say his name out loud. ... So one day this well-known Roman historian named Florus arrives at Agrippinus' house, and he's sweating and trembling, and he says to Agrippinus: “The most terrible thing has happened. I’ve been summoned to appear in one of Nero's plays. If I do it, I'll be humiliated before everybody in Rome that I care about. If 1 don't, I'll be killed.’ “I’ve received the same summons,’ says Agrippinus.

"My God,’ says the historian, ‘you too! What do we do?’ “You go ahead and act in the play,’ said Agrippinus. ‘I’m

not going to.’

“Why me and not you?’ said the historian. “Because you've considered it.'" "Christalmighty," said Charlie. "That's [exactly my] - “But he de-

102

JOHN J. GAHAN cided not to finish the thought?

It can be seen now, in this passage in particular, the way in which Tom Wolfe seems to view the relationship between his characters and Epictetus. It is one almost of client (Conrad or eventually Charlie) and therapist (Epictetus). The characters have crises with which they deal

through the counsel they take from the philosopher. This brings us back to Lou Marinoff and the American Philosophical Practitioners Association. The subtitle of Plato Not Prozac, is, again, Applying Philosophy to Everyday Problems, which, as is now apparent, is directly relevant to Charlie

Croker and Conrad Hensley in Tom Wolfe. Marinoff, who views philosophical counseling as an alternative to the medical model followed by so many in the psychiatric profession, advocates instead a process

whereby, having identified their problem, the emotions associated with it, and the option for its solution, clients turn, with the help of a philosophical counselor, to a particular philosopher or school of philosophy to find a way of living with that best option.’ The interesting coincidence in all this is of course that Tom Wolfe, in the world of modern popular fiction, can be seen through his characters as the same kind of advocate for philosophical counselling as Marinoff indeed is in the academic world (albeit through a self-help manual intended for a popular audience). Both writers suggest, as did Socrates,

that the unexamined life is not worth living, regardless of whether we conduct the examination through Platonic (although in the course of his book Marinoff does not limit himself just to Plato) or Stoic philosophy. But to return to A Man in Full and the role of Epictetus. By now this much is clear: neither Charlie Croker nor Conrad Hensley is truly a man

in full, but through Epictetus each has received fulfillment. By the end of the novel we in fact find that Charlie refuses to give the athlete the cru* There are some difficulties with these two individuals. Oates (above, n. 6, 619) identifies Agrippinus as the noted Roman philosopher and for two years consul of Crete during the reign of Claudius. Florus is more difficult. Oates says (623) that he is possibly L. Annaeus Florus, who wrote an epitome of Roman history. However, as the historian (more correctly L. Ann(a)eus, sometimes Iulius, Florus) seems not to have written before the reign of Antoninus Pius (cf.

his pref. 8 and 1.5.5-8), it seems more likely that Epictetus is referring to another individual of the same name. On the other hand, that the philosopher and historian are portrayed as contemporaries here in the novel is not uncharacteristic.

Towards the end Wolfe has Hensley say "at the time Nero was emperor, about 95 A.D," and further down the page that "the emperor after Nero was Domitian" (666). Are these lapses Hensley's or the author's? Regardless, we are of course reading fiction, not history. ? Marinoff (above, n. 1) 37-51 identifies five steps involved in managing problems philosophically (for which he has uses the acronym PEACE).

EPICTETUS AS THERAPIST

103

cial character endorsement that was needed, and as a consequence he loses his real estate empire. He does, however, as indicated earlier, survive. To quote a conversation between two characters from the Epilogue (731-732): "What did happen to Croker?" "... he walked away from a corporation worth hundreds of millions. Of course, his debts were even greater, by another couple of hundred million or so, but still -- it was unbelievable. Now he's an evangelist.”

“An evangelist? ... Oh - come - on! What in God's name is he preaching?" "Nothing in God's name. He's out there talking about the Manager ... him and Zeus. Apparently the two names are interchangeable. And there's Epi-something - I can't remember the name. And there's Messenger Connie, who'll soon be returning to Earth from wherever. ... and he calls himself a Stoic."

Specifically as to Conrad: for "returning to Earth" he had first, as an escaped convict, to surrender to the authorities. However, when he came up for trial, the judge, we find, was sympathetic: Conrad's release was reported in the local California papers the very next day under the glaring headline, "Turn Me Loose, Zeus" (732).

In conclusion we need to address the other question asked earlier of why Tom Wolfe had Charlie Croker meet Epictetus in the first place. Before attempting to answer that, it is perhaps appropriate to recall another of Epictetus's fellow Romans, Lucius Apuleius, born in Roman North Africa around A.D. 123, when Epictetus was nearly seventy years old and lecturing in Greece. Like Epictetus, Apuleius was a philosopher, but like Tom Wolfe he was a novelist too and is best remembered for his Metamorphoses (or Golden Ass), the only Latin novel that survives intact. Some critics have seen the Metamorphoses in part as Apuleius's attempt at

a kind of harmonization of Platonic philosophy with the Egyptian cult of Isis to form a bulwark against the rising tide of Christianity in the Ro-

man Empire of the second century." One of Apuleius's concerns in the Metamorphoses, which can be defined, then, simply as "religion," is at first glance conspicuously absent

from A Man in Full." Like much popular fiction the novel is replete with sex, violence, and greed. In the end, however, religion is there too. In A

Man in Full Tom Wolfe has set up the power and affluence of a Charlie Croker and the "glitz" of his twentieth-century Atlanta for the sole purpose of knocking them down. In their place he seems to be offering, in V So P.G. Walsh, writing on Apuleius, in E.J. Kenney, ed., The Cambridge History of Classical Literature II (Latin Literature) (Cambridge 1982) 778-786. " Cf. John Updike in his review of A Man in Full in The New Yorker (November 9, 1998) 102.

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JOHN J. GAHAN

his apparently post-Christian world, the simplicity of Epictetus and Stoi-

cism, in much the same way that Apuleius had suggested a PlatonistIsiac alternative to pre-Christian Rome.

WORDS WITHOUT A SONG THE CHALLENGE OF CARMINA BURANA 62 ROBERT GLENDINNING TEXT AND PROSE TRANSLATION 1

When the crystal lamp of Diana rises late, lit by her brother's light, the sweet breath of Zephyr wafts the clouds from the sky; so the power of music softens the heart that wavers and urges it to the vows of love.

Dum Diane vitrea

sero lampas oritur et a fratris rosea

luce dum succenditur,

dulcis aura Zephiri spirans omnes etheri nubes tollit;

sic emollit

vis chordarum pectora etinmutat

cor, quod nutat

ad amoris pignora. The happy star of Hesperus rises, giving welcome sleep-bearing dew to the race of mortals.

Letum iubar Hesperi gratiorem dat humorem roris soporiferi mortalium generi. O quam felix est antidotum soporis,

quod curarum tempestates sedat et doloris! Dum surrepit clausis oculorum poris, ipsum gaudio equiperat dulcedini amoris. Orpheus in mentem trahit inpellentem ventum lenem, segetes maturas, murmura rivorum per harenas puras, circulares ambitus molendinorum, qui furantur somno lumen oculorum.

O how happy is the antidote of sleep, calming the storms of care and sorrow. When it slips into the closed eyes its

joy matches the sweetness of love. Orpheus draws into the mind a gentle

but impelling wind, fields of ripe grain, the murmur of water flowing over pure sands, the turning of mill-wheels, things which rob the eyes of light through sleep.

105

106

ROBERT GLENDINNING

5

Post blanda Veneris conmercia lassatur cerebri substantia; hinc caligant mira novitate oculi nantes in palpebrarum rate. Hei quam felix transitus amoris ad soporem, sed suavior regressus ad amorem!

6

Ex alvo leta fumus evaporat, qui capitis tres cellulas irrorat; hic infumat oculos ad soporem pendulos, et palpebras sua fumositate replet, ne visus exspacietur late;

unde ligant oculos virtutes animales, que sunt magis vise ministeriales.

7

The happy viscera emit a smoke that seeps into the three chambers of the brain; it clouds the eyes that drift toward sleep and fills the eyelids with its smoky haze, to prevent the sight from wandering afield. Thus the anima! powers, usually our servants, bind the

eyes.

Fronde sub arboris amena, dum querens canit philomena,

Under the pleasing boughs of a tree, while the nightingale sings her plaint, it

suave est quiescere, suavius ludere

is sweet to rest, but sweeter still to

ingramine

cum virgine

Si variarum spiraverit,

spetiosa.

odor herbarum

si dederit

torum rosa,

dulciter soporis alimonia post Veneris defessa conmercia captatur,

8

After the tender transactions of Venus, the brain becomes faint. In a strange and wonderful way the eyes dim and float on an eyelid-raft. Ah how happy is the passing from love to sleep, but sweeter still the return to love!

dum lassis instillatur.

sport on the grass with a fair maiden, when the scent of greenery fills the air, when rose petals offer a bed; yet after Venus's commerce is spent and done, the nourishment of sleep is sweetly instilled in the tired lovers.

animus amantis

O how many changes beset the mind of an uncertain lover. He who serves in the

variatur vacillantis!

wavering cohort of Venus fluctuates

O in quantis

Ut vaga ratis per equora, dum caret anchora,

fluctuat inter spem metumque dubia sic Veneris milicia.

between hope and fear like an anchorless raft tossing on the sea.

CARMINA BURANA 62 "Sweet to sleep and wake again" (after "Dum Diane vitrea," Carmina Burana 62)

Darkness-dwelling Moon-Diana

Late her crystal lamp doth light, Kindling from her brother's fire The gentle ray of argent night— Clouds on Zephyr's breath a-fleeting, Song of psaltery long entreating, Long demurring ill enduring— So doth heart to heart incline, Vows affiance heart's compliance, All is meet for love's design.

Hesperus' happy star now riseth, Dew-bestowing, now appriseth Mortal race of vap'rous grace, Slumber's boon it soft deviseth. Care-dispelling sleep, how blessed! Raging Fortune dream-redressed! Stealthily on eyelids pressed, Is aught more fair? Can aught compare, Save happy lovers' sweet despair?

Orpheus' cadence, all-impelling, Music wind-born, whispered telling, Murmurings of harvest grain,

Brooks with sands washed pure again, Windmills' rounding arms, such charms

The theft of day with sleep repay. Love's transactions—gift on gift Now done, now brain and eyelids drift, Boatsmen blind, on slumber's deep,

Now mersed in sleep, now wake again, On ancient shore, love's royal domain.

Passion blazeth, embers die, Fading into smoke-tear'd eye, Dark enchantments urging slumber Eyelids burden, limbs encumber.

107

108

ROBERT GLENDINNING 7

Sweet to sleep and wake again, New disquiet ‘neath Venus’ reign; Breath of rose, the nightingale, Nocturnes dark in leaf and vale; Beauty's paragon the maid, Lovers’ fee to Venus paid.

8

Ah, heart now cold, how memories old Thee warm again! Tale ever told— How lovers’ barque doth roam the mere, E'er tossed by winds of hope and fear, E'er lost though homing to the port, Ah, Love, how bittersweet thy sport!

In the above free translation, transformation, variation, imitation—I believe each of these terms applies at one point or another—I have tried,

while taking great liberties with the Latin text,' to furnish an instance of ! All modern editions of the Latin text are based on the critical edition by Alfons Hilka and Otto Schumann

(see CB

in References). However,

many

subse-

quent editors have demurred at conjectural emendations introduced by Hilka and Schumann (henceforth H/S) and restored manuscript readings or introduced different emendations. In most instances such variations are of minor consequence and need not be taken into account here. There is one major exception which will form part of the following discussion. The Latin text presented here coincides, except for its line and space format, with that of Konrad Vollmann (204-208). In configuring the text of the poem for the eye of a reader, modern editors have exercised their own discretion as to which rhymes should be considered end-rhymes and which internal. Where internal rhyme is posited, most editors have separated groups of words by intervening space in order to assist the eye as well as the ear in detecting the rhyme. In most instances the manuscript reliably marks only stanza divisions, not line divisions (H/S, Kommentar 27). In line and space format my text conforms most closely to that of P.C. Walsh (1993) 15-19. Nevertheless, more must be said about this in the discussion, since I regard it as a significant part of the “challenge of Carmina Burana 62." Carmina Burana 62, or "Dum Diane vitrea," is preserved in a single manuscript, clm 4660,

Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich. This compendious manuscript was brought to light in modern times in 1803, when, in the course of the secularization of Bavarian monastic houses, Baron Christoph von Aretin visited the Benedictine abbey of Benediktbeuern about 100 km south of Munich to expedite the transfer of its library to Munich. The manuscript is not believed to have been produced in Benediktbeuern, and how it came to rest there is unknown. Its provenance in German-speaking territory is clear, but because of traces of Italian influence Bernhard Bischoff believes it originated in Tyrol or Carinthia "at the court of a prelate who was a lover of fine books and a patron of students" (28). The manu-

script was first published by Johann Andreas Schmeller in 1847 with the title it has retained ever since, Carmina Burana (here CB).

CARMINA

BURANA 62

109

Tennyson's dictum that "faith unfaithful kept him falsely true." I would

now like to comment on problems and challenges which I believe face an editor, a translator, indeed any modern reader of the Latin text, and in conclusion attempt to provide some raison d'être for the English version I

have offered above. Although one of the poem's most perplexing problems is the concept of the original poem itself, it will be well to begin with a preliminary matter of taxonomy.

The first thing that will strike a modern reader of the Latin text as a poem is its irregular form. Metrically, it seems to have been constructed

on shifting sands—so much so that one might wonder how it can be read as a single, continuous text at all. At some points its rhythmical form seems to disappear almost entirely and thereby beg classification with medieval song that was not rhythmical in its own right, but "unmeas-

ured," following natural speech rhythms in the manner of plain-chant. A point to be made at the outset, then, is that by all accounts "Dum Diane vitrea" belongs to the genre of the lyric lai?

The history of the lyric lai through the centuries, from its putative birth in the liturgical sequence (a section of the Mass), to its high form in the fourteenth century, is opaque and full of conjecture (Fallows [2001] 118-127). Fallows’ description of the form, though based on lais known to be from the thirteenth century and therefore probably somewhat later than “Dum Diane vitrea,” could well have been written as specific to our poem (118): The stanzas ... are each in a different form and therefore have different music. Though the number of surviving examples is small ... these works occupy a special position for several reasons: the very irregularity of the poetic form led to large metrical and rhyming patterns that have caused the lai and its German equivalent the Leich to be described as the major showpieces of medieval lyric poetry. ... In general it is true to say that in the 13th century the form could be extremely free, with highly irregular rhyme schemes and lines of uneven length .... And as to the form in an earlier stage of its development (Fallows 121): [T]he early lai is often a mere series of poetic lines, mostly brief and all rhyming with some other line, sometimes easily divisible into larger sections but not always giving any clear clue as to formal shape.

2 It was intended that the songs in the Buranus manuscript should be notated,

and in many cases appropriate space was left for this to be done by a later hand (H/S, Kommentar 63). It was actually carried out in only a few cases. A number of melodies have been reconstructed in modern notation from the Buranus manuscript or from parallel manuscript evidence (about which more will be said below), but neither CB 62 nor its parody is among these, nor are they among the poems used by Carl Orff in his modern setting of CB poems.

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ROBERT GLENDINNING

The genetic relationship between lyric lai and liturgical sequence provides an immediate explanation for another characteristic of the lyric lai—the repetition, or doubling, of versicles or parts of versicles, exemplified particularly well in stanzas 1 and 2 of "Dum Diane vitrea." The medieval sequence arose from an extension of the "Halleluiah"

section of the Mass, and comprised an antiphonal form of singing in which two choirs sang alternate verses of text to a repeated melodic phrase. However, the different sets of doublets could differ from one an-

other in rhythm and in length of line, and hence also in melody (Klopsch [1972] 50-57; Seay [1965] 49-51). When this principle became established outside the liturgy as the lyric lai, greater latitude developed in the variation between different parts of the song. This new freedom of form coincided with an increasing love of a different kind of music—the word music of rhyme? With rhyme an added factor, repetitions were audible in both melody and rhyme and could be varied in a more complex man-

ner, opening the door to virtuosity. At least in the first two stanzas of our poem the rhyme coincides with identically structured rhythmical verses, which suggests that in these stanzas rhyming words marked the end of repeated melodic phrases.* On the other hand, though rhyme could signal a melodic repetition, it would be unsafe to assume that it always did

so. Where it did not, we would have a finely balanced interlacing and sensuous interplay of rhyme and melody, which appears to be the case in our poem, especially in the last two stanzas.

These are undoubtedly some of the factors which account for the ranking of "Dum Diane vitrea" among the great poems of the Latin Middle Ages? Yet not every scholar and reader has seen CB 62 as a

masterpiece. In fact, in the form in which it has been recorded in the Buranus manuscript, the poem has been criticized as a seriously flawed work. ? For a survey of the history of rhyme in medieval poetry, an artistic device which reached its fullest development in the twelfth century, see Klopsch (1972) 38-49, and Raby (1957) 21-27.

* “[O]ne of the most prominent features of the lai is normally the principle of responsion, or repeated material. ‘Lesser responsion’ is the immediate or almost immediate repetition of a metrical or poetic scheme in the manner of the 'classi-

cal' double-versicle sequence: the repeated metre and rhyme scheme normally bring with them a musical repeat. But in the lai, particularly in the early stages of its history, the scheme of a single line or a couplet will often be repeated several times before new material is introduced, and this brings in its train the multifold repetition of short melodic fragments" (Fallows [2001] 121).

* E.g. Raby (1957) 2.270, Dronke (1968) 313, Bernt (1985) 851, 905, Vollmann (1987) 1013. For Helen Waddell (1927) 170, "Dum Diane vitrea" is "the height of

secular Latin poetry, even as the Dies irae of the sacred: the twin peaks of the medieval Parnassus."

CARMINA BURANA 62

111

The problem arises through a perceived discrepancy between the first half of the poem (stanzas 1-4) and the second half (stanzas 5-8). Hilka

and Schumann (henceforth H/S), co-editors of the German critical edition, considered this discrepancy so serious that they removed the "offending" last four stanzas from their text and placed them in an ex-

tended footnote. Originally, they argued, there was a second half to the poem which resembled the first half more closely, continuing its “wundervolle, echt dichterische Stimmung" ("wonderful, truly poetic atmosphere"). A later entertainer with little poetic refinement substituted the present stanzas 5-8 to please vulgar tastes, making CB 62 a very "ordi-

nary sort of love-poem" in the process (H/S I, 2, 22). Indeed, H/S go further than this, and in so doing betray, I believe, a bias which must affect our assessment of their treatment of the poem as

a whole. They question the 5-8, but even of those lines love (the last line of stanza given for this is that the two which make them suspect.

authenticity not only of our present stanzas in stanzas 1-4 which make any mention of 1 and the last line of stanza 3). The reason lines in question present technical problems Line 1, 12 has the impure rhyme (pectora /

pondera) and line 3, 4 has the hiatus gaudio equiperat. Remarkably, how-

ever, the impure rhyme is a result of the editors' own intervention in the text to change the manuscript reading pignora (a pure rhyme with pectora) to pondera. They base this emendation on a parody of our poem, CB

197 (see below), which has pignora where it is unquestionably fitting in the context of that poem (students are drinking in a tavern and it is said that Bacchus ... immut[a]t vestes [eorum] in pignora ("Bacchus converts

their clothes into pledges,” i.e., to pay for their wine). H/S pignora appeared

in CB

62 in the corresponding

believed that

position by back-

formation from the parody. We may infer that H/S favoured pondera (“burdens”) because this word appears congruent with the “tempests of cares and pain” in stanza 3, 2. The change to pondera coincides with and supports their understanding that love is the pain, the “burden,” for which sleep is an antidote. Then love is after all a subject of the first four stanzas! Most subsequent editors and emendation, and when

translators have rejected this

this is done we no longer have a reason to inter-

pret love as a negative factor in the poem, but rather the opposite. The “tempests of cares and pain” are then understood as a reference to the common burdens of everyday life for which both sleep and love are a remedy. As to the hiatus in line 3, 4, this blemish can be eliminated by

synaeresis and elision, or by a minor editorial intervention in the text (such is necessary in many places), e.g., by the deletion of ipsum and

emendation of gaudio to gaudium, to produce the reading “[this] joy equals the sweetness of love.” As already pointed out, H/S

object to stanzas 5-8 on the grounds of

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ROBERT GLENDINNING

style and content as well as their metrical character. In contrast to the

wonderful atmosphere of stanzas 1-4, these stanzas, as well as being stereotypical in expression, represent nothing but "eine erholsame zeit-

weilige Unterbrechung derben Genusses" ("a temporary recuperative interruption of crude gratification"). Yet if the last 4 stanzas of the present poem are excised, H/S are left with the "embarrassing situation" (Blodgett/Swanson [1987] 302) of a fragmentary CB 62. H/S believed

that the postulated original "second half" continued the tone and character of the first half. They have little to say about what might have filled these lost stanzas once the first four stanzas have conveyed the arrival of evening and the rising of Hesperus's star (i.e., Venus), although they hint that it might have developed a theme of world-weariness, for which sleep provides the remedy. They admit that such a poem, primarily about sleep, would be a strange and solitary creature in the literary

world of the time (to say nothing of its presence in CB's collection of 130 love lyrics).

As I have indicated, some editors and translators after H/S have been inclined to accept their deletion of stanzas 5-8. Helen Waddell, in her ground-breaking Medieval Latin Lyrics (1927), had already dropped stanzas 6 and 8 without comment (276-279). In 1976 Walsh (28, 85) included

only stanzas 1-4, then retreated slightly in 1993 in his Love Lyrics from the Carmina Burana, including the additional stanzas and allowing readers

"to form their own judgement" (18). Walsh, then, continued to hold to H/S's view that sleep is the major theme of CB 62: "Stanzas 1-4 form a miniature masterpiece on the single theme of the blessings of night for the wearied lover. Lovemaking, so conspicuous in the appended stanzas, is irrelevant to the treatment" (18).

Robertson develops this view even further. To him the poem conveys the message that one should sleep instead of making love (138), to overstate

his argument only slightly. Peter Dronke's "restoration" of stanzas 5-8 in 1963 (1968?) represents

a significant critical act, in fact a turning point in our understanding of

the poem. For him the theme of the poem is neither love nor sleep, but serenity—the serenity afforded by love and sleep (311): The mood

is serenity, the argument begins as a comparison of the se-

* "Sollte es richtig sein, daf amoris in 1, 12 [= 1, 10] und 3, 4 auf Interpolation

beruht, dann sprach in diesem Gedicht ursprünglich ein unter der Last des Lebens überhaupt, nicht der Liebe allein seufzendes Menschenherz. Noch stárker, als es ohnehin schon der Fall ist, würde sich dann diese Schópfung abheben nicht blof von ihrer Fortsetzung in B [= stanzas 5-8], sondern von der grofien

Masse der sich in herkómmlichen Motiven und Formen bewegenden Lyrik jener Zeit überhaupt" (I, 2, 23).

CARMINA BURANA 62

113

renity of love with that of sleep. ... As Zephyr's breath serves the moon, making the sky serene so that she can show her radiance, so the breath of music serves mankind, making the mind serene, so that the heart can show the radiance of love. While love is like a shower of moonlight, sleep is like a rain of light from the evening star. While love demands serenity, sleep can bestow it—so their joys complement each other. Diana and Hesperos rise together.

For Dronke stanzas 5-8 as recorded in CB are a natural and integral

part of the poem. Stanza 5 “show[s] the design of the two that follow," stanza 6 represents the passage from love to sleep, while the "complementary seventh shows how from sleep love arises again" (312). Dronke's treatment of stanza 6, the passage that H/S have referred to as an extract "from some physiological textbook," is what we might call a scholar's coup. He cites a passage from precisely such a "physiological textbook," Hildegard of Bingen's Causae et Curae, which describes the physical process of falling asleep in a text which is laced with poetic expressions and ways of seeing its subject ([1968] 310). To Hildegard the envelopment of the brain in sleep is like an enchanting fume (ventum), which, passing through the veins of the neck, is wafted through the whole nape of the neck, passes over the temples and the veins of the head, and lowers a man's vital breath. ... the marrow often, of its own warmth, stirs the blood out of its superfluity to erotic delight. ... But because the soul is fixed in the body, it often harmonises with it in sleeping as well as in waking ... for as air in water turns a mill-wheel round and makes it grind, so the soul moves the body both of the waking and the sleeping man to diverse activities ... as the moon is the light of the night, so the soul is the light of the sleeping body.

“Is it not wonderful,” comments Dronke (311), "that this ‘pedantic’ statement of the matter should use as illustrations the very same 'genu-

inely poetic' images as the lyric does? That the 'physiological textbook' is 'disrupted' by poetry as much as the poem by physiology"? For Dronke this represents images of body, mind and nature, each partaking of the other two in a single, harmonious operation. Inner and outer worlds, sleeping and waking worlds, become one. If Dronke's interpretation has not convinced all subsequent readers, it

has nevertheless left an indelible mark on scholarship. Konrad Vollmann, whose edition of the complete Buranus manuscript together with translations, notes and a critical commentary in German, is the most sig-

nificant contribution to the subject since the publication of the H/S

edi-

tion, sees the matter just as Dronke does, and acknowledges his debt to

the latter. It is possible to approach the problem of stanzas 5-8 from a different direction—that of the parody of CB 62 already mentioned (CB 197). Be-

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ROBERT GLENDINNING

sides parodying the content of "Dum Diane vitrea," it is clear that CB 197 was also intended to be sung to the same melody as its model. In musi-

cal terminology, it is a contrafact. On the basis of a comparison of these two songs I would

like to hazard some conjectures about the musical

character of "Dum Diane vitrea" and the performance style by which it was realized as a song. The first two stanzas of the parody will serve as

an example of the broad humour and witty impudence of the poem, which bases its irony on a parallel between the love-ecstasy of CB 62 and a drinking orgy in a tavern: 1

Dum domus lapidea foro sita cernitur,

When the stone building in the square is perceived and the eye is

et a fratris [read luce?] rosea

attracted by its rosy light [?], the

visus dum allicitur, "dulcis" ferunt socii “locus hic est hospitii. Bacchus tollat, Venus molliat Vi bursarum pectora

companions say: "Sweet to stay in this place. With the power of the purse may Bacchus lift the heart, may Venus soften the heart, and may they calculate and change our clothes into

et immutet

pawns.

et computet

vestes in pignora. 2

Molles cibos edere, impinguari, dilitari studeamus ex adipe, alacriter bibere."

Let us be industrious to eat good food, to batten on the lard-pail and fatten ourselves, and to imbibe with alacrity."

Several things are immediately clear. In metrical form these stanzas are close enough to their corresponding stanzas in CB 62 to assure us that the parodist understood his/her model as metrical, not as words

that were variable as long as the melody was right. Various editors have emended the text of CB 197 to make it rhythmically identical to CB 62, just as its rhyme scheme is identical: line 1, 6 to locus est hospitii or locus hic hospitii or locus hic est hospiti, line 1, 10 to vestes mox in pignora, and

line 2, 3, to studeamus adipe (H/S

I, 3, 39); if the rhythm is strictly ob-

served, we must then either accept several wrenched

accents into the

bargain, i.e., line 1, 1 domus and line 2, 4 alacriter, or allow for the lengthening of syllables to more than one beat (the equivalent of a half note in

4/4 time) and the contraction of others to half a beat (eighth notes). In line 1, 7 molliat should undoubtedly be read with synaeresis. Text and music, at least in these stanzas, are rhythmical, but not strongly accentual as would be the case in a dance-song, and the melody must have been

the same in the two poems, or nearly so. Even a quick sampling of scholarly studies of medieval song reveals

CARMINA BURANA 62

115

that it is a field in which many questions await definitive answers and seem likely to continue so. Nevertheless, some tentative conclusions

reached in recent musicological studies on questions relating to the present discussion may be adduced here in a search for help in under-

standing tionship presence so did it

CB 62. The central problem is that of understanding the relabetween words and music, more precisely, the question of the or absence of musical rhythm. Did musical rhythm exist, and if exist in its own right, or did it follow the natural accent of the

words as a sort of recitative or plain-chant? We learn from John Stevens

that in the lyrical lai, the "melodic idiom" is "constructed out of single notes, mostly, and rarely [... uses] more than two to a syllable" ([1986] 142). But this still leaves open the question, as David Hughes puts it, of whether the melody was the "servant or the mistress of the words"

([1976] 30).

In his extensive and meticulous study of the problem (upon which the present remarks are mainly based) Stevens succinctly summarizes the

problem by positing three possibilities: "either the predominance of the metre following a regular scheme; or predominance of some 'absolute' musical scheme

(i.e. a rhythmic pattern inherent in the melody);

or a

more varied and flexible manner of interpretation in which there is a slightly unpredictable interplay between words and music" (152). If I

have understood Stevens's presentation correctly, it is the third of these possibilities which receives his approval, at least in general terms and with some necessary caveats. I refer particularly to his final eloquent and

highly persuasive chapter (492-504). Even before that point he has summed up his findings in a passage that must be recorded here in spite of its length (483-484): The elaborate sense of pattern, which is absent from the courtly chan-

son, derives in part from verbal factors: a continuously displayed rhythmic contrast between strophes; not infrequent ambivalence in the stresses of the individual line; the play of rhyme. Parallel to these verbal patterns, and coinciding with them in their main structure, are musical patterns: "they have their own relations, echoes, contrasts, building up into a ‘net’ of sounds that fits perfectly over the ‘net’ of words but with a different mesh." This conspicuous and obtruding sense of pattern is the generic feature of lai-melody. It is reinforced in the lai, as in the "intermediate" and later sequence, by the fairly regular verbal accent and by the special kind of lively, angular, single-note melody described in the earlier chapter. These traits introduce a direct relationship between individual words and notes, though of a severely limited kind; and this direct relationship must have some bearing, one would think, on the rhythmical interpretation. Conclusions are bound to be tentative; but what fits best, in my view, with the "aesthetic" of the lai is a metrical but not a measured rhythm, in transcription and for performance. It must be admitted, on the other hand, that an assortment of longs and shorts

116

ROBERT GLENDINNING could also well display the kaleidoscopically varied schemata of the lai.

This passage seems at first glance to represent a case of wanting to have one's cake and eat it too. However, Stevens concludes the above

passage with an assurance which I believe is important for our understanding of our poems and goes far to reconcile the apparent inconsis-

tencies of the above passage: “However—and this is the point that needs stressing—durational values are not essential" (484, emphasis added). Hughes is similarly circumspect: "the text determines the musical

rhythm. In practice this will result in 4/4 or 6/8 meter." However, there was "a tolerance of some (perhaps considerable) latitude in rhythmic performance" (36-37) All in all I take this to mean

that there is some

rhythm in the lyrical lai and that it is a phenomenon that embraces both words and music together (Stevens 498-499). It is not a temporally exact rhythm, but flexible, and probably variable from performer to performer and performance to performance? I believe this finding accords ex-

tremely well with both CB 62 and its parody-contrafact. In keeping with this hypothesis I understand the first two stanzas of CB 62 and its parody as isosyllabic, a term which Stevens defines as "consisting of melodic units of approximately equal length, each corresponding to a single syllable of text" (507). There are two kinds of lines

in these stanzas, both, metrically speaking, in trochaic tetrameter, the one with masculine endings (strong cadences) and the other with feminine endings (weak cadences). This is most easily conceptualized in musi-

cal terms as a "square" rhythm, such as two bars in quadruple (4/4) time’: 1

2

3

4

|

1

2

Dum

Di-

an-

e

|

vi-

tre-

3

a

4

-

(masculine ending)

7 On tempo rubato and approximate (my emphasis) rhythmic patterns within an isosyllabic rendering see also Stevens (1986) 501. Clemencic (1979) 175 refers in

this context to improvisationsartiges rubato ("rubato in an improvisational style"). I have found the concept of improvisation useful and shall refer to it below. ὃ Clemencic is especially persuasive on this point. Space constraints permit only the following: "No two preserved songs of this period, even the best-known songs, exist in fully identical form. ... Today we find such openness to variation in popular music [and] folk music [. . .] " ([1979] 174-175, trans. R.G.).

? René Clemencic has conjecturally reconstructed the melodies of forty-six songs of the CB manuscript using the neumes (unmeasured notation indicating only approximate pitch in the absence of a musical staff) of the manuscript in the small number of cases where they exist, and parallel versions from other manuscripts where such exist. Of these forty-six melodies, if I have counted correctly, 6 are in quadruple time, 13 in triple time, and 26 in unmeasured notation, with the latter distributed more or less evenly between melismatic and isosyllabic forms.

CARMINA

BURANA 62

117

and 1

2

3

4

|

1

2

3

4

nu-

bes

tol

lit

|

sic

e-

mol

lit

(feminine ending)

In terms of the repetition of rhythm and melody this structure is less simple than meets the eye. Stanzas 1 and 2 seem to represent a complex system or web of rhythmical (and hence melodic) repeats which is convincingly present in some form but difficult to fix exactly. In stanza 1,

lines 1-2 and lines 3-4 match exactly (I refer here to both CB 62 and the parody); lines 6-8 (spirans omnes etheri | nubes tollit; sic emollit / vis chordarum pectora) would perfectly match lines 8-10 (vis chordarum pectora | et inmutat cor, quod nutat / ad amoris pignora), except that line 8 would have to be included in both configurations—configurations that, in spite of

this apparent anomaly, again match lines 1-3 of stanza 2. As well, each stanza has one "orphan" line, stanza 1 before its pair of 3-line configura-

tions, and stanza 2 after its single 3-line configuration. Rather, we should call these lines half-orphans, since both rhyme with either the immediately following or preceding line. To complicate matters still further,

these repeats, or possible repeats of rhythm and melody, do not correlate with the syntactical units of the text, so that we must assume a certain degree of continuity in the overall melodic line. I take this to be a very good example of what Stevens has in mind when he speaks of a “‘net’ of sounds that fits perfectly over the 'net' of words but with a different mesh," and I believe that even in these first two stanzas we begin to see

CB 62 as a "concert piece" that called for a gifted performer.” It would be equally possible to represent the above lines in triple time

(3/4 or 6/4), but this would be much more difficult with stanza 3 and most of the other long lines of the two poems. As well, if line 1 of stanza 3 in both poems is to be sung to the same melody as one or all following lines in the same stanza, some degree of measuring, or very least a very free treatment of duration, is obviously required. ever, once again the corresponding lines in the two poems are

of the at the Howclose

enough to each other metrically to assure us that the parodist knew both the metrical form and the melody of his model well. I suggest the fol-

lowing configurations, although others are possible. CB 62, stanza 3, 1-2:

? Dronke (1975) 134: "[W]e must, at least as a working hypothesis, assume the poet capable of a demanding artistry, such as we would without question expect with a major modern lyric poet."

118

ROBERT GLENDINNING

1 O-

23 -

4 quam

1 quod

2 3 cu- ra-

4 rum

!1 | fe-

2 lix

3 est

1 1 2 3 | tem-pes- ta-

4 anti-

1 1 | do-

4 tes

2 -

3 tum

1 12 | se- dat

3 et

4 so-

| 1234 | po- - ris -

411234 do- | lo- - ris -

CB 197 in the same position: 1 Hei,

23 -

4 quam

1 qui

23 cu- ra-

4 rum

11 | fe-

2 3 lix est

4 iam

| |

12 vi- ta

3 po-

4 ta-

1123 4 | to- - ris -

11 2 3 | tem-pes- ta-

4 tes

1 |

1 2 se- dat

3 et

41 1 2 me- | ro- -

3 4 ris -

Observing the same kind of freedom as illustrated here, or perhaps a little more, I believe it is possible to fit all the lines of stanzas 3-6 of both CB 62 and the parody into the same rhythmic scheme, assuming a mixture of lines with 8 musical beats, four of them stressed in accordance with metrical requirements, and the longer doubled version with 16 musical beats and 8 stresses. Of course, the required variation in duration of the syllables will often vitiate a strictly isosyllabic rendering (e.g. CB 62,

4, 3). This having been said, two caveats must be added: it must be re-

membered that if our poem is true to the tradition of the lyric lai, its melody will differ from one stanza to another (although I have suggested that stanzas 1 and 2, being so similar metrically, probably share

the same melody or parts of melodies in their several versicles). Secondly, even with the rhythmic scheme proposed here as a basic matrix, in actual practise performers may well tempo rubato, the temporary disregard or simply as the mood struck them on possibility of shifts between triple and

have availed themselves freely of of strict tempo, for special effect, a particular occasion. In fact, the quadruple time should probably

not be ruled out." When we come to stanza 5 (the first of the group of stanzas of CB 62 believed by H/S to be a substitution) metrical form does become more problematic. However, I would like to postpone further discussion of

this until later and turn at this point to a consideration of the content of CB 62 and its parody. We have already seen stanzas 1 and 2 of the parody above. Stanza 3 !! [n one of his reconstructed melodies, CB 73, Clemencic (1979) 194 has postulated just such a shift.

CARMINA BURANA 62

119

praises wine as the banisher of cares, as CB 62 praises sleep and love. In

stanza 4, where CB 62 evokes the soothing sounds of nature, the parody continues to praise wine, but by conveying the elation of the drinkers it

seems to anticipate the euphoria of CB 62 stanzas 5-7. The parody: [bibuli] scyphos crebros repetunt in sede maiestatis, | in qua iugum inops perdit sue paupertatis ("the drinkers lift cup after cup on their throne of majesty,

where the penurious lose their yoke of poverty," H/S I, 3, 38). This could be seen to be the result of an epitomizing technique in the parody at this point, since it contains only two further stanzas, whereas its model, CB

62, has four. In the parody, at stanza 5, the drinkers realize they are hungry and since food is apparently not available in the tavern, they stagger onto the street to look for it somewhere else. Once there, they collapse in the weeds by the wayside (nasturcio procumbunt plateali). There, "nude," that

is, denuded of their cloaks which they have pawned for wine (nudi carent penula), they lose all sense of time and place and imagine they are kneeling to say their prayers. The voice of a deliverer behind them (per posteriora dorsi H/S I, 3, 38) then tells them to rise, since their prayers have been heard, presumably favourably, by Bacchus, god of wine.

It seems plausible that the parodist intended a parallel not only between the elation of drinking and the elation of love mentioned above,

but also between the love-making on the grass in CB 62 and the drunken sprawling in the weeds of the wayside in the parody. The drinkers in the parody enjoy the tutelage and favour of Bacchus as the lovers in CB 62 enjoy the tutelage and favour of Venus. Moreover, no one, so far as | am aware, has made the point that the [vox] per posteriora dorsi of the drink-

ers could be an allusion to "visceral activity" and thus a mischievous correspondence to the "physiological" description of advancing sleep in CB 62, where we hear that ex alvo leta fumus evaporat ("the happy viscera

emit a smoke that seeps into the ... brain"). In his study of parody in the Middle Ages Paul Lehmann, without drawing a detailed comparison of

CB 62 and 197, does point to the parallels in stanzas 1-3 that we have observed above ([1963] 142-145). As to the line in question, the "voice at

the rear" in stanza 6, he says only: "der Parodist [lásst] den Hintern das ‘Levate’ sprechen"

("the parodist lets the buttocks speak the 'Arise'"),

and leaves the matter there.” Rather than considering the content of CB 62 and its parody as above, scholarly attention has focused on a limited number of matching rhymes, a few verbal echoes, the counting of syllables (H/S I, 2, 23), and the question of whether these are sufficient to justify the conclusion that ? Vollmann

(1987) 1226 offers an entirely different interpretation of this pas-

sage, but space constraints prohibit its presentation here.

120

ROBERT GLENDINNING

the parodist already possessed the last four stanzas of CB 62 as we have them in the manuscript (as opposed to the hypothetical lost "original" stanzas). H/S believed the parodist had our present stanzas 5-8, and

most researchers have agreed. It has been pointed out that this has little bearing on the question of authenticity, since it proves only that the sub-

stitution of the later stanzas had already taken place by the time the parody was composed (e.g., Walsh [1993] 18). This view gives little credit to

CB 62 for the fact that it was the poem with its present stanzas that became famous—famous enough to occasion a parody. Surely this is no small matter.’ Only Vollmann, as far as I am aware, allows that the received version of CB 62, that is, the poem as we have it now, is in its own

way authentic and makes preoccupation with a hypothetical earlier version irrelevant (1014). As for the alleged crudity of stanzas 5-8, it should be pointed out that many poems in the Buranus manuscript outdo CB 62, 5-8 by far in the explicit treatment of sex.* If a poetaster merely wished

to refashion the poem to appeal to the tastes of the prurient, it is here that he/she deserves a failing grade. Rather, it would be fair to credit him/her with a considerable degree of discretion and refinement, to look

at the matter the other way around. The parody ends with the sixth stanza, without giving us any reliable indication as to whether it should be considered complete or fragmentary. H/S

(I, 2, 23) believed that two final stanzas are missing, a view

which may be disputed on the basis that stanzas 5-6 of the parody are an adequate summary of stanzas 5-8 of CB 62. The point I would like to ar-

gue is that the parodist avoided a fuller parallel to these four stanzas of CB 62 precisely because they represented a challenge he/she was not willing to accept. This view involves us again in the question of the possible musical-rhythmical character of these stanzas, which necessitates a return for a moment to the more technical part of our earlier discussion.

In much later Also, point

rejecting the authenticity of stanzas 5-8 of CB 62, H/S have made of the increased instances of hiatus and wrenched accent in these stanzas as compared with the first four stanzas of the same poem. though it has little bearing on the question of authenticity, H/S out that from stanza 4 on the parody diverges in syllable-count

from what might be considered corresponding lines in CB 62 by as many

as three syllables, whereas in stanzas 1-4 the syllable-count varies in the P? Besides the parody in CB 197, Dronke (1968) 310 n. cites four instances of echoes of the recorded text of CB 62 in other medieval songs, and comments: "The song, then, was sufficiently famous in its present form to be imitated and parodied. This itself makes far-fetched the notion that more than half of what we have was mere Zudichtung." For an extreme example see Peter of Blois' "Grates ago Veneri," CB 72.

CARMINA BURANA 62

121

two poems by no more than one syllable per line. I believe H/S overestimate the importance of these factors, or rather, misunderstand their significance. They fail to take into account synaeresis and elision as possible solutions to hiatus and wrenched accent, as well as the relatively level, only gently accented rhythmicity of the poem. The question of

syllable-count has been addressed above in terms of the variable musical value of syllables. We have seen that syllables may have been variable in duration on a scale ranging, in musical terms, from an eighth note to a

dotted half note, if the rhythmical structure hypothesized above is accepted.

The significant factor, however, in favour of the "authenticity" of the present stanzas 5-8 in CB 62 is the argument that the greater degree of

rhythmical freedom found in these stanzas is part of the poem's artistic economy—part of an unfolding artistic process. As the poem proceeds, this process becomes increasingly demanding in terms of performance. Stanzas 7 and 8 of CB 62 represent such a complex web of rhyme and

varying length of rhythmic-melodic phrase, that we must set aside any attempt to establish a fixed scheme for them. Here the performer of CB 62 must have been severely challenged, and here I believe he/she had to be master of the "improvisational style" to be successful. Conceivably,

within limits, the performance of these stanzas was, at least musically, never exactly the same twice.

The greater loss of "regular" rhythm (i.e., more frequent occurrence of hiatus and wrenched accent in CB 62, and the greater divergence in syllable-count in the parody after stanzas 1-4) may be taken, as I have said, as an indication that the performance of the work was becoming increasingly difficult at this point, as was the remembering of it by the person

who recorded the source used by the Buranus scribe.'5 This is borne out by lines missing in the parody where they should correspond to CB 62, a factor which provides at least circumstantial evidence that the recording scribe's memory was flagging, beginning with stanza 3. A whole line is missing in this stanza of the parody, and two lines, if H/S’s reading is correct (I, 3, 38), from stanza 5." As we have seen, melody and words to 15 Reference may also be made here to Hughes's observation that "[i]n many strophic poems, a given syllable may have a single note in one strophe, while the syllable occupying exactly the same place in another strophe has two or even three notes ... More generally, single notes and small note-groups are freely interchangeable in identical metrical contexts" ([1976] 38). It must be admitted that

this does not fit seamlessly with Stevens's theory of isosyllabic structure. It is taken for granted that the Buranus scribes (there were three main scribes and

possibly

more,

see

H/S,

Kommentar

13-27) worked

from

written

sources (H/S, Kommentar 69-70, 73-75, 79).

"It is theoretically possible that these lines were omitted accidentally by the

122

ROBERT GLENDINNING

stanzas 1 and 2 of CB 62 are accurately imitated in the parody, but already in stanza 3 the improvisational style was getting in the way of

memory for the scribe of Buranus's source. By the time he/she got past stanza 4 of the model, the parodist (not the scribe of the Buranus source) knew that musically the game was up.

The parodist, then, made a good tactical choice in deciding not to imitate stanzas 5-8 of CB 62 in exact parallel, but to epitomize them in-

stead; and the latter is done to good effect. The mention at the very end of stanza 6 (the last stanza) of the remorse (compunctiones) of the drink-

ers, apparently for sins committed and now forgiven, is an appropriate conclusion to the parody, and a plausible match for the generalizing,

somewhat distanced reflection of the poetic voice of CB 62 at the end of that poem. In CB 62 it is a reflection that seems to have in it some element— not of remorse, but of regret, an element of distance in time, of memory and nostalgia. Taking all these factors into account, I would like to suggest that CB 62 is an authentic and impressive musical-poetic artifact of the Middle Ages, be it in the sense of Benedikt Vollmann (the

"originality" issue is irrelevant), or of Peter Dronke (there is no reason to regard CB 62's present stanzas 5-8 as spurious or even inferior). It would

perhaps be best to give Raby the final word (though he is referring to the poem only as a verbal artifact): "The best, perhaps, of all the Benediktbeuern lyrics is Dum Diane vitrea. 1t is useless to look here for

any sign of the school and its exercises ... for it is the poet's own intuitions of beauty that shine, though not with one level of brightness ...." ([1957] 2.270). In conclusion, a few remarks about the English adaptation, imitation, variation (German

"Nachdichtung") of "Dum

Diane vitrea" offered at

the beginning of the discussion." As to the archaizing style, my position is admirably stated in the words of Charles Rosen, though he is speaking of musical conventions: Buranus scribe who copied CB 197, but this seems highly unlikely. He/she was undoubtedly aware that the song was a parody, and after copying stanzas 1 and 2 accurately, would hardly have been so careless—increasingly careless—from stanza 3 on. '8 My remarks here fall far short of an interpretation of the poem. On this score, mention has already been made of Peter Dronke's important interpretation of CB 62 in 1963 (309-313). Dronke augmented these insights with further inter-

pretive comment in 1975 (132-137). In the same context of two further perceptive and sensitive interpretations, erbee (1976) and the other by W.T.H. Jackson (1980, first only). English verse translations of CB 62 of which I Addington

Symonds,

Jack

Lindsay,

David

Parlett,

mention must be made one by Winthrop Wethfour stanzas of the poem am aware are by John

Helen

George Whicher, Edwin Zeydel, and Blodgett /Swanson.

Waddell

(partial),

CARMINA BURANA 62

123

A style, when it is no longer the natural mode of expression, gains a new life—a shadowy life-in-death—as a prolongation of the past. We imagine ourselves able to revive the past through its art, to perpetuate it by continuing to work within its conventions. For this illusion of reliving history, the style must be prevented from becoming truly alive once again. The conventions must remain conventional, the forms lose their original significance in order to take on their new responsibility of evoking the past."

Secondly, the great importance of the first two stanzas of the Latin poem cannot be overstated. Here a mysterious quality of half-reality is evoked by sounds and images of a world that hovers between light and darkness as between waking and dreaming. The coming of darkness,

with the mediating effect of moonlight, the element of music, literally present in the poem as well as audible in the medium of word-music, the mixture of bright and dark vowels, the imagery—half light, half dark—all these seem to cast a spell, to create a zone of special consciousness. It is a magic space created for the magic of love. The presence of some "story" is implicit, but the speaking voice is never reduced to specificity, always remains suspended in that special zone between the

individual and the universal, the secret and the known, the momentary and the timeless. The atmosphere created in the first 2 stanzas is so powerful that it pervades and casts its spell over the entire Latin poem. One despairs of recreating this wonderful interplay of light, darkness, and sound, and must attempt to compensate for this loss little by little else-

where as his/her poem proceeds. A more serious matter for our appreciation of the poem as a work of art is the loss of its melody. Like much of medieval song, it must now be appreciated as a spoken text alone. In order to "cut losses" in this respect

I have made the decision to give up the poem's irregular rhythms, which are dependant on its music, in favour of regular tetrameter lines. The

hope is that the monotony of this form will go some way toward evoking the hypnotic effect of the first two stanzas of the Latin text. I have also tried to create some semblance of word-music and the interplay of bright and dark vowels in the later stanzas of the poem in keeping with

what has been said above. On the question of word-music, it can safely be said that one of the most important aspects of this in the Latin text is its lavish use of rhyme. I have incorporated rhyme for the most part in the same position as the original, but have occasionally found it necessary to forego this for metrical reasons. I have not hesitated to compensate by introducing rhyme

in a few new positions in the English version. The Classical Style: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven (London 1972), quoted from Godman (1990) 149.

124

ROBERT GLENDINNING

I must plead a special case for two stanzas in my adaptation—stanzas 6 and 8. For stanza 6, "extract from some physiological manual" as H/S

put it, I plead extenuating circumstances. I might perhaps have invoked Goethe's notion of loving with our intestines (Mignon in Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre [241]: " Ach! der mich liebt und kennt, / Ist in der Weite. /

Es schwindelt mir, es brennt / Mein Eingeweide."), or Horace's of loving with our liver (C. 4.1.9-12 [O Venus,] tempestivius in domum / Pauli, purpureis ales oloribus, | comissabere Maximi, | si torrere iecur quaeris idoneum), but instead, deferring to modern taste, I have reduced and toned down the Latin text to make it more—digestible! In the case of stanza 8 I have tried to take advantage of the fact that in the Latin poem the speaker seems to stand apart from any present quality of his experience to engage in a generalizing soliloquy or meditation on

that experience. It seems that the essential medium in which this takes place is memory. I have taken this one step further—hopefully a step that is not out of keeping with the overall tone of the poem—and made memory the explicit space from which the voice speaks: Ah, heart now cold, how memories old Thee warm again! Tale ever told— How lovers' barque doth roam the mere, E'er tossed by winds of hope and fear,

E'er lost though homing to the port, Ah, Love, how bittersweet thy sport!

Thus yet another addition augments the collection of transformations, reinventions, and variations of "Dum Diane vitrea"—an attempt, like many others before it, to awaken the slumbering spirit of a once-great song and entice it to speak again, perhaps even to sing a little. Pax manibus!

REFERENCES

Bischoff, Bernhard. 1970. Carmina Burana: Einführung zur Faksimile-Ausgabe der Benediktbeurer Liederhandschrift. Munich. Blodgett, E.D. and Roy Arthur Swanson, trans. 1987. The Love Songs of the Carmina Burana. New York. Carmina Burana [complete edition of the texts of Hilka/Schumann/ Bischoff]. 1985. Trans. of Latin texts by Carl Fischer, Notes and Afterword by Günter Bernt. 3. Auflage. Munich. Carmina

Burana. Texte und Übersetzungen

[Texts and Translations]. 1987. Ed.

Benedikt Konrad Vollmann. Frankfurt am Main. CB = Carmina

Burana. 4 vols. Heidelberg 1930-1970. I. Band: Text [= Text in 3

vols., 1930-1970], 1. Die moralisch-satirischen Dichtungen, 1930; 2. Die Liebeslieder, 1941, Rpt. 1971. Ed. Alfons Hilka and Otto Schumann; 3. Die Trink- und

Spielerlieder — Die geistlichen Dramen — Nachträge, 1970. Ed. Otto Schumann and

CARMINA BURANA 62

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Bernhard Bischoff. II. Band: Kommentar, 1. Einleitung (Die Handschrift der Car-

mina Burana), Die moralisch-satirischen Dichtungen, Rpt. 1961. Ed. Alfons Hilka and Otto Schumann. No further volumes of the Kommentar have appeared. Clemencic, René, Ulrich Müller, Michael Korth. 1979. Carmina Burana: Gesamtausgabe der mittelalterlichen Melodien mit den dazugehürigen Texten. [transcribed

with commentary]. Munich. Dronke, Peter. 1968. Medieval Latin and the Rise of European Love-Lyric. Vol. 1. Ox-

ford?.

. 1975. "Poetic meaning in the ‘Carmina Burana’,” Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch 10: 132-137.

Fallows, David. 2001. "Lai (Fr.)." The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musi-

cians. New York’. Godman, Peter. 1990. “Literary classicism and Latin erotic poetry of the twelfth century and the Renaissance,” in Peter Godman and Oswyn Murray, eds. Latin Poetry and the Classical Tradition: Essays in Medieval and Renaissance Literature. Oxford. 149-182. Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von. 1973. Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre. Hrsg. von Erich

Trunz. Munich’.

H/S. See CB = Carmina Burana.

Hughes, David G. 1976. “Music and meter in liturgical poetry,” Medievalia et Humanistica n.s. 7: 29-43. Jackson, W.T.H.

1980. “Interpretation of Carmina Burana 62, ‘Dum Diane vitrea’,”

in W.T.H. Jackson, ed. The Interpretation of Medieval Lyric Poetry. New York. 44-60 Klopsch, Paul. 1972. Einführung in die mittellateinische Verslehre. Darmstadt.

Lehmann, Paul. 1963. Die Parodie im Mittelalter. Stuttgart". Lindsay, Jack, trans. 1934. Medieval Latin Poets. London. Parlett, David, trans. 1986. Selections from the Carmina Burana. Harmondsworth.

Raby, F.J.E. 1957. A History of Secular Latin Poetry in the Middle Ages. 2 vols. Ox-

ford. Robertson, D.W.

1980. "Two poems from the Carmina

Burana,"

in D.W.

Robert-

son, ed. Essays in Medieval Culture. Princeton. 131-150. Seay, Albert. 1965. Music in the Medieval World. Englewood Cliffs, NJ.

Stevens, John E. 1986. Words and Music in the Middle Ages: Song, Dance, and Drama, 1050-1350. Cambridge. Symonds, John Addington, ed. and trans. 1966. Wine, Women, and Song: Medieval Latin Students' Song Book of the Eleventh Century, new ed. New York. Waddell, Helen. 1952. The Wandering Scholars. London 1927; second ed. Harmondsworth. | , ed. and trans. 1929. Mediaeval Latin Lyrics. London.

Walsh, P.G. ed. 1993. Love Lyrics from the Carmina Burana. Chapel Hill. , ed. 1976. Thirty Poems from the Carmina Burana. The Reading University Medieval and Renaissance Latin Text Series. Reading. Wetherbee, Winthrop. 1976. “The theme of imagination in medieval poetry and the allegorical figure of 'Genius'," Medievalia et Humanistica n.s. 7: 54-56. Whicher, George F., ed. and trans. 1949. The Goliard Poets. New York.

126

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Zeydel, Edwin H., ed. and trans. 1966. Vagabond Verse. Detroit.

10 IOVIS IRA: ALLUSION AND THE RELEGATION OF OVID!

ROBERT D. GOLD In A.D. 8 Rome's most popular poet was summoned from the island of

Elba to the capital to face the wrath of the emperor Augustus. He was not formally banished; there was no public hearing before the Senate or

any special court—only the severe and threatening words of the Princeps himself (Tr. 2.131-4). The penalty imposed was termed relegatio, and was both lenient and severe: lenient in that Ovid's life, property and civil

rights were left intact; severe in that, unlike a formal exile, he had no choice about his place of abode. He was confined to an isolated, cold and insecure existence in Tomis on the coast of the Black Sea. Apart from Ovid's poems from Tomis, there is no contemporary evi-

dence for his relegation. Tacitus, Suetonius, and other historians of the period are silent. Except for a brief reference by Statius (Silv. 1.2.254f.) in the late first century A.D., and another in Pliny the Elder's Natural History (32.152), the earliest independent record comes from the Chronicle of Jerome, compiled in A.D. 381.” This silence has led some modern scholars to argue that Ovid never went to Tomis, and that the relegation was an elaborate literary fiction? For the purposes of this paper, I shall assume a historical basis for the relegation. In Tristia 2.207 Ovid gives two reasons for his downfall: carmen et error, a poem and a mistake. The poem which Ovid clearly defends in Tris-

tia 2 is his Ars Amatoria. He vigorously defends the purity of his personal life and claims that erotic stimuli are present in literature of all types,

and indeed everywhere in everyday life. He also emphasizes that the Ars is a vetus libellus, an old book, circulated in a second edition in either 1 B.C. or A.D. 1, at least seven years before its public condemnation and ! An earlier version of this paper was read to the annual conference of the Classical Association of the Canadian West in Victoria, B.C. in February,

1987. I

wish also to express my gratitude to my wife, Linda Gold, for her encouragement and perceptive criticism.

? Syme (1978) 215. ? Principally by A.D. Fitton-Brown (1985) 19-22. In reply see H. Hofmann (1987) 23 and D. Little (1990) 23-39. 127

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the downfall of its author. So convincing is the poet's defence that many

modern scholars have sought the real reason for Ovid's relegation in the vague, mysterious error. This seems to be supported by the poet's later request: ecquid praeterea peccarim, quaerere noli, ut lateat sola culpa sub Arte mea. (Pont. 2.9.75-6) Do not ask in what I have sinned besides, so that my wrongdoing may lie concealed beneath my Art alone.

Because the date of Ovid's relegatio coincided with that of the banishment of the princeps' granddaughter Julia for adultery with Junius Silanus, many hypotheses have linked Ovid with that scandal. Certainly Ovid's offense affected Augustus personally. Throughout all the poems from Tomis the wrath of the princeps, the ira principis, is presented as the chief obstacle to Ovid's return to Rome, or to his securing a milder place

of relegation. Syme has noted the frequency of the word ira and has commented, "ira is choice and concentrated: anger excited by resentment at an affront or injustice, and often infused with the spirit of revenge. Ira is appropriate to signal the wrath of deities unrelenting."* In addition to the adultery between Julia and Junius Silanus and the

relegation of Ovid, the year A.D. 8 also saw the circulation of several copies of Ovid's latest work, the Metamorphoses, even though it was unfinished and lacked the last touches of the file (Tr. 1.7.30). Iamque opus exegi, quod nec Iovis ira nec ignes

nec poterit ferrum nec edax abolere vetustas. (Met. 15.871-2) And now I have completed a work which neither the anger of Jove, nor fires, nor the sword, nor devouring time will be able to destroy.

At the end of the Metamorphoses Ovid asserts the immortality both of his most recent work and of his personal reputation (the last word of the Metamorphoses is vivam, "I shall live"). Horace had made a similar asser-

tion at the end of the first three books of the Odes (C. 3.30), but he limited the threats to the immortality of his poems to the forces of nature and the passage of time": annorum series et fuga temporum (C. 3.30.1-5). Ovid, on the other hand, lists as threats which his work has overcome first the

* Syme (1978) 223. 5

Exegi monumentum aere perennius regalique situ pyramidum altius, quod non imber edax, non Aquilo impotens possit diruere aut innumerabilis annorum series et fuga temporum.

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anger of Jove himself, then fire, iron, and finally devouring time. Why was the lovis ira given such prominence? How could this poem arouse

such anger? Was it not hybris to claim to have written a poem proof against even the anger of the immortal king of the gods? Ovid begins his account of changed bodies by quickly passing over

the creation of the universe and humanity with flippant ambivalence. To the confused mass of natural elements an unnamed god and a kindlier nature (Met. 1.21 deus et melior ... natura) brought order. Later the crea-

tion of the world is likewise ascribed to an anonymous deity, whoever of

the gods that was (Met. 1.32 quisquis fuit ille deorum). Humanity was created by ille opifex rerum, the creator of the universe, from divine seed (Met. 1.78-9), or by the son of Iapetus from the damp earth (Met. 1.80-3). By offering his reader a choice of origins instead of a carefully constructed rationale for the universe, Ovid invites the reader to take a more active role in interpreting first causes.

Jove first appears when he deposes his father, Saturn, and brings to an end the everlasting spring of the Golden Age. Under Jove's rule man-

kind has to bear the searing heat of summer, the freezing winds of winter, and the necessity to labor (Met. 1.113-24). This less than auspicious rule continues through the wars of the Bronze Age and the degeneracy of the Iron Age. Dietram Müller saw this negative portrayal of the Ages of Man as a rejection of the official view, supported by Virgil, of the dawning of a new Golden Age. Müller also interpreted several passages

as referring to the Civil Wars in a manner unfavourable to the Augustan regime. To protect the creatures of earth from the degeneracy of mankind Jove calls an assembly of the gods. The path to Jove's palace lies along the Milky Way, crowded with clients paying their respects in the atria of the powerful and illustrious gods (the divine plebeans live elsewhere). Here (Met. 1.168-74) the powerful deities have set up their household gods (Penates): hic locus est, quem, si verbis audacia detur, haud timeam magni dixisse Palatia caeli.

(Met. 1.175-6)

This is the neighbourhood, which, if boldness be granted to my words, I would scarcely fear to describe as the Palatine of mighty heaven.

With the words si verbis audacia detur Ovid draws the reader's attention

to his daring comparison not of the Palatine Hill to heaven, but of heaven to the Palatine Hill, an inversion of the usual practice. Otis caught the bathos of this passage with the analogy of describing Heaven § Müller (1987) 275-276.

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ROBERT D. GOLD

as "God's ‘White House’.”” Ovid's overt allusion to contemporary Ro

man geography also serves to alert the reader to the covert allusions tc Roman society suggested by the use of Roman terms (atria, plebs, Penates)?

In the assembly of the gods which follows Müller has found many additional possible analogies to contemporary Roman

society. In his

view the blending of the assembly of the gods with a meeting of the senate and the parallels implied between Jove and Augustus ridicule pretensions of the Augustan regime.’ Once again Ovid underlines analogy between heaven and Rome by comparing the reaction of gods to Lycaon's plot against Jove with the reaction of the people Rome to a plot against Caesar:

the the the of

Sic, cum manus impia saevit

sanguine Caesareo Romanum extinguere nomen, attonitum tanto subitae terrore ruinae

humanum genus est totusque perhorruit orbis,

nec tibi grata minus pietas, Auguste, tuorum est, quam fuit illa Iovi ... (Met. 1.200-5) Thus when an impious band was mad to blot out the name of Rome by the blood of Caesar, the human race was stunned by a great fear of sudden ruin and the whole world shuddered; nor is the loyalty of your subjects less pleasing to you, Augustus, than that loyalty was to Jove.

Müller further interpreted the reaction of Jove in suppressing any dissent (Met. 1.206 murmura compressit and 207 clamor pressus gravitate regen-

tis) and the acquiescence of the gods to Jove's decision to destroy humanity (Met. 1.244-9) as references to the absolute power and authority

of the ruler, a position Augustus sought to conceal beneath the facade of primus inter pares, the first among equals. In Müller's opinion, the many possible allusions were surely not accidental; the precise wording used was intended to convey a double meaning. Brooks Otis further com-

mented upon the continuing bathos in these contemporary allusions, especially when compared with the treatment of the gods by Virgil: "his [Ovid's] vulgarization of Virgil even carries a slight nuance of malice."!!

As justification for his destruction of the human race by the flood Jove cites his responsibility to protect the semi-divine creatures, the rustic ? Otis (1970) 98. 8 For an examination of these allusions see Brooks Otis (1970) 97-100; Müller (1987) 277-279.

? Müller (1987) 279-281. ? Müller (1987) 281.

1 Otis (1970) 97-100.

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deities, nymphs, fauns, satyrs and woodland mountain divinities from

degenerate humanity. Since they were not yet deemed worthy of the honor of a heavenly dwelling, action was needed to permit them to dwell in the lands which had been given them (Met. 1.192-5). To Müller

this speech has echoes of Augustus' moral legislation."

After the destruction of the flood and the regeneration of the human race, Ovid presents a series of escapades which Otis has described as the "Divine Comedy." Struck by Cupid's arrow Apollo, Jove's son, pom-

pously attempts to seduce one of the very creatures whose protection Jove had used as a reason to destroy the human

race (Met. 1.452-567).

Daphne's metamorphosis at least saved her from rape; Io, the daughter

of the river god Inacchus, is not as fortunate. Jove, that protector of woodland creatures, passionate though untouched by Cupid's dart, offers Io a god's "protection" against the wild beasts in the depths of a shady wood. In spite of his stated preeminence ("I am he who holds heaven's mighty scepter in my hand and hurls the roving thunderbolts" [Met. 1.595-6]) Io chooses to reject this ardent protector. After a chase the

god catches Io and, concealed beneath a thick, dark cloud, he rapes her. The brevity and wording of the description (Met. 1.600 tenuitque fugam

rapuitque pudorem, "he stayed her flight and ravaged her honour") implies the force used. Daphne's metamorphosis to a laurel tree was an escape from rape; lo's metamorphosis to a cow is imposed upon her by Jove in an attempt

to escape the wrath of Juno, whom Ovid describes as one who now knew the wiles of her oft discovered mate (Met. 1.605-6). Juno's questions about the beautiful cow elicit lies from Jove, and her request that the cow be given to her confronts Jove with the conflict between amor and pudor, love and shame. Otis has commented on the grotesque incon-

gruity of applying this theme, typically the dilemma of love-stricken women, "to this wielder of thunderbolts who is the very prince of phi-

landerers."? Impelled by pudor Jove avoids responsibility for his passion by a cruel act; he surrenders Io in the form of a cow to Juno. The pathos of an innocent human being trapped within a bestial body underlies Ovid's elegant descriptions of Io's wanderings (Met. 1.7323). Jove's re-

sponsibility to protect the nymphs and satyrs of the woodlands from human beings obviously does not include protection from divine lust or irresponsibility. Jove's second escapade involves the Arcadian nymph Callisto (Met.

2.401-531). No longer does Jove seek to achieve his goal by relying on his status as king of the gods, but by deceit, shedding his own appearance in 7 Müller (1987) 279-280. 3 Otis (1970) 106.

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ROBERT D. GOLD

favour of that of his daughter, Diana. Otis has commented upon the absurd courtship of this deceitful god-turned-goddess and on our sympa-

thy for Callisto, whose struggles to preserve her virginity are in vain." The cruelty of the real Diana's reaction to Callisto's pregnancy and the vindictiveness of Juno's transformation of the unfortunate girl into a

bear further engage our pity for their victim. As in the case of Io, a human mind is trapped in bestial form: adsiduoque suos gemitu testata dolores qualescumque manus ad caelum et sidera tollit ingratumque Iovem, nequeat cum dicere, sentit.

(Met. 2.486-8) With incessant groans she bears witness to her griefs and raises to heaven and the stars such hands as she has, and feels that Jove is un-

grateful though she cannot say so.

Although Jove in the end saves Callisto from death at the hands of her huntsman son, Arcas, by turning both mother and son into constellations, his behaviour surely casts an ironic light on Ovid's description of him as omnipotens (Met. 2.505).

Although Jove foresook his regal status to deceive Callisto, he at least retained a human (though female) form. His passion for Europa strips "that father and ruler of the gods" (Met. 2.848 ille pater rectorque deum) of the last vestiges of his royal majesty, and turns him into a beast: non bene conveniunt nec in una sede morantur maiestas et amor ... (Met. 2.846-7)

Majesty and love do not go well with one another, nor do they abide in one resting place.

“All the dignity and gravity of the concilium deorum have now yielded to his thoroughly undignified passion. Amor and maiestas simply do not agree." Ovid maliciously emphasizes this loss of dignity. lo may have become a beautiful cow, but as a bull Jove is described with delicate de-

tail. His amorous antics—leaping about in the grass, lying on the sand to be petted, allowing his horns to be garlanded—ridicule the complete

submission of his dignity to his passion. The story ends quickly with the bull carrying his frightened rider to Crete. "But whereas Ovid can believe in the lover, he cannot believe in maiestas. He could see the majestic

facade: the reality was quite a different matter."! In the study

On

4 Otis (1970) 117.

5 Otis (1970) 123. 16 Otis (1970) 126.

Style (Περὶ

ἑρμηνείας) attributed to Demetrius of

ALLUSION AND THE RELEGATION OF OVID

133

Phaleron, but possibly the work of another Peripatetic in the first century A.D., we find a figure of speech described as τὸ ἐσχηματισμένον, “covert allusion" or “ambivalent allusiveness" (Eloc. 287)." [Demetrius] notes that orators of his day used it γελοίως, "in a humorous

fashion," cou-

pling it with low and sensational innuendo (Eloc. 287 μετὰ ἐμφάσεως ἀγεννοῦς ἅμα xal οἷον ἀναμνηστικῆς). Quintilian also notes this class of figure (Instit. 9.2.65—6), in quo per quandam suspicionem quod non dicimus accipi volumus, non utique contrarium, ut in elpuvela, sed aliud latens et auditori quasi inveniendum ... Eius triplex usus est: unus si dicere palam parum tutum est, alter si non decet, tertius qui venustatis modo gratia adhibetur et ipsa novitate ac varietate magis, quam si relatio sit recta, delectat.

While the first two applications may have been a concern to Ovid, the third was doubtless a major consideration to this writer of elegant, witty, and at times daring poetry.

In his description of the assembly of the gods in Book 1 Ovid used an overt allusion (Met. 1.175-6, the comparison of heaven with the Palatine Hill) to draw attention to covert allusions to contemporary Roman soci-

ety. In the council of the gods Jove is revealed as a responsible protector of lesser deities. An overt allusion compared his delight at the gods' re-

action to Lycaon's attempt on his life with that of Augustus at the loyalty of Romans after a similar plot (Met. 1.204-5). Once again the gods were compared to the people of Rome; an overt allusion was used to suggest covert allusions to the positions of Jove and Augustus. Having established analogies through allusions to Jove in heaven and

Augustus in Rome, did Ovid expect his reader to extend the Jove/ Augustus analogy to Jove's amatory escapades? Even though there are no overt allusions to Augustus in the "Divine Comedy," are we to read a

political meaning here? Otis objects: "we cannot perhaps rule out the possibility of at least an innuendo to this effect. But Ovid's main point does not seem to be a political one; such an explanation is not only too

simple but false to the spirit of the poem. He is anti-Augustan not in his 17 For the dating see Easterling and Knox (1985) 859. “Covert allusion" is the translation used by W. Rhys Roberts (1973) 473: "ambivalent allusiveness" by G. Williams (1994) 159.

18 A figure in which through a suspicion, so to speak, we want what we are not saying to be understood, not certainly the opposite meaning [to what we

say], as in irony, but something else lying hidden and to be discovered, as it were, by the listener .... This type of figure has three applications: the first if it is not safe to speak openly; the second if it is not proper to speak openly; the third application is one which is employed only for the sake of elegance, and by its novelty and variety gives greater pleasure than if the presentation were straightforward."

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ROBERT D. GOLD

politics but in his distaste for moralism and moral propaganda.”” This is

precisely the point; there is nothing less acceptable than the hypocritical moralist. To deny to others in the name of morality vices which one enjoys and practises in secret is particularly distasteful. Under a facade of moral dignity Jove had destroyed the human race to make the world safe for demigods, nymphs and satyrs; yet this facade of responsibility crum-

bled before his lust. Augustus had attempted to legislate morality with his laws supporting marriage and the family, and attacking adultery. Adulteria quidem exercuisse ne amici quidem negant, excusantes sane

non libidine, sed ratione commissa, quo facilius consilia adversariorum per cuiusque mulieres exquireret. (Suet. Aug. 69.1)

That he [Augustus] was given to adultery not even his friends deny, although it is true that they excuse it as committed not from passion but from policy, the more readily to get track of his adversaries' designs through the women of their households.

Suetonius also reports Mark Antony's claim that his [Augustus'] friends acted as his panders, and stripped and inspected matrons and wellgrown girls, "as if Toranius the slave-dealer were putting them up for sale" (Aug. 69.2). Yet Suetonius concludes (Aug. 71.1) that of all the various charges or slanders raised against the princeps, he easily refuted

those of unnatural vice and extravagance, but added that, "he could not dispose of the charges of lustfulness, and they say that even in his later years he was fond of deflowering maidens, who were brought together for him from all quarters, even by his own wife" (Circa libidines haesit, postea quoque, ut ferunt, ad vitiandas virgines promptior, quae sibi undique etiam ab uxore conquirerentur).

Would not the knowing reader, aware not only of Augustus' maiestas,

his dignity, authority and moral facade, but also of the rumours about his moral impropriety, have chuckled over an implied similarity to Jove whose moral stance and moral improprieties Ovid portrayed with such devastating wit and cynicism?

Augustus' reaction, on the other hand, would have gone far beyond personal embarassment. His attempts to restore traditional morality at

Rome extended over much of his principate. Galinsky has suggested that he was persistent in his efforts to encourage and protect the dignity and purity of Roman family life not simply for the purpose of procreation, but also to project an image of moral superiority that would justify Rome's position of political supremacy.” In addition Wallace-Hadrill has recently interpreted Augustus' attempts at mutatio morum, the transfor-

?? Otis (1970) 126. 2 Galinsky (1981) 126-144.

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mation of manners, as much more central to the princeps' personal posi-

tion and authority.” He noted that the main, indeed the only, Roman theory of the fall of the Republic was, in our terms, a cultural one: the corruption of the mores. He further cited Cicero's contention (Leg. 3.31)

that the state always had the character of its leading men, and that whatever

transformation

of manners

(mutatio

morum)

emerged

among

its

leaders, the same followed in the people. Thus the leading men, the principes, bore a heavy responsibility of setting a model to society. Wallace-

Hadrill concluded

that the self-presentation of the Romans

in the

graphic arts during the Augustan principate mirrored the imperial image, and that it was "testimony of Augustus' success in appropriating

the traditional moral authority of the nobility. At the same morality of Julia threatened to subvert the whole authority The re-emergence of accusations of immorality within household exposes not only the internal power struggles

time, the imof the palace. the imperial of the palace,

but the fragility of imperial authority."? In A.D. 8 Julia's daughter, Julia, followed her mother into exile for immorality; in the same year Ovid circulated copies of the Metamorphoses containing passages that could be

interpreted as mocking the moral hypocrisy of Augustus, thereby threatening both the moral and political authority of the princeps. Galinsky has argued that Augustan and Roman themes are not an

important element in the Metamorphoses, since most of the allusions to Augustus

and Rome

movement

toward a Roman-Augustan climax.? We have seen, however,

are scattered and do not constitute a thematic

a concentration of allusions to Jove, Rome, and Augustus in Book 1 followed closely by Jove's amatory escapades in Books 1 and 2. As the poem comes to its conclusion in Book 15, the association of Augustus

with deity, and specifically with Jove, once again comes to the fore. Although these allusions are widely separated, they frame the rest of the poem, and so acquire greater impact. Augustus had promoted the deification of Julius Caesar, and had proudly assumed the title divi filius, son of a god. But Ovid cynically bases Julius' claim to divinity not on his wars, his civic accomplishments, his personal glory, but on his having produced such a son as Augustus

(Met. 15.750-1); this is repeated in line 758 and is restated in lines 760-1: ne foret hic igitur mortali semine cretus, ille deus faciendus erat. (Met. 15.760-1)

21 Wallace-Hadrill (1997) 9.

? Wallace-Hadrill (1997) 12.

# Galinsky (1975) 252.

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ROBERT D. GOLD Therefore, lest this man be created from mortal seed, that man had to be

made a god.

That Julius gained glory from Augustus, not the opposite, may be seen as cynical flattery, especially since Müller has reminded us that Augustus was not the natural son of Julius, and that Julius' natural son by

Cleopatra, Caesarion, had been put to death by Augustus' orders; in ad-

dition, that there was gossip that Augustus' adoption had been achieved

through unnatural acts.” Miiller also suggested that the capsule history of Augustus given by Jove to Venus (Met. 15.807-42) is not particularly complimentary to Au-

gustus, and that the phrases iustissimus auctor ... exemplo suo mores reget (Met. 15.833-4) are once again cynical references to Augustus’ unpopular

moral legislation.” The latter phrase, “by his example he will guide our morals," may be particularly cynical if the reader is expected to interpret Jove's amatory escapades in Books 1 and 2 as a covert allusion to Augustus' own sexuality. Müller also sees in the reference to Tiberius,

whom Ovid describes as his "offspring born of his chaste wife" (Met. 15.836 prolem de sancta coniuge natam), a possible ironic reminder that

Livia was clearly pregnant with Tiberius by her first husband, Tiberius Claudius Nero, at the time of her marriage to Augustus.” Thus Jove's speech, while ostensibly foretelling the public accomplishments of Julius' son, may also have suggested the inconsistencies between his public persona and his personal behaviour. Even though Augustus modestly forbade others to set his own deeds above those of his deified father (as Ovid had just done), Julius rejoices

that his accomplishments are surpassed by those of his son. Ovid then mentions other fathers who had been surpassed by their sons, and concludes with Saturn who is inferior to Jove (although in Book 1 Saturn

ruled the Golden Age, Jove the ages of decline towards degeneracy). Finally Ovid turns once again to the association of Jupiter with Augustus: Iuppiter arces temperat aetherias et mundi regna triformis,

terra sub Augusto est; pater est et rector uterque." (Met. 15.858-60) Jupiter rules the citadels of heaven and the realms of the triple universe, ^ Müller (1987) 282-283. For an analysis of the linguistic ambivalence in this passage, see Stephen Hinds (1987) 24-25.

3 Müller (1987) 283. 26 Müller (1987) 283. ? In the last phrase there may be a verbal reminiscence of ille pater rectorque deum (Met. 2.848), Jove as he shed his royal dignity becoming a bull to attract Europa.

ALLUSION AND THE RELEGATION OF OVID

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the earth is under Augustus' control. Each is a father and ruler.

Williams has noted Ovid's use of ambivalence of tone (εἶδος ἀμφίβολον

[Demetr. Eloc. 291]) in Tristia 2, "where eulogistic intent can hardly be distinguished from a satirical one." In his discussion of the “eulogy” of Augustus with which the Metamorphoses concludes, Williams has written that, "the audience is left to activate the subtle nuances which complicate the initial impact of the panegyric ... the dividing line between Ovidian

flattery and impudence is thin."? Given the effusiveness of the praise, the possibility of unflattering references noted by Müller, and the ambivalence of tone, the poet's intent is in question. After a prayer for the princeps' long presence on earth, Ovid confidently concludes his work

with the lines quoted earlier, asserting its immortality in spite of the wrath of Jove, fire, steel, and corroding time.

Although the Metamorphoses apparently escaped the wrath of Jove to survive until today, Ovid did not escape the wrath of the man whom he had likened to Jove. The poet could not have expected to evade the notice of Augustus. According to Suetonius (Aug. 89.3), the princeps took an active interest in the contemporary literary scene, listening with courtesy and patience to readings of poetry, history, speeches and dia-

logues. On the other hand, "he took offence at being made the subject of any composition except in serious earnest and by the most eminent writers."? Ovid's daring wit, overt allusions, and ambivalent tone would not have gone unnoticed, and if covert allusions had to be explained, Ovid

had an enemy at court whom he later accused of reading to the princeps only his deliciae ("trifles"), rather than those works which could be read

with fairer judgement (Tr. 2.77-80). That such an interpretation mocking the princeps' position, his dignity and his personal morality was even possible, constituted a deeply personal attack. The ira principis, the wrath of the princeps, was bitter, personal and unforgiving.

The potentially damaging ambivalent allusiveness of three of the fifteen books of the Metamorphoses posed a serious dilemma for Augustus. Suetonius (Aug. 56) tells us that when he was assailed with scurrilous or

spiteful jests by certain men, Augustus made reply in a public proclamation. In the case of the Metamorphoses, however, any public reply, by proclamation, by trial or by hearing before the Senate would simply draw attention to the implications of the offending passages, thereby ensuring their subsequent notoriety. In addition Ovid could plead lack ? Williams (1994) 160.

29 Williams (1994) 157-158. 9 Componi tamen aliquid de se nisi et serio et a praestantissimis offendebatur (Aug.

98.3).

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ROBERT D. GOLD

of intent and blame public misinterpretation (as he did later in Tristia 2). Possibly Ovid was relying upon these considerations to restrain Augus-

tus' wrath from public condemnation and punishment. When we attempt to define the precise power under which the princeps confined Ovid to Tomis, we are confronted by a lack of detailed knowledge concerning the judicial powers of Augustus and the powers

by which he exercised direct jurisdiction?! Hammond, however, concluded that Augustus was more powerful by reason of the undefined

deference which all paid to him than by any specific authority, although he noted that Augustus' caution would avoid any direct exercise of power in the sphere of the Republican magistrates.” Thus Ovid's life, property and civil rights were left intact; only his freedom of movement was curtailed. His description of his relegation suggests an exercise of personal authority by the princeps to avenge a personal wrong: tristibus invectus verbis -- ita principe dignum -

ultus es offensas, ut decet, ipse tuas. (Tr. 2.133-4) by assailing me

with grim

words—an

act worthy

of a prince—you

yourself avenged your own injury, as is fitting.

It was necessary for Ovid's punishment to compel the poet to conform to the policies and public persona of Augustus in future, and to direct public attention away from the Metamorphoses. While relegation to Tomis

might not silence the poet, hope for his return to Rome, or at least a move to a less rigorous place of confinement, would cause Ovid to consider carefully any future indiscretions. Indeed, even though Augustus

had forbidden Ovid to hope (Tr. 2.145—6), appeals that the princeps mitigate his wrath to allow a return if not to Rome, at least to a milder place of relegation, constitute the major theme throughout the Tristia and the Epistulae ex Ponto. To justify relegating Rome's most popular living poet to Tomis Augustus apparently alleged an error, a miscalculation by Ovid

so grievous and personal that the poet shrank from defining it; to divert public attention from the Metamorphoses, the Ars Amatoria, a widely circulated and long popular mock didactic poem, was attacked on moral grounds as an incitement to adultery.

If Ovid's error was in fact the tactless and rash use of allusion in the Metamorphoses sented himself been circulated draw attention

to delight his readers at the princeps' expense, he prewith a dilemma. Since the Metamorphoses had already in private copies, any attempt to edit the text would only to the offending passages; nor could the poet apologise

?! Thibault (1964) 9. ? Hammond (1968) 30 and 35.

ALLUSION AND THE RELEGATION OF OVID

139

openly for his indiscretion. He could, however, defend his life and his art against the charges of immorality. Bruce Gibson has analysed Ovid's defence of the Ars Amatoria in Tris-

tia 2 by examining the poet's emphasis on readership and reception, views concerned as much with the role of an audience in a text's recep-

tion as with the designs of the author.? In Tristia 2.251-2 Ovid argues that the charge of incitement to adultery is invalid since he had warned married women not to read his Ars. He goes on to assert that his poem

can do no harm if it is read with an upright mind (Tr. 2.275 recta si mente legatur). Later Ovid demonstrates how considerations of interpretation

may colour the reception of many forms of literature. Even the Iliad, the Odyssey and tragedy may be considered erotic (Tr. 2.371f.). But places

and spectacles also have the power to corrupt. Even the temples of the gods may be interpreted in an immoral light: quis locus est templis augustior? haec quoque vitet, in culpam siqua est ingeniosa suam. cum steterit Iovis aede, lovis succurret in aede quam multas matres fecerit ille deus. proxima adoranti lunonis templa subibit paelicibus multis hanc doluisse deam. (Tr. 2.287-92) What place is more august than the temples? If any woman has a natural tendency to fault, let her shun these also. When she stands in Jove's temple, in Jove's temple it will come to her mind how many girls that

god made mothers. As she worships in the temple of Juno close by, it will occur to her that this goddess was grieved by many concubines.

In addition to the verbal reminiscence of the princeps' name in line 287, this passage recalls the licentious Jove of the Metamorphoses. After a list of the erotic liasons of other gods and goddesses, Ovid again returns to

the theme that the reader's natural tendencies and interests colour his or her perception of a literary work: omnia perversas possunt corrumpere mentes;

stant tamen ipsa suis omnia tuta locis. (Tr. 2.301-2) All things can corrupt perverted minds; yet all things stand safely in

their own contexts. There is a distinction between the Jove of religion and the Jove of mythology. The reader of the Metamorphoses should keep separate the re-

sponsible Jove of the assembly of the gods from the licentious rapist of the "Divine Comedy." It was this dignified Jove with whom Augustus was openly associated, not the amorous philanderer. # Gibson (1999) 22-23.

140

ROBERT D. GOLD In the final lines of Tristia 2 Ovid again emphasizes the delay between

the composition of the Ars Amatoria and his punishment: sera redundavit veteris vindicta libelli, distat et a meriti tempore poena sui. (Tr. 2.545-6) Late and excessive is the revenge for an early book, and the punishment is distant from the time of its blame.

After a brief reference to the Fasti Ovid challenges Augustus to have passages from the Metamorphoses read to him, especially those that reveal the poet's warmth of feeling for the princeps (Tr. 2.561-2). He then adds a disclaimer: non ego mordaci destrinxi carmine quemquam, nec meus ullius crimina versus habet. candidus a salibus suffusis felle refugi: nulla venenato littera mixta ioco est. inter tot populi, tot scriptis, milia nostri, quem mea Calliope laeserit, unus ego. (Tr. 2.563-68) I have not censured anyone with biting verse, nor does my poetry contain charges against anybody. Without guile I avoided wit steeped in bile: not a letter has been mingled with poisoned jest. Amidst so many

thousands of our people, with their writings being so numerous, I alone am the one whom my Calliope will have harmed.

This is not a defence against a charge of incitement to immorality. It is a poet's assertion that he is innocent of malicious intent in the face of anger aroused by a perceived personal attack based upon the interpretation

of poetry.* The author of the study On Style cautioned that true ambivalent allusion depends upon good taste and circumspection (287 εὐπρεπείας xai ἀσφαλείας). The dangers inherent in this figure of speech are also noted in J. Pucci's recent book on allusion. He comments that an author, by

taking advantage of language's ability to mean different things to different interpreters, must rely upon his audience to make the desired connections. Because there is always the distinct possibility of audience

misinterpretation, the outcome is fraught with rhetorical and personal danger? Ovid's skilful, playful, and witty use of ambivalence in language, tone and allusion still envelops in uncertainty his personal attitude to Augustus and the Augustan regime not only in the Metamor# Tn Tr. 1.7.15-34 Ovid describes how before leaving Rome he had burned his copy of the Metamorphoses as a result of his hatred of the Muses. Might this have been a symbolic act of regret directed to Augustus?

5 Pucci (1998) 61.

ALLUSION AND THE RELEGATION OF OVID

141

phoses, but also in Tristia 2 and the rest of his poetry from Tomis. Was he a reluctant supporter of Augustus? an opponent who used allusion to criticise the regime? a poet who included contemporary references to

delight and amuse his readers at the expense of the establishment? Was his attitude a combination of these approaches, and did it change with time and circumstances? To what extent do his readers' personal inter-

ests and inclinations determine their reactions both in ancient Rome and today?* Whatever Ovid's original intent may have been in the Metamorphoses,

he failed to convince a suspicious Augustus to relent from his anger. Nor did Tiberius rescind the poet's relegation. The lesson of Ovid's relegation

was not lost on the writers who followed him. In a climate of increasing absolutism

and authoritarian control the need for caution increased

dramatically. This may have contributed to the silence in later authors concerning the fate of one of Rome's most popular writers.

REFERENCES

Anderson, W.S., ed. 1977. Ovidius Metamorphoses. Leipzig. Easterling, P.E. and B.M.W. Knox, eds. 1985. The Cambridge History of Classical Literature, Vol. 1: Greek Literature. Cambridge. Fitton-Brown,

A.D.

1985.

"The

unreality

of Ovid's

Tomitan

exile,"

LCM

10:

19-22. Galinsky, G.K. 1975. Ovid's Metamorphoses: An Introduction to the Basic Aspects. Oxford. . 1981. "Augustus' legislation on morals and marriage," Philologus 125: 126-144. Gibson, Bruce. 1999, "Ovid on reading: Reading Ovid. Reception in Ovid Tristia IL" JRS 89: 19-37. Hammond, Mason. 1968. The Augustan Principate. New York.

Hinds, Stephen. 1987. “Generalizing about Ovid,” in A.J. Boyle, ed. The Imperial Muse. Ramus Essays on Roman Literature of the Empire. Victoria. 4-31. Hinds, Stephen. 1998. Allusion and Intertext: Dynamics of Appropriation in Roman Poetry. Cambridge. Hofmann, H. 1987. "The unreality of Ovid's Tomitan exile once again," LCM 122: 23. Little, D. 1990. "Ovid's last poems: Cry of pain from exile or literary frolic in Rome," Prudentia 22: 23-39.

* For a brief summary of these interpretations see Williams (1994) 154-158. Stephen Hinds (1998) 47 has suggested that the varieties of interpretation of a given text are almost infinite. "No two readers will ever construct a set of clues in quite the same way; no one reader, even the author, will ever construct a set of clues in quite the same way twice."

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Müller, D. 1987. "Ovid, Juppiter und Augustus," Philologus 131: 270-288. Otis, Brooks. 1970. Ovid as an Epic Poet. Cambridge. Pucci, J. 1998. The Full-Knowing Reader: Allusion and the Power of the Reader in the Western Literary Tradition. New Haven/London. Roberts, W. Rhys, ed. and trans. 1973. Demetrius: On Style, in Aristotle: The Poetics; "Longinus": On the Sublime; Demetrius: On Style. Cambridge, MA /London. Rolfe, J.C., ed. and trans. 1970. Suetonius, vol. 1. Cambridge, MA / London. Syme, Ronald. 1978. History in Ovid. Oxford.

Thibault, J.C. 1964. The Mystery of Ovid's Exile. Berkeley. Wallace-Hadrill, A. 1997. "Mutatio morum: The idea of a cultural revolution," in

T. Habinek and A. Schiesaro, eds. The Roman Cultural Revolution. Cambridge: 3-22. Williams, Gareth D. 1994. Banished Voices: Readings in Ovid's Exile Poetry. Cambridge.

11 THE LITERATE REVOLUTION IN GREECE AND ITS CANADIAN CAUSES: ERIC HAVELOCK AND HAROLD INNIS! MARK GOLDEN

Is there a Canadian approach to Greek history? There are two answers: ^No" and "non." There is no Canadian approach to anything. Divided as we are into two nations—at least for the purposes of classical studies, since as far as I know, there is only one status Indian among Canadian

classicists and historians of antiquity—we almost never speak to each other, let alone with one voice. It's true that the Council of the Classical Association of Canada always includes representatives from Québec and

that our journals publish articles and reviews in both official languages. So it has always been. The Jesuits founded a college at Québec in 1635, to teach Greek and Latin authors to both the habitants and the natives, and

established a tradition and curriculum for institutions, the collèges classiques, which endured fundamentally unaltered until the 1960s. (As a matter of fact, the first history of Canada, published in 1654 by a French Jesuit, was written in Latin.) The Jesuits favoured and fostered the Eras-

mian pronunciation of Latin. Meanwhile, English Canada adopted the so-called "Roman method," commonly followed (so its proponents

boasted) by "the best schools and colleges in the United States." Even in Latin, English and French Canadians couldn't communicate. And the study of the ancient world has functioned differently in the two cultures.

As Alan Evans puts it in the article from which I have taken much of what I have said so far, "In English Canada, the classical tradition ... supported an Empire which has faded out, and in French Canada, it was

! My ties with Edmund Berry go back some sixty years, since my father David (a Manitoba Rhodes Scholar) was his instructor in an officer's training group in 1940-1941. My father went on to about four years in the Japanese prison camp at Hong Kong, Dr. Berry to as many decades as a member of the Classics Department at the University of Manitoba. The subject I explore here—two more Canadian careers—was inspired by the invitation of Paul Cartledge to participate in the Craven Seminar on "Greek History in National Context" sponsored by the Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge, in May 1999.

143

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MARK GOLDEN

allied to an ultramontane church which has lost its attraction"? So: Our motto may

run "From

sea to sea," a mari usque ad mare, but

our national culture does not. Can we at least identify an English Canadian approach to Greek history? English Canada has produced some

first-rate scholars in this field. We may think of HJ. Rose and Robert Bonner—both Sather lecturers—of Homer Thompson, of Ron Stroud. Pride of place, perhaps, belongs to William Scott Ferguson of Prince Edward Island. His Hellenistic Athens was published as long ago as 1911 but, to quote a review of a contemporary account of the subject, Athens from Alexander to Antony, "Ferguson's shadow falls over Habicht's book. Habicht appropriately makes Ferguson his starting point." Ferguson

wrote his book at Harvard. Indeed, almost all those scholars I have mentioned so far made their careers outside Canada. This is one of the factors that make it difficult to identify a Canadian school of Greek historiography: our traditional reluctance to hire our own. Hugh MacLennan graduated from Dalhousie University in Halifax as a Rhodes Scholar.

When, in 1932, he applied for a vacancy in his home university's department of classics, he was advised to go the United States: Dalhousie would not hire a Canadian-born lecturer if an Englishman was available.* MacLennan duly went off to Princeton, where he wrote a Ph.D. dissertation on Oxyrhynchus. He did return to Canada in the end, but not as a university classicist—as the novelist from whom I borrowed the phrase "two solitudes," a schoolteacher and, in the end, a professor of

English. Of course, many of those hired instead of our MacLennans have been inspiring teachers and influential scholars; Dalhousie later pro-

vided a home for A.H. Armstrong. But in the main the approaches they have brought and the methods they have transmitted have been those of Oxford and Cambridge, Harvard and Yale, not distinctively Canadian in

any way. Among Canadians who have worked solely or largely in Canada, the most prominent may be Malcolm McGregor, best known for his associa-

tion with one of this century's great achievements in Greek history, the ? J. A.S. Evans, "The classical tradition in Canada," Literary Review of Canada 5.7 (1996) 11-15 (at 15); cf. “The classics in English Canada," CEA 32 (1996) 33-43.

For a rosier view, that "classical studies are certainly a discernible link" between French and English Canada, see A.G. McKay, "Classical scholarship in Canada," in W.W. Briggs, ed., Biographical Dictionary of North American Classicists (Westport CT 1994) xl-Ixiv (at xli). For the French side, see M. Lebel, "Les humanités clas-

siques au Canada français,” CEA 32 (1996) 23-31, M. Roussel, "Les études classiques en milieu francophone dans le Canada du vingtième siècle,“ EMC 42 (1998) 533-562.

? D. Ogden, CR 48 (1998) 385. * H. MacLennan, Cross-Country (Toronto 1949) 39-40.

ERIC HAVELOCK AND HAROLD INNIS

145

publication of the Athenian Tribute Lists. Late in life, McGregor was the author of The Athenians and Their Empire (Vancouver 1987), a celebration of Athens' rule over its neighbours in the Aegean and beyond which

might have made Cleon blush. The book's love affair with Athenian imperialism might conceivably be taken to bespeak a truly Canadian spirit. Our new citizenship oath, for example, continues to incorporate allegiance to the Queen of Great Britain (and of course Northern Ireland)

and our broadcast media specialize in the unaltered transmission of American culture. We may recall that William Scott Ferguson too wrote

on Greek imperialism, and that Canadians (John Fossey, Albert Schachter) are surprisingly prominent in the study of ancient Boeotia—another place which tends to get lost in the shadow of a dominant neighbour. In fact, however, McGregor was a very untypical Canadian, fond of referring to "ice hockey"— real Canadians don't recognize any

other kind—and he has had no successors. As for Canadian historians of Greece who are still active today, the most distinguished is Virginia Hunter. Her students include Don Kyle, the best of historians of Greek

sport, and Cheryl Cox, whose work on the Greek family more nearly relates to her own. Both, mind you, were her undergraduates: York University has never had a doctoral program in ancient history. This must lessen Hunter's impact. Besides, influential as Hunter's work has been,

in the field of Greek historiography and then in social history, it is rooted in the political practice of the Left (the nationalist Left, to be sure) and in the ideas of Marxists such as Louis Althusser rather than in any distinctively Canadian set of concepts or methods. It's the same old story. Though we had in Kim Campbell a Prime Minister who quoted Plato in the

House

of

Commons,

her

achievements

don't

match

James

Garfield's—he taught Latin and Greek before becoming President of the United States. Of course neither got tenure, nor equalled the time in office or scholarly production of Gladstone, with his tomes on Homer and history. (Another Canadian political leader, John Ross Taylor of the fascist Western Guard, wanted to bring Canada the attitude of Sparta,

which he regarded as a health-food state, but he was fortunately unable to put his program into effect.) Dr. Dugald Laird, the eighty-something amatory athlete who runs a classical academy in Katherine Govier's The Truth Teller (2000) raised my hopes that Canadian specialists in antiquity

might become widely recognized as sex symbols, but I soon realized that he was in a crowded competition against the likes of Philip Roth's Coleman Silk in The Human Stain (2000), Patrick Standish, the romantic lead

in Take A Girl Like You (Kingsley Amis, 1960), and the English tutor of Latin who hears this impassioned plea: "You cannot think of going to Italy yet. This Pompeii—is

it near Florence? It is insupportable, the

thought of you preferring to wield a spade in the dim ancients' rubbish

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MARK GOLDEN

than to lying with me" (Adam Thorpe, Ulverton [London 1992] 86). Nevertheless, I am prepared to suggest another, and more characteristically Canadian, response to my question. Is there an English Canadian approach to Greek history? Maybe: the work of Eric Havelock.

We've all heard of Havelock. The author of a revolutionary book about Catullus in his youth, he later turned to the study of Greek

thought and of culture in its broadest sense—cultural products, philosophy and literature in particular, and the environment which prompted and shaped them. Havelock was a remarkably energetic man—so much

so that, though he died at almost 85 in 1988, his work continued to appear for a decade. (The Italian edition of material on which he was working at his death, published as Alli origini della filosofia greca: una revisione storica

in 1996,

represents

his last words.)

Still, it is possible

to

summarize his contribution to the historiography of the polis in a relatively few words. For Havelock, the polis was the product of an oral culture. I quote from his 1978 book The Greek Concept of Justice. He has just identified the condition of nonliteracy or semiliteracy which prevailed in Greece until the middle of the seventh century B.C.E. (9-11). It was precisely in these centuries that Greece invented the first forms of

that social organization and artistic achievement which became her glory ... If we consider the period from 900 to 650 as a chronological unit, it is obvious that we view in this period ... the genesis of that clas-

sical culture which becomes evident to documentary inspection only in the sixth and fifth centuries ... The primary [form in which this genesis appeared] was institutional, embodied in the formation of those corporate identities known as poleis, the Greek city-states. All the essential features of this Greek way of life seem to have been organized and functioning by the tenth century ... The city-state, considered as an institution peculiar to the Greeks, was, we may say, incubated in this period.

What makes the polis worth studying, however, is not orality but "a piece of explosive technology, revolutionary in its effects on human

culture, in a way not precisely shared by any other invention." The technology was the Greek alphabet and the literacy it democratized, made easy and accessible, for the first time, to

a whole community. This was

the literate revolution in Greece and its cultural consequences. This (Havelock goes on in his 1982 collection of the same name) introduced "a

new state of mind, the alphabetic mind"—a mind now enabled, by the alphabet itself, to separate speech from speaker and so make it into an

object available for inspection, reflection, analysis (7). Such speech, once alphabetized, "could be rearranged, reordered, and rethought to produce forms of statement and types of discourse not previously available because not easily memorizable ... Both law and ethics as understood

today ... came into existence as a result of a change in the technology of

ERIC HAVELOCK AND HAROLD INNIS

147

communication" (8). And history as well. "The true parent of history [Havelock's words again] was not any one ‘writer’ like Herodotus, but

the alphabet itself" (23). Havelock's first publication on this theme, Preface to Plato, produced quite a stir when it appeared in 1963—and even before. Jack Goody

notes the influence of "the then unpublished work" of Havelock on an early paper he co-authored with Ian Watt,’ a paper originally published in CSSH 5 (1963) 304-345. Goody himself is perhaps the best-known exponent of Havelock’s approach; he has developed his themes in a num-

ber of works, stressing more and more as time has passed that the oral and the literate are implicated in complex and often unpredictable ways. For example, literacy may profoundly influence even what we think of as oral poetry: much of what passes for oral technique in Homer—lists, metrical forms, narrative structures—is on the contrary due to literate

composition. Real oral poems (like those from West Africa) are less formulaic than Homer’s. On the other hand, once established by writing, new literary forms may become part of an oral tradition. Similarly, Goody has become less convinced that the means of communication are

as crucial for other aspects of life as Havelock thought. “Like the power of the gun,

writing

can be a democratic

force

.... However,

it had

no

immediate consequences for democratic government." More recent and more specialized studies are no more certain about the relevance of

writing for the political history of the Greeks. It's not just that the work of W.V. Harris and Rosalind Thomas has left us leerier about assuming that the alphabet did in fact lead to widespread literacy even in classical

Athens' democracy. The implications of the texts we have (and don't) are unclear. For Nicole Loraux,

writing is democratic

"in that it makes

popular support for a persuasive speech permanent." But, as she goes on to observe, it was not the democrats who wrote about Athenian democracy but its introverts and victims and enemies: Isocrates, the exiled

Thucydides, Plato, the Old Oligarch. Her conclusion: "It might be that Athenian democracy distrusted writing—or, what amounts to the same thing, never used it—as an instrument of theoretical reflection: only

speech enjoyed the freedom of Athens in the political sphere." Codification of laws (as Walter Eder notes) may maintain the dominance of an

51. Goody, ed., Literacy in Traditional Societies (Cambridge 1968) 27-68 (at 56 n. 1). *J. Goody, The Logic of Writing and the Organization of Society (Cambridge 1986) 121. ? N. Loraux, The Invention of Athens. The Funeral Oration in the Classical City,

trans. A. Sheridan (Cambridge MA / London 1986 [1981]) 178-179.

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MARK GOLDEN

elite, stabilize an unequal status quo under attack? The flexibility of oral discourse, its adaptation to scene and circumstance—the very thing Havelock regarded as one of the conservative constraints on

speech—has a far different value for Charles Hedrick. "The spoken word might be imagined as ideally democratic, immediately accessible and transparent to everyone."? Rosalind Thomas draws attention to an odd

irony here: the upsurge of inscriptions so characteristic of fifth-century Athens deals in the main with those outside the democracy, the gods and foreign payers of tribute. It is not being listed on such a document

which is a sign of status and citizenship—as the freedom from taxes on the body was too." These few examples are sufficient to establish that Havelock's own ideas on the relationship between literacy and democ-

racy are open to debate. They also indicate that they are not in fact debated: none of the studies I've just discussed so much

as mentions

Havelock's name. John Halverson's remark—"Havelock's main theories

have been very influential outside classical circles while within those circles they have been largely ignored rather than criticized”—seems

justified, though there are some recent signs of a resurgence of interest in them." But my task is not to argue that this approach to Greek history is or even ought to be influential today. I need to show that it is Canadian. It is this subject that I will turn to next. Eric Havelock was an Englishman who studied with the original Mr. Chips, taught at Harvard and ended his career as Sterling Professor of * W. Eder, "The political significance of the codification of law in archaic societies: An unconventional hypothesis," in K. Raaflaub, ed., Social Struggles in Archaic Rome. New Perspectives on the Conflict of the Orders (Berkeley 1986) 262-300. Cf. the skeptical remarks of J. Whitley, "Literacy and law-making: The case of archaic Crete," in N. Fisher and H. van Wees, eds., Archaic Greece: New Approaches and New Evidence (London /Swansea 1998) 311-331. °C. Hedrick, Jr., “Writing, reading and democracy,” in R. Osborne and S. Hornblower, eds., Ritual, Finance, Politics. Athenian Democratic Accounts Presented

to David Lewis (Oxford 1994) 157-174 (at 168-169).

? R. Thomas, "Literacy in the city-state in archaic and classical Greece,” in A.K. Bowman

and G. Woolf, eds., Literacy and Power in the Ancient World (Cam-

bridge 1994) 33-50. ” J. Halverson, “Havelock on Greek orality and literacy,” Journal of the History of Ideas 53 (1992) 148-163 at 149; cf. A.T. Cole, “Translator’s introduction,” in B. Gentili, Poetry and its Public in Ancient Greece (Baltimore/London 1988) xi-xviii (at xii-xiii) and Cole, “Eric Alfred Havelock,” in Briggs (above, n. 2) 267-269 (at

268). Signs of resurgence: of Memory and Literacy in M. Gagarin, "The orality The Oral Tradition and its

e.g., J.P. Classical of Greek Influence

Small, Wax Tablets of the Mind. Cognitive Studies Antiquity (London /New York 1997) 5-7, 244; oratory,” in E.A. MacKay, ed., Signs of Orality. in the Greek and Roman World. Mnemosyne Sup-

plement 188 (Leiden 1999) 163-180 (at 168).

ERIC HAVELOCK AND HAROLD INNIS

149

Classics at Yale; W.M. Calder calls him "an opportunistic English left-

ist.” What makes his ideas Canadian? Is this designation merely another example of Canadian chauvinism at work, beavering away to claim, for example, that Michael Ventris was a Canadian classicist (after

all, he was trained as a pilot in the Carberry Desert of southwestern Manitoba)? Or that Heracles was Canadian? Anne Carson's Autobiography of Red (1998) includes a scene (123) in which he offers to fix an elec-

trical cord with duct tape—Canada's contribution to home improvement. I don't think so. Havelock may not have been as Canadian as

Winnie the Pooh or Snow White, Winnipeggers both. But his first academic post was at Acadia University in Wolfville, Nova Scotia and he moved on to teach for 17 years, from 1929 to 1946, at Victoria College in

the University of Toronto, where he was a founder of what became the Classical Association of Canada and of its flagship journal, Phoenix. In

fact, he left Toronto only when he was fired for his support of an auto workers' strike in Oshawa, near Toronto. More to the point, Havelock himself identified elements of his Canadian experience as formative for

his ideas. For one thing, it was while he was at Toronto that Dorothy and Homer Thompson told him of Rhys Carpenter's work on the dating of the Greek alphabet. Far more significant, at least to Havelock in later life,

was what he called the character of his first contact with the Canadian scene. This took place when he was just 23, at Acadia among the orchards of the Annapolis Valley, where a student couldn't come to class if

there were problems with the apples. At Toronto too, bigger apple though it was, many students came from small towns. Here is how Havelock described the effect of this interconnection of town and gown in a lecture delivered in 1978: I think these impressions encouraged in me a view of ancient Greece which would see the culture of that period as forming itself within the conditions of a rather similar dialectic, under the guidance of an educational apparatus which bore more resemblance to the Canadian situation than, say, to the University of Berlin. This would not have occurred

to me had I stayed in urbanized England ...."

Havelock was happy to let the matter rest there. But there may be more to say: his ideas may not have come just from Canada itself but from a particular Canadian—Harold Adams Innis. Harold Innis is a famous figure in Canadian intellectual history—a

college at the University of Toronto bears his name—but he is less well 2 J.P. Harris and R.S. Smith, eds., William M. Calder III, Men in their Books, Studies on the Modern

History of Classical Scholarship (Hildesheim

1998) 291

opportunistic English leftist for whom I had ill-concealed contempt").

? E. A. Havelock, Harold A. Innis.

A Memoir (Toronto 1982) 43.

("an

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MARK GOLDEN

known elsewhere, so his work needs some introduction. An economic

historian, a mainstay of the department of political economy at Toronto from 1920, his early career was punctuated by a series of fact-filled in-

vestigations of the means by which Canadian commodities were brought to market: A History of the Canadian Pacific Railway (1923), The Fur Trade in Canada and Peter Pond, Fur Trader and Adventurer (both 1930), The Cod

Fisheries (1940), The Diary of Alexander James McPhail (an early grain

trader, also published in 1940). These pioneered the staples approach to Canadian economic history and are the basis of Innis's considerable reputation today. So the socialist economist Mel Watkins's contributions to the left nationalist periodical This Magazine are styled "Innis Memo-

rial" columns. Then (as John Watson puts it), "At the height of his professional success, Harold Adams Innis chose to ‘leave behind’ his colleagues in economic history and enter serious research in a field in

which he mispronounced the names of even the most common authorities."'* This new focus, on technologies of communication and their effects, also led to substantial publications, two books and two collections

of shorter pieces published before or just after Innis's death in 1952. Much energy and print has been devoted to debating whether this represented a truly new direction for Innis or whether (as is generally agreed today) his interest in the movement of goods, perhaps newsprint in particular, led naturally to reflections on the transmission of ideas. Certainly his concern with the dialectic of the extent of power over space and time and relation of metropolis and hinterland—and his colonial insistence on

the ability of the periphery to resist and, in the end, reshape, empires at the centre—remained constant. Of moment to us, however, is the fact

that his curiosity about communication was so far-reaching, encompassing cuneiform and papyrus as well as newsprint and radio.

The interplay of orality and literacy recurs throughout these later works. It even marked Innis's style, not just unreadable but purposely so, "a disconnected kaleidoscope of fact and observation,” "awkward

and complex unless approached as an attempt to achieve the effects of oral discourse in writing." The Greeks and their alphabet make regular

appearances, largely because Innis thought they had achieved the balance of oral and written, of control over time (oral culture) and space (by

^ AJ. Watson, "Harold Innis and classical scholarship,” Journal of Canadian Studies 12.5 (1977) 45-61 (at 45).

I5 JW. Carey, "Harold Adams Innis and Marshall McLuhan,” Antioch Review 27 (1967) 5-39 at 6 n. 1 (on 7).

16 D.F. Theall, "Exploration in communications since Innis,” in W.H. Melody, L. Salter and P. Heyer, eds., Culture, Communication and Dependency. The Tradition of H.A. Innis (Norwood NJ 1981) 225-234 (at 229).

ERIC HAVELOCK AND HAROLD INNIS

151

literacy), which he admired. So for example in an address to the Royal Society of Canada in 1947: "The Greeks took over the alphabet and made it a flexible instrument suited to the demands of a flexible oral tradition ... The improved alphabet made possible the expression of fine distinctions and light shades of meaning ... Greece had the advantage of a strong oral tradition and concentration on a single language."" Or in a paper he gave at Michigan in 1949: "The written language was made into an instrument responsive to the demands of the oral tradition." Or in a

1950 talk: "The flexibility of an oral tradition enabled the Greeks to work out a balance between the demands of concepts of space and time in a

city state."? Or in his Beit Lectures at Oxford in 1950: The alphabet escaped from the implications of sacred writing. It ... en-

abled the Greeks to preserve intact a rich oral tradition ... The strength

of the oral tradition and the relative simplicity of the alphabet checked the possible development of a highly specialized profession of scribes and the growth of a monopoly of the priesthood over education ... Without a sacred book and a powerful priesthood the ties of religion were weakened and rational philosophy was developed by the ablest minds to answer the demand for generalizations acceptable to everyone ... The strength of the oral tradition in Athens was evident in the slow development of codes, in the position of magistrates who continued to exercise judicial functions, in a constitutional system which permitted protests against grievances ... The powerful oral tradition of the Greeks and the flexibility of the alphabet enabled them to resist the tendencies of empire in the East towards absolute monarchism and theocracy.”

Now, there are many contrasts with Havelock here. Innis had a more positive outlook on orality. And I doubt that Havelock dated the Battle of Marathon to 484 (Empire and Communications 49)—there are numerous

traces of the amateur in Innis's account of the Greeks. Still, there is no denying the similarities. What is more, the two men not only overlapped

at Toronto for almost 20 years, they even knew each other. Havelock's reminiscences about his days in Canada—et in Acadia ego—came in a pair of memorial lectures at Innis College long after the economist's death.” His appreciation of Innis's achievement remains among the most com-

pelling. Yet he denies any close association—“I was only on the edge of his acquaintance, not one of the close circle of his friends"?—and down-

” H.A. Innis, The Bias of Communication (Toronto 1964 [1951]) 7-11. 18 Innis (above, n. 17) 40-41. 19 Innis (above, n. 17) 68.

? H.A. Innis, Empire and Communications (Toronto 1972 [1950]) 53, 66, 68, 84. ?! Havelock (above, n. 13).

2 In this Havelock is followed by J.P. Hershbell, "Eric Havelocks Beitráge zum

Problem von Mündlichkeit und Schriftlichkeit im antiken Griechenland,"

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MARK GOLDEN

plays any influence of Innis's interests on his own work. Certainly the two men had very different politics. Havelock was a Christian Socialist, one of the founders of the Fabian League for Social Reconstruction and of the earliest organizers of the Ontario CCF during the dirtiest years of the Dirty Thirties,

a man who could tell a public forum that capitalists

had deprived Canadians of their freedom.? Innis thought social scientists should stay aloof from politics in order to maintain their intellectual

integrity.“ Havelock, however, is not content merely to assert his independence of Innis. He implies that the current of influence ran the other way: he delivered public lectures at Toronto on orality in Homer in the

early 1940s—perhaps Innis heard them. Communication that passed between the two men after he had left Toronto for Harvard leads him to infer that this was so.” He sums up the intellectual relationship—“more slight than some may have supposed” (40)—in this way: “In reading Innis, I discover ... the contiguity between Innis and myself seems to

have been, as much as anything else, a matter of happy coincidence” (42). 1 am reminded of that old classicist's ploy, anticipatory plagiarism: “I find my conjecture anticipated in the work of so and so."

Curiously coy as it is, Havelock's account has adherents. For example, Andy

Wernick regards Havelock's ideas on Plato as Innis's starting

point.” It is true that these ideas did not see print until 1963, more than a

decade after Innis's death. But Innis knew them long before: a letter from Innis to a friend in May 1951 mentions a manuscript of Havelock's "on

the question of the shift from the oral to the written in Greek culture." But all this letter really shows, it seems to me, is that even a scholar as gifted and energetic as Havelock didn't always get his work out as soon as he hoped. Many of the passages from Innis's own publications that

I've already quoted predate this letter. Indeed, his working papers, the so-called "idea file," include references to the relationship of oral and written language as early as 1944 or 1945; one of the earliest notes, inspired by Ernst Cassirer, asks "how far the clash of written language Philologus 135 (1991) 31-37 (at 33).

3 Toronto Star, 27 October 1932. ^ M. Horn, The League for Social Reconstruction: Intellectual Origins of the Democratic Left in Canada 1930-1942 (Toronto 1980) 194-199.

5 Havelock (above n. 13) 40, cf. Havelock, The Muse Learns to Write. Reflections on Orality and Literacy from Antiquity to the Present (New Haven /London 1986) 17. # A. Wernick, "The post-Innisian significance of Innis,” Canadian Journal of Political and Social Theory 10.1-2 (1986) 128—150, esp. 141.

7 G. Patterson, History and Communications. Harold Innis, Marshall McLuhan, the Interpretation of History (Toronto 1990) 64-65, quoting University of Toronto Archives, H.A. Innis Papers, Innis to F.H. Knight, 21 May 1951.

ERIC HAVELOCK

AND HAROLD INNIS

153

with oral creates symbolism?,” and wonders whether the contact of the

Greeks with the Mycenaean of the Linear B script (as yet undeciphered, of course) was a case in point.” He was aware of Plato’s relevance to the

topic by at least 1946,” and speculated that civilization is at its peak as

the oral tradition shifts to the written in 1946 or 1947.” The “idea file” contains a number of other interesting insights echoed in Havelock, for example, in drawing attention to the importance of the oral tradition in Canada’s Atlantic provinces.” Did these insights come to Innis first after all? Marshall McLuhan, who arrived at St. Michael's College just as Havelock was leaving Victo-

ria, seems to have thought so. His preliminary remarks in the 1964 reprint of The Bias of Communication (ix) and the 1972 edition of Empire and Communications (ix) offer a brief sketch in which Innis appears as prótos

heuretés and Havelock as the man who explored what he had discovered. Leonard Woodbury thought both McLuhan and Havelock were indebted to Innis—his “ideas on the subject were much in the air in Toronto in the 1940’s and 1950’s,” when Woodbury himself was a young professor of classics.” I would make four observations of my own. First, we may forget now that Innis was not only nine years older

than Havelock, he was a much more eminent academic: a long-time department head, Dean of the School of Graduate Studies, fellow and president of the Royal Society of Canada and winner of its Tyrrell Medal for scholarship, the first outsider to be elected president of the American

Economics Association. He had no reason to hide any debts he owed to Havelock. Second, Innis’s notes and published works often mention

classicists whose work shaped his own, by their publications alone (like Werner Jaeger) or in person (E.T. Owen, C.N. Cochrane). In an obituary, he praised Cochrane’s as “the first major Canadian contribution to the intellectual history of the West."? But he never alludes to Havelock's work on orality and literacy in this way, and I have found no such allu-

3 W. Christian, ed., The Idea File of Harold Adams

Innis (Toronto 1980) 1.8 (p.

4). ? Christian (above, n. 28) 6.52 (p. 71).

9 Christian (above, n. 28) 10.5 (p. 97). ?! Christian (above, n. 28) 19.1 (p. 160). 2 LE. Woodbury, "The literate revolution: a review article," EMC 27 (1983) 329—352 (at 329). R.S. Kilpatrick, "In memoriam: Eric Alfred Havelock,” EMC 33

(1989) 278, is right to stress Havelock’s “pioneering work on Greek literacy” as an influence on McLuhan, but his silence on Innis may mislead. 3 H.A. Innis, “Charles Norris Cochrane, 1889-1945," Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science 12 (1946) 95—97 (at 96).

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MARK GOLDEN

sions in his unpublished correspondence." Third, there was however a portion of Havelock's work that Innis knew well and acknowledged.

This was The Crucifixion of Intellectual Man, a book which appeared on Innis's reading lists at the end of his career—and in very few economics courses since. Innis was taken with Havelock's presentation of the classi-

cal dialectic of power and intelligence. His silence on the subject of oral-

ity is therefore all the more meaningful. Finally—and most important—the mix of literacy and orality seems to have been a crucial element of Innis's ideas from the start. Havelock, however, came to an appreciation of its importance only late. In his Preface to Plato (1963), Homer represents primary orality and the eventual prevalence of literacy is a triumph of progress. But some 25 years later, in The Muse Learns

to Write (1986), "the epics as we know them are the result of some interlock between the oral and the literate" (13), "the Muse ... learned to write and read while still continuing to sing" (23), "the masterpieces we now read as literate texts are an interwoven texture of oral and written"

(101, cf. 124, 126). This seems to me to be conclusive proof that Innis did not derive his ideas from Havelock or that, if he did, he elaborated them into a very different, and more nuanced, form. But it must also indicate

that Havelock was not deeply indebted to Innis either. Surely, if he were, he would have reached the final formulation of his theory, in which it is the interplay of orality and literacy which counts, earlier on. It appears, then, that Havelock's recollections are accurate after all: he and Innis did

indeed come up with similar ideas in the same place and time. So the literate revolution took place in Canada—and not just once, but twice. In

the end, Innis and Havelock make up two more solitudes. Canadian, eh?

# The only as yet unnoticed reference to Havelock seems to be a letter from Innis to Frank Knight of the University of Chicago (29 May 1952) on the subject (among

others) of a review article focussing on Empire and Communications

and

The Bias of Communication. Innis notes that E.A. Havelock “might be interested, but his main concern, as 1 told you, is with Greek culture" (cf. above, n. 27). I am

grateful to Loryl MacDonald and the University of Toronto Archives for access to Innis's papers; these are plentiful, and I cannot claim to have read them all. Prof. Christine M. Havelock (in a letter of 13 June 1998) confirms that the two

men held each other in mutual respect, but is unable to add details about a relationship which was long in the past before she married Havelock.

12 SELF-FASHIONING IN THE CLASSICAL TRADITION: RONSARD'S "DE L'ÉLECTION DE SON SÉPULCRE" ALEX. L. GORDON

Published in 1550 in the Quatre premiers livres des Odes, Ronsard's "De l'élection de son sépulcre" is one of his most famous compositions.! In it

the poet expresses the desire to be buried on an island at the confluence of the rivers Loir and Braye in his native countryside, the region north of the Loire known as the Vendómois. Ronsard requests a simple tomb, covered perhaps in ivy and shaded by an evergreen and a vine. Every

year he imagines shepherds will come to this spot to present ritual offerings and to deliver a eulogy in praise of the poet whose verses will be

heard throughout the universe. Meanwhile Ronsard's spirit will have passed over to the domain of the blessed where it enjoys the company of Alcaeus and Sappho, the odes of whom bring pleasure and consolation to all who listen. What is striking in this poem is the mixture of humility and pride on the one hand, and on the other the pastoral manner so reminiscent of classical poetry in a similar vein. To explain this impression we must first turn to Ronsard's biography and education. According to Michel Dassonville, Ronsard composed "De l'élection

de son sépulcre" in the summer of 1547 when he was twenty-three years old? One may wonder why a young man of this age should choose so morbid a subject and why he, who had as yet published nothing, should

proclaim so vigorously the immortality of his verse. The two subjects are closely related. Ronsard was the ambitious third son of a highly ambitious family from the lesser aristocracy.’ Members of this family habitually carved careers for themselves in the service of the French kings, a ! Our references will be taken from Pierre de Ronsard, Oeuvres completes, ed. Paul Laumonier (Paris 1914-1975) vol. 2, 97-103.

? Michel Dassonville, Ronsard. Etude historique et littéraire. Il: A la conquête de la Toison d'Or (1545-1550) (Geneva 1970) 196. Laumonier's edition gives the date of

composition as 1549 (100 n. 1). >For Ronsard's biography see Dassonville, and Ronsard, Oeuvres complètes (Bibliothèque de la Pléiade), ed. Jean Céard, Daniel Ménager and Michel Simonin

(Paris 1993) vol. 1, Chronologie, xxxix-Ixxxii. 155

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ALEX. L. GORDON

custom typical of the French nobility of the sixteenth century. In order to defend their local prestige and to obtain ecclesiastical posts for younger

scions of the family, provincial members of the aristocracy were obliged to maintain a high profile at the centre of power at court.‘ Ronsard began

to play his part in this tradition when, shortly before his twelfth birthday, he became page to the Dauphin Francis. After the latter's sudden death, he was named page to another of the royal princes, Charles de Valois, Duke of Orleans. From this service he passed to that of Madeleine de France, King Francis' cherished daughter and the young bride of James V of Scotland. Ronsard accompanied Madeleine to Scot-

land where the new queen, who had always been in poor health, died of consumption a few months after her arrival in 1537. In spite of these setbacks Ronsard's career at court continued to progress. In the winter of 1538-39 he returned to Scotland as a member of a diplomatic delegation

and in 1539 he re-entered the service of the Duke of Orleans. All signs seemed to point to a fine future when in the summer of 1540 Ronsard became gravely ill with an arthritic affliction which was to haunt him all his life and which left him partially deaf. This handicap put an end to any ambitions the sixteen-year old youth might have entertained for a brilliant military or political] career. It also obliged him to reconsider the values he might live by. Sharing the lives of the great at the courts of France and of Scotland, Ronsard had witnessed the grandeur of royal

rituals, but he had also come to know the tragic frailty of human life. It was believed that his first master, the Dauphin Francis, had been poisoned. The eleven-year old Ronsard had been present not only at his death, but also at the autopsy a few days later. In Scotland Ronsard had

seen the end of another young life when Madeleine de France had died just six months after her marriage and one month after her coronation. His personal brush with death had brought home to the future poet the truth of his own mortality. Death was omnipresent. Death was the measure of man and of man's ambitions. But Ronsard had survived his

illness, and having seen the vanity of worldly glory, he determined to challenge death in a new way: he turned to poetry, the only guarantee of immortality. Poetry, he knew, preserved the memory not only of the heroes it celebrated but also that of the poets themselves. Through poetry Ronsard saw a road to glory which his semi-deafness would have de-

nied him otherwise. In choosing the poet's vocation he sacrificed nothing of the dignity and sense of self-worth which was becoming to his class. On the contrary, as Dassonville has written, Ronsard brought into the

* Henri Weber, "Structure des Odes chez Ronsard,” Cahiers de l'Association internationale des études françaises 22 (1970) 103.

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world of letters the imperial pride of Caesar and Alexander?

Ronsard may have glimpsed the potential glory of a poetic career in 1540, but it was only slowly that he came to devote himself wholeheartedly to writing. To ensure a livelihood he was tonsured in 1543 and so

became eligible for the various ecclesiastical posts from which he benefitted all his life. There were also the diversions of gallantry. In 1545 Ronsard encountered the fourteen-year old Cassandre Salviati at a ball

in Blois. Captivated by her beauty, and in spite of her marriage in 1546 to the Seigneur de Pray, Ronsard elected Cassandre as the muse who would later inspire the Amours of 1552, his first volume of Petrarchan

poetry. In the meantime his attempts at poetic creation were gaining in assurance and he was also acquiring a wider acquaintance with the only

literature he admired, that of antiquity. Very quickly he abandoned his experiments in Latin verse, deciding instead to imitate the classics in his native French, especially Horace. From 1544 onwards his knowledge of

ancient literature was greatly increased by the inspired teaching of the humanist, Jean Dorat. Dorat revealed to him the splendours of Homer, Pindar, Lycophron, Athenaeus, Aratus and Callimachus. Around the same time Ronsard was also reading enthusiastically in the works of

Catullus, Propertius, Tibullus and the neo-Latins, thus extending his knowledge of Latin authors beyond the familiar writings of Horace, Virgil and Ovid. This immersion in ancient literature could only strengthen

Ronsard's early conception of the eminent dignity of the poetic calling. Horace, for instance, ends his second book of odes by evoking his own

apotheosis and a world-wide audience for his poems. It was Pindar,

however, who most affected Ronsard's tone. Imitating the style of the Greek poet, Ronsard came to display an arrogance which far exceeded

the discrete pride of his model. "Heureux celui que je chante," writes Ronsard, whereas Pindar had effaced his own presence and simply stated, "Happy is he who has deserved praise." Given the cultural background, de son sépulcre" should present a entirely in classical terms. In 1906 Gustave Lanson counted well over

it is not surprising that "De l'élection portrait of Ronsard conceived almost in the heyday of Quellenforschung, thirty reminiscences of classical writ-

ers in the French text.’ These range from Theocritus and Homer to Propertius, Virgil, Lucretius and Ovid. Paul Laumonier, Ronsard's modern

editor, lists almost as many.? In the Pléiade edition, Ronsard's most re* Dassonville (above, n. 2) 158. * Paul Laumonier, Ronsard, poète lyrique (Paris 1936) 336. ? Gustave

Lanson,

29-39. * See above, n. 1.

"Comment

Ronsard

invente,"

Revue

universitaire 1 (1906)

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ALEX. L. GORDON

cent editors have reduced the number of sources to nineteen? Although the extent of Ronsard's borrowings is variously estimated, all scholars agree that the poet has viewed his tomb and the rituals in his memory through the lense of his classical reading. What is interesting, however,

is not that Ronsard imitated the ancients—imitation was after all the recommended practice of Ronsard's Pléiade school—but how he imitated them. Among the many classical sources that Lanson identifies, three are of

prime importance: the choice of a simple tomb in Propertius 2.13"; the pastoral cult of Daphnis in Virgil's Eclogue 5; and the songs of Alcaeus and Sappho in the underworld described by Horace (Odes 2.13). These

three sources inspire the three successive parts of Ronsard's poem: the depiction of his simple island tomb (v. 1-40); the annual cult of the shepherds in his memory (v. 41-84); and the final image of the poet's spirit in the presence of the blessed (v. 85-124). However, if the ancient writers supply an initial idea, Ronsard borrows from them only lightly. The situations he evokes may be classical in inspiration, but they are transposed and contextualised in a manner which is often unlike that of

their original setting. Like Ronsard Propertius had a deeply sensuous awareness of life, but

he was also obsessed by visions of death. Georg Luck writes of him that "he like[d] to dwell with a kind of morbid pleasure on funerals and the

underworld."" In elegy 2.13 Propertius warns his mistress, Cynthia, to

avoid all ostentatious ceremonies at his death. Instead he entreats her to arrange a plain funeral and to plant a simple laurel over his modest

tomb. These requests appear to indicate great humility, but other details in the poem suggest inordinate pride: nec minus haec nostri notescet fama sepulcri, quam fuerant Phthii busta cruenta viri. (36-7) So shall the fame of my sepulchre be blazoned abroad no less than the bloody tomb of the Phthian hero.

In other words Propertius’ grave shall be as celebrated as that of Achilles. Earlier in the elegy the poet had claimed that he would win more fame than Inachian Linus: tunc ego sim Inachio notior arte Lino (8). “In both ? See Céard, Ménager and Simonin, eds. (above, n. 3) 1547-1548.

10 Laumonier and the editors of the Pléiade edition all cite this source. Robert E. Hallowell,

Ronsard and the Conventional Roman

Elegy (Urbana

1954) 150, sees

Propertius 2.13 as a source not of "De l'élection de son sépulcre," but of Ronsard's pastoral ode "Aux cendres de Marguerite ed. Paul Laumonier, vol. 3, 80-81.

de Valois,"

H Georg Luck, The Latin Love Elegy (London 1959) 126.

Oeuvres completes,

RONSARD'S "DE L'ÉLECTION DE SON SÉPULCRE"

159

places," writes Theodore D. Papanghelis, "Propertius does not set modesty against pride, but proposes an alternative pride: the elegist eventu-

ally outshines the epic poet, the lover the epic warrior." Ronsard's selfesteem is as impressive as the Roman's, but the detail of its expression owes little to the Latin source. Ronsard has borrowed from Propertius only the basic theme of a simple rather than an elaborate tomb, and also

perhaps the idea of an evergreen to shade it like the laurel of the Latin model. These are general similarities; close textual parallels do not exist. Ronsard and Propertius pursue in fact different poetic goals. Ronsard paints a self-portrait as poet, Propertius offers a depiction of himself as

lover. The Latin poem is suffused with sexual passion, prompting Papanghelis to speculate whether Propertius' funeral pyre bespeaks "a cremation or a wedding night."? Ronsard speaks only briefly of his role as lover in the second movement of his poem. If an erotic note is struck at all in the "Propertian" section, it is not sexual in origin but perceived

in the harmonies of nature. Flowing round the island of the poet's tomb, the river Loir embraces it ("est accolant,” v. 20), while the river Braye, its loving friend ("s'amie," v. 21) murmurs close by. Ronsard hopes too that the earth will send up from his grave an ivy plant, the roots of which will entwine themselves round his dead body. These are not images of sexual union, but of fusion with nature, the elements of which cohere sympathetically and lovingly receive the remains of the poet who immortalised them. Resemblance but also difference are prominent once more in Ron-

sard's use of the cult of Daphnis in Virgil's Eclogue 5. The Latin Daphnis embodies “the ideal qualities of the Vergilian responsible shepherd.” After his apotheosis he becomes a tamer of the wilderness and a teacher of society. Venerated by the Arcadian shepherds who pay annual hommage to him as well as to Bacchus and Ceres, Virgil's Daphnis responds favourably to their prayers. In this way he guarantees the stability of the agricultural world: Ut Baccho Cererique, tibi sic vota quotannis Agricolae facient; damnabis tu quoque votis. (79-80) ? Theodore D. Papanghelis, Propertius: A Hellenistic Poet on Love and Death (Cambridge 1987) 71.

? Papanghelis 63. ^ Eleanor W. Leach, Vergil's Eclogues. Landscapes of Experience (Ithaca / London 1974) 188. For our reading of Virgil, we are also indebted to Michael C.J. Putnam,

Virgil's Pastoral Art (Princeton 1970), and to the essays edited by AJ. Boyle in Ancient Pastoral. Ramus Essays on Greek and Roman Pastoral Poetry (Berwick, Victoria 1975).

160

ALEX. L. GORDON Just as to Bacchus and Ceres, the farmers will make vows to you each year: by giving fulfillment, you will hold them to their vows.

Although Daphnis loves song, he is above all a divinized figure of protection, and as Eleanor W. Leach points out the author of only two lines of poetry, those of his own epitaph. Ronsard, on the other hand, presents himself essentially as a private individual, someone who shunned the honours of the powerful, a lover who refused to resort to magic potions

in his courtship, and most importantly a poet whose verse will be admired throughout the whole world and whose tomb will bring fame to the island where it stands. The benefits Ronsard bestows on the world are aesthetic not practical as with Daphnis. The shepherds who honour

his name proclaim that he caused the muses to dance on the grass of his native countryside, conferring on this land a new prestige. Comparing

the French and Latin texts, it is evident that Ronsard has borrowed from

Virgil only a theme, the cult of a hero. The qualities he attributes to himself are not those of Daphnis although they may evoke other classical echoes. Laumonier sees, for instance, a parallel between the Ronsard who spurned the favours of the great and the happy farmer of Georgics 2 who leads a life devoted to the country gods, far removed from the temptations of worldly power.

Laumonier also suggests sources in

Theocritus, Idyll 2 and Virgil, Eclogue 8 for the theme of the magic potion

as an instrument of love. However, it is unlikely that Ronsard bore in mind

these precise texts. The contrast between the innocence of the

country and the corruption of the city is a constant in Virgil generally and need not be limited to any particular line. Moreover condemnation of court life was habitual in Ronsard's own time." As for the magic po-

tions, they too seem so common a motif in ancient literature that tying them to a single source appears to force a point. In the end images of

upright countrymen and the magic brews of lovers impart a classical flavour without necessarily implying a precise textual origin. The ritual gestures in Virgil and Ronsard are also similar in spirit only. Menalcas promises four altars, two for Phoebus Apollo and two for Daphnis. Every year he will offer two vessels of new milk and two of oil. Wine will also flow abundantly. Damoetas and Lyctius Aegon will sing and Alphesiboeus will dance. The ceremonies for Ronsard are simple in

comparison. The shepherds deliver their eulogy, then make offerings of milk and the blood of a lamb. Menalcas' offerings bear a precise mean5 Laumonier (above, n. 1) 100 n. 1.

18 Laumonier (above, n. 1) 100 n. 3. " See Paula M. Smith, The Anti-Courtier Trend in Sixteenth Century French Literature (Geneva 1966).

RONSARD'S "DE L'ÉLECTION DE SON SÉPULCRE"

161

ing: milk, oil and wine are the product of man's work in nature and constitute "a simple tribute ... that draws the rural community together in a

spirit of festivity."? The milk and the blood of a lamb in Ronsard's ode give an antique colour to the ceremonies in his honour, but there is no necessary connection between them and Ronsard's activity as a poet.

Daphnis receives offerings which are the result of his benevolent protection of the farmer. Milk and lamb's blood do not match the gifts of a poet with the same fittingness. A refreshing exception to the Roman tradition of gravitas, Horace likes to mingle self-mockery with high seriousness.? These two elements are equally balanced in ode 2.13, the main source of the concluding movement of Ronsard's poem. In the first part Horace tells of a narrow escape from a

falling tree (1-18), and in the second he relates how this

near-death experience allowed him a glimpse of the underworld, the home of Sappho and of Alcaeus whose music holds in thrall the admiring shades (19-36). The episode of the falling tree is treated with grotesque hyperbole. Horace attributes wicked intentions to the farmer who planted it. Exaggerating his fears, he pictures him as an assassin guilty of the most abominable acts of murder. The poem then moves from the triste lignum, the ostensible subject to the real one, a consideration of

mortality and the poet's afterlife, the afterlife not of Horace himself but of Alcaeus. Scholars believe that Horace composed his ode at an early period of his career when he was engaged in intense study of his Greek predecessor and model.? This explains the resounding praise of Alcaeus

whose martial and political poetry could cause a reverent hush to fall upon the listening shades and whose sweet music could not only subdue Cerberus and the snakes of the Furies' hair, but also bring consolation to

Prometheus and Tantalus and even lure Orion from the hunt. The power of poetry to sway an audience is, in Steele Commager's view, an antidote

to the fear of the falling tree which Horace had tried to exorcize through humour. However, Horace is not yet ready to claim for his own poetry the extraordinary effects of that of Alcaeus. Commager speculates that the self-mockery of the early stanzas "derives in part from a feeling that

he had yet to achieve something that would justify his leaving the ranks of the spectators for the company of Sappho and Alcaeus themselves."?' Horace's irony and self-mockery are entirely lacking in "De l'élection Leach (above, n. 14) 193. ? L.P. Wilkinson, Horace and his Lyric Poetry (Cambridge

1946) devotes a

whole section of his book to Horace's humour (59-64). 9 Eduard Fraenkel, Horace (Oxford 1957) 167.

À Steele Commager,

The Odes of Horace. A Critical Study (Bloomington, IN

1967; original edition Yale University Press, 1962) 317.

162

ALEX. L. GORDON

de son sépulcre" where Ronsard's tone is strikingly haughty in spite of the humble

grave. Horace views the realm of the dead from afar. He

only half-glimpses the domain of Proserpine and the figure of Aeacus, her judge. Ronsard, on the other hand, envisages himself as already present among the blessed and devotes five stanzas to a description of their world and its inhabitants. This idyllic picture harmonises with the earlier evocation of the peaceful setting of the poet's tomb. In the land of the dead reigns an eternal spring. No hail, snow or thunder threatens its

tranquility, and gentle zephyrs blow among the myrtles and myriad flowers. The inhabitants continue to practise the activities of their call-

ings on earth, living peacefully with each other and with former kings who have renounced the will to conquer. These details reflect classical pictures of the underworld,? but they are not Horatian in inspiration. It is in the last four stanzas that Ronsard turns to his Latin model, imitating Horace far more closely than he had done earlier in the poem with Virgil

and Propertius. "[D]'Alcée / La lire courroucée" (v. 109-110, the angry lyre of Alcaeus), recalls with a single adjective the expulsion of tyrants

and the hardships of sea-voyages, war and exile which Horace cites as the themes of the great Greek poet. Ronsard does not mention the power of the music of Alcaeus and Sappho to subdue Cerberus and the mon-

strous snakes of the Furies' hair, but he does speak of the consolation that their songs bring to tormented sinners. In the first version of his ode he substitutes Sisyphus for Horace's Prometheus and Tantalus, but in

later versions he includes the latter's name, a sure sign that he is writing with the text of Horace at his side. The final stanza of Ronsard's poem contains another Horatian reminiscence, this time from ode 1.32 where Horace salutes his lyre with the words, o laborum dulce lenimen (14-15).

Expanding on this phrase, Ronsard extolls his own poetic instrument which alone can soothe the heart and delight the mind, "La seule lire douce / L'ennui des cueurs repousse, / Et va l'esprit flattant / De l'écoutant" (v. 121-124). He concludes, therefore, as Horace had done by

celebrating the power of poetry, but in the ode as a whole he also celebrates his own immortal talent in a way that Horace never did in 2.13. In "De l'élection de son sépulcre" Ronsard paints a picture of himself

that is only partially true. He did not always shun the favours of the great as he claimed to do. On the contrary, throughout his career he ? Homer, Odyssey 4.565-68 and 6.42-6, describes the perfect weather of the underworld in terms very similar to those of Ronsard. This description is paraphrased by Lucretius, De rerum natura 3.18-22. Ronsard's image of "le beau printens" (v. 96) recalls the ver aeternum of Ovid in Metamorphoses 1.107-8. The idea that the dead pursue the same activities as on earth is found in Virgil, Aeneid 6.642-7 and 653-5; also in Ovid, Metamorphoses 4.444—6. Neither Virgil nor Ovid suggests that the dead kings have given up the will to conquer.

RONSARD'S "DE L'ÉLECTION DE SON SÉPULCRE"

163

sought influential contacts and the patronage of royalty. Well named, he became not only the prince of poets but also the poet of princes. Yet it would be imprudent to accuse Ronsard of hypocrisy. "De l'élection de son sépulcre" presents only one aspect of a rich and complex personal-

ity. It is not the courtier but the country gentleman that we see in Ronsard's poem,

the man

who

loved nature and honoured

in verse the

"Fontaine Bellerie" just as Horace had acclaimed the "Fons Bandusiae"

of Tibur.? Deeply felt, Ronsard's pride is also that of other intellectuals and artists of the Renaissance who believed that the glorious achievements of the creative mind could equal those of the warrior's sword.” Erecting a monument to himself in poetry, Ronsard turns, like so many

other writers in France and Italy, to the classical authors who had extolled the dignity of their calling in ancient times.? However, he does not follow them slavishly. Instead, by adapting and combining, he practises that fine art of dispositio which his friend and mentor, Jacques Peletier du Mans, was to admire especially in the arrangement of the tales in Ovid's Metamorphoses. From a more modern point of view, we might say that Ronsard's writing depends on the "interruptive" mode of reading advocated by Yves Bonnefoy, the contemporary poet and critic.”

Approaching poetry "interruptively," we raise our eyes from the page whenever a to reflect on Propertius, lead him to

word or a phrase speaks to our deepest being and causes us the meaning of our lives. In Ronsard's case, passages from Virgil and Horace act powerfully upon his sensibility and consider his destiny as a poet. Prompted by these readings,

he then sets them aside and creates a truly personal work in which the different parts come together in seamless and mellifluous harmony.

? Ronsard's two odes to the "Fontaine Bellerie" were composed according to Dassonville (above, n. 2) 196 in the same year as he wrote "De l'élection de son sépulcre." The two poems are a close imitation of Horace's ode. * See Francoise Joukovsky, La Gloire dans la poésie française et néolatine du XVIe siécle (Geneva 1969).

55 For a detailed study of authors other than Ronsard, see Francoise Joukovsky, "Tombeaux et offrandes rustiques chez les poètes français et néo-latins du XVIe siècle,” Bibliothèque d'humanisme et renaissance 27 (1965) 226-247. Jacopo Sannazaro's Arcadia (Naples 1504), composed in Italian, was influential in the

development of pastoral modes possible source of inspiration for Jacques Peletier du Mans, (Paris 1930) 90-91. ? Yves Bonnefoy, "Lever les 1990) (Paris 1990) 223-239.

in France. His work has often been cited as a Ronsard's "De l'élection de son sépulcre." L'Art poétique (1555), ed. Jacques Boulanger yeux de son livre," Entretiens sur la poésie (1972-

13 TEXTUAL CRITICISM OF CLASSICAL TEXTS IN ERASMUS' ADAGIA

JOHN N. GRANT Many a slip 'tween cup and lip Marry in May, rue the day

Dog in the manger Crocodile tears

Don't look a gift horse in the mouth Let the cobbler stick to his last Fresh fish and new-come guests smell in three days One swallow does not make a summer English speakers are familiar with these common sayings or proverbs,

but they are probably unaware that these and dozens more go back to or have counterparts in the classical world. Since proverbs often reflect folk wisdom, similar ones can be found in different societies where there can

be no question of cultural borrowing. In his mystery novel The Remorse-

ful Day Colin Dexter gives as the heading of chapter 5 a proverb "In the country of the blind the one-eyed man is king," identifying it as an Afghan proverb. In Desiderius Erasmus' great work on proverbs, the Adagia, which draws primarily on classical proverbs, we find Inter caecos regnat strabys, "Among the blind the cross-eyed man is king" (III iv 96).! If

Mr Dexter is correct and is not trailing his coat (he teases his readers in their copy-editing skills on several occasions in the novel), this is a striking example of similar proverbs that have arisen independently of

each other.’ Although similar proverbs in different cultures may have no ! The first Roman numeral in the reference relates to thousands, the second to centuries, the way that the proverbs were eventually organized in Erasmus' work. III iv 96 corresponds, therefore, to 2396 in Arabic numeration. In the original Greek the literal sense is "among the blind the bleary-eyed man is king," ἐν τοῖς τόποις τῶν τυφλῶν γλαμυρὸς βασιλεύει. Apostolius, the fifteenth-century compiler of Greek proverbs, offers Λάμων for γλαμυρὸς (7.23). See CPG 2.401, with apparatus. ? This proverb may not go back to the classical period. Erasmus appears to have drawn it from Apostolius, who includes in his collection some proverbs 165

166

JOHN N. GRANT

historical connection, there is little doubt that Erasmus himself is responsible for the survival of many classical proverbs and their transmission into modern, that is, post-medieval, European culture. In 1500 he pub-

lished in Paris a collection of classical proverbs under the title Adagiorum Collectanea. There were 818 proverbs (unnumbered)? in this slim volume, and they were accompanied by a very brief statement of their meaning

and of how they might be used. Usually the classical source was named, even though the specific reference (to book or chapter, for example) was not always given. The work was an "immediate success"* and brought Erasmus to the attention of the literati of Europe. It proved to be so popular that he decided to expand his collection, and in 1508 in Venice he prepared what was virtually a new work, his Adagiorum Chiliades, published by the Aldine press? In this volume the proverbs now num-

bered 3285.5 What had begun in 1500 as a small and practical handbook of proverbs that might be stylishly employed in letters or speeches had now become a repository of classical learning, drawing from a vast array of Greek authors as well as Latin ones and also from the collection of

scholia on some of these authors." In eight subsequent editions (1515, 1517/18, 1520, 1523, 1526, 1528, 1533 and 1536) the number of adages increased (reaching 4151 in the last edition) and some entries were repeatedly expanded.? A few of the essays grew to such proportions that they were printed separately.” Expansion was the regular mode; only that go back only to Byzantine times or are quite recent. The proverb is referred

to in the Venetian scholia on Iliad 24.192. It seems quite likely that the Greek and Afghan proverbs are independent of each other. * [n this article the enumeration of the proverbs in the Collectanea follows that of Sir Roger Mynors in his manuscript (as yet unpublished) of an edition of the Collectanea.

* Phillips (1964) 75. ? Some information about his preparation of the 1508 edition can be found in Festina lente (Adagia I] i 1).

The number of the final adage in the 1508 edition is given as MMMCCLX (3260), but because of an error in the enumeration there are actually 3285 adages; see Phillips (1964) 77.

7In the Collectanea the vast majority of the proverbs were drawn from Latin authors and from a limited array. Plautus and Terence were particularly favoured. Even after the appearance of the Chiliades the Collectanea continued to be reprinted, however. This is testimony of its usefulness and popularity. Sin the edition of 1508 the adages were organized in thousands, but in the 1515 edition they were also broken down into centuries, and this practice continued in all subsequent editions; hence the cumbersome mode of reference. ? The most

famous are Dulce bellum inexpertis (IV i 1) and Scarabeus

aquilam

quaerit (III vii 1), where the proverbs provide a starting point for polemical tracts on the evils of war.

TEXTUAL CRITICISM IN ERASMUS' ADAGIA

167

rarely were passages from one edition dropped or re-written. Many new classical sources for the proverbs were furnished and other kinds of

material were introduced.” On the one hand Erasmus spiced up the work with some biting criticism of his contemporaries: princes, priests,

theologians and fellow humanists. On the other he continued to add information of the ancient world by introducing passages from his sources that went beyond the context of the proverb. The Adagia, then, was a conduit for transmitting many classical prov-

erbs into the vernacular languages of Erasmus' time. One example that demonstrates

his influence is our English proverb

"Call a spade a

spade." In the Adages (II iii 5) this appears as part of a fuller proverb that reads Ficus ficus, ligonem ligonem vocat, "He calls figs figs and a spade a spade." The Latin is Erasmus' rendering of an original Greek expression tà σῦκα σῦκα, τὴν σκάφην σκάφην λέγων, a line of Greek verse." In the

1508 edition Erasmus correctly translated σχάφη by the Latin scapha, a Greek loan word meaning "skiff." In the 1515 edition, however, he changed his translation, erroneously substituting ligo, meaning "spade"

or "mattock," for scapha, and it is this mistake of Erasmus that has given

rise to the English proverb.” The topic of this article may at first sight seem strange, given the nature of the Adagia. What place had textual criticism in a work that primarily explained the meaning and origin of classical proverbs and then suggested suitable contexts for their employment? One would not be

surprised to find discussion of a textual nature when the text of a proverb itself was dubious, and this occurs on several occasions, as we shall see. Erasmus, however, casts his conjectural net much farther afield to

pull in passages other than the proverbs themselves. In this interest in V Erasmus made annotations for the preparation of subsequent editions in personal copies of the 1523 and 1526 editions. We also have a manuscript that relates to the expansion of the 1533 edition. See ASD II-8, 6-9.

" Erasmus probably drew the line from Tzetzes, who cites it in this form

(Chiliades VIII 567) and ascribes the line to Aristophanes, or from Lucian, who

gives a paraphrase of the line in Hist. Conscr. 41. It is printed as Menander fr. 717

Koerte-Thierfelder, though the editors express their doubts as to the authorship of the line. 7 Another error that demonstrates the influence of the Adagia is the expression "Pandora's box." Erasmus made a mistake in Adagia I iii 35, almost in passing: "it is well known that anything given by those who wish us ill would usually be for our destruction. It was so with the deceiving box sent to Prometheus by Jove through Pandora" (CWE 31.263). Erasmus confused a feature in the story of Cupid and Psyche, of how Psyche opened a box that she brought back from the underworld, with the myth of Pandora in Hesiod, where Pandora brings, not a box (arca), but a jar (pithos), containing the evils of the world. This appears to be the source of the erroneous "Pandora's box"; see Panofsky (1965) 15-19.

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JOHN N. GRANT

conjecture, in such digressions, as we may call them in the context of the

whole work, Erasmus is no different from many humanists of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. They were well aware that the printed texts of the ancient authors were full of corruptions, and they strove with keen rivalry to be the sages." When Erasmus his activity as an editor a decade away." Even

first to emend and explain problematical paswas preparing the Collectanea, the beginning of of classical and patristic texts still lay more than in 1500, however, we see his interest in textual

matters. On the expression σχυτάλη

Λακωνική he refers to Gellius' ac-

count of how the Spartans sent messages in cipher by writing on a leather thong (lorum) when it was wound round a baton (17.9.9-15). The recipient of the thong had to use a baton of exactly the same dimension in order to read the message. Erasmus points out an error in the printed text of Gellius at Noctes Atticae 17.9.15, where the Greek term σκυτάλη is

followed by the explanatory phrase loricatus surculus ("cuirassed ba-

ton"), a mistake, according to him, for loratus surculus ("thonged baton”). A second example from the Collectanea of Erasmus’ interest in textual criticism is the proverb In lenticula unguentum (Collectanea 367),

"Perfume on lentils." He informs his readers that in the printed texts of Gellius the Greek form of the proverb read μῦθον, "fable," for μύρον,

^myrrh," but that Ermolao Barbaro had made the necessary emendation. The

conjecture

is clearly

right and

was

confirmed

by

manuscript

authority in the transmission of Gellius. P? Complete commentaries on individual works gave way to the more prestigious collections of short notes on identified corruptions. Poliziano's Miscellaneorum centuria prima (Florence 1489) is the best-known example, but other humanists, such as Beroaldo (Annotationes centum, Bologna 1488) and Ermolao

Barbaro published similar works. Barbaro's Castigationes Plinianae won especial renown. M The first classical texts he edited (in the middle of the second decade) were

the Disticha Catonis and the so-called Mimes of Publilius Syrus. On Erasmus’ ap-

proach to textual criticism see Thomson (1988). 5 In the vulgate text the full sentence runs hoc genus epistolae Lacedaemonii σχυτάλην i. loricatum surculum appellant. The explanatory phrase in question is in fact an intrusive gloss and was already dropped from the text in the Aldine edition of Gellius of 1515. Erasmus' point, therefore, has no relevance for the text of Gellius. His preference for loratus (rare, occurring only at Moretum 121), over loricatus, nevertheless, seems justified. However, the phrase, with the erroneous adjective, was retained in all editions of the Adagia at Il ii 1, where he quotes more extensively from Gellius. 16 The Aldine edition of Gellius reads μύρον. Barbaro made his emendation in his Glossemata (see Pozzi [1973-1979] 1407). Beroaldo also made the same emen-

dation in his Appendix Annotamentorum ch. 13 (published in 1493, two months after Barbaro's Glossemata). See Heinimann (1985) 169.

TEXTUAL CRITICISM IN ERASMUS' ADAGIA

169

Erasmus himself is quite explicit about the quality of the texts at his disposal. In Adagia III i 1, "The labors of Hercules," he talks about the difficulties of those who devote their efforts to restoring the monuments of ancient and true literature (CWE 34.170). Later in the same adage (p.

172) he is more specific. And another thing: need I now plead the prodigious corruption of the texts, which has acquired such a hold upon all our copies of both Latin and Greek authors that, whatever you touch in hopes of quoting it, you hardly have the good fortune not to stumble over some obvious error or suspect one below the surface? So here's a fresh field of toil: you must hunt out and get together copies of the text —and plenty of them, I assure you—in hopes of course that among so many you may have the luck to find one that is more correct, or that in comparing a large number you may discover something true and genuine by some process of divination. This too one could put up with, did it not happen nearly every time you have quoted something; and you must be quoting all the time.

Consonant with these remarks is the frequency with which Erasmus cites variant readings in the manuscript tradition when he quotes from an author.'? Often, however, he says no more than that, and one is left to wonder which of the variants Erasmus prefers. It is extremely unlikely that he knew all the variants he provides from his own examination of manuscripts, but some of them were certainly familiar to him from personal inspection. One such example relates to Seneca Apocolocyntosis 7.5,

which he quotes at Adagia II iv 21, "To cleanse the stable of Augeas": in quos, si incidisses, valde fortis licet tibi videaris, maluisses cloacas Augiae pur-

gare; multo plus ego stercoris exhausi, "Had you had to deal with them, strong man though you may think yourself, you would have preferred to cleanse the stables of Augeas; I had to bear far more filth." He cites this passage for an occurrence of the proverbial expression "stable of

Augeas" in addition to his main source, which is Lucian Alexander 1. He points out that the proverb did not appear in Froben's printed edition of Seneca's work. Instead of cloacas Augiae that edition offered cloacas ster-

17 In the case of some authors Erasmus did not realize the extent of the corruption that existed in printed editions. This is particularly true of Plautus. In the adages added to the 1533 edition Erasmus makes several suggestions about how some Plautine passages might be emended. But the text of the edition he used (Giambattista

Pio's of 1500)

was

considerably

removed

from

what

was

later

printed on the basis of better manuscript authority. 18 Just a few examples: Adagia I ii 74 (on Diogenianus); I viii 82 (on Plato); I x

75 (on the scholiast of Aristophanes); II i 38 (on Ovid); II iii 84 (on Pliny); Il iv 57 (on Cicero).

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JOHN N. GRANT

coris.? Erasmus tells us that he has restored the correct reading from a

manuscript to which he was given access in the Collegium Trilingue of Louvain, in florentissima Lovaniensum Academia, as he describes the institution, in glowing terms.? For the most part, however, he must have relied on information he gleaned in conversation or correspondence.

For Erasmus the very nature of the Adagia, with its numerous quotations from a wide range of authors, required him to exercise (and allowed him to display!) his critical talents. Moreover, always sensitive to criticism, he was motivated in part by the desire to deprive hostile critics of any ammunition that the citation of corrupt passages would provide. He even warns his readers not to be precipitate in identifying what they

might think to be errors: One thing 1 would point out to the reader in passing; he must not

promptly scratch our or delete anything he may find in my quotations from classical texts which may seem to him not to correspond with sundry people's emendations. Not that I claim to have purged the errors from every text which I cite in this work, but because those who

emend texts have their lapses like other men.”

THE TEXT OF THE PROVERBS THEMSELVES

We shall begin by looking at a few proverbs whose text Erasmus restores

or changes. One such example is Adagia II ix 84, which appeared in the Collectanea (113, in Mynors' enumeration) and the 1508 edition of the

Chiliades in the form nos nostrum onus, vos clitellas, the sense being apparently "We have our burden, you [take up] the saddle." The source of the saying is Quintilian (Institutio oratoria 5.11.21), and Erasmus reports in the Collectanea that the man qui Quintilianum emaculat ("who purges the text of Quintilian of its errors") interprets the proverb to mean that no one gets off without carrying his burden. He is referring to Raffaele Re-

gio, an Italian humanist who had published in 1492 a work on 200 problematic passages in Quintilian." In fact, as Erasmus makes clear in the ? The editor of that volume, published in Basel in 1513, was Beatus Rhe-

nanus. ? This textual note was added to the commentary on the adage in 1520. It is not untypical of Erasmus that in the 1523 edition he made an addition in which he says that he has mentioned the college, because he does not think it fair to blame the whole university if a handful of dotards (paucorum seniculorum) have put their heads together to fight such an odious rearguard action against good literature and the ancient languages. Erasmus fell afoul of some of the theologians at the university at this time.

?^ Adagia II ix 84 (CWE 34.122). 2 The work was entitled Ducenta problemata in totidem Quintiliani depravationes.

TEXTUAL CRITICISM IN ERASMUS' ADAGIA

171

1508 edition and the expanded commentary on the proverb in the 1515 edition, he is following a conjecture of Regio's in the text he prints in the Collectanea and the 1508 edition. The MSS of Quintilian actually read non nostrum onus, vos clitellas: "It's not our burden, you [take up] the saddle," thus giving a quite different meaning from Regio's. In the 1515 edition Erasmus adduces a passage of Cicero to support emending vos to bos and

thus give the meaning "Not our burden; a saddle on the ox." In the Ciceronian passage (Ad Atticum 5.15.3) a version of this proverb is alluded to by Cicero: clitellae bovi sunt impositae; plane non est nostrum onus.” Eras-

mus says that though Cicero's words "are somewhat obscure ... one can discern that "Not my burden, a saddle on the ox' was a proverb referring to someone refusing an assignment as unsuited to his talents. For to wear a packsaddle and carry burdens on their backs is a task not for oxen but for asses and mules. Nor can it be doubted that Quintilian bor-

rowed his example from this passage of Cicero." This is an exemplary conjecture, simple and well argued. Almost all editors, however, have ignored the man who made it,” not surprisingly perhaps, since the Adagia is not a work that editors attempting to track down the sources of conjectures would even consider. It is by no means the only example of credit for a conjecture being withheld from Erasmus. In the 1508 edition Erasmus makes a completely convincing case for corruption at Adagia I vi 1, Saepe etiam est olitor valde opportuna locutus ("Even a gardener oft speaks to the point"). This comes from a Greek proverb quoted by Aulus Gellius (Noctes Atticae 2.6.9) in the form πολλάκι

καὶ κηπωρὸς

ἀνὴρ μάλα

καίριον εἶπεν. Erasmus

reports that

when he had some misgivings about the line another humanist, Paolo Bombace, public reader in rhetoric and poetry in Bologna (and holder of the chair of Greek for a time), had suggested to him that xnnwpdc¢ was a corruption of [xal] uàpoc. Erasmus was impressed, he says, but did not

think the change could be made against the consensus of the manuscripts.” He then encountered the proverb in an anthology, which he correctly thought was by Stobaeus (3.4.24), and there the adage was

2 For plane the early editions read illane. The correct reading was restored on the basis of Ammianus Marcellinus. Erasmus also mentions mistakes in the Aldine text of Cicero's letter at this point; see below, p. 176.

4 CWE 34.123. 3 Some of the modern editions, which all read bos, do not even mention the

reading vos of the MSS or refer to Erasmus' conjecture in the apparatus at this point. It is credited to the editio Ascensiana of 1531.

# Bombace had been Erasmus’ host in Bologna in 1506. See CEBR 1.163-5. 7 Contrast this with what he says on Adagia I vi 36 (below, p. 173).

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JOHN N. GRANT

quoted with xai μῶρος for κηπωρός. This clinched the matter for him.” Here he gives credit to Bombace, but shows circumspection about actu-

ally accepting the emendation until he finds good support for it.? One wonders, however, why he did not change the text of the proverb, and why in subsequent editions it was still printed as it appeared in the 1508 edition.” Another emended proverb in the 1508 edition is Midas in tesseris consultor optimus, “Midas on the dice gives the best advice” (II ix 87). The Latin is a translation of the Greek proverb Μίδας ὁ ἐν κύβοισιν εὐβουλό-

τατος. Erasmus suggests, however, that the correct reading may be εὐβολώτατος, “the luckiest [throw],” instead of εὐβουλότατος. Midas is

indeed the name of a particular throw of the dice. The source of the proverb is the Suda (M 1036), where Eubulus (fr. 58) is cited as the source of the phrase. In modern editions of the Suda and of the comic fragments εὐβολώτατος is printed on the basis of manuscript authority. This does not detract from Erasmus' simple and correct conjecture, since in the editio princeps of "Suidas" of 1499 the reading is εὐβουλότατος. Again, as in the proverb just discussed, he refrains from incorporating his conjec-

ture into the heading.” ? It may seem surprising that he did not incorporate the emendation into the heading. However, he fails to do this on many other occasions. Erasmus does not actually give the full form of the emended verse. For if it is to scan as a dactylic hexameter a syllable is needed after πολλάχι. In Stobaeus and Diogenianus that syllable is τοι. ? Is Erasmus being disingenuous here? The proverb occurs in the correct form

in the proverb

collections of Apostolius

(14.69) and

Diogenianus

(7.81),

collections that Erasmus used extensively, as well as at Macrobius, Saturnalia 6.7.12. 9 This occurs quite frequently. In all editions Adagia II i 20 is given as Barbarus ex trivio and as βάρβαρος £x τριόδου in the original Greek, though Erasmus is quite explicit in his commentary on the proverb in saying that βόρβορος (meaning "mud") is the only acceptable reading. Sometimes Erasmus is uncertain

about choosing between variants. In the edition of 1523 Erasmus points out that Fulgentius read vervina for urbina at Pl. Bac. 887 (= Adagia II ix 13), but does not

give preference to one or the other and continues to offer urbina in subsequent editions. Modern editions all read vervina, a diminutive form of veru(m), meaning "spit."

?! Erasmus says that as a result of the change the proverb becomes an iambic trimeter. This is true only if other changes are made. Meineke, for example, re-

places à with μέν. Erasmus’ preoccupation with changing the text of many prov-

erbs in order to make them scan may have led him to the conjecture since εὐβουλότατος is an impossible ending to a trimeter. But, as Hunter (ad loc.) says, "the reconstruction of trimeters around the cited proverb ... is a fruitless exercise." One of Erasmus' preoccupations in exercising his conjectural skill was the removal of unmetrical features in lines of verse (see, for example, I vii 63, I viii

TEXTUAL CRITICISM IN ERASMUS' ADAGIA

173

The 1508 edition of the Chiliades is the one that contains most material relating to textual criticism. This is hardly surprising, since Erasmus

prepared the Chiliades in the house of Manutius Aldus and enjoyed the company of other humanists who were engaged in the editing of classical works. Corruption and possible corrections must have been a staple part of conversation? Textual points, however, continued to engage

Erasmus' attention in later editions of the Adagia, particularly in the 1528 edition, which also saw the introduction of 123 new proverbs. One example in this edition of his continued preoccupation with textual matters can be found at Adagia II iv 7: Subere levior, "Lighter than cork."? The Greek model for this is φέλλου κουφότερος, which appears in Apostolius' collection of proverbs (9.97a) and is also mentioned in Strabo, but in a

slightly different form. In the 1508 edition Erasmus cites the phrase subere levior umbra ("A shadow lighter than cork") from a list of proverbial exaggerations given by Strabo (1.2.30).* In the edition of 1528 he

adds a paragraph of new material in which he discusses the Greek text of Strabo. Thinking

that κουφότερον

... φέλλου

oxióv (“A shadow

lighter than cork") does not constitute any remarkable exaggeration, suggests that σκιᾶς should be read for σκιάν. The sense would then "Lighter than [even] a shadow of a cork." As Mynors says in his note the emendation (CWE 33.405), this is accepted in the edition of W. Aly

he be . on et

alii (Bonn 1968), but ascribed to Xylander (1533).

By no means all of Erasmus' conjectures on the text of his proverbs

are convincing. A proverb whose text he thinks is corrupt is Adagia I vi 36, Quis aberret a ianua? ("Who could miss a gate?"). The original Greek

for the adage is τίς ἂν θύρας ἁμάρτοι; In the 1508 edition Erasmus argues at considerable length for emending this passage, taken from

Aristotle Metaphysics 1A1 (993°5), to read τίς ἂν θήρας ἁμάρτοι, the meaning being “Who would miss a target?” Erasmus admits that there is no manuscript authority to support his case either in the transmission of Aristotle or of Alexander of Aphrodisias, the commentator on Aristotle,

who also gives the proverb with θύρας. [T]hat the manuscripts should agree among themselves will not seem remarkable to anyone who is even moderately experienced in the evaluation and comparison of codices; for it often happens that the error 44, II ii 47, II iii 43).

32 See Geanakoplos (1960).

# Erasmus cites Hor. Carm. 3.9.21-3 for the occurrence of the proverb in Latin (levior cortice).

# Erasmus does not give the original Greek, simply a Latin translation. 95 See the second paragraph of the translation of the adage in CWE 33.193. In the original there is, as often, no paragraphing.

174

JOHN N. GRANT of one archetype, provided it displays some semblance of the truth, is propagated thereafter into all the copies, which are, so to speak, its

progeny.*

This is a valid and important point that shows Erasmus' familiarity with the theory of stemmatics. Despite anticipation of any possible objection on the grounds of the unanimity of the tradition, in the end, however, Erasmus backs down and does not push the claims of θήρας. He says he has done his duty as a commentator in suggesting that the text is corrupt and

leaves it to the reader

to make

his choice.

The

conjecture

is

misguided. The point of the proverb is that there are some actions that no one can fail to perform. One can hardly fail to see a door or gate that leads into a house. However, it is far from inevitable that an archer always hits his target! Later in Adagia IV iv 34, "Not against the door," he

draws the readers' attention to Adagia I vi 36 without the slightest indication that he thinks the text may be corrupt." EMENDATIONS IN TEXTS ADDUCED IN THE EXPLANATION OF PROVERBS

What follows is a list of some of the emendations of classical or patristic texts that Erasmus offers when explaining the meaning of a proverb and describing when it might be used. They are organized, simply for convenience, by the year of the edition in which they first appeared. The list is by no means comprehensive and will focus on those emendations that have been accepted by later editors or have been confirmed by later examination of manuscripts. It needs to be said that these are greatly out-

numbered by instances of conjectures that have not won favour or where Erasmus simply draws attention to variants without giving preference to any of them.

THE EDITION OF 1508 Ii 55 — Plautus, fragment xlvii (OCT) Erasmus suggests that instead of reading ipsa sibi avis mortem creat, the

text of the fragment as quoted by Servius on Aeneid 6.205, we should read ipsa sibi avis mortem cacat. He is commenting on the Greek adage x(yAa χέζει αὑτῇ κακόν, "The thrush’s droppings are its own harm." The % The translation is taken from CWE 32.28.

? Other less convincing emendations of the text of the proverbs themselves occur at IL i 45 'Aua(óvov Sous, “A song for the Amazons.” Erasmus confesses that he does not know what the proverb means and suggests μαζονόμων, meaning "dishes," since he says it was the custom for flute players to play when very special courses were brought in. However, the text of Erasmus' source for the proverb is corrupt and the correct reading is ἁμαξῶν. The proverb is "Songs from wagons."

TEXTUAL CRITICISM IN ERASMUS' ADAGIA

175

ancients believed that mistletoe berries, used to make birdlime, could

only germinate if they had been eaten and digested by birds. This emen-

dation is confirmed by Isidore Etymologiae 12.7.71, which was probably not known to Erasmus at the time. The emendation is credited to Pieter Burmann the elder (1688-1741).

I vii 43 — Pliny, Naturalis historia 36.54 In the adage ("Adamantine") Erasmus discusses the phrase "Naxian em-

ery." According to Pliny (36.54) the whetstones that were found in Cyprus were called "Naxian." Erasmus then adduces the scholiast on Pindar Isthmians 6.72-73, who locates a place called Naxos in Crete. He also

refers to Stephanus of Byzantium (p. 468 Meineke), who says that Cretan whetstone was called Naxian. Erasmus then suggests that we would do well to consider whether we ought to emend in Cypro in the Pliny passage to in Creta.? In the Teubner edition credit for the emendation is given to L. Jan (1860).

III vii 77 — Plautus, Captivi 281

The proverb is the second part of the Plautine line, unde excoquat sevum,” "He could get dripping from it," meaning someone could gain enormous

riches from something. Erasmus takes the occasion to note that the line, a trochaic septenarius, must be corrupt as it will not scan: Quid divitiae, suntne optimae? Unde excoquat sevum senes.

We should read, he says opimae, meaning "rich"

or "fertile," the length of

whose second syllable allows the verse to scan. Erasmus' suggestion is adopted in all editions, but is attributed to Camerarius.

THE EDITION OF 15159 I ix 24 — Quintilian, Institutio oratoria 6, proem 13

In a comment that has little to do with the adage itself ("To be given a wooden sword"), Erasmus suggests that a phrase in Quintilian, acutae eloquentiae candidatum, should be changed to read avitae eloquentiae candidatum. This proposal has won acceptance and, in this case, Erasmus re-

ceives the credit from editors.

% In the 1528 edition he adds the alternative emendation in Naxo, which does not make much sense.

? Modern editions usually read sebum for sevum. “ Besides the two examples given I count nine other passages of a textual nature in the first 2300 adages in the 1515 edition.

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JOHN N. GRANT

II ix 84 — Cicero, Ad Atticum 5.15.3

In his discussion of the proverb "Not my burden; a saddle on the ox," referred to above (pp. 170-171), Erasmus

draws attention to several er-

rors in the Aldine text of Cicero. It is not clear whether he is criticizing

emendations that the editors have accepted, thus abandoning the readings of the manuscripts, or whether he is actually making conjectures of his own. In one case, however, he does seem to offer an emendation: deciderem for decernerem in the Aldine. The manuscripts offer decedere. The reading deciderem is accepted by W.S. Watt, the editor of the OCT, but it is credited to Manutius in a work dating to 1540. IV iv 38 — Cicero, De oratore 2.55.226

In this adage Ruta caesa, "Minerals and timber excluded," which first appeared in the 1515 edition, Erasmus points out an error in the printed editions of Cicero: sed dicet te, cum aedis venderes, ne in rutis quidem et cae-

sis solium tibi paternum reliquisse, "But he will selling your house, you did not leave any of even minerals and timber being excluded." reliquisse is somewhat awkward, and is rejected

say that when you were your father's estate, not The sense of the verb by Erasmus. In its place

he prefers recepisse, in the legal sense of "to have held back, to have excluded," which has the support of Nonius Marcellus (p. 77 Lindsay), who quotes this passage in his discussion of the word recepticius. The verb recepisse was discovered much later in some manuscripts. THE EDITION OF 1523

IV v 50 — Donatus on Terence, Adelphoe 537

In his discussion of the adage Lupus in fabula, "The wolf in the story," Terence closely paraphrases Donatus' commentary on Terence Adelphoe 537. The relevant part for our purpose is as follows: "some think that the

saying originated with the tales of nurses who make use of children's fear of wolves to frighten them; they tell them that a real wolf has crept from its cave (a cavea) up to the bedroom door." After paraphrasing more of Donatus, Erasmus says that the passage does not seem to be free

of corruption in the printed editions, but does not specify where he thinks it lies. One place of corruption occurs where Erasmus prints a cavea. The MSS offer capua or capna, which makes no sense. Wessner prints capua in the text of the Teubner with an obelus, but notes in the appara-

tus that Westerhoff, the eighteenth-century editor of Donatus, suggested e cavea. Erasmus, who anticipated this conjecture by two centuries, is not

mentioned.” *! In the text of Donatus that accompanied Erasmus’ 1532 edition of Terence

TEXTUAL CRITICISM IN ERASMUS' ADAGIA

177

THE EDITION OF 1526

Ix 98 — Gellius, Noctes Atticae 3.9.7.

The proverb "He has gold from Toulouse" was used to refer to anyone who suffered terrible disasters and died a dreadful death. The origin of the proverb, Gellius tells us, was the sack of Toulouse, in which a great quantity of gold had been seized. Those who touched any of the gold were supposed to have died a painful death. Erasmus says that in most texts of Gellius Toulouse is described as being in terra Italia, an obvious error for in terra Gallia, since both Strabo and Justin place Toulouse in

Gaul. Modern texts read Italia and credit is given to Erasmus.” III 1 86 — Scholiast on Theocritus 5.65

"When a tree is felled [deiecta], everyone gathers the firewood." Erasmus' source is Apostolius 6.36, δρυὸς πεσούσης πᾶς ἀνὴρ ξυλεύεται. This first

appeared in the edition of 1508, accompanied by very brief discussion. In the edition of 1526 Erasmus added a comment on the text of a scholion

on Theocritus

5.65. He

noted

that the scholiast erroneously

reads

παρούσης instead of πεσούσης." Erasmus’ correction is clearly right. THE EDITION OF 1528 IV v 100 — Cicero, Pro Deiotaro 9.25

Erasmus draws this adage, "May my friends perish as long as my ene-

mies perish with them," from Cic. Deiot. 9.25. He quotes from the speech: And so when he was told that Domitius had perished at sea and that you also were being besieged in a fort, he spoke a Greek verse with reference to Domitius that expresses the same idea as the Latin verse that we have, pereant amici dum una inimici intereant. But if he had been your fiercest enemy, he would never have said this. For he is a civilized (mansuetus) man, and the verse is pointless (inanis).

Erasmus goes on to say that the quoted verse is not only inanis, but also

immanis. This is all that he says of the passage in the edition of 1526, when the adage first appeared. In the 1528 edition he is more explicit and adds, and I would

not hesitate to contend

that Cicero wrote immanis,

which

we still read Capua. I do not think that this means Erasmus had abandoned his conjecture. It is rather a case of inattention to detail. I doubt whether Erasmus went through the text of Donatus in this edition. “The error is so obvious that one wonders if Italia was a momentary aberration of Gellius rather than a scribal error. “ Erasmus is referring to the reading in the edition of Theocritus by Zacharius Callierges (Rome 1516).

178

JOHN N. GRANT was corrupted by a scribe into inanis. For mansuetus does not contrast well with inanis but with immanis; moreover, in this verse there is nothing inane, that is frivolous or vainglorious, but a bestiality that is unworthy of a human being.

This very neat emendation of a corruption in the printed text was later

confirmed by the manuscript tradition, which points to immanis as the correct reading. Erasmus also suggests emending the verse to read pereant amici, inim-

ici dum intereant simul, since the verse as it appears in the printed editions will not scan. Here Erasmus did not hit the mark. The actual reading of

the MSS is intercidant (for intereant), and with this reading the verse is free of any metrical fault. IV vii 38 — Galen, De praecognitione 1.15 Nutton Erasmus' source for the adage "To drill a hole in a grain of millet" (κέγχρον τρυπᾶν) is Galen De praecognitione 1.15, where Galen is criticiz-

ing sophists who think that the study of philosophy is quite worthless: They think that this is the most useless of all disciplines, like drilling a hole in a grain of millet (ὁμοίως tà κέγχρον τρυπᾶν). Erasmus says of the

Greek here that this is how he thinks it should read, although the published editions have ὁμοίως τὸ κέγχρον τρυπᾶν. This simple change is undoubtedly correct. THE EDITION OF 1533 HT i 51 — Apuleius, De deo Socratis 18

In this proverb, "When two go together," which is roughly equivalent to our "Two heads are better than one," Erasmus refers to Apuleius' allegorical interpretation of the wish of Diomedes in the Iliad for someone to

accompany him on his mission to find out what the Trojans were doing. In the same way, in a dark and difficult situation, when men are to be chosen to reconnoitre (speculatores), who

must

penetrate

the enemy

camp at dead of night, does not the choice fall on Ulysses and Diomedes, as if on wisdom and physical power, courage and sword, brain and brawn?

The manuscripts offer spectatores for speculatores, and modern editions credit Erasmus with the conjecture. Here, unusually, we have a silent emendation; Erasmus gives no indication that he is departing from the

reading in the printed texts. Did Erasmus think the change was too obvious to mention? Such modesty is exceptional! Vi59 — Plautus, Curculio 463 The adage is entitled Halopanta, a very puzzling word, and receives more

TEXTUAL CRITICISM IN ERASMUS' ADAGIA

179

discussion than most of the proverbs that were added to the collection in the 1533 edition. Erasmus quotes two lines from Plautus Curculio (462-3):

Edepol nugatorem lepide nactus est hunc Phedromus. Halopantam an sycophantam magis haud dicam nescio Well, Phaedromus has got himself a fine spinner of yarns in this fellow. I don't know whether to say he's romancer (Halopanta) or trickster.

Erasmus says that this unusual term was used in antiquity for someone

who tells lies all the time.“ He refers to Nonius Marcellus (p. 172 Lindsay) and Festus (p. 90.24 Lindsay), who are obviously drawing on the

Plautine passage for this unusual word. These authors, he says, cite the word in the form halopanta or halapanta, but he dismisses this, along with the etymology offered by Festus (that πάντα means “all,” and ἁλιτόμενος means "deceiving"). Instead, he suggests that the word used by Plautus was a comic coinage ἀλοφάντης, based on the Greek word συκοφάντης; just as sycophants informed on those who were illegally

exporting figs, halophants would be applied to those who tried to escape paying custom duty on salt (&Ac). The sequence halophantam ... sycophantam provides a pleasing paronomasia. Erasmus is still concerned, however, with the scansion of this trochaic verse (since the first syllable of

àAo- is short, and a heavy syllable is required). Ingeniously, if unconvincingly, he suggests that if one gave the two words their Greek accusative singular endings (-nv), the metrical problem would be solved. Al-

though there is still uncertainty about the correct reading, Erasmus' effort to make sense of the passage is highly commendable.” It would be possible to list many other conjectures offered by Erasmus in

the Adagia. Those that have been given provide a good sample of the range and quality of the best of his work. I end with two examples of how the text of a proverb itself aids in removing a textual error in an-

other author's work. For the 1508 edition Erasmus drew on Zenobius 4.81 for the proverb κάκιον Βάβυς αὐλεῖ, "Babys plays the flute even worse" (Adagia II vii 34).

Later Erasmus observed that Athenaeus, the Aldine edition of which appeared in 1514, also mentioned the proverb (14.624b), but there the proverb was given in a corrupt form. In that edition of Athenaeus and

later editions the text of the proverb, which is used against those whose * 55 # pear

Since the word is used only by Plautus, this is quite a sweeping statement. Lindsay prints halophantam in his edition of Nonius ad loc. | draw from Betty Knott's translation and annotation of this adage (to apin CWE 36).

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JOHN N. GRANT

flute-playing becomes worse and worse, appeared as xai Kíov ἢ BaBuc

avaet. In the 1517/18 edition of the Adagia Erasmus added a paragraph pointing out the corruption in Athenaeus, and explaining how it had occurred. Kion was the name of several flute-players who are mentioned in Athenaeus just before the reference to the proverb. A scribe misread

xáxtov as xal Kiwv. This is a good example of how ing helped his conjectural skills. Again, however, credit in the editions of Athenaeus. The correction Casaubon, who published his edition of Athenaeus

Erasmus’ wide readhe does not get the is ascribed to Isaac in 1597, eighty years

after the correction had appeared in print in the Adagia. The second instance is Adagia I i 12 Qui circa salem et fabam, “Around

salt and beans." The Greek original of the proverb is περὶ ἅλα xai κύαμον,

drawn

from

Diogenianus

(1.50)

and/or

Zenobius

(1.25).

Erasmus points out, however, that in two passages in Plutarch the expression is given as περὶ ἅλα xai κύμινον, "Around salt and cummin,” and suggests that in both cases κύμινον may be an error for κύαμον. Modern editions agree, but credit is given to Stephanus at Moralia 663f

and to Vulcobius at Moralia 684e.” As far as textual criticism is concerned, one leaves the Adagia extremely impressed with the critical faculties of Erasmus—and not just in

the technical sense of a textual critic. What made him a good textual critic is in the final analysis more important. Whatever Erasmus read,

whether it was a pagan text or the New Testament, he read it critically, in a general sense. Did it make sense? Was it consistent with what the author wrote elsewhere? Can we explain it? If not, perhaps there was something wrong with the text. Erasmus was familiar with the ways in which scribes could miscopy their exemplars. He was not afraid to say

that the Word of God could be and had been corrupted by human foibles, not always a popular view among his contemporaries.

That critical attitude to a text is what teachers hope they can transmit to their students. I hope that I have succeeded to some extent in my own teaching career, which began in 1965 in the University of Manitoba, under the aegis of Edmund Berry, vir magnae humanitatis. To him and his wife Virginia I have always been grateful for the welcome to Canada

that they gave my family and for their generous hospitality while we were in Winnipeg.

?' Other examples include Cic. Flac. 27.65, where Erasmus emends in Curia to in Care on the basis of I vi 14, "Risk it on a Carian." Manuscript authority, unknown at the time, confirms his emendation.

TEXTUAL CRITICISM IN ERASMUS' ADAGIA

181

REFERENCES

ASD - Opera omnia Desiderii Erasmi Roterodami. Amsterdam 1969CEBR = Contemporaries of Erasmus: A Biographical Register of the Renaissance and Reformation. 3 vols. Toronto 1985-1987.

CPG = Corpus paroemiographorum Graecorum. 2 vols. Góttingen 1839, 1851. Reprinted by Olms in 1965. CWE = Collected Works of Erasmus. Toronto 1974-. Dexter, Colin. 1999. The Remorseful Day. Geanakoplos, D.J. 1960. "Erasmus and the Aldine Academy of Venice: A neglected chapter in the transmission of Graeco-Byzantine learning in the West," Greek Roman and Byzantine Studies 3: 107-134. Heinimann, Felix. 1985. "Zu den Anfángen der humanistischen Paroemiologie,” in Christoph Schäublin, ed. Catalepton. Festschrift für Bernhard Wyss. 158-182. Hunter, R.L. 1983. Eubulus. The Fragments. Cambridge. Panofsky, Dora and Erwin. 1965. Pandora's Box: The Changing Aspects of a Mythical Symbol. New York. Phillips, Margaret Mann. 1964. The Adages of Erasmus. A Study with Translations. Cambridge. Pozzi. G., ed. 1973-1979. Ermolao Barbaro. Castigationes Plinianae. Padua. Thomson, D.F.S. 1988. "Erasmus and textual criticism in the light of sixteenthcentury practice," Erasmus

158-171.

of Rotterdam: The Man

and

the Scholar. Leiden.

14 ERASMUS AND MORE, JAEGER AND BERRY: THE RENAISSANCE MODEL FOR A HUMANIST DELLOYD J. GUTH J'ai le sentiment d'avoir en More cessé de vivre, tant, selon Pythagore, nous n'avions qu'une seule 4me pour deux. Mais tels sont les remous

des choses humaines!

Such was Desiderius Erasmus's reaction to news of Henry VIII's execution of Thomas More, in a letter from Basle, 31 August 1535, to the

bishop of Cracow, Peter Tomiczki. It captures the essence of academic friendship, of the love that grows from shared intellectual values and from mutual scholarly missions, aside from the mundane professional tasks of earning a living: Erasmus as peripatetic scholar, More as lawyer.

It is just that spirit of academic friendship that Professor Edmund G. Berry has come to personify, to his students and readers of classical lit-

erature, during his six decades at the University of Manitoba.

Berry

earned his living as teacher to a series of generations of younger scholars, training them in the languages, inspiring them in the literatures, many of whom pay tribute in this hommage. What Berry has in common with Erasmus and More is the spirit of Renaissance humanism, its commitment to classical models of learning and the sheer, shared love for the studia humanitatis. There is a special link between Edmund Berry and Erasmus, through Berry's distinguished doctoral supervisor at the University of Chicago and Harvard University, Professor Werner Jaeger. In an autobiographical essay, Jaeger identified his own German birthplace, Lobberich, as just across the border from the locations in Holland that had nurtured the youthful Erasmus. Both Erasmus and Jaeger, not to mention Berry, be-

gan boyhood studies of the classics in the old-fashioned way, by memorising "long passages from Greek and Latin authors." The parallel between Erasmus and Jaeger grew in a shared commitment to an inclu! "] feel as if I had died with More, so closely, as Pythagoras has it, were our two souls united; but such are the ebb and flow of things human." The text is in Alois Gerlo, ed., La Correspondance

D'Erasme, 11, 1534-36 (Brussels

3049, p. 295. 183

1982) letter

184

DELLOYD GUTH

sory, expansive view of classical culture which did "not limit itself to literature, that the rebirth of bonae literae should include law, medicine, and theology." The philosophia Christi that defined Erasmian humanism informed Jaeger's paideia? Jaeger fused the two themes in his last book,

entitled Early Christianity and Greek Paideia (1961), which became a joyful discovery for me as a postgraduate student in history in the middle of

the 1960s.‘ Professor Virginia Woods Callahan reported her last visit with Jaeger, when he spoke about his "living relationship" with Erasmus, in words reminiscent of Erasmus's sentiments toward More. She reported how Jaeger's widow, Ruth, recalled his regularly invoking "St. Erasmus, pray for us" and his proudly reminding everyone that his "first academic appointment in Basel ... was in the adopted city of Erasmus.”* All three—Erasmus, More, Jaeger—had the same favourite author, Lucian,

whose poetry the young Thomas More had translated and published in 1506, after Erasmus made his first visit to England in 1499.5 From Antwerp on 23 July 1519, Erasmus answered Ulrich von Hutten's request for a portrait of More by writing a long biographical letter

which made More an ideal model for a Renaissance humanist.’ The first attribute was mastery, as young as possible, of classical languages. An excellent Latinist, with "his special devotion to Lucian"

(1. 124), More

also "devoted himself to the study of Greek literature and philosophy" (1. 150). Most importantly for Erasmus, More “devoted himself actively

to reading the works of the orthodox Fathers" of the early church and "gave public lectures before large audiences ... on St. Augustine's De civitate Dei" (Il. 168-170). "As a youth he even worked on a dialogue in

which he supported Plato's doctrine of communalism, extending it even to wives. He wrote an answer to Lucian's Tyrannicida" (ll. 275-277). The

first attribute of a modern humanist like Edmund Berry, therefore, was ? Virginia W. Callahan, "Two Erasmians: P.S. Allen and Werner Jaeger,” in R.M. Schoeffel and P. Tracy, eds., Erasmus in English (Toronto 1975) 26.

* Werner Jaeger, Paideia: The Ideals of Greek Culture, 3 vols., trans. Gilbert Highet (New York 1939-44). ‘with

equal intellectual excitement, the Latin literary connections had been

explored

earlier by Charles N. Cochrane, Christianity and Classical Culture: A

Study of Thought and Action from Augustus to Augustine (Oxford 1940).

* Callahan (above, n. 2) 27; his deep commitment to “the great humanist of the lower Rhine, Erasmus" (27), resonates throughout the autobiographical parts of Werner Jaeger, Five Essays (Montreal 1966). * CR. Thompson, The Translations of Lucian by Erasmus and More (Ithaca 1940).

? The Correspondence of Erasmus: Letters 993 to 1121 (1519 to 1520), trans. R.A.B.

Mynors, annotated by Peter G. Bietenholz (Toronto 1987) 15-25. Direct quotations are identified by line numbers in the printed text.

THE RENAISSANCE MODEL FOR A HUMANIST

185

commitment to the revival of expertise in classical learning, as exemplified in More. By implication this also could only mean a focus on the primary texts of classical literature, as the objects of study and learning.

That second attribute of the humanist,

textualism, characterised

Erasmus's New Testament scholarship and More's poetry as well as his anti-Protestant polemics. "Read the original text in its original language"

became the rule, the logic of which demoted scholarly commentary on that text to secondary usefulness. Of course the revolutionary impact of the printing press reinforced the priority by creating unlimited potential for access to primary texts. Hence the urgent personal need for Erasmus,

More and the other humanists to match their schooling in Latin with proficiency in Greek.

Thirdly, Erasmus listed a variety of values that added up to antiformalism. More rejected ceremonies as "frivolities" (Il. 82-87), had no time for "tedious ... pastimes" such as "ball games, games of chance, and cards [which] he hates" (11. 108-110), although "he is fond of music of all kinds" (1. 78). Perhaps the humanist should have a more whimsical atti-

tude to life itself and to all social pretence. A sense of humour was es-

sential, taking “delight in witty sayings that betray a lively mind" (Il. 122-123); "but in this he never goes as far as buffoonery, and he has never liked bitterness" (l. 119). His anti-formalism led to a fascination for differences and the unique: "if he sees anything outlandish or otherwise

remarkable, he buys it greedily, and has his house stocked with ... any animal that as a rule is rarely seen, such as monkey, fox, ferret, weasel and the like" (ll. 140-142). By rejecting the conventional, More's antiformalism extended to anti-legalism and his work as a judge in equity. Unlike the legalistic rigidity of common law, with its winners and losers, Erasmus reported that More could settle disputes "in such a way that both parties are grateful" without anyone "persuading him to take a present from anybody” (Il. 246—248). A fourth aspect of the humanist Thomas More that Erasmus constructed was anti-materialism, not just spiritualism. "From any love of

filthy lucre he is absolutely free" (1. 216). As a lawyer, he did much pro bono work and often "people have had the money returned to them which according to precedent must be paid by litigants” (Il. 228-230).

The humanist's other-worldly values extended politically to "a special hatred of absolute rule and a corresponding love for equality" (Il. 89-90). More's "great love of liberty and leisure" balanced with his "energy" and "endurance at the call of duty" (Il. 95-97), with no concern for reward or payment. "Simple clothes please him best" (1. 80). He preferred water to beer and wine and ate "dishes of which most people are fond ... beef, salt fish, and coarse bread" (ll. 67-70), but was "particularly devoted to eggs," dairy products and fresh fruits (Il. 73-75).

186

DELLOYD GUTH Classical languages, textualism, anti-formalism, anti-materialism: in

addition to these traits emphasised in Erasmus's ideal humanist, one other attribute mattered, no doubt as a product of the Platonism that

guided his own intellect. In the opening thoughts of his letter to Ulrich von Hutten, Erasmus wrote almost ecstatically of beauty, spirit, originality and passion. There was "that wisdom which Plato calls the most desirable of all things" but which the "eyes of the body cannot perceive"

because only "the mind has its own eyes" as "the gateway to the heart" (11. 9-13). This offered the means for that friendship reserved to the humanist, where

"the most cordial affection sometimes

unites men

who

have never exchanged a word or set bodily eyes on one another” (ll.

13-15). For Erasmus's More: "Friendship he seems born and designed for; no one is more open-hearted in making friends or more tenacious in

keeping them .... In a word, whoever desires a perfect example of true friendship, will seek it nowhere to better purpose than in More" (ll. 98-99, 112-114).

That fifth characteristic of the Renaissance model for a humanist, friendship, when added to the other four, has lived on into the modern era. [n the early nineteenth-century German revival of classical models for learning, and more recently in twentieth-century North American university centres, Latin and Greek scholarship has helped to give purpose and shape to many academic lives well lived. The ideal life-style should be a kind of secular monasticism, an ascetic collegiality of

friendly scholars engaged in the common enterprise. Erasmus prized this in More and in the Cambridge and London cultures that he had visited regularly since 1499. This humanist culture became the characteristic of early modern Ox-bridge colleges and continental universities, albeit easily idealised and often corrupted in reality. When More reluctantly agreed to serve in the council of Henry VIII in 1518, Erasmus had to con-

cede that the reality of a steady job compromised the humanist's communal ideal: "and being now immersed in the floods of royal and state business [More] is more able to love learning than to pursue it."? The distinction echoes within the modern university, or so one can still hope, * The theme is central to Erasmus: "If anyone were to study with attention the life and rules of Benedict or Francis or Augustine, he will find that they had no other ambition than to live with friends who joined them willingly [in] a life according to the teaching of the gospel in liberty of spirit. ... They had a horror of riches; they avoided honours, even in the church." John W. O'Malley, ed., Collected Works of Erasmus: Enchiridion militis christiani, trans. Charles Fantazzi (Toronto 1988) 21 (Letter of Erasmus August], 1518").

to Paul Volz, "eve of the Assumption

[15

? A.H.T. Levi, ed., Collected Works of Erasmus: Literary and Educational Writings, 6: Ciceronianus, trans. Berry J. Knott (Toronto 1968) 423.

THE RENAISSANCE MODEL FOR A HUMANIST

187

where at least one ought to be employed “to love learning," even if one has fewer encouragements to practise it. From its founding in 1891, largely by Rockefeller funds, the Univer-

sity of Chicago embraced a version of Renaissance humanism which attracted Werner Jaeger from Nazi Europe in 1937. For two decades he had

been first the student and then the heir at Berlin to that pre-1914 gathering

of

classical

revivalists:

Ulrich

von

Wilamowitz-Moellendorff,

Theodor Mommsen, Hermann Diels and Eduard Norden. They had personified and promoted classical philology as method and matter, so Jaeger's arrival in North America introduced a rigour to a hitherto more

gentlemanly, even dilettante, British approach to school-based language and literature studies. Jaeger's first doctoral student, Edmund Berry, arrived at Chicago from Canada that same year. Serendipity welcomed both with congenial good-timing. The Robert M. Hutchins era (1929-51)

promoted humanist studies in the Great Books program and the youthful intellectual vigour of Mortimer Adler’s devotion to Aristotelian philosophy and of William McNeill’s comparative world civilisations. Berry

encountered Richard McKeon, an excellent textual teacher whose The Basic Works of Aristotle (New York 1941) remains the standard translated

collection."° Jaeger's commitment to Erasmian values and textualism reinforced

Greek studies at Chicago, from 1937 to 1939, and then at Harvard. He was known for his kindnesses to younger scholars, for his gentleman's manner with colleagues and especially for total immersion in his aca-

demic research." In September 1939, Jaeger brought to Harvard his major project, a twelve-volume critical edition of Gregory of Nyssa, along

with his three star students: Edmund Berry, Virginia Woods Callahan and Helen Brown Wicher.

As in the case of Erasmus's work, the model was Greek and the motive Christian in Jaeger's paideia. It was rooted in Platonism and Hegelianism, thereby merging Greek universalism with German idealism. The search for a systematic synthesis, for a unified field for human

knowledge has been a persistent theme in scholarship, from the medieval encyclopedists to modern post-Einstein physicists. The Platonism in V Jaeger’s academic career had begun with his dissertatio inauguralis (Berlin

1911), supervised by the humanist genius of Greek scholarship, Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, and published as Aristoteles: Grundlegung einer Geschichte seiner Entwicklung (Berlin 1923); Edmund Grindlay Berry submitted his dissertation at the University of Chicago, The History and Development of the Concept of OEIA MOIPA and OEIA TYXH down to and including Plato (1940). " For an utterly hostile view, see William M. Calder III, Werner Jaeger Reconsidered (Atlanta 1992), whose standards appear more akin to the tabloid journalist.

188

DELLOYD GUTH

Jaeger's paideia had an impact on Edmund Berry. His favourite classical author was Plutarch and his life-long other interest has been in the American Transcendentalists, also with Harvard connections, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. Emerson particularly attracted Berry because he extensively relied on Plutarch, for the Moralia

and for the Parallel Lives." Our normally curious natures can only be satisfied by linkages with

past learning, ultimately back through the classical languages to the classical texts, be they Latin and Greek, Hebrew and Arabic, or Chinese. Renaissance humanism identified this backward path. Desiderius Eras-

mus von Rotterdam emphasised the sort of person we should become, by characterising the ideal humanist as someone like his English friend, Thomas More. Werner Jaeger was one of many early twentieth-century

scholars who moulded themselves accordingly, amid the carnage of two world wars. Despite that European context of blood and hate, they kept to the humanist path of classical languages, textualism, anti-formalism and anti-materialism. Jaeger and his contemporaries became the links and models for Ed-

mund Berry's generation. Thanks to him, the torch passes, through his many Manitoba students, into a future unknown but well equipped with the necessary tools for knowing its origins.

? Much of the above information comes from this author's personal visit with Edmund Berry at his Winnipeg home on 2 April 2003.

15 TEXNH AND OEIA MOIPA IN PLATO'S ION JOHN P. HARRIS Perhaps no person can be a poet, or can even enjoy poetry, without a certain unsoundness of mind.

Lord Macaulay, On Milton (1825) To Socrates and his circle, then, θεία μοῖρα was an important concept.

He felt that the phrase had a deeper meaning than merely the sense of a miraculous happening or, as in θεία τύχη, an apparent, miraculous chance. To Socrates, it seemed, θεία μοῖρα was almost synonymous with θεός, a divine power active every where—in

events as well as in human

character and personality. It is not a simple term, casually employed and easily explicable; but rather the general term for all in events and in human life which was irrational in its action but yet so powerful and

mysterious that it must have a divine origin. Taking my cue from Berry's acknowledgement of the irrational quality inherent in the concept of θεία μοῖρα, my limited aim in this paper is

to demonstrate that, for a proper understanding of the argument in Plato's Ion, the its fundamental of a particular τέχνη and θεία

irrational within θεία μοῖρα is best understood in terms of opposition to the concept of τέχνη, that opposition being kind: contradiction. In the Ion, at least, Plato opposes μοῖρα in such a way as to render them mutually exclu-

sive, despite clear evidence to the contrary that they are best regarded as mutually inclusive. Furthermore, several scholars have persuasively ar-

gued that Plato's identification of divine inspiration with ecstatic possession is most likely a Platonic invention that clearly belies the contemporary understanding of poetic inspiration? Nevertheless, the Jon remains

the locus classicus for the sundering of the poet's gift from the poet's craft, and it will be the burden of this paper to demonstrate how Plato is able to effect such a dissociation.

Before examining in detail Plato's particular slant on τέχνη and θεία μοῖρα, and their respective roles within the poetic process, it would be advantageous to see why it is that Plato focuses exclusively upon these ! Edmund Grindlay Berry, The History and Development of the Concept of OEIA MOIPA and GEIA TY XH

down to and including Plato (diss. Chicago 1940) 47.

?E.g. ΕΝ. Tigerstedt, "Furor poeticus: Poetic inspiration in Greek literature before Democritus and Plato," [Η| 31 (1970) 163-178; P. Murray, "Poetic inspiration in early Greece," JHS 101 (1981) 87-100.

189

190

JOHN P. HARRIS

two. As Rosemary Harriott remarks in her study of pre-Platonic poetry and criticism: The great and enduring questions about the source and nature of poetry were first treated only in metaphor, which is even today almost indispensable in any discussion of poetic inspiration. Such metaphor is not ornamental: the metaphor is the meaning ... (T]he metaphors used in

discussing poetry spring from two fundamental attitudes to it, which

are sometimes complementary and at others difficult to reconcile: one

metaphorical complex has its source in beliefs about the Muses and knowledge of their cults and culminates in the splendour of Pindar's victory odes, while the other results from seeing the poet as craftsman

comparing his skill with that of the mason or painter, and this sort of metaphor permeates Aristophanes’ criticism?

And although Harriott acknowledges that these two metaphorical complexes could be seen now as at odds, now as complementary, on the

whole the Greek poetic tradition tended to regard them as mutually compatible. In fact, to consider them as anything other than complementary seems to fly in the face of common sense. As Harriott states: There need be no conflict between the belief that poetry is a gift and the observation that the poet needs skill and knowledge: the opinion of William Morris that ‘poetry is a craft, and only a craft’ is as hard to support as Plato's denial of the poet's claim to be considered a craftsman.‘

And yet Plato is quite insistent that such a conflict does indeed exist and

that the poet cannot possibly be a craftsman. I hope to show precisely how Plato is able to manipulate both terms of the debate so as to render τέχνη and θεία μοῖρα mutually exclusive.

But what of Plato's quarrel with the poets? What is the point of contention? I believe that Grube's analysis gets to the heart of the matter: Not only the inspiration of the poet, but the beauty of the work he produces, is freely admitted in the fon, and there is here no quarrel between

philosophy and poetry, so long as poetry does not, like the poets in the Apology, lay any claim to knowledge. In short it is the business of the poet, as Socrates tells us in the Phaedo (61b) to tell stories (μύθους) and

not to give, qua poet at least, a logical account of things (λόγους)

Grube's proviso, "so long as poetry does not ... lay any claim to knowledge," crystallizes the point at issue between poets and philosophers.

The Jon thus becomes a case study wherein the poetic claim to knowledge takes on dramatic form. In the case of the Apology, it is clear that both poets and politicians are disbarred from the possession of wisdom because they only appear to be, but are not in fact, wise. And in the case 3 Rosemary Harriott, Poetry and Criticism Before Plato (London 1969) 4-5. * Harriott (above, n. 3) 104. * G.M.A. Grube, Plato's Thought (London 1935) 182.

TEXNH AND ΘΕΙ͂Α MOIPA IN PLATO'S ION

191

of the poets in particular, it is because "they say many fine things without any understanding of what they say" (Ap. 22c2-3).° As we shall see, this lack of understanding will play a crucial role in the mutual exclusivity of inspiration and craft in the Ion. But what of the craftsmen themselves? In their case, at least, Plato grants them possession of a certain kind of knowledge: that having to do with their particular craft. He would have Socrates only take issue with them should they presume on the basis of this highly circumscribed sphere of knowledge to be "wise in other most important matters" (Ap. 2247-8). This recognition of technical knowledge, of knowledge qua τέχνη, is central to many of Plato’s arguments; not just in the Apology, but in virtually all so-called "Socratic" dialogues. By establishing a very

precise theoretical understanding of τέχνη, what David Roochnik designates as a techne,,’ and then using it as the paradigm by which all other knowledge is measured, Plato effectively excludes from the rank of τέχνη any claim to knowledge which fails to live up to its stringent and

idealistic standards." How then does Plato apply his particular understanding of téyvn in

the Jon? Well aware of the Greek poetic tradition that poets claim to compose either by τέχνη or θεία μοῖρα, and further cognizant of the fact that poets claim no other sources for their poetry but these two, Plato

cleverly turns the poets' own claims against them. His goal in the Ion is two-fold: first, to deny rhapsodes—and, a fortiori, poets—any claim to τέχνη whatsoever; second, to force them onto the sole claim of divine inspiration, a notion that he deliberately and effectively reduces to a

claim of "mindlessness." He is able to accomplish his first goal by the application of a reductio ad absurdum argument to Ion's claim of being a

good rhapsode. Plato has Socrates demonstrate that since Ion's talent as a rhapsode is limited exclusively to Homer, he cannot claim technical competence as a rhapsode.? He is able to accomplish his second goal by construing the poets' implicit claim to compose either by τέχνη or by θεία μοῖρα, not as they xai γὰρ οὗτοι λέγουσι μὲν πολλὰ καὶ καλά, ἴσασιν δὲ οὐδὲν Gv λέγουσι. "See David Roochnik, Of Art and Wisdom: Plato's Understanding of Techne (University Park, PA 1996). Roochnik makes the useful and important distinction between what he designates as a techne, and a techne,. In brief, a techne, is a τέχνη such that, should one master it, one cannot fail to carry it out, whereas a techne, is compatible with failure. For a fuller description of the criteria for a techne,, see

Roochnik 44-45, 50. ? See John P. Harris, "Plato's lon and the end of his Symposium,” ICS 26 (2001)

81-100, for an analysis of the consequences that such an application of the "xvéyvn- analogy" yields. ? See in particular Harris (above, n. 8) 88-97.

192

JOHN P. HARRIS

would have it, as an inclusive disjunction, but rather, as an exclusive one. Whereas poets claim, in effect, to compose either by τέχνη or by θεία

μοῖρα, and quite possibly both, Plato sees them as composing either by τέχνη or by θεία μοῖρα, but not possibly both. In essence, the poets’ implicit claim treats these two concepts as virtual subcontraries, in that

they cannot both be simultaneously false, but can both be simultaneously true. Plato, on the other hand, regards the two as virtual contradictories, in that they cannot both be true at the same time and cannot both be false at the same time. Plato's interpretation of their claim, however, would seem to misconstrue the poets' intentions. As we shall soon see, however, according to Plato's particular understanding of τέχνη, the very denial of the possession of téyvn turns out to be logically equivalent to the state of divine possession, or θεία μοῖρα. And so, the gist of Plato's

argument in the Jon may be stated as the necessary condition: "If one is not divinely inspired (i.e., if one has a τέχνη), then one is not a poet/ rhapsode"; alternatively but equivalently: "If one is a poet/rhapsode, then one is divinely inspired (i.e., ‘one lacks a téyvn’).”"° In essence, Plato regards the by-all-other-accounts traditionally compatible notions of a poet (or rhapsode) having both the gift of θεία μοῖρα and the possession of τέχνη as mutually exclusive, and furthermore, treats anyone so lack-

ing in τέχνη as necessarily "out of his mind,” which for him, as we shall see, is tantamount to possessing the gift of θεία μοῖρα.

At this point, someone may object that Plato is guilty of committing the "fallacy of false alternatives." This fallacy occurs in any argument

that presumes a distinction to be exclusive and exhaustive when other, unmentioned alternatives are plausible. It makes the unwarranted sumption both that there are too few alternatives being presented that one of the designated alternatives must be true. But is Plato in guilty of committing this particular fallacy? As mentioned earlier, cause poets would claim only two possible sources for their poetry,

asand fact beand

since Plato takes them at their word, the sources for their poetry have been effectively exhausted. But, of course, this does not necessarily im-

ply that they are thereby mutually exclusive. In fact, the possibility still remains that these two concepts are best regarded as inclusive disjuncts, allowing for the possibility that both may be true, although they cannot both be false. Yet Plato clearly does treat them as exclusive disjuncts, and the only way he may legitimately do so is if they are bona fide contradictories. In short, if the one is true, the other is false, and vice versa. The remainder of this paper will demonstrate precisely how Plato manages to render the concepts of τέχνη and θεία μοῖρα as contradictories. It

may

teyvexdc.”

also

be phrased

as the categorical

proposition:

"No

poet

is

TEXNH AND OEIA MOIPA IN PLATO’S ION

193

Beginning with the former, we have already seen how Plato's particular understanding of a τέχνη qua techne, is such that anything failing to meet its exacting standards simply fails to qualify as a téyvn per se.

How then might something fail to meet the Platonic standard for qualifying as a téyvn? An example from the Gorgias will help make the point.

In discussing with Polus the nature of rhetoric, Socrates argues that it is a form of flattery, not a τέχνη, as he understands it (Grg. 464e2-465a6): xoAaxt(av μὲν οὖν αὐτὸ καλῶ, καὶ αἰσχρόν φημι εἶναι τὸ τοιοῦτον, à Πῶλε---τοῦτο γὰρ πρὸς σὲ λέγω---ὅτι τοῦ ἡδέος στοχάζεται ἄνευ τοῦ

βελτίστου: τέχνην δὲ αὐτὴν οὔ φημι εἶναι ἀλλ᾽ ἐμπειρίαν, ὅτι οὐκ ἔχει λόγον οὐδένα ᾧ προσφέρει "! ἃ προσφέρει ὁποῖ᾽ ἄττα τὴν φύσιν ἐστίν, ὥστε τὴν αἰτίαν ἑκάστου μὴ ἔχειν εἰπεῖν ἐγὼ δὲ τέχνην οὐ καλῶ ὃ ἂν à ἄλογον πρᾶγμα. And so I call this flattery, and I say that this kind of thing is shameful, Polus—lI'm telling you this—because it aims for what's pleasant without

considering what's best. And I deny that it's a τέχνη, but rather, practice, because it has no rational understanding of the nature of the patient or the

prescription, so that it can't state the cause of each thing. And I do not call

whatever is irrational a τέχνη.

According to the Platonic account, a τέχνη must be susceptible to a rational account (Aóyoc) both of its own methods and of its particular subject matter. And what of the concept of ἐπιστήμη, since τέχνη is used

time and again by Plato as the paradigmatic ἐπιστήμη, and the two are

conjoined so frequently in the lon as to be regarded as a virtual hendiadys?" In the Symposium, Diotima, in explaining to Socrates that there exists something between “wisdom” (codia)” and "ignorance" (ἀμαθία), asks the following (Smp. 202a5-7): τὸ ὀρθὰ δοξάζειν xai ἄνευ τοῦ ἔχειν λόγον δοῦναι οὐκ οἶσθ᾽, ἔφη, ὅτι οὔτε ἐπίστασθαί ἐστιν---«ἄλογον γὰρ πρᾶγμα πῶς ἂν εἴη ἐπιστήμη: Don't you realize that having the correct opinion without being able to render an account is not ἐπίστασθαι---ἰογ how could ἐπιστήμη be irra-

tional?

From these two examples it is clear that Plato sees as a necessary condition for the claim to possess a τέχνη and/or ἐπιστήμη the concomitant ! [here adopt the emendation of E.R. Dodds, Plato: Gorgias (Oxford 1959) 94, as well as his translation (230) of this portion of the passage. 2 Jon 531c6, 536c1, 541e2. For an exhaustive treatment of τέχνη and ἐπιστήμη

in Plato, see John Lyons, Structural Semantics: An Analysis of Part of the Vocabulary of Plato. Publications of the Philological Society 20 (Oxford 1963) 139-228. ? Plato often treats σοφία as a virtual synonym of ἐπιστήμη. See, for example, Tht. 145e6: ταὐτὸν dpa ἐπιστήμη xai cobia:. And, as Lyons (above, n. 12) notes in

this regard (96): "Socrates is presumably expressing a view which depends upon the ‘intuition’ that σοφία and ἐπιστήμη are, if not synonymous, 'close in meaning' (in at least some contexts)."

at least very

194

JOHN P. HARRIS

ability to be able to render an account. Without the possession of reason, the claim to possess

τέχνη and/or ἐπιστήμη is necessarily false. This

point is further underscored by the seemingly fanciful etymology for τέχνη that Plato has Socrates offer Hermogenes

in the Cratylus (414b7—

c2):

XQ. Ὧν γ᾽ ἔστιν ἕν xai "τέχνην" ἰδεῖν ὅτι ποτὲ βούλεται εἶναι.

ΕΡΜ. Πάνυ μὲν οὖν. ΣΩ. Οὐκοῦν τοῦτό γε ἕξιν νοῦ σημαίνει, τὸ μὲν ταῦ ἀφελόντι, ἐμβαλόντι δὲ οὗ μεταξὺ τοῦ yet καὶ τοῦ νῦ «καὶ τοῦ νῦ» καὶ τοῦ Ara; Soc.: And one of them is to see what "techne" means. Herm.: Quite.

Soc.: And so, doesn't this mean "possession of reason," if one removes the "t," inserts an "o" between the "ch" and the "n," and between the "n"

and

With

the

"o"?

the appropriate

omissions and

insertions, we are left with

£yovón, “possession of reason." Despite the apparent whimsicality of this etymology, given his insistence upon the necessary connection between

rationality and téyvn, it would appear that Plato is determined to posit a

semantic connection between the two. And the reason for his determination is clear: it is precisely by means of this particular etymology that Plato is able to render τέχνη and θεία μοῖρα as contradictories. To see how he effects this, we must look to his conception of θεία μοῖρα.

What exactly does Plato mean in the Ion by θεία uoipa? Having demonstrated to his own satisfaction that Ion does not function as a rhapsode through any technical capacity, Plato has Socrates attribute lon's success when

it comes

to Homer

to what he first describes as θεία δύναμις

(533d3, 534c6), and later as θεία μοῖρα (534c1, 535a4, 536c2, d3, 542a4)."°

But how precisely are we to understand what Plato means by either of these phrases in the context of the Ion? The simplest way of answering this is to examine the context in which these phrases are used. And that

context is Plato's novel and famous simile likening the power of the Muses to that of a magnet. Just as a magnet instills its power into iron rings, so that they may in turn instill that power into other iron rings, so

too does the Muse instill her power within the poet so that he may in turn pass it on to the rhapsode. The words used to describe the resultant state of the person into whom such a divine power is instilled are ἔνθεος * And as Lyons (above, n. 12) notes (97): "No one would wish to take the

etymology very seriously; but the fact that Plato linked τέχνη with νοῦς is evidence that he felt them to be semantically connected in some way." Such is also the case with Plato's eagerness to see an etymological connection between pavia and μαντική at Phdr. 244b6-c5.

5 Given the easy substitution the one for the other, these two concepts are clearly synonymous.

TEXNH AND ΘΕΙ͂Α MOIPA IN PLATO'S ION

195

(533e4 [2x], 533e6, 534b5), ἐνθουσιάζειν (533e5, 536b3), and θεῖος (54227, b2, 4). As the first two make abundantly clear, the concept of θεία μοῖρα

requires that the power of the god literally enter into the poet and/or rhapsode. What has perhaps not been made so clear, but which I hope to show is a vital part of the argument, is that, for Plato at least, any such state of ἐνθουσιασμός necessarily entails the loss of reason. In short: if

god is in, reason is out.'é That Platonic θεία μοῖρα in the Ion necessarily entails the deprivation of reason may be seen by turning from its seemingly positive characterization as ἐνθουσιασμός, to one that is unambiguously negative. Follow-

ing Socrates' initial description of a poet who has the power of the Muse within him as ἔνθεος (533e4), he further characterizes such a poet" as: οὐκ ἔμφρων

(534al, a2, a5-6, 535d1); ἔκφρων

(534b5, 535b7); ὁ νοῦς

μηκέτι ἐν αὐτῷ ἐνῇ (534b6); ἐξαιρούμενος τούτων τὸν νοῦν (534c8); ofc νοῦς μὴ πάρεστιν (534d3); ἕξω σαυτοῦ γίγνῃ (535b7-8). Thus for Plato in

the lon, θεία μοῖρα manifests itself in both poet and rhapsode as a condition wherein the immanent power of the god necessitates the evacuation of reason. In other words, the poet, qua poet, is necessarily non compos

mentis.'? Given Plato’s insistence that being in a state of ἐνθουσιασμός (having θεία μοῖρα) necessarily entails being οὐκ ἔμφρων, or ἔκφρων; or being in a state where ὁ νοῦς οὐκέτι ἐν αὐτῷ éveott; or in a circumstance where the god acts by ἐξαιρούμενος τὸν νοῦν; or in a state such that ὁ νοῦς où

πάρεστιν; or wherein you feel ἔξω σαυτοῦ y{yvn, it is worthwhile to recall

the passage from the Cratylus (414b6—c2). There, Plato has Socrates give éxovôn, “possession of νοῦς," as the etymology of τέχνη. Thus, if τέχνη in the Cratylus is by definition the "possession of νοῦς," it would appear ' Berry (above, n. 1) 55-56 nearly gets it right when he says: "[I]n connection with the poetic ἐνθουσιασμός of the Phaedrus and the lon, θεία μοῖρα seems al-

ways to be opposed to réyvn; it indicates the possession of a human being by a power which raises him above his usual self and usual abilities; it is a κατοχωχή, but the human φύσις also has a part in ἐνθουσιασμός, although the poets are merely the interpreters of the god." The opposition between θεία μοῖρα and τέχνη however is, as I have shown, not just any opposition, but rather one of contradiction. And divine possession does not merely "raise him above his usual self and usual abilities," but necessarily negates any rational human involvement, as Berry himself later acknowledges (57): “It is in this way that θεία μοῖρα

operates by ἐνθουσιασμός in the human soul, supplanting and replacing the human reason."

" | have included within this list references to both poets and rhapsodes, given that Plato's "magnetic theory of inspiration" necessarily subsumes both. 8 Cf. also Men. 9966, where the manifestation of ἀρετή is said to occur, not by nature or by teaching, ἀλλὰ θείᾳ μοίρᾳ nmapayiyvouévn ἄνευ νοῦ οἷς ἂν παραγίγνηται. The phrase ἄνευ νοῦ seems to be a gloss on how something occurs θείᾳ μοίρᾳ.

196

JOHN P. HARRIS

that in the Ion, θεία μοῖρα by definition means the "dispossession of νοῦς.“ And should the definition of τέχνη from the Cratylus be consid-

ered viable in the case of the Ion, then it would appear that Plato has achieved his goal of rendering τέχνη and θεία μοῖρα not merely as inclusive disjuncts (or subcontraries), but rather as exclusive disjuncts, that is, as contradictories.

To see how Plato applies these now—according to his argument at least—mutually exclusive concepts, let us turn to the very end of the dialogue, where, working with the concepts of θεία μοῖρα and τέχνη as contradictories, Plato now has Socrates create the horns of a dilemma

upon which he impales the hapless rhapsode. As Kahn remarks regarding the dialogue's conclusion: Socrates has clearly won the argument, but his victory cannot be logically consummated because of the stubborn obtuseness of Ion. He pre-

vails only by the rhetorical maneuver of obliging lon to choose between being thought either dishonest or inspired.”

Despite Ion's being offered the choice between being regarded as dis-

honest or inspired, I would like to show how the underlying dilemma is really a choice between

"possessing νοῦς" (i.e., possessing τέχνη) or

"lacking νοῦς" (i.e., having θεία μοῖρα).

Socrates proposes as the initial horn of the dilemma the following?': (1) If you are τεχνικός, then you are ἄδικος (542a2-3).

For the second, he simply negates (1): (2) If you are not reyvixóc, then you are not ἄδικος (542a3-6).

Finally, he gives Ion the following choice: (3) Choose

whether

you

wish

to be considered

ἄδικος or θεῖος

(542a6-7).

Ion of course chooses θεῖος, which, as we have seen, Socrates can now

equate with the lack of τέχνη. Somewhat problematically, however, Plato has introduced in (3) the term θεῖος, which does not appear as an ele-

ment in either (1) or (2). But perhaps even more problematic is the ap? This may also help to explain Plato's use in the Jon of the adverb ἀτεχνῶς (531c2, 534d8, 541e7). Although several scholars (Roochnik [above, n. 7] 265-270

is the most up-to-date discussion) have noted the possibility of a Platonic pun, viz., "unskillfully," none has noted the possibility that, given the Platonic etymology of τέχνη in the Cratylus, the adverb may now also be read on a tertiary paronomastic level as "mindlessly." ?! C.H. Kahn, Plato and the Socratic Dialogue: The Philosophical Use of a Literary Form (Cambridge 1996) 113.

* For the sake of economy and perspicuity, I have deliberately reduced the argument to its essentials.

TEXNH AND 6EIA MOIPA IN PLATO'S ION

197

pearance of ἄδικος, which had not formed any part of the dialogue until now. Its appearance here, however, reveals an interesting link to the

Hippias Minor, a dialogue closely related to the lon, not only through its similar subject matter, but also through its argumentation. Socrates' claim that if Ion is (intentionally) deceiving him then he is acting wrongly seems to anticipate Socrates' paradoxical, and morally false, claim in the Hippias Minor, that the intentional wrong-doer is, in fact,

better than the unintentional wrong-doer.” In the case of the Hippias Minor, Kahn correctly identifies the logical fallacy: [Hippias] has been deceived by Socrates' repeated claim that the capacity to lie is a necessary condition for being a liar (366b, 367b2-5); he is thus led to suppose that it must be a sufficient condition as well.” To return to the dilemma posed at the end of the Jon, whereas (1) states that being τεχνικός is a sufficient condition for being ἄδικος, (2)

states that it is a necessary condition. Now, Ion might have tried to avoid the conclusion of the dilemma by "grasping it by the horns." That is, he might have tried to show that at least one of the conditionals is false. For example, Ion might have legitimately countered that even if one were τεχνικός, one need not necessarily be ἄδικος. Alternatively, he might

have argued that even if one were not τεχνικός, one might after all still be ἄδικος. I mention this as a possible way to avoid the consequences of the dilemma (there are, of course, others), not so as to chastise Ion for not having argued as he ought, or (worse yet) to fault Plato for failing to allow Ion to respond as we would like to have had him respond, but simply to point out the following. Plato introduces the term ἄδικος only here in the entire dialogue, and solely for the sake of trapping Ion. And the trap is so cleverly constructed that the denial of the consequent of (1) is tantamount to the affirmation of antecedent of (2). In other words, by

denying that he is sufficient condition not teyvixd¢, which necessary condition

ἄδικος, that is, by for being ἄδικος, is tantamount to for being ἄδικος!

denying that Ion is thereby affirming that In short, Ion is

being τεχνικός is a affirming that he is being τεχνικός is a compelled to agree

to the proposition that one is ἄδικος only if one is τεχνικός, that is, only if one possesses voüc. As for the problematic introduction of the term θεῖος in (3), this is

easily resolved by substituting for θεῖος its definitional equivalent, "nonvoüc." I append below two formulations of the final dilemma posed by

Socrates at the end of the Jon. Column (A) represents the terms of the dilemma as given in the dialogue itself; column (B) represents the terms 2 Hp.Mi. 376b2-3: ἀγαθοῦ μὲν ἄρα ἀνδρός ἐστιν ἑκόντα ἀδικεῖν, κακοῦ δὲ ἄχοντα. ? Kahn (above, n. 20) 115-116.

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JOHN P. HARRIS

of the dilemma reduced “νοῦς and "non-vobc":

to its essential

elements:

(A)

the contradictories

(B)

(1) If rexvucc, then ἄδικος

(1) If νοῦς, then νοῦς

(2) If not τεχνικός, then not ἄδικος

(2) If non-voüc, then non-voüc

(3) Either ἄδικος, or θεῖος

(3) Either νοῦς, or non-vodc

(4) Ion chooses θεῖος

(4) Non-voüc

The dilemma as represented in column (A) is somewhat elaborate and, perhaps, even misleading, so one may forgive Ion for failing to negotiate it successfully. The ultimate logical equivalency between being θεῖος and lacking τέχνη, however, is made explicit by Socrates in the very last words of the dialogue (542b3-4): Τοῦτο τοίνυν τὸ κάλλιον ὑπάρχει σοι παρ᾽ ἡμῖν. ὦ Ἴων. θεῖον εἶναι καὶ μὴ τεχνικὸν περὶ 'Oufipou ἐπαινέτην.

In that case, it's finer to regard you, Ion, as someone divine, that is, as a non-professional, when it comes to the praises of Homer.

Thus Plato, by reducing the concepts of τέχνη and θεία μοῖρα to their respective contradictory propositions, "voüc" and “non-voi¢,” has so manipulated the terms of the debate between philosophers and poets—or anyone else who stakes a claim to τέχνη or èmotun—-that

opposition between τέχνη and θεία inclusive disjunction, has here been so the seemingly contingent nature end of the dialogue, as represented ply tautologous, as is manifest in (B).

the

μοῖρα, traditionally regarded as an converted to an exclusive one.“ And of the dilemma that Ion faces at the in (A), turns out, after all, to be sim-

* Plato, undoubtedly, would wish to alter Lord Macaulay's pronouncement to read something like, "Certainly no person can be a poet, or can even enjoy poetry, without a definite unsoundness of mind."

16 CHRISTIANS, "SCHOOLS"

AND GREEK LITERACY

IAN H. HENDERSON Since 1995 the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies "Religious Rivalries Seminar" has, among other interests, explored analogies between early Christian social groupings and the widest possible variety of voluntary

associations in Greco-Roman society. The studies of the Seminar have especially investigated the roles of such groupings in mediating social

conflict in the (from our point of view) largely pre-political societies of Mediterranean antiquity. One characteristic study from within the context of the Seminar is Mary Ann Beavis' essay on "the place of the Greco-

Roman urban institution of the school in the lives of Christians and the role of education in the development and dissemination of Christianity."

To quote further the abstract of the paper's published form, Three conclusions result: Christian students and teachers typically resorted to pagan schools; the Greco-Roman school system provided Christians with education in grammar and rhetoric that they put to good use in undermining paganism; and, to some extent, the schools may have provided a forum for proselytizing on the part of some Christian teachers and pupils.’ The purpose of the present essay is not so much

to nuance these re-

sults as it is to question the underlying presupposition, however nu-

anced, of any recognizable "urban institution of the school" in the GrecoRoman world.

An interest in something which might be called "Greco-Roman schools" may be detected in another strand of early Christian studies, namely in the study of the hypothetical/reconstructed Sayings Gospel "Q" (Quelle). On the dominant view, which I accept, this hypothetical

source shared by the writers of Matthew and Luke was composed and written in Greek yet still closely in touch with Jesus' native milieu in Galilean Jewish villages. As a result, questions have persistently arisen about the educational and cultural background of the authors, editors ! Mary Ann Beavis, “‘Pluck the rose but shun the thorns’: The ancient school and Christian origins," Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses 29 (2000) 411—423, at 411.

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IAN H. HENDERSON

and early readership of the Oracle Gospel (Logienquelle). The question of educational-cultural-social milieu is especially acute if the redactionhistory of the Greek Oracle Gospel (from optimistic, sapiential Q1 to embittered, apocalyptic Q2) is held to document several stages in the history of a Jewish, Galilean Jesus movement. The analogy between the Q milieu(x) and Greco-Roman schools is blurred by a certain ambiguity: producers and users of Q are compared to a philosophical school in its rather deliberate project of preserving, editing, developing and trans-

mitting the intellectual tradition of a founder. On the other hand, the production and use of Q in Greek, allegedly by Jewish Galilean villagers, raises questions about acquisition and use of a fairly specific level and kind of Greco-Jewish literacy. I am not persuaded that the existence of a Galilean, Jewish "Q community" is a justifiable inference from the blend of literary genres in Q. Even if we drop, however, the hypothesis that the source was actually composed, used and edited in Galilee, the specific literariness of Q is important for understanding early Christian and other sub-élite literatures generally.

Another Canadian colleague, Willi Braun, has rightly stressed the wider theoretical interest of what he calls "the schooling of Q.”? Most of what Braun wrote in his methodologically-oriented article is applicable to larger questions of literacy and early Christian literature generally, always with the exception that Q is the only recoverable proto-Christian

text which any serious body of scholarship thinks was actually written in Galilee and for a basically Jewish and village-based Jesus movement.

Thus Braun points out the easily ignored obvious: Q (like all known early Christian literature) was written, and in Greek (215). I might add

that insofar as early Christian texts can be shown to reflect oral tradition, even that oral tradition seems to have been transmitted in Greek. Braun goes on to claim that Q was not only written in Greek, it was subjected to

editing, in Greek, and over some decades (215). If Braun

is right

here—and at any rate Q was incorporated largely yet differently into Matthew and Luke—Q is again typical of early Christian literary production. Braun notes that the formative literary genres behind Q are school-transmitted genres (216). This, too, might be said of early Christian literature generally, however original we may regard specifically Christian biography, epistolography and apocalyptic. More microscopically, Braun observes that the composition of Q and of several larger speech units within Q reflects not only basic literacy, but also the protorhetorical skills of a progymnasmatic education (216). With some varia? Willi Braun, "Socio-mythic invention, Greco-Roman schools, and the Sayings-Gospel Q," Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 11 (1999) 210-235, at 215.

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tions in level, the same must be said of all early Christian literature? What Braun says of the authors and owners of Q, citing R. Kaster's 1988

study of a later period, can be applied a fortiori to the less hypothetical writers of extant early Christian texts:

In terms of training, one might think of the expertise of the grammaticus, someone with many of the skills and erudition of the rhetor, but without the latter's status and access to élite social strata. Or again, later in Braun: The literary achievements evident in Q itself along with close attention to indicators of social location in the document (see Kloppenborg 1991; Reed 1995; Piper 1995; Arnal 1997) suggests a "clear homology" (Arnal 1997) between literary ΟἹ and a social group from the ranks of an urban retainer class of "middling" (Kaster 1988: 106) status. Indeed, Kaster's description

(1988: 106-134) of the social status of the grammarian

is

perhaps of a general utility for us in trying to imagine the Galilean small-town scribal intelligentsia who had the combination of social affiliations, intellectual and literary competencies, and status ambiguities

and disaffections for us to think of them as the conceptual, rhetorical and textual framers of Q.5

The catastrophe of Second Temple Judaism leading up to and connecting the two rebellions of A.D. 66-70 and 132-135 makes it imaginable that "urban retainers" might be reduced to "Galilean small-town

intelligentsia." The genesis of mishnaic tradition in Hebrew may have depended on a steady supply in places including Galilee of people with scribal skills in that language and a motivating "burden of alienation and deracination." But early Christian literature generally seems to re>See, for example, Vernon K. Robbins, "Progymnastic rhetorical composition and pre-gospel traditions: A new approach," in Camille Focant, ed., The Synoptic Gospels: Source Criticism and the New literary Criticism. BETL 110 (Leuven 1993); Carl Joachim Classen, Rhetorical Criticism of the New Testament. WUNT 128 (Tübingen 2000) 44.

* Braun (above, n. 2) 217, citing Robert A. Kaster, Guardians of Language: The Grammarian and Society in Late Antiquity (Berkeley / Los Angeles / London 1998). * Braun (above, n.2) 222-223, citing John S. Kloppenborg, "Literary convention, self-evidence, and the social history of the Q people," Semeia 55 (1991)

77-102; Jonathan L. Reed , "The social map of Q,” in John S. Kloppenborg, ed.,

Conflict and Invention: Literary, Rhetorical, and Social Studies on the Sayings Gospel Q (Valley Forge 1995) 17-36; Ronald A. Piper, "The language of violence and the aphoristic sayings in Q: A study of Q 6:27-36," in Kloppenborg, ed. (op. cit.) 53-72; William E. Arnal, The Rhetoric of Deracination in Q: A Reassessment (Diss. Toronto 1997); see also Arnal, Jesus and the Village Scribes: Galilean Conflicts and the

Setting of Q (Minneapolis 2001). * Braun (above, n. 2) 225, and 228, quoting Bernard Frischer, The Sculpted Word: Epicureanism and Philosophical Recruitment in Ancient Greece (Berkeley 1982) 53.

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IAN H. HENDERSON

flect an alienation and deracination that drove the deviant movement very quickly from Jerusalem to Antioch and beyond without much time for Galilean nostalgia. At any rate, Q agrees with other (extant) early

Christian

literature

that

a basic

feature

of incipient

Christian-

ity—certainly prior to the accession of non-Jews and across otherwise different milieux—was its option for Greek textuality. Such an option is even more dramatic if Q researchers are right (alas, I doubt they are) that

Greek Q was produced in a network which remained "locative to the end" (227) in the very Galilean villages where other “scribal 'refugees'" (231) would soon opt for mishnaic Hebrew. All controversies about the history of Q apart, Braun is right to insist

on the methodological interest of the quality, quantity and diversity of Greek texts produced by such a religiously and ethnically liminal network as that which constituted Christianity in its first half-century. Early

Christian literature is the best-studied exception to the rule that complex Greek texts were produced by, for and about a societal élite. Braun is also right to suggest that the exception can only have been partial: the authors and primary readers of early Christian texts were self-evidently as literate as they were non-classicist. The manuals they produced are in a technical, though far from virtuosic, register of élite prose subverted by an unusual wealth of sub-élite references. Among Christian writers it is

the author of Luke-Acts who briefly asserts his ability to write in a more classicist historiographical literary register, as a preface to his two volumes of occasionally biblical-sounding (Septuagintal) and otherwise unpretentious religious romance (Luke 1:1-4; Acts 1:1-7). Early Christian

text production and use are all the more challenging where estimates of Greco-Roman literacy rates have sobered and awareness of the diversity

of literacies has grown.’ Early Christian texts in a special way pose the question how some people became highly literate without seeming very educated. Such texts also created rather suddenly "a new social location for the written word."? Would Paul of Tarsus or any of the anonymous gospel writers—all technically quite competent writers—have composed

books outside the new Christian subculture? This brings us back at last to Beavis' survey of "the ancient school and Christian origins." Beavis' central thesis is,

that, for the most part, Christians and their missionary goals were wellserved by a pagan educational system that was widely dispersed ? William V. Harris, Ancient Literacy (Cambridge, MA 1989); Mary Beard, ed., Literacy in the Roman World. JRA Supplement 3 (Ann Arbor 1991). * Nicholas Everett, "Literacy," in G.W. Bowersock, Peter Brown, Oleg Grabar, eds., Late Antiquity: A Guide to the Postclassical World (Cambridge, MA / London 1999) 543-544 and 544.

CHRISTIANS, "SCHOOLS" AND GREEK LITERACY

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throughout the cities and towns of the Mediterranean world, obviating the need for the church to found distinctively Christian schools for many centuries.

Let us agree that the Church did not in fact found distinctively Christian schools for many centuries. This is remarkable since the Church's earliest, eventually canonical literature often emphasizes boundaries over against classical literacy, for example, replacing the poets with recog-

nizably Jewish biblical texts as sources for authoritative quotation. Insofar as early Christians were literate, they had obtained their literacy and

long continued to do so the same way their neighbours did. Moreover, as Harry Gamble notes in his outstanding survey of early Christian book culture, it cannot be supposed that the extent of literacy in the ancient church

was any greater than that in the Greco-Roman society of which Christianity was a part. This is true in spite of the importance the early church accorded to religious texts, for acquaintance with the scriptures did not require that all or even most Christians be individually capable of

reading them and does not imply that they were.’

Catherine Hezser exposes as a largely uncritical myth the scholarly supposition that pre-mishnaic Judaism actively or widely promoted literacy." Like Judaism, early Christianity ritually valued the certain texts. Christianity was, moreover, to some extent an epistolary and biographical movement. Nonetheless, both traditions were quite content with very restricted corps of readers and writers. Beavis is right that the literate education of early Christians was both

qualitatively and quantitatively like that of their non-Christian peers. Beavis and Gamble agree that "Greco-Roman education was predicated

on pagan texts infused with moral and religious ideas of which Christians disapproved," but I do not know what evidence Gamble has in

mind when he goes on to claim that "this discouraged some who might

otherwise have taken advantage of it.”” Against Beavis I do, however, doubt that a widely dispersed pagan educational system actually existed for the level of education implied by

Christian texts. The central question which arises for me from Beavis' survey is then, "What is it really that obviated for so long the establishment of distinctively Christian ways of becoming literate? Is it the pres? Beavis (above, n. 1) 412.

? Harry Y. Gamble, Books and Readers in the Early Church: A History of Early Christian Texts (New Haven / London 1995) 5.

" Catherine Hezser, Jewish Literacy in Roman Palestine. TSAJ 2001) 39-109. ? Gamble (above, n. 10) 6.

81 (Tübingen

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IAN H. HENDERSON

ence or the absence of ‘the ancient school?" Beavis' description of "schools in antiquity" "is deeply indebted to the work

of L. Millar and

William

Barclay on ancient Christian education,

and on H.I. Marrou's and Stanley F. Bonner's magisterial histories of education in antiquity." Beavis is mainly interested in showing that

Christians did not separate themselves educationally from their neighbours for a suprisingly long time, given Christian alienation from aspects

of the classical heritage. For that purpose, the description of normal education doesn't matter too much. It matters more when we ask how and why the sectarians of the first Christian century produced and used a corpus of Greek manuals for their religion. Mostly published after Beavis' essay was in print are the studies of Teresa Morgan,

Raffaella

Cribiore and Catherine Hezser,“ which approach enriched data with methodological refinement and much greater sensitivity to the literacies of sub-élite writers and readers. Especially for primary acquisition of reading and composition skills by people who are not obviously going to be scribal or rhetorical specialists, we are rather suddenly more able to see how uncharted the educational options were. Several aspects of the newer surveys oblige us to mark "schools" in antiquity very clearly with scare quotes. As Hezser notes with regard "to

primary education in Greco-Roman society, the phenomenon that a centrally organized system of public schools did not exist is most striking and relevant for the proper understanding of education in antiquity.” The issue here is not simply the universal hermeneutical challenge that

(with the exception of texts) even the most organized and successful institutional systems in the Roman world are rudimentary by modern standards. Precisely by Greco-Roman standards of organisation, primary education was not organized and did not merit organisation. So far as educational activities and organisations were publicly supported with

prestige and resources, these were wholly devoted to the upper end of the educational process. It is not wholly absurd to speak of a GrecoRoman educational system with reference to advanced schools of rhetoric or law and some specialist notarial and secretarial training. For ' Beavis (above, n. 1) 412, citing L. Millar, Christian Education in the First Four Centuries (London 1946); William Barclay, Educational Ideals in the Ancient World (London 1959); H.I. Marrou, A History of Education in Antiquity, trans. G. Lamb

(New York 1956); Stanley F. Bonner, Education in Ancient Rome: From the Elder

Cato to the Younger Pliny (London 1977). 4 Teresa Morgan,

Literate Education in the Hellenistic and Roman

Worlds (Cam-

bridge 1998); Raffaella Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind: Greek Education in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt (Princeton / Oxford 2001); Hezser (above, n. 11). 5 Hezser (above, n. 11) 60.

CHRISTIANS, "SCHOOLS" AND GREEK LITERACY

205

teaching people how to read or write, however, there was no such collective provision. Certainly "going to school" would have been topographically difficult anywhere in the Mediterranean world. Even where groups of learners gathered more or less regularly as a "school" for some sort of instruc-

tion, nothing can be predicted about their physical location. "We have scarcely any archaeological sites even tentatively identifiable as 'schoolrooms',"'5 and the literature is hardly more precise. According to Harris, this lack of clearly identifiable school buildings "accurately symbolized the lack of interest in elementary education on the part of both society in

general and the authorities in particular." Clearly primary education was in some sense institutionalized in Greco-Roman antiquity: it produced (again, from our point of view) sur-

prisingly uniform results over wide reaches of space and time. "[S]ome sort of curriculum existed whose outlines emerge for primary and early grammatical education but become blurred for a later stage." Students

with some social as well as educational prospects, who passed through what Cribiore calls "the First Circle" of formal learning "had a taste of what awaited them and, through rigourous mental gymnastics, began to

develop the skills needed to overcome the hurdles that lay ahead." Students who sought basic literacy as a terminal goal did so through basically the same training and therefore acquired not only some skills, but also some correspondingly "strong sense of distinction from the unedu-

cated."* We may suspect that those whose literacy was a terminal attainment may have been cation was part of a more I have myself argued volving ergasia of gnome, dicendi [Inst.

carefully distinguished from those whose edubrilliant future. that the first four progymnasmatic exercises (inchreia, mythos and diegesis, Quintilian's primordia

1.9]) rather nicely

define the competence

demanded

of

readers of the Christian Gospels.” This is a competence rather above Cribiore's most basic category of literate schooling. Thus, on one hand, "[lJack of uniformity characterized not only the ways in which schools in antiquity were set up and the more or less informal places where they

were situated, but also the way teaching was structured from bottom to top, the identities of the teachers offering various layers of instruction and the internal organization of the class." On the other hand, "[a]ncient

schools were knowledge-oriented and provided a rather uniform in' Morgan (above, n. 14) 28. V Hezser (above, n. 11) 62, citing Harris (above, n. 7) 237. 18 Cribiore (above, n. 14) 204, 184.

P? Jan H. Henderson, Jesus, Rhetoric and Law. Biblical Interpretation 20 (Leiden/New York/Kóln 1996) 128.

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IAN H. HENDERSON

struction, which was distinguished in recognizable intellectual steps."? Indeed, given a strong cultural consensus about the goals and process of

literate training, especially at the bottom, it is precisely "schools" which are obviated. Clearly "schools" happened, but they do not as such account for the acquisition and practice of various levels of literacy in Greco-Roman antiquity or in Christianity. Dennis R. MacDonald has recently pushed to a new level consideration of Greco-Roman norms as a criterion for interpretation of early Christian literature. In earlier well-received studies MacDonald interpreted the apocryphal Acts of Andrew as a "transvaluative hypertext" built on well-known Homeric narratives, especially from the Odyssey." These Acts seem to have been composed in the late second or early third century A.D., followed by a long history of reception and redaction. On MacDonald's reading, the Acts were originally designed to be noticeably a Christianized Homer. For MacDonald the conclusion of the Acts explicitly evokes an "Ideal Decoder" competent "to decipher its myster-

ies." Paradoxically then, MacDonald must acknowledge that the whole busy reception history of the Acts documents instead "ancient readers ...

entirely oblivious to its allegories.”” This thesis may have seemed innocuous enough when applied to the Acts of Andrew. MacDonald has now upped the stakes by essaying the same approach on the Gospel of Mark, claiming, that the author of the earliest gospel indeed used the Odyssey as his primary literary inspiration but also imitated Books 22 and 24 of the Iliad for narrating Jesus’ death and burial. ... Furthermore, I have come to conclude that Mark wanted his readers to detect his transvaluation of Homer.”

Here again, MacDonald is aware that whatever the evangelist may have wanted, his readers (notably the authors of Matthew and Luke) did not in fact admit to finding a “Homeric hypertext.”

MacDonald is, of course, also aware that there is a more obvious textual influence on the composition of Mark: the Gospel quotes or cites the Septuagint Bible often enough to invite readers ancient and modern to search for further allusions and narrative relationships. It is an utterly

open, tortured question what biblical competence the author of Mark’s 9 Cribiore (above, n. 14) 36. 2! Dennis

R. MacDonald,

The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark (New

Ha-

ven/London 2000) 2, citing his Christianizing Homer: “The Odyssey,” Plato, and “The Acts of Andrew” (New York 1994).

? Dennis R. MacDonald, “Is there a privileged reader? A case from the Apocryphal Acts," Semeia 71 (1995) 29-43, 29. 3 MacDonald (above, n. 21 [2000]) 3.

CHRISTIANS, "SCHOOLS" AND GREEK LITERACY

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Gospel controlled. Among the marked quotations, some are argumentatively quite precise (Psalm 110 in Mark 12:35-7) and others sloppy (Isaiah(?) in Mark 1:2-3). The biblical competence demanded of Mark's reader is in any case not very great. Indeed, Matthew frequently revises Marcan biblical references to be less offensive to a more competent

reader. Still, Mark's reader cannot escape noticing that the gospel is certainly meant to transvalue an older scripture which is not Homer. On the other hand, MacDonald is prima facie right that a writer capable of producing as complex a text as Mark would have had a considerable acquaintance with the Homeric literature, cultivated from the moment he first clumsily copied and memorized

a few Greek tags. An

essential part of MacDonald's thesis is that the ability to compose Mark (and indeed

the ability to read it) would

have entailed substantial Ho-

meric knowledge (as well as a degree of alienation from it). But how much Homeric competence was demanded by the production of the first narrative gospel? Moreover, even if epic influence was generatively important for the composer of an experimental Christian narrative, how

much of that influence was meant to be recognized by readers? Teresa Morgan's survey of curricular recommendations by élite writ-

ers as well as of both literary and school papyri supports the conclusion that, although Homer was indeed fundamental to education, the nature of the Homeric imprint on basic levels of study must be nuanced. MacDonald's assumption that literates at Mark's level as such had extensive and intimate knowledge of the narrative and language of both epics, is hardly supported by Morgan's survey of Homeric papyrus fragments: These fragments do not even reproduce the outlines of the famous stories from which they are taken. Whatever the pupil was learning, he was evidently not acquiring the bank of shared stories, myths and traditions which for centuries had helped to define Greek identity. Nor was the reading enough to learn much about style or to appreciate the language

of these writers,

let alone

their construction

of a narrative,

evocation of a world or insight into character. The best which those who did not come from cultured Greek backgrounds would be likely to derive from these texts, is a number of names and tags, sufficient perhaps to mark them as Greek but hardly enough to integrate them into a cultural elite. The pupil who came from a cultured background, however, would be better prepared to fit this summary information into a wider cultural picture ....^

Morgan's review of specifically "rhetorical schooltexts" confirms that the range of narrative episodes used in early rhetorical exercises—

mainly from the Iliad—was hardly enough to support transvaluative readings of whole epics, or to allow the majority of Greek readers much 4 Morgan (above, n. 14) 109, 118.

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IAN H. HENDERSON

chance of detecting such a systematic transvaluation as MacDonald pre-

supposes. The foregoing has been intended in the first place to heighten two

paradoxes. The first was Beavis' paradox that although Christianity defined itself in part by reading and producing distinctive texts, Christian

literacy is indistinguishable from the general situation. The second paradox relates to that generality: on the one hand, in Gamble's phrase, the "ancient world had virtually no system of education" and consequently

a modest proportion of readers of complex texts. "What structures there were did not suffice to cultivate general literacy at even a basic level, indeed, no such aim was ever envisioned"—least of all by Christians. On

the other hand, it is not just a figment of classicist or theological imagination that both Christianity and Greco-Roman culture generally are experienced as literate cultures even by their illiterate majorities. In a discussion of literacy in late antiquity, Nicholas Everett proposes

a change of research questions: The questions should not be, "How literate was the society of late an-

tiquity?" nor "How many people were literate?" but rather, "What was produced in literate form?" "What were the linguistic barriers of the written material to the intended audience?" and "What are the indica-

tions that such barriers were faced, and how were they dealt with?"

For the first century A.D., the earliest flowering of Christian literature raises an interesting test case for the study of "linguistic barriers" and “intended audience." Some linguistic obstacles are noticeably absent from "New Testament Greek." In some texts the presence of Septuagintal Greek suggests a new normative competence in the absence of direct

appeal to the classical canon. Above all, however, is the question whether early Christian literature addressed an existing audience with a more-or-less new

message, or sought to create an essentially new

public

readership for a new ekklesia. Why then didn't Christians require their own schools? A partial answer is that Greco-Roman literacy in general at

all levels did not require the institutional support of anything we should call a school. A further answer might be that, although literate education used "pagan texts infused with moral and religious ideas of which Christians disapproved,”* the infusion was very weak. Little enough in Morgan's or Cribiore's evidence for basic education would actually offend even an ardent Christian. We may guess, moreover, that a tincture of just such general literate lore was as essential to a Christian wishing to speak to his neighbours as it was to those neighbours themselves—

though less than essential for citation in Christian texts. > Everett (above, n. 8) 543.

6 Gamble (above, n. 10) 6.

17 CENTAURS IN LOVE: AN OLD MAN'S MEMORY BEN HIJMANS Centaurs are—and always have been'—fascinating creatures, if creatures and not figments of an imagination. In the present contribution it is not

my intention to deal with the whole of the battle between Lapiths and Centaurs as narrated in Ovid's Metamorphoses book 12. Some of the fascinating qualities both of the centaurs and of their narrator can be glimpsed in Nestor's apostrophe to Cyllarus: Nec te pugnantem tua, Cyllare, forma redemit, si modo naturae formam concedimus illi. Barba erat incipiens, barbae color aureus, aurea ex umeris medios coma dependebat in armos. Gratus in ore vigor, cervix umerique manusque pectoraque artificum laudatis proxima signis, et quacumque vir est; nec equi mendosa sub illo deteriorque viro facies: da colla caputque, Castore dignus erit; sic tergum sessile, sic sunt

395

400

pectora celsa toris. Totus pice nigrior atra,

candida cauda tamen, color est quoque cruribus albus. Multae illum petiere sua de gente, sed una abstulit Hylonome, qua nulla decentior inter semiferos altis habitavit femina silvis.

405

Haec et blanditiis et amando et amare fatendo

Cyllaron una tenet; cultus quoque, quantus in illis esse potest membris, ut sit coma pectine levis, ut modo rore maris, modo se violave rosave

410

inplicet, interdum canentia lilia gestet,

bisque die lapsis Pagasaeae vertice silvae fontibus ora lavet, bis flumine corpora tingat, nec nisi quae deceant electarumque ferarum aut umero aut lateri praetendat vellera laevo. Par amor est illis: errant in montibus una,

415

antra simul subeunt; et tum Lapitheia tecta

intrarant pariter, pariter fera bella gerebant. Auctor in incerto est: iaculum de parte sinistra ! Especially—but not only—in nineteenth-century allegory and symbolism, when the centaur is elevated to the position of symbol of the Artist in that the latter participates both in "reason" and in "animal instinct."

209

210

BEN HIJMANS venit et inferius, qua collo pectora subsunt, Cyllare, te fixit. Parvo cor vulnere laesum corpore cum toto post tela educta refrixit. Protinus Hylonome morientes excipit artus impositaque manu vulnus fovet oraque ad ora admovet atque animae fugienti obsistere temptat;

420

425

ut videt extinctum, dictis, quae clamor ad aures

arcuit ire meas, telo quod inhaeserat illi, incubuit moriensque suum complexa maritum est.

The narrator of the above passage is Nestor. The scene has been regarded as an intermezzo? in Nestor's long and detailed description of the

bloody battle between Lapiths and Centaurs. The occasion is the sacrificial dinner party after the first major battle before Troy. The audience

comprises—among others—Achilles and Tlepolemus, one of the sons of Hercules? Nestor is of course well-known as a speaker ever since the Iliad, indeed one who serves in later times as

a model for orators as well

as parasites.' The passage occurs just after the middle of Nestor's extended contribution to the after-dinner talk, of which the main subject according to the chief narrator is "of course" virtus: quid enim loqueretur Achilles, aut quid apud magnum potius loquerentur Achillem? But virtus soon turns out to

be a much richer notion than simple male prowess in battle. Achilles has overcome Cygnus even though the latter is invulnerable, and the chief narrator has Nestor introduce his speech by the remark that in a distant past he has known another one just as invulnerable. That hero was over-

come by the concerted onslaught of a large number of centaurs. Achilles' victim is transformed into the bird cuius modo nomen habebat and thus

escapes death; the victim of the centaurs is buried under an immense pile of tree-trunks from which—according to one account—a

unique

bird escapes.? For the interpretation of the two scenes it is significant that ? The characterisation (used by F. Bómer, P. Ovidius Naso, Metamorphosen. Buch XII-XIII [Heidelberg 1982] 132) is less than precise: "intermezzo" as a term

originates in Italian operatic practice and refers to entertainment during intervals.

Compare

Seneca

ep. 7.5: intermissum est spectaculum — interim iugulentur

homines ne nihil agatur.

? Tlepolemus, son of Hercules and Astyocheia, had come from Rhodos with nine ships (Il. 2.653ff.). In a later stage of the Trojan war he is killed by Sarpedon (II. 5.655ff.). * Cf. H.-G. Nesselrath, Lukians Par. 44); cf. 29, 191.

Parasitendialog (Berlin 1985) 433-444 (on Luc.

* According to S. Papaioannou, "Poetische Erinnerung und epische Dichtung. Nestors Rede in Ovid, Metamorphosen

Buch

12," Gymnasium

109 (2002) 214

(citing A. Keith, "Versions of epic masculinity in Ovid's Metamorphoses," in Philip Hardie, Alessandro Barchiesi and Stephen Hinds, eds., Ovidian Transformations:

CENTAURS IN LOVE

211

Achilles' battle with Cygnus is narrated by the chief narrator of the Metamorphoses, whereas the exit of Caenis/Caeneus is narrated by Nestor. The obvious similarities between the two invulnerable victims may cause an unwary interpreter to construe a resemblance between the oppressors: An army of centaurs ~ Achilles One of the main differences

between the chief narrator’ and sub-narrator Nestor is the fact that the former is “omniscient,” whereas Nestor says that his own tale is for vari-

ous reasons lacking in information: he is old, he has forgotten much, but he remembers more. The narrative situation is further complicated by

the fact that Tlepolemus has heard a different version: the giant of memory not only manipulates his audience but is caught in the act and is made to admit that he has deliberately left out any mention of Hercules because Hercules had killed his eleven brothers—quis enim laudaverit hostem?

It is rather remarkable that the chief narrator causes Tlepolemus to react in his indignant manner. Of course Tlepolemus' reaction produces

the chance to relate an instance of shape-shifting (viz. that of Nestor's brother Periclymenus). But another reason may be advanced as well.

Most versions of the war of Lapiths and Centaurs that include Hercules are situated in the Peloponnese. And these have gained a wider currency than the Thessalian versions. The fact that Nestor's reply to Tlepolemus' question is not "Hercules was not present" causes the reader to do some

serious (geographical) thinking. Indeed Nestor carefully implies that at the time of Pirithous' and Hippodame's wedding the absent Hercules plays no role at all though he will eventually kill the centaur Nessus and indirectly thereby cause his own death: at 12.308 the augur Astylus

shouts at Nessus: ne fuge, ad Herculeos ... seruaberis arcus. That tale had been presented much earlier in the Metamorphoses (9.101ff.) and its set-

ting is at the Euenus near Calydon.

Nevertheless Nestor, however limited in his perception, however forgetful, manipulative and perhaps deceitful, shows

a grand grasp of

Essays on Ovid's Metamorphoses and its Reception [Cambridge 1999] 214-239), both

victims die a feminine death—something which is no more than veiled by their transformation into birds. The feminine death in the case of Caeneus/ Caeneis is emphasized

by Vergil (A. 6.448f.), not by Ovid, who merely has the Centaurs

refer to his sex change, but who does not mention its reversal in the underworld.

But what is feminine about Cygnus? 5 The invulnerability of the victims Cygnus and Caeneus (granted in both

cases by Neptune) is underscored by the fact that Achilles' own partial invulnerability is not mentioned at all by the sub-narrator or the chief narrator. ? The chief narrator controls the sub-narrator. To what extent the former may

be identified with the "I" of the prologue and epilogue, let alone with the historical author, remains outside the scope of the present contribution.

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BEN HIJMANS

rhetoric and "historical" representation. He appears to be a prime example of what happens to tales when told even by eyewitnesses and par-

ticipants in the action: the chief narrator has described the fluidity and uncertainty of all tales at 12.53-58: Atria (sc. famae) turba tenet: ueniunt leue uulgus, euntque Mixtaque cum ueris passim commenta uagantur Milia rumorum confusaque uerba uolutant.

E quibus hi uacuas implent sermonibus aures, Hi narrata ferunt alio, mensuraque ficti Crescit et auditis aliquid nouus adicit auctor.

Nestor apostrophizes Cyllarus and Hylonome in the vice-like frame of two gruesome descriptions of violent death. At 12.384ff. brave Nestor

himself has wounded the centaur Dorylas in hand and head, and Peleus haerentem ... et acerbo uulnere uictum ... mediam ferit ense sub alvum. / Prosiluit terraque ferox sua uiscera traxit / tractaque calcauit calcataque rupit et illis / crura quoque inpediit et inani concidit aluo. At 12.434-38, after the

centaur Phaeocomes has hit Tectaphos on the head with a tree trunk, we find the following description of the result: Fracta uolubilitas capitis latissima, perque os Perque cauas nares oculosque auresque cerebrum

Molle fluit veluti concretum uimine querno Lac solet, utue liquor rari sub pondere cribri Manat et exprimitur per densa foramina spissus.

Subsequently Nestor kills Phaeocomes. The passage dealing with Cyllarus and Hylonome therefore is framed not only in gruesomeness, but in

Nestor's own heroic deeds. However, at 12.434-38 we are faced with a textual problem. The passage has been added manu recentiore in most manuscripts in which it occurs; but it does occur in Planudes. That is to

say that the arguments for deletion are strong indeed, whereas the arguments for printing it are in part a speculative "it must have originated

somewhere," in part precisely its position in the text as the horror-frame around a panel of exceptional loveliness. The contrastive effect is all the stronger because sub-narrator Nestor participates in the gruesomeness of

the frame, whereas the sad end of the loving couple is caused by an anonymous—auctor in incerto est—projectile.? The loving couple is—reluctantly—described as "beautiful": Nestor

employs a topos common in the Metamorphoses," but he adds a qualifi* There is—as far as I can see—nothing inherently un-Ovidian in wording or metre. ?Similarly Nestor does not know for certain—exitus in dubio est —whether Mopsus' version of Caeneus' end is to be trusted. V Cf. e.g. 4.55 Pyramus et Thisbe, iuvenum pulcherrimus alter, | altera quas Oriens

CENTAURS IN LOVE

213

cation in the case of Cyllarus: si modo naturae formam concedimus illi. In

the case of Hylonome the qualification is present in a slightly more complicated manner to which I shall return later on. Nestor puts a question before his audience: can we speak of beauty in the case of the phenomenon “centaur,” i.e., the combination human + horse? In addition it is always useful to look out for ambiguities in Ovid. In itself naturae formam

might be taken as formam naturalem, in which case the question to be discussed would be: is "centaur" a natural shape? The first question—can a centaur be called beautiful?—of course fits

Nestor's overall attitude: he has fought them and can still show a scar from that battle: quis enim laudauerit hostem? But in this case he more or less reluctantly admits that Cyllarus had beauty—indeed so much so

that many girls sua de gente attempted to snare him. Only Hylonome, however, was able to catch and hold him!'—mihi tarda uetustas / multaque me fugiant primis spectata sub annis, | plura tamen memini (12.182ff.)—Hylonome qua nulla decentior inter Semiferos altis habitauit femina silvis.

The words habitauit ... siluis Show that Nestor is made to be aware of the

literal meaning of the name Hylonome." In view of the subsequent description of her exquisite attire and behaviour the name in a certain sense may be regarded as used κατ᾽ ἀντίφρασιν. But it is a little hard to

imagine what the subnarrator can know of the other female centaurs with whom he compares this lovely filly. No other female centaurs are mentioned at the wedding of Ixion's son with Hippodame. It is rather odd that Hylonome is present during and participates in the battle. Her

presence is explained and motivated emphatically by the inseparable quality of this couple—a quality Nestor admires despite his hostility (12.416-18): Par amor est illis: errant in montibus una Antra simul subeunt; et tum Lapitheia tecta Intrarant pariter, pariter fera bella gerebant. habuit praelata puellis; 9.452 Byblis and Caunus: praestantia corpora forma.

" Nestor adds her strategy: blanditiis et amando et amare fatendo. This is not the only time he assumes the role of omniscient narrator, a role he has rejected earlier: quamuis obstet. ? Neither Pape-Benseler (Würterbuch der griechischen Eigennamen [Braunschweig 1884]) nor Forcellini (Lexicon totius latinitatis [Patavia 1965]) nor even the

richly documented Bómer mention any other occurrences of the name. 13 [n other texts Peirithoos' bride is called Hippodamia. But whatever the most acceptable form, it remains unclear whether that name is to be taken actively, passively, or both. Thessaly was famous for its horses.

214

BEN HIJMANS

The passage constitutes an instance of auditis aliquid nouus adicit auctor;

or rather, the sub-narrator has a fertile imagination. But why does the chief narrator cause Nestor to add these details? In Nestor's account of the battle between Lapiths and Centaurs we

note several parallels with the war between Greeks and Trojans. The first of these is the abduction of a beautiful bride. Hippodame appears to be as attractive as, in the later generation, Helen. Nestor is present at the wedding of Hippodame; so are the Centaurs (seated at long tables in arboribus tecto ... antro) as well as the Haemonian nobles, among whom

Caeneus who used to be Caenis. With a neat rhetorical flourish Nestor describes Caenis as much sought after by suitors, one of whom might

have been Achilles' father Peleus, had the latter not been linked to Thetis already.“ Caenis has been raped by Neptune and from him has asked for and obtained a sex change. Neptune has added the invulnerability which makes Caeneus the parallel of Cygnus.

If there are striking parallels, the element of inversion is no less arresting. With Hippodame and Helen we are confronted with abduction followed by revenge. In Hylonome's case the reverse obtains: she is one of many female centaurs pursuing Cyllarus; and she is the only one suc-

cessful; there is no revenge, no battle, only happiness, and a shared life ended by a shared death. Hylonome typifies the supreme "natural" virtue of a wife who does not wish to live without her husband.” Nestor describes Cyllarus' beauty as in two parts, the part in which

he is human and the part in which he is horse. The first is compared with praiseworthy sculpture; the second with a horse which Castore dignus erit. This is fun, for possibly since Alcman, certainly since Stesichorus (fr. 1), one of Castor's horses is said to be called Cyllarus.' Even more fun is

the fact that Nestor and his audience ought to be aware that the twin brothers of Helen are already dead when he is describing this Centaur. Presently I shall return to the etymology of the name Cyllarus—at least as Ovid may have understood it. Here I draw attention to the fact that

^ 12.189ff. The reference to Peleus does not stand by itself: Achilles’ father plays a role of some importance in Nestor's account; cf. 12.366, 388. Quite obvi-

ously the chief narrator causes Nestor to be polite to Achilles.

P Very much like Thisbe, though Ovid is clever enough to omit a final speech: Nestor says he was unable to hear her words because of the din of battle. The narrative mode in book 4 is one of omniscient sub-narrators. 16. Alcman is mentioned in the scholia on Vergil G. 3.90; it looks as if it is

mainly Latin authors who picked up the name, but in view of the many lost texts, especially from the Hellenistic period, it is hard to draw conclusions; see

e.g. Sen. Phaed. 811, Stat. Theb. 4.215 etc. On Samos the name occurs in the middle

of the third century B.C.

CENTAURS IN LOVE

215

numerous representations are extant of the two Dioscuri," or of Castor

alone on horseback or leading a horse. Thus the equine part of this centaur may also refer to sculpture—at least on the level of the chief nar-

rator.? The name Cyllarus just may be connected with the adjective xvAAóc, "clubfooted and bandy-legged" (LSJ). Ovid may have understood the name in much the same sense as Monychus: μόνος + Óvut£.? If so, it must

be considered as significant

a name as Hylonome, but with an added

value through the reference to Castor. Thus we may suspect that the chief narrator has Nestor say that Cyllarus was a centaur who combined the beautiful characteristics of Castor

and his horse. And we might have an instance, therefore, of "Nature imitating Art." In Ovid the thought ars naturae magistra—possibly intended in a basically jocular or ironic fashion”—occurs on several occasions. In its most naked form it is found in the description of the cave in which Actaeon meets his fate (Met. 3.155-60)”: Vallis erat piceis et acuta densa cupressu, Nomine Gargaphie, succinctae sacra Dianae, Cuius in extremo est antrum nemorale secessu

" And not just the famous Castores who marked the lacus Iuturnae in the Forum Romanum. Cf. LIMC s.v. Dioskouroi / Castores 56; the group belonged to the

end of the second century B.C. and was restored in the time of Tiberius. The temple of the Dioscuri, built in 484 B.C. according to the tradition in Livy (2.20.12, 42.5), was restored in A.D. 6. 18 In the Iliad, at the end of the teichoskopia, where Helen misses her brothers

(3.237), Castor is dubbed ἱππόδαμος, “tamer of horses." The adjective returns in the Odyssey (11.300).

P? There are more “sculptures” of a similar nature in the Metamorphoses. Perseus sees Andromeda

chained to a rock, and the narrator adds (4.673—75): nisi

quod leuis aura capillos | mouerat et tepido manabant lumina fletu | marmoreum ratus esset opus. There is a striking contrast with the scenes in the second half of

Perseus' battle against Phineus in Cepheus' palace, when Medusa's head turns

many warriors into stone statues which can hardly be distinguished from the living soldiers. ? R. Maltby, A Lexicon of Ancient Etymologies (Leeds 1991) has no references, though some links are mentioned with Cyllenius. In the Iliad Hephaistos gets the

epithet κυλλοποδίων.

7! The usual thought in Roman art criticism is rather natura artis magistra; cf.

e.g. Plin. Nat. 34.61, with the well-known anecdote concerning Lysippus, typically a topos, but one rooted in a fairly generally held opinion—but if I say "possibly intended basically as a joke," I immediately provoke a big

question mark;

as Î may make clear in the following remarks it may be a thought with a serious background.

2 J.B. Solodow, The World of Ovid's Metamorphoses (Chapel Hill 1989) has devoted a number of interesting pages to the background of the problem.

216

BEN HIJMANS Arte laboratum nulla: simulauerat artem

Ingenio natura suo; nam pumice uiuo Et leuibus tofis natiuum duxerat arcum.

The problematic words in this passage are simulauerat and ingenio suo.

Do we understand simulare in the meaning "copy," so that "nature" copies the activities of an artifex, and nature's ingenium is able to imitate

an artifex's ingenium? In that case we have a rather flat inversion of the well-known bed from Plato's Republic (10.597ff.): a lifelike painting, but one cannot lie on it. That interpretation is unsatisfactory, if only because Roman gardens in Ovid's time were full of tuff arches well provided

with waterworks made by human hands, structures which could be entered and were so well made that one would swear they were "natural."

But perhaps the artifices of those garden arches and caves had implanted the notion that such lay-outs are aesthetically satisfactory in the eyes of the beholder. And here we may cite Ovid again (Ars 3.401-2): Si Venerem Cous nusquam posuisset Apelles Mersa sub aeqoreis illa lateret aquis.”

This statement is made in a context of "Do not hide your lights," "If you can sing, let us hear," otherwise no one knows, but also—and perhaps even more so—Horace's Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona Multi; sed omnes illacrimabiles

Urgentur ignotique longa Nocte, carent quia uate sacro.

(Historical) reality needs an artifex/poeta to exist. Good / beautiful / real is known only if it is recognised and has gained assent. It seems quite pos-

sible that here we are dealing with an argumentation designed to counter the sceptical distrust of the senses: in Cicero's Lucullus (20; cf. 86) we read the remark that the trained eye sees more and the trained ear hears more than those of ordinary people: Quam multa uident pictores in umbris et in eminentia quae nos non uidemus. But now we arrive at the second question, subcutaneously present in the ambiguity naturae formam = formam naturalem: is centaur (horse + man) strictly speaking a natural shape? If Monychus is to be believed,

preeminently so. He is very angry with his people who let themselves be bullied by Caeneus and exclaims almost in despair (12.501ff.):

> Tr. 2.527 e.v. refers to the same painting; cf. Plin. Nat. 35.87, 91.

4 Carm. 49.25 e.vv.; cf. Pi. N. 7.12. ? A discussion of in umbris et in eminentia is to be found

in E.H. Gombrich,

The Heritage of Apelles. Studies in the Art of the Renaissance (Oxford 1976) 5.

CENTAURS IN LOVE

217

Quid membra inmania prosunt,

Quid geminae uires et quod fortissima rerum In nobis duplex natura animalia iunxit? And he adds with bitter sarcasm: Nec nos matre dea nec nos Ixione natos

Esse reor, qui tantus erat, Iunonis ut altae Spem caperet; nos semimari superamur ab hoste. In his opinion therefore the centaurs are (a) natural and (b) born from a

goddess and children of the great Ixion, i.e., Ixion, the father of Pirithous. Here we encounter a confusion of traditions concerning the origin of centaurs. If we take Monychus literally, he says that the mother of all centaurs was a goddess. Which goddess remains less than clear, unless the directly named Juno is meant. The expression spem caperet seems to

argue against this interpretation—unless it is implied that among the centaurs Ixion's mistake had continued that the famous cloud in fact had been Juno herself; but in that case a link is still missing: Kentauros, the

son of Ixion and the cloudjuno who impregnated all those mares on the slopes of mount Pelion, and thus, as Pindaros has it (P. 2.44ff.), became

the father of the centaurs. Or are the centaurs themselves the children of Ixion and Nephele, and is Nephele regarded as a goddess? That, too, is a known version. And is this Nephele in some way the same goddess as the first wife of Athamas? But with this question we depart too far from the text of the Metamorphoses; for there is nothing to link the nymph

Nephele who attends Diana (3.171) or the tale of Phrixus and Helle (Nepheleis

11.195) with the centaurs. Nevertheless the latter are called

nubigenae—by Nestor and Tlepolemus, both of them hostile to the centaurs. Nestor starts his account as follows (12.210ff.): Duxerat Hippodamen audaci Ixione natus Nubigenasque feros positis ex ordine mensis Arboribus tecto discumbere iusserat antro.

At first sight these lines impress us as a quiet start; but there is a palpable difference between the appreciation of Ixion here (audax) and in the mouth of Monychus (qui tantus erat); and the expression nubigenasque feros seems to announce that this sub-narrator will accentuate the fierceness and wildness of these former adversaries. That impression of personal hostility is strengthened by such a vocative as saeuorum saeuissime centaurorum (12.219, applied to Eurytus) and several similar expressions

used for these curiously mixed, rough creatures. But in the lines linking Nestor's narrative and Tlepolemus' objection the chief narrator uses semihomines, a word that appears to be neutral-

descriptive rather than implying praise or blame. I dare ask, therefore, whether in nubigenae we may read/hear a connotation of "unnatural

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BEN HIJMANS

products" and at the same time whether in Nestor's mouth the conditional Si modo naturae formam concedimus illi connotes the question whether such monsters aren't really products of an artistic imagination,

a materies uatum—and that is an opinion the chief narrator attributes much later (15.155) to the philosopher from Samos. Is Nestor just such a uates?

Before I turn to that question it is time to compare the beauty of Hylonome with the beauty of Cyllarus. It is obvious that Nestor's general hostility towards the breed "centaurs" is unable to suppress a certain

sympathy for Hylonome; and the chief narrator of course implies thereby that the audience/readers had better pay close attention—she was really something! Whereas Nestor describes Cyllarus beautiful frame with the terminology of successful sculpture, in the case of Hylonome he employs the

words decens and cultus. Horace uses decens of the Graces (Carm. 1.4.6), and Nisbet and Hubbard note "a rather austere word for lovely." Ovid himself employs the word, for example in the combination decens incede (Ars 3.751, advising a young lady who has been invited to a dinner party); translating the word presents a slight problem in so far as it implies at once attractiveness and proper behaviour. No small praise in the

mouth of old Nestor. In addition however she has cultus, a property which is elaborated, first with a curious restriction in view of the fact that horses are usually groomed with a curry-comb and that young women pay much attention to their hair. Is the comb she uses suited to both her human and her equine parts? The word leuis seems to imply as much.” Furthermore, she adorns herself with various flowers—rosemary

or violets or roses, and also

white lilies.” Here, it seems, the chief narrator provides a Dionysiac counterpoint of joie de vivre but at the same time funereal symbolism to Nestor's verbal picture.

The distinction Nestor makes between parts he omits in the case of Hylonome. lovely and takes care of herself as does might be one of those nymphs but for one with him she enters the caves.

Cyllarus' human and equine She is well-behaved, she is Diana with her nymphs; she thing: she has a husband and

# In Apuleius Met. 6.28 Charite promises the ass a good grooming and a costly harness. A

little later (7.14) the reader learns what has resulted from these

promises.

” Cf. e.g. Ars 3.690 ros maris and other flowers at the beginning of the tale of Procris; Met. 4.268f. Clytie’s blushes have the colour of violets; 5.392 Proserpina gathers violets or lilies just before she is carried off by Dis; cf. also Hyacinthus 10.190; in the Homeric

Hymn

to Demeter

(26) roses are mentioned

flowers picked by Persephone. See also Der Neue Pauly s.v. Rosalia.

among

the

CENTAURS IN LOVE

219

The two are inseparable yet subsurface—this is the major contrast with the other centaurs as described by Nestor. His narrative makes a point of the fact that as soon as Eurytus drags Hippodame away by her hair, the others (12.224f.) ... quam quisque probabant Aut poterant, rapiunt captaeque erat urbis imago.

From the total description of the couple Cyllarus

+ Hylonome it is obvi-

ous that they do not participate in the rape.? In solemn terms, "good" and "beautiful" coincide, but that fact does not defend them from death. It is but a little wound that strikes Cyllarus in his heart. This seems a small detail, but a moving one about which I would be silent but for the fact that Bómer comments "also das eine Trost wáre." Of course it does

not comfort; on the contrary: it renders the impact of this death all the heavier, and at the same time underscores the tremendous contrast be-

tween this couple and the violent and bloody battle that rages all around them.? We have, therefore, an idyllic couple, who together enter the caves, also the cave-like reception hall of Pirithous. Nestor speaks of the arboribus tecto ... antro at 12.212, right at the beginning of his long narrative What is the significance of these caves?

Bómer comments that centaurs like to sojourn in caves. I think that rather more can be said about these places. In almost all instances in the Metamorphoses caves and the like are associated with danger and borderline situations. The dragon that will be destroyed by Cadmus lives in a cave and the men sent out by Cadmus to fetch water are killed there

(3.28ff.). The cave where Actaeon sees Diana and meets his fate has been discussed above. Medea fetches the aconite meant to kill Theseus from a cave

(7.409 specus est tenebroso caecus hiatu),

which

in fact is the

exit/entrance of the underworld through which Hercules had dragged Cerberus. In 10.691ff. we read: Luminis exigui fuerat prope templa recessus Speluncae similis, natiuo pumice tectus, Religione sacer prisca, quo multa sacerdos Lignea contulerat ueterum simulacra deorum.

Such is the place, where Hippomenes and Atalanta engage in the sexual ? The phrase pariter fera bella gerebant presents a slight difficulty in this re-

spect, but it need not imply more than defending themselves against the Lapiths.

? Ovid has used the device on other occasions as well; see e.g. Met. 6.265f.,

where Bómer employs the untranslatable phrase "das grausige ψυχρόν solch kleinbürgerlicher Verniedlichung"—a category which (if I understand it at all) makes no sense to me.

220

BEN HIJMANS

act that angers the gods and leads to their transformation. The way in

which Peleus wins Thetis is narrated at length in 11.221ff.; the spot where she conceives Achilles is described as follows: Myrtea silua subest bicoloribus ibsita bacis Et specus in medio (natura factus an arte, Ambiguum, magis arte tamen) ...

However dubious the origin of the cave, it is a cave, and so far as I can see, it is here that the origin of the Trojan war as narrated in Ovid's Metamorphoses is to be found.? Somnus lives far away in a dark cave and

in that place the dream Ceyx is fashioned who is to tell Alcyone that her husband has drowned at sea. Through the uiuacis antra Sibyllae Aeneas arrives in the underworld (14.104) to visit the shade of Anchises. But Ovid would not be Ovid if he did not vary: the Cyclops in love with Galatea has come out of his cave: Uritur oblitus pecorum antrorumque suo-

rum (13.763). Achaemenides does not mention the cave—his main terror is the Cyclops' rictus and aluus. In Ovid's Metamorphoses 12 we are faced with Nestor, a sub-narrator who in his choice of subject is limited by a situation, limited by personal hostilities, limited by a defective memory, limited by his inability to distinguish properly between remembered fact and an active imagination.

The chief narrator thus achieves a multitude of effects: epic narrative, even epic narrative de uirtute, is shown to be subject to the very variations, additions and subtractions as well as personal preferences implied in the description of the house of Fama. By having Nestor emphasise the

antra as dwelling places of the centaurs he gives them a borderline reality, and by causing him to adorn the loving couple with sculptural as well as funereal beauty the chief narrator appears to indicate that this

materies uatum—whatever Pythagoras may have to say about it—is not without merit.

? No wedding, no golden apple, no Eris is mentioned; warrants further study (cf. Met. 12.4).

Thetis' reluctance

18 THE LANGUAGE AND STYLE OF THE OLD OLIGARCH! MARK JOYAL The

anonymous,

(Athenaión

pseudo-Xenophontic

Constitution

of the Athenians

Politeia, hereafter Ath.) has for the past century

been attrib-

uted to the nebulous figure called the Old Oligarch. I shall say nothing here about the authorship of phon). Nor do I have much to genre; in any case, the familiar phlet" cannot take us very far,

Ath. (unknown, and certainly not Xenocontribute directly to the debate about its classification of Ath. as a "political pamsince parallel examples of such literature

from the fifth century and early fourth do not exist. I do not, moreover, have anything original or very precise to say about its date. My working

assumption is that its composition falls somewhere between 446 and ca. 415, probably closer to 425.’ Authorship, genre and date are each potentially of great importance for the analysis of the language and style of any ancient work of literature, but despite our uncertainty on all these fronts, I believe that much can still be learned about the place of Ath. in the development of Greek prose.

Taken in broadest terms, the theme of Ath. is the way that the Athenians have organized their society and political life so as to be most advantageous to the majority, described variously in this work as "the people" (ὁ δῆμος 1.2, 1.3 etc.), "the bad" (oi πονηροί I.1, 1.4 etc.), "the inferior" (oi χείρους L4), "the poor" (oi πένητες L4, [1.9 etc.), "the many" (oi πολλοί 1.20, III.13), and "the mob" (6 ὄχλος IL10). Even the most casual

reader can recognize that the author of this work did not rely upon elaborate principles of organization to draw his material together and to

present his arguments.’ Perhaps his most ambitious device is ring! As an undergraduate I worked under Edmund Berry's watchful eye through large tracts of Thucydides, Xenophon and Demosthenes. I hope that he will find some merit in this attempt to advance our understanding of what is probably the earliest surviving complete example of Attic prose. ^ Some recent attempts at dating: Vidal (1997) 27-45 (415-14); Leduc (1976) 159-202, esp. 201-202 (421-18); Bowersock (1966) 33-38; useful summaries of 2arlier attempts in Kalinka (1913) 5-17; Frisch (1942) 47-62.

? For a discussion of the structure of Ath. including analysis of previous theoties, see Leduc (1976) 55-62, 103-112. 221

222

MARK JOYAL

composition: about three-quarters into this work (III.1) he signals formally that he has (ostensibly) concluded his discussion of the Athenian system of government: xai περὶ τῆς ᾿Αθηναίων πολιτείας, τὸν τρόπον οὐκ ἐπαινῶ. But since it

was their decision to organize their state as a democracy, I believe that they successfully preserve their democracy τούτῳ τῷ τρόπῳ χρώμενοι & ἐγὼ ἐπέδειξα.

This is a conscious reference back to the first, programmatic words of the treatise: περὶ δὲ τῆς ᾿Αθηναίων πολιτείας, ὅτι μὲν εἵλοντο τοῦτον τὸν τρόπον τῆς πολιτείας

οὐκ

ἐπαινῶ

... ἐπεὶ

δὲ

ταῦτα

ἔδοξεν

οὕτως

αὐτοῖς,

ὡς

εὖ

διασῴζονται τὴν πολιτείαν ... τοῦτ᾽ ἀποδείξω."

Cf. IIL.10 ἐν οὐδεμιᾷ γὰρ πόλει τὸ βέλτιστον εὔνουν ἐστὶ τῷ δήμῳ, which in negative form restates 1.5 ἔστι δὲ πάσῃ γῇ τὸ βέλτιστον ἐναντίον τῇ δημοχρατίᾳ. Ring-composition is, of course, an exceedingly old method of narration, and as a principle of organization it has strong affinities with oral composition and delivery.’ The structure of shorter segments, including individual sentences, shares certain features with some other early samples of prose literature. For instance, whole clauses may be repeated within brief intervals, almost intact: 1.1 περὶ δὲ τῆς ᾿Αθηναίων πολιτείας, ὅτι μὲν εἵλοντο τοῦτον τὸν τρόπον τῆς πολιτείας οὐχ ἐπαινῶ διὰ τόδε. ὅτι ταῦθ᾽ ἑλόμενοι εἵλοντο .... διὰ μὲν

οὖν τοῦτο οὐκ ἐπαινῶ." 1.12 διὰ τοῦτ᾽ οὖν ἰσηγορίαν ... ἐποιήσαμεν ... διότι δεῖται ἡ πόλις ... διὰ τοῦτο ... τὴν ἰσηγορίαν ἐποιήσαμεν.7 1I.15-16 εἰ νῆσον Gxouv, μηδέποτε προδοθῆναι τὴν πόλιν ὑπ᾽ ὀλίγων ...

“It would be strictly accurate to call the example in I.1/III.1 a "kind of" ring-

composition, since ring-composition in the truest sense requires that the second half of an account retrace the steps taken in the first (a-b-c-b-a). The locus classicus is Hom. Il. 24.599-620. See Mackay et al. (1999). 5See

further

Haffter

(1956)

83-85,

a valuable

study

on

larger

matters

of

structure and composition; Kalinka (1913) 254-255; Rhodes (1981) 44-45 (ringcomposition in Arist. Ath.); Fraenkel (1950) 119-120 (on A. Ag. 205); Lesky (1971) 510-511; Dover (1974) 62. For oral characteristics in Ath., see Flores (1982) 29-31.

For a thorough analysis of ring-composition in an early body of Greek prosewriting—the Hippocratic Corpus—see Wenskus (1982) passim. “The opening paragraph, where we might expect the greatest polish and elaboration, immediately gives the impression of an untutored and unpractised hand":

Palmer (1980) 161; see also Aly (1929) 62. Frisch (1942) 165-166, who

quotes Arist. Rh. 1414*21—30, is more sympathetic.

7 The a b a structure (see n. 36 below) here serves the practical purpose of enabling the author to shift his focus subtly from the topic of slaves to that of metics.

LANGUAGE AND STYLE OF THE OLD OLIGARCH

223

πῶς γὰρ νῆσον οἰκούντων [n.b. cond. ptcp.] ταῦτ᾽ ἂν ἐγίγνετο; μηδ᾽ ad στασιάσαι τῷ δήμῳ μηδέν, εἰ νῆσον Gxovv ... εἰ δὲ νῆσον ᾧκουν ... ἐπειδὴ οὖν ἐξ ἀρχῆς οὐκ ἔτυχον οἰκήσαντες νῆσον κτλ. 1Π.12 ὑπολάβοι δέ τις ἂν ὡς οὐδεὶς ἄρα ἀδίκως ἠτίμωται ᾿Αθήνησιν. ἐγὼ δέ φημί τινας εἶναι οἵ ἀδίκως ἠτίμωνται ... οὕτως ἔχει οὐδὲν ἐνθυμεῖσθαι ἀνθρώπους οἵτινες δικαίως «ἠν»τίμωνται ... πῶς ἂν οὖν ἀδίκως οἴοιτό τις ἂν τοὺς πολλοὺς ἠτιμῶσθαι ᾿Αθήνησιν ... ἐκ τοιούτων ἄτιμοί εἰσιν ᾿Αθήνησι.

We can find a similar stylistic trait in what is perhaps the earliest extant piece of Greek prose, Pherecydes of Syros DK 7 B 2 (ca. 550): αὐ»τῷ

ποιοῦσιν

rà

olx[(]a

πολλά

te

xal

μεγάλα’

ἐξετέλεσαν πάντα καὶ χρήματα καὶ θεράποντας

ἐπεὶ

δὲ

ταῦτα

καὶ θεραπαίνας καὶ

τἄλλα ὅσα δεῖ πάντα, ἐπεὶ δὴ πάντα ἑτοῖμα γίγνεται tov γάμον

ποιεῦσιν."

The likelihood that we are dealing here with a colloquial feature is strengthened by consideration of the unvarnished style of the defendant

Euphiletus in Lysias 1.17: πάντα μου εἰς τὴν γνώμην clover, καὶ μεστὸς ἦν ὑποφίας, ἐνθυμούμενος μὲν ὡς ... ἀναμιμνησχόμενος δὲ ὅτι ... ταῦτά μου πάντα εἰς τὴν γνώμην εἰσήει, καὶ μεστὸς ἦν ὑποψίας.

Another form of repetition is also characteristic of colloquial expression—of narrative in particular—namely the resumption of a finite verb with its participle: L1 εἵλοντο ... ἑλόμενοι; IL19 γιγνώσκειν ... γιγνώσκοντες." The earliest prose parallel appears in Pherecydes of Athens FGrHist 3 F 105: διέβαινε τὸν ποταμόν, διαβὰς δὲ xvA.? Much less

common is the use of a resumptive noun after a cognate verb, but there are two examples in Ath.: 1.8 εὐνομεῖσθαι ... εὐνομίαν (the infinitive is 5 A less marked example in II.4: ταῦτα τοίνυν οὐχ ἔσται αὐτῇ, ἐὰν μὴ ὑπήκοος à τῶν ἀρχόντων τῆς θαλάττης" ἔπειτα δὲ τοῖς ἄρχουσι τῆς θαλάττης οἷόν τ᾽ ἐστὶ κτλ.

? See further H. Frankel (1962) 281-282; Lilja (1968) 39; West (1971) 6 (the

repetition is "characteristic of speech but soon eliminated from literary prose").

For the tradition that Pherecydes was the earliest Greek prose-writer, cf. Suidas s.v. Φερεκύδης; Jacoby (1947). 10 See Dover (1981) 21 = (1987) 24, who compares the sentence structure in an

early Ionic letter on lead from the northern coast of the Black Sea, the island of Berezan' (Borysthenes) at the mouth of the River Bug (Hypanis); also Carey

(1989) 66, with further examples from Lys. 1.

"! Norden (1956) 368-370; Denniston (1960) 95-96; Dover (1997) 134-135. ?2 If we could have confidence that the myth in Pl. Prt. 320c8-323a3 contains the ipsissima verba of Protagoras, the sequence in xal οὕτω πείσας νέμει. νέμων δὲ

κτλ. (320d7-8) would be another early example of this resumption. Such confidence, however, would doubtless be misplaced.

224

MARK JOYAL

used quasi-substantively, complementary to xaxovouiaç which precedes it) and IL20 ovyytyvaoxw ... συγγνώμη (made easier if αὑτὸν ... συγγνώμη ἐστίν is taken to be a proverbial expression; see n. 31 below); cf. also 11.17 αἰτιᾶται ... τὴν αἰτίαν ἀνατιθέασι. This pattern does occur,

however, in the earliest extant Greek poetry (Hes. Op. 352) and may be related to an Indo-European idiom.” These instances of ring-composition, repetition and resumption— which Fehling subsumed under the general category of “Wiederholung” and Dover under "recurrence""—help the listener in particular to follow

the author’s train of thought. The same effect may be sought through the use of resumptive pronouns in contexts where the flow of the argument

is in danger of being lost": L2 oi κυβερνῆται xai of κελευσταὶ xai oi πεντηχόνταρχοι xai of xeAevotai xai oí πρῳρᾶται xai of ναυπηγοί --οὗτοι εἰσιν x12.; IL7 6 τι ἐν Σικελίᾳ ἡδὺ ἢ ἐν ᾿Ιταλίᾳ ἢ ἐν Κύπρῳ ἢ ἐν Αἰγύπτῳ

ἢ ἐν Λυδίᾳ ἢ ἐν τῷ Πόντῳ

ἢ ἐν Πελοποννήσῳ

ἢ ἄλλοθί που,

ταῦτα πάντα xtA.; also 1.14 (n.b. resumptive οὖν). This pronominal usage is pretty common among prose authors who are given to colloquial expression, Herodotus and Plato in particular; it is an example of mild ana-

colouthon. Other occurrences of anacolouthon, slightly more marked than these (all involving shifts between singular and plural), include L2 ó

.. περιτιθεὶς ... of ... περιτιθέντες; 1.10 οὐδὲν βελτίων ὁ δῆμος ... οὐδὲν βελτίους εἰσίν (cf. 1.5 ἐν δὲ τῷ δήμῳ ... ἥ τε γὰρ πενία αὐτοὺς ... ἄγει); IL17 ἔξεστιν αὐτῷ [sc. τῷ δήμῳ], ἑνὶ ἀνατιθέντι τὴν αἰτίαν τῷ λέγοντι καὶ τῷ ἐπιφηφίσαντι, ἀρνεῖσθαι τοῖς ἄλλοις ὅτι κτλ. (with further alternations between singular and plural in the remainder of the sentence; here the shift is occasioned by a desire to point a clear contrast with évi)”; IL9 θούουσιν ... ἡ πόλις. There are examples of other kinds of anacolouthon

too. One is in 1.10 εἰ νόμος ἦν τὸν δοῦλον ὑπὸ τοῦ ἐλευθέρου τύπτεσθαι fj τὸν μέτοικον ἢ τὸν ἀπελεύθερον, πολλάκις ἂν οἰηθεὶς εἶναι τὸν ᾿Αθηναῖον

δοῦλον ἐπάταξεν ἄν; here the subject of the apodosis must be supplied from the context κατὰ σύνεσιν ("an Athenian” rather than tic). Another ? See Watkins (1995) 99-100; West (1978) 244 (with reff.). For prose examples,

cf. Pl. R.

546a3-4

οὐδ᾽ ἡ τοιαύτη σύστασις τὸν ἅπαντα μενεῖ χρόνον, ἀλλὰ

λυθήσεται. λύσις δὲ ἥδε (cited by Denniston [1960] 93); Hp. Art. 75.233.11-12 L ittré οὕτω κατατείνειν" ἅμα δὲ τῇ κατατάσει κτλ. (cited by Wenskus [1982] 67). But in these two cases the verbal abstracts in -otg smooth the transition.

14 Fehling (1969) passim; Dover (1997) 131-143; also Denniston (1960) 78-98;

Lilja (1968) 35-51; and for special reference to Ath., see Frisch (1942) 170-182.

5 Denniston (1960) 96-98. '© Riddell (1867) 849; Kühner-Gerth 1.660661; Denniston (1960) 84-87.

7 On 1.17 see further Kalinka (1913) 236-237; Gomme (1940) 235. 18 See Kühner-Gerth 1.35-36; Palmer (1980) 162; Fraenkel (1950) 44-45 (on A.

LANGUAGE AND STYLE OF THE OLD OLIGARCH

225

is the aposiopesis in 1.17 ἔπειτα ef τῳ ζεῦγός ἐστιν ἢ ἀνδράποδον μισθοφοροῦν (suppression of apodosis; sc. ἄμεινον πράττει from the context). Another still is the shift from accusative to nominative in IIL12 ἐγὼ δέ φημί τινας εἶναι of ἀδίκως ἠτίμωνται, ὀλίγοι μέντοι τινές (assimilation to

the relative clause). In a different connection (discussion of the style of

Aeschylus) M.L. West has observed that anacolouthic sentence structure of these kinds is a characteristic of “naive style.”” Each of the stylistic features that we have observed contributes to the impression that the writer is attempting to capture the flavour of everyday speech while still aiming for clarity. In one way or another these traits convey a paratactic or "linear" mode of thought and avoid complex sentence structures. Also paratactic in its effect is one of our author's favourite methods of setting out the elements of an argument: 1.2-4 πρῶτον μὲν ... ἔπειτα ... ἔπειτα; L9 πρῶτα μὲν ... ἔπειτα; [.16-17 πρῶτον μὲν ... εἶτ᾽ ... πρὸς δὲ τούτοις. In the last example in particular there has been a noticeable effort to marshal facts sequentially, evi-

denced in the way that the last component (πρὸς δὲ τούτοις) is further subdivided:

πρῶτον μὲν ... ἔπειτα … ἔπειτα ... Enetta.” As well, both

ἔπειτα (δέ) and πρὸς δὲ τούτοις are employed, even overworked, in their

roles as simple connectives (i.e., no necessary implication of a logical progression from one topic to another): ἔπειτα (8€): IL4, 5, 6, 8, IIL2; πρὸς δὲ τούτοις: 1.18, 19, IL2 (πρὸς δὲ xa(),? 12, 13 (ἔτι δὲ πρὸς τούτοις), 15,

III.4 (bis), 8. Likewise the author shows a fondness for "telegraphing" his étt-clauses through proleptic τοῦτο in the familiar construction τοῦτο (vel sim.) ... ὅτι: 1.1, 2 (bis), 11, 16, IIL.10; cf. IIL3 τοῦτο ... διότι, IIL9 τοῦτο

… ὅπως.2 But not all the examples of parataxis are equally simple. On Ag. 71); Dodds (1959) 212 (on Pl. Grg. 456d2). The generic articles in 1.10 have a legal ring; cf. Ar. Av. 1035 ἐὰν δ᾽ ὁ Νεφελοχοχχυγιεὺς tov ᾿Αθηναῖον ἀδικῇ, with Dunbar ad loc.; also Lapini (1997) 82-83. In II.6 ἀφικνεῖται is similarly lacking an expressed subject (sc. σῖτος vel sim.); Kalinka (1913) 194 posits corruption in the

text (see also Rupprecht [1939] 26-27). ? West (1990) 5-9. To our instances of “mild anacolouthon" may be added the partitive apposition in IL3 ὁπόσαι δ᾽ ἐν τῇ ἠπείρῳ εἰσὶ πόλεις ὑπὸ τῶν ᾿Αθnvaíov ἀρχόμεναι, αἱ μὲν μεγάλαι διὰ δέος ἄρχονται. αἱ δὲ μικραὶ πάνυ διὰ χρείαν. Analysed in terms of Theme and Topic, however (Theme stated at once

in a nominative relative clause [^as for ..."], Topic expressed in the main clauses;

cf. Slings [1997] 193-200), the structure of this sentence is shown to be not unusual. ? See Kalinka 151-152 n. 7.

(1913) 33-34; Trenkner (1960) 12-13; Schmid-Stählin

(1940)

?! npóc is adverbial; the combination is especially common in Herodotus (e.g. 1.51, 2.115, 5.20, 7.64); see further LSJ s.v. npóc D; also Lapini (1997) 156. 2 See further Gigante (1953) 186; Thesleff (1967) 91; Lanza (1977) 212, who

also remarks (213-215) on the heavy use of γάρ in this treatise (another paratactic

226

MARK JOYAL

the face of it the two principal segments in I.3—(a) ὁπόσαι μὲν ... τῶν ἀρχῶν ... τούτων μὲν τῶν ἀρχῶν ... (Ὁ) ὁπόσαι δ᾽ ... ἀρχαὶ ... ταύτας [sc. τὰς ápyác]—are formally almost perfectly parallel, but there is no slav-

ish adherence here to balance for its own sake; this is apparent not only

from the greater length of the first limb, but also from the introduction there of a second uév-clause which is interrupted by a parenthesis (n.b. γάρ) and never complemented, as well as from the chiasmus σωτηρίαν ...

χρησταὶ ... μὴ χρησταὶ κίνδυνον. In this case the effect is artistic yet completely natural (on antithesis see also p. 229 below).

There are, however, a few instances where repetition suggests a lack

of precision tending towards sloppiness. I am thinking here of places where the author uses a word twice within a short interval but with different meanings: L6 ἀρίστους ... dptota®; 1.11 κινδυνεύσει ... κινδυνεύειν; III.1 ἔδοξεν ... δοκοῦσι; IIL3 διαπράττεσθαι (bis) ... διαπρᾶξαι. The confu-

sion that can be engendered through such verbal carelessness is interesting to observe, since at I.5, as we shall see later (p. 233), our author ex-

tols d&xp(f£ta—" precision," "accuracy"—as a characteristic of the best element in society. In certain other cases the repetition of a word is merely superfluous and redundant: I.9 xoAácovotv oi χρηστοὶ τοὺς nov-

ηροὺς xal βουλεύσουσιν oi οἱ ἰσχυροὶ ἐν ταῖς πόλεσιν; δῆμος ἐβούλευσεν, αἰτιᾶται It is easy, I think, to see

χρηστοί; I.14 εἰ δὲ ἰσχύσουσιν oi πλούσιοι καὶ 11.17 καὶ ἂν μέν τι κακὸν ἀναβαίνῃ ἀπὸ ὧν ὁ ὁ δῆμος." that the features which we have examined so

far are for the most part typical of a simple expository style. This general characteristic can be identified further in Ath. through a study of collo-

quial features which appear at the level of individual words or short phrases. Although some of the work in this field has been done by Pfister, more remains to be said. I list below what may be regarded as colloquialisms or conversational idioms in Ath.

trait: Denniston [1954] 58). 3 See Dover

(1997)

140, and

Lapini

(1997) 94-95,

119, with examples

from

other sources.

4 See further Lapini (1997) 73. Cf. also IIL6 εἰ δ᾽ ad ὁμολογεῖν δεῖ ἅπαντα χρῆναι διαδικάζειν κτλ.

5 Pfister's haul was, however, disappointingly thin and in some cases illusory. In particular, 1.6 ἀναστάς, classified as nominative absolute (so also Hiera-

che [1970] 208), is neither absolute nor pendent: compare the many examples

collected in Kühner-Gerth 11.105-107; also Gildersleeve (1900) 3, and the discussions in Slings

(1992) 96-99;

Kalinka

(1913)

113-114;

Lapini

(1997) 65-66. The

evidence furnished by 1.10 ἕνεκεν and L3 ἕνεκα is uncertain: Kalinka (1913) 124; Joyal (2000) 199 (on [PL] Thg. 121a3); the three occurrences of ἕνεκεν in the Der-

veni Papyrus (V.5, V1.4, 10) are roughly contemporary with Ath.

LANGUAGE AND STYLE OF THE OLD OLIGARCH

227

* inceptiveδέ (1.1)*

* duplication of μᾶλλον in a comparison (11.20 μᾶλλον ... μᾶλλον 15)" * deprecatory or contemptuous ἄνθρωπος (1.6, 7, 9) * ethic dative μοι (II.11) * indefinite or generic second person (1.8-9, 10, 11)?

* duplicated &v (1.10, III.13)? * frequentative ἄν (1.10 ἐπάταξεν ἄν)

* adjectival μαινόμενος (1.9)9 * extensive use of perfective 6ta-: διασῴζεσθαι (1.1, 4, III.1), διαπράττεσθαι (1.1, IIL2, 3 [3x]), διαδικάζειν (IL4 [4x], 5, 6 [bis]), διαλαγχάνων διαλαθεῖν (11.20), διασχευάσασθαι (III.7)

(11.9),

* proverbial or gnomic expressions and style? * conversational τοίνυν ὦ

To this point I have concentrated mostly on the elements in our author's style that may be taken to signify a lack of polish or sophistication, and it is this quality that is likely to impress itself upon most readers as the dominant one in Ath. Against examples like these, however, are to be placed other features that strike us as more decidedly recherché and even rhetorical. Most of these occur in the second

(shorter) main

part of the work, III.1-fin. Some may be labelled as instances of anaphora. The clearest case is III.2 πολλὰ μὲν περὶ ... πολλὰ δὲ περὶ ... πολλὰ δὲ περὶ ... πολλὰ δὲ περὶ ... πολλὰ δὲ περίϑ5; another is IIL.11 ἐντὸς ὀλίγου χρόνου ... ἐντὸς ὀλίγου χρόνου ... ἐντὸς ὀλίγου ypóvov.' There is a strik26 Denniston (1954) 172; Lapini (1997) 15; Müller (1975) 50 n. 3.

? Kühner-Gerth 1.26; Riddell (1867) 8166; Kalinka (1913) 254; Pfister (1916-18)

560. In comparative sentences which involve the duplication of a comparative element, the first word is usually a comparative adjective or adverb, the second is μᾶλλον (Stobaeus omits the second μᾶλλον from his quotation of II.20). ? See Slings (1999) 97-98 and n. 181, with works cited there; Kalinka (1913)

117-118; Schmid-Stáhlin (1940) 154 n. 3.

? See Slings (1992) 102-105.

9 Cf. Pl. lon 536d6, Euthphr. 2c2, [Pl.] Alc. 1 118e4, Alc. II 140c5-7. ?! E g. L6 τοῖς ὁμοίοις σφίσιν αὐτοῖς ἦν ἀγαθά, τοῖς δὲ δημοτικοῖς οὐκ ἀγαθά: Fehling (1969) 298-299; 1.14 οἱ δὲ χρηστοὶ

᾿Αθηναίων τοὺς χρηστοὺς ἐν ταῖς συμ-

μαχίσι πόλεσι σῴζουσιν: Fehling (1969) 232; 11.20 αὐτὸν μὲν γὰρ εὖ ποιεῖν παντὶ συγγνώμη ἐστίν: Kalinka (1913) 252-253; III.10 οἱ γὰρ ὅμοιοι τοῖς ὁμοίοις εὖνοί εἰσι: LSJ s.v. ὅμοιος Α.1; Powell (1988) 114-115; Kalinka (1913) 304-305; Fehling (1969) 226; Lapini (1997) 64; also the gnomic aorists ἐμελέτησαν ... κατέστησαν at

1.20. For the gnomic character of early Greek prose, see Finley (1939) 77-80; Thesleff (1966) 90-92.

® See de Strycker-Slings (1994) 305 (on Pl. Ap. 26b8). 9 For further examples that involve πολλά, see Fehling (1969) 199. * See Dover (1997) 138. Cf. 1.11 xai τοῦτο ... xai τοῦτο, and Denniston (1954)

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MARK JOYAL

ing concentration of "recurrence," this time of a more clearly rhetorical kind, within a short space in III.6-8: IIL6 διαδικάζειν ... διαδικάζεσθαι ... διαδικάζειν ... 6oxá(ovrEQ III.6 δι᾽ ἐνιαυτοῦ ... δι᾽ ἐνιαυτοῦ III.7 δικάζειν μὲν ... δὲ δικάζειν

IIL7 1Π.7 III.8 111.8

ὀλίγα ... ὀλίγοι ... ὀλίγους (polyptoton) δικαστήρια ... τῷ δικαστηρίῳ οἷόν τε ... οἷόν τ᾽ εἶναι ... οἷόν τε ... οἷόν τε οὔ φημι οἷόν τ᾽ εἶναι ἄλλως ἔχειν ... πλὴν εἰ ... οἷόν τε ... πολὺ δ᾽ οὐχ οἷόν

τε μεταχινεῖν (an example of a b a structure)

There are, indeed, many other signs of sophistication in our author's style. One of the more interesting verbal effects occurs in I.13, a studied use of the active and passive voices of intransitive verbs: χορηγοῦσι μὲν

oi πλούσιοι, χορηγεῖται δὲ ὁ δῆμος, xai γυμνασιαρχοῦσι of πλούσιοι, ὁ δὲ δῆμος τριηραρχεῖται καὶ γυμνασιαρχεῖται. The closest parallels that I

have found are in prose works of a high artistic order: D. 9.9 πολεμεῖν ... πολεμεῖσθαι (used as contrasting elements in a chiastic structure); Pl. Ion 541b8, c4 στρατηγεῖς ... otpatnyetrat.* Whether this sort of paronomasia can in any sense be called rhetorical is difficult to say, but about other

features there is less doubt. + Doublets (with explicative καί): 1.2 τῶν γενναίων xal τῶν πλουσίων; L4 oi

πλούσιοι xai of χρηστοί; 11.10 oi ὀλίγοι καὶ of εὐδαίμονες; IL18 τῶν πενήτων καὶ τῶν δημοτικῶν.

* Tricola: 1.2 οἱ ὁπλῖται καὶ οἱ γενναῖοι καὶ οἱ χρηστοί; 1.4 τοῖς πονηροῖς καὶ πένησι καὶ δημοτικοῖς ~ οἱ πένητες καὶ οἱ δημοτικοὶ καὶ οἱ χείρους; 1.5

325 on corresponsive adverbial xa('s in conditional sentences. * See further Frisch (1942) 173; Palmer (1980) 161. For the concentration of words in (d)6ux-, cf. Ant. fr. 44(c)] (POxy 1797). Cf. 11.12 and the concentration there of roots in ἀτιμ- (see p. 223 above).

* Cf. 111.10: “The Athenians deliberately side with the worse element in cities that are at war amongst themselves. ei μὲν yap ἡροῦντο τοὺς βελτίους, ἡροῦντ᾽

ἂν οὐχὶ τοὺς ταὐτὰ γιγνώσκοντας σφίσιν αὐτοῖς. ... That's why they side with the element that is sympathetic to them"; see also n. 7 above. For Platonic examples of this very common structure, see Riddell (1867) 8209; Burnet (1911) 17 (on

Pl. Phd. 61a1); Dodds (1959) 202, 338 (on PI. Grg. 452e6, 507d5). 55 Sed post πλούσιοι add. xai τριηραρχοῦσι Mutinensis 145 (saec. xv), an interpolated but nevertheless primary witness (see Bowersock [1966] 40-42). If the majority ms. evidence for Ath. is to be accepted here (as I believe it is), it is ap-

parent that our author in this instance eschewed exact parallelism. For an example of the effect that the selection of readings here may have on the analysis of style, see Dover (1997) 157; also Lapini (1997) 105-106.

8 Compare the relatively early interest in active and passive voices evidenced at Pl. Euthphr. 10a1-11b5.

LANGUAGE AND STYLE OF THE OLD OLIGARCH

229

ἀμαθία ... ἀταξία ... πονηρία; L7 ἀμαθία ... πονηρία ... εὔνοια; IL8 φωνῇ xoi

διαίτῃ xai σχήματι. Given the frequency in Ath., their appearance is unlikely to be fortuitous; see also next paragraph. * Variatio: the tricola are sometimes repeated or mirrored, but with an effort towards variation™: L4 (a,) τοῖς πονηροῖς (b,) καὶ πένησι (c,) xal δημοtixot¢ ~ (b,) of πένητες (c;) καὶ oi δημοτικοὶ (a;) xal oi χείρους (note also

the application of the article to all members of the second series only,

without any apparent influence on the meaning"); L7 (a) ἀμαθία ... (b,) πονηρία ... (cj) εὔνοια ~ (b,) ἀρετή ... (a,) σοφία ... (c;) xaxóvou^; 11.10 (aj)

γυμνάσια (b) καὶ λουτρὰ (c) xai ἀποδυτήρια ~ (a?) παλαίστρας ... (c,) ἀποδυτήρια, (b,) Aoutpüvac. Some shifts in word order also seem

product of calculation, e.g. IIL3 Ett ... change of prepositions in the sequence ἀλλὰ ἐπὶ τῷ xaxd ("not related to ... but be a deliberate but contrived attempt

to be the

πλείω ... πλείους ἔτι. In IL19 the où ... πρὸς τῷ σφετέρῳ ἀγαθῷ ... for [the purpose of]"?) appears to at variation, redolent perhaps of

Thucydidean style; cf. L5 εἰς và χρηστά ... ἐπὶ τὰ αἰσχρά.“ * Chiasmus: L3 σωτηρίαν ... χρησταὶ ... μὴ χρησταὶ κίνδυνον; IIL8-9 ἀφελεῖν ... προσθεῖναι ... προσθέντα ñ ἀφελόντα; also 1.2 οἱ πένητες καὶ ὁ δῆμος ... τῶν γενναίων καὶ τῶν πλουσίων. * Antithesis: L5 (aj) ἐν γὰρ τοῖς βελτίστοις (42) Evi ἀκολασία τε ὀλιγίστη καὶ ἀδικία. (a,) ἀκρίβεια δὲ πλείστη εἰς τὰ χρηστά, (b,) ἐν δὲ τῷ δήμῳ (bj)

ἀμαθία τε πλείστη καὶ ἀταξία καὶ πονηρία [n.b. two a-privatives, as in aj]: (bj) fj τε γὰρ πενία αὐτοὺς μᾶλλον ἄγει ἐπὶ τὰ αἰσχρὰ καὶ ἡ ἀπαιδευσία καὶ ἡ ἀμαθία «ἡ» 6v ἔνδειαν χρημάτων ἐνίοις τῶν ἀνθρώπων; 11.2 τοῖς μὲν κατὰ γῆν ἀρχομένοις οἷόν τ᾽ ἐστὶν ... τοῖς δὲ κατὰ θάλατταν ἀρχομένοις ... οὐχ οἷόν τε κτλ. (here too the second limb is expanded by means of ἃ γάρ clause); 11.17 xai ἂν μέν τι ἀναβαίνῃ ἀπὸ ὧν ὁ δῆμος ἐβούλευσεν, αἰτιᾶται ὁ

δῆμος

ὡς ὀλίγοι ἄνθρωποι αὐτῷ ἀντιπράττοντες διέφθειραν: ἐὰν δέ τι

ἀγαθόν. σφίσιν αὐτοῖς τὴν αἰτίαν ἀνατιθέασι." * Isocolon: [.19 διὰ τὴν κτῆσιν τὴν ἐν τοῖς ὑπερορίοις καὶ διὰ τὰς ἀρχὰς τὰς

εἰς τὴν ὑπερορίαν. * Hyperbole: 1.1 τἄλλα διαπράττονται ἃ δοχοῦσιν ἁμαρτάνειν τοῖς ἄλλοις Ἕλλησι; 11.17 προφάσεις μυρίας ἐξηύρηκε τοῦ μὴ ποιεῖν ὅσα ἂν μὴ βούλωνται (Kalinka [1913] 239-240 characterizes the perfect ἐξηύρηκε as sarcastic); III.2 οὐδ᾽ of σύμπαντες ἄνθρωποι (for context see n. 47 below);

? 82 B # tion) *!

Tricola are prominent in the earliest rhetorical literature, e.g. Gorg. Hel. DK 11.6, 7, 17, Pal. DK 82 B 11a.4, 11, 19. See also Frisch (1942) 167. A characteristic also noted by Lapini (1997) 192 and (in a different connec205. See Dover (1997) 36. Cf. 1.18 τούς τε στρατηγοὺς xai τοὺς τριηράρχους xai

πρέσβεις.

42 The locations of c, εὔνοια and c, κακόνοια were fixed by the desire to balance the two -vota compounds, a corresponsion which produces a gnomic effect; see Fehling (1969) 251-252.

9 See Ros (1938) 130-138, esp. 131-135; Lapini (1997) 239-240.

# See also Dover (1997) 157; Kalinka (1913) 93, 101. * For expansion of the first limb in the antithesis, see p. 226 above (on 1.3).

230

MARK JOYAL cf. 1.13 xataA£Auxev, used with patent exaggeration about the abolition of γυμναστιχή and μουσική in Athens.”

* Figurae etymologicae: 1.3 ἄρχειν ταύτας τὰς ἀρχάς; IL1 φέρουσι τὸν

ν;

1.2 ἑορτάσαι ἑορτάς ... δίκας ... ἐκδικάζειν ... βουλὴν βουλεύεσθαι"; III.5

ἐάν τε ὑβρίζωσί τινες ἄηθες ὕβρισμα. * Formulaic εἴποι δ᾽ ἄν τις, generally to introduce an objection: 1.6-7 (twice, in succession, with the second in asyndeton), 1.15, also III.12 ὑπολάβοι δέ

τις ἄν"; cf. IIL6 εἰπάτω γάρ τις, IIL7 φέρε δή, ἀλλὰ φήσει τις. * Rhetorical questions: IL11 εἰ γάρ τις πόλις πλουτεῖ ξύλοις ναυπηγησίμοις, ποῖ διαθήσεται, ἐὰν μὴ πείσῃ τὸν ἄρχοντα τῆς θαλάττης; τί δ᾽ εἴ τις σιδήρῳ

Tj χαλχῷ fj λίνῳ πλουτεῖ πόλις, ποῖ διαθήσεται, ἐὰν μὴ πείσῃ τὸν ἄρχοντα τῆς θαλάττης; (the repetition seems to be a further attempt at rhetorical effect rather than colloquial repetition of the kind noted earlier); III.13 πῶς ἂν οὖν ἀδίκως οἵοιτό τις ἂν κτλ.

* Praeteritio: 11.5 πολλὰ ἔτι πάνυ παραλείπω.

* Anastrophe: 1.20 ... διὰ μελέτην’ ἐμελέτησαν δὲ ...

It may be observed too that the author has apparently made an effort—though incomplete—to avoid hiatus (even if allowance is made here for the vagaries of textual transmission, in particular the introduction or elimination of elision).? Among exceptions are L3 πλείω ὠφελεῖται

ἐν

τῷ

μὴ

αὐτός,

IL3 εἰσάγεσθαί

τι

ἢ

ἐξάγεσθαι,

II.7

ἐπιμισγόμενοι ἄλλῃ ἄλλοις" ὅ τι ἐν Σικελίᾳ ἡδὺ ἢ ἐν Ἰταλίᾳ ἢ ἐν κτλ., IIL3

καὶ ἔτι ἄν ... μέντοι εὖ οἶδα. Given the theme and subject-matter of this treatise, it is hardly unexpected that our author also demonstrates a close familiarity with the language of the politics and democratic institutions of Athens. Not surprisingly some of his vocabulary and phraseology consists simply of

items without which it would be impossible to describe Athenian political life, e.g. δημοκρατία (1.4, 5, 11.20, IIL.1, 8, 12), δημοκρατέομαι (11.20, III.1), ἐκκλησιάζω (1.9), βουλεύειν, "serve in the βουλή“

(L6), δῆμος

=

** See Lapini (1997) 99-100. 47 The first two pairs in III.2 are also part of a rhetorical crescendo: ἑορτάσαι ἑορτὰς ὅσας οὐδεμία τῶν εὐθύνας ἐχδικάζειν ὅσας involves a different shift, the sentence). ** More stylised is the

᾿Ελληνίδων πόλεων ... ἔπειτα δὲ δίκας καὶ γραφὰς καὶ οὐδ᾽ οἱ σύμπαντες ἄνθρωποι ἐκχδικάζουσι. The third pair since τὴν βουλὴν is now subject (sc. δεῖ from earlier in same expression with ἴσως or τάχα; see Fraenkel (1957)

55; de Strycker-Slings (1994) 318 (on PI. Ap. 28b3). ” The sentence is then rounded off by προμεμελετηκότες

in final position.

The usage cited above is less clearly rhetorical than the others adduced here; Denniston (1960) 92-94 provides many parallels which are mostly from nonrhetorical sources.

Ὁ Contra Frisch (1942) 183.

LANGUAGE AND STYLE OF THE OLD OLIGARCH

231

ἐκκλησία (III.1, 3), ÉGo£ev/Goxet, “it seemed /seems good to them,” i.e., "they decreed / decree" (1.1, IL.17, III.1), ὁ βουλόμενος, "whoever/anyone who wishes" (1.2, .6),? συκοφαντοῦσιν (1.14), φύλακας δεσμωτῶν (IILA),? εὔθυναι (III.2), τῶν πρυτανείων (1.16). The ubiquity of the 61x- root in

Ath., which lies at the heart of Greek political discourse in general, hardly needs demonstration (see e.g. p. 228 above). A number of other items, however, are perhaps more suggestive of the language of partisan debate: * ἰσηγορία (1.11; cf. L6 λέγειν ... ἐξ Yonc)™ * εὔνοια, of political φιλία (L7)5

* εὐνομέομαι (L8 bis) and εὐνομία (1.9; cf. καχονομία 1.8), terms which came to

be used with special application to Sparta (whereas the hallmark of democratic Athens was ἰσονομία) ὁ + δημοτικοί]

4 (3x), 157

* ἰσχύς (1.15), ἰσχυρός (1.4), ἰσχύω (1.8, 14) of political power

If the dates that have traditionally been assigned to Ath. are anything near correct, the question imposes itself: Do the language and style of

this treatise exhibit influence from the intellectual movement—traditionally called the “fifth-century enlightenment”—which is associated especially with the sophists and Socrates and was reaching full flower by around 425? Some have answered this question in the affirmative, but few have been very precise about the affinity.? Adherence to certain rhetorical patterns and usages may in itself suggest such influence, but

perhaps it is possible to go further than that. Consider, first, the author's point of departure: although he is unsympathetic to the Athenian system of government, he seeks to show that the Athenians have organized their state in the way best calculated to achieve their (to him) dubious goals. He does not, it is true, try to make the weaker case stronger, but he does * See de Strycker-Slings (1994) 342 (on Pl. Ap. 31e2), with works cited there.

?' See Thompson (1901) 175 (on PI. Men. 9044); LS] s.v. II.3. 9$ See Rhodes (1981) 308-309 (on Arist. Ath. 24.3). * See Kalinka (1913) 134-135.

$ See de Romilly (1958). 5 E.g. Pl. Cri. 5341, b5, c4; Arist. Pol. 1306°39-1307'1; see Jaeger (1926) 69-85; Kalinka 116-117; Moore (1975) 48-49; Gagarin-Woodruff (1995) 135 n. 119.

57 Dover (1974) 288-292, esp. 289. *$ See LSJ s.vv. ἰσχυρός 1, ἰσχύς L2, ἰσχύω 2.8; de Strycker-Slings (1994) 19-21; also Burnet (1924) 203 (on Pl. Ap. 29d7).

% E.g. Kalinka (1913) 52-61; Frisch (1942) 106-129 (a large proportion of this discussion involves speculation that is only peripherally related to Ath.); Forrest

(1970) 108.

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MARK JOYAL

exercise a cynical detachment which puts us in mind of the sophistic practice of arguing both sides of an issue with equal conviction (cf. the Dissoi Logoi and Antiphon's Tetralogies). We may think, for example, of

certain characters in Plato's dialogues who assume a position which they do not necessarily support—Thrasymachus in Book 1 of the Republic is the most obvious example*—or of the arguments from expediency in Thucydides’

Mytilenean Debate (3.37-48) and Melian Dialogue (5.85-

113). Moreover, the fact that he frames his discussion at least partly in the form of a debate—for example, through the use of second-person singular verbs (1.8-11), rhetorical questions (II.11, III.13) and hypothetical objections (1.6-7, 15, IIL6, 12, 7)—merits attention, since in literary

evidence from the fifth century the advantages and defects of Athenian democracy

tend to be presented as arguments pro and contra (Hdt.

3.80—83, E. Su. 399-455; cf. Th. 1.69-71). The possibility of political alternatives is indeed expressed in 11.20, where the author makes explicit what had been only implicit in his use of εἵλοντο in I.1.

We also expect that a work which has come under the influence of the sophists will display some predilection for abstract expression and formulation. Our author was utterly unadventurous in his use of abstract

nouns in -σις (the four that appear in Ath. already occur in Homer [3] and Pindar (1]), and a large proportion of the abstracts in -{a that he uses

belongs to the language of Athenian politics, which was always a fertile source for such formations.” Nor does he seem to have been interested in the possibilities afforded by the articular infinitive, of which there are only three examples (1.3 τῷ ... ἄρχειν, II.17 tod μὴ ποιεῖν, IIL13 tod μὴ ...

ἄρχειν). One form of nominal abstraction which deserves notice, how-

ever, is the neuter adjective in agreement with the definite article: 1.5 τὸ βέλτιστον; L6 τὸ ἀγαθόν; 1.12 τὸ ναυτικόν; 1.13 tod δικαίου ... τοῦ ... συμ-

φόρον; II.1 τὸ ὁπλιτικόν; IL19 τῷ ἀγαθῷ ... τῷ καχῷ; IIL10 τὸ βέλτιστον ... τὸ κάκιστον. The antithesis which τὸ σύμφορον forms with τὸ δίκαιον in

1.13 should catch our attention, since it cannot help but remind us of debates over the rival claims of morality and self-interest that were current in sophistic argument;

cf. also III.11 συνήνεγκεν,

L7, 11 λυσιτελεῖ,

1.17

κερδαίνει.“ It is however difficult to pin down the author's position on new learning. His approach to his subject-matter, his vocabulary and usage, and his knowledge of contemporary themes demonstrate that he is a product of his times. But is his position sympathetic or hostile? That 9? See Guthrie (1969) 88-97; cf. Forrest (1970) 108.

5! See Browning (1958) 66. ® See Kalinka (1913) 146.

LANGUAGE AND STYLE OF THE OLD OLIGARCH

233

question does not admit of an easy answer, for it depends at least partly on our interpretation of his use of certain lexical items. For an interesting

test-case we may look at the way that he deals with the concept of ἀκρίβεια, "precision" (L5). It is a quality that he clearly values, for he believes that it is a characteristic of of βέλτιστοι; ὁ δῆμος, on the other hand, is marked by ἀταξία, "disorder" (1.5). Now, the concept of ἀκρίβεια received wide discussion in the fifth century. Thucydides, for instance,

seized upon it as a defining characteristic of his historiographical aims; it is of course one of the features that in his opinion distinguishes his work from that of all his predecessors and contemporaries. Some of the Hippocratic treatises, however, express considerable scepticism over the

possibility that a high level of ἀκρίβεια can be achieved in dealing with human beings and human behaviour? This view of &xpífigta—though not shared by all medical practitioners, as the author of On Ancient Medicine makes clear—obviously has a great deal in common with the relativistic assumptions of the sophists. In extolling ἀκρίβεια, then, is our

author taking an anti-sophistic stance? Perhaps he is doing so incidentally, but his principal motive is rather that which Gordon Shrimpton has identified as "intellectual snobbery."* This point becomes still when we consider the author's attribution of ἀπαιδευσία who lack ἀκρίβεια. Given that these people are likely to include of some of the most penetrating Hippocratic treatises, as well as

clearer to those authors sophists

and many who came under their influence, it is hard to take seriously the charge that those who place a lower premium on ἀχρίβεια have no παιδεία. Indeed, scepticism about ἀκρίβεια was a resilient thing, for

around seventy-five years later Aristotle took the view that the inclination to formulate precise rules in human affairs is a sign of ἀπαιδευσία

(Met. 1006'2-11, 1078*9-13, cf. 982*25-28). I believe that our author is using ἀπαιδευσία as a class label; here it means "lack of culture” or, at least,

lack of the kind of παιδεία that he thinks worthy of the name. This evidence suggests that he does not have a narrow intellectual agenda but is interested rather in simply disparaging those whose social class and po-

litical sympathies differ from his. This observation, I think, applies to his attitude towards new learning in general.

Whatever may have been the case in fourth-century Attic literature, for fifth-century Attic prose at any rate it makes little sense to think in terms of a single "style." Hence in pseudo-Xenophon—or, for that mat-

ter, in Antiphon and Thucydides—there are features which resist easy classification. What are we to make, for instance, of the locative dative 9 On Hippocratic attitudes towards ἀκρίβεια, see Kühn (1956) 11-13, 33-34, 48-52, 78-83 et passim; Lloyd (1987) 128-131, 253-254, 279281.

% Shrimpton (1998) 81.

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MARK JOYAL

πάσῃ γῇ in 1.5? It is a rare prose usage and may reasonably be considered

a poeticism, and therefore archaic in its flavour. What is the purpose of the relative clause in IL6 νόσους τῶν καρπῶν ot éx Διός εἰσιν, which is as

close as this author comes to the use of metaphor?* Is the hyperbaton in L8 πόλις ...

ἡ βελτίστη a rhetorical ingredient or a colloquial element?

Does the prepositional phrase ἄνευ νεῶν ÉxnAov (1.16) suggest an urge to test the verbal possibilities in the abstract ἔκπλους Some other expressions may be archaic reflexes, e.g. III.3 fjv τις ἀργύριον ἔχων προσίῃ πρὸς

βουλὴν ἢ δῆμον, where the articles were omitted from the prepositional phrase (cf. HI.1 οὐκ ... τῇ βούλῃ οὐδὲ τῷ δήμῳ) because βουλὴ fj δῆμος

(and βουλὴ καὶ δῆμος) was probably considered a fixed expresssion.” As has often been observed, 0aAaocoxpáropec in IL2 and II.14 shows the

Ionic spelling in -oc-. This form, however, does not indicate the dialectal influence that it has been thought to show since it and θάλασσα were familiar forms in contemporary Attic speech, and in both of its occur-

rences in Ath. 9aAaccoxpáropec is glossed by phrases that contain the Attic form in -tt-.% The only words in this treatise whose Ionic formations may be considered significant are, in fact, II.6 εὐθηνούσης, 11.17 ἅσσα and IIL3 ἤν (= ἐάν). All these are not, in my opinion, indications

of date or specific literary influence, but rather markers of the author's personal style. As he remarks in words that could be aptly applied to himself (11.8), φωνὴν πᾶσαν ἀκούοντες ἐξελέξαντο τοῦτο μὲν ἐκ τῆς τοῦτο δὲ ἐκ τῆς.

In general, however, our author's style lacks syntactical complexity,

and it is tempting to infer from this that he is not a thinker of high calibre. While that may indeed be so, I am inclined in any case to put this lack of complexity down to his confidence in the rightness of his positions. For it is apparent that he does not see himself as wrestling with fine distinctions and difficult concepts that defy the application of λόγος $ See Bers (1984) 86-101, esp. 95-97. Kalinka (1913) 108 considers πάσῃ γῇ to be dative of interest. Another archaic influence may perhaps be seen in the author's occasional practice of strengthening a preverb with a synonymous adverb or adverbial phrase: II.2 συνάρασθαι εἰς τὸ αὐτό; συνελθοῦσιν εἰς ταὐτό; see Jaeger (1957).

* Schmid-Stahlin (1940) 154 n. 3 compare Hom. Od. 9.411 νοῦσόν γ᾽ ob πως ἔστι Διὸς μεγάλου ἀλέασθαι; for further parallels (not all relevant) see also Lapini

(1997) 173-174. On the absence of metaphor in Ath., see Frisch (1942) 169-170. 67 See Schwyzer-Debrunner 24; also Kalinka (1913) 270.

$ IL2 τοῖς δὲ κατὰ θάλατταν ἀρχομένοις and ἡ γὰρ θάλαττα ἐν tà μέσῳ, of δὲ χρατοῦντες

θαλασσοχράτορές

εἰσιν, 11.14 ἕως τῆς θαλάττης ἦρχον. It must be

noted, however, that θάλαττα never has unanimous support from the primary witnesses of Ath. 9 See Dover (1950) 51 n. 2 = (1988) 23 n. 26; Janko (1997) 62.

LANGUAGE AND STYLE OF THE OLD OLIGARCH

235

(hence, perhaps, the relative dearth of abstract language in this treatise), or with competing beliefs that deserve equally serious consideration. From these perspectives it is instructive to compare briefly our author's style with those of Gorgias and Thucydides. Many Hellenists are familiar with Denniston's famous verdict on

Gorgias: "Starting with the initial advantage of having nothing in particular to say, he was able to concentrate all his energies upon saying

it”? Whatever caricature there may be in this statement,” we can see from the Defence of Palamedes and the Encomium of Helen that for Gorgias, content is at the service of style and expression. His themes are pulled from the mythical past and are transformed into vehicles for his rhetorical tours de force, in particular through his addiction to such devices as antithesis and isocolon. The contrast with Thucydides could hardly be more striking. Adam Parry demonstrated convincingly in his Harvard dissertation, and then in an article shortly before his death, that although

both Gorgias and Thucydides are practitioners of a markedly abstract and antithetical style, Thucydides struggles with a recalcitrant subjectmatter which, because of its nature, he is unable to package in the tidy patterns that we find in Gorgias.” Rare is the Thucydidean antithesis that presents carefully balanced alternatives; more commonly one of the limbs breaks away from the structure and seems to acquire a life of its

own. While it is possible to identify rough parallels in Ath. with stylistic features of both Gorgias and Thucydides, it is apparent that the Old Oligarch has staked out territory of his own: neither is his expression obses-

sively symmetrical, though regularity is frequently a trait of his style, nor does he habitually upset the balance of his antitheses and overturn his reader’s expectations, though he has clearly sought variation in syntactical structure.” Instead he has sought to set out his position without ambiguity. He lays claim, after all, to ἀκρίβεια as a distinguishing characteristic of people like him, while attributing ἀταξία to à δῆμος (1.5). This, I think, is why he does not pause over his use of terms such as oi πονηροί, oi χείρους, of χρηστοί and oi βέλτιστοι. For him their meanings

7 Denniston (1960) 12.

7 Lloyd (1979) 81-85, for one, sees Gorgias as a key figure in ancient analyses of persuasion and of the role in it played by argument. n Parry (1957), esp. 41-47, 62-89, idem (1989) 188-194; see also Thesleff (1966) 104; Lesky (1971) 541-542; Palmer (1980) 165-166. For a brief assessment of the

style of Thucydides' contemporary Antiphon from a similar basis, see Gagarin (1997) 30-31; also Palmer (1980) 158-160, 166; Finley (1939) 76-77.

P ] do not find convincing the argument by Frisch (1942) 181-184 that the differences between pseudo-Xenophon and Gorgias are to be explained through reference to the evolution of Attic prose.

236

MARK JOYAL

or references do not convey even a hint of an inherent ambivalence, even

though the actual usage of various authors proves that these terms are among the most mercurial in the Greek vocabulary.” We know far too little about the Old Oligarch to say that in his case “the style is the author.” Yet the relatively simple but vigorous writing with which he gives voice to strong opinions and uncompromising positions may well make him seem like much more than simply a text. That, of course, is why he gained his nickname in the first place. As to whether this study supports such a characterization as that name implies, I leave it to others to draw their own conclusions.

REFERENCES

Aly, W. 1929. Formprobleme der früheren griechischen Prosa. Philologus Suppl. 21/3.

Leipzig. Bers, V. 1984. Greek Poetic Syntax in the Classcial Age. New Haven/

London.

Bowersock, G.W. 1966. "Pseudo-Xenophon," HSCP 71: 33-58. Browning, R. 1958. "Greek abstract nouns in -otc, -tt¢,” Philologus 102: 60-73.

Burnet, J. 1911. Plato's Phaedo. Oxford.

Carey, C. 1989. Lysias: Selected Speeches. Cambridge. Denniston, J.D. 1954. The Greek Particles. Oxford".

. 1960. Greek Prose Style. Oxford’. Dodds, E.R. 1959. Plato: Gorgias. Oxford. Dover, K.J. 1974. Greek Popular Morality in the Time of Plato and Aristotle. Oxford.

. "The chronology of Antiphon's speeches,” CQ 44 (1950) 44-60 = Dover, The Greeks and their Legacy. Collected Papers, 11. Oxford 1988. 13-35 . 1981. "The colloquial stratum in classical Attic prose," in G.S. Shrimpton and D.J. McCargar, eds. Classical Contributions: Studies in Honour of Malcolm Francis McGregor. Locust Valley, NY. 15-25 = Dover, Greek and the Greeks. Col-

lected Papers, 1. Oxford 1987. 16-30. . 1997. The Evolution of Greek Prose Style. Oxford. Dunbar, N. 1994. Aristophanes: Birds. Oxford. Fehling, D. 1969. Die Wiederholungsfiguren und ihr Gebrauch bei den Griechen vor Gorgias. Berlin. Finley, J.H. 1939. "The origins of Thucydides' style," HSCP 50: 35-84. Flores, E. 1982. Il sistema non riformabile. La pseudosenofontea

"Costituzione degle

Ateniesi' e l'Atene periclea. Naples. Forrest, W.G. 1970. "The date of the pseudo-Xenophontic Athenaion Politeia," Klio 52: 107-116.

Fraenkel, E. 1950. Aeschylus: Agamemnon. Oxford. . 1957. Horace. Oxford. Frankel, H. 1962. Dichtung und Philosophie des frühen Griechentums. Munich’.

^* Gee, e.g., Dover (1974) 52-53, 61-65.

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237

Frisch, H. 1942. The Constitution of the Athenians. Copenhagen. Gagarin, M., and P. Woodruff, eds. 1995. Early Greek Political Thought from Homer to the Sophists. Cambridge. Gagarin, M. 1997. Antiphon: The Speeches. Cambridge. Gigante, M. 1953. La Costituzione degli Ateniesi: Studi sullo pseudo-Senofonte. Naples. Gildersleeve, B.L. 1900. Syntax of Classical Greek, 2 vols. New York. Gomme, A.W. 1940. "The Old Oligarch,” HSCP supplementary volume 1: 211-245. Guthrie, W.K.C. 1969. A History of Greek Philosophy, 3. Cambridge. Haffter, H. 1956. "Die Komposition der pseudoxenophontischen Schrift vom Staat der Athener," in Navicula Chiloniensis. Studia Philologica F. Jacoby Profes-

sori Chiloniensi emerito octuagenario oblata. Leiden. 79-87. Hierache, R. 1970. Grundzüge der griechischen Sprachgeschichte bis zur klassischen Zeit. Wiesbaden. Jacoby, F. 1947. "The first Athenian prose writer,” Mnemosyne 3.13: 13-64. Jaeger, W. 1926. "Solons Eunomia," Sitzungsberichte der Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 11: 69-85. Jaeger, W. 1957. "Adverbiale Verstárkung des praepositionalen Elements von

Verbalkomposita in griechischen Dichtern," RAM 100: 378-385. Janko, R. 1997. "The physicist as hierophant: Aristophanes, Socrates and the authorship of the Derveni papyrus," ZPE 118: 61-94.

Joyal, M. 2000. The Platonic Theages: An Introduction, Commentary and Critical Edi-

tion. Philosophie der Antike, Bd. 10. Stuttgart. Kalinka, E. 1913. Die pseudoxenophontische AOHNAIQN NOAITEIA. Leipzig/ Berlin. Kühner-Gerth = Kühner, R. Ausführliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache, 1. dritte Auflage: Zweiter Teil, Satzlehre, besorgt von B. Gerth. Hannover/ Leipzig 1898-1904. Kühn, J.-H. 1956. System- und Methodenprobleme im Corpus Hippocraticum. Hermes Einzelschrift 11. Wiesbaden. Lanza, D. 1977. "Osservazioni linguistiche all' Athenaion Politeia," Prometheus 3: 211-220. Lapini, W. 1997. Commento all' Athenaion Politeia dello pseudo-Senofonte. Florence. Leduc, C. 1976. La Constitution d'Athènes attribuée a Xenophon. Paris. Lesky, A. 1971. Geschichte der griechischen Literatur. Bern/ Munich’. Lilja, 5. 1968. On the Style of the Earliest Greek Prose. Helsinki. Lloyd, G.E.R. 1979. Magic, Reason and Experience: Studies in the Origins and Development of Greek Science. Cambridge. . 1987. The Revolutions of Wisdom: Studies in the Claims and Practice of Ancient Greek Science. Sather Classical Lectures 52. Berkeley/Los Ange-

les/ London. Mackay, E.A. et al. 1999. "The bystander at the ringside: Ring-composition in early Greek poetry and Athenian black-figure vase-painting," in E.A. Mackay, ed. Signs of Orality. Leiden. 115-142. Moore, J.M. 1975. Aristotle and Xenophon on Democracy and Oligarchy. Berkeley /

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Los Angeles. Müller, C.W. 1975. Die Kurzdialoge der Appendix Platonica. Philologische Beiträge zur nachplatonischen Sokratik. Studia et Testimonia Antiqua 17. Munich.

Norden, E. 1956. Agnostos Theos. Stuttgart‘. Palmer, L.R. 1980. The Greek Language. Atlantic Highlands, NJ. Parry, A. 1957. Logos and Ergon in Thucydides. diss. Harvard; repr. Salem, NH 1988. . 1989. "Thucydides' use of abstract language," repr. in A.M. Parry. The Language of Achilles and Other Papers. Oxford. 177-194.

Pfister, F. 1916-18. “Vulgärgriechisches in der ps. xenophontischen ᾿Αθηναίων πολιτεία,“ Philologus 73: 558-562. Powell, J.G.F. 1988. Cicero: Cato Maior de Senectute. Cambridge. Rhodes, P.J. 1981. A Commentary on the Aristotelian Athenaion Politeia. Oxford. Riddell, J. 1867. A Digest of Platonic Idioms, in his edition of the Apology. Oxford;

repr. Amsterdam 1967. de Romilly, J. 1958. "Eunoia in Isocrates," JHS 78: 92-101.

Ros, J.G.A. 1938. Die μεταβολή (variatio) als Stilprinzip des Thukydides. Nijmegen; repr. Amsterdam 1968.

Rupprecht, E. 1939. Die Schrift vom Staate der Athener: Interpretationen. Klio Beiheft 44. Wiesbaden; repr. 1962.

Schmid, W. and O. Stáhlin. 1940. Geschichte der griechischen Literatur, 1.3. Munich.

Schwyzer-Debrunner = Schwyzer, E. Griechische Grammatik, Zweiter Band, ver-

vollstandigt und herausgegeben A. Debrunner. Munich 1950. Shrimpton, G. 1998. "Accuracy in Thucydides," AHB 12: 71-82. Slings, S.R. 1992. "Written and spoken language: An exercise in the pragmatics of

the Greek sentence," CP 87: 95-109. . 1997. "Figures of speech and their look-alikes," in E. Bakker, ed. Grammar as Interpretation: Greek Literature in its Linguistic Contexts. Mnemosyne Supple-

ment 171. Leiden/New York/Kóln.

. 1999. Plato: Clitophon. Cambridge Classical Texts and Commentaries 37. Cambridge. de Strycker, E. and S.R. Slings. 1994. Plato's Apology of Socrates: A Literary and Philosophical Study wth a Running Commentary. Mnemosyne Supplement 137.

Leiden/New York/Kóln. Thesleff, H. 1966. "Scientific and technical style in early Greek prose," Arctos 4: 89-113.

. 1967. Studies in the Styles of Plato. Helsinki.

Thompson, E.S. 1901. The Meno of Plato. London. Trenkner, S. 1960. Le Style KAI dans le récit attique oral. Assen. Vidal, G. Ramirez. 1997. “Ancora sulla data dell’ Athenaion Politeia: l'Anonimo e Andocide," in M. Gigante, G Maddoli, eds. L'Athenaion Politeia dello pseudoSenofonte. Perugia. 27-45. Watkins, C. 1995. How to Kill a Dragon: Aspects of Indo-European Poetics. Oxford. Wenskus, O. 1982. Ringkomposition, anaphorisch-rekapitulierende Verbindung und anknüpfende Wiederholung in hippokratischen Corpus. Frankfurt. West, M.L. 1971. Early Greek Philosophy and the Orient. Oxford.

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. 1978. Hesiod: Works and Days. Oxford. . 1990. "Colloquialism and naive style in Aeschylus," in E.M. Craik, ed. ‘Owls to Athens’: Essays on Classical Subjects Presented to Sir Kenneth Dover. Oxford. 3-12.

19 NOTHING TO DO WITH MENDAIAN AMPHORAS? ATHENAEUS 11.784C MARK LAWALL

One of the most often cited passages concerning transport amphoras and the amphora trade appears in Book 11 (784c) of Athenaeus, Deipnosophistai. Λύσιππον

τὸν

ἀνδριαντοποιόν

φασι

Kaodvépw

χαριζόμενον,

ὅτε

συνῴκισε τὴν Κασάνδρειαν, φιλοδοξοῦντι καὶ βουλομένῳ ἴδιόν τινα εὑρέσθαι κέραμον διὰ τὸ πολὺν ἐξάγεσθαι τὸν Μενδαῖον οἶνον £x τῆς πόλεως, φιλοτιμηθῆναι καὶ παντοδαπὰ γένη παραθέμενον κεραμίων ἐξ

ἑκάστου ἀποπλασάμενον ἴδιον ποιῆσαι πλάσμα.

They say that in order to gratify Cassander at the time when he founded the metropolis of Cassandreia, he being fond of glory and desirous of appropriating to himself a special kind of vessel because Men-

daean wine was exported from his city in large quantities, the sculptor

Lysippus exerted his best efforts and, after comparing many pieces of earthenware of every description, copied something from each and so invented a special model.!

The historical setting for this event may be summarized as follows. Once Cassander gained power in Macedonia and much of mainland Greece after the death of Antipater, he founded two new cities, Cassandreia and Thessalonike. He established Cassandreia on the site of Potideia in

316/315 by a synoicism of the cities and villages of the region. Diodorus, our most detailed source for these events, singles out the inhabitants of Olynthos in describing the population, but it seems as though other populations were also moved to the new city (Diodorus does not say

that all the other cities were destroyed in favor of the new foundation; cf. the case of Thessalonike).? ! C.B. Gulick, trans., Athenaeus. The Deipnosophists, vol. 5. Loeb Classical Library (London/New

York 1933). All Greek quotations, references to the text, and

translations are from this edition.

? For the career of Cassander see W.L. Adams, Cassander, Macedonia, and the policy of Coalition (diss. University of Virginia 1975) and M. Fortina, Cassandro, re di Macedonia (Torino 1965). For the foundation and subsequent history of Cassandreia see G.M. Cohen, The Hellenistic Settlements in Europe, the Islands and Asia

Minor (Berkeley 1995) 95-99 and M. Zahrnt, Olynth und die Chalkidier (Munich 241

242

MARK LAWALL

The passage is generally interpreted to indicate that Cassander commissioned a model amphora from Lysippos that would then be used as the new, distinctive wine jar for exports of Mendaian wine. For C.G.

Koehler, this text supports the idea that each city produced a distinctive jar form as a means of "commodity advertising." F. Salviat sees in this passage a desire on the part of Cassander to insure and maintain a profitable export trade; the Lysippan model is taken as an example of the state imposing a unique form of commercial vessel in part to guarantee

the acceptability of its capacity.‘ L.K. Whitbread uses the passage as a cautionary tale warning against the assumption that we can now iden-

tify all the different amphoras of antiquity; no one has yet been able to identify this Lysippan masterpiece. J.K. Papadopoulos and S. Paspalas 1971) 115-121. The most informative source for the foundation is Diodorus 19.52.2 and 19.61.2; for the date of the foundation (316/5 B.C.), see Marmor Parium (FGrH IIB. B14). On this and other Hellenistic examples of synoikia, see P.

Musiolek, "Zum Begriff und zur Bedeutung des Synoikismos," Klio 63 (1981) 211-212. Cohen provides the reference for an inscription identifying a citizen of

Cassandreia with the demotic Hippolyteus, which has been interpreted as the deme of the old site of Mende (see J.M. Alexander, "Cassandreia during the Ma-

cedonian period. An epigraphical commentary," Apyala Μακεδονία 1 [1970] 129). J.K. Papadopoulos and S. Paspalas, "Mendaian as Chalkidian wine," Hespe-

ria 68 (1999) 173 suggest that the significant reduction in the size of Torone on

the neighboring peninsula was also a result of forced population movements required by the creation of Cassandreia. Zahrnt (op. cit.) 112-114 considers the

problematic references to frequent violence in the region in the middle of the fourth century, thereby making one hesitate to attribute all problems to Cassander, particularly "archaeologically visible" problems whose dating may be less precise than the references in our textual sources. 3 C.G. Koehler, "Wine amphoras in ancient Greek trade," in P. McGovern, S.J. Fleming, and S.H. Katz, eds., The Origins and Ancient History of Wine (Amsterdam 1996) 326. *F. Salviat,

"Vignes

et vins

anciens

de Maronée

à Mendé,”

in Μνήμη

A.

AaÇaplôn. Πόλις καὶ χώρα στὴν ἀρχαία Μακεδονία xal Opáxn. Meaxtixd dpyαἰιολογικοῦ συνεδρίου.

Καβάλα 9-11

Μαΐου

1986 (Thessalonike 1990) 474-475.

Salviat here also refers to Plin. Nat. 35.161 (two Erythraian potters' amphoras are displayed in the sanctuary after a contest to see who could make the thinnerwalled vessel) as a related example of state dictation concerning the appearance

and quality of amphoras. There is, however, no need to read the passage from Pliny as referring to any sort of amphora that would have been used for commerce; the reference to a contest for thin walled vessels surely refers either to an impractically thin-walled transport jar, or more likely to fine table amphoras (cf. A. Tchernia, "Amphores et texts: deux exemples," in J.-Y. Empereur and Y. Garlan, eds., Recherches sur les amphores grecques. BCH Supplement 13 [Athens 1986] 31-34). 51.Κ. Whitbread,

Greek Transport Amphorae: A Petrological and Archaeological

Study (Athens 1995) 36.

ATHENAEUS 11.784C

243

note that in the fourth century and especially after 316 B.C., with the creation of Cassandreia, the city of Mende was not the sole exporter of Mendaian wine. They argue that it is better to read "Mendaian wine" here as the type of wine being exported from Cassandreia, without refer-

ence to the specific civic origin of that wine All of these writers infer from the text that the newly designed jar was intended to fill a need for such a vessel in the new city's export trade. In this brief note, I would like to reconsider the interpretation of this passage from two perspectives: first, the context of the passage in Book 11 and the ambiguity of the term κέραμος (and related terms); and sec-

ond, Lysippus's or Cassander's intention for this new vessel. The result of this reconsideration

lends greater weight

to Papadopoulos

and

Paspalas's overall thesis concerning the importance of amphora forms as indicating wine-type rather than being an advertisement for a specific

city.

CONTEXT

Unfortunately this particular section of Book 11 (at 11.466d-e, according

to the pagination in the Casaubon edition, first published 1597-1598) is missing from the only extant copy of the original work, the codex Marcianus (copied between 895 and 917 A.D.). J. Schweighaeuser, in his 1801-1807 edition, inserted 11.781-4 from the Paris epitome manuscript

into this missing section of the codex Marcianus." The inserted section ends in the middle of a quotation in the original manuscript, so there is no reason to doubt the accurate placement of this section of the epitome. The original text for the passage on Cassandreia may have included more detailed citations and quotations, but the essential contents can be considered in light of the broader context of the passage as Athenaeus arranged his references and citations. Book 11 is a discussion of cups, and the topic is being addressed at the most literal level near the passage in question. Various kinds of cups are defined, including the ἄλεισον and its equivalent the δέπας (11.783a-b), the Cypriot ἄωτον (11.783a), the wooden milk cup, ἄμφωξις

(11.783d), and the Cretan cup for hot drinks, ἀναφαία (11.783f). The words used most commonly

for "cups" are ποτήρια and ἐκπώματα.

* Papadopoulos and Paspalas (above, n. 2) 177-180. ? The Paris epitome was written ca. 1476-1506 on the basis of an earlier, lost,

tenth- or eleventh-century epitome. For these details of the manuscript history,

see G. Arnott, "Athenaeus and the Epitome: Texts, manuscripts and early editions," in D. Braund and J. Wilkins, eds., Athenaeus and his World: Reading Greek

Culture in the Roman Empire (Exeter 2000) 42-43, 47, 51-52; and Gulick (above, n. 1)34 n. 4 and 56n.3.

244

MARK LAWALL

When necessary, these terms are modified by xepauéa (often, though not always, with a negative connotation, 11.464). Generally the term xépapoc, both here and elsewhere, is taken to mean jar (or rooftile in

other texts). In one passage, however, the term κέραμος more likely refers to dining and drinking vessels, when a slave brags (11.471d) "I

could make the crockery cleaner than Thericles could make his kylikes" (καθαρώτερον γὰρ τὸν κέραμον εἰργαζόμην fj Θηρικλῆς τὰς κύλικας). It is

possible therefore that the term χέραμος is used in the Cassandreia passage to mean clay cup. A special cup, to be entered into the "cup repertoire" as a celebration of Kasandreia's vast exports of wine, would be a fitting desire for a king who is described as φιλοδοξῶν. Indeed, earlier in the same section (11.783e), Athenaeus defines three cups with royal names: "Antigonis is a cup named after King Antigonus, just as the seleukis was named after Seleucus, and the prusias after Prusias" (ANTITONIZ ἔκπωμα ἀπὸ τοῦ Βασιλέως

'Avttyóvov, óc ἀπὸ Σελεύκου ZEAEYKIXZ

xai ἀπὸ Προυσίου

ΠΡΟΥΣΙΑΣ). The creation of a special cup-type seems to have been a feature of Hellenistic kingship. Cassander avidly pursued the other ele-

ments of his new job,’ so it would not be surprising to find this apparently sudden interest in cup designs.

The even narrower context of the Cassandreia passage, however, renews uncertainty brought in by the term κέραμος. The discussion is not, so far as the epitome presents it, part of a definition of a "Cassandris"cup. Instead the passage comes as the second half of the abridged discussion of a Baukalis, a four-kotylai cup from Alexandria. The writer of

the epitome paraphrases Athenaeus' text immediately preceding the Cassander passage as follows (11.784c): Κατασκευάζουσι ρυθμίζοντες

δέ, φησίν,

πολλαῖς

oi ἐν ᾿Αλεξανδρείᾳ

καὶ ποικίλαις

ἰδέαις ποτηρίων,

τὴν ὕαλον παντὸς

μεταρτοῦ

παν-

ταχόθεν κατακομιζομένου κεράμου τὴν ἰδέαν μιμούμενοι.

Athenaeus further says that the men of Alexandria make glass, working it into many varied shapes of cups, and copying the shape of every kind of pottery that is imported among them from everywhere? * On the idea of city-foundation as an element of Hellenistic kingship, see Adams (above, n. 2) 98-99; Fortina (above, n. 2) 40-41. One type of cup, the Herakleon (Athen. 11.469) is named for a hero (I thank E. Trinkl for drawing this

passage to my attention), but the etymology of this cup name may be a rather disparaging reference to the gluttony of Heracles. Worship in the form of a herolike ruler cult does not seem to have been a desire of Cassander (see Alexander

[above, n. 2] 128). ?]t may be noted that Gulick has used "Athenaeus says" here for φησίν, whereas in the Cassandreia passage he uses the more literal "they say ..." The term should be seen as simply a signal that the writer of the epitome is now

ATHENAEUS 11.784C

245

The idea of imitation of multiple, available models leading to a new

product might therefore be the raison d'étre for the Cassandreia passage rather than the topic of cups. Here, xépauoc is used as the ceramic cups being imitated, but, again, the term does more often refer to jars. Given

that we are faced here with the tenth- or eleventh-century A.D. paraphrasing of the original (and even Athenaeus' original text was written of course long after the events being reported), it seems dangerous to

place much emphasis on choice of words. It is clear, for example, that between the Hellenistic and late Roman periods in Egypt the term κνίδιον shifted meaning from “jar from Knidos" to "locally made jar"

(likely resembling ones from Knidos?).'? Even with this more specific reason for inserting the Cassandreia passage where it appears in the overall work, the broader context of the passage, the references to other cups named for kings, and the apparent self interest on the part of Cassander

(Κασάνδρῳ

... φιλοδοξοῦντι καὶ Bou-

λομένῳ) in this new keramos all seem to point away from simply a utilitarian storage and transport jar and towards a sympotic, celebratory vessel. INTENTION

The role of Cassander's interests introduces the problem of the intended use of the vessel and the instigation for Lysippus' project. The passage is

often discussed as though the new vessel type would be then used for the export of Mendaian wine. The great volume of export, however, is the catalyst (διὰ τὸ πολὺν ἐξάγεσθαι τὸν Mevdatov οἶνον ἐκ τῆς πόλεως)

for the king being desirous of finding a special vessel. There is no mention of Cassandreia being in need of jars; the city's export business was already booming. If cities of the northern Aegean or Greece generally

sought to have jars unique to their city, then certainly one would expect a new city (ignoring its violent origins) to require a new, unique type of jar—less for a practical purpose than to fill a symbolic role. And yet, particularly across the northern Aegean, this equation of one jar type to

one city is very problematic." When the specific point of origin had to be paraphrasing and dropping the specific names of the sources for this information. ? P, Mayerson, "The Knidion jar in Egypt: Popular, made in Egypt, and of unknown capacity," ZPE 131 (2001) 165-167.

Ἧ 1 have argued this point in more detail in Transport Amphoras and Trademarks: Imports to Athens and Economic Diversity in the 5th c. BC (diss. University of Michigan 1995) 116-175, and in "Shape and symbol: Regionalism in 5th century transport amphora production in northeastern Greece," in C. Gillis, C. Risberg, and B. Sjóberg, eds., Trade and Production in Premonetary Greece: Production and Craftsmen: Proceedings of the 4th and 5th Int'l workshops, Athens 1994 and 1995.

246

MARK LAWALL

indicated, northern potters of the late Classical and early Hellenistic periods often resorted to stamps." Jar forms alone were simply too am-

biguous.” A further point regarding intention here is the common interpretation of a commission from the king for Lysippus to design this vessel. Such an interpretation is very likely correct; however, it should be noted that

the passage in fact makes the decision entirely that of Lysippus himself. Lysippus was already well known to the Macedonian court, having worked as Alexander's chief sculptor," so a royal commission for this vessel does seem likely. And yet for the same reason we can assume that Cassander’s personality and desires were well known to Lysippus, and the sculptor may have simply seen an opportunity to ingratiate himself

with the king through this work. He certainly showed himself to be a master of gaining royal favor earlier by making Alexander appropriately

"virile and leonine" in appearance!”

SIMA

Pocket-Book

143 (Jonsered 1997) 113-130. See too Papadopoulos and

Paspalas (above, n. 2); S. Monakhov,

"Zametki po lokalizatsii keramicheskoy

tary. II: Amphory i amphornye kleyma polisov severnoy Egeidy," Antichnyy Mir

i Arkheologiya 10 (1999) 129-147; and S. Schmid, "Eine Gruppe nordägäischer Transportamphoren," AthMitt 114 (1999) 143-156.

12 See Lawall (above, n. 11, 1995) 125-129, 154-156 and (above, n. 11, 1997), 118-120. Note, however, that my attribution of wheel stamps to Akanthos as early as the fifth century is mistaken and was based on the date of a jar illustrated by Rhomiopoulou ("Amphores de la necropole d'Acanthe," in Empereur and Garlan [above, n. 4] figs. 1 and 2) of the early fifth century but whose stamp, on closer inspection, seems to be an A in a circle (Y. Garlan, "Bulletin archéologique: amphores et timbres amphoriques," REG 115 [2002] 189 rightly notes this error; see too Garlan, "Un nouveau centre de timbrage amphorique: Ouranopolis,"

in To apyatoAoyixó

épyo στὴ Maxe6ovía

και Opáxn

10A, 1996

[Thessaloniki 1997] 351, though note that the specific chronology of the wheel

stamps beyond their dating some time in the late fourth and early third centuries is unknown). For the early history of Thasian stamping, see Garlan, Les timbres amphoriques de Thasos. 1 Timbres protothasiens et thasiens anciens. Études thasiennes

18 (Athens/Paris 1999) 41-58.

? This ambiguity of form is amply illustrated by Papadopoulos and Paspalas (above, n. 2).

# For the career of Lysippus, see A. Stewart, Greek Sculpture: An Exploration (New

Haven

1990) 186-191

and 289-293; J.J. Politt, The Art of Ancient Greece:

Sources and Documents (Cambridge 1990) 98-104; P. Moreno, Vita e arte di Lyssipo (Milan 1987); on Lysippus and Alexander the Great, see Plu. Mor. 335a-b and Alex. 4.1. 5 Plu. Mor. 335a-b. Translation from F.C. Babbitt, Plutarch's

Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge 1957).

Moralia,

vol. 4.

ATHENAEUS 11.784C

247

IMPLICATIONS

Despite the decidedly negative tenor of the foregoing comments, I think there are some positive points to be derived from this brief text. First, Papadopoulos and Paspalas may come closest to an appropriate inter-

pretation of the passage. The important point for amphora studies in this text is that cities could export wine that was referred to by a regional label taken from some other city. Hence, as Papadopoulos and Paspalas

note, Mendaian type wine could be produced virtually anywhere.'5 This point goes far in resolving the problems encountered in trying to associate labels for wine with specific cities—"Bibline" and "Pramnian" wines

remain the most problematic in this regard." The second point is that this passage need not send us looking for a new amphora type which combines the best traits of all the others, nor does it necessarily support the idea of deliberate "commodity advertising." This latter assumption was driven by two early observations. First,

the shapes of amphoras pertaining to each city at the initial stages of amphora identification did seem to equate one form with one city. Secondly, cities such as Chios included reasonably accurate "portraits" of

their amphoras on their coins, thereby associating one "badge of the city" (the coin) with another (the amphora). The first point, that each city possessed a unique amphora shape, is no longer tenable in light of definable regional styles around the Aegean encompassing multiple cities. Production on Kos of multiple amphora forms—mixing a northern

look with a southern—further refutes this axiom.? Even with the Koan 18 Papadopoulos and Paspalas (above, n. 2) 175. " The literary references for types of wine are discussed by Salviat (above, n. 4) and "Le vin de Thasos, amphoras et sources écrites," in Empereur and Garlan (above, n. 4) 145-195; and more generally, see R. Brock and H. Wirtjes, "Athe-

naeus on Greek wine," in Braund and Wilkins (above, n. 7) 455—465.

8 For early discussions of the link between Chian stamps and coin images, see V. Grace, "Stamped amphora handles found in 1931-1932," Hesperia 3 (1934)

296; and B. Grakov, "Tara i khraneniye sel'skokhozyaystvennykh produktov v klassicheskoy Gretsii 6"-4* v. do n.e.," in M.S. Al'tman et al., eds., Iz istorii material'nogo proizvodstva antichnogo mira. IGAIMK 108 (Moscow/Leningrad 1935) 178.

? On various regional styles in amphora production, see Lawall (above, n. 11, 1995) passim and "Ceramics and positivism revisited: Greek transport amphoras

and history," in H. Parkins and C. Smith, eds., Trade, Traders and the Greek City (London 1998) 93; on a southern Aegean koine, see J.-Y. Empereur and M. Picon,

“A la recherche des fours d'amphores," in Empereur and Garlan (above, n. 4) 112; on Koan production, see Ch. Kantzia, “Ἕνα xepapuxd epyaotipto auidop£ov τοῦ πρώτου μισοῦ τοῦ dou at. π.Χ. στὴν KG,” in Γ΄ επιστημονιχή ouvávtnon για την ελληνιστιχή χεραμική, 1991 (Athens 1994) 323-354, and V. Georgopoulou, “Kuaxol audopeic από την Καρδάμαινα (apyaia AAacdpva) rnc Ko," in G. Kok-

248

MARK LAWALL

finds, it does still seem as though regional potting traditions were quite strong and long-lived; the northern "experiment" seems quite brief in terms of the range of forms discovered. The same pattern of regional koine and sporadic imitation has been noted in the Troad as well.? And

yet the strength of such traditions need not translate into a deliberate civic policy of advertising through amphora shape. If the coins or amphora stamps show a portrait of the local amphora, it seems likely that the die engraver was simply illustrating "an amphora" of the shape most familiar to him." Many

amphora

illustrations on coins, it should be

noted, are not especially precise.” This is not to deny the activity of advertising in the ancient wine trade. Undeniably, ancient consumers used form and appearance of jars to determine the likely origin of their contents; and various attempts using slips and modifications of traditional forms indicate the occasional

effort to make the jars of one city look more like those of another. But was this “false advertising”? Perhaps not. If “Mendaian wine” was ex-

ported in roughly Mendaian-like containers (e.g., those from Torone or even from Kos), then it would only be honest for exporters of “Rhodian wine" from Knidos to slip their jars with a pale, "Rhodian" slip”; earlier korou-Alevra,

A.A. Laimou,

and E. Simantoni-Bournia,

eds., ἱστορία,

Τέχνη,

ApyatoAoyía tnc Ko (Athens 2001) 107-114. ? Lawall, "Ilion before Alexander: Amphoras and economic archaeology,” Studia Troica 12 (2002), in press.

7 Along the same lines, Attic vase painters often illustrate non-Attic jars on red-figure symposium scenes, but these were presumably the jars that the painters saw in their daily lives (see, e.g., S. Roberts, "The Stoa gutter well. A late archaic deposit in the Athenian Agora," Hesperia 55 [1986] 62-63, pls. 15-16, showing jars possibly of Lesbos and Corinth). ? For examples of amphoras on coins, see L. Anson, Numismatica Graeca. Greek Coin-types Classified for Immediate Identification (London 1911) pls. 1-6,

though note that many of the so-called amphorae are kraters; the coinage of Torone has been used to attribute at least two very different amphora types to that city: late sixth-century amphoras with a rounded rim (P. Dupont, "Archaic East Greek trade amphoras," in R.M. Cook and P. Dupont, eds., East Greek Pottery

[London 1998] 182), and southern Aegean amphoras with a flaring mushroom rim that date to the late fifth century or fourth century (A.P. Mantsevich, "K vo-

prosu o toreutike v skifskuyu epokhu," VDI [1949, 2] 198-199; cf. I. Zeest,

Keramicheskaya tara Bospora. Materialy i issledovaniya po arkheologii SSSR 83 [Moscow 1960] 93). On the other hand, some Samian and Abderan coins do seem to

carry fairly accurate images (1.B. Brashinskyi, "Novye materialy k isucheniyu ekonomicheskikh svyazey Ol'vii b VI - IV vv. do ne.,” Arkheologia 19 [1968] 55-58 for Samos; and C. Peristeri-Otatzi, "Amphores et timbres amphoriques

d'Abdere," in Empereur and Garlan [above, n. 4] 496 and figs. 13 and 14 for Abdera).

3 For creamy slip (imitating Rhodian clay?) on Knidian amphoras, see V.

ATHENAEUS 11.784C

249

dark red fabric "Chian" jars might have carried "Chian-style" wine but simply from another (as yet unknown) city.” Motivations behind styles of craft production are notoriously difficult

to identify in the archaeological record.? This passage from Athenaeus, at least as it has been interpreted in the past, seemed to offer an explicit

testimonium in favor of advertising a specific city through the shape of an amphora. Closer reading of the text, taking account of its context in Book 11, casts doubt on this interpretation. The passage does, as Papadopoulos and Paspalas suggest, provide very useful evidence for the importance of "types" of wine in antiquity as distinct from their cities of actual production.

Grace, "The Middle Stoa dated by amphora stamps," Hesperia 54 (1985) 17; and see Whitbread (above, n. 5) 72, 75-76.

X These dark red "Chian" jars are found at the Athenian Agora and at Gordion (both unpublished). 5 For examples of this field of study, see P. Wiessner, "Style and social information

in Kalahari

San

projectile points,"

American

253-279; R. Larick, "Spears, style and time among

Maa

Antiquity 49 (1983)

speaking

pastoralists,"

Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 4 (1985) 206-220; M.W. Conkey and C. Hastorf, eds., The Uses of Style in Archaeology (Cambridge 1990); and M.T. Stark,

ed., The Archaeology of Social Boundaries (Washington/London 1998). There is a strong tendency in amphora studies to consider the later-discovered type that is similar to another already-defined type as being a deliberate, profit-driven imi-

tation of the "known" type. Serious questions of chronological priority for model and imitation have not been sufficiently addressed (e.g., between Rhodian-island

jars of the Kyrenia shipwreck Knidian jars of the same type). crossing political boundaries, explanations for similarities of

type, Rhodian peraia jars of the same type, and Regional traditions among potters, without doubt should be considered as equally, or more likely, forms.

20 SIMILARITIES IN GENERIC VARIATIONS IN EURIPIDES’ ION AND SOPHOCLES’ PHILOCTETES BRAD LEVETT INTRODUCTION

This paper compares Euripides’ Ion and Sophocles’ Philoctetes in light of their use of the dramatic techniques of the deus ex machina, the méchanéma or intrigue plot, and the anagnôrisis or recognition scene, in contrast to

how these elements are organized and used in other late plays such as Euripides’ Helen and Iphigenia among the Taurians (hereafter IT).' While Ion and Philoctetes are different in many respects, I argue that they both make use of similar generic modifications to these techniques. In particular, both plays present a deus ex machina which is more fully inte-

grated into both the plot structure and themes of their respective plays by functioning as a recognition scene which marks the fulfilment of the intrigue plot itself. My definition for a deus ex machina is the more general one of a god appearing at the end of the play, whether or not the god actually appears on the crane. I understand méchanéma as that type of dramatic action

whereby characters plot together and attempt to obtain a desired goal, typically by means of deception.” For anagnôrisis I adopt Aristotle’s definition (Poetics 11, 1452°29-1452°8), as it is fairly generous in its range of application and includes a broad range of things to be recognized.’ Heracles’ recognition that he murdered his family in Heracles (1088‘Euripides’ Electra is often included with these two plays, as it is also constructed on the lines of anagnórisis - méchanéma - deus ex machina. | have not included it as a comparison piece largely because the Helen and IT can be so closely related. On the similarity of the two plays, see Matthiessen (1964) 16-65. How-

ever, Electra is worth recalling as support for the familiarity of this type of plot

structure in Euripides. ? This use of the term in this context is borrowed from Solmsen (1934) 391.

> E.g. Po. 1455*10-12 where the characters in the play Phineidai are said to recognize that they are destined to die on the basis of their sight of a place (used by Aristotle as an example of recognition by reasoning, the second-best type of recognition). Lucas (1968) 171 compares this to the inference that Oedipus draws when he comes to Colonus (44).

251

252

BRAD LEVETT

1152) and Agave's recognition in Bacchae that she holds the head of her son Pentheus and not that of a lion (1264-84) suggest that tragedy of this period explored just such a broader understanding of the recognition

scene. In Helen and IT the basic structure of these three elements can be described as follows. A recognition scene produces the drive and impetus

for an intrigue plot, which is commented upon by the deus ex machina.‘ In Helen

it is only after Helen

and

Menelaus

recognize

one another

(541-659), and after Theonoe has been won over (894-1029), that Helen can then plan the deception (the sea burial of "Menelaus") which will

free them from Egypt (1049-92). Similarly in IT, it is the (lengthy) process of recognition between Iphigenia and Orestes (456-899) that leads to her plan to cleanse the statue of Artemis by the shore (900-1088), allow-

ing her, her brother, and Pylades to escape with the statue from the Taurians. In terms of the role of the deus ex machina, in Helen the Dioscuri enter at the end of the play largely to validate what the human characters have done on their own (1642—59), and to announce the future fates of Helen

and

Menelaus

(1662-79).

In IT, Athena

enters

and

similarly

validates the initiative of the human characters (1435-1441a), as well as

announcing that she had to take a more direct role in the action, as she quelled a sudden wave at sea that threatened to sweep Iphigenia and Orestes back to shore (1442-5). She also refers to the future, here in the

form of two aitia, one concerning the housing of the sacred statue of Artemis in Athens (1446-61), and the other concerning rites that will be

offered to Iphigenia after her death (1462-9). Hence the deus ex machina

scenes in these plays, while having important thematic links with the rest of the drama,

are only loosely connected

to the dramatic action it-

self. In Ion and Philoctetes we can observe some interesting generic varia* On this basic structure between anagnôrisis and méchanéma, see Solmsen (1934) 391. For the patterning, familiar from the Odyssey, of nostos — anagnórisis — méchanéma, which overlaps with the pattern discussed here, see Matthiessen (1964) 93-143.

* For instance, the Dioscuri's mention that they were not powerful enough to

help their sister out in any direct fashion in the course of the action (1658-61) may be taken as reinforcement of the play's generally positive view of human initiative. Compare Theonoe's decision to help Helen and Menelaus before the issue has been decided among the gods (1005-7).

$ Note that even Athena's intervention to get Poseidon to quell the great wave in IT responds to a very sudden event that was only reported near the end of the play by the messenger (1390-1419). While this sudden wave clearly relates to the play's emphasis on the power of τύχη, its appearance, and Athena's response, is less than integrally related to the action that has preceded.

EURIPIDES' ION AND SOPHOCLES' PHILOCTETES

253

tions in the way that these elements are arranged and used.’ First, the méchanéma is developed to place the role of the gods in greater question by dramatizing this role in the very action of the play. In Ion, the god himself can be understood as putting in motion a méchanéma. This plan

falters and produces the méchanéma of the characters, one in which human action (Creusa's attempt to kill Ion) is in direct conflict with the goal of Apollo's plan, thereby causing the audience to question the god's actions. In Philoctetes the méchanéma contrasts two different objectives, vic-

tory at Troy and the restitution of Philoctetes as an epic hero, and this leads the audience to ask whether Philoctetes is seen by the gods as merely a means to an end, or whether their plans include the welfare and status of the character. Thus, because the méchanéma of the human

characters is motivated by the oracle of Helenus, and since this oracle is unclear in its intentions, the resolution of the plot to get the bow of Heracles

to Troy is in turn the resolution of our understanding

of

heaven's will in the matter of Philoctetes himself. Hence both plays can be understood to highlight the question of the will of the gods by making this question integral to the workings of the intrigue plot itself. Second, whereas in Helen and IT the recognition scene precedes and helps motivate the intrigue plot, in Ion and Philoctetes a recognition scene becomes the object of the intrigue plot, realized in the deus ex machina scene itself, thereby closely linking the three dramatic techniques. The result of these variations is a deus ex machina scene that is well integrated

with both the plot and the thematic content of the play. For the deus ex machina does not now simply comment upon the completed action of the

play, but rather, in that the gods both comment on their own treatment of the human characters (dramatized through the méchanéma) and repre-

sent the resolution of this intrigue plot by producing the anagnórisis to

which the méchanéma has tended, they themselves mark the full completion of the tragic action. The deus ex machina has been understood by scholars in various ways.

Spira essentially gives a theological explanation, arguing that the texts of ? [on is often noted for the technical virtuosity of its plot. See Solmsen (1934)

390—406, Matthiessen (1964) 138-139, Conacher (1967) 267-269. Similarly, Philoctetes has often been understood as using the deus ex machina in a more integrated manner.

See Whitman

(1951) 187-188, Dunn

(1996) 38-39 (contrast, however,

Craik [1979] 22). When Ion in particular is compared to the extant works of Sophocles, it is often paired with Oedipus Tyrannus, since the story of Ion can be understood as the positively resolved story of the foundling. See Hanson (1975) 28-29, Segal (1999) 100-102 and 108 n. 80. Finally, note that lon, Philoctetes, Helen and IT are all similar in their use of material derived from Comedy. For lon asa comedy see Knox (1979) 257-270, and for the comic elements in Philoctetes see Greengard (1987) 51-66. Cf. also Craik (1979) 16-18.

254

BRAD LEVETT

Euripides which contain a deus ex machina scene are unified by an ac-

ceptance of the traditional theological order. Nicolai presents a historical explanation, arguing that the deus ex machina was a response to the failure of the Sicilian expedition, designed to distract the audience from their own hardships by means of miraculous happy endings. Dunn un-

derstands the deus ex machina as both a formal attempt at closure for the tragic genre as well as a means for Euripides to bring to the fore the very

difficulties that necessitate such an attempt, and in response to create open-ended tragedies.’ In contrast,

I do not argue for a general, all-

inclusive explanation of the technique, but rather, by looking at the deus ex machina in Ion and Philoctetes in conjunction with other techniques, I emphasize that it was a flexible dramatic tool which could be variously

utilized. I suggest that, whatever its original cause might have been, there need not be a definitive purpose or "key" to the deus ex machina,

but rather that its versatility as a dramatic device is sufficient as a general explanation for its use. ION

In Ion, the intervention of the gods in mortal affairs is clear from the beginning of the play. After talking of Apollo's rape of Creusa and the birth of Ion and his exposure (10-27), Hermes goes on to show that the

god has taken direct action in order to bring things to a desired conclu-

sion. Apollo had Hermes rescue Ion, placed at the temple at Delphi, and made sure that the Priestess took pity on the child and reared him as her own in the temple (28-51). Now Creusa has come to Delphi with her

husband Xuthus for an oracle concerning their prospects for having children. Hermes then states that Apollo will claim that Xuthus is the father of Ion, so that Ion will be accepted in Athens, and so that Apollo's union with Creusa will not become known

(69-73). Hence the plan of

Apollo itself can be viewed as a méchanéma. First, there is the sense that Hermes and Apollo are here plotting together to obtain a desired goal (28-36), and Hermes as a trickster figure should also be recalled.’ Sec-

ond, the god uses deceit to try to achieve his goals with the lie that Ion is the son of Xuthus. Indeed, it is this deceit that eventually leads to Cre-

usa's attempt on Ion's life.’ By the play's end, Athena herself will come * Greengard (1987) 102-106 in fact argues for a similar understanding of the deus ex machina in Philoctetes. ? Gee Spira (1960), Nicolai (1990), and Dunn (1996) 26-44.

1 On the suitability of Hermes in his role here at the beginning of the play, see Knox (1979) 258-259. ! On the pervasiveness of deceit in the play, see Wolff (1965) 188—189.

EURIPIDES' ION AND SOPHOCLES' PHILOCTETES

255

to describe Apollo's actions as making use of stratagems or devices (1565

μηχαναῖς). Thus in Ion the technique of the méchanéma is modified by locating it on two levels, the divine as well as the human, and this in

turn allows greater comment on the god since the audience and judge his actions." In particular, Apollo's plot raises the the gods' treatment of mortals because his manipulation of characters seems at first only to cause them harm. This sort

can watch question of the mortal of negative

view of the gods is emphasized throughout the play by its constant focus

upon the rape of Creusa and the pain that this has caused her. For while the fact of the rape is crucial to the story, the suffering of Creusa is instrumental to neither the plot nor the myth. Hence the fact that the rape is emphasized so often, and in terms unflattering to Apollo, argues that

the play is meant to raise just this issue of divine justice.” The use of the recognition scene is also modified in this play. As in IT and Helen, a recognition scene is the impetus to an intrigue plot. How-

ever, here it is a false recognition scene (between Ion and Xuthus) that leads to a misdirected méchanéma (Creusa's attempt to kill Ion). But on the divine level it is the other way around: the true recognition between

Creusa and Ion, and ultimately between Apollo and Ion,“ is in fact the goal of the god's intrigue (1566-8). Hence the series of false, near and true recognition scenes? can be seen as the dramatic playing out of the

god's intrigue, with all the exciting twists and turns that we expect in an intrigue plot. First, lon and Creusa meet, and the audience is tantalized by a near recognition scene that is effected only on the psychological and

allusive level, in that the two characters display a natural affinity towards one another which reflects their true, as yet unknown, bond (237-391). However, the Chorus' disclosure to Creusa of Ion's and ? Cf. Burnett (1971) 105. See also chapter 5 passim for a description of lon as

the combination of a rescue plot with that of a revenge plot. 3 See Lloyd (1986) 36-37, against Spira and Burnett, for the view that the rape

is emphasized in the play and does constitute a criticism of the god. The story of the rape is told six times: by Hermes in the prologue (8-27), by Creusa to Ion (338-91), by the Chorus (492-506), by Creusa in lyric monologue (863-922), by

Creusa to the Old Man (936ff.), and finally by Creusa to Ion upon their true recognition (1458-1508).

# Winnington-Ingram (1969) 135 noted that at the beginning of the play Ion appears in the temple doorway carrying a bow (cf. 108), the attribute of Apollo, and this can be taken as an early (visual) identification between the two characters. See also Hanson (1975) 32.

15 Solmsen (1934) 400—402 noted that Ion differed from IT, Helen and Electra in

the way that recognition was prominent throughout the play, rather than in the

first half. On recognition and (self-) identity as a theme throughout the play, see Zeitlin (1989).

256

BRAD LEVETT

Xuthus’ (false) recognition (760-807), along with the spirited and slightly blood-thirsty prodding of the Old Man (836-56), leads to the human méchanéma, Creusa's attempt to kill Ion to ensure that a "for-

eigner" will not usurp the kingship of Athens (985-1047). Thus does Apollo's plan become compromised by the false recogni-

tion between Ion and Xuthus. Here is the height of rupture between mortals and god, as Apollo's plan to help Ion and Creusa results in their

mutual attempted murder. Thus on the human level we have an irregular méchanéma, namely one which the audience does not want to succeed. This rupture results from Creusa's decision to pre-empt the perceived

threat of Ion, but this itself is in large part a result of Apollo's lie that Xuthus is the father of the boy. Hence in his mishandled méchanéma, the god is responsible for the sufferings of the characters that occur in the

play, in addition to Creusa's earlier suffering." After the plot against Ion is discovered, Ion chases Creusa to the altar

where he threatens her life for having made an attempt on his own, and the Priestess enters to resolve matters by revealing the tokens that will identify Ion as Creusa's lost child (1320-68). It has been noted that the

Priestess herself performs the function of a god from the machine, in that she enters unexpectedly to resolve a dilemma at hand.” Certainly her

connection to Apollo is stressed, as well as the role the god had in bringing about the resolution that takes place momentarily, since it was he who inspired her to act as she does (1352-62). However, it is fitting that this first true recognition be set in motion by the Priestess, for as a human, she effects a recognition between two mortals, Ion and Creusa. It will be left to Athena, a god, to effect the recognition between Ion and

Apollo himself. Creusa now

tells Ion that he is the son of Apollo (1476-87), but the

boy cannot quite believe this, for of course it was earlier prophesied that Xuthus was his father. Ion threatens to enter the temple and question Apollo directly to find out "whether my father is a mortal or Loxias" (1547),

and

so Athena

must

enter to set this final objection

to rest

(1553-1605). She makes it clear that Apollo is in fact the father of Ion, and so we arrive at the completion of Ion's recognition and the fulfil-

ment of the god's plan, if not at the time and place the god would have 16 As often noted (e.g. Burnett [1971] 12), this revelation by the Chorus is itself

highly irregular, since a Chorus in Greek tragedy usually obeys when it is sworn to keep silent over a matter. ” For references to studies on the much debated point of Apollo’s culpability in the play, see Segal (1999) 107 n. 74. Burnett (1962) remains the most spirited defence of Apollo.

18 So Lee (1997) 298 (after Schmidt-Stáhlin).

EURIPIDES' ION AND SOPHOCLES' PHILOCTETES

257

liked (1566-8). This confirmation of the paternity of Apollo corrects the earlier false recognition between Xuthus and Ion, just as Creusa and

Ion's recognition corrected the earlier false revelation that Creusa and

Ion were enemies.” The deus ex machina is also important in terms of justifying the god's

treatment of the mortal characters. That Athena is in fact defending Apollo in the deus ex machina seems clear enough by her explanation that

Apollo himself has not come "lest reproach for what has happened come into the open" (1558). A sense of shame on the part of Apollo for his ac-

tions has been suggested a number of times during the play (72-3, 367), so it is not surprising to see it again here, especially in light of how the drama has focused on Creusa's sufferings. Hence in Ion, unlike in Helen

and IT, the god does not so much comment on human action as defend his own. Thus the deus ex machina here is not only the recognition of Ion as the son of Apollo,” but it also represents the recognition of the true goodwill of Apollo towards Creusa and Ion. Athena's defence of Apollo is extensive. In the past, he both kept Cre-

usa's pregnancy hidden (thereby saving her from shame) and also rescued the exposed child (1595-1600). In the present he takes responsibility for preventing Ion's and Creusa's misguided attempts to kill each other (1563—5). For the future he promises the characters glory and a happy life (1571-94). Yet Apollo's defence is still a partial one, for he does not jus-

tify his rape of Creusa. And the partiality of this answer is dramatized by the nature of the final recognition scene that the deus ex machina scene represents. For it is certainly a recognition of a very ironic sort, since Apollo is present only by proxy.” Thus does an unresolved aspect of the recognition scene dramatize an unresolved element within the issue of

the gods' treatment of mortals. In IT and Helen the deus ex machina scene tends to respond to the action of the play from outside the drama, forming a divine framework P? On the similarity between the false Ion-Xuthus recognition scene and the deus ex machina, see Wolff (1965) 193-194 n. 37. See also 169-173 for the repeti-

tions and doublings of the plot structure more generally. P See Cole (1997) for the idea that the original staging of lon represented the revelation, due to Euripides' re-writing of the myth, of lon's identity as the son

of Apollo to the Athenian audience itself. 7 Compare

Creusa’s words of praise for Apollo after the appearance of

Athena (1609-13) with her earlier criticisms (e.g. 252-4, 288, 384-92).

? Note, however, that Ion’s meeting with Athena is also, in an fashion, a recognition between relatives, given that Athena is his ancestor on his mother's side, since the autochthon Creusa is a descendent of Erichthonios, the child pro-

duced from the seed of Hephaestus when he attempted to rape Athena. For discussion, see Zeitlin (1989) 151, 170-173.

258

BRAD LEVETT

which evaluates and comments upon the deeds of the human characters.

Yet in lon, by dramatizing divine will through a divine méchanéma, the god himself is brought more to the fore, and his actions can then be questioned all the more. Also, because a recognition scene is not the source of the divine méchanéma, but rather its object, we can understand the deus ex machina scene in Ion as more fully integrated into the plot of

the play, since the deus ex machina itself represents the final resolution of Ion's (and Apollo's) recognition. Finally, because this recognition responds to the question of the god's treatment of the mortal characters, a

question which was raised in part by the conflicting méchanéma plots, the deus ex machina scene can be seen as integrated within the text on the

thematic level as well. PHILOCTETES

With Sophocles' Philoctetes we see the same basic structure at work in the organization of its action. When Heracles appears at the end of the play

to convince Philoctetes to go to Troy with Neoptolemus, he does so by effecting a recognition of the true value of Philoctetes by supplying, through his own mortal history, the paradigm for Philoctetes' heroic suffering on Lemnos. Moreover, the recognition of Philoctetes resolves the

action of the intrigue plot because this recognition reveals the complete purpose of the gods' will. Since the will of the gods, as reported through the oracle of Helenus, motivates the human characters and the méchanéma they adopt, the question of the intentions of the gods can be understood as motivating the entire plot of the play itself. Thus the recognition of Philoctetes at the end of the play will answer the question of the gods' justice and by doing so will bring the plot to return Philoctetes to Troy to its proper conclusion. However, the will of the gods is never made fully clear in the course

of the play, beyond the simple point that Philoctetes and the bow of Heracles must come to Troy for the Greeks finally to succeed there. In particular, it is not clear whether Philoctetes is required simply because

he possesses the bow, or for some other reason.? This uncertainty over the true meaning of the oracle causes the audience to question both the gods' justice and the méchanéma which is set in motion by Odysseus in order to fulfil their will, because this uncertainty revolves around whether Philoctetes is merely a means to an end in the plans of the gods, 3 The matter of the oracle of Helenus and just how the characters and the audience

understand

it is a notoriously vexed one. See now

Visser (1998) for a

detailed study of the issue, one which emphasizes that the meaning and import of the oracles is only revealed in the course of the play through the words and actions of the individual characters themselves.

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or whether he is meant to be benefited himself by these plans. Thus, as in lon, the méchanéma of Philoctetes is specifically adapted in order for it to

raise this issue of divine treatment of mortals, albeit in a different fashion. In Ion, the rift between human action and divine will was dramatized by the two separate intrigue plots, Apollo's and Creusa's, the latter causing us to question the former, since Apollo's plan in fact led to Creusa's attempt to kill Ion. However, in Philoctetes this rift is dramatized by

questioning the purpose of the oracle. For in the end the plan of not only with bringing about the restitution of the long-suffering standing of heaven's design will méchanéma itself, and will only be

méchanéma which is motivated by the the gods will be shown to be concerned end of the Trojan war, but also with the hero Philoctetes. Yet this full underonly develop through the course of the fully validated by the god at the end of

the play. For it will be the recognition of Heracles as the paradigm for

Philoctetes' own life that will support this more positive view of the gods’ justice. Again as in Ion, this theme of divine treatment of mortals is a dominant one. The play is fairly relentless in its depiction of Philoctetes' sufferings, and these sufferings are in good part due to the gods. The Atreidae and Odysseus abandoned Philoctetes on Lemnos, but it was the

goddess Chryse who afflicted Philoctetes with the incurable wound which caused this abandonment. Further, in the course of the play, Philoctetes is deceived, robbed, threatened, manhandled, and abandoned. These sufferings result from the actions of Odysseus and Neoptolemus, but also from the oracle of Helenus that motivates their misguided actions. Philoctetes himself certainly blames Odysseus and the Atreidae, but he is also clear in his anger towards heaven, going so far as to talk of the gods as "evil" (452 τοὺς θεοὺς εὕρω κακούς). Clearly such a

judgment reflects not only on Neoptolemus' story of events at Troy and the heroes who have died there (343-90, 410—445), but also on Philoc-

tetes’ own circumstances, since he is a good man suffering and (seemingly) neglected by the gods. Hence, as in Ion, the question of how the gods treat mortals is a prominent one. Moreover, this questioning is

produced not simply by the statements of Philoctetes, but also through the action of the play itself, in that the gods' oracle motivates an intrigue

plot which for the majority of the play results only in further suffering for Philoctetes.

Odysseus in the opening of the play begins our picture of the gods' will with a clear emphasis on the importance of the bow, saying that only it can take Troy (68-9, 113). For now,

Philoctetes seems to be con-

sidered necessary for the simple reason that he is in possession of the

famous weapon. This gives the impression that the gods' will is here primarily, or solely, concerned with getting the desired result in the

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matter of the sack of Troy, without consideration for Philoctetes, who exists merely as the obstacle to this objective. Such a view is emphasized

by the fearsome and de-humanizing picture of the man that is painted before he enters. Philoctetes’ abandonment has rendered him a bestial figure: he lives in a cave, sleeps on a bed of leaves (33), and possesses only the most rudimentary tools (35—6), all of which marks his remove

from humanity. Further, he can be neither persuaded nor physically overpowered, and thus he is presented primarily as a dangerous mon-

ster to be overcome." And it is precisely this presentation of him as a savage creature that Neoptolemus and Heracles must see beyond for

Philoctetes to be recognized in his heroic nature. However, Neoptolemus begins with the assumption that the will of the gods' is not terribly concerned with Philoctetes, and that in fact he is suffering simply in order that Troy not fall before its appointed time (192-200). Yet because of the méchanéma instigated by Odysseus to de-

ceive Philoctetes, pity for the suffering this deception causes will lead Neoptolemus to decide that he and Odysseus have in fact misunderstood the full purpose of heaven's will. Not only must Troy fall, but

Philoctetes must play his role in its fall, thereby regaining his honour and glory as an epic hero. Hence the original object of the intrigue plot as instigated by Odysseus, the capture of Philoctetes, will be redirected to include the larger objective of the gods, the restitution of Philoctetes himself.

Thus again the resolution of the méchanéma, as in lon, will be a recognition produced by the deus ex machina itself. This will not be a recognition of a character's relationship to an unknown family member,” but

rather a recognition that Philoctetes' sufferings are modelled upon those of Heracles, and thus represent the same vision of heroism through human suffering and endurance. As in Jon, the gods themselves will be revealed in their treatment of mortals, in this case because the parallelism between Philoctetes' and Heracles' lives reveals a larger (if still harsh)

pattern of justice in the workings of the gods. The slow revelation of the will of the gods is closely bound up with

the actual workings of the méchanéma itself. For it is only through the attempt to deceive Philoctetes that Neoptolemus' view of their design

changes. It is specifically through the tensions that exist in the stratagem, # On the theme of savagery in Philoctetes, see Segal (1981) 292-327 (in particular 300-301 for Philoctetes as a Cyclops figure), and also Greengard (1987) 36-39, 56.

5 However, see Avery (1965) 290-294 for a number of interesting suggestions about how the play is at times ambiguous over just who is Philoctetes' father, Poias or Heracles himself.

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and the inherent differences in the principals who conduct the stratagem, that this new view starts to take shape. For right from the outset of

the play, the méchanéma is badly begun. Pragmatic Odysseus tells Neoptolemus that he must act in a fashion unbefitting his heritage as the son of Achilles in order to win renown later (79-85). Despite the youth's misgivings, he succumbs to the lure of glory and agrees to use deception

to gain the bow. Because of this use of deception, the first recognition scene, as in lon, is a false one. Neoptolemus and Philoctetes meet and form a bond of philia with one another (220-538). Philoctetes recognizes the character of

Neoptolemus as sympathetic to his own (cf. 475-9 and 86-9), in large part due to Neoptolemus' heritage. Since Neoptolemus is Achilles' son,

his code of morality should be similar to Philoctetes' own, since Philoctetes sees and presents himself as an honest, forthright man of deeds like Achilles. However, this bond of philia is a false one because it is primarily produced by means of Neoptolemus' fabricated account of the

quarrel over Achilles’ arms.” This false recognition is completed when Philoctetes entrusts the bow to the boy just before an attack of his disease overwhelms him. As Philoctetes says (801-3), he received the bow himself for an act of kindness to Heracles (referring to how he lit Heracles'

funeral pyre when no one else would). Thus his entrusting of the bow to Neoptolemus represents the view that the boy is worthy of such a sym-

bolic object of friendship.” However, as in Jon, this false recognition will lead to a true one. Guilt over his treatment of Philoctetes causes Neoptolemus to feel remorse for deceiving a basically good man of a kindred phusis. Pity for Philoctetes will work upon Neoptolemus until he comes to re-assesses what the oracle means (839-42): ἐγὼ δ᾽ ὁρῶ οὕνεκα θήραν τήνδ᾽ ἁλίως ἔχομεν τόξων, δίχα τοῦδε πλέοντες. τοῦδε γὰρ ὁ στέφανος, τοῦτον θεὸς εἶπε κομίζειν,

κομπεῖν δ᾽ ἔστ᾽ ἀτελῆ σὺν ψεύδεσιν αἰσχρὸν ὄνειδος. # For Neoptolemus’

moral development in relation to the exemplars of

Achilles, Philoctetes and Heracles (in contrast to the influence of Odysseus), see Avery (1965), Blundell (1988), and now Hawkins (1999).

? Since Neoptolemus presents Odysseus and the Atreidae as the ones to blame for this loss, he is essentially appealing to Philoctetes by suggesting that

they share the same enemies. See Hamilton (1975) for how Neoptolemus' false tale sets up an incorrect paradigm of action which is corrected by the paradigm set by Heracles at the end of the play. % For a concise account of the thematic connections between

the bow

and

friendship, see Gill (1980) 138-139.

? As often noted, the distinctive use here of hexameters, the meter of oracles,

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But I see that if we sail without this man we have this quarry of the bow in vain. For his is the crown of victory, god said to bring this man; and it is a shameful reproach to boast of things unfinished and done with lies.

Here the will of heaven is portrayed as one of concern for Philoctetes, and not merely for the Trojan war. Neoptolemus holds the bow, the initial object of the intrigue plan, and yet, importantly, he calls his task unfinished, for he now understands the will of the gods to be equally concerned with the redemption of the man Philoctetes. Thus the initial méchanéma of the mortal characters is unsuccessful. Odysseus' pragmatic,

the-ends-justify-the-means, approach is a failure on two levels. Although he is for a time successful in gaining control of the bow, his ill-treatment

of Philoctetes means that he can not bring the hero to Troy, or at least not obtain his willing involvement in the war. Further, and more importantly, his approach will be seen to be the ultimate failure, since his dis-

regard for Philoctetes directly contradicts the gods' intention to restore the hero. Neoptolemus, after he has decided that the oracle of Helenus indicates that it is part of the gods' design that Philoctetes be healed and benefited, and after he deals with Odysseus’ objections (1221-60), re-

turns the bow to Philoctetes (1287). By doing so he marks the recognition both of Philoctetes as the heroic and rightful owner of the bow,” and of his own phusis as the son of Achilles, one which abhors deceit and deception.’ Here we have something of a meta-theatrical moment, in that a

character, in the midst of a méchanéma, rejects the use of deception, one of its most common characteristics. Philoctetes now calls the boy a true son of Achilles (1310-13) and accepts him as his friend. Thus do we get the corrected version of the earlier false recognition between the two characters.

The action of the drama has now shifted: the goal is still to bring Philoctetes and the bow to Troy, but the purpose of such a goal is now to help Philoctetes himself. Thus Neoptolemus attempts honest persuasion,

motivated by his desire to see Philoctetes healed and honoured at Troy (1314-96). Yet despite the fact that Philoctetes accepts Neoptolemus as a

true friend, he does not yield to the boy's entreaties. He wants nothing to do with the Greeks because of all the harm they have caused him gives added weight to Neoptolemus' newfound understanding of the intentions of the gods.

9 On the role of the bow in these scenes, see Taplin (1978) 89-93. ?! For Neoptolemus' moral action of returning the bow understood as a form of recognition, see Hawkins (1999) 352.

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(1354-7). Neoptolemus asks him to trust the gods, but this is precisely what Philoctetes cannot do, and given the play’s portrayal of his suffering, this resistance is not hard to understand. As Philoctetes says, he

does not believe that going to Troy will benefit him, but rather he fears that he will simply suffer more at the hands of his enemies (1358-61). Here we find another similarity with Ion. For there it was seen that recognition on the human level was not sufficient, but rather that Ion required a divine recognition. Similarly here in Philoctetes, because Neop-

tolemus has recognized Philoctetes as a true friend and as important in his own right, he no longer has the means or the inclination to force him to go to Troy. Hence in both plays, the recognition of the main character

must also be affected on the divine level, and so too must divine will be recognized by the human characters, thereby bridging the rift between human and divine realms.”

Hence again the deus ex machina scene is motivated towards both plot and theme. The action without the deus ex machina is still incomplete because Philoctetes will not go to Troy; but just as important is Neoptolemus’ view that the gods intend to benefit Philoctetes and to see him rec-

ognized for his true worth. Yet Neoptolemus’ view at this point cannot be judged as the final word, for even though he now speaks of the goodwill of the gods towards Philoctetes, we have not been told just how he can now be sure of this. More important than this detail, though, is the fact that in light of Philoctetes’ life on Lemnos, and indeed the whole action of the drama, Neoptolemus is wrong: since Philoctetes’ sufferings,

both in the past and in the course of the play, ultimately derive from the gods, Neoptolemus’ account, with its promise of healing and glory at Troy, cannot be satisfactory in itself. Rather, what is needed is an explanation for these very sufferings, and not simply the promise of good

things in the future, and it is this which Heracles as the deus ex machina

supplies.” First, by having Heracles, a god, pronounce the truth of heaven’s will, Neoptolemus is vindicated in his view that the gods do in fact have a plan and purpose for Philoctetes, something clearly suggested but never authoritatively validated in the course of the play. Second, Heracles ? Or at least attempting to heal this rift. As was seen, Athena’s defence of Apollo was not complete, and many scholars have seen Heracles’ explanation of divine will in Philoctetes as anything but positive. While interpretations such as Poe’s (1974) 48-51 are excessively critical, there is certainly an unresolved element within the deus ex machina, since Heracles does not speak to the fact that

Philoctetes, by returning to Troy, will have to associate with those whom he most hates, the Atreidai and Odysseus.

9 For an account of the history of interpretation of the deus ex machina in Philoctetes, and of the range of issues involved, see Visser (1998) 241-246.

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shared a bond of philia with Philoctetes,* and this suggests a personal

connection between Philoctetes and the gods. However, third and most important, Heracles reveals to Philoctetes that their bond in fact goes beyond friendship (1418-22): xal πρῶτα μέν σοι τὰς ἐμὰς λέξω τύχας, ὅσους πονήσας καὶ διεξελθὼν πόνους

ἀθάνατον ἀρετὴν ἔσχον, ὡς πάρεσθ᾽ ópàv καὶ σοί, σάφ᾽ ἴσθι, τοῦτ᾽ ὀφείλεται παθεῖν, £x τῶν πόνων τῶνδ᾽ εὐκλεᾶ θέσθαι βίον.

First I will tell you of my own experiences, all the toils I endured and overcame to gain deathless excellence, as you can see. And know well, it is owed to you to experience this, to establish a famed life from these toils.

Thus a parallel is drawn between Philoctetes' own sufferings and the famous labours of Heracles. Through the recognition of this bond between the two figures a paradigm for mortal excellence is revealed as part of the gods' plan for Philoctetes, one which re-describes his past and present suffering as heroic endurance. For Heracles' fame as a hero was in great part derived from the fortitude and endurance he displayed in accomplishing his labours.? Further, just as Heracles was also honoured after his trials, so too will Philoctetes be honoured by military success at Troy (1423-8). It is in this fashion that the deus ex machina scene also

functions as a recognition scene. For the divine explanation for Philoctetes' suffering on Lemnos is made through this identification between his fate and that of Heracles. This identification in fact goes beyond * Winnington-Ingram (1980) 300-301 argues that it is primarily the friendship of Heracles that is effective in getting Philoctetes to agree to go to Troy. However, we would expect Heracles to be successful where Neoptolemus failed because he represents something beyond friendship, since Neoptolemus' bond of

friendship has already proven to be insufficient to convince Philoctetes. On friendship and the deus ex machina, see also Gill (1980) 143-144.

5 The connection between the labours of Heracles and the sufferings of Philoctetes has already been hinted at in line 195 where Philoctetes in his sufferings is said by Neoptolemus to be “toiling” (πονεῖ) and in line 777 where the bow is described as having been πολύπονα for both Philoctetes and Heracles. The

general link has often been noted by scholars (see, for example, Hamilton [1975]

135). However, the question tends to be viewed primarily in relation to Philoc-

tetes’ future reward of healing and fame at Troy, without recognizing how the parallelism also explains and makes heroic his past and present "labours." For the correct distinction between future fame at Troy and the fame that Philoctetes has already won by his endurance on Lemnos, see O'Higgins (1991) 47-48. Note that the exodus of Trachiniae, where Heracles is presented mastering his physical

suffering resulting from the deadly robe (1261-3), suggests just such a model of heroism already present in Sophocles. For a contrasting view, see Pucci (1994) 42.

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Neoptolemus' earlier recognition of Philoctetes. For whereas Neoptolemus recognized Philoctetes as more than a bestial figure, and as more

than a means to an end, Heracles, by drawing the parallel that he does, recognises Philoctetes as a heroic epic figure on the level of the mortal Heracles himself. Finally, as in Ion, the gods themselves are recognized, since their treatment of Philoctetes can now be mapped onto an estab-

lished paradigm of heroic excellence? Hence, given that the deus ex machina both responds to the question of the gods' treatment of mortals and resolves the action of the méchanéma (since the appearance of Heracles brings about both objects of the gods' intentions, Philoctetes' participation in the Trojan war and his restitution as an epic hero), it is also, like

the deus ex machina of Ion, well integrated on the level of both plot and theme. CONCLUSION

Thus do these two plays use the three techniques in a manner different from Helen and IT. For while the basic structure in Helen and IT is a recognition scene leading to an intrigue plot which is responded to by the deus ex machina,

this structure is modified

in Ion and Philoctetes. In Ion,

Apollo's will was manifested as his own méchanéma, while in Philoctetes the object of heaven's will was questioned and modified specifically

during and because of the human méchanéma. Hence both these variations on the intrigue plot served to emphasize the issue of the gods' treatment of mortals by directly dramatizing it in the méchanéma. Thus, while the intrigue plot has often been viewed as a dramatic technique designed primarily or even solely to produce thrilling action, it can be

seen that it could be employed no less for thematic purposes. Also, the deus ex machina scenes in these two plays both function as the recognition of the main character, a recognition which is itself the resolution of the

action of the intrigue plot. In lon, Ion's recognition is the goal of Apollo's méchanéma, whereas in Philoctetes the recognition of Philoctetes resolves the action of the méchanéma by correcting Odysseus’ misunderstanding of the true intent of the oracle of Helenus which motivated the original intrigue plot.

Given that Euripides' play is earlier than that of Sophocles, such similarities might suggest that the plot structure of Philoctetes is directly patterned on that of Ion. While this is not impossible, our scant extant remains of Athenian tragedy warn against assuming a strict one-to-one

relationship. Moreover, the similarities may be of more interest when viewed more generally from the perspective of genre rather than that of % For the deus ex machina as the recognition of the gods’ true will, see Gill (1980) 144.

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the individual dramatists.” For by examining such generic variations we can suggest the multivalent nature of the deus ex machina, as well as the

other techniques discussed. For such variations in the use of these dramatic devices remind us that genre is as much fluid and creative as it is rigid and limiting. Further, because these two examples of the deus ex

machina can be seen as integrated with the rest of the play in terms of both plot and theme, structure and content, we can avoid the position that the use of this dramatic device necessarily entails a sacrifice of one level in favour of another: exciting drama need not be superficial drama. However, when a deus ex machina scene is not well integrated on the level of plot, it can thus be argued that this is (at the least potentially) deliberate and is therefore intended to be effective or meaningful precisely within this very disjunction. The simple fact that the deus ex machina could be fully integrated into the plot as it is in Ion and Philoctetes argues

that we should look elsewhere to understand their use in those plays where the deus ex machina seems to flaunt its extra-dramatic, non-organic nature.? Thus, to return to the initial suggestion of this paper, it can be

argued that the variations that can be observed in the use of the deus ex machina in Ion and Philoctetes support the view that we do not need to adopt an over-arching explanation for this dramatic technique, since it could clearly be used for a variety of dramatic purposes.

REFERENCES

Avery, H.C. 1965. "Heracles, Philoctetes, Neoptolemus," Hermes 93: 279-297. Blundell, M.W. 1988. "The phusis of Neoptolemus in Sophocles’ Philoctetes," G&R 35: 137-148. Burnett, A.P. 1962. "Human resistance and divine persuasion in Euripides' lon," CPh 57: 89-103. . 1971. Catastrophe Survived: Euripides' Plays of Mixed Reversal. Oxford. Cole, A.T. 1997. "The Jon of Euripides and its audience(s)," in L. Edmunds and R.W. Wallace, eds. Poet, Public, and Performance in Ancient Greece. Baltimore/ London. 87-96. Conacher, DJ. 1967. Euripidean Drama: Myth, Theme and Structure. Toronto.

? However, the similarity between the two plays discussed here is perhaps

useful in counter-acting the view that Sophocles took up the technique of the deus ex machina from Euripides, but that in Philoctetes he improved on Euripides’ use. See, for example, the comments of Dunn (1996) 39.

9 A point that tends to support those scholars, such as Dunn, who view such

disjunctions as having a meaningful function to play within the art of Euripides. Pucci (1994) 42, in his discussion of the epic nature of Heracles' epiphany in Philoctetes and the "genre switch" that this produces, suggests something similar for Sophocles' play.

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Craik, E.M. 1979. "Philoktetes: Sophoklean melodrama," AC 48: 15-29. Dunn, F.M. 1996. Tragedy's End: Closure and Innovation in Euripidean Drama. Oxford.

Gill, C. 1980. "Bow, oracle, and epiphany in Sophocles' Philoctetes," G&R 27: 137-146. Greengard, C. 1987. Theatre in Crisis: Sophocles' Reconstruction of Genre and Politics in Philoctetes. Amsterdam. Hamilton, R. 1975. "Neoptolemos' story in the Philoctetes," AJPh 96: 131-137.

Hanson, J.O. de Graft. 1975. “Euripides’ lon: Tragic awakening and disillusionment,” Museum Africum 4: 27-42.

Hawkins, A.H. 1999. “Ethical tragedy and Sophocles’ Philoctetes,” 357.

CW 92: 337-

Knox, B. 1979. “Euripidean comedy,” in Word and Action: Essays on the Ancient Theater. Baltimore / London. 250-274. Lee, K.H. 1997. Euripides: lon. Warminster. Lloyd, M. 1986. "Divine and human action in Euripides’ Ion,” A&A 32: 33-45. Lucas, D.W. 1968. Aristotle: Poetics. Oxford.

Matthiessen, K. 1964. Elektra, Taurische Iphigenie und Helena: Untersuchungen zur Chronologie und zur dramatischen Form im Spätwork des Euripides. Hypomnemata 4. Gottingen. Nicolai, W. 1990. Euripides Dramen mit rettendem Deus ex machina. Heidelberg.

O'Higgins, D. 1991. "Narrators and narrative in the Philoctetes of Sophocles," Ramus 20: 37-52. Poe, J.P. 1974. Heroism and Divine Justice in Sophocles’ Philoctetes. Mnemosyne

Supplement 34. Leiden. Pucci, P. 1994. “Gods’ intervention and epiphany in Sophocles,” AJPh 115: 15-46. Segal, C. 1981. Tragedy and Civilization: An Interpretation of Sophocles. Harvard. . 1999. "Euripides' Jon: Generational passage and civic myth," in M.W. Padilla, ed. Rites of Passage in Ancient Greece: Literature, Religion, Society. Lon-

don / Toronto. 67-108. Solmsen, F. 1934. "Euripides' lon im Vergleich mit anderen Tragódien," Hermes

69: 390-419. Spira, A. 1960. Untersuchungen zum Deus ex Machina bei Sophokles und Euripides.

Kallmunz. Taplin, O. 1978. Greek Tragedy in Action. London. Wolff, C. 1965. “The design and myth in Euripides’ Ion," HSCPh 69: 169-194. Visser, T. 1998. Untersuchungen zum Sophokleischen Philoktet. Stuttgart / Leipzig. Whitman, C.H. 1951. Sophocles: A Study of Heroic Humanism. Cambridge, MA. Winnington-Ingram, R.P. 1969. "Euripides: Poiétés Sophos," Arethusa 2: 127-142. . 1980. Sophocles: An Interpretation. Cambridge. Zeitlin, F.I. 1989. "Mysteries of identity and designs of the self in Euripides’ lon,” PCPhS 35: 144-197.

21 MYTHMAKING

AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE FEMININE IN SAPPHO AND EAVAN BOLAND KRISTIN LORD

Among contemporary women writers who view Sappho as their literary

antecedent is the Irish poet Eavan Boland, whose poems "Degas's Laundresses" and "The Journey" demand a close reading of Sappho's fr. 1, 16, and 96 (Voigt and Lobel-Page).' This is true despite the fact that Sappho and Boland span the usual differences of time and culture, as well as

sexual identity. Boland is a heterosexual, as are the speakers in "Degas's

Laundresses" and "The Journey." On the other hand, the primary love interests of the speaker in Sappho's monodic poems are almost without

exception female, which raises the issue of how these interests might intersect with what we now call "sexual orientation"? this question is independent of the biographical tradition, in which Sappho is believed ! This article originated in a paper given to the Classics Symposium at the University of Guelph in 1999. I would like to thank the organizers of the symposium for their hospitality, as well as Victor Matthews, Padraig O'Cleirigh, and

Jackie Murray for their insight. See my discussion below on Sappho fr. 1. In general, scholars in recent years

have tended to accept some degree of homoeroticism. R. Merkelbach, in "Sappho

und ihr Kreis," Philologus 101 (1957) 1-29, provides a detailed summation of the

viewpoint that "Lesbian" love, like Greek male homosexuality, is initiatory in nature. E. Stehle, on the other hand, finds support in Sappho for female homosexual relationships which go beyond initiatory phases (Performance and Gender in Ancient Greece: Nondramatic Poetry in its Setting [Princeton 1997] 274-278). Broader still are the interpretations of J. Grahn, The Highest Apple: Sappho and the Lesbian Poetic Tradition (San Francisco 1985), J.M. Snyder, Lesbian Desire in the

Lyrics of Sappho (New York 1997) passim, and P. du Bois, who believes that Sappho's writings disrupt the ideas of Foucault, with his apparent emphasis on male descriptions of the primacy of male experience (Sappho is Burning [Chicago/ London 1995] 127-162, especially 128-129). The major objection to all of these viewpoints is expressed by A. Lardinois, who finds it unlikely that Sappho

could have had sexual relationships with all of the girls of whom she writes. As to whether the word "Lesbian" should apply to Sappho herself, Lardinois finds

it impossible to assess ("Lesbian Sappho and Sappho of Lesbos," in J. Bremer, ed., From Sappho to de Sade. Moments in the History of Sexuality [London /New York 1989] 29-30).

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to have married and produced a daughter.’ Discussing these two writers

thus requires us to consider the nature of cultural myths and the construction of gender roles as they play out in the structure, characters, and

themes of their works. One of the common features of all of these poems is the poets' descriptions of physical mobility to express the ability of their characters to come and go, or not to do this, as the case may be. The degree of a female character's ability to move may be seen as an index of her degree of freedom given the constraints of circumstances, many of

which are related to gender. Sappho's fr. 1, her only complete extant poem,‘ can be considered not only a personalized version of a traditional cletic hymn to a goddess, in

this case Aphrodite, but also an example of literary initiation.’ Since Sappho asks for Aphrodite to be her ally (28 σύμμαχος) in granting this request, which is cast in a highly literary form, we have a clear connection in the form of the text itself between the goddess's religious role as a guarantor of love and her literary role as a patron of a poet who is writ-

ing about love. To Sappho's audience, who will have known the Iliad, the 3 Modern scholars express a degree of skepticism concerning the accuracy of the biographical tradition surrounding Sappho and other Greek

poets. For a gen-

eral discussion see M.R. Lefkowitz,

(Baltimore 1981)

The Lives of the Greek Poets

63; J.J. Winkler, The Constraints of Desire: The Anthropology of Sexual Gender in Ancient Greece (New York 1990) 182; L. Hatherly Wilson, Sappho's Sweetbitter Songs: Configurations of Male and Female in Ancient Greek Lyric (London/New York 1996) 177; and P. Gordon, in her introduction to S. Lombardo's translation, Sappho: Poems and Fragments (Indianapolis 2002) xii. These objections are in addition to caveats concerning the poetic “I” in early Greek monodists as confessional in the sense familiar to modern poets (see O. Tsagarakis, Self-Expression in Early Greek Elegiac and lambic Poetry [Wiesbaden 1977] 82). Wilamowitz identified the poten-

tial problem with the name Kerkilas, which may be related to xépxoc ("penis"),

as Sappho's husband (Sappho und Simonides [Berlin 1913] 24); cf. W. Aly, "Sappho,” RE? 1 2361 and H.N. Parker, "Sappho schoolmistress,” TAPhA 123 (1993) 309-310, reprinted in E. Greene, ed., Re-Reading Sappho (Berkeley / London 1996) 146-147. The name Kleis (fr. 132 and fr. 98b1), traditionally regarded as the name

of the poet's mother and daughter, may stand on somewhat firmer ground. Lardinois (above, n. 2) 22 notes that the epithet &yanaté in fr. 132 may support the interpretation of Kleis as Sappho's daughter, while J. Svenbro observes that the name would broadcast Sappho's literary prowess every time her daughter was called by it (Phrasikleia: An Anthropology of Reading in Ancient Greece, trans. J.

Lloyd [Ithaca/London 1993] 153-154). H. Saake also treats the name as genuine

(Sapphostudien: Forschungsgeschichtliche, biographische und literarästhetische Untersuchungen [Paderborn 1972] 43-47). * For recent bibliography on Sappho see Gordon (above, n. 3) xxiii-xxiv, Snyder (above, n. 2) 239-238, and Hatherly Wilson (above, n. 3) 217-229.

* H. Maehler, Die Auffassung des Dichterberufs im frühen Griechentum bis zur Zeit Pindars (Géttingen

1963) 62-63. See also A. Kambylis,

Symbolik (Heidelberg 1965) passim.

Die Dichterweihe und ihre

SAPPHO AND EAVAN BOLAND

271

only extant literary predecessor to Sappho's prayer, the details of this joint role become clear through contemplation of her allusion to the rele-

vant Homeric passages. The cletic prayer in the Iliad which most resembles Sappho's is Diomedes' prayer to Athena in a moment of mortal danger: χλῦθι μευ, αἰγιόχοιο Διὸς téyoc, ᾿Ατρυτώνη, εἴ ποτέ μοι καὶ πατρὶ φίλα φρονέουσα παρέστης

δηίῳ ἐν πολέμῳ, νῦν αὐτῷ ἐμὲ φῖλαι, ᾿Αθήνη.

(5.115-117)

Athena promises to help Diomedes, but with the proviso that he in turn is obligated not to harm any of the gods.’ The only exception is Aphrodite, an unwarlike deity whom he can—and soon does—harm with impunity.? Sappho, on the other hand, specifically redefines Aphrodite's role in relation to war by calling her a σύμμαχος and thus begins to rede-

fine Homer's

relationships between the gods.’

One of the ways Sappho redefines Aphrodite's role can be seen in the

goddess's actions in the poem. As the poet's ally, she is asked to come down from heaven, if she has ever done so at some time or another in

the past. Her approach is gradual, and she becomes more vivid as she

nears the poet." Aphrodite's ability to move about in a vehicle of her $ R.L. Fowler, The Nature of Early Greek Lyric: Three Preliminary Studies (Toronto/ Buffalo / London

1987) 38-39 and passim, correctly notes that it is unwise

to cite all apparent allusions to epic in early Greek lyric as specifically Homeric, given the significance of the entire oral tradition in archaic Greek society and the unavailability of much of this tradition for scholarly comparison. However, any poet who desires to become a major contributor to Greek literature will necessarily wish to compare herself to the most famous of her predecessors in passages in which her literary identity is at issue. P.A. Rosenmeyer carves out a middle path by viewing Sappho as both an oral performer and one attuned to the process of transcription; thus Sappho may reutilize Homeric and other epic material differently at various stages in working out her own poems ("Sappho's

dialogue with Homer," MD 39 [1997] 132). Although this theory has the attrac-

tion of allowing for different nuances of gender and sexuality for different audiences, the fragmentary state of Sappho's surviving work makes it impossible to prove. 7 L. Rissman, Love as War: Homeric Allusion in the Poetry of Sappho (Kónigstein 1983) 9-10. 8 See Rissman (above, n. 7) 7-8, who also connects 60AónAoxe (2) with Helen's

accusation of Aphrodite as δολοφρονέουσα at Il. 3.405; cf. M. Williamson, Sappho's Immortal Daughters (Cambridge, MA 1995) 161-164; and Winkler (above, n. 3) 165-170.

? As Winkler notes (above, n. 3, 169), Diomedes is not just a starting point for Sappho's discourse about her own love, but rather exemplifies the distance between Homer's world and her own.

10 Winkler (above, n. 3) 170-171.

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KRISTIN LORD

own choosing contrasts with her circumstances in Book 5 of the Iliad. There Aphrodite, wounded by Diomedes, borrows Ares' chariot to escape from battle and return to Olympus (5.358-67). Diomedes is in turn rescued by Athena

and Hera, who

descend

from heaven

in a

chariot to

do so (5.719-72)." It is only in Sappho's poem that Aphrodite can act as a military figure and rescue the poet, who has taken the place of Diomedes

as a figure in desperate straits.? The use of the word δηὖτε suggests that this motion takes place both in space and in time.” That the setting of Sappho's poem is decidedly non-military and that the chariot is driven by sparrows, whose erotic significance in antiquity is well known," only adds to the delicious sense of irony.

Aphrodite's anticipated fulfillment of Sappho's request also brings the possibility of physical movement to the poet. This passage is diffi-

cult," and it is necessary to consider some of these difficulties. Aphrodite promises Sappho that the woman whom she desires will soon pursue, even though she now runs away: xai γὰρ ai φεύγει, ταχέως διώξει: αἱ δὲ δῶρα μῆ δὲκετ᾽, ἀλλὰ δώσει: αἱ δὲ μὴ φίλει, ταχέως φιλήσει xwbx ἐθέλοισα. (21--24)

For if she flees, she soon will pursue; if she does not receive gifts, yet she will give (them); if she does not love, she will soon love

even though unwilling.

If these lines had been written in the twentieth or twenty-first century of our era, their most obvious meaning would be that a love interest who was a social equal would find the tables turned by falling in love when it was too late to return the affections. Another possibility might be that

the unwilling participant will be punished through a forced reconciliation, as a more subtle form of retribution than revenge. But the con" For the connection between this passage and that of Sappho, see Winkler (above, n. 3) 167. 12 Winkler (above, n. 3) 169. See also Williamson (above, n. 8) 162-163. I5 A. Carson, in Eros the Bittersweet (Princeton 1986) 118, refers to the word as

indicating "novelty and recurrence ral relationship, the vantage point wave or a gentle tug of war. ^ Examples can be found in D.L. 5 For a general overview and 163-164 and notes on 184-185.

at once." While Carson sees this as a temposurely shifts spatially as well, much like a Page, Sappho and Alcaeus (Oxford 1955) 8. bibliography, see Williamson (above, n. 8)

18 K. Stanley, "The role of Aphrodite in Sappho fr. 1," GRBS 17 (1976) 318.

SAPPHO AND EAVAN BOLAND

273

struction of sexual relationships in antiquity is usually understood as being very different from our own, which in turn raises difficulties in interpretation. According to the most common understanding of male homosexuality in ancient Greece, the ἐραστής, or "lover," was usually older and always the initiator; the ἐρώμενος, or "beloved," was a younger and passive partner who never initiated the proceedings. Al-

though it is clear from Aristophanes' theory of sexuality in Plato's Symposium 189c3-193e3 that what we would call "sexual orientation" (i.e.,

attraction to an individual of the same or opposite sex) was known to the ancient Greeks, the predominant view of Greek male homosexuality considers it a type of social initiation in which sexual penetration some-

times played only a subsidiary role." Several scholars have applied this same model to Sappho's circle of

young women on Lesbos," despite the difficulty this might create for the interpretation of Sappho fr. 1. There is, however, one possible way out of the problem of having the ἐρώμενος (or ἐρωμένη) pursue Sappho. Since

neither φεύγει nor διώξει has a direct object, it has been suggested that the implied object of διώξει is not Sappho, but rather someone else. In other words, Aphrodite may be intimating that Sappho will receive a sense of justice when the person who spurns Sappho's advances learns

what it is like to endure unrequited love.” This interpretation has the 7 See K.J. Dover, Greek Homosexuality (Cambridge,

MA?

1989) 60-109, and

D.M. Halperin, One Hundred Years of Homosexuality and Other Essays on Greek Love (New York 1990) 30-38. Dover observes in his postscript to the second edition of Greek Homosexuality (204) that we should not assume that the ἐρώμενος fails to

derive pleasure from copulation simply because he does not initiate the proceedings. 18 In addition to Halperin, see Merkelbach (above, n. 2) 1-29; C. Calame, Les Choeurs des jeune filles en Grèce archaïque, 1 (Rome 1977) 427-432; A. Lardinois, “Subject and circumstance in Sappho's poetry," TAPhA 124 (1994) 60-70, 79-80. See also Williamson

(above, n. 8) passim. E. Cantarella believes that same-sex

initiation among young girls would sometimes have been with their schoolmis-

tresses and sometimes (e.g. as in Alcman's Partheneion) with another young girl of the same age (Bisexuality in the Ancient World, trans. C. Haven/London 1992] 82-83). Cantarella posits that the community life has a function for young girls analogous young males. However, there is no comparable function Greek women and men, since newly married women do not

Ó Cuilleanáin [New whole experience of to education among for marriage among join a group of older

people with power over younger members of the same sex. Allowing for the objection that brides eventually become mothers-in-law, who retain a great deal

of authority over the wives of their sons, Cantarella's overall picture of female

sexual initiation has many points in its favor.

? A. Giacomelli [Carson], “The justice of Aphrodite in Sappho, fr. 1,” TAPhA 110 (1980) 136-140, reprinted with minor changes in E. Greene, ed., Reading Sappho: Contemporary Approaches (Berkeley 1996) 227-231. Carson's objections stem

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KRISTIN LORD

advantage of being consistent with other examples of forlorn love in Greek poetry, such as AP 12.12, 12.16.34, Theocritus 6. 17, and Theognis 1331-34: αἴδεό μ᾽, ὦ nat «δῖε», διδοὺς χάριν, ef ποτε καὶ où ἕξεις Κυπρογενοῦς δῶρον ἰοστεφάνου,

χρηΐζων καὶ én’ ἄλλον ἐλεύσεαι" ἀλλὰ σὲ δαίμων δοίη τῶν αὐτῶν ἀντιτυχεῖν ἐπέων.

Nevertheless, it is difficult to argue ex silentio for the existence of two

separate direct objects for φεύγει and διώξει. Theognis 1331-34 and the other examples cited as parallels for the portrayal of unrequited love are syntactically unambiguous; cf. especially Theocritus 6.17, xal φεύγει φιλέοντα xal où φιλέοντα διώκει. Examples of the omission of the direct object in compound or complex clauses are usually self-explanatory.” In

the case of Sappho fr. 1, assuming an implied o€ as the object of both verbs follows the syntax of lines 18-20, where that pronoun is the direct object of ἀδικήει and is used as a possessive to modify φιλότατα.22 It may not from the relationship between ἐραστής and ἐρωμένη but rather from the

reading of the Greek in the text and "the ideal erotic revenge in the form of mu-

tual reversal of roles of lover and beloved." Her reading is also accepted by C. Calame, The Poetics of Eros in Ancient Greece, trans. J. Lloyd (Princeton 1999) 26 and Gordon in her introduction to Lombardo's translation of Sappho (above, n. 3, xx). 2 Winkler (above, n. 3) 173-175. He also cites parallels in Greek magical pa-

pyri, especially P. Berol. 21243, dated to the first century B.C.E. This love charm involves throwing an apple three times as part of a prayer to Aphrodite that the

lover renew his interest in his beloved and return to take the initiative with his former paramour. See W. Brashear, "Ein Berliner Zauberpapyrus," ZPE 33 (1979) 261-278; F. Maltomini,

"P. Berol. 21243 (formulario magico): Due nuove letture,"

ZPE 74 (1988) 247-248; and R. Janko, "Berlin Magical Papyrus 21243: A conjecture," ZPE 72 (1988) 293. 71 None of the passages cited in K-G. 11.561-562 contain two different direct objects; the object can invariably be construed from the surrounding passage,

usually from the thought immediately preceding. See E. Tzamali, Syntax und Stil bei Sappho (Dettelbach 1996) 80. 2 Tzamali (above, n. 21) 80 and Snyder (above, n. 2) 223 n.14. This interpreta-

tion is implicit in the discussion of G.O. Hutchinson, Greek Lyric Poetry: A Commentary on Selected Larger Pieces (Oxford 2001) 158. Koniaris and Krischer share some of the concerns about earlier interpretations which led Giacomelli (Carson)

to propose her solution, but they also assume that oé is the implied direct object (G.L. Koniaris, "On Sappho L" Philologus 109 [1965] 33; T. Krischer, "Sapphos ode on Aphrodite," Hermes 96 [1968] 12-13). Cf. Stanley (above, n. 16) 312. Among earlier scholars, Wilamowitz (above, n. 3) 44 translates the passage as "Wenn sie dich auch flieht, bald sie dich suchen; wenn sie deine Gaben abweist,

bringen soll die dir welche; wenn sie dich nicht liebt, bald soll sie dich lieben, auch wider Willen." M. Treu concurs with this translation (Sappho [Munich*

1968] 23), as does Dover (above, n. 17) 177. Dover takes this passage as evidence

SAPPHO AND EAVAN BOLAND

275

be that we should give Aristophanes some credit, and posit that genuine same-sex attraction sometimes exists in the ancient Greek world in set-

tings in which relationships between women are also characterized by intense friendship. The social initiation of the young as well may be present as well, but we need not assume that this kind of initiation is always involved. Although the speaker of fr. 96 seems to be referring to a younger woman, Anactoria in fr. 16 is merely assumed to be younger

than the speaker on the analogy of Menelaus being older than both Helen and Paris”; there is no evidence one way or another for fr. 1.2"

Even in terms of male homosexuality, the differences in age between ἐραστής and ἐρώμενος are not always great,” and the roles of the two partners are not always clearly defined; we may consider, for example,

for an obliteration of the usual distinction between a dominant and a subordi-

nate partner, which he expected on the basis of his understanding of the evidence of Greek male homosexuality. P. Bing and R. Cohen, for their part, do not

include direct objects in the verses in question, but they otherwise distinguish female from male homosexuality, as well as from most heterosexual relationships in the Archaic and Classical periods (Games of Venus: An Anthology of Greek and Roman Erotic Verse from Sappho to Ovid [New York 1992] 72). H. Foley, who believes that Sappho is the more likely direct object of διώξει, finds support for

potential mutuality in this passage on the grounds that the roles of lover and

beloved among female partners may not be culturally differentiated ("The mother of the argument," in M. Wyke, ed., Parchments of Gender: Deciphering the Bodies of Antiquity [Oxford 1998] 51). 3 Lardinois sensibly observes (above, n. 18, 60)

that the fragmentary state of

the poem means that we do not know if Sappho herself is the speaker, let alone whether the sentiments expressed for Anactoria are genuine. G.W. Most's view-

point is broader still; he observes that by avoiding either the masculine or feminine pronoun in her declaration that Eye δὲ κῆν᾽ ὅττω τις ἔραται is most important, Sappho is able to generalize beyond any single object. This permits the poem to travel beyond the circumstances of its first performance (whatever that

was) to larger, unknown audiences for whom the initial allusions might be unknown or of no interest ("Reflecting Sappho," BICS 40 [1995] 32, reprinted with minor changes in Greene, ed. [above, n. 3] 34). Such a view is consistent with

Most's observation elsewhere ("Sappho fr. 16.6-7 L-P,” CQ n.s. 31 [1981] 15-16) that Sappho's Helen surpassed mortals (ἀνθρώπων) rather than women

(γυναικῶν) in her pulchritude, making her the best member of either sex to judge

what is most beautiful.

^ Cf. Stehle's theory (above, n. 2, 274-298) that the monodic poems were designed to be given to particular individuals on particular occasions; a wide range of women could be involved. 5 M. Golden, "Age differences between erastai and eromenoi," Phoenix 38

(1984) 321-324 cites examples from Greek vase painting in which there are few, if any, differences between the ages of the two parties, although he notes that these are exceptions to a general rule.

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KRISTIN LORD

the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus." If we thus accept σέ as implied in line 21, fr. 1 can then be seen as a positive construction of female homosexual desire.” But despite the difficulties in interpretation, one fact is clear. Even when Sappho is pursued, she is still in control of the situation because

leaving, rather than staying put, is her own decision. It is by having the choice of being pursued that Sappho remains in control. Likewise, the structure of the poem allows for a shift in focus from Sappho's address to Aphrodite (1-13) to Aphrodite's question to Sappho (13-24) and back

again to Sappho's entreaty to the goddess (25-28), yet the changes in viewpoint are neatly organized.? The temporal sequences also follow a

pattern, in which the present is the main reference point”: A1. Now: entreaty to Aphrodite in present tense (1-4) 26 J. Boswell, Same-Sex Unions in Premodern

Europe (New York 1994) 53-58.

Boswell's caveat that "Being the 'admired' does not necessarily mean being unmoved, having no reciprocal feelings, or needing to be persuaded" (58) is especially apt in connection with Sappho fr. 1. As Boswell notes, even Halperin, who ordinarily views the distinction between the two partners as clear-cut, concedes the uncertainty in antiquity about who played what role in the relationship between

Achilles and Patroclus (above, n. 17, 86). Similarly, in his review of Do-

ver's Greek Homosexuality (CW 72 [1979] 434]), J. Henderson cites X. Smp. 8.2 in connection with the possibility that someone might be ἐραστής and ἐρώμενος in

relation to the same person at the same stage of one's life. Henderson also discusses attested homosexual relationships between adult males, such as Agathon and Pausanias (Pl. Prt. 315d-e) and Cleisthenes and Straton, who are frequently ridiculed in Attic comedy. In the latter case, we do not know

their relative ages,

but Aristophanes depicts both men as effeminate (e.g. Ach. 115-122). T Snyder (above, n. 2) 15. Cf. Hatherly Wilson (above, n. 3) 23-31. Cf. also E.

Greene, who suggests that direct objects are lacking because the idea of objects of each other's love never entered the speaker's mind: "The beloved is figured as a subject whether she is fleeing or pursuing, giving or receiving. Indeed, it may be argued that the subject 'she' in these lines can be either the speaker or her beloved" ("Apostrophe and women's erotics in the poetry of Sappho," TAPhA 124 (1994) 43. While I do not see that the Greek text supports Greene's

position about

the possible ambiguity of the grammatical subjects, it is possible that the objects are omitted for the reason suggested. 78 See Saake (above, n. 3) 58-59, especially the diagram in n. 54. ? This type of backward movement in time, followed by a return to the present tense, is called "lyric narrative" by W. Schadewaldt (Iliasstudien [Darmstadt 1966] 86 as a way of contrasting it with the straightforward chronological ordering of events more characteristic of epic (although the categorization of narrative techniques among genres is by no means cut and dried). For an application of this type of analysis to poetry of the archaic period, see W.J. Slater, "Pindar's myths: Two pragmatic explanations," in G.W. Bowersock, W. Burkert, M.CJ. Putnam, eds., Arktouros: Hellenic Studies Presented to Bernard M.W. Knox (Berlin 1979) 64. Cf. also Winkler (above, n. 3) 170-171.

SAPPHO AND EAVAN BOLAND

277

B1. Earlier: reminder of Aphrodite's past appearance (5-13) B2. Same time as B1: Aphrodite speaks on this occasion in present tense, as if it were now (14-20) C1. Earlier still: Aphrodite alludes to visit before this one (δηὖτε) (15-16) B3. Same time as B1: Aphrodite describes unwilling lover (17-20) B4-D1. Events of time of B1 contrasted with somewhat later time, but still before time of ΑἹ (e.g. μὴ φίλει ... φιλήσει) (21-24)

A2. Now: return to entreaty to Aphrodite in present tense (25-28)

There is no "wobble" in either the temporal or physical relationships in this poem; the poet's descriptions are as precise as the movement of

Aphrodite's chariot. The theme of physical location, like those of differentiation from epic and a confident assertion of the writer's poetic values, also plays a major

role in Sappho's fr. 16. In a well-known example of the priamel, this poem contrasts the male heroic desires of cavalry, infantry, and ships (1-2 o]i μὲν ἱππήων στρότον ol δὲ nécóov / ol δὲ váov dato’ én[i] γᾶν μέλαι[ν]αν) with Sappho's belief that the most beautiful thing is whatsoever a person loves (3-4 Eyw δὲ κῆν᾽ Sttw τις Epatat). The first type of

desires, which encapsulates the value system of epic, might be described as "missile envy."? While Homer is the best-known example of epic,

Sappho's rejection of this world view is couched in terms that are not as identifiable with specific Homeric scenes as is her language in fr. 1°"; her response thus becomes a rejection not only of Homer but of the entire phallocentric attitude toward desire.?

Sappho elaborates on her value system with a mythological exemplum which is sufficiently well known to be easily understood by everyone (5-6 ná]yxv δ᾽ εὕμαρες obvetov nénoat / π]άντι r(oJüt'). Helen, who

surpassed the rest of humanity in beauty, left her husband, child, and parents, and went to Troy. This is meant to be a primarily positive example, and for the most part it is, despite numerous textual difficulties.

At line 12 the papyrus which preserves the text becomes mangled, with the result that we have no subject for the phrase παράγαγ᾽ abrav (11). Since napé&yw most often has a negative connotation, many editors have 9 This phrase was coined by Helen Caldicott, author of Missile Envy: The Arms Race and Nuclear War (New York 1984).

?! These descriptions are sufficiently

down to a particular Homeric scene, which

general that it is difficult to pin them

makes R.L. Fowler's observation that

lyric poetry is a response not only to Homer but to all of epic (38-39, 65-66 and passim) particularly apt here. 32 As Winkler describes the situation (above, n. 3, 177), “Her proposition is

not that men value military forces whereas she values desire, but rather that all valuation is an act of desire. Men are perhaps unwilling to see their values as

erotic in nature, their ambitions for victory and strength as a kind of choice."

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KRISTIN LORD

read something such as Ἔρος, Κύπρις, or Πείθω as the subject? and conjectured something like εὔκαμπτον γάρ (Page) in line 13 to go with

κούφως in line 14. The text would then read something like, "But Aphrodite beguiled her (i.e., Helen), being easily manipulated

and light-

minded." This, however, would be inconsistent with our positive expectations at the beginning of the exemplum; in addition, a positive con-

notation to the comparison with Helen is implied later in the poem, when Sappho regrets later that she cannot follow her own beloved Anactoria. While it is impossible to restore completely the sense of what has been lost, probably the best interpretation is to follow Campbell's

translation of "lightly" for xodguc,* which suggests that the powerful and beguiling force of Eros, which leads Helen to forget her previous life, nevertheless has its delicate side. By allowing her to leave her surroundings behind, Helen's actions have the same effect that joining an army or a navy would have for a male hero: they provide the opportunity for physical mobility. This mobility has several consequences. From the standpoint of literary history,

Sappho's Helen becomes an active player in the events surrounding the Trojan War, and not merely a passive object traded between men, as we see most prominently in Ibycus and Alcaeus.? In addition, if Sappho can 9 For Κύπρις, see W. Schubart, ("Bemerkungen zu Sappho," Hermes 73 [1938]

305; developed further by Page (above, n. 14) 54; Lasserre suggests Πείθω (Sappho: Une autre lecture [Padua 1989] 162), while C. Theander supplies "Epoc (“Stu-

dia Sapphica," Eranos 32 [1934] 69-71, with a discussion of the papyrological constraints and earlier attempts at restoration). # D.A. Campbell, trans., Greek Lyrics, 1 (Cambridge, MA/London 1982) 67. Winkler (above, n. 3) 176 and 178 suggests that it is also unnecessary to read

“love” as the subject. He proposes keeping

clause—Helen.

The direct object would

the same subject as in the preceding

then be some

feminine

noun,

such

as

"herself," "the city," or "nemesis." Although this is attractive, the sense is syn-

tactically strained, nor does it completely eliminate the negative sense of beguilement. Similar difficulties exist with Snyder's suggestion (above, n. 2, 68) of using the ship in which she sailed as the subject. 55 P.A. Miller, Lyric Texts and Lyric Consciousness: The Birth of a Genre from Archaic Greece to Augustan Rome (London / New York 1994) 95; cf. du Bois (above, n.

2) 124. These views once again raise the question of the extent to which Sappho frees herself from Homer as an antecedent. Although Sappho transfers the actions of Helen to a very different world view, it is fair to say along with Rosenmeyer

that Sappho

incorporates her predecessors into her own

poetic vision

rather then extracting herself from their milieu outright (above, n. 6, 138-145, esp. 144-145). Similarly, B. Gentili is probably correct in viewing Sappho's description of someone or something other than a strictly internal compulsion leading Helen from the path (11 παράγαγ᾽ abrav) as another factor in seeing Helen's Sappho within the broader constructs of Greek culture (Poetry and Its Public in Ancient Greece: From Homer to the Fifth Century, trans. A.T. Cole [Balti-

more/London 1988] 87-89). Gentili accepts Schubart's supplement of Κύπρις,

SAPPHO AND EAVAN BOLAND

279

state after this war that Helen is still a positive example of behavior, then

Sappho is saying, by extension, that she places a higher priority on the person she loves than on the possible detrimental effects of this preference. Helen's shift in position also changes the analogies within the poem itself. By leaving Menelaus for Paris, Helen becomes comparable

to the absent Anactoria; this in turn renders Sappho equivalent to the

jilted Menelaus." The loss of this mobility is what Sappho herself feels most at what may be the end of our poem.? Anactoria is not here (16 où παρεοίσας), and neither she nor Sappho is able to see the other. Since this is the case, is Helen, who literally and figuratively escapes the constraints of husband and children which normally keep women at home, an example after all, or is she merely an example of what is impossible for ordinary women? One of the reasons that heroes are heroic is that they are able to

circumvent some of the ordinary human boundaries, and yet Sappho's introduction of Helen's behavior as something straightforward to understand (εὔμαρες obveroc nénoat) suggests that Helen is not completely

outside the bounds of human activity. In fact, the existence of this poem itself suggests that Sappho has met Helen's heroism at least half way. By transcending a woman’s traditional physical and intellectual immobility

through the creation of poems which will reach some sort of audience," Sappho has a means to reach Anactoria. The extended simile in Sappho's fr. 96 also alludes to the power of but Ἔρος, Πείθω or some other external force would also suffice. See also U. Schmid,

Die Priamel der Werte im Griechischen von Homer bis Paulus

(Wiesbaden

1964) 55-56.

% LL. Pfeijffer, “Shifting Helen: An interpretation of Sappho, fragment 16 (Voigt),” CQ n.s. 50 (2000) 4. » Pfeijfer (above, n. 36) 6. In addition, as N. Austin notes, the fact that Helen

has left Menelaus for Paris proves the point that κάλλιστον also means "the most

beautiful" in the quite literal sense of Paris' physical attractions (Helen of Troy and her Shameless Phantom [Ithaca / London 1994] 59).

# Campbell raises the possibility that the poem in fact ends at line 20 (above,

n. 34, 67 n. 1), in which case the next three stanzas formed a complete poem in their own right. This is an attractive suggestion from the viewpoint of the understanding of fr. 16. The tripartite division of the poem into priamel-HelenAnactoria is elegant, and the lines fj τὰ Λύδων ἄρματα κἀν ónAovot / ntoδομ)]άχεντας (19-20) make a concise and strong ending. There is, however,

nothing in the extant portions of the following lines which preclude their location in this poem. See Snyder (above, n. 2) 53; Treu (above, n. 22) 78-79; C. Carey, "Sappho fr. 96 LP," CQ n.s. 28 (1978) 368; and Gentili (above, n. 35) 263 n. 59.

? Although we cannot be certain of how this poem, like the others, was disseminated, Stehle's suggestion (above, n. 2, 301) that fr. 96 is one of those intended for the addressee to perform for herself is well taken.

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poetry to deal with the issue of physical boundaries. In this poem, a woman who has since gone to Lydia remembers gentle Atthis. The woman now in Lydia is compared in her beauty to the rosy-fingered moon after sunset (8 à βροδοδάχτυλος σελάννα), which surpasses all the stars. Sappho’s use of the phrase à βροδοδάκτυλος σελάννα, familiar to us from "the rosy-fingered dawn" (ῥοδοδάκτυλος Ἠώς) of Homer's Od-

yssey, clues in the audience right away that she has recast the daylight of epic, in which most battle scenes and travels take place, to the travels (and travails) of love, which occur at night. What follows is an extended

simile: viv δὲ Λύδαισιν éunpéoetav yuvalxeoow ὥς ποτ᾽ ἀελίω δύντος à βροδοδάχτυλος σελάννα

πάντα περρέχοισ᾽ ἄστρα’ φάος δ᾽ ἐπίσχει θάλασσαν ἐπ᾽ ἀλμύραν ἴσως καὶ πολνανθέμοις ἀρούραις"

à δ᾽ ἐέρσα κάλα κέχυται, τεθάλαιςι δὲ βρόδα κἄπαλ᾽ ἄνθρυσκα καὶ μελίλωτος ἀνθεμώδης"

πόλλα δὲ ζαφοίταισ᾽ ... (8-15) Now she stands out among Lydian women like the rosy-fingered moon after sunset, surpassing all the stars, and its light spreads alike over the salt sea and the flowery fields; the dew is shed in beauty, and roses bloom and tender chervil and flowery melilot. Often as she goes to and fro she remembers gentle Atthis ... (trans. Campbell).”

Although the abrupt ending of the simile at πόλλα δὲ ζαφοίταισ᾽ (15) has troubled some critics" the ending of Sappho’s simile helps to merge the

image of the moon with the woman to whom it is compared.” Moreover, such transitions are not completely unknown in Homer. A partial paral-

lel occurs at Il. 16.384-392, in which a simile moves from Patroclus’ © Cf. Treu's translation (above, n. 22, 78-79).

*! E.g. Page (above, n. 14) 91-92. 42 Gentili finds that the original topic of the poem “seem(s) to all appearances forgotten"

as the simile progresses, but notes that lines 15-20 create a sense of

unity by returning to the first theme. He likewise observes that the echo of 3-5 in verses 21-23 is not an infrequent stylistic and structural feature of Sappho's odes, citing, for example, the recurring military panoply of fr. 16.1 and 19-20 (above, n. 35, 83 and 263 n. 59). See also Saake (above, n. 33) 81-82. F. Lasserre takes these

points one step further, by suggesting that viv in line 6 has a proleptic force,

anticipating the moment when Sappho returns to the woman at the end of the poem (Sappho: une autre lecture 143).

SAPPHO AND EAVAN BOLAND

281

horses to storm damage to the wrath of Zeus, which in turn results in humans rendering twisted legal judgments in the city where the storm has occurred. The switch back to the rivers at 389 (τῶν δέ te πάντες μὲν

ποταμοί) appears as abrupt as the phrase πόλλα δὲ ζαφοίταισ᾽ has seemed to some scholars of Sappho, until we consider that the Homeric

example probably arises from oral techniques.“ The simile in Homer is connected with surrounding narrative by the typical óc, which is missing in Sappho, but otherwise the connection in thought between μινύθει δέ te ἔργ᾽ ἀνθρώπων (392) and ὡς ἵπποι Τρῳαὶ μεγάλα στενάχοντο θέουσαι (393) is not apparent from the surface texture of the poem.“ It is

only later when we realize that the twisted legal judgments, which come at two removes from the beating of the horses' hooves, foreshadow con-

sequences for Troy which are equally distant from the action at hand. The anticipatory aspects of Sappho's simile are echoes in other Homeric passages, such as II. 16.156-164, in which the Myrmidons are compared

to wolves. By the time the simile is complete, the Myrmidons have not yet entered battle, but their mental state when the fight actually begins is anticipated by the wolves, who have in the interim slain their enemy and eaten to satiety.“ The stylistic comparisons between the Homeric similes and the one in

Sappho fr. 96 are consistent with contemporary views that Sappho's artistry stands somewhere between oral and written composition." But

once again, Sappho's subject matter diverges from that of her epic 9 W.C. Scott, The Oral Nature of the Homeric Simile (Leiden 1974) 155, and pri-

vate discussion and correspondence. Cf. also D.A. Campbell, who speaks in terms of the overall "Homeric generosity" of the development of the simile (Greek Lyric Poetry: A Selection of Early Greek Lyric, Elegiac and lambic Poetry [London

1967] 279-280), and Schadewaldt, who finds "an astonishing transforma-

tion" of a simile developed in the Homeric vein (Sappho: Welt und Dichtung, Dasein in der Liebe [Potsdam

1950] 121). Carey, however, does not find Homeric

parallels convincing (above, n. 38, 367). ** Gcott (above, n. 43) 156.

$ Because of oral theory, this type of interpretation differs from the analysis of earlier critics such as H. Frankel, Die Homerischen Gleichnisse (Gottingen 1921)

105-106, who find many points of comparison between even the most complex

Homeric similes and the surrounding narrative. Nevertheless, even in cases such

as repeated similes, when the second simile might be inserted into a passage in the hope that the two elements would more or less fit, there are still elements of linkage between narrative and simile; see Scott (above, n. 43) 137. # See Scott (above, 43) 54 n. 40.

# Cf. my comments on Rosenmeyer and Most at nn. 6 and 23, respectively.

These views are in contrast to Fránkel, who considers Sappho's use of the simile to be very fluid and ultimately flawed, precisely because of his interpretation of Homer (Wege und Formen frühgriechischen Denkens (Munich? 1955] 49.

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predecessors, by making love, not war, the focus of our attention. The moon travels over the heavens and sheds its light on flowers redolent of

female sexuality, presaging the woman's memory of her beloved Atthis, a great distance away on Lesbos." Although the woman cannot travel in real life, the moon simile makes it possible for her to do so in Sappho's poem. Likewise, by situating the final part of the simile in the heavens, Sappho creates a sense of distance from the emotions pervad-

ing the first part of the poem.? The landscape is pure natural beauty, but it lacks emotion, in that it is totally uninhabited by human beings.” In fact, if we consider that nocturnal imagery tends to be funereal in nature,

the lack of human habitation may also be compared with death.? In this connection we may look at Sappho's comment τεθνάκην δ᾽ ἄδολος θέλω

in fr. 94, whose floral imagery is reminiscent of this poem, as well as her remarks at fr. 31.15-16 (τεθνάκην δ᾽ ὀλίγω ᾿πιδεύης / φαίνομ᾽ ἔμ᾽ abr[q) and fr. 95.11-13: κατθάνην δ᾽ ἵμερος τις [ἔχει pe xal 48 For example, ἄνθρυσχον, chervil, and μελίλοτος, a kind of clover (Trigonella Graeca) are connected in Cratinus fr. 98.6 K and effectively in Pherecrates fr. 109 K, in which τρίφυλλον, a close relative of μελίλοτος, appears. These plants were

used to make garlands in antiquity; see Page (above, n. 14) 91. For descriptions of

sexual imagery in the botanical references in several other poems of Sappho, esp. fr. 94 and 2, see Gow on Theocr. 18.43; also R. Jenkyns, Three Classical Poets: Sappho, Catullus, and Juvenal (Cambridge, MA 1982) 68, and Winkler (above, n. 3)

181-186,.

” For a probable comparison of a young woman as the moon among stars, see Sappho fr. 34 L.-P., and the brief discussion by Jenkyns (above, n. 48) 70, who notes its overall linguistic similarities to fr. 96. Although our evidence for fr. 34 is

limited by the fragmentary nature of the poem, the verb ἀπυχρύπτοισι ("hide from sight," “conceal,” LS] s.v. 2; "perhaps ‘hide back, hide away'," Campbell [above, n. 43] 273) is also suggestive of movement on the woman's part. As

Campbell observes, the relationship between the moon and the stars is the reverse in fr. 34 (and thus, by extension, fr. 96) of what is found in Hom. Il. 8.555-6,

in which the shining stars surround a static moon (ὡς δ᾽ ὅτ᾽ ἐν οὐρανῷ ἄστρα

φαεινὴν ἀμφὶ σελήνην / φαίνετ᾽ ἀριπρεπέα ...). Ὁ Cf. the observation of Schadewaldt (above, n. 43) 122 that space divides the people in this poem, and space binds them together again, despite their physical separation. 5! Carey (above, n. 38) 367-368. On the other hand, a paradox of this poem is that the woman “is consumed" (βόρηται) longing for her beloved, while the

moon spreads its light across the sky (C.W. Macleod, "Two comparisons in Sappho," ZPE 15 [1974] 219).

?' If this is the case, the consolations at the beginning of the poem resemble a lament (A. Lardinois, "Keening Sappho: Female speech genres in Sappho's poetry," in A. Lardinois and L. McClure, eds., Making Silence Speak: Women's Voices in Greek Literature and Society [Princeton 2001] 86-87).

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283

λωτίνοις δροσόεντας [ὅχίθ]οις ἴδην ᾿Αχερί.

Overall, then, we can say that in fr. 96 the connections between love, nature, and death allow Sappho to transform a Homeric device, in the process showing how love poetry can bridge great distances between people.

It is this very question of women's movement through time and space which stands large in Eavan Boland's reinterpretation of Sappho during her own poetic journey. Boland, however, draws on a wide range of lit-

erary, historical, and artistic world-views when considering the motif of physical and intellectual mobility as a way to gather insight into women's lives. Boland was born in Dublin in 1944 to Frederick Henry Boland and Frances Kelly.* She shares with Sappho a privileged upbringing: at the age of six Boland moved to London with her family when her father, a diplomat, was appointed Irish ambassador to Britain. Later, when she was twelve, her father became the Irish ambassador to

the United Nations in New York? with the result that she spent little of her late childhood and adolescence in her homeland. Although she visited Ireland briefly at the age of fourteen, she returned to live there only when she began her undergraduate studies at Trinity College, Dublin, where she read English and Latin and eventually learned ancient Greek. After so many years away, she looked at Ireland with new eyes, having spent her childhood as “a fragment of exile"? and feeling that, "Like a daughter in a legend, I had been somewhere else.”™ This sense of removal and return pervades her early poetry. As a young adult, living

in a middle-class suburb of Dublin with her husband and two young daughters, she became aware of the marginality of women in the Irish literary tradition. 9 G. Lanata, "Sul linguaggio amoroso di Saffo," QUCC 2 (1966) 72. * Biographical information provided in K. Donovan, A.N. Jeffares, and B. Kennelly, eds., Ireland's Women: Writings Past and Present (New York/London 1994) 512. 5 He was voted president of the UN General Assembly (http:/ /www.un.

org/ga/55/president/bio15.htm) in 1960. Meanwhile, Boland's mother seems to have stopped exhibiting her work due to the constraints of her husband's profes-

sional obligations (http:/ / www.whytes.ie/ Biographies / BiogsFtoL.htm).

56 E. Boland, Object Lessons: The Life of the Woman and the Poet in Our Time (New York 1995) 53-58. 57 Boland (above, n. 56) 35.

* E. Battersby, “The beauty of ordinary things,” The Irish Times on the Web, 22

September 1998 (http:/ fea4htm).

/www.ireland.com/newspaper/ features/ 1998/0922 /

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KRISTIN LORD

The dual experience of adult family life and the literary isolation of suburbia have major implications for Boland's poetic outlook and her work. Looking back on these experiences years later in her series of autobiographical essays entitled Object Lessons: The Life of the Woman and the Poet in Our Time, she says: I wanted the Irish poem to live in my time. The dial of a washing machine, the expression in a child's face—these things were at eye level as 1

bent down to them during the day. I wanted them to enter my poems. I wanted the poems they entered to be Irish poems. I was about to find

that the poem in its time is a register of resistances and difficulties which go well beyond the intention and determination of any one poet.

I was about to find also that the politic of the poem—and also the politi-

cal poem—is a subtle and risky negotiation not only between percep-

tions of power but between what is included in the poem and what re-

mains outside it. That relation between the excluded and the included is

the dominant politic of the poem.”

Since Boland was trained as a Classicist as well as a student of English literature, one aspect of the dominant politic of her own poems includes

the ancient world. Not surprisingly, Boland turns to Sappho as a source of literary guid-

ance. For a contemporary poet, even (or perhaps especially) one with a sophisticated understanding of antiquity, Sappho takes on almost a quasi-mythical importance because of her distance and her difference. This is true in Boland’s treatment of Sappho in two poems, “Degas’s Laundresses” and “The Journey.” “Degas’s Laundresses” is the earlier of the two poems, published in her volume Night Feed in 1982; although the

poem’s title refers to a variety of works by the French Impressionist artist Edgar Degas,” the theme is reminiscent of the Irish women who fled 59 Boland

(above, n. 56) 193. See also the overview by J. Allen-Randolph,

"Private worlds, public realities: Eavan Boland's poetry 1967-2000," in J. AllenRandolph and A. Roche, eds., Irish University Review 23 (1993) 5-22 (special is-

sue); and, by the same author, "Ecriture feminine and the authorship of self in Eavan Boland's In Her Own Image," Colby Quarterly 27 (1991) 48-59.

$ The picture described in the poem cannot be any single drawing or painting. The poem describes at least four distinct parts of the laundresses' work—washing the clothes, setting them in the fields to bleach and dry, folding them in the baskets, and hoisting the full baskets to waist height—and no more than one activity can be shown in a single painting. This observation is consistent

with the extant paintings and drawings of laundresses by Degas. The most famous of these is "Laundresses with Baskets," painted and exhibited in 1878-9 and now in a private collection; later Degas did a series of pastel drawings, the best known of which contains two laundresses next to a horse. He also portrayed laundresses doing their ironing, as in "Two Ironers." I have not been able to lo-

cate a painting of women actually handling wet clothes. If I am correct, the initial scene as described by Boland is more closely related to depictions of the birth of

SAPPHO AND EAVAN BOLAND

285

the hunger and poverty of their homeland in the nineteenth century to become laundresses in other English-speaking countries. As a way of

connecting these more current themes with the Greek tradition, Boland brings in Sappho obliquely in her address to the "Aphrodites" at the beginning of the poem: You rise, you dawn roll-sleeved Aphrodites, out of a camisole brine,

a linen pit of stitches, silking the fitted sheets

away from you like waves.

(1-6)

A reader who is familiar with the portrayal of Aphrodite in antiquity will immediately think of Sappho's invocation to the goddess in fr. 1. Like Boland, who refers to "dawn" and "roll-sleeved" Aphrodites, Sappho begins her address to the goddess in the second person with two epithets, ποικιλόθρονῷ and ἀθανάτῷ (1). Later, the delicacy and discreet erotic significance of Aphrodite's chariot being driven by sparrows in Sappho's line 10 (sparrows were known in antiquity for their alleged

potency as aphrodisiacs and for their connections with the goddess of love)” is mirrored indirectly by the elegance and implied eroticism suggested by the verb “silking,” in “a linen pit of stitches, / silking the fitted

sheets ...” (4-5). Overall, Boland’s short lines and clipped language remind the reader of the terseness of Sapphic stanzas in one of the most effective ways possible in contemporary poetry in English. These more specifically Sapphic reminiscences are underscored by the general allu-

sion to Greek culture as a whole in the “Aphrodites” rising from the waves, a scene which is familiar to us from both literature and art, for instance, in the Ludovici Triptych. However,

if we, as Boland’s readers, expect a modern version of cletic

hymn to Aphrodite, we realize our mistake almost immediately. In ad-

dition to the mention of Degas in the title, the “Aphrodites” are referred to in the plural with a certain irony. Boland is indeed describing a poetic initiation, but she will discuss how gender roles interact with social class

in a way completely absent from Sappho’s fr. 1. In fact, Boland’s use of motifs of motion and space, motifs which she shares in the broadest

sense with Sappho, underscore the difference in perspective of the two writers.

This difference is subtle at first. Almost before we know it, the “AphAphrodite, as in the Ludovici Triptych, and Degas’s renditions of women making their toilette, than any extant "Laundress." 9! Gee Page (above, n. 14) 8.

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KRISTIN LORD

rodites" of the laundry scene no longer "arise," although the wash continues to move around them. The laundresses' dreams become encapsulated in the dirty clothes of more fortunate women: You seam dreams in the folds of wash from which freshens the whiff and reach of fields where it bleached and stiffened. (7-10)

To the extent that the washerwomen go anywhere at all, it is through their chat, which is “sabbatical,” i.e., bringing a period of rest (11). But even their chat is not their own, in that they do not possess the topics of their conversation, "brides, wedding outfits, / a pleasure of leisured women" (12-13).% Likewise, the term “sabbatical” suggests an uppermiddle-class life which is far removed from their reality. When the laun-

dresses do begin to move again, it is underneath the heaps of finished wash, which "round" their figures with the heavy weight (18). This is a far cry from Sappho's poem, which not only begins but ends with mo-

tion: as we have seen, Aphrodite predicts that Sappho's beloved will soon pursue, even if she flees (21 xal yap al φεύγει, ταχέως διώξει).

Before Boland finishes, the contrast with the fluidity of the beginning becomes even more pointed. Three times she orders the laundresses, "Whatever you do don't turn." In doing so, the poet preserves the lack of eye contact between the subject and the artist. Degas usually does not portray eye contact in his portraits of washerwomen and bathers; this creates an ambivalence of gaze and touch, which is significant in terms of the disparities of social standing between the artist and the women.‘ Boland's three-fold repetition of this prohibition underscores its impor-

*?? Under definition #2 for “sabbatical” in The Random House Dictionary of the English Language (New York? 1987) and definition A.1.c. in The Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford? 1989). On the social class of the laundresses in Degas' Paris,

see Lipton, Looking into Degas: Uneasy lmages of Women and Modern Life (Berkeley / Los Angeles/London 1986) 116-119.

$ Cf. the analysis of A. Shifrer on Boland's use of fabric in other poems: "Fabric in Boland's poetry is an honored token of exchange between women and an emblem of their connectedness; but it also signifies the troubled entanglements of human relationships, the trouble of class, for instance, and oppressive economic and sexual relations" ("The fabrics and erotics of Eavan Boland's poetry," Colby Quarterly 37 [2001] 327). Lipton

(above, n. 62) 116-149, esp. 135-137.

According to A. Callen, "De-

gas’ Bathers: Hygeine and dirt—gaze and touch,” in R. Kendall and G. Pollock, eds., Dealing with Degas: Representations of Women and the Politics of Vision (London 1992) 177, this phenomenon is also true in Degas' paintings of bathers.

SAPPHO AND EAVAN BOLAND

tance By doing so, she attempts to remove

287

the decision-making

authority from the painter and returns it to the subjects. But even as she makes this attempt, her language reveals that it will be unsuccessful: the

thrice-repeated warning has the psychological effect of Jesus’ prediction to the apostle Peter that he will deny Christ three times. Her prohibition is also moot on the grounds that Degas has already finished painting the laundresses a century previously. The women's winding sheet has long

ago been made; it has become a death spiral which has fixed them in place and time. This historical reality provides a painful and disturbing ending to the poem. Art, like literature, is supposed to create immortal-

ity, not to cause the death of the subject. Moreover, given what we know of the artistic career of Degas, Boland's statement is even more damning: Degas's portrayal of working-

class women and those in the demi-monde has always aroused controversy. While he personally expressed sympathy for a number of his subjects and believed that this attitude was revealed in his work,” others have not always agreed. Even when his hobnobbing was regarded as sympathetic toward his subjects, it did not always gain the approval of his social peers. Émile Zola stated, "I cannot accept a man who shuts himself up all his life to draw a ballet girl as ranking coequal in dignity $ The religious and magical significance of the number three can be seen in a variety of cultures, not simply Greek and Roman, which inform the aesthetic background to this poem. See E. Norden, Agnostos Theos (Berlin 1923) 50 n. 4, 369 n. 2, 376, 377-378. Cf. Brashear's note on P. Berol. 21243, col.1.5, in which the ap-

ple is supposed to be thrown three times for effectiveness as a love charm (above, n. 20, 266).

$ For example, he seems to have admired ballerinas for submission to a discipline which resembled his own in its intense and rigorous preparation for the seemingly effortless grace which flowed from it (R. Thomson, The Private Degas [London Tub"

1987] 47-48). He made similar comments

(C. Muehsam,

on his 1886 painting "The

ed., French Painters and Paintings from the Fourteenth Century

to Post-Impressionism [New York 1970] 465—466). Degas's choice and treatment of

his subject matter also received the respect of Paul Gauguin (Avant et aprés [Paris

1923], described in Muehsam 453-454). The scholarly literature, for its part, is not always scathing. The ordinarily critical Lipton concedes (above, n. 62, 123) that "More often than not, the representation of real toil was displaced by a nostalgia

and a sense of well-being as drawings adhered to academic recipes for gracefully bending figures rather than awkwardly straining ones." N. Broude presents a favorable reappraisal of the development of Degas's attitudes toward women and the French bourgeois feminist movement ("Edgar Degas and French feminism, ca. 1880: 'The Young Spartans,' the Brothel Monotypes, and the Bathers revisited," in Kendall and Pollock, eds. [above, n. 64] 269-283). Broude believes

that the responses of those who treated his bathers as prostitutes "must be understood in large part as reflections of personal and societal biases, and cannot be used necessarily to ‘prove’ the artist's intentions" (284-285). Unlike prostitutes, the bathers are depicted in a private, not a public, space.

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KRISTIN LORD

with Flaubert, Daudet, and Goncourt.”” Nor do Degas's efforts always win the approval of women.

Mary Cassatt, Degas's protégé and col-

league, as much as she admired his technical virtuosity, found his portrayals of women ugly and ungracious.* These features correspond to

Cassatt's reminiscences of him as an individual. There were times when she did not speak with him for months because of his anti-female comments.” In her own work, Cassatt strove to depict women

with a deli-

cacy and intimacy which departs from what has been called Degas's “voyeuristic masculine sexuality." On the whole, modern feminist criticism tends to regard Degas's treatment of female subjects as typical of the upper-class male of his time. What does it mean that a male treatment of these laundresses creates

their death, at least in a metaphorical sense, when this creation of death is told not in the painting of Degas, where the laundresses are very much alive, but in the poetry of Boland? Does it say that art created by an up-

per-class male brings death inasmuch as the artist cannot truly identify with the women he paints, or that any type of art or literature will fail to bring the laundresses to life? "Degas's Laundresses" does not address this question directly, although there is some suggestion that the type of 67 Quoted

in G. Moore, Impresions and Opinions (New York 1891) 299 and ex-

cerpted in Muehsam (above, n. 66) 451.

$ H. Dawkins,

"A history of identifications across a phantastic body," in

Kendall and Pollock, eds. (above, n. 64) 213.

9 N. Mowll Mathews, Mary Cassatt: A Life (New York 1994) 308. Reminiscing about Degas with Augustus Saint-Gaudens, she remembered that when Degas stood in front of Two

Women

Picking

Fruit for the first time, Degas scoffed, "No

woman has the right to draw like that" (Saint-Gaudens, 28 December 1922, Ar-

chives of American Art, described in Mathews 303). Cassatt's memories are consistent with the only extant account of a former model for Degas, Alice Michel's 1919 article in the Mercure de France (discussed by H. Dawkins in Kendall and Pollock, eds. [above, n. 64] 211—217). 7 G.

Pollock,

Mary

Cassatt:

Painter of Modern

Women

(London

1998)

176.

Callen believes (above, n. 64, 177) that the art gallery setting for the initial display of these paintings implicated the middle-class female viewers as participants in "the voyeuristic adultery" of their male peers, on the grounds that their respectability depended upon ignorance of sexual matters on the part of women among the bourgeoisie. Moreover, during a conversation with G. Moore, Degas apparently claimed to have used a key-hole to observe bathers (Impressions and Opinions [New York 1891] 318, with further discussion by A. Callen, The Spectacular Body: Science, Method and Meaning in the Work of Degas [New Haven/ London 1995] 223). Men commonly used the peep-hole in late nineteenthcentury France, even in bathhouses for respectable women. The question thus becomes to what extent Degas shocked his contemporaries simply by painting

what others knew about but would not admit to in public (Callen, op. cit. 108-109).

SAPPHO AND EAVAN BOLAND

289

art which might have been successful could have been created by the laundresses themselves, had circumstances been more kind. The laundresses are made static by their positions in life, but they still possess fluidity of perception. They also retain their fluidity of motion: when Boland tells the laundresses not to move, she takes the decision of their location on the canvas, particularly as it relates to eye contact, away from

the artist and restores it to the subjects. Moreover, when Boland points out to them the ease with which Degas undertakes his work and thus “unbandag(es) his mind" (31), it is clear to Boland that the laundresses, by dint of their necessary work as washerwomen, would have understood the artist's intellect, with "its twists, / its white turns, / its blind designs" (33-35).

Boland's later poem "The Journey," published in a book by that name

in 1987, addresses the relationship between social class and art more directly.” Significantly, this poem also addresses the influence of Sappho's fr. 1, equally directly. In fact, of Boland's poems to date, "The Journey"

may be both the most overtly programmatic and the most overtly Classical. These features are immediately apparent in the poem's epigraph, which comes from Book 6 of Vergil's Aeneid: Continuo auditae voces vagitus et ingens infantumque animae flentes in limine primo, quos dulcis vitae exsortis et ab ubere raptos

abstulit atra dies et funere mersit acerbo. (426-429)

The poem itself begins with snatches from a conversation in which a woman intellectual, speaking in the first person, decries the pedantry of backward-looking poets by complaining, "There has never ... been a

poem to an antibiotic: / never a word to compare with the odes on / the flower of the raw sloe for fever ..." (1-4). The reader might be forgiven

for thinking immediately that this speaker, if she represents in any way the writer who has inserted the Vergilian epigraph, has a bit of nerve to talk this way. Although Vergil is not a medical writer, the Georgics describes sloes, spinos iam pruna ferentis, in the description of plants favor-

able to bees, whose medical and philosophical benefits are his focus of discussion (4.145).” The medical benefits of hyssop

(10-11) were also

well known in antiquity, if not to be found in Vergil; the herb is discussed by the elder Pliny as a treatment for gastric disturbances (Nat.

25.136), epilepsy (26.114), and jaundice (26.124), and as an antidote for 7 Boland describes the events leading up to the composition of this poem in ^On 'The Journey'," in Y. Prins and M. Schreiber, eds., Dwelling in Possibility: Women Poets and Critics on Poetry, (Ithaca / London 1997) 187-189.

72 See E. Abbé, The Plants of Vergil's Georgics (Ithaca 1965) 105.

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KRISTIN LORD

snake bites (25.136). However, Boland makes it clear soon enough that her speaker, however indebted to the nected to the here and now. She does sion to her own maternal knowledge her daughter's survival from a bout of

ancient world, is completely conthis despite only an indirect alluof the significance of antibiotics, meningitis.” She allows her gaze

to move from the book beside her open "at the page Aphrodite / comforts Sappho in her love's duress" (15-17), to the detritus of everyday life, including "the usual hardcovers" (21), a phrase not in use before

World War II.” By this point in the poem Boland has established her programmatic task: a reconfiguration of the Classical ethos for an English-speaking woman in contemporary Ireland. She does this by describing "The Jour-

ney" which she has promised in the title to her poem. In much the same way that the Cumaean Sybil directs Aeneas on his trip to the Underworld in The Aeneid and Vergil himself becomes Dante's guide in The Inferno, Sappho becomes Boland's guide in her own journey to an Underworld in which she views the shades of women and children who died before the advent of modern medicine. In so doing, she can see the

Demeters who looked for their children in the nether kingdom.” But unlike Aeneas, Boland travels in a dream-like sequence ("not sleep, but nearly sleep, not dreaming really / but as ready to believe and still / unfevered" [25-27]), which begins at the moment her eyes meet the name of Sappho on the page. She turns away from her literary conversation, away from the poplars (known in antiquity for their associations with death), and away from one of her children, who herself is startled 73 See J. Montefiore, Feminism and Poetry: Language, Experience, Identity in Women's Writing (London 1994) 218 and n. 104. I have not been able to obtain H. Carr, "Poetic license," in From My Guy to Sci-fi (Pandora

1989) 149, the original

source of this information.

™ According to The Random House Dictionary of the English Language, Second Edition

Unabridged (New

York

1987), the word

"hardcover"

does not appear in

English until 1945-1950. This is probably because the term "hardcover" implies the domination of paperbacks. While paperbacks have been a staple of low-brow and utilitarian reading since Victorian times, A. Manguel, in A History of Reading (New York 1996), traces the ascent of the paperback as a vehicle for the publication of high-brow literature to Allen Lane, the founder of Penguin in London in 1935 (143-144). 5 Boland indicated in a 1990 interview with P. Boyle Haberstroh: "The woman I imagined—if the statistics are anything to go by—must have lost her children in that underworld, just as I came to possess mine through the seasons of my neighborhood" (Women Creating Women: Contemporary Irish Women Poets

[Syracuse 1995] 75). 7 These start with the myth that the sisters of Phaethon, mourning for his

demise, were turned into poplars (Ov. Met. 2.340-366). See discussion by F.

SAPPHO AND EAVAN BOLAND

291

in a dream, and she enters Sappho's care in a soporific state characterized by complete obedience to the Greek poet as if to a god ("and I would have gone with her anywhere" [30]). As we might expect from her explicit reference to Sappho's fr. 1, Boland's quasi-religious obedience to her predecessor is not the only way Sappho's appearance to Boland resembles Aphrodite's epiphany to Sap-

pho. Like Sappho in fr. 1, Boland finds herself in a static position, while the superhuman figure comes toward her (28). Later, when Sappho as divine guide has led Boland in an imaginary journey through to "what seemed to be / an oppressive suburb of the dawn" (43-44)— but is, of course, still a suburb of Dublin—Boland hears advice which is as specific as Aphrodite's advice to Sappho herself in fr. 1. The advice is initially simply an explanation that the women and children whom Boland sees in the Underworld perished from "cholera, typhus, croup, diphtheria" (49), diseases common to the poor of Europe: "Behold the children of the

plague" (52). But Sappho is not a tourist guide; she has specific instructions about the relationship between literature, motherhood, and social class. She specifically warns Boland not to pidgeonhole the adult women by their stations in life, either as washerwomen (59) or as "court ladies brailled in silk" (61). We think of Boland's depictions of gender and class

in "Degas's Laundresses." Has Sappho, herself an influence on that earlier poem, returned to criticize Boland for her handiwork? For Sappho, all of the women in Boland's Underworld are mothers just like Boland herself, who went out at dusk and picked up the mess

made by the children as they played with their toys. Not only that: if we look at the elevated style and diction of the women's

responses to

beauty, they could be potential poets as well: love's archaeology—and they too like you stood boot deep in flowers once in summer or saw winter come in with a single magpie

in a caul of haws, a solo harlequin. (69-72)

Boland, however, initially misses the point of Sappho's implication that the dead women could have been poets under better circumstances and hence written their own poetry. She begs in a whisper to be at least their witness (77-78). At this point Sappho becomes completely blunt, warning Boland that "What you have seen is beyond speech, / beyond song, only not beyond love" (79-80).

With Sappho's warning that what Boland has seen is beyond speech, we now have an answer to our question from "Degas's Laundresses" as Bómer,

P. Ovidius

Naso

Metamorphosen,

Vergil's depiction of Cycnus at A. 10.190.

1 (Heidelberg

1969) 328-329.

Cf. also

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KRISTIN LORD

to whether women writers can depict the sufferings of women and children in a way that male artists, however well-intentioned, cannot. Sappho's answer is negative when it comes to the extremes of suffering. As

writers dealing with the unspeakable, women are stuck in silence in the Underworld, in a straightjacket that is as tight as the winding sheet Degas has made for the laundresses. The gender difference may come in a poet's response to the situation. Boland's initial reaction to seeing the dead of the Famine is to restore them to speech; this approach is consis-

tent with feminist ideals, but it suffers from being exactly what a maledominated literary tradition would expect of a writer." Boland is left with no easy solution, although Sappho gives yet more advice ("remember it" [81]) and speaks of her in familial terms, which

can only refer to their joint status as mothers who are also poets ("and stand beside me as my own daughter" [85]). As Sappho, she fades. Boland ends with the realization that "nothing has changed"

(93) and

weeps as her healthy children sleep safely through to dawn. And yet Boland, by referring to Sappho's connection between the two women,

leaves us with a paradox. There are horrors which are beyond our ability to speak, but at the same time our only recourse to these horrors is to speak.” If the unspeakable is beyond love, it is only through words that a poet can express this. Indeed, in this sense nothing has changed. There is also another paradox at the end of "The Journey." As I have indicated, the sense of motion in Boland's journey to the Underworld is

illusory. "Nothing has changed" at the end of the trip. The only sense of movement comes from the shifting wind, which wakes the poet by causing the window to open and bang shut. Sappho says that both she and Boland share "an origin like water," a moving liquid which is reminiscent of the origin of Aphrodite, but this suggestion of motion is as illusory in real life as the movement provided by the water in "Degas's

Laundresses." Boland is still in her chair in suburban Dublin, with the detritus of family life around her. We can further contrast this paradox with the treatment of motion in Sappho's own fragments 1 and 16. Although Sappho herself is relatively static within the physical parameters of the poems, the possibility of 7 M. Mills Harper, "Death and the poetry of Eavan Boland and Audre Lorde," in S. Shaw Sailer, ed., Representing lreland: Gender, Class, Nationalit (Gainesville 1997) 190. Cf. Harper's discussion of "The Achill Woman,"

in which

the victims of the Famine are not described directly, as readers might expect, but "stay put, in the past that informs the setting and has changed the poet" (188). 78 Cf. K E. Robertson, “Anxiety, influence, tradition and subversion in the poetry of Eavan Boland," Colby Quarterly 30 (1994) 268: Boland, in contrast to a poet

such as Adrienne Rich, believes that the Irish woman poet can reclaim the English language and traditional poetic forms by subverting them.

SAPPHO AND EAVAN BOLAND

293

movement remains a theme. Aphrodite assures Sappho in fr. 1 that the woman of her desire will pursue her, even though unwilling, while in fr. 16 Sappho provides the example of Helen escaping from her conventional life to join her beloved, and Sappho's own immobility is partially transcended through art. The simile of fr. 96 depicts a similar degree of

transcendence. The fact that Boland, on the other hand, stresses the immutability of physical location in both "Degas's Laundresses" and "The Journey" is indicative of the Irish poet's emphasis on the restrictions of women's traditional roles. The bluntness of the physical constriction is even greater in "Degas's Laundresses," in which the female characters are forced to stay where they are by the constraints of both gender and class. These differences of perspective give rise to the question of whether Boland's portrayal of a twentieth-century "Sappho," given the evidence

that Sappho has left in her own poetry, is credible. In general, the answer is a qualified yes. As we might expect, the specific nature of the eroticism of the persona of Sappho in her extant poetry does not figure in "Degas's Laundresses" and "The Journey." Boland makes no particular comment

on Sappho's description of her "circle"; she merely takes her own experience, and by extension that of her peers, as a focus for the exploration

of erotic experience. Allowing for the caveat that Boland's silence does not necessarily imply that she views Sappho's lyrics as homoerotic (she may be agnostic on this point), it is not impossible that her reaction to

this aspect of Sappho's work is similar to her response to the stance of the later poems of Adrienne Rich: "They describe a struggle and record a moment that was not my struggle and would never be my moment. Nor my country, nor my companionship. Nor even my aesthetic.”” In addition, in our extant remains of Sappho, there is no emphasis on social class. In early Greek lyric, the only major poet who discusses pov-

erty is Archilochus, a mercenary of modest background. To expect the works of Sappho to show the social awareness of a Boland is anachro-

nistic, and the twentieth-century words which Boland puts into Sappho's mouth may reflect this. However, the advice about class consciousness

which Sappho is shown as giving in "The Journey" also has a more positive aspect, which is consistent with Sappho's own writing. Both Boland's "Sappho" and Sappho herself tend to take people as they are, P From an interview with Boland by N.M. Wright and D.J. Hannan in ILS 10 (Spring 1991), reprinted in Writing Irish (Syracuse 1999) 183. The same observations also appear in Boland's introduction to Adrienne Rich: Selected Poems (Knocheven 1996). Although I have not been able to locate a copy of this book, the quotation is included, with extensive discussion, in A. Gelpi, "Hazard and Death': The poetry of Eavan Boland," Colby Quarterly 35 (1999) 211.

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KRISTIN LORD

without fanfare. This is significant, given that Sappho was part of a major political struggle in the Mytilene of her day, and that politics receive

only small treatment in her extant works outside of references to her brother. In the end, Sappho's self-assurance in terms of what she does and does not want to write about may be her biggest gift to Boland. In literature as well as love, Sappho is a follower of the goddess Aphrodite.

When Sappho recasts epic, she makes love her battlefield.” Although this love is certainly erotic, friendship is also involved, and it is reasonable to interpret Sappho's non-gender-specific wording of ἔγω δὲ xñv” Sttw ttc Epatat (16.3-4) as a way of expanding the significance of the

poem beyond its immediate circumstances" In addition, Sappho describes non-erotic love in a number of poems, especially in her references

to Kleis, whoever or whatever Kleis may be.” This view of love as a phenomenon of broader significance is not entirely inconsistent with

Boland's "Sappho," who gives advice that "What you have seen is beyond speech, / beyond song, only not beyond love" on the grounds that there are limitations to literature. Moreover, love may also provide a

way of dealing with the paradox that there are sufferings beyond human capacity for poetry. As we have seen, the only way to talk of the unspeakable is to mention it nevertheless; it may be that understanding

another's situation through love allows a poet to avoid the pitfall of emphasizing matters of gender and class at the expense of understanding suffering as a universal human condition. In this regard, Boland's "The Journey" may represent a shift to a broader focus in her portrayal of gender and class. When The Journey was published in the United States in 1987, Anthony Libby of The New York Times Book Review made a single criticism in an otherwise glowing

report: “Ms. Boland insists, perhaps too much and too defensively, on her status as a poet of the common." It was certainly Boland's intent, for what it is worth, in writing the title poem, "to subvert that relation between what is left out of the poem and what is included in it. As a young poet in Ireland, in a poetic climate dominated by the well-made

poem and the masculine initiative, that relation had, in a very real sense, been prescribed for me."* Boland also took specific pains to disagree with Libby, describing her "defensiveness" as an "emphasis" based on 9 See especially Rissman (above, n. 7) passim, and Winkler (above, n. 3) 177. 81 Cf. the comments of Most (above, n. 23 [1995]) 32.

9 See my discussion at n. 3 above.

9 23 March 1987, 23. # Boland (above, n. 71) 187-188.

SAPPHO AND EAVAN BOLAND

295

gender experience. Nevertheless, she seems to have acted on the advice of her "Sappho" in two of her more recent collections, In a Time of Violence (1994) and The Lost Land (1998). This is also true to some extent in Against Love Poetry (2001). Here, more than ever, Boland is fulfilling the

promise of her programmatic poem on the journey to the Underworld and providing work which is, to borrow Libby's positive finale to his

review, "for the ages."5

55 M. Reizbaum,

"An interview with Eavan Boland,"

30 (1989) 472—474. 86 Libby (above, n. 83) 23.

Contemporary

Literature

22 DIDO’S COURT PHILOSOPHER’ ALEXANDER G. MCKAY lopas’ song is no more than a reflection of Augustan intellectual inter-

ests, which, in Virgil at least, with his Lucretian inclinations, went deep.

(Pease [1936] 223)

It can hardly be accidental, especially at the end of a book, where closeness and precision of form may be expected, that the five lines reporting

lopas’ song (742-746), with a single line intervening, are followed by five lines indicating Dido’s emotional state (748-752). A contrast seems

to be implied between the calm, remote heavenly bodies and the immediate tumult in Dido's breast.

(Clausen [1987] 31)

From the outset of her encounter with the Trojans, Dido is concerned to accent and exhibit Punic culture; her words are also suffused with Epicurean ideals as she tries to allay the immediate fears and apprehensions of the Trojans in distress. Mercury as Jupiter's minion has already inter-

vened to induce Dido to show quietum ... animum mentemque benignam, “a calm spirit and benign mind" (A. 1.3034), serving notice for Vergil's

readers that the mind-shift from xenophobia to hospitality for aliens was prompted by divine intervention. Perhaps ... but Epicurean modes and beliefs, particularly reliance on amicitia, are also pervasive in her behav-

iour towards her guest from the outset. In the developing scene, friendship and

alliance, both Epicurean

traits, feature in the encouragement and blessing that Dido offers the beleaguered Trojans. Etymologically, Dido's name suggests "giving," My years with Edmund Berry at the University of Manitoba, in 1951-52 and in 1955-1957, were memorable times of friendship and scholarly guidance, of stimulating intellectual discourse, of hospitality provided by Virginia and Ed-

mund, and of gala occasions attaching to the city's emergent orchestra, theatre, and gallery. Edmund's Scottish nature and wit, his classical learning, his un-

common sensitivity to classical echoes, his insights into Greco-Roman thought

and institutions, and into contemporary issues over a wide spectrum, have al-

ways been the hallmarks of his breadth of vision and refined judgment. His integrity and respect for res dulciores et humaniores, and his readiness to assume administrative roles, by example and encouragement altered and enriched my earlier professional career; my gratitude to Edmund is boundless.

297

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ALEXANDER G. McKAY

and generosity is a discernible virtue in her character, evident in her hospitality that includes food and wine, religious formalities, services, and a modicum of contemporary science. Her words to Ilioneus, the representative man of Ilium, and to his companions who ask for succour in their adversity, admittedly anxious and depressed by evidence of xenophobia on the Punic shores, are distinctly encouraging: Solvite corde metum, Teucri, secludite curas. Res dura et regni novitas me talia cogunt moliri et late finis custode tueri. Quis genus Aeneadum, quid Troiae nesciat urbem, virtutesque virosque aut tanti incendia belli? Non obtunsa adeo gestamus pectora Poeni,

nec tam aversus equos Tyria Sol iungit ab urbe. (A. 1.561-8) Have no fear, men of Troy. Put every anxious thought out of your hearts. [This is a new kingdom, and it is harsh necessity that forces me to take these precautions and to post guards on all our frontiers.] But who could fail to know about the people of Aeneas and his ancestry, or the city of Troy, the valour of its men and the flames of war that engulfed it? We here in Carthage are not so dull in mind as that. The sun does spare a glance for our Tyrian city when he yokes his horses in the morning. (trans. West [1990] 21)

The hallmarks of her opulent, sophisticated society are impressive: gold and silver table ware, extravagant lighting, cohorts of waiters and waitresses, abundant bread and wine, and a recital provided by a court

philosopher-poet. The "land's end" hospitality of Homer's Phaeacia resounds throughout Vergil's mise en scène: both are havens of succour and relief for tempest-tossed, displaced mariners. Lucretius' portrayal and condemnation

of a comparable scene in a rich man's mansion

(2.23-28)

may even be Vergil's model for the extravagance of the Punic court. Monica Gale (1994) noticed that Lucretius' banquet scene is markedly reminiscent of the description of Alcinous' palace in Odyssey 7, and Julia Dyson (1996), well attuned to Lucretian echoes in Vergil's palace setting, has argued persuasively that "Dido's ... Homeric palace is peppered with Lucretian images of superfluous ornament," a feature that probably

derives from the moralizing, caustic aside by the didactic poet whose origins, like Vergil's, were in Cisalpine Gaul: gratum interdum neque natura ipsa requirit,

si non aurea sunt iuvenum simulacra per aedes lampadas igniferas manibus retinentia dextris, lumina nocturnis epulis ut suppeditentur, nec domus argento fulget auroque renidet

nec citharae reboant laqueata aurataque templa. (2.23-28) It is pleasing, from time to time, and nature itself does not go lacking, if

DIDO'S COURT PHILOSOPHER

299

there are not golden statues of youths through the dwelling carrying fire-bearing torches in their right hands, so that lights may be supplied to nocturnal banquets; and the house does not gleam with silver and glisten with gold; and citharas do not bellow through panelled and gilded apartments.

Of course, models for Dido's palace were not exclusively literary. The pretentious lifestyles and housing of Roman republican nabobs were repeatedly encountered by Vergil in the shadow of Vesuvius. Imports from Alexandria and Pergamum, bronze and marble sculpture from

Athens and Corinth, consorted with Italian imitation ware and furniture reproductions, and wares and wines from the Far West, were commonplace well before Levantine Trimalchio's chaotic domestic grandeur.

Wallace-Hadrill (1994) has enlightened us on the public and private aspects of Pompeian houses, their quality of acceptance, and exclusion, suggesting that the rich man's atrium often resembled the cortile of an Italian palazzo, open to regular guests and clients, and to casual strang-

ers drifting by like Aeneas and Achates, but hardly veiled in obscurity. The quality of the murals, at Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Oplontis, usually respected and reflected their settings, providing repertoires ranging from solemnity to casual invitation, offering "entertainment" to all tastes. Still lifes, in painting and mosaic, representing things to eat, were

called xenia because they depicted menu items and refreshments customarily offered to hospites (= Greek xenoi) who stopped at larger houses with or without formal invitations on their travels. The xenia were embodiments of hospitality and a readiness to entertain. Dido conforms: the banqueting hall is marked by exceptional opulence, and the banquet is sumptuous.

Juno's Temple Gallery, presumably assembled by Dido's commission, seems like a transfer from a lordly mansion—recalling the megalo-

graphic paintings from Pompeii's Villa of the Mysteries and the Villa at Boscoreale, or domestic penings, with the scope jan Wars in Asia Minor presented as anecdotes,

panel paintings and murals of "heroic" hapand variety of Homer's Odyssey or Vergil's Troand Italy's Latium. Their depictions are usually incidents that might be related or explored in

general conversation (Dido's vario sermone, 1.749). After lopas has delivered his poetic "lecture" on natural philosophy, Dido's request programme (1.750-56) to Aeneas is remarkably close to the subject-matter of Campanian mural painters.

Dido's hospitality to the Aeneadae provides a measure of otium long absent from their lives as warriors and sailors, reminiscent, perhaps, of their life style at pre-War Troy. Peace of mind, and peace, were unquestionably a major preoccupation and feverish quest during Vergil's life-

time. Although peace of mind was a cardinal virtue in Epicurean teach-

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ALEXANDER G. McKAY

ing, otium was difficult to find or maintain in contemporary Rome, despite the mansions and the horti. A truer and more commodious otium

resided in the villas of Campania, after the pattern of the Villa of the Pisones, with a vista open to the mare magnum of negotia, planted in splendid isolation and blest with a contubernium of friends of like mind, relaxed and confident in the intellectual company of poets and particularly

of Epicurean teachers, Siro on Pausilypon [the Hill of Sans Souci], and Philodemus of Gadara at Herculaneum. There may be discernible ties between Vergil's Carthage and Homer's Phaeacia, but the ties that bind Dido's palace venue with the mansions of the Campanian littoral are just as comfortable and accommodating as the Phaeacian wonderland for the action that ensues. The question regarding Vergil's literary models for the scene that highlights the aiodos at Carthage is tantalizing. Scholars have commonly associated Punic Iopas with Demodocus, the blind bard, and so with a Homeric paradigm, the bard who entertained Odysseus at the Phaeacian court (Od. 8.266-366, 487-520), or with Phemius (Od. 1.325--27), the resi-

dent recitalist on Ithaca; others have settled on Orpheus in Apollonius’ Argonautica 1.496-511 as model. Although the most immediate epic source of inspiration for lopas and his banquet song probably resides in Apollonius, my preference is to see the bardic trio of Demodocus, Phemius and Orpheus as a corporate entity in Vergil’s North African performer. Vergil's text relating to lopas may be summary, but it is minutely detailed: Long-haired Iopas, pupil of mighty Atlas, then sang to his gilded lyre of the wanderings of the moon and the labours of the sun, the origin of the human

race, and of the animals, the causes of rain and of the fire of

heaven, of Arcturus, of the Hyades, bringers of rain, of the two Triones, the oxen of the Plough; why the winter suns are so eager to immerse themselves in the Ocean, and what it is that slows down the passage of the nights. The Tyrians applauded again and again, and the Trojans followed their lead. (A. 1.74047 [West]).

The content of Iopas' song is remarkably consistent with the topics treated by Lucretius in the De Rerum Natura: (1)

the movement of the moon (5.614—49)

(2) solar eclipses (5.751-61) (3) (4) (5) (6)

the the the the

creation of life (5.783—6) origin of rain (6.169-245) origin of thunderbolts (6.451-534) alternation of day and night (5.680-704)

Robert Brown ([1990] 316) regards Iopas' list of topics as "typical of

DIDO'S COURT PHILOSOPHER

301

the programmatic syllabuses and recapitulation of didactic, and especially cosmological, poetry," extending from Hesiod's Theogony to Lu-

cretius. We are provided therefore with the skeleton outline of his longer verse lecture. Quintilian (Inst. 1.10.9f.) suggests that Vergil's Iopas is an embodiment of the ideal long-haired primitive philosopher-poet, who combined music, religion and wisdom in his make-up. That assertion may have satisfied Quintilian's audience, but, to judge by the content of Iopas' song and its Epicurean links, a more specific identification seems to be in order. How precise can we be, or should we be, in determining models, let alone an historical identity, for Iopas? Certainly his subject matter, even in summary form, seems more consonant with Hellenistic poetry than with Homeric minstrelsy. And the portrait is particularly arresting: a Punic artist, long-haired, trained by Atlas, equipped with a gilded lyre

that must connote high station, and lodged with a richly patronizing court. Granted that gil's minstrel seems uncertain terms that tion that is entirely

Pindar's lyre of Apollo is golden (P. 1.1f.) and Versuperficially Apolline, we are also informed in no Iopas has been taught by Atlas, an African connecappropriate for his Carthaginian residency. Atlas,

associated with northwest Africa, with Mauretania in particular, is a reasonable recourse for lopas’ training: a Titan associated with the weight of the heavens, who carried in his head a great weight of knowledge relating to the stars (Pease [1935] 254) and whom

rationalists identified as

both the inventor of astronomy and as its distinguished African professor (Plin. Nat. 7.56.203).

Leon Herrmann's article, "Crinitus Iopas" (1967), argued for the bard's identification with Epicurean Maecenas, poet and patron, who had already, in Hermann's somewhat eccentric view, surfaced in Vergil's earlier poetry under the pseudonym lollas (Ecl. 2.57, 3.76, 79). Maecenas at the court of Carthaginian Dido is a challenging prospect, but in support of the identification we remember that Maecenas was inclined to astronomy because Horace signals the statesman's involvement with that science in Odes 3.29.17-20. In fact, Maecenas was also addicted to the cult of astrology which had become fashionable among Rome’s elite.

Hermann's thesis that Maecenas flickers through Iollas in the Bucolics has not won many converts; his appeal for support to Seneca and Propertius (II. 22), and to Maecenas' Prometheus, strains credulity. One might

choose to argue simply for the bard's Phoenician origin. Theodore Duke (1950) argued that Vergil himself masquerades as lIopas, singing lines

from his own Georgics. One must concede that intellectual Vergil, one-time resident with Philodemus of Gadara at the Villa of the Pisones, might have incorporated himself in the portrait of the doctus poeta in Dido's Tunisian con-

302

ALEXANDER G. McKAY

text. There are certainly discernible links between Iopas' song and that of

Clymene in Georgics 4.345ff., and that of the captive Silenus in Bucolics 6. 31-40. Whether or not there is a specific reference to Lucretius, we need to

remember Vergil's apologia in Georgics 2.475-85 relating to poetry as a profession: Since Poetry for me comes first, my goddess and chief delight, Whose devotee I am, with a master passion adoring, I wish above all she accept me, revealing the stars, and the sky-routes, The several eclipses of the sun, the moon pallid in labour,

The cause of earthquakes and of the force that compels the deep sea To swell, to break all bounds, to fall back on itself again:

The reason why winter suns race on to dip in the ocean, And what delays the long nights. (trans. Day Lewis [1966])

That passage reverberates through Aeneid 1.74047. Vergil's dilemma, to choose between scientific and landscape poetry, led to a beatitude on Epicurus (G. 2.490-92): Lucky is he who can learn the roots of the universe,

Has mastered all his fears and fate's intransigence

And the hungry clamour of hell.

(trans. Day Lewis [1966])

Vergil is timorous and hesitant about choosing the way of didactic,

scientific verse; if his intellect is not equal to that enterprise, then the countryside will be an acceptable alternative (G. 2.483-86): But if a sluggishness, a lack of heat in my heart's blood Denies me access to these mysteries of the universe, Then let the country charm me, the rivers that channel its valleys,

Then may I love its forest and stream, and let fame go hang. (trans. Day Lewis [1966]).

Philip Hardie (1986), and others before and after Duke, have sensed

that the vignette of lopas may be autobiographical "to the extent that it is a picture of the kind of poet Virgil would like to be." But if Iopas is a cameo-portrait of Vergil, an important question arises for Hardie (36): does lopas still represent a poetic ideal that Vergil himself cannot

achieve, or does the Aeneid represent a stage beyond the confession of failure in the Georgics? Certainly the latter. The poet's aspiration to scientific poetry is resolved in the Georgics, his verse treatises on agriculture. These are serious considerations which may affect the identification of Iopas with Vergil. However, the epic's context for Iopas’ performance, a celebratory banquet-symposium with

high-spirited guests, brings me back to Bucolic 6.31-40, lines which embrace the learned song of Silenus, verses which are lodged precariously

DIDO'S COURT PHILOSOPHER

303

in an "entertainment," a surprisingly learned digression in what must be a mime, replete with song and slap-stick, a "selection" designed for performance on a garden-stage, in an enclosed odeum, or at a convivial symposium.

The subject matter of Iopas’ song has worried commentators, ancient and modern, who find it heavy going for jubilant banqueters. But Vergil's contemporaries, and no doubt their classical forebears, must have been well acquainted with comparable offerings at dinner parties and

symposia, certainly with the celebrated astronomical poem of Aratus (ca. 315-240 B.C.E.), the Phaenomena, and with recitationes of Lucretius’ mas-

terpiece during and after its composition. Herculaneum may be another precedent: Philodemus' verses and treatises on a dazzling variety of subjects must have provided diversified entertainment in the hortus of

the Villa of the Pisones many times over during Vergil's residence at Naples. So far, options for the identification of lopas with any known personality have been few in number; Maecenas seems a doubtful reference, so

too Vergil, sharing the limelight with Aeneas as entertainer. Could Iopas conceivably embody Gadarene Philodemus—familiar to Vergil in his

guise as philosopher-poet at the "court" of Calpurnius Piso? Vergil's indebtedness to the Gadarene is certainly beyond dispute. Is it conceiv-

able that Vergil's fondness for puns may have induced him to play with names, with the ramifications of Homeric Demodocus ("esteemed by the

people") and Philodemus ("beloved by the people") and so led him to enshrine the bard of Herculaneum under an African sobriquet as a Punic entertainer? If so, Vergil had Homer as a model: in Odyssey 8.472 and 13.28 Homer glosses Demodocus' name as "honoured by the people." Crinitus lopas remains an enigma. Certainly the epithet “long-haired”

can be plausibly associated with Apollo in his guise as master of the Muses, an image that was current in the Augustan age, featuring even in a mural

in the House

of Augustus

on the Palatine (cf. Verg.

A. 9.638;

Hor. Carm. 4.3.17). Fulgentius Afer (fifth-sixth century CE, in his Expositio Virgiliane continentiae secundum philosophos morales, unlikely explication for our Punic citharoedus: Iopas ... dictus est, id est taciturnitas puerilis. infantia enim ... oblectatur. Dido would hardly commission a lullaby an obstreperous banqueting room. The etymological (1991), O'Hara

p. 93.12), offers an Graece quasi siopas semper ... cantibus for performance in labours of Maltby

(1996), and Paschalis (1997), have helped to lead me to

my personal conclusion, that the juxtaposition of lopas and crinitus may

conceal an historical identification. Punic Iopas slips fairly easily into an equation with the name, Juba,

which was attached to two Numidian kings whose lives span the late Republic and early Empire. Juba I, Caesar’s African foe, committed sui-

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ALEXANDER G. McKAY

cide in 46 B.C.E. His son, Juba II, at the age of 4, graced Caesar's Roman

triumph in 46; after Caesar's assassination, the child was brought up under the watchful eye of Octavian-Augustus and of Octavia in Rome. He received Roman citizenship and accompanied Octavian on his expeditions. He was reinstated as ruler first in Numidia, then transferred, at

twenty something, while Vergil was writing his epic, to Mauretania, where he reigned with Cleopatra Selene, daughter of Antony and Cleopatra. His later claim to fame rested on his many writings in Greek: works about Libya, Arabia, and Assyria; a history of Rome; grammatical

and literary researches; botany; and art history. Plutarch and Pliny the Elder both used his writings as source material. It seems reasonable to

suppose that his intelligence and respectability, when Vergil was composing his Aeneid, were beyond cavil. Vergil's inclusion of the young

Numidian scholar-ruler, in the guise of a didactic philosopher-poet, would be a clever and acceptable ploy on Vergil's part to heighten the quality and prestige of Dido's court. Vergilian word-play may also be

involved: Juba, the royal name, aligns with juba, jubae, the flowing mane of an animal: and crinitus is an alternative word for the same feature. The juxtaposition of crinitus and Iopas signals etymological wordplay, a rec-

ognizable hallmark of Vergil's “Hellenistic” style. Is the suggestion too far-fetched to be credible? Maybe not! Is there any support for the imaginative leap? Maybe. Servius (A. 1.738) notices that Vergil had a penchant for North African, Punic names: Poenorum ducum nomina introducit; Servius is explicit regarding Bitias and Iopas: Nam Bitias classis Punicae fuit praefectus, ut docet Livius (fr. 7 Weissenborn-Mueller), lopas vero rex Afrorum, unus de procis Didonis, ut

Punica testatur historia.

Servius’ research into lopas’ identity has generally been trashed, the

assumption being that the grammaticus confused Iopas with Iarbas, Vergil's sheik of the Gaetulians. But Servius may actually be on target and he may even have sensed that an actual African king, Juba II, would be

an attractive and acceptable association.

The tidiest solution of the riddle of identity is either to accept the traditional epic trio, Demodocus, Phemius and Orpheus as contributing literary exemplars, or, without compromising the literary solution, to settle with the youthful intellectual, Juba II, raised, educated and promoted by Octavian/ Augustus, reinstated as ruler in North Africa under the surveillance of Rome, a paragon among intellectuals, enshrined by Vergil in Dido's Tunisian court. What is the function of Iopas' song? For one thing, after the music and

the didactic verse have ended, and the applause echoes through the palace, the focus finally returns to Dido's love and her disorderly passion,

DIDO'S COURT PHILOSOPHER

305

and the book closes with attention firmly on that. In contrast to the orderly, carefully balanced, intellectual song of Iopas about the sky and the

primordial past, we are brought down to earth and back to the present with Dido's disordered emotions. Dido drinks deep draughts of love, an unusual and striking image at 749. In the context of the banquet, one

thinks most readily of wine, and so the metaphor of drinking deep suggests that an altering of perceptions, mood-changes from delight to despair, and loss of control may lie ahead. Dido, already a victim of love,

tries to prolong contact with Aeneas, to learn more about him and his background

(750-55). Her requests are certainly less cerebral, less intel-

lectual, basically more romantic, than Iopas' answers to the riddles of the

cosmos: Details about Priam, and Hector The arms of Ethiopian Memnon, son of Aurora

The nature of the man-eating horses of Diomedes The physique of Achilles Greek treachery [The Wooden Horse, Odysseus] Trojan sufferings The wanderings of Aeneas.

Dido's curiosity is fired by her growing sympathy for the Trojans, by her respect for heroism, and by her growing love of Aeneas. Whereas Iopas has recited cosmic Origines, Dido's request is attuned to the tragic

human condition: "immo age et a prima dic, hospes, origine nobis insidias," inquit, "Danaumque casusque tuorum erroresque tuos ..."

The book ends with a terrible irony. Because Dido at 750-52 is keen to hear about extinguished valour and royal persons who are dead (Priam, Hector, Memnon—the

African hero, and Achilles), at 753ff. she invites

Aeneas to supply her banqueters with an epic tale of deceptions, enmity, wanderings, suffering, misery, death and disaster ... whose primal cause was love, the love of Paris and Helen. Wendell Clausen (1986) detected

the contrast between the "calm, remote heavenly bodies and the immediate tumult in Dido's breast" (supra). Wrapped in luxury and secure in

the power and glory and happiness of their young queen, the courtiers are blindly unaware of her upset or of ominous foreshadowings affect-

ing Dido's career. When Dido settles herself on the banqueting couch at A. 1.697-8, Vergil uses the expression, se composuit ("was stretched out"),

words used commonly of laying out a corpse for burial; another couch, the couch of their "marriage," will eventually surmount her funeral pyre

at A. 4.648-50. The imagery of fire is pervasive in her story. Vergil's undoubted sympathy for the queen leads to his intrusion at A. 1.712-14:

306

ALEXANDER G. McKAY praecipue infelix, pesti devota futurae, expleri mentem nequit ardescitque tuendo Phoenissa, et pariter puero donisque movetur.

Venus' other son, Cupido, is the devious, mischievous agent of his mother in the conspiracy against Dido, activating the young queen's

maternal desires and fuelling her infatuation for Aeneas. There is a sense of impotence, of human blindness, in a world where celestial powers

exercise callous control over their favourites and over those who, in the Epicurean mode, deny their power. Readers have sensed characteristic Vergilian irony in the queen's appeals to Jupiter: Iuppiter, hospitibus nam te dare iura loquuntur (A. 1.731), and to Bacchus and Juno, prayers that are

hardly appropriate for anyone of the Epicurean persuasion, certainly not

for this victim of the gods. Iopas' song enables the lovers to measure themselves against what might be construed as a controlled but nevertheless non-intrusive universe; overall, his song sets human intelligence

against the mysteries of the universe There may be somber notes in his programme,

ominous

eclipses, winters, and darkness, but the bard

moves resolutely through his repertoire. lopas’ song may be designed to contribute to the understanding of a mysterious universe, but it cannot and will not eclipse or diminish the human tragedy.

REFERENCES

Austin, R. G. 1971. Vergili Maronis Aeneidos Liber Primus. Oxford. Braund, S.M. 1997. "Virgil and the cosmos: Religious and philosophical ideas' in C. Martindale, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Virgil. Cambridge /New York: 204-221. Brown, R.D. 1990. "The structural function of the Song of Iopas.” HSCP 93:

315-334. Clausen, W.V. 1987. Virgil's Aeneid and the Tradition of Hellenistic Poetry. Berkeley /Los Angeles. Appendix 5. Day Lewis, C. 1966. The Eclogues, Georgics and Aeneid of Virgil. London. Duke, T.T. 1950. "Virgil - a bit player in the Aeneid?” C] 45: 191-193. Dyson, Julia T. 1996. "Dido the Epicurean." Class. Ant. 15: 203-219.

Gale, Monica R. 1994. Myth and Poetry in Lucretius. Cambridge. Galinsky, Karl. 1996. Augustan Culture: An Interpretive Introduction. Princeton. [Apollo Citharoedus, plate 5b] Gigante, Marcello. 1995. Philodemus in Italy: The Books from Herculaneum. trans.

Dirk Obbink. Ann Arbor. Hannah, Robert. 1993. "The stars of Iopas and Palinurus." AJP 114: 123-135.

Hardie, P. 1986. Virgil's Aeneid: Cosmos and Imperium. Oxford. Herrmann, L. 1967. "Crinitus Iopas (Virgile, Eneide, I, 740)." Latomus 26: 474—476.

Kinsey, T.E. 1949. "The Song of lopas.” Emerita 47: 77-86.

DIDO'S COURT PHILOSOPHER

307

. 1987. Enciclopedia Virgiliana, IV, s.v. lopas, 9-10. Little, D. 1992. "The Song of lopas: Aeneid 1.740-746.” Prudentia 24: 16-36. Maltby, R. 1991. A Lexicon of Ancient Latin Etymologies. Leeds. McKay, A.G. 1999. "Vergil and the Garden." Anc. Phil. 19: 37-53.

O'Hara, J.J. 1996. True Names: Vergil and the Alexandrian Tradition of Etymological Wordplay. Ann Arbor. Paschalis, M. 1997. Virgil's Aeneid: Semantic Relations and Proper Names. Oxford. Pease, Arthur S. 1935. P. Virgili Maronis Aeneidos Liber Quartus. Cambridge, MA. Segal, C.P. 1971. "The Song of Iopas in the Aeneid." Hermes 90: 336-349. . 1981. "Iopas Revisited (Aeneid 1.740ff.)." Emerita 49: 18-21.

Wallace-Hadrill, A. 1994. Houses and Society in Pompeii and Herculaneum. Princeton.

West, David. 1990. The Aeneid: A new prose translation. London / New York.

23 MANITOBA, "AAIMONOITYAAI" DAVID H. PENTLAND When the government of Canada decided to carve a small province out

of the newly-acquired Northwest Territories in 1870, one of the questions that had to be resolved was the name of the new unit. The most obvious choice would have been Assiniboia, the name of Lord Selkirk's

land grant, since the area was the centre of his former holdings. The Selkirk settlement was, however, associated with the English-speaking Protestant faction; the French-speaking Catholics led by Louis Riel let it be known that they would prefer some other name. In 1868 Thomas Spence had attempted to establish a "provisional government" for the

district around Portage la Prairie under the name of the Republic of Manitobah. Neither the Hudson's Bay Company (which had been granted the territory in 1670) nor the British Colonial Office recognized his authority, but Spence later became a member of Riel's council at the

Red River Settlement (Winnipeg), and may have inspired Riel's instruc-

tions to his delegate in Ottawa on 19 April 1870: Les amis de l'ancien gouvernement se complaisent dans [le nom] d'Assiniboia qui n'est pas assez généralement aimé pour qu'on le garde. Choisissez l'un des deux noms de Manitoba ou de Nord-Ouest. (Mani-

toba [1994] 6)

When he introduced the bill on 2 May 1870 to create the new province of Manitoba, the prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, offered a different reason for the new name: It was thought that [the name] was a matter of taste and should be con-

sidered with reference to euphony and with reference also as much as possible to the remembrance of the original inhabitants of that vast country. Fortunately the Indian languages of that section of the country give a choice of euphonious names and it is considered proper that the Province which is to be organized, shall be called Manitoba. The name

Assiniboia, by which it has hitherto been called, is considered to be rather too long, involving confusion, too, between the river Assiniboine and the Province Assiniboia. (Canada [1979] 1297-1298)

Macdonald went on to explain that Manitoba is "an old Indian name,

meaning 'The God who speaks—the speaking God'. There is a fine lake 309

310

DAVID PENTLAND

there called Lake Manitoba, which forms the western boundary of the Province."

The prime minister's stated reason for choosing the name and his explanation of its etymology went unchallenged in parliament, though neither was entirely accurate. THE NAME OF LAKE MANITOBA

Lake Manitoba is the smallest of the three great lakes, the remnants of Glacial Lake Agassiz, which dominate the southern half of the province. It was first seen by Europeans in 1739, when Pierre Gaultier de Varennes, Sieur de la Vérendrye, sent his son Louis-Joseph to explore the area west of Lake Winnipeg as part of his search for a route to the Western

Sea. It had already appeared on maps, however—La Vérendrye had depicted a "Lac des Prairies" to the west of "Lac yinipigon" (the little sea, Lake Winnipeg) on his 1737 "Carte contenante les nouvelles découvertes

de l'Ouest en Canada" on the basis of information from his Cree and Assiniboine guides (Warkentin and Ruggles [1970] 80-81; Combet [2001] 82-83).

The first Englishmen to see the lake were probably Joseph Smith and Joseph Waggoner, sent inland from York Factory in 1756-58, but no de-

tailed record or map of their explorations seems to have survived. On the other hand, William Tomison,

who made

two journeys from Fort

Severn (Ontario) to southern Manitoba in 1767-70, provided data for Andrew Graham's "plan of part of Hudson's Bay" (ca. 1773), which shows Mantouapau Lake to the west of the Frenchman's Lake and the Little

Sea (the north and south basins of Lake Winnipeg, respectively); Graham also depicted Tomison's track west to the Mantouapau Hills, the Manitoba Escarpment or Riding Mountain (Ruggles [1991] 38-41 and pl. 6; cf. Warkentin and Ruggles [1970] 94-95).

In 1791 Aaron Arrowsmith,

a London mapmaker, published the first

of a series of maps giving a reasonably accurate representation of the Manitoba lakes, with Lake Minitoba to the west of Lake Winnipeg. A

manuscript map prepared by David Thompson for the North West Company in 1813-14 has Manito Boh Lake, while a map of the Red River district drawn by Peter Fidler for the Hudson’s Bay Company has Manetobaw

Lake (Warkentin and Ruggles [1970] 132-133,

in 1819 144-147).

Another sketch map drawn by Fidler in 1820 has the spelling Manetoba (Ruggles [1991] pl. 23). The modern spelling seems to have come from

Alexander Mackenzie ([1801] Ixv), who in his description of the geography of the northwest called it the Manitoba Lake.

MANITOBA, “AAIMONOTTY AAI”

311

THE LANGUAGES OF MANITOBA

Four of the largest North American language families have representatives in the province of Manitoba. In the far north, speakers of Inuktitut (Eskimo) exploited the coast of Hudson Bay as far south as Churchill. Other dialects of the same language are spoken right across the arctic, from

northern

Alaska

to western

Greenland.

Inland,

speakers

of

Chipewyan, one of the Athapaskan languages, inhabited Manitoba north of the Churchill River. Related languages occupied most of the area west

of them, as far as British Columbia and Alaska, with outliers in the southwestern United States (Navaho and Apache) and along the California-Oregon coast. South of the Churchill River, all the historically known groups in Manitoba belonged to the Algonquian and Siouan language families. Languages of the Algonquian family were once spoken in a large part

of northeastern North America, from the maritime provinces of Canada west to the foothills of the Rockies, and down the Atlantic coast to North

Carolina. In the historic period two Algonquian languages, Cree and Ojibwa (also known locally as Saulteaux), were spoken in Manitoba; earlier, the Blackfoot and Arapaho-Atsina likely occupied southern

Manitoba, but they had moved further west by the early eighteenth century. The Siouan language family was also widely distributed across North America, taking in most of the Missouri River valley and the upper Mis-

sissippi, with several outliers in the southern United States. In the eighteenth century, southern Manitoba was the home of the Assiniboine; their descendants now live in Saskatchewan. Assiniboine is closely related to

the Stoney dialect of Alberta, which was probably also spoken in Manitoba at an earlier period. Assiniboine and Stoney are part of the Dakotan

branch of Siouan, along with the various dialects of Sioux (Teton or Lakota, Santee-Sisseton or Dakota, and Yankton-Yanktonai). Small bands of Dakota settled in southern Manitoba in 1862, following the Minnesota massacre. The Nelson and Hayes river basins have probably been Cree territory for centuries, but in southern

Manitoba,

according

to La Vérendrye,

in

the 1730s the Cree occupied only the eastern edge of the province, from

Lake of the Woods to the mouth of the Winnipeg River; the lower Red and Assiniboine river valleys were inhabited by the Assiniboine. However, some maps prepared by the La Vérendrye family also show “Cristinaux des prairies” (possibly the Plains Cree) in the vicinity of Fort Dauphin (Combet [2001] 50-51, 82-83).

During the second half of the eighteenth century, the Cree moved into the area around Winnipeg, and by 1800 southeastern Manitoba was

312

DAVID PENTLAND

sparsely inhabited by Ojibwa, who disputed the headwaters of the Red with the Sioux of Minnesota; the Lake Manitoba district was shared by Cree and Ojibwa migrants from the north and east (Mackenzie [1801] Ixii-Ixv). It appears that shortly thereafter, the southern part of the province was abandoned by the Cree and Assiniboine, who had been severely weakened by a smallpox epidemic in 1780-82, leaving it to the Ojibwa (Peers [1994] 18-21). THE ETYMOLOGY OF MANITOBA

A number of different etymologies of Manitoba have been proposed,

most of them deriving the name from an Algonquian language. One nineteenth-century writer suggested a Siouan etymology, but it does not stand up to scrutiny. Place names in the classical world come from a variety of sources.

Some, like Thermopylae, "hot gates" (i.e., "the pass at the hot spring"), are descriptive; others, like the many Alexandrias, commemorate a founder or former owner; and some, like Athens, Corinth and Knossos, were borrowed from earlier inhabitants who spoke languages now lost. In many cases the etymology is still hotly debated or admittedly unknown. On

the other hand, in the area of eastern North America in which the Algonquian languages were spoken, no place names borrowed from earlier

languages are known (though there may be some calques or loan translations), and few if any commemorate a particular person; virtually all are descriptive and, if accurately recorded, of transparent etymology. Thus Saskatchewan derives from Cree kisiskdciwan, "swift current"; Mas-

sachusetts is "the big hill" in the Massachusett language; and Connecticut is "the long river" in Pequot or some neighbouring language. The difference between place names in the classical world and in east-

ern North America is not due to their very different histories but rather to a minor cultural difference. Non-Greek names survived in Greece be-

cause they were learned from the groups supplanted by the IndoEuropean Greeks; likely almost all the earlier inhabitants survived the

initial invasions, eventually intermarrying with the conquerors and acquiring their language and culture, but also passing on a few words and

customs of their own. The Algonquians, too, have expanded their territory at the expense of other peoples, and certainly did not exterminate all the earlier inhabitants; the fact that no non-Algonquian names can be identified must therefore be attributed simply to a cultural preference for names with transparent meanings.

Observing that La Vérendrye referred to Lake Manitoba as Lac des

Prairies, l'abbé Georges Dugas suggested in 1896 that the French name was a translation of the Assiniboine equivalent. In the English transla-

MANITOBA, "AAIMONOITY AAI”

313

tion of his book the argument runs as follows: The name

Manitoba

was given to it by the Assiniboine

Indians,

who

lived along its shores at the time of the discovery of that country. The explorers got the names of the lakes and rivers along their route from the Indians; they wrote them down in their diaries just as they heard them pronounced, or else, they translated them into French. ...

The Indians, that inhabited the shores of Lake Manitoba and the

banks of the Assiniboine at the time of the discovery, were of the As-

siniboine tribe, whose language resembles that of the Sioux. There were

the Mata toba, the Hic toba and the Ti toba tribes. The terminal "toba," in their language, means "prairie," and the word "mine" means "water." Mi ne sota means yellow water; mine apolis means city of the waters. Mine toba means water of the prairies, or else Lake of the Prairies. The

English, who came into the country after the French, pronounced mine like my ni, hence Manitoba. De la Vérendrye, in calling—in his diary— Manitoba the lake of the prairies, did nothing else than simply translate the Indian name. (Dugas [1905] 53-54)

Dugas drew upon a memorandum,

apparently written ca. 1722 by the

Sieur de Pachot, which listed five groups of Sioux, among them "Les Matatoba, ou Scioux des Prairies," "Les Hictoba, ou les Scioux de la chasse," and "Les Titoba, ou les Scioux des Prairies" (Margry [1888] 518).

The Matatoba are the Matantonwan, part of the Mdewakanton division of the Santee; the Hictoba are probably the Yankton; and the Titoba are the Teton. Apparently thinking that "Scioux des Prairies" was a translation (of two different names?) rather than a geographical description, Dugas extracted a non-existent suffix toba, "prairie." Dakota mní (or mint) does indeed mean "water" (as in the names Minnesota, “milky wa-

ter," and Minneapolis), but toba is actually a misspelling of tonwan, "village" or "dwellers." The proposed Siouan etymology of Manitoba is therefore based on a ghost word.

It is much more likely that the name Manitoba derives from an Algonquian language. In his guidebook to the Northwest, Bishop Taché derived the name from Cree: Le mot Manitoba est la corruption du mot Manitowapaw, qui signifie détroit du

Manitou, ou détroit extraordinaire,

surnaturel.

L'agitation

de

l'eau y est attribuée, par les sauvages, à la présence de quelque esprit. (Taché [1869] 30)

When Taché was consecrated bishop of Saint-Boniface (Manitoba), he

recruited Albert Lacombe, a young priest from Québec, to join the west-

ern missionary effort. Lacombe spent most of his career among the Cree and Blackfoot of Alberta, becoming a recognized authority on the Cree

language; his Cree dictionary and grammar, both published in 1874, are still useful today.

At the end of his Cree dictionary, but apparently written earlier, La-

314

DAVID PENTLAND

combe inserted a section labelled "Etymologie de quelques noms sauvages par lesquels sont désignées certaines tribus et localités, mais dont la vraie prononciation et orthographe ont été défigurées par les Blancs, qui ne comprenaient pas ces mots." Some of his etymologies are correct (or nearly so), but he derives Canada from Cree (or Montagnais?) konata

(i.e., konita), "sans propos, sans raison, sans dessein, gratis," instead of the generally accepted derivation from an Iroquoian word for "town" and

Ottawa

from

the Cree word

ottawakay (i.e., ohtawakay),

"his ear,"

rather than from the name of the Ottawa (Ojibwa orawa) people who travelled to Montreal via that river. The name Manitoba, he says, is from Sauteux (Saulteaux, Ojibwa) "manitowapàn, (Lacombe [1874] 707).

détroit surnaturel, divin"

In the Cree dictionary itself, Lacombe offers a Cree source as well: Manitoba, pour Manitowapaw, ou, en Sauteux, Manitowabán, Détroit surnaturel, divin. C'est le nom donné à la nouvelle province de la Rivière Rouge. (Lacombe [1874] 438)

Four years later, Lacombe published a new edition of Bishop Frederic

Baraga's Ojibwa dictionary, to which he added an English translation, somewhat revised, of his place name etymologies. Canada is now cor-

rectly derived from an Iroquoian source, though he notes that "Some pretend

that it is derived

from

kanáta, or kanátan,

(Cree),

some

thing

which is very neat and clean," but he obscures the origin of Ottawa even further by suggesting "otawask, and, watawask, bull-rushes, because along the river there are a great many of those bull-rushes." The entry for Manitoba now reads: Manitoba, (Otchip[we]), from, Manitowaba, the strait of the spirit, from,

Manito, spirit, divine, extraordinary, and, waba, or wapa, a strait. That lake is so called, in account of the strange things seen and heard, in the strait which joins this lake with another one, in the old times. (Baraga

[1874] 299)

While everyone (except Dugas) who has looked into the question agrees that the first element in the name Manitoba is the Algonquian word for "spirit, god" (Cree manitow, Ojibwa manito), the ending has been interpreted in several ways. In a chatty book on the Georgian Bay district of Ontario, James Hamilton offered three choices from Ojibwa: Manitoba may mean several things. Mah-ne-to is a spirit, and in Ojibway Mah-ne-to-wah-pun or bun means a place where there is something supernatural or Mah-ne-to-bi—sitting God, or Mah-ne-to-wah-bah—a spirit in a strait. (Hamilton [1893] 167; italics added)

! No such word for "bulrush" appears in Baraga's dictionary, and Lacombe has overlooked the obvious source, "Ottawa Indian, Otdwa” (Baraga [1874] 186).

MANITOBA, “AAIMONOITTY AAI”

Hamilton’s

Mah-ne-to-wah-pun

*manitowdpan,

315

appears to be the unattested

“(it is) a spirit dawn,”

word

or else the preterite of the unat-

tested verb “manitowa, "it is a spirit, something spiritual" (cf. manitowisi,

“he has spirit-power, he is a shaman"). His second suggestion, *manitopi, "he sits as a spirit, a god," would have to be a new formation in Ojibwa, replacing an earlier *manitowapi, but neither form has been recorded by

lexicographers, and the alteration of -pi or -bi to -ba has no obvious motivation. This etymology was, however, revived very recently, when the Aboriginal Student Centre at the University of Manitoba advertised an

event in the spring of 2003 under the title "Manidoobaa, Where Creator Sits." Hamilton's third choice, "a spirit in a strait," is of course the explanation offered earlier by Taché and Lacombe.

Since the Cree preceded the Ojibwa in the Lake Manitoba region, the original form of the name was probably Cree manitowapaw, "(it is) a spirit narrows,” a compound of manitow, "spirit, god" and the suffix -apaw, "be a narrows.” The earliest record of the name,

Andrew

Gra-

ham's Mantouapau (ca. 1773), is a fairly accurate phonetic representation

of the Cree form. The Ojibwa cognate of the Cree word is manitowapa, from manito(w-) + -apa.’ It presumably originated as a calque on the Cree name when Ojibwa speakers moved into the area around 1800, but in later years it

would have been the form more commonly encountered by travellers and is the source of the English name. In Ojibwa (and in Cree, to a lesser extent), unstressed short vowels are often reduced, so it is not surprising that some records fail to indicate the

penultimate syllable, as in David Thompson's Manito Boh, which probably represents manitow'pd. However, the preceding consonant does not drop,

so the spellings Minitoba (Arrowsmith

1791), Manetoba (Fidler

1820) and Manitoba (Mackenzie 1801) do not give an accurate impression

of the Ojibwa word. The name originally referred to the narrows in the middle of Lake Manitoba, where the action of wind and waves sometimes creates un-

usual noises. Peter Fidler's 1820 sketch map shows the narrows, labelled Manetoba, in "Manetoba Lake" (Ruggles [1991] pl. 23). The name was extended, probably almost immediately, to the whole lake, which would

have

been

called

manitowapawi-sakahikan

in Cree;

the

spelling

“Manito’ba’ Saka'higan, Manito (or spirit) narrows lake” (Tyrrell [1915]

218-219) is heavily influenced by the English name. ? Although there is an independent word wapaw, “it is a narrows,” in Cree, it cannot occur as the second element of a compound; in Ojibwa the stem-final w of manitów-

is lost when

the word

is used alone (cf. plural manitok,

"spirits"), but

remains before most derivativation suffixes, as in manitow-ap~ and manitow-isi.

316

DAVID PENTLAND There is an informative parallel set of place names in Ontario. Mani-

touwadge, the name of a lake and mining town northeast of Marathon, derives from Ojibwa manitowas, "spirit den,"

a compound of manito(w)-,

"spirit" and -(w)as, "hole, den (of an animal)" (cf. Rayburn [1999] 233).

English borrowed the name unchanged, except for the replacement of the final consonant,’ which reflects either a spelling pronunciation of a French form such as *Manitouage or the common English replacement of final Z ("zh") with j (as in garage, etc.).

The locative form of manitowas is manitowanink, "at the spirit den,"

whence the large bay (and small village) on Manitoulin Island in Lake Huron called Manitowaning; Francis Assikinack, who styled himself "a

warrior of the Odahwahs" but was also a graduate of Upper Canada College (where he stood first in Greek in 1843), noted that a particularly

deep spot in the bay was identified as the dwelling of an unnamed spirit (Assikinack [1858] 306-307). Earlier the locative was manitowalink in the Ottawa (or Odawa) dialect of Ojibwa, and this was borrowed as the name of the whole island, Manitoualing (cf. Manitoualin on the map in

Long [1791], for instance). The English name was shortened (probably inadvertently, by a London mapmaker) to Manitoulin; with the change of Old Ojibwa | to modern n in the late eighteenth century, the original identity of Manitouaning and Manitoulin was obscured to the point that Assikinack no longer recognized Manitoulin as an Ojibwa word.‘

Although the shortening of manitowapa to Manitoba could be explained simply as the loss of an unstressed short vowel, either in Ojibwa or (more likely) as the word was pronounced by English speakers, it is

likely that the written record played an important role. In the case of manitowalink / manitowanink, with a long vowel in the penultimate syllable, the shortening to Manitoulin can only be attributed to someone un-

familiar with the Ojibwa pronunciation. Mapmakers, scribes and printers who had never heard such names spelled them as they pleased, and

it is the written form manidé-wabà-], which

Manitoba, not Ojibwa [manité-wapa: ~ determined the modern pronunciation

[màenuó-bs].

Orthographic § = English “sh,” but ungeminated obstruents are lenis and often voiced in Ojibwa. ‘Lacombe ([1874] 707) gives a fanciful derivation from Saulteaux (Plains Ojibwa) manitowin [i.e., manitowiwin} "divinité, l'action de faire du surnaturel"; four years later (in Baraga [1878] 299) he suggested "better, Manito l'ile, half french and indian"!

MANITOBA, “AAIMONOITY AAI”

317

REFERENCES

Assikinack, Francis. 1858. Social and warlike customs of the Odahwah Indians. Canadian Journal of Industry, Science, and Art, n.s. 3: 297-309. Baraga, Frederic. 1878. A Dictionary of the Otchipwe Language, Explained in English, part 1: English-Otchipwe [Albert Lacombe, ed.]. Montreal. Canada. 1979. House of Commons Debates: Third session, first parliament, 33 Victoria, comprising the period from the 15th of February, 1870, to the 12th of May, 1870. wa. Combet, Denis, ed. 2001. In Search of the Western Sea: Selected Journals of La Vérendrye | A la recherche de la mer de l'Ouest: Mémoires choisis de La Vérendrye. Winnipeg/St-Boniface, MB. Dugas, Georges. 1905. The Canadian West: Its Discovery by the Sieur de la Vérendrye; Its Development by the Fur-Trading Companies, down to the year 1822. Montreal. Hamilton, James Cleland. 1893. The Georgian Bay: An Account of its Position, Inhabitants, Mineral Interests, Fish, Timber and Other Resources. Toronto. Lacombe, Albert. 1874. Dictionnaire de la langue des Cris. Montréal.

Long, John. 1791. Voyages and Travels of an Indian Interpreter and Trader ... London. Mackenzie, Alexander. 1801. Voyages from Montreal on the River St. Laurence, through the Continent of North America, to the Frozen and Pacific Oceans, in the years 1789 and 1793 ... London. Manitoba. 1994. The Origin of the Name Manitoba { L'origine du nom «Manitoba». Winnipeg.

Margry, Pierre, ed. 1888. Découvertes et établissements des Français dans l'ouest et dans le sud de l'Amérique Septentrionale (1614—1754), 6* partie: Exploration des affluents du Misissipi et découverte des Montagnes Rocheuses (1679-1754). Paris. Peers, Laura L. 1994. The Ojibwa of Western Canada, 1780 to 1870. Winnipeg. Rayburn, Alan. 1999. Dictionary of Canadian Place Names. Don Mills, ON. Ruggles, Richard I. 1991. A Country So Interesting: The Hudson's Bay Company and Two Centuries of Mapping, 1670-1870. Montreal / Kingston. Taché, Alexandre A. 1869. Esquisse sur le Nord-Ouest de l'Amérique. Montréal. Tyrrell, J.B. 1915. “Algonquian Indian names of places in northern Canada,” Transactions of the Royal Canadian Institute 10: 213-231. Warkentin, John and Richard I. Ruggles. 1970. Historical Atlas of Manitoba: A Selection of Facsimile Maps, Plans, and Sketches from 1612 to 1969. Winnipeg.

24 BIBLICAL REMNANTS IN HEBREW, GREEK, LATIN, AND OLD ENGLISH PHYLLIS PORTNOY pa gemunde ic hu se sio ae waes aerest on Ebriscgediode funden, ond eft, da hie Creacas geliornodon, da wendon hie hie on heora agen gediode ealle, ond eac ealle odre bec. Ond eft Laedenwaere swae same,

siddan hie hie geliornodon, hie hie wendon ealla durgh wise wealhston-

das on hiora agen gediode ... Fordy me dyncd betre, gif iow swa dyncd daet we eac sumae bec, da de niedbedarfosta sien eallum monnum to wiottone, daet we da on daet gediode wenden de we ealle gecnawan maegen.

Then I remembered how the Law was first known in Hebrew, and again, when the Greeks had learned it, they translated all of it into their own language, and all other books besides. And after, the Romans, too,

when they had learned it, translated all of it, through learned interpret-

ers, into their own language ... Therefore it seems better to me, if you

think so, that we also translate some books, those which are most needful for all men to know, into the language which we can all understand. King Alfred, Preface to Gregory's Pastoral Care!

This paper takes its lead from King Alfred, who strove to place the earliest form of the English language on equal footing with Hebrew, Greek and Latin, the classical languages considered worthy of representing

scripture. I argue here that the Junius Codex (Oxford, Bodleian Junius 11), an eleventh-century collection of Old English biblical poems, follows in the Alfredian tradition by offering another vernacular version of scripture. The codex has never before been considered in this capacity nor in such exalted linguistic company, yet in its presentation of Old Testament narrative, and particularly in its usage of the ancient biblical motif of the “remnant,” it participates in a process of “learned” transla-

tion-cum-exegesis hitherto documented only in the languages and writings of the earlier periods. I begin by tracing this process from its origin in early scriptural nar-

rative, where the "remnant" often denotes the survivors of a calamitous ! H. Sweet, ed., King Alfred's West-Saxon

Version of Gregory's Pastoral Care.

EETS OS 45 (London 1871). All Old English and Latin translations are my own. 319

320

PHYLLIS PORTNOY

event, through the prophetic, apocryphal and rabbinical writings, where the motif acquires messianic and then apocalyptic connotations, and fi-

nally into Christian hands, where "survival" becomes Salvation. I then demonstrate that the Junius Codex contains instances of the "remnant"

motif that reflect this latter development. Throughout, I suggest that the translation of the "remnant" is a nexus of re-interpretation and also of cultural transvaluation.

I The idea of a “remnant” in the Old Testament is central and comprehensive enough to have been considered a "doctrine" by biblical scholars.”

More a motif than a doctrine, the narrative force of the "remnant" likely derives from a radical imbalance in "the ways of God to man." God's plan is perfect, but mankind repeatedly fails to measure up. As a result, sacred history becomes a dialectic of fall and recovery, exile and return, the positive and negative elements in this polarized dynamic reflecting

the paired notions of divine mercy and wrath that form the theological underpinnings of the story. The chosen people are punished by an agent of destruction; God elects a "remnant"

to be spared and chastened,

thereby ensuring the perpetuity of both his people and his plan. The “remnant” thus gives divine presence and providence to a narrative that

is otherwise mere chronicle. In the prophets the narrative becomes eschatological, and in its Christian revision, typological. Such coherence is only discernible retrospectively, however, and in many instances it is attributable to factors of translation and interpreta-

tion, processes which frequently make use of the "remnant" motif's singular ability to represent two opposite perspectives. "Remnant" can be expressed in Hebrew by several synonymous roots (ΠΩ; ^&0; 1^0; n°2; am) ranging in meaning from “remain,” "leave," "be left over" to "escape,"

"spare,"

"be saved."

Each can be used

either positively, to con-

note a sense of preservation and promise, or negatively, to convey the opposite sense of destruction and despair. The two related ideas of "left over" and "saved" can be articulated in such a way as to emphasize ei-

ther the large number lost, or the small number spared; the insignificance of the residue, or its potential as a nucleus of future life? In early

scriptural narrative, the immediate context of the “remnant” is the scale 2 See C.K. Mahoney, “The doctrine of the remnant,” Religion in Life 17 (1948) 382-390, and E.W. Heaton, “The root ‘Sh’ar’ and the doctrine of the remnant,” JTS 3 (1952) 27-39. 3 Heaton (above, n. 2) 28-30.

BIBLICAL REMNANTS

321

of the destruction, as in the survival of Noah: "Only Noah was left, and

those with him in the ark" (Gen. 7:23).* Similarly, the "remnant" conveys the magnitude

of the threat to life for Lot, Jacob, and Benjamin (Gen.

19:17, 32:8, 42:38). Elsewhere the "remnant" has the wholly negative sense of "not leaving a trace," as in the utter annihilation of Pharaoh's army in Exodus: "Not a hoof is to be left behind" (Exod. 10:26; cf. 10:19).

Or it gives further ironic point to a devastation, as in the final crush of an already decimated "remnant" in Leviticus: "I will scatter you among the nations and will draw out my sword and pursue you ... Those of you who are left will waste away in the lands of your enemies" (Lev. 26:33,

39). One seemingly positive usage of the “remnant” in the Pentateuch oc-

curs in Joseph's words to his brothers at Gen. 45:7: God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant (r^owz) on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance (21755).

This problematic passage is a good illustration of the intense critical de-

bate that often accompanies the translation and interpretation of the “remnant” motif. The two Hebrew “remnant” roots appear frequently

together in the prophetic books; the difficulty here, however, is that the first “remnant” in this passage, mo

(sh'erit), does not appear elsewhere

in the Pentateuch? Scholars cite 2Sam. 14:7 as support for the translation “posterity”

(used

in the

King

James

Version),

but

the

meaning

in

2Samuel is also disputed.* Others argue that the word is a late interpolation into Genesis,’ likely informed by the positive associations that the "remnant" motif acquired in the prophets, specifically Amos. But both the meaning and the attribution of the word in Amos are also disputed,’ and scholars argue for a positive remnant idea there on the basis of Gen.

45:7? The Vulgate cuts deftly through such interpretive circles by elimi* Old Testament translations are from the New International Version. English translations of "remnant" will be underlined. 5 See E.W. Heaton, "The Joseph Saga," Expository Times 59 (1947) 134-136.

$ See D.B. Redford, A Study of the Biblical Story of Joseph (Leiden 1970) 53; V. Herntrich,

“Acippa,” in G. Kittel, ed., TDNT,

4, trans. G.W. Bromiley (Grand

Rapids 1967) 202 n. 31. ? Redford (above, n. 6) 170; Heaton (above, n. 5) 134, 136.

* The word occurs at Amos 1:8, 5:15, and 9:12. See G. Hasel, "The alleged ‘No’ of Amos and Amos' eschatology," Andrews University Seminary Studies 29 (1991) 3-18; H.W. Wolff, Joel and Amos: A Commentary on the Books of the Prophets Joel and Amos

(Philadelphia

1977) 353; W.A.G

Nel, "Amos

9:11-15 —

An

unconditional

prophecy of salvation during the period of the Exile," Old Testament Essays 2 (1984) 81-97. ? Herntrich (above, n. 6) 202.

322

PHYLLIS PORTNOY

nating any nominal "remnant" designation and changing the focus from salvation to nourishment: "great deliverance" becomes "food to live": praemisitque me Deus ut reservamini super terram et escas ad viven-

dum habere possitis. And God sent me before, that you might be preserved upon the earth, and that you might be able to have food to live.

Jerome's translation clearly brings the context of the passage into line

with that of the other Genesis passages: dire threat and immediate survival. On the other extreme, Augustine solves the problematic "rem-

nants" in the Joseph passage by reading them as types of Christ: "Misit enim me Deus ante vos, remanere vestrum reliquias super terram, et enutrire vestrum reliquiarium magnum."

Hoc enim non usque-

quaque consonat, ut reliquias vel reliquiarium accipiamus Jacob et filios ejus ... enim occisus est Christus a iudaeis et traditus gentibus tamquam ioseph aegyptiis a fratribus, ut et reliquiae israhel salvae fierent. "For God sent me before you so that a remnant of you might remain on earth, and to nourish a great remnant [?] of you." This does not harmonize at every point, that we should accept Jacob and his sons as rem-

nants or reliquiarium ... even so, Christ was killed by the Jews and betrayed by the gentiles just as Joseph was betrayed by his brothers, so that a remnant of Israel might be saved. (Quaestionum in heptateuchum libri septem, Liber Primus)?

The Old Latin version of Augustine's citation places Jerome's striking simplification of the passage in greater relief: OLD LATIN: Misit enim

me Deus ante vos, remanere vestrum reliquias

super terram, et enutrire vestrum reliquiarium magnum. VULGATE: praemisitque me Deus ut reservamini super terram et escas

ad vivendum habere possitis. HEBREW: God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant (mo) on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance (nrr^g).

While the Old Latin contains a similar element of nourishment (et enu-

trire) not present in the Hebrew, unlike the Vulgate it preserves the two Hebrew “remnant” terms, after the rendering of the passage in the Septuagint: ἀπέστειλεν

γάρ

we

ὁ θεὸς

ἔμπροσθεν

ὑμῶν,

ὑπολείπεσθαι

ὑμῶν

κατάλειμμα ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς καὶ ἐκθρέψαι ὑμῶν κατάλειψιν μεγάλην.

For God sent me before you that there might be left of you a remnant

10 PL 34.148.587. See also Hrabanus Maurus, Commentariorum

in Genesim Libri

Quattuor PL 107 8.643. The phrase reliquiae israhel salvae fierent, a reference to Romans 9:27, is discussed below.

BIBLICAL REMNANTS

323

upon the earth, even to nourish a great remnant of you."

The Greek κατάλειμμα, corresponding to the problematic Hebrew rr^ko (sh'erit), can denote "posterity" or "legacy" as well as "remnant,"" and is thus in effect an interpretation of the obscure Hebrew word: by using cognate terms, one indicating the result of a completed action (κατάλειμμα) and the other an active process (κατάλειψιν), the Septua-

gint suggests that the past action is going to become the future.? Augustine's Old Latin reliquiarium (corresponding to κατάλειψιν) is another "remnant" whose meaning is very obscure: usage elsewhere suggests "posterity": enutrire vestrarum reliquiurum [sic] magnum semen ("to

nourish a great seed of your remnant”).“ Whatever the exact meanings of both "remnants" in the passage, they seem to have suggested connotations of election and salvation perhaps not intended in the Hebrew. Jerome's version—as much an interpretation as a translation of the pas-

sage, and hardly less so than Augustine's exegesis—is then perhaps a corrective, or at the least an attempt to make a clear distinction between

present threat and future restoration, history and typology. In any case, the very different stances of the two patristic authorities represent the polarities of interpretation that have attended the "remnant" motif from ancient times. As we shall see shortly, Augustine's "remnant" typology comes at the end of a long tradition of harmonization whose beginnings

Old Testament scholars locate in the Deuteronomic? and prophetic books, where the "remnant" motif is first explicitly deployed in a positive way.

Both orientations—threat and promise—appear in balanced opposition in Deuteronomy. Israel is repeatedly reminded of her election and warned of the consequences of infidelity: "All translations from the Septuagint are from The Septuagint Version of the Old Testament and Apocrypha, trans. Sir L.C.L. Brenton (London 1896). ? G. Schrenk, “Aeluua,” TDNT

(above, n. 6) 195 records this meaning

for

both κατάλειμμα and κατάλειψιν. P? The Brenton translation does not preserve these subtle differences.

M Quaestionum in heptateuchum libri septem, Liber Primus, PL 34, Footnote 2, Col. 0587. See also Confessionum libri tredecim, Liber Quintus, 8.15, PL 32, Footnote 4, Col. 0713; Anscharius Hamburgensis: Primi, PL 118 Footnote e, Col. 1016D.

Vita Sancti Willehadi Episcopi Bremensis

15 "Deuteronomic books” refers not only to the Book of Deuteronomy, but to the historical books of Judges through 2Kings (4Kings in the Vulgate), which are attributed to one or more authors, and which cover the history of the people of

Israel from the time of Moses to the Babylonian exile. See M. Noth, A History of the Pentateuchal

122, 135-136.

Tradition, trans. B.W. Anderson

(Englewood

Cliffs 1972) 50-55,

324

PHYLLIS PORTNOY The Lord took you and brought you out of the iron-smelting furnace, out of Egypt, to be the people of his inheritance, as you now are ... The Lord will scatter you among the peoples and only a few of you will survive ... you who were as numerous as the stars in the sky will be left but few in number, because you did not obey the Lord your God. (Deut. 4:20, 27, 28:62)

But although Israel will fail in her covenant obligations and be reduced

to a "remnant," God will not fail. The passages that warn of the scattering of the "remnant" conclude with a promise of "gathering" and "return" (Deut. 4:30-31, 30:3). Significantly, the motifs of the "gathering" and "return" of Israel are considered to be late additions to Deuteronomy, interpolated as part of an editorial enterprise undertaken during the ex-

ilic period. Although Deuteronomy dates from well after the entry into Palestine, its events are situated geographically and chronologically on

the threshold of the Promised Land. Thus in its final form, Deuteronomy's repeated appeals, rebukes and consolations are addressed to the

"remnant" for whom the events described are in the distant past and the prophetic judgments already accomplished. This "remnant" gives a new unity and teleology to the disparate events of the primary historical narrative. Having widened in context to include an ancestral promise and a

future restoration, the double focus of the motif embraces the providential and disciplinary purpose of God's past interventions in history in a manner that is relevant to succeeding generations.

Only glimmers of similar "remnant" hopes punctuate the general

doom and destruction of the early prophets, who appear to be reacting against a popular contemporary conception of the "remnant" as a guar-

antee of eschatological salvation. Evidence of such a self-confident understanding of the "remnant" can be deduced from the bitterly contemptuous attack against it in Amos: The city which marches out a thousand strong for Israel will have a hundred left ... Seek good, not evil, that you may live. Then the God Almighty will be with you, just as you say he is ... hate evil, good ... perhaps the Lord God Almighty will have mercy on the

only Lord love rem-

16 Indeed, alternative readings given for "The Lord your God will restore your fortunes" (Deut. 30:3) are "will bring you back from captivity" (NIV) and “will turn thy captivity” (KJV). See G. Widengren, "Yahweh's gathering of the dispersed," in G.W. Ahlstrom, ed., In the Shelter of Elyon (Sheffield 1984) 227; Chaim Rabin, "Discourse analysis and the dating of Deuteronomy," in J.A. Emerton and S.C. Reif, eds., Interpreting the Bible (Cambridge 1982) 172-177. Noth

(above, n. 15, 33, 57) argues that the first layer of redaction (Deut. 5-30) dates from

the

late seventh

century,

and

the second

from

the fall of Jerusalem

(587/586). He considers Deut. 30:14 and Deut. 4:29-40 late messages of comfort motivated by the state of exile.

BIBLICAL REMNANTS

325

nant (rrowo) of Joseph. (Am. 5:3, 14-15)"

The "remnant of Joseph" here is qualified not only by the debate outlined above over the meaning of the Hebrew n°-xv (sh'erit), but also by

the "perhaps," which some take to be mocking in tone, while others see it as messianic. Similar qualifications occur frequently in Isaiah, where the "remnant" becomes a veritable leitmotif. Isaiah's first oracle depicts utter desolation,

but also offers (slight) hope: Unless the Lord Almighty had left us some survivor," we would have become like Sodom, we would have been like Gomorrha. (Isa. 1:9)

The fourth oracle likewise follows dereliction with regeneration: The gates of Zion will lament and mourn; destitute, she will sit on the ground ... In that day the Branch of the Lord will be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the land will be the pride and glory of the survivors in Israel. Those who are left in Zion, who remain in Jerusalem, will

be called holy, all who are recorded among the living in Jerusalem. The Lord will ... cleanse the bloodstains from Jerusalem by a spirit of judgment and a spirit of fire. (Isa. 3:26, 4:24)

These sudden about-faces create problems of translation and interpretation. The tenth oracle, for example, plays upon the symbolic name of Isaiah's son, 3x" wo (Sh'ar Yashub), " A-Remnant-Will-Return" (Isa. 7:3):

In that day, the remnant of Israel, the survivors of the house of Jacob will ... truly rely on the Lord, the Holy One of Israel. A remnant will

return, a remnant of Jacob will return to the Mighty God. Though your people, O Israel, be like the sand by the sea, only a remnant will return. Destruction has been decreed, overwhelming and righteous. (Isa. 10:20-22, emphasis added)

The name itself can signify defeat and devastation (a mere remnant will be left to return), or promise and hope (at least a remnant will be left to

return). To this intrinsic ambiguity the prophet adds more confusion by swinging without explanation from a positive vision of repentance to the 7 Although the "remnant" idea is common in the Old Testament, it is never

explained, even in Isaiah where it has its most central place. This indicates an assumed familiarity. Indeed, the "remnant" became a popular catch-phrase, like

"God-with-us," which betrayed false confidence that the "day of the Lord" (another catch-phrase) was to be a day of rejoicing. See S. Paul, A Commentary on the Book of Amos (Minneapolis 1991) 176-177.

δ HJ. Routtenberg, Amos of Tekoa (New York 1971) 168-169. ? The tininess of the remnant is conveyed in the fact that the second Hebrew “remnant” here (170, sharid) is singular; the Hebrew adverb "some" similarly underlines

the smallness

Springs 1972) 314.

of

a number.

See

G.

Hasel,

The

Remnant

(Berrien

326

PHYLLIS PORTNOY

near negation of the Abrahamic promise ("only"), and then back again to regeneration and posterity: A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit ... In that day the Lord will reach out his hand a second time to reclaim the remnant that is left of his people. There will be a highway for the remnant of his people that is left from Assyria, as there was for Israel when they came up out of Egypt. (Isa. 11:1, 11-16)

One can see the "remnant" gathering a complex of vegetative images in Isaiah: the Branch, the fruit, the shoot. Almost every recurrence of the motif signals an abrupt and often confusing shift in orientation between threat and promise. In the later prophets the motif becomes consistently positive,” and as the accompanying Translation Chart (Fig. 1) demonstrates, this development appears to have influenced the translation of the earlier passages. In the Septuagint, a very striking alteration at Isa. 1:9 suggests the promise of posterity and regeneration: "If the Lord of

hosts had not left us some survivor" becomes "If the Lord of hosts had not left us a seed": xai £i μὴ κύριος σαβαωθ ἐγκατέλιπεν ἡμῖν σπέρμα. The "remnant" becomes "exalted" and "glorified" in the Septuagint's

version of Isa. 4:2. Instead of "the branch of the Lord will be beautiful and glorious," we have: θεὸς ἐν βουλῇ pet’ δόξης ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς τοῦ ὕψωσαι xai δοξάσαι τὸ xataλειφθὲν τοῦ ᾿ἸΙσραῆλ.

God shall shine gloriously in counsel on the earth, to exalt and glorify the remnant of Israel.

In Isa. 10:20-22 this "remnant" bears the promise of future salvation. At verse 20 the "survivors of the house of Jacob" becomes "the saved of Ja-

cob": xai of σωθέντες τοῦ ᾿Ἰακωβ; at verse 22 the limiting "only" is gone, and “a remnant will return" becomes “a remnant will be saved": to κατάλειμμα αὐτῶν σωθήσεται. These promises become contemporary

and personal in Isa. 11:16. Here, "the remnant of his people that is left from Assyria” becomes "my people that is left in Egypt": τῷ xatadetθέντι μου Aad ἐν Αἰγύπτῳ. The translation clearly identifies the "rem-

nant" with the Jewish diaspora in Hellenistic Egypt? The Vulgate does not preserve this topical reference, but retains the "seed" in Isa. 1:9: Nisi

Dominus sabaoth reliquisset nobis semen. At Isa. 10:22 the Vulgate has a slightly different positive revision: again the "only" is omitted, and the ? For example: Isa. 37:31-32, 45:20, 46:3; Ezr. 9:8,15; Neh. 1:2-3; Ob. 17; Hag. 1:12-14, 2:2; Zeph. 3:12, 8:12, 13:8, 14:1-2, 16; Ezek. 11:17, 34:11-26, 36:26; Soph. 2:3, 3:12; Zech. 9:7; Hos. 2:23.

7! See LL. Seeligmann, The Septuagint Version of Isaiah: A Discussion of its Problems. Mededelingenen Verhandelingen 9 (Leiden 1948) 115-116.

BIBLICAL REMNANTS

327

idea of "returning" shades into "converting":“΄, “ "only a remnant will return" becomes reliquiae convertentur, “a remnant will be converted"? Translation of Isaiah into the Aramaic Targum reflects rabbinical activity to an even greater degree. The Targum explicitly pairs the "rem-

nant" with the Messiah, mitigating as well as clarifying Isaiah's harsh and ambivalent message with added elements of mercy, repentance and

restoration: "except the exceeding goodness of the Lord of hosts had left us a remnant in his mercy" (Isa. 1:9); "In that time the Messiah of the Lord

shall be for joy and for glory" (Isa. 4:2); "a remnant which did not sin and which repented from sin" (Isa. 7:3); "a remnant will return that have

repented from sin" (Isa. 10:22).? A similar tendency to relate the "remnant" to the eschatological future can be observed in the apocryphal writings of the period, many of which purport to be the apocalyptic vision of a patriarch.” Of these, the Book of Enoch is of singular importance for its influence on New Testa-

ment writers. It is here that the “remnant” is first explicitly identified with Noah. “Enoch” is instructed to pray for a “remnant”: Go to Noah and ... instruct him that he may escape and his seed may be preserved for the whole earth (IEnoch 10:3). Let the plant of righteous-

ness and truth appear. And now all the righteous shall be humble (IEnoch 10:16-22). [Variant: " will be left as a remnant"].

Rise and

make supplication—for you are the faithful—that a remnant may be left on the earth. (IEnoch 83:5-8) His prayer takes up the imagery of regeneration: Leave me a posterity on earth; establish the flesh of righteousness as a plant of the eternal seed. (IEnoch 84:5)

The prophecy of Noah's birth adds two other positive elements to the 2 The Hebrew 3x7 can denote “repent” in the sense of a "return" to God, an idea related to "convert." 3 Citation is from J.F. Stenning, The Targum of Isaiah (Oxford 1953). Italic emphasis here and in the Translation Chart indicates phrases added to Isaiah. ^ Indeed, the “remnant” message from such an “authority” is perhaps responsible in part for the perdurance of the motif. Certainly the existence of a community at Qumran that defined itself as the “remnant” is eloquent testimony to the emblematic intensity of the motif. 5 The Hebrew root here, n» (pelet), is translated variously as "be humble,”

“escape” and “be left as a remnant.” The expression “plant of righteousness” is the same used by Isaiah to describe the post-exilic “remnant” of Israel. See M. Black, The Book of Enoch, or | Enoch: A New English Edition With Commentary and Textual Notes (Leiden 1985) 133. The variant reading "will be left as a remnant" is noted by J.T. Milik, The Books of Enoch: Aramaic Fragments of Qumran Cave 4 (Oxford 1976) 189. All quotation is from R.H. Charles, The Book of Enoch (Oxford 1912).

328

PHYLLIS PORTNOY

imagery: "rest" and "comfort": Therefore he shall be named Noah, for he shall be a remnant for you. [Variants: “and the earth shall rest"; "for he shall be your remnant, forasmuch as he and his son shall have rest and escape from the corrup-

tion of the earth"; "whereby you will have rest," "for he will comfort the earth after all the destruction."] (IEnoch 106:16-18)*

The triple etymologizing here derives from the similarity of three Hebrew roots: m (y'nuach, "to be left"), om (nahum, "to comfort"), and nv (nuah, “to rest”). Elsewhere in the work this "rest" is a figure for an

apocalyptic and eternal conversion of the entire world at the end of time, when “the earth will be at rest" (IEnoch 93:17).?

The "remnant" thus enters the New Testament with eschatological and universalist associations, elements that make it ideal for conveying

the radical notion of grace outlined by St. Paul. In his letter to the Romans, Paul repeats the Septuagint's translations of Isaiah: "a remnant will return" (Isa. 10:22) is again "a remnant will be saved": religuiae salvae fient (Rom. 9:27); "some survivor" (Isa. 1:9) is again a "seed": Nisi Dominus sabaoth reliquisset nobis semen (Rom. 9:29). In Paul's re-inter-

pretation of Isaiah, the present audience will be the eschatological "remnant," the fulfillment of the ancient promise made to Abraham's "seed"? sic ergo in hoc tempore reliquiae secundum electionem gratiae factae sunt ("so in this time a remnant is established according to the election of

grace," Rom. 11:5). Thus the "remnant" of Isaiah is transformed from a figure of anticipated retribution to one of present grace, and these readings are then preserved in Jerome's Vulgate translations.? From this

point, the church fathers read the Old Testament "remnant" passages as "6 Variant readings here are respectively: Milik (above, n. 25) 213; Black (above, n. 25) 101; J.P. Lewis, A Study of the Interpretation of Noah and the Flood in Jewish and Christian Literature (Leiden 1968) 27.

? The root nahum appears at Genesis 5: 29. See Lewis (above, n. 26) 3, 21, 27, 35. A similar etymologizing is found in Sir. 44.17-19, The Book of Adam and Eve ii.2.1, and Wis. 14.6. 28. See Black (above, n. 25) 291.

? The connection with Abraham is made at Rom. 9:6-8. If Paul is consciously tallying Isa. 1:9 with Gen. 21:12 according to midrashic tradition, then the choice of the LXX "seed" was likely made in order to emphasize the connection. See P. Dinter, "Paul and the Prophet Isaiah," Biblical Theology Bulletin 13 (1983) 48-52, at

49; E. Ellis, "Exegetical patterns in I Corinthians and Romans," in J. Cook, ed., Grace Upon Grace: Essays in Honor of Lester ]. Kuyper (Grand Rapids 1975) 137-142, at 141; W.R. Stegner, "Romans 9.6-29 — A Midrash,” JSNT 22 (1984) 37-52, at 44.

9 One may assume that the choices of both were deliberate as, like Jerome,

Paul demonstrates a close knowledge of the Hebrew (above, n. 21) 24, 115.

text. See Seeligmann

BIBLICAL REMNANTS

329

typological proof-texts, relating the "remnants" of Isaiah and of Romans to each other and to the faithful through time: during the exile, in the present church, and on the day of judgment. Augustine's exegesis of

Gen. 45:7 (now quoted in full) is typical. The “remnant” is the bearer of the “high and secret mystery” that connects the liberation from Egypt to the ultimate salvation of Israel via Moses, Joseph, Isaiah, Christ, St. Paul,

and finally, the Apostolic Church: An forte illud significat alto secretoque mysterio, quod ait Apostolus, “Reliquiae per electionem gratiae salvae factae sunt” (Rom. 11:5); quia propheta praedixerat, “Etsi fuerit numerus filiorum Israel sicut arena maris,

reliquiae

salvae

fient"

(Isa.

10:22).

Ad

hoc

enim

occisus

est

Christus a Judaeis, et traditus Gentibus tanquam Joseph Aegyptiis a fratribus, ut et reliquiae Israel salvae fierent. Unde dicit Apostolus, "Nam et ego Israelita sum" et, "Ut plenitudo gentium intraret, et sic omnis

Israel

salvus

fieret"

(Rom.

11:1, 25); id est, ex reliquiis Israel

secundum carnem, et plenitudine gentium quae in fide Christi secundum spiritum sunt Israel. Aut si et genti illi Israeliticae restat fidei plenitudo, ex qua erant reliquiae, in quibus reliquiis tunc et Apostoli salvi facti sunt, hoc significatur ea plenitudine liberationis Israel, qua per Moysen ex Aegypto liberati sunt.

But perhaps this signifies, by a high and secret mystery, what the Apostle says "a remnant is saved according to the election of grace"

(Rom. 11:5); because the prophet had predicted, "Though the number of

the sons of Israel were like the sand by the sea, saved" (Isa. 10:22). Even so, Christ was killed by the by the gentiles just as Joseph was betrayed by his remnant of Israel might be saved. Whence says the

a remnant will be Jews and betrayed brothers, so that a Apostle, "for I too

am an Israelite": and, so that "the fullness of the Gentiles should come in" (Rom. 11:1, 25), and thus all Israel may be saved; that is, from the

remnant of Israel according to the flesh, and by the fullness of the gentiles who in the faith of Christ are Israel according to the spirit. But if

the fullness of faith remains to those Israelite people from which there was a remnant, in which remnant then the Apostles are saved, this is signified by the fullness of the liberation of Israel, by which through Moses they were liberated from Egypt.

One final translational Romans 11 cited here Reliquiae per electionem tiae salvae factae sunt.

twist deserves mention: the Old Latin version of and in other patristic commentaries! reads not gratiae factae sunt, but Reliquiae per electionem graThe addition of salvae demonstrates the extent to

which the "remnant" motif developed from a literal signifier of destruction into a typological signifier of salvation.

This shift in theological perspective from retribution to grace thus ?! Ambrose,

De

Noe 1.1, 5.11; PL

14.382,

386-387; Jerome, Commentaria

in

Isaiam PL 24.32, 74, 103, 143, 294, 327, 153, 74; Gregory, Moralia in Job, praef., 35.14,

20.22; PL 75.636, PL 76.769, 166

330

PHYLLIS PORTNOY

appears to be traceable in part to the learned translators and interpreters

whom King Alfred sought to emulate. Moreover, the shift is readable in their deployment of the "remnant" motif. The synthesizing performed by the early church fathers works from and contributes to a depiction of sacred history that is viewed through the increasingly teleological lenses

of Deuteronomy, the prophets, and the writings of the inter-testamental and New Testament periods. This picture makes seamless in appearance

a process that in actuality was anything but. Without exception, and as seen in Deuteronomy, each and every affirmative "remnant" passage in

the Prophets has been identified as a late interpolation.? Eighth-century prophecies of Assyrian depredation are re-interpreted in the exilic pe-

riod as predictions of the much greater sixth-century Babylonian conquest; in the post-exilic period they acquire words of renewal and hope.

Thus redactors account for the fall of Jerusalem and then inspire hope for its restoration at times when the prophets' warnings would have be-

come reality, and the faith of the people was again in need of reform. The surviving “remnant”—emblem of the historical status of the chosen people at any given period—is thus instrumental in rendering the message of the prophets continually relevant. Vernacular translations make

it continually accessible. And for the modern scholar, the motif provides a small window onto the reception and interpretation of scripture in re-

ligious communities whose history is otherwise largely obscured by time. With these observations in mind, I would like now to jump several centuries to Anglo-Saxon England, and what may in fact be the earliest rendering of scripture in English: the Junius Codex. Ir The Anglo-Saxon royal genealogy traces the ancestry of its religious

community to Noah, Christ, Ingeld and Woden.? The language and literature of the period is another testimony to the blending of pagan and Christian traditions. As in scriptural narrative, the "remnant" in Old English appears to serve two opposite world views equally well. Old

?' The relevant passages are: Isa. 1:9, 4:2-6, 7:22, 10:20-21, 11:11-16, 24:14-16, 28:5, 30:17, 37:31-32; Amos 9:11-15; Jer. 23:3, 31:31-34; Mic. 2:12, 4:1-7, 5:7-8; 7:18. See S. Blank, "The current misinterpretation of Isaiah's She'ar Yashub," JBL

67 (1948) 211-215; Heaton (above, n. 2) 39; H.G.M. Williamson, The Book Called Isaiah: Deutero-Isaiah's

Role in Composition

and Redaction

(Oxford

1994); G. von

Rad, Old Testament Theology, 2, trans. D.M. Stalker (Edinburgh 1965). # The genealogy appears first in Annal 855 of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and subsequently in various chronicles and regnal lists from the ninth to twelfth centuries.

BIBLICAL REMNANTS

331

English laf is variously glossed as “remnant,” "what is left," "survivor," "legacy," "heirloom," and "sword." The rather large semantic leap to the

final item, "sword," is commonly

attributed to the notion that the

weapon has "survived" the battle, and can be passed on as a "legacy" to the next generation. Where làf denotes "legacy" in Beowulf, it refers consistently to war-gear; in the biblical poems of the Junius Codex, however,

it refers consistently to posterity. The distribution suggests different attitudes and values. Indeed, Beowulf is comparable to early Old Testament narrative

in its use of the "remnant"

to emphasize

destruction. The

Junius poems, on the other hand, seem to reflect the apocryphal and Christian revision of the motif in their emphasis on salvation." I will return to this shortly, but first I would observe that the "remnant" in Old English occurs frequently in periphrastic expressions where a qualifying genitive connects it to the action of a deadly force, often

with a sense of agency. Thus sweorda laf (“remnant of the swords") and homera laf (“remnant of the hammers”) describe what is left behind by and not little pieces of or belonging to the swords or hammers; that is, the

survivors of battle and the weapon crafted by the forge. Analogues in Greek and Latin might suggest that the ablatival usage in Old English is an archaic or borrowed form. Vergil uses a similar expression to describe

the “remnant” of Troy (reliquias Danaum, A. 1.30, 1.598, 3.87). Instead of construing the surviving Trojans as reliquias Troiae, that is, with a partitive genitive denoting all that is left of the Trojan cohort, he configures aggressor and survivor together through a genitive expressing agency. Similar expressions occur in Greek, where the genitive regularly performs the ablatival function. For example, Elektra declares to Orestes that she will not be “left behind as a survivor of [his] sword": οὐδὲν σοῦ ξίφους λελείψομαι; that is, she too will die by his sword (E. Or. 1041). But

in Greek, the expression is not so remarkable in its construction, though still striking and often confusing in its periphrasis.? In both Latin and Old English, however, where one would expect the ablative and instrumental cases respectively, the expression is doubly problematic. Most editors of Vergil find the need to supply glosses for each occurrence of

reliquias Danaum. Servius focuses on the problem caused by the circumlocution (the "remnant" can refer with perfect ambiguity to both the

# The data are recorded and analyzed fully in my The Remnant: Essays on a Theme in Old English Verse (London, forthcoming).

# See ΚΒ. Egan, "Elektra and the sword at Euripides’ Orestes 1041," Hermes 127 (1999) 382-383, who notes both emendations and glosses occasioned by the

Euripides passage. 1 wish to thank Dr. Egan for the Euripides citation, and also for his assistance with the other Greek passages cited in this paper.

332

PHYLLIS PORTNOY

Trojans and the Greeks), and Conington and Nettleship are typical of modern editors in providing explanation for the anomalous genitive." It is possible that the constructions are vestiges of an obsolete form; in-

deed, an Indo-European genitive of agent is well attested.” Alterna-

tively, the poets may be borrowing from their predecessors. In any case, the result of either archaism is a sharp delineation of the two sides of the battle. Agent and victim come to the foreground in a linguistic miniature of the narrative that neatly encompasses both devastation and potential, ends and beginnings. In Vergil, the reduced "remnant" of Troy becomes further focused

into an emblem of Roman pietas: the hero embarking upon his dutiful quest, father and gods on his back, the means to posterity at his side. In

Beowulf also, the “remnant” is a key to the poet's vision: here it is a signifier of decimation and doom, every sweorda làf serving as a grim fore-

shadowing of the bronda làfe (“remnant of the sword/flame," Beo. 3160) of the hero's demise. The four poems of the Junius Codex, Genesis, Exodus, Daniel, and Christ and Satan, together comprise an epic with a very

different narrative shape, one that reflects a teleology based on Christian typology rather than on weapons and warfare. Like Vergil's visionary

epic, the Junius "epic" conveys its providential theme in part through its use of the "remnant" motif. And as with Vergil, editorial glossing and emendation reflect the ambiguity that often attends the motif. In the first poem, Genesis, the "remnant" recurs at the beginning and end of the Flood narrative to designate Noah and the ark. In the first section, God instructs Noah: fed freolice feora wocre οὗ ic daere ἰδές lagosida eft / reorde under roderum ryman wille. Feed freely the progeny of the living until I make abundant sustenance under heaven for the remnant of the sea-journey. (Gen. 1342-44)?

While the làfe lagosida (“remnant of the sea-journey") has drawn no notice, its genitive construction is the same as two similar expressions that

mirror it at the end of the Flood narrative and that have been the subject % EK. Rand et al., eds., Servianorum (Pennsylvania 46) 32, 261.

in

Vergilii Carmina

Commentatiorum, 2

?' J. Conington and H. Nettleship, eds., The Works of Virgil, 2 (repr. Hildesheim 1963) 7, also supply an analogue from Cicero, ut avi reliquias (i.e. Karthaginem ab avo relictam) persequare (Sen. 6.19).

# W. Schmalstieg, "The ergative function of the Proto-Indo-European genitive," JIES 14 (1986) 161-172, at 163; G. Shipley, The Genitive Case in Anglo-Saxon

Poetry (Diss. Johns Hopkins 1903) 87. 9 All citations are from G.P. Krapp, The Junius Manuscript. York 1931).

ASPR 1 (New

BIBLICAL REMNANTS

333

of some debate. As they emerge from the ark, Noah and his family are described as wradra laf (“remnant of the hostile forces," Gen. 1496): pa to noe spraec nergend usser / heofonrices weard halgan reorde / "pe is edelstol eft gerymed / lisse on lande lagosida rest" ... alaedde pa / of waegpele wraóra lafe / ba noe ongan nergende lac. Then spoke our Savior to Noah, guardian of the heavenly kingdom, with holy speech: "For you a homeland is once again made ready, happiness in the land, rest from the sea-journey" ... Then he led the rem-

nant of the hostilities from the wave-plank. Then Noah began to offer a sacrifice to the Savior. (Gen. 1483-86, 1495-97)

and as waetra laf (“remnant of the waters," Gen. 1549): da waes se snotra sunu lamehes / of fere acumen flode on laste / mid

his eaforum prim yrfes hyrde ... [siddan faele gestod] / waerfaest metod waetra lafe.

Then the wise son of Lamech came from the ship after the Flood with his three sons, the guardian of the heritage ... [after] the steadfast Lord [had remained faithful] to the survivor of the waters. (Gen. 1543-49)

A.N. Doane reads the "hostile forces" as a questionable "genitive of

separation" referring to the "wicked ones" who have been separated from the faithful. G.P. Krapp reads the “remnant of the waters" as a partitive genitive, translating: "out of the remainder of the water."*' Each of these "remnants" in fact can be read as a survivor construed ablati-

vally with the "hostile force" that left it alive: the lagosida (“sea-journey,” a hapax legomenon), the wradra (“hostile forces") and the waetra all likely

serve as circumlocutions for the Flood. The genitive construction defines

the salvation in terms of the destruction, and the destruction is thereby seen to have a salvific purpose.

Each "remnant" of the Anglo-Saxon Genesis is given a context quite different from the scriptural source, which the poet otherwise follows quite closely. In the first passage, the lafe lagosida is promised future and heavenly sustenance by God, whereas the scriptural passengers are merely to be sustained during the Flood, and with food provided by Noah: tolles tecum ex omnibus escis quae mandi possunt et comportabis apud te ("take for yourself from all food that may be eaten, and lay it up for yourself,” Gen. 6:21). In the second passage, the wradra laf is configured

in more explicitly Christian terms with the repetition of nergend ("Saviour”). The lagosida rest in this passage recalls the earlier !afe lagosida, drawing attention to and relating the traditional patristic etymology of

Noah as requies and the Enochic etymology, "remnant." Finally, the waeὉ A.N. Doane, Genesis A (Madison 1978) 274, 276. ^ Krapp (above, n. 39) 180.

334

PHYLLIS PORTNOY

tra laf in turn recalls the other làfes, so that the posterity (Noah is the

"guardian of the heritage") associated with this third repetition of the "remnant" motif takes on some of the typological and apocalyptic contexts of its sources.

The Flood typology is more pronounced in the second poem, Exodus, where Noah and the ark are described as an "eternal remnant": he gelaedde ofer lagustreamas On feorhgebeorh foldan haefde saeda gehwilc / on bearm scipes He led over the sea-streams the

/ madmhorda maest, mine gefraege. / / eallum eorócynne ece läfe ... Eac bon beornas feredon. greatest of treasure-hoards of which I

have heard. For life-preservation of earth the wise seafarer had numbered out an eternal remnant for all earth-kind. And men bore in the bosom of the ship each seed which under heaven men enjoy. (Ex. 367-79)

Editors have emended

ece, "eternal," to conform to the more familiar

pairing of laf with a destructive agent, for example, eagorläf, “remnant of

the sea," and egelaf, “remnant of the sword-edge."* But the “remnant” connotes more than physical survival here. The ark contains not food, as in both the biblical and Old English Genesis, but "treasure" (madmhorda): the "seeds" (saeda) of new life. The latter detail is literalized immediately

by the recurrence of a "remnant" in the next generation: waere hie baer fundon wuldor gesawon / halige heahtreowe haeleà gefrunon ... wolde pone lastweard lige gesyllan ... angan eordan yrfelafe / feores frofre, da he swa ford gebad / leodum to langsumne hiht. / He paet gecyóde pa he pone cniht genam / faeste folmum folccuó geteag / ealde lafe. ecg grymetode ... There they found a treaty, saw a wonder, a holy high-covenant.

swa ofer läfe mid He

would have sacrificed his heir to the flames, on earth the only remnant

of the heritage/ posterity / treasure, the comfort of life, whom he had so long awaited, the lasting hope, a remnant for the people. The famous one seized the old remnant (the edge cried out) ... (Ex. 387-88, 397-408)

This triple repetition of [af draws attention to a pun centered around

Isaac, the laf saved from the làf, and I would like to digress to do the same, as the final laf in the passage “cries out" for explication. The laf "sword" provides a heroic norm of battle plunder here against which to view the new context of a “remnant” saved as a "holy covenant" (halige heahtreowe), a "comfort of life" (feores frofre), and a "posterity" / "treasure"

(variant glosses for yrefeläf, literally: "heritage-remnant"). While the personification of the sword is a common topos in Old English poetry, it is

perhaps not correct to assume that to a speaker of Old English the sword as survivor or plunder was necessarily a natural semantic extension of

42 Krapp (above, n. 39) 211.

BIBLICAL REMNANTS

335

laf. Indeed, although Indo-European synonyms for “remnant” cover the range of all the other related meanings of Old English laf,? there are no analogues for a similar semantic divergence of "remnant" to "sword,"

even in related linguistic cultures where the sword is a similarly prized war-trophy of identity and prowess. I suggest that Isaac's deliverance is seen in sharper relief if we think of laf as a signifier of two distinct rather than related semantic fields. Perhaps for the Old English poet the word was a colorful homonym, indeed an auto-antonym: the survivor as de-

stroyer. Ideologies as well as words clash here, as both sword and survivor of heroic epic yield to the divinely rescued and “holy” remnant. A remarkably close analogue to this unusual naming of Abraham's son as a “remnant”

is Isaiah's son, Sh'ar Yashub, "A-Remnant-Will-

Return" (Isa. 7:3). The combination of the "remnant," Abraham, and the "seeds" in the ark might also reflect the Pauline quotation of Isaiah in Romans. Another Isaiah passage that comes to mind is 11:16, where the “remnant” is similarly paired with the crossing of the Red Sea. This lat-

ter connection recurs at the end of the poem, through another clustering of lafs: Ongunnan saeläfe segnum daelan / on ydlafe, ealde madmas / reaf ond randas; heo on riht sceodon / gold ond godweb, Iosepes gestreon / wera wuldorgesteald. The

remnant

of the sea began

to divide ancient treasures on the rem-

nant of the waves according to the banners, ancient treasures, armor

and shields, as rightly they should, gold and splendid fabric, the treasure of Joseph, glorious possession of men. (Ex. 585-89)

The word-play on làf recalls the patriarchs and their treasures from the earlier “remnant”

passages, so that Noah,

Abraham,

Isaac—and

now

Joseph—symbolically 'join' the Israelites at the Red Sea. The presence of the patriarchs in the exodus story has occasioned considerable debate; indeed many consider the Noah-Abraham passage an interpolation added to connect the Israelites at the Red Sea with their typological forebears. The "remnant" is another typological link. The allusion to Joseph's treasure in the final lines has been seen as a reference

to the traditional interpretation of "Joseph" as a prophecy of posterity: Joseph interpretatur augmentatio ("Joseph is interpreted 'increase'"); innumeram sibi plebem Ecclesiae ex omnibus gentibus ampliavit ("he [i.e. Jo-

seph/ Christ] increased for himself an innumerable people from all nations for the Church”).“ If the "glorious possession of men" (wera * See C.D. Buck, Dictionary of Selected Synonyms in the Principal Indo-European Languages (Chicago 1949). # Isidore, Quaestiones in Vetus Testamentum, in Genesin 30:22, 31:53, PL 83.274,

284.

336

PHYLLIS PORTNOY

wuldorgesteald) is read as "consisting of" as opposed to "belonging to"

men, then the gathering of the treasure suggests the related typologies of mankind redeemed from the devil as Christ's treasure, and the Church gathered from the nations. Thus the final "remnants," like the earlier ones, may be scriptural or exegetical allusions; in this instance, the scriptural bases are likely Gen. 45:7 (discussed above) and 49:22: filius accrescens Joseph, "Joseph is an increasing son."* As in the poem Genesis,

the typological treatment of the "remnant" in Exodus transforms Old Testament stories into Christian exempla.

The rationale for the final Old Testament poem in the codex is perplexing, however. While the typological connection of Noah, Abraham, and Moses is commonplace, and the sequence Genesis-Exodus a scrip-

tural given, the connection with the third poem, Daniel, is unusual, and the presence of the “remnant” in the Daniel story unprecedented. Daniel begins with the Israelite “remnant of the weapons," or “wretched remnant” (waepna laf, earme laf, Dan. 54, 80, 152), forsaken by God as a consequence of corruption and apostasy. This is a significant departure from

the scriptural Book of Daniel which assigns no blame for the Babylonian captivity. The poet is even more unconventional in that he treats the Israelites as a negative exemplum in his exordium to the story, relating their “drunken thoughts” and “devilish deeds” (druncne gedohtas, deofol-

daedum, Dan. 18, 32) to those of the impious Nebuchadnezzar and Beltazzar. In the central episode of the poem, Nebuchadnezzar “[gives] back to God the remnant of his people” (agaef him pa his leoda lafe, Dan. 452), an act that appears to harmonize the faith of the king with that of the “remnant.” But the poem ends by again pairing the sacrilegious actions of the Babylonians, who “began to drink to devils” (deoflu drincan ongunnon, Dan. 749) with the actions of the Israelites, who are “seduced by pride and drunken thoughts” (gylp beswac / windruncen gewit, Dan. 750b-52a).

The leoda lafe in Daniel are the Three Hebrews, chosen from the “wretched remnant of the Israelites” (Dan. 80), and miraculously saved

in the Fiery Furnace as a result of their steadfast faith: only this faithful “few” (Dan. 325) are returned to God. Where the Book of Daniel moves

towards apocalypse, the poem leaves the Israelites in the “wretched” state portrayed in the exordium, interestingly, another passage that many consider an interpolation. Original or editorial, the expansion establishes a context for the “remnant” that is very close to that of Isaiah: Israel corSJ. Vickrey,

"Exodus

and the Treasure of Pharaoh,"

ASE

1 (1972) 159- 165,

especially at 162, with nn.

“ This Vulgate version of Gen. 49:22 differs significantly from the Hebrew, which reads: "Joseph is a fruitful bough."

BIBLICAL REMNANTS

337

rupted by apostasy (the matter of Isa. 1-3), promised hope for a "remnant" that is purified by fire (Isa. 4) and then "returned" to God (Isa. 10).

The “remnant” thus serves two widely separated epochs and literatures in the same revisionist manner, and for the same reason perhaps: to urge a present "remnant" to repentance and reform. Through its Old Testament "remnants,"

the Junius Codex provides what amounts

to a ver-

nacular compendium of exempla through which the descendents of Noah, Christ, Ingeld and Woden might understand and then participate in the salvation figured by each of the great moments of sacred history: Noah from the Flood, Isaac from the Sacrifice, the Israelites from the Red Sea, the Three Hebrews from the Fiery Furnace, and in the final poem of the codex, Christ from Satan. In including and in juxtaposing the latter two events in this series, the codex presents a history of the "remnant" that is typological rather than scriptural, reflecting the common patristic reading of the furnace miracle: the angel's descent into the furnace to save the Three Hebrews prefigures Christ's descent into Hell to save the

souls of the just." The series is not without precedent. It closely duplicates the lectionary for Holy Saturday, a source that has often been cited in relation to the codex,“ and it has an interesting insular iconographic analogue. In

several of the Irish High Crosses, the furnace miracle sits immediately below the judgment, as in the East face of the West cross at Monasterboice depicted below (Fig. 2). Read from base to cross-head, the cross delineates a series of biblical figures and events—Abraham and Isaac, Moses at the Red Sea, the Three Hebrews, Christ in Victory—that compares closely, both in program and in configuration, with the Anglo-

Saxon poems.” As in many of the crosses, the North and South sides contain

winged

animals,

snakes,

bosses

and

animal

interlace. The

monuments thus reflect the same cultural transvaluation and convergence as the language and literature of the Anglo-Saxons, where "swords" and "survivors" co-exist with the "remnant saved by grace,"

and pagan heroes with biblical ones. The pagan world-view of Beowulf is the dark beginning, the Junius ” Jerome, Commentariorum in Danielem, Liber Unus PL 25.512.

# See my "Remnant and ritual: The place of Daniel and Christ and Satan in the Junius epic," ES 75 (1994) 408-421; B. Raw, "The New Testament,” in M. Godden

and M. Lapidge, eds., The Cambridge Companion To Old English Literature (Cambridge 1991) 227-242; P. Remley, Old English Biblical Verse. CSASE 16 (Cambridge 1996) 136-143, 216-230.

# The same subjects recur frequently on the Irish crosses, along with panels depicting Noah. Illustration is from Francoise Henry, Irish Art During the Viking

Invasions (London 1967) pl. 111. I shall be exploring the iconographic connections with the Junius Codex in a future publication.

338

PHYLLIS PORTNOY

Codex the apocalyptic closure, of one continuous ancestral story. The

“remnant” in the latter has its source in the idea of election that began with Deuteronomy, and developed by translation and reinterpretation

through Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and finally, as I have suggested here, Old English.

BIBLICAL REMNANTS

339

THE REMNANT: VARIANT TRANSLATIONS Passage| Isa.1:9

Hebrew Bible |Unlessthe Lord Almighty had left ussome

|Septuagint| [εἰ μὴ χύριος σαβαωθ [ἐγκατέλιπεν [ἡμῖν σπέρμα

Isa.7:3

IEnoch

[if the exceeding goodness lof the Lord of | hosts had left

survivor Isa.4:2

Targum

Vulgate

Old English Nisi Dominus waepna laf Sabaoth reliquisset | (Dan. 54) nobis semen (and — |earme jaf, Rom.9:29) (Dan. 80, 152)

us a remnant in his mercy | Messiah of the

|the Branch of [ὑψῶσαι xai the Lord will

[δοξάσαι τὸ

be beautiful

[χαταλειφθὲν

and glorious

|t00 Ισραηλ

| Lord

|A-Remnant-

[ὁ xaraAer-

la remnant

yrfe-laf

Will-Return

[φθεὶς lacouB

]which did not

(Ex.403)

sin and which

leodum to

repented from

lafe (£x. 405)

sin

1sa.10:22

|only a pem: nant will

[τὸ xaréa remnant λείμμα αὐτῶν | that have

reliquiae convertentur (Rom.9:27,

return

σωθήσεται

religuiae salvae

— [repented from sin

|leoda laf (Dan. 452)

fient; Rom.11:5, reliquiae secundum electionem gratiae

factae sunt, Old Latin: gratiae salvae factae sunt) Isa.11:16

Gen.7:23

Gen.45:7

|for the remnantofhis

[τῷ xatafor the remἰ|λειφθέντι μου | nant of his

people that ἰ5 λαῷ ἐν

people that is

left from Assyria

Αἰγύπτῳ

left from the Assyrian

|Only Noah

ἰ[χατελείφθη

He shall be a

laf lagosida

was left

μόνος Not

remnant for

(Gen. 1343)

you; and the

wradra laf

earth shall

(Gen. 1496)

rest; he will comfort the

waetra laf (Gen. 1549)

earth after they

ece Jaf (Ex.

destruction.

373)

|to preserve

[ὑπολείπεσθαι

ut reservamini super| yd-laf (Ex.

for youa remnanton

ὑμῶν xará|Acyya ἐπὶ

terram et escas ad vivendum habere

earth and to.

| tic γῆς xai

|585) |sae-laf (Ex.

possitis. (Old Latin:|586)

save your

ἐχθρέψαι

remanere vesirum

lives by a

ὑμῶν

reliquias super

great deliver:

[κατάλειψιν

terram et enutrire

ance

μεγάλην

vestrum reliqui-

atium magnum) Fig. 1

340

PHYLLIS PORTNOY

Fig. 2. West Cross, Monasterboice

25 LONGING FOR VICTORY: THE EROTIC COERCION OF VICTORIA PAULINE RIPAT

Among the hundreds of curse tablets published by Audollent almost a century ago is a peculiar text (#265).' It is a lead tablet inscribed on both sides which had been buried in a Roman cemetery in Hadrumetum at

some point in the third century A.D. Audollent reads it as follows: A

B

Alimbeu columbeu petalimbeu faciatis Victoria quem peperit Suavulva amante furente pre amore meo neque somnu

De secus Ballincum Lolliorum de curru actus ne possit ate me venire; et tu quiqumque es demon te oro ut illa cogas amoris et desideri

videat donec at me veniat puella[r]u d[eli-]

[mei] causa veni[re at me.]

cias.

He identifies a double purpose in the curse tablet: first, the practitioner seeks to make Victoria, the daughter of Suavulva, mad with love for

himself, and second, the practitioner seeks to cause Ballincus, a charioteer, to be thrown from his chariot. It has been well documented that curse tablets were regularly employed both to instill passion (usually in women for men) and to incapacitate one's competition in the circus or

amphitheatre. However, and as Audollent notes, it is unusual to see both on the same tablet? He suggests that the failure plotted for Ballincus will ! A. Audollent, ed., Defixionum Tabellae (Paris 1904) = DT.

? Though compare the second/ third-century A.D. tablet from Old Harlow, published and translated by R. Wright and M. Hassall, "Roman Britain in 1972," Britannia 4 (1973) 324-327: (side A) "To the god Mercury, I entrust to you my affair with Eterna and her own self, and may Timotneus feel no jealousy of me at 341

342

PAULINE RIPAT

make him undesirable in Victoria's eyes, and thus the practitioner engages in a two-pronged strategy for the achievement of a single larger aim, the securing of Victoria's attentions for himself alone. Audollent's

identification of this tablet as primarily erotic is further supported by the evidence of another tablet (4264) found in the same vicinity; this men-

tions the same Victoria quem peperit Suavulva, and sports a drawing of two entwined hearts, pierced by nails or swords. The format of #265 is clearly erotic, but I wish to raise the possibility that its context is primarily one of competition over chariot racing, not

over a woman named Victoria. That is, this tablet may be better understood as a bid for the favour not of one Victoria, filia Suavulva, but rather

for Victoria, Victory, the deified personification. Furthermore, when taken thus it becomes clear that this tablet does not contain two curses (i.e. one erotic spell for Victoria, and one curse against Ballincus' success

at chariot racing), but rather that Victory's envisioned passion for the practitioner

(amante furente pre amore

meo

... donec

at me

veniat)

and

Ballincus' inability to catch up with the practitioner once tossed from his chariot (de curru actus ne possit ate me venire) are merely two ways of de-

scribing the same desired outcome.

The woman tify her Jordan

difficulty with understanding the victim Victoria as a human lies in the expression of her metronymic. Both 265 and 264 idenas Victoria quem [i.e. quam] peperit Suavulva [or rather, sua vulva]. has demonstrated that in the second century A.D. it became

common practice to identify the victim by name and mother's name on

curse tablets of all genres? He observes that the formula employed most often on both Greek and Latin tablets is "x whom y bore," precisely the

formula used here, and a formula which Curbera notes is a translation of the common method of identification in Egyptian documents. Curbera

further suggests that the use of this formula became particularly popular in magical practice because it seemed "most Egyptian," and hence least

familiar and most magically authoritative; "such was the success of this practice that it was adopted even in spells for horses."* Indeed, a number of practitioners deemed the inclusion of the metronymic important

enough to insert either the generic term "mother" or "womb" when the the risk of his life-blood" (side B): "I entrust to you, O Mercury, another transac-

tion ..." *D.R. Jordan, "CIL VIII 19525 (B).2 VVLVA," Philologus 120 (1976) 127-132. 4J. Curbera,

"Maternal

lineage in Greek

QPVVLVA magical

= Q(UEM) texts,"

P(EPERIT)

in D.R. Jordan,

H.

Montgomery, and E. Thomassen, eds., The World of Ancient Magic: Papers from the first international Samson Eitrem seminar at the Norwegian Institute at Athens, 4-8 May 1997 (Bergen 1999) 195-203, at 200.

THE EROTIC COERCION OF VICTORIA

343

mother's name was unknown. Sometimes greater precision was sought

in uncertain circumstances with the phrase “her own mother" (εἰδία [ἰδία] μήτρα, as in PGM XXXII 10-12, and XXXIIa 4-6). But sua vulva, "her own womb," appears to be otherwise unparalleled, and for good

reason, as it makes no sense ("Victoria, whom her own bore”)—unless the victim should be motherless, as Victory was.

womb

How, then, was Victory conceived, and conceived of? For Cicero (ND 2.23.61), she was a goddess along with Salus, Concordia, and Libertas. Each of these gained divinity per se because their attainment depended upon divine intervention (quarum omnium rerum quia vis erat tanta ut sine

deo regi non posset, ipsa res deorum nomen obtinuit); the same went for Cupido, Voluptas, and Venus Lubentina. Elsewhere (Leg. 2.11.28) he groups her with the deities Salus, Honos, and Ops, as entities that were to be sought out (rerumque expetendarum nomina). Other authors make it clear

that Victory chooses to bestow her favours (e.g. Plaut. Amph. 42); though she might be adsueta to adhere to certain humans, such as Augustus (Ov. Tr. 2.169-71), lesser contenders had to suffer in anticipation as she flitted

back and forth dubiis pennis (Ov. Met. 8.13). She literally turns her back on the people of Camulodunum, when her statue fell for no apparent reason retro conversum, quasi cederet hostibus (Tac. Ann. 14.32). The wise

entreated her with specific requests; Ovid, desirous of an amatory conquest, does not mince words: huc ades et meus hic fac, dea, vincat amor (Am. 3.2.45).

On the other hand, Varro (LL 5.62) connects Venus and Victoria through dubious etymology to the verb vincire, "to bind": non quod vincere velit Venus, sed vincire. Ipsa Victoria ab eo quod superati vinciuntur.

While his statement might not tell us much about the derivation of these terms, it does say a great deal about how both love and victory were conceptualized in antiquity. Victims of Venus were bound, and those who did not enjoy Victory's favours were likewise. Lovers and losers

shared an experience, and furthermore, it was an experience that both magical practitioners and self-proclaimed victims believed was effec-

tively wrought by curse tablets. The tablet in question here adds a twist: Victory herself is the intended victim, she is to be instilled with passion for the practitioner, and the attainment of her attentions by the practitioner will be his rival's loss and defeat. Victory is not the first deity to be constrained by binding spell—Ares perhaps endured this event more regularly/—but the employment of an 5 Jordan (above, n. 3) 131. 5 See, for example, Tac. Ann. 2.69; Cic. Brut. 217, Orat. 129, CIL 8.2756; Pl. Lg. 933a-e. ? C. A. Faraone,

Ancient Greek Love Magic (Cambridge,

MA

1999) 51, and

id.,

344

PAULINE RIPAT

erotic spell against a divine entity is rather remarkable. The choice is perplexing if one follows Winkler's argument that erotic curses were

meant to be cathartic for the practitioner, through the purported transference of his love-sickness to his victim® (which, it was hoped, would force the victim to race to the practitioner and plead for sex—PGM IV 2493-2494 even admonishes énéye δὲ τῇ ἀγομένῃ, ὅπως ἀνοίξῃς αὐτῇ, εἰ

δὲ μή, τελευτήσει, "pay attention to the one being attracted so that you may open the door for her, otherwise the spell will fail" [trans. E.N. O'Neil]). However, though many erotic curse tablets may well fit into such a scenario,’ many others, such as this one, are less explicit about the intended effect: though the victim is to be made passionate for the practitioner, sex is not mentioned as the ultimate goal." Faraone argues that such texts ought to be understood differently, noting that the intent behind binding spells in general is "not the catharsis of anger or hatred, but rather enhanced self-confidence" for the practitioner in a future un-

dertaking, the outcome of which is uncertain." Similarly, for many of the erotic spells, the practitioner's intent is not to transfer his lovesickness to his victim or to slake his lust—indeed, the practitioner may not even be suffering from lovesickness. The use of magic is rather to increase his confidence and chances for success in his future attempt to form a relationship. This precautionary step may well have been considered vital

by those about to form a relationship by means which did not win open social approval, such as bride theft; in such cases, the practitioner could be more confident of his success by making his intended more receptive

to his advances though an erotic spell. In this scenario the torture inflicted upon the victim of an erotic curse tablet is to be understood as short-term "transitory violence," a necessary step in the successful es-

tablishment of a stable and long-term relationship." This tablet may then be understood as the practitioner's bid to gain

the long-term attentions of Victory, and so to make her wish to adhere to him rather than to any other, and particularly rather than to Ballincus. "The agonistic context of early Greek binding spells," in C.A. Faraone and D. Obbink, eds., Magika Hiera (Oxford 1991) 9. Compare Plin. Nat. 35.26.93; Verg. A.

1.294—6; Paus. 3.15.7; see Faraone (1991) 27 n. 40 for further references. 5]. Winkler,

"The constraints of eros," in Faraone and Obbink

(above, n. 7)

214-243.

? E.g. J. Gager, Curse Tablets and Binding Spells from the Ancient World (Oxford 1992) ##27, 28, 30. 10 E.g. Gager (above, n. 9) #29; DT 14231, 266, 270; see Faraone (above, n. 7, 1999) 85 for further references.

" Faraone (above, n. 7, 1999) 82. 7 Faraone (above, n. 7, 1999) 82-95.

THE EROTIC COERCION OF VICTORIA

345

Comparable goals in the formation of human relationships made the employment of an erotic spell an obvious choice in this pursuit. The difficulty encountered by the careful practitioner, that is, the insertion of the victim's mother's name though Victory was motherless, was avoided by the addition of sua to vulva, the regular method of evading difficulty when the mother was unknown. At the same time, the failure to identify Ballincus by his mother's name renders it improbable that the practitioner's desire to see him cast

from his chariot constitutes a second curse; rather, this statement is better understood as an elaboration of the practitioner's desire to gain Victory. Versnel eloquently expands upon the observation voiced by Burk-

ert in reference to prayers and curses, that in antiquity the wish for “success and honour for one is usually inseparable from humiliation and

destruction for another."? Versnel demonstrates that the "flagrant humiliation of the rival before a large audience” was often considered part and parcel of the magical practitioner's envisioned success, particularly in the context of the circus, law-court, or any other public spectacle. Charioteers were notorious in antiquity for their use of spells and

curses to gain success for themselves and defeat for their rivals, and the evidence of curse tablets bears this reputation out. The majority of these

target rivals directly, seeking to bind their physical abilities and chariotdriving talents, and often include the demand

that the victims be cast

from their chariots and fall to the ground along with their horses (ἅρπαcov αὐτοὺς ἐκ τῶν ἰδίων ἁρμάτων καὶ στρέψον ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν iva πεσέτωσαν σὺν τοῖς ἰδίοις ἵπποις). Lest there be any misunderstanding, some curses

add that in this way their rivals should not gain Victory / Nike (ἐπὶ νείκην [νίκην] μὴ ÉAGoot).'* The practitioner of the tablet under consid-

eration appears to have been more direct than many in his pursuit of Victory, choosing her as the primary victim of his magical coercion. Perhaps the edge to be gained through the magical binding of one's rivals was lessened by the knowledge that one's rivals were probably using precisely the same spells against oneself. A better strategy for a wily

? W. Burkert, Greek Religion (Cambridge, MA 1985) 74, trans. J. Raffan; H. Versnel, "KóAacat τοὺς ἡμᾶς

τοιούτους ἡδέως

βλέποντας ‘Punish those who

rejoice in our misery’: on curse texts and Schadenfreude,” in Jordan, Montgomery and Thomassen, eds. (above, n. 4) 125-162, especially 148-156. 4 Versnel (above, n. 13) 150. 5 See Gager (above, n. 9) ch. 1; at 48 n. 29 he cites Amm.

Marc. 26.3.3, 28.1.27,

and 29.3.5, which describe charioteers "punished for involvement with illegal spells"; see also 28.4.25.

16 See DT ##234 (lines 64-78), 237 (lines 53-61), 238 (lines 44—49), 239 (lines 40—46), 240 (lines 46-55); compare ##232-233, 235, 241-245, 295. See also Gager

(above, n. 9) ch. 1, especially ##5, 6, 8, 14, 15.

346

PAULINE RIPAT

charioteer in search of an advantage might have thus been to gain Victory by different means, such as erotic spells—the one from whom Victory could not separate herself would be, by definition, invincible.

26 POLITICS AND PERSONALITIES IN CLASSICAL THEBES ALBERT SCHACHTER This paper will focus on the actions of some of the leading men at

Thebes during the classical period, and try to show how they influenced the directions taken by the polis. It will be seen that patriotism and political doctrine were less important than personal ambition and loyalty

to one's peers. Naturally, this is not unique to classical Thebes, or to antiquity as a whole, but we are looking only at the Thebans as an example of the phenomenon. For most of antiquity, the poleis of Boiotia were ruled by oligarchies.

The author of the Hellenica Oxyrhynchia describes the situation in 395: ἦσαν καθεστηκυῖαι βουλαὶ τ[ό]τε rérra[pec nap’ é]xdom τῶν πόλεων, Ov οὐ[χ ἅπασι] τοῖς πολίταις ἐξῆ]ν μετέχειν, ἀλλὰ] τοῖς κεκ[τημένοις] πλῆθός

τίι χρημάϊτων,

τούτων

δὲ τῶν

βουλῶ[ν

κατὰ]

μέρος

éxáo[rn

προκ)αθημένη καὶ προβουλεύ[ουσα] περὶ τῶν πραγμάτων εἰσέφερεν εἰς τὰς tpeltc, ὅτι) δ᾽ ἔδοξεν dndoalt]¢, τοῦτο κύριον ἐγίνετο. κ[αὶ τὰ μὲν] ἴδια διετέλουν οὕτω διοιχούμενοι ... There existed at that time four councils (βουλαί) in each of the poleis;

not all the citizens were permitted to participate in these councils, but only those who possessed a certain amount of wealth. Each of these councils took its turn in presiding over affairs and holding preliminary discussions on matters of business which they then referred to the other three. Whatever all the councils agreed upon was passed. And this was how the poleis were organised and how they carried on their internal business ...

One

important

Hell.Oxy. 19.2-3 (374-381) Chambers! element

which

is left out of the Oxyrhynchos

historian's summary, probably because it was familiar to his readers, is

how agreement was reached in the βουλαί. Clearly those who favoured a course of action tried to persuade the membership to adopt it, and those

who were opposed to it pushed in the opposite direction. In a multicameral legislature without a formal party structure this must at times have been a difficult business, and it can seldom have been easy. Ad hoc

alliances will have been made, not only in the presiding βουλή, but ! My translations throughout. 347

348

ALBERT SCHACHTER

extending over all of them, especially when a question was controversial. Over time, these collections of like-minded men became more or less

permanent fixtures (étatpetat), grouped around and identified by a dominant figure (oi περί τινα). Occasionally, the disagreement was general, and groups openly took up positions against each other. there was στάσις. It was not necessarily a crippling situation, but make life more tense and left the polis vulnerable to manipulation outside.

more Then it did from

The names of a number of dominant Thebans surface in the sources at times of stress or crisis, when their actions were by definition directed against each other. We can trace the progress of political rivalry at Thebes by following the behaviour of leading figures at several critical points between 480 and 379. The first such occasion was the Persian invasion in 480 B.C., when all

the Boiotians save the Thespians and Plataians medized (Hdt. 7.132). But

despite the official medism of their polis, a force of 400 Thebans accompanied Leonidas to Thermopylai (7.202), where they remained until near the end of the battle; they, together with the 300 Spartans and 700 Thespians, stayed behind to face the final Persian attack (7.222). Just

before the very end, however, the Thebans surrendered, leaving the Spartans and Thespians to perish to a man (7.225-226, 233). The Thebans ran towards the Persians, crying for mercy, claiming that they had come there under duress and were really sympathisers Nevertheless, some were slain, although most were

of the spared,

King. to be

branded by the King as his slaves (7.233).

Without going as far as Plutarch (Mor. 864d-865f), we need not accept Herodotos' obviously biassed account at face value. In fact, with

hindsight we can see that while the facts he reports are probably accurate enough, the spin he puts on them is all his own. The leader of the Theban force was Leontiades, son of Eurymachos, and father of that Eurymachos who led the Thebans' first abortive

attempt on Plataia in 431, at which he was killed (Hdt. 7.233; Th. 2.2.3, 2.5.7). It can be no coincidence that Leontiades and later members of his

family

were

prominent Theban

proponents—one

might

even say

agents—of Spartan policy. Active Spartan influence in Thebes can be

traced back to the last two decades of the sixth century, in particular to ? Hdt. 7.233: rod [sc. tod Λεοντιάδεω] τὸν παῖδα Εὐρύμαχον χρόνῳ μετέπειτα ἐφόνευσαν Πλαταιέες στρατηγήσαντα ἀνδρῶν τετραχοσίων xal σχόντα τὸ ἄστυ τὸ Πλαταιέων ("this man's son Eurymachos the Plataians later killed when he led a force of 400 men and took their city").

Th. 2.2.3: ἔπραξαν δὲ ταῦτα [sc. of Θηβαῖοι] dt’ Εὐρυμάχου tod Λεοντιάδου, ἀνδρὸς Θηβαίων 6vvarorárou ("they managed this through Eurymachos son of Leontiades, one of the most powerful men at Thebes").

POLITICS AND PERSONALITIES IN CLASSICAL THEBES

349

506, when the Boiotoi—that is, the Theban-led league—and the Chalkidians joined the Spartan king Kleomenes in his unsuccessful invasion of Athens (Hdt. 5.74, 77; cf. CEG 1.79). It is possible that Leontiades or his father Eurymachos was a xenos of Kleomenes and his

successor, his half-brother Leonidas.? We hear no more of this Leontiades after Thermopylai, presume that he and his supporters found themselves out of the rest of their fellow-Thebans, who clearly preferred to earlier agreement to submit to the King rather than risk the

and we can favour with honour the kind of fate

which had befallen Eretria ten years earlier (Hdt. 5.100-2). The leaders of

the medizers were Timagenidas and Attaginos. Plutarch claims that Attaginos was a xenos of the deposed Eurypontid king Demaratos, who came to Greece in Xerxes' train, and that through Demaratos' agency Attaginos was able to come to terms with the King, there being no

alternative.‘ Thucydides puts into the mouth of the Theban spokesman at Plataia in 427, their excuse for having medized (3.62.34): ἡμῖν μὲν yàp ἡ πόλις τότε ἐτύγχανεν οὔτε κατ᾽ ὀλιγαρχίαν loévouov πολιτεύουσα οὔτε κατὰ δημοχρατίαν" ὅπερ δέ ἐστι νόμοις μὲν καὶ τῷ σωφρονεστάτῳ ἐναντιώτατον, ἐγγυτάτω δὲ τυράννου, δυναστεία ὀλίγων ἀνδρῶν

εἶχε τὰ πράγματα.

καὶ οὗτοι ἰδίας δυνάμεις

ἐλπίσαντες

ἔτι

μᾶλλον σχήσειν, εἰ τὰ τοῦ Μήδου κρατήσειε, κατέχοντες ἰσχύι τὸ πλῆθος ἐπηγάγοντο

αὐτόν:

καὶ ἡ ξύμπασα

πόλις οὐκ αὐτοκράτωρ οὖσα ἑαυτῆς

τοῦτ᾽ ἔπραξεν, οὐδ᾽ ἄξιον αὐτῇ ὀνειδίσαι ὧν μὴ μετὰ νόμων ἥμαρτεν. For at that time it was the case that our polis was governed neither as an

oligarchy in which all have equal rights nor as a democracy; on the contrary, what is the very opposite of laws and moderation, but nearest to a tyrant, a powerful clique of a few men were in control. And these men, hoping that their own powers would be greater still if the Mede should be victorious, kept the populace down by force and brought him in. And the whole polis was not in control of itself when it did this, for which reason it is not fair to blame it for any errors it committed without the sanctions of law. ? The Spartan Boiotios, who participated in an embassy to Dareios II in 407, must have been named to commemorate a relationship of this kind: X. HG 1.4.2. ‘Plu. Mor. 864e-f: ἐπεὶ δὲ τῶν παρόδων κρατήσας ὁ βάρβαρος £v τοῖς ὅροις ἦν καὶ Δημάρατος ὁ Σπαρτιάτης διὰ ξενίας εὔνους ὧν ᾿Ατταγίνῳ τῷ προεστῶτι τῆς ὀλιγαρχίας διεπράξατο φίλον βασιλέως γενέσθαι καὶ ξένον, οἱ δ᾽ Ἕλληνες ἐν ταῖς ναυσὶν ἦσαν, πεζῇ δ᾽ οὐδεὶς προήλαυνεν, οὕτω προσεδέξαντο τὰς διαλύσεις ὑπὸ τῆς μεγάλης ἀνάγκης ἐγκαταληφθέντες ("Once the barbarian had gained control of the passes and was at their borders, and Demaratos the Spartiate, who, be-

cause they stood in a relationship of xenia, was well disposed to Attaginos leader of the oligarchy, had managed for him to become a friend and xenos of the King, and as the Hellenes were in their ships and no-one was approaching overland, it was because of this that they accepted the settlement, being in the grip of great necessity").

350

ALBERT SCHACHTER

This is not entirely true, of course. In normal times, when there are no hard decisions to take, loovouía is easy enough to maintain, but when

one has to make a hard choice, in this case, between submission to the barbarian and destruction by him, then it is not easy to be noble. In this case, Herodotos is probably nearer the truth in his report of the siege of Thebes after the battle of Plataia: the victorious Hellenes demanded the surrender of the medizers, especially Timagenides and Attaginos. The Thebans resisted for nineteen days, which was hardly half-hearted

behaviour, but clearly their temper had changed when Timagenides offered them the choice between trying to pay their way out of their predicament—thereby implicitly accepting their common responsibility

for the medism—or surrendering him and Attaginos. They chose the latter course. Those who surrendered were taken away and killed at

Corinth (9.86-88). However, Attaginos escaped, and Pausanias ordered that his sons not be punished for their father's wrongs. It does look as if the tradition which made Attaginos a xenos of the former Spartan king may have had something to it. Within five years, and probably less, of the battle of Plataia, the Thebans had recovered to a remarkable degree: a victory by a Theban

boy at the Pythia in 474 and by another Theban at the Isthmos at about the same time if not before bear witness to their rehabilitation? Moreover, by 470 B.C. the Thebans were already in control of the coastal sanctuary at Delion, where they organized the (re)dedication of a gilt

cult image of the Delian Apollo Control of Delion implies control of the $ Pi. P. 11 celebrates a victory by Thrasydaios of Thebes son of Pythonikos. The scholia report two victories by Thrasydaios, at the Pythia of 474 and 454. The ode has accordingly been dated early by some, and late by others, but this does not affect the importance of the victory in 474 as evidence for Theban revival: C.M. Bowra, Pindar (Oxford 1964) 402-405 argues for the later date; B. Gentili and P.A. Bernardini, in B. Gentili et al., eds. and comm., Pindaro, Le Pitiche (Verona 1995) Ivi-lix (B.G.), 283-292 (P.A.B.) favour the earlier date.

Pi. 1. 3 and 4 celebrate victories in successive years at the Isthmia and Thebes (Herakleia)

respectively,

by Melissos,

son of Telesiades

(4.44-45),

scion of an

aristocratic family, the Kleonymidai (3.15-16, 4.3-6), and on his mother's side a descendant of the Labdakids (3.17-17b). Mention (4.16-19) of the death in a sin-

gle day's battle of four members of the family has been taken as referring to the battle of Plataia: Bowra (op. cit.) 408, who dates the odes 476? B.C. Snell-Maehler date it 474/3? Wilamowitz, Pindaros (Berlin 1922) 341 dates the odes soon after 474.

® Hdt. 6.118: Datis, the Persian commander, on his way back from Marathon, had a dream at Mykonos, as a result of which he found in a Phoenician ship a gilt image of Apollo which had been taken from Delion. He left it at Delos and ordered the Delians to take it ἐς Δήλιον τὸ Θηβαίων. This they did not do, but

"after twenty years the Thebans themselves, in accordance with an oracle, brought it to Delion"

(δι᾽ ἐτέων εἴκοσι Θηβαῖοι αὐτοὶ ἐκ Oconpórou

Exopicavto

POLITICS AND PERSONALITIES IN CLASSICAL THEBES

351

eastern seaboard at least. The Thebans may also have had some understanding with the Athenians at an early date. According to Plutarch (Them. 20.3-4),

Themistokles persuaded the Delphic amphiktyony not to approve a motion by the Spartans that those poleis who had not fought with them against the Mede should be excluded from that body (ὅπως ἀπείργωνται τῆς ᾿Αμφικτυονίας ai μὴ συμμαχήσασαι κατὰ τοῦ Μήδου πόλεις),

because he was afraid that if they expelled the Thessalians, Argives, and the

Thebans

too

(Θετταλοὺς

xal

᾿Αργείους,

ἔτι

δὲ

Θηβαίους),

the

Spartans would control a majority of the votes. This event is usually

dated 479/478 B.C. by those who accept its historicity: it would certainly have been before Themistokles’ ostracism late in the 470s.’ Athenian support of the régime at Thebes, for whatever reason, would also explain

how the Thebans had come to have friendly relations with Delos. Is it too much to suggest a possible connection with the Delian League in its

early stages? The possible implications of this for a supposed period during which the Boiotian federation was dominated by Tanagra, based on a series of

coins bearing T or T-A on the obverse (with shield), and B (with mill-sail incuse) or B-O or B-O-I (with four-spoked wheel) on the reverse remain ἐπὶ Δήλιον). This would date the introduction of the statue ca. 470 B.C. In 424 Delion was in Tanagran territory (Th. 4.76.4), but was by this time

partially derelict (4.90.2). Perhaps the sanctuary had been from the beginning a Theban foundation, and fell into disuse when the coastal plain reverted to Tana-

gra. Pindar is said to have written that Apollo's progress from Delos to Delphi went by way of Tanagra (fr. 286 S-M. [schol. A. Eu. 11]): could this have come from an ode celebrating the occasion? ? R. Flacelière, “Sur quelques points obscurs de la vie de Thémistocle,” REA 55 (1953) 5-28: III. "Thémistocle, Sparte et l'Amphictionie delphique,” 19-28, argues for the historicity of the tradition. P. Sanchez, L'Amphictionie des Pyles et de Delphes. Historia Einzelschrift 148 (Stuttgart 2001) 98-103, doubts the value of

Plutarch's testimony, as it is out of keeping with our knowledge of events. But what is this "knowledge"?

* This is neither more nor less far-fetched than the restoration of the name of Boiotian Orchomenos in the list of members of the League for 452: first proposed as "a wicked and irrelevant guess" by D.M. Lewis in "The origins of the First Peloponnesian War," in G.S. Shrimpton and DJ. McCargar, eds., Classical Contributions: Studies in Honour of Malcolm Francis McGregor (Locust Valley, NY 1981) 77 n. 43 - D.M. Lewis, Selected Papers in Greek and Near Eastern History (Cam-

bridge 1997) 20 n. 43. The idea was later elevated to the level of a "possibility" by Lewis in D.M. Lewis, J. Boardman, J.K. Davies, M. Ostwald, eds., The Cambridge

Ancient History, 5 (Cambridge? 1992) 50 and 116 n. 72 (where he suggests restoring the name of Akraiphnia [the Attic, not the Boiotian, form] to IG 1? 259.iii.20

[453 B.C.] to give, presumably, 'Axp(aí$wo]t. The text in which [hepyoujéviot is restored is IG 1? 260.ix.9.).

352

ALBERT SCHACHTER

to be examined, but not here.’

Participation in the periodic games—for every victor whose name we know there will have been several unsuccessful unknown competitors—and the organization of ceremonies at Delion, would have been very expensive, both for the individuals concerned and the community. Clearly the resources were there, intact if not enhanced. And if there had been any stigma attached to the Thebans and other Boiotians for medizing, this was not permanent. It was, of course, revived later, when

it became expedient to emphasize the iniquity of the Thebans in the context of their contribution to the Peloponnesian War.

After relations between Athens and Sparta turned sour, there seems to have been another realignment of loyalties. By the early 450s the Thebans must have been dominated by men favourable to Spartan interests (cf. D.S. 11.81.1-3). If they still controlled eastern Boiotia up to the sea at Delion, this would explain why the Spartan force led by Nikomedes found itself in the vicinity of Tanagra in 458. Having been

denied an easy way back to the Peloponnese, they might have decided to move over into friendly territory and try to take ship there. No doubt Thucydides is right in citing the urgings of Athenian dissidents who promised the Spartans easy access to Athens, but that was an afterthought. Near Tanagra the Spartans encountered an army of Athenians and their allies. They fought for two days, with heavy losses on both sides. The result seems to have been a close victory for the Spartans, who were allowed to return home unimpeded by way of the Isthmos." Just two months later, however, the Athenians returned, defeated the ? B.V. Head, Historia Numorum

(Oxford 1911) 348. Head, followed in the main

by B. Fowler, "Thucydides 1.107-108 and the Tanagran federal issues," Phoenix 11 (1957) 164-170, R.J. Buck, A History of Boeotia (Edmonton

1979) 141, and C.M.

Kraay, Archaic and Classical Greek Coinage (London 1976) 110, dated this issue ca. 480-456. Lewis (above, n. 8, 1992) 96 and 116 is not entirely certain. E. Babelon,

Traité des monnaies grecques et romaines, 2.1 (Paris 1907) 974-975, suggested that this issue, together with a rare issue of Chalkis in Euboia, commemorated an alliance between the Boiotoi and Chalkis of 507. Most of the Tanagran federal coins have a four-spoked wheel on the reverse. Two staters of Chalkis (one found in a hoard buried in Taranto early in the fifth century), on the Euboic standard,

have

the four-spoked

wheel

on the reverse, and

the Boiotian shield

and Chalkidian chi on the obverse. They are generally associated with the events of 507/506. See W.P. Wallace, "The early coinages of Athens and Euboia," Numismatic Chronicle 7.2 (1962) 38 n. 2; C.M. Kraay, Archaic and Classical Greek Coins

(London 1976) 90-91 and 109. Babelon's suggestion is refuted by Fowler (op. cit.) 166-167. All that can be said with certainty about the wheel device is that it was used on a minority of the early coins issued by Chalkis and Tanagra.

V Th. 1.107-108. The Spartans set up a monument to commemorate the battle at Olympia: CEG 1.351 with references and bibliography. See Lewis (above, n. 8, 1992) 114-115.

POLITICS AND PERSONALITIES IN CLASSICAL THEBES

353

Boiotians at Oinophyta (exact location unknown), tore down the walls of Tanagra, and gained control over Boiotia and Phokis (Th. 1.108), keeping it until 446.

It was presumably

at this point that they installed or, perhaps,

reinstalled pro-Athenian governments throughout Boiotia": the battles at Tanagra and Oinophyta are presented by Plato (Mx. 242a) as a struggle for the freedom of the Boiotians, ὑπὲρ τῆς Βοιωτῶν ἐλευθερίας.

The attempt was, however, unsuccessful: ἐν Θήβαις

μετὰ

τὴν ἐν Οἰνοφύτοις

μάχην κακῶς

πολιτευομένων ἡ

δημοχρατία διεφθάρη.

At Thebes after the battle at Oinophyta, because the government was

bad, the democracy was destroyed.

(Arist. Pol. 5.2.5 [1302°29-31]) ὁποσάκις δ᾽ ἐπεχείρησαν (sc. ᾿Αθηναῖοι] αἱρεῖσθαι τοὺς βελτίστους où συνήνεγκεν αὐτοῖς, ἀλλ᾽ ἐντὸς ὀλίγου χρόνου ὁ δῆμος ἐδούλευσεν ὁ ἐν Βοιωτοῖς.

Every time they tried to choose aristocrats it did not turn out well for them, but within a short time the Boiotian demos was enslaved. (pseudo-Xenophon, Ath. 3.11)?

The Athenians, it seems, relied on contacts in aristocratic circles who were, naturally, more concerned with their own welfare than with that of the demos. The whole of Boiotia seems to have been in a state of στάσις

(Th.

3.62.5, 4.92.6), which was brought to an end only at the battle of Koroneia in the spring of 446, when Boiotian exiles based in Orchomenos ambushed a force of 1000 Athenian hoplites and allied troops near Koroneia and defeated them. In order to retrieve their captured compatriots, the Athenians were obliged to pull out of Boiotia, the Boiotian exiles returned, and all the Boiotians regained their autonomy.”

One can only assume that the pro-Athenian régimes finally collapsed once the Athenians had abandoned them and the exiles returned, to be replaced by governments dominated by anti-Athenian, in the event, proSpartan, factions.

This situation prevailed until the end of the Peloponnesian War. The Thebans were now firmly behind the friends of Sparta in their midst, and, as it was the Thebans who again controlled the federation, all of !! The existence of pro-Athenian governments throughout Boiotia might explain the suggested appearance of Orchomenos and Akraiphia in the Delian League in 452 and 453 respectively: see n. 8 above. 12 On this passage see G.W. Bowersock, "Pseudo-Xenophon," HSCP 71 (1967)

35-36. 13 Th. 1.1132, 3.62.5, 3.67.3, 4.92.6; D.S. 12.62; X. Mem. 3.5.4.

354

ALBERT SCHACHTER

Boiotia was effectively pro-Spartan. The Archidamian War was triggered by an unsuccessful Theban

attempt to take Plataia. The leading Theban in this campaign was Eurymachos, son of the Leontiades who had fought at Thermopylai (see above). He himself was without doubt the father of the Leontiades who was prominent in the decades between the Peloponnesian War and the Theban hegemony. During the Dekeleian War, a faction led by Leontiades and Astias

persuaded the polis to side with them, both because they were close to the Lakedaimonians who had installed a permanent base at Dekeleia, and because the Thebans were doing quite well out of the arrangement: to begin with, the size of the polis had been doubled with the synoecism

of Erythrai and Skaphai, near the base of Mt. Kithairon, Skolos in the Parasopia, Aulis on the coast, Schoinos to the west, and Potniai to the south; then there was much loot from the occupied Athenian territories, in the form of slaves and building materials, to be had at low prices.“ When the war ended, however, the Thebans, along with other allies of the Spartans, were alienated by the latters' unwillingness utterly to destroy the Athenians and their ability to pose a future threat to them." The pro-Spartan faction in Thebes thus found themselves out of favour, and when Thrasyboulos and his colleagues turned to the Thebans there were ready helpers in a populace now largely anti-Spartan and rallying

around a faction opposed to the Spartans, and now espousing the Athenian cause.^ It was no doubt at this juncture that some close personal relationships were revived and others formed between influential men

in Athens and Thebes, which survived all the ups and downs of the fourth century and eventually led to the fateful alliance between Athenians and Thebans which culminated at Chaironeia.” The leaders of the group now influential both in the polis and in the federal council were Ismenias and Androkleidas. This was how matters stood at Thebes in

395 as described by the Oxyrhynchos historian: ^ Hell.Oxy. 20.2-5 (426-460) Chambers. 5 X. HG 2.2.19-20; Hell.Oxy. 10.2 (42-44) Chambers. 16 Developments during this period are studied in detail by M.L. Cook, "Ancient political factions: Boiotia 404 to 395," TAPA 118 (1988) 57-85, and RJ. Buck, Boiotia and the Boiotian League, 432-371 B.C. (Edmonton 1994) 43-59.

" One example: towards the end of his life, Lysias delivered a speech on behalf of the Theban Pherenikos son of Kephisodotos, to whom the Theban exile Androkleidas had left his Athenian (moveable) property. Lysias had been a xenos of Kephisodotos, at whose home he had lived when in exile at Thebes (404/403):

Lys. fr. XXIV.1 Gernet-Bizos.

8 Hell.Oxy. 20.2 (422-425) Chambers.

POLITICS AND PERSONALITIES IN CLASSICAL THEBES

355

Ἐν δὲ ταῖς Θήβαις ἔτυχον of βέλτιστοι xal γνωριμώτατοι TOV πολιτῶν, ὥσπερ

καὶ πρότερον

εἴρηκα, στασιάζοντες

πρὸς

ἀλλήλους.

ἡγοῦντο

δὲ

τοῦ μέρους τοῦ μὲν Ἰσμηνίας κα[ὶ] ᾿Αντίθεος"ἢ καὶ ᾿Ανδροκλείδας, τοῦ δὲ Λεοντιάδης xal 'Ao«r»(ac? xal Κοιρατάδας, ἐφρόνουν δὲ τῶν

πολιτευομένων οἱ μὲν περὶ τὸν Λεοντιάδην τὰ Λακεδαιμονίων, [o]i δὲ περὶ τὸν Ἰσμηνίαν αἰτίαν μὲν εἶχον ἀττικίζειν, ἐξ ὧν πρόθυμοι πρὸς τὸν δῆμον ἐγένοντο ὡς ἔφυγεν οὐ μὴν ἐφρόνί[τιζον] τῶ[ν ᾿Α]θηναίων, ἀλλ᾽

εἶχον ...

Now at Thebes it happened that the best known aristocrats of the polis were, as I have already remarked,” in open opposition to each other. The leaders of one side were Ismenias, Antitheos, and Androkleidas, of the other Leontiades, Astias, and Koiratadas. Of the men active in the

polis Leontiades and his side favoured the Lakedaimonian cause, while Ismenias and his were accused of atticising, ever since they had been eager to help the democrats when they were exiled. Not that they were really concerned about the Athenians, they were rather ... Hell.Oxy. 20.1 (406-415) Chambers

And there, tantalizingly, the text gives out.

It is interesting that the author gives us two cliques of three men each. Could they have been two boards of three polemarchs, the one proSpartan, now out of office, the other now in the ascendant? The so-called "atticisers" had only recently come to power. Their opponents and predecessors were led by Leontiades. Of his two colleagues one, Koiratadas, turns up in Xenophon as a mercenary general, first in 408 as leader of a contingent of Boiotians in the defence

of Byzantium: after the surrender of the city he was taken off to Athens, but escaped at Peiraieus and made his way to Dekeleia (X. HG 1.3.15-22). He reappears in 400 as one of the candidates for the leadership of the Greek force (An. 7.1.33-37, 40-41), and finally back at Thebes in 395. If he

ever did serve as polemarch, it must have been either between 408—400 or 399-395. He drops out of sight after 395. The other member of Leontiades' group is probably to be identified with the magistrate Factíac whose abbreviated name appears in the long series of Theban

coins which was first issued in the first quarter of the fourth century and

continues probably until 338 or 335.? 9 Possibly ᾿Αμφίθεος. See below. 2 At 20.2.3 (426) Chambers he is called ᾿Αστίαν. In Boiotian, the name is Faotlac. 21 Où γὰρ πολλοῖς [ἔτεσιν πρότερον ἔτυχον εἰς στασιασμὸν of Βοιωτοὶ npo-

ἐλθόντες ("For not many years earlier the Boiotians had passed into a state of stasis": 19.1 [371-373] Chambers). 2 The most complete selection of these coins is given by B.V. Head, On the Chronological Sequence of the Coins of Boeotia (London 1881) 61-72. His dating is to be rejected. See now R.G. Hepworth, "Epaminondas' coinage," Proceedings of the 10th International Congress of Numismatics (London 1986) 35-40. See also D.

356

ALBERT SCHACHTER

Their opponents Ismenias, Antitheos or Amphitheos,? and Androkleidas, all figure on the coins of the same series. Ismenias had helped the Athenian democrats in 404/403 in a private capacity (Justin 5.9.8). He was said to have been the richest man in Thebes (Plu. Mor.

527b, cf. 472d"*). Plato refers to him twice, slightingly: Ἰσμηνίου tod Θηβαίου ἤ τινος ἄλλου μέγα οἰομένου δύνασθαι πλουσίου

ἀνδρός. Ismenias the Theban or any other rich man who thinks he can do big things (R. 1.336a) Πλούσιος οὐκ ἀπὸ τοῦ αὐτομάτου οὐδὲ δόντος τινός, ὥσπερ à νῦν νεωστὶ εἰληφὼς τὰ Πολυκράτους χρήματα Ἰσμηνίας ὁ Θηβαῖος.

(Having become) rich not by accident, nor as the result of someone's gift, like Ismenias the Theban, who has just now got hold of the wealth of Polykrates (Men. 90a)

The identity of Ismenias' benefactor is uncertain: the candidates proposed include Polykrates tyrant of Samos, the contemporary Athenian orator Polykrates, Timokrates of Rhodes (supposing an error in the source), or the Polykrates—Athenian or Theban—who dug up the treasure of Mardonios on the battlefield of Plataia.? It is insoluble, al-

though I suspect that in saying that Ismenias had got hold of Polykrates' money, Plato was suggesting that his fortune had come from Persia, that is, that it was a bribe. A nasty crack, but what one might expect from a Knoepfler, “Sept années de recherche sur l'épigraphie de la Béotie (1985—1991)," Chiron 22 (1992) 423-424.25; G. Vottéro, "L'alphabet ionien-attique en Béotie," in

P. Carlier, ed., Le IV" siècle av. J.-C.: Approches historiographiques (Nancy 1996) 157-181, esp. 170-174, and Le dialecte béotien, II (Nancy 2001) 159-162, 172. 2 The Oxyrhynchos historian calls him Antitheos (see above). Pausanias (3.9.8) lists the three Thebans who took Tithraustes' money from Timokrates as

Androkleides, Ismenias, and Amphithemis (X. HG 3.5.1 gives the names as Androkleidas, Ismenias, and Galaxidoros). Plutarch (Lys. 27) refers to Androkleides

and Amphitheos as the ones who had been bribed; he reports also that Amphitheos had been imprisoned by the pro-Spartan "junta" of 382-379 and was set free at the liberation: Mor. 577d, 586f, 594d, 598a-b. The coin has AM-®I. On the other hand, there are several coins with AN-TI. The historian, therefore, may be

right, or at least no more wrong than Xenophon. 4 And cf. Mor. 823e.

5 The orator Polykrates was proposed by J.S. Morrison, "Meno of Pharsalus, Polycrates, and Ismenias," CQ 36 (1942) 57-78, esp. 58, 76-78. This is accepted by RS. Bluck, Plato's Meno (Cambridge 1961) 345-347. Both Cook (above, n. 16) 81 and n. 83, and Buck (above, n. 16) 24, refer to the money as a "windfall." The

story of Polykrates the gold-digger is told in the Souda s.v. Πάντα λίθον κινεῖν (a similar story, but leaving out Mardonios, is told of an Athenian Polykrates s.v. Πάντα κινήσω λίθον) and by Apostolios 13.91. A summary of the interpretations is given by M. Canto-Sperber, ed., Platon, Ménon (Paris 1993) 293-294.

POLITICS AND PERSONALITIES IN CLASSICAL THEBES

357

political opponent. For us it is enough to put Ismenias in touch with antioligarchic Athenians soon after the restoration of the democracy (the Meno is set in 402 B.C.). He may, perhaps, have been a descendant of one

of the βέλτιστοι whom the Athenians tried to set up in power after Oinophyta (pseudo-Xenophon, Ath. 3.11). There are no grounds, other than Plato's snide remark, to suggest that he was a nouveau riche, and indeed, Plutarch calls Ismenias εὐπορώτατος, whereas he calls Kallias πλουσιώτατος (Mor. 527b), that is, the best endowed as opposed to the richest.“ Androkleidas was not a poor man either: on his death (see

below) he left money

in Athens, which was claimed by the Theban

Pherenikos son of Kephisodotos. Kephisodotos had given shelter to Lysias during the exile of 404/403 (see n. 17 above), and the orator delivered a speech in support of the son of his xenos when Androkleidas' will was questioned (fr. XXIV Gernet-Bizos). Since Lysias died in 380, the

speech, if it is genuine, would have been given between 382 and 380.

Pherenikos was one of the anti-Spartan faction. He and was one of those who returned at the end of usurpers." A Theban Pherenikos is listed among Euboian polis of Karystos ca. 360 B.C.: if this was we

have

yet another

Antitheos—if

it was

rich man

he—is

fled to Athens in 382, 379 to overthrow the the creditors of the the same Pherenikos,

on the so-called

otherwise

unknown

democratic

except

side.”

for

the

appearance of his name on the magistrates' issue of Theban coins. An

Amphitheos appears once in this series, and is known otherwise only for having been placed under arrest after 382 and freed during the liberation (see n. 23 above). Presumably Ismenias' and Androkleidas' faction remained dominant

until the King's Peace (386): there seems to have been an alliance between the Thebans and Spartans at this time, during which the Thebans sent men to help the Spartan siege of Mantineia in 385.” It would not

have lasted beyond 383: a study of the coin dies of the magistrate issues 26 See M. Ostwald,

Oligarchia. Historia Einzelschrift 144 (Stuttgart 2000) 75,

quoting Aristotle's definition of εὔποροι as men who perform public service with their οὐσίαι (Pol. 4.4 [1291*33-4]). ? Flight to Athens: Plu. Pel. 8; cf. Mor. 576c, 577a; Lysias implies as much, fr. XXIV.1. Pherenikos was by this time no longer a young man: Plu. Pel. 8, and cf. Mor. 576c.

28 IG 12.9. 7.21, cf. IG 12 Suppl. 174.7. The connection with Pherenikos son of Kephisodotos is made by W.P. Wallace, "Loans to Karystos about 370 B.C." Phoenix 16 (1962) 15-28, esp. 21-22. ? The alliance: Isoc. 14.27; the battle: Plu. Pel. 4; Paus. 9.13.1. The existence of this alliance is accepted by R. Seager, CAH 4 (Cambridge? 1994) 156-157, and rejected by J. Buckler, "The alleged Theban-Spartan alliance of 386 B.C." Eranos

78 (1980) 179—185. But see further.

358

ALBERT SCHACHTER

has led R.G. Hepworth to conclude that the last two issues in his first group were linked, that is, consecutive. The magistrates of these two

issues were FAXT and ANAP, that is, (W)Astias and Androkleidas.? The situation in Thebes in 382 was unsettled: στασιαζόντων

δὲ τῶν

Θηβαίων (X. HG 5.2.25). Two of the three polemarchs that year were Ismenias and Leontiades, bitter enemies. It is possible, but not certain,

that Androkleidas was the third. What is sure is that by 382 the antiSpartan, or rather nationalist, faction of Ismenias and Androkleidas was

in control of the polis. They had been engaging in negotiations with the Olynthians, whom the Spartans were on the point of attacking (X. HG 5.2.34). Indeed, Leontiades took the opportunity provided by the presence—by chance or design—of Phoibidas and a Spartan force at Thebes, enroute to Olynthos, to stage his coup. Ismenias was "arrested," another

polemarch was chosen to replace him, and a court of three Spartan judges, sent to Thebes for the purpose, tried and condemned him, whereupon he was put to death.” Meanwhile, 300 of Ismenias' party fled to Athens, among them Androkleidas. According to Plutarch, Leontiades sent men off to Athens to trap and kill Androkleidas, a classic example of a political assassina-

tion of a type familiar to us all.” The next three years and more saw the Thebans in the grip of a régime which was the nearest they had ever come to tyranny. In fact, one late source refers to this period as 'Apy(ou

illegitimate government was brought stice of 379, when a group of exiles several like-minded fellow citizens, including Leontiades (who must have

τυραννίς. However,

this

to a bloody end at the winter solreturned to Thebes and, joining killed the leaders of the "junta," been fairly old by this time), and

took over the government. There was thereafter no longer a pro-Spartan faction in Thebes, and within the next few years, those who had been "atticisers" were gradually, and in the end, brutally thrown back on their own resources,

as developing fear of the Thebans' growing power took hold of the Athenians and drastically reduced the influence of any pro-Thebans there. Thereafter, it was a question of purely domestic infighting. Throughout the years when Epameinondas and Pelopidas directed the 9 R.G. Hepworth, Proceedings of the 10th International Congress of Numismatics (London 1986) 38-39.

?! X. HG 5225-37. A slightly different version in Plu. Pel. 5.

? Flight to Athens: X. HG 5.2.31; Plu. Pel. 5. Assassination of Androkleidas: Plu. Pel.6.

* Schol. Aeschin. 2.117.6. # The major sources are X. HG 5.4.1-12; Plu. Pel. 7-13, Mor. 594a-598f.

POLITICS AND PERSONALITIES IN CLASSICAL THEBES

359

affairs of Thebes, there was a constant undercurrent of sniping and

malcontent from colleagues, some of whom felt that the famous pair were being given altogether too much glory, let alone power. After Epameinondas' death, we hear no more about internal bickering at

Thebes, although no doubt it went on.* Athens and Sparta had fought out many of their diplomatic and military battles on Boiotian soil. In this they were abetted by Boiotians—mostly Thebans—of the upper class, men with political ambitions, who were prepared to use their personal connections in Sparta and Athens,

and

be used

by them

in turn. This has been,

in a way,

an

illustration of the importance of xenia as a force in interstate relations

until well into the classical period. EPILOGUE

The events of 382 and 379 were not the end of the line for the families of Ismenias and Leontiades.

The Ismenias who went to Thessaly with Pelopidas, was imprisoned there with him in 368, and accompanied him to Persia in 367, is held to have been the son of the Ismenias who was assassinated in 382. He may also have been the Ismenias who served as hieromnemon at Delphi in 340/339 and possibly the year before.” He himself had a son, Thessaliskos, whose name probably gives an

approximate date to the year of his birth. In 333, before the battle of Issos, Thessaliskos was one of two Thebans in a delegation to Dareios III. After the battle, they were brought before Alexander, who released them, even though they were Thebans, because he felt sorry for Thebes, and because what they had done was pardonable in the light of the destruction of their homeland by the Macedonians; furthermore, he said, he set Dionysodoros free because he was an Olympic victor, and Thessaliskos through respect for his family because it was a family of

55 The trials of Epameinondas and Pelopidas and the whole subject of internal politics at Thebes during the hegemony are dealt with by J. Buckler, The Theban Hegemony, 371-362 BC (Cambridge, MA / London 1980) 130-150. 36 368: D.S. 15.71.2; Plu. Pel. 27-29. 367, Art. 22; Ael. VH 1.21. Son of Ismenias I: e.g. Buckler (above, n. 35) 135.

Y J. Bousquet, Corpus des Inscriptions de Delphes, 2 (Paris 1989) 43 = FD 3.5 22 = Syll? 243: 1. 21-22: Βοιωτ[ῶν] I ('I]ounv(a Στίλβωνδα.

It is in the archonship of

Aristonymos (340/339): G. Daux, Chronologie delphique (Paris 1943) 14. C17. 3 Apparently there was a lawsuit between Ismenias and Stilbon (Stilbondas of Syll.* 243?—see the preceding note) over the paternity of Thessaliskos: Arist.

Rh. 2.23.11 (1398*).

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ALBERT SCHACHTER

noble Thebans.” The anecdote may or may not be true, but it suggests

that in antiquity it was accepted that Thessaliskos was a descendant of the famous Ismenias." It is also a useful reminder that, although Thebes was destroyed in 335, not all Thebans were wiped out or enslaved, and, presumably, not all lost their fortunes either. The name Ismenias is found later in leading circles at Thebes. Two federal archons, including

the last in the line, bear the name." There is no proof of any lineal or indeed collateral connection, but if Thessaliskos survived the ruin of his

homeland, anything is possible. As

for

Leontiades,

his

line

can

be

traced

in another

direction

altogether. A decree of Delphi passed in 324/323 records the restoration of proxenia to the Thebans Promenes son of Leontiades and his sons Hippolaos and Leontiades (and to their descendants). This is seen as a

sign of discord between Delphi (the amphiktyony and the polis) and Macedonia. It has been suggested that the original decree of proxeny

was erased by the Phokians during the Third Sacred War, which is not impossible. What is questionable is the suggestion that the original proxeny was granted ca. 363-358“: it is unlikely that any member of Leontiades' family would have been identified as Thebans during that period. It is perhaps more likely that Promenes was granted proxeny

during his father's lifetime, and that the renewal was made to him and his sons. A later generation—perhaps the next—of this family turns up in an epigram by the poet Perses—identified either as a Theban or Macedonian. It records the dedication to Apollo (at Delphi?) of antlers from deer

hunted on Mount Mainalos by Dailochos and Promenes, children of the brave Leontiades." Mount Mainalos is in Arkadia, west of Mantineia. 9 Arr. 2.15.2-4: GeoodAtoxov μὲν αἰδοῖ rod γένους ἀφιέναι εἶπεν, ὅτι ἐπιφανῶν Θηβαίων ἦν (2.15.4). See H. Berve, Das Alexanderreich auf prosopographischer Grundlage, 2 (Munich 1926) 179.369. 40 On the other hand, the Theban aulete Ismenias, who was active in the third

quarter of the fourth century, was probably not related to the aristocratic politician. See P. Roesch, "L'Aulos et les aulétes en Béotie," in H. Beister and J. Buckler, eds., Boiotika (Munich 1989) 203-214 for the subject in general. He does iden-

tify the aulete as son of the politician (211-212). # See, for example, R. Étienne and D. Knoepfler, Hyettos de Béotie = BCH Supplément, 3 (Paris 1976) 317 n. 197 and 320 n. 207. ® FD

3.1 356 = Syll?

300.

For

the date

see P. Marchetti,

BCH

101

(1977)

159—160 (= SEG 27 113).

*$ FD 3.1 356 and Syll. 300. # Syll? 300. $ AP 6.112. Commentary by H. Pomtow in Syll? 300, and A.S.F. Gow and D.L. Page, eds., The Greek Anthology: Hellenistic Epigrams, 2 (Cambridge 1965)

POLITICS AND PERSONALITIES IN CLASSICAL THEBES

3861

Perhaps, like Xenophon before them, the family of Leontiades were settled by the Spartans in this region. They may not have had any more political influence, but they were certainly not poor, if they could afford

to hunt from horseback, and commemorate their success with an epi-

gram written to order.“

446-448.

“ It is a great pleasure for me to be able to contribute to this volume, as one Manitoban honouring another.

27 DANCING

AND DYING: THE DISPLAY OF ELEPHANTS IN ANCIENT ROMAN ARENAS JO-ANN SHELTON

In ancient Roman arenas, elephants appeared in a variety of spectacles.

In some they were made to perform stunts, in others they were mutilated and killed. The common element in these spectacles is that the audience found pleasure in the humiliation of the enormous beasts. In this paper I will examine the development of these spectacles and dis-

cuss the Romans' identification of elephants as agents both of a hostile natural world and of military opponents who used them as machines of war. I will argue that the ability to humiliate elephants symbolized Rome's ability to conquer, to civilize, and to bend both the natural and political worlds to its will.

The Roman identification of elephants with military enemies can be traced back to Rome's first encounters with foreign armies. In 280 B.C.E.,

Pyrrhus invaded southern Italy with a military force that included 20 elephants. When Roman soldiers faced these strange beasts for the first time, they were forced to retreat or be trampled? Pyrrhus was finally

defeated in 275 B.C.E. when the Romans managed to turn his elephants back against his troops? The Roman commander, M'. Curius Dentatus,

captured some of the elephants and exhibited them at Rome in the parade which celebrated his victory.‘ The display gave residents the pleasure not only of viewing exotic animals, but also of being reminded that

their army had prevailed over these dreadful beasts and thus saved Italy from subjugation by a foreign ruler. ! Plu. Pyrrh. 15. The elephants were perhaps acquired from a herd which Al-

exander the Great had captured in the east. The most thorough examination of the exploitation of elephants in the Classical world, particularly in military contexts, is found in H.H. Scullard, The Elephant in the Greek and Roman World (Ithaca, NY

1973). See also J.M.C. Toynbee,

Animals

1973). ? Plu. Pyrrh. 17; Zonar. 8.3; Plin. Nat. 8.6 (16). ? D.H. 20.12.

* Sen. Brev. Vit. 13.3; Eutr. 2.14.

363

in Roman

Life and Art (Ithaca, NY

364

JO-ANN SHELTON

In the First Punic War, the Romans again faced an army which employed units of elephants. In 250 B.C.E., Roman troops in Sicily won a

victory over the Carthaginians and captured some of their elephants. Their commander, L. Caecilius Metellus, shipped about 140 of the animals to Rome? There are two different accounts of the elephants' fate.

One source recorded that they were forced to parade around the Circus while being prodded with blunted spears "in order to increase contempt

for them." Another source recorded that they were killed in the Circus with javelins. The common thread in the two variants is that the elephants were presented to the city crowd not simply as curiosities. In ei-

ther scenario, they were treated abusively, probably because they were equipment used by the hated Carthaginian military. Their display before the Roman public seems to mirror the display of humans captured in battle, and the purpose of these displays was to enable spectators to participate as witnesses in the torment, abasement, and finally execution of enemies. In 270 B.C.E., for example, captives from Campania were

brought to Rome and led in a parade to the Forum, where they were first beaten and then executed? In the Second Punic War, Italy was devastated by the army of Hannibal, whose family, the Barcids, commemorated their military successes by issuing coins on which images of elephants represented the might of the Barcid family and, by extension, of Carthage In 218 B.C.E., Hanni-

bal, with his infantry, cavalry, and 37 elephants, marched from Spain into northern Italy, where they overwhelmed a Roman army that had

been sent to intercept them." Although most of the elephants perished soon afterward, either of wounds or of the cold, Hannibal is reported to

have ridden an elephant at the head of his army as it moved southward." The image of the dreaded Hannibal mounted on an elephant was firmly impressed on Roman minds and sustained the association which, even centuries later, the Romans made between elephants and enemies. 5 Plb. 1.40.15; Plin. Nat. 8.6 (16); Sen. Brev. Vit. 13.8; D.S. 23.21.

* The Romans' eagerness to prove that the elephants were worthy of contempt can be contrasted with the Carthaginians' concern that their enemies should remain in awe of the animals. When a Roman prisoner of war killed an elephant in a Carthaginian arena event, Hannibal immediately had him murdered lest the report of his success produce contempt for the huge beasts: Plin. Nat. 8.7 (18).

? Plin. Nat. 8.6 (17) preserves both accounts.

* Plb. 1.7.12; D.H. 20.162.

? Scullard (above, n. 1) pl. XXI: a-f; discussion at 156. 1 PIb. 3. 42-74; Liv. 21. 28-56. " Plb. 3. 74.11, 79.12.

ELEPHANTS IN ROMAN ARENAS

365

For example, Juvenal (10.147-167) juxtaposes Hannibal's humiliating death in exile with his glorious advance through Italy on "a monstrous African beast"

(Gaetula belua, 158). Although

the satirist ridicules the

Carthaginian general's aspirations, the effectiveness of the exemplum depends on the fact that the specter of the elephant-riding Hannibal could still, even 300 years later, prompt resentment in Roman readers.

In 202 B.C.E., at Zama, in the final battle of the long war, the elephants in the front rank of Hannibal's infantry were frightened by the Roman bugles; their panic facilitated the decisive Roman victory." The

Roman commander, Scipio, took back to Rome many of the elephants seized from the Carthaginians and put them on display in his triumphal procession, where they served as proof of his right to celebrate his con-

quest of Africa.” As residents of the city gawked at the elephants, they surely rejoiced in the knowledge that their legions had reduced to the status of parade exhibits the animals which had once terrorized them and which had been chosen by Hannibal's family to represent its prowess. The Romans continued to look back at these early wars against for-

eign invaders as the experiences which were preeminent in shaping their national character. Although they emerged victorious, the Romans never relinquished their hatred for Pyrrhus and the Carthaginians, nor forgot the role that elephants had played as instruments of their enemies. Lucretius, in a passage in which he discusses the human folly of deploying

animals in war, comments that "the Carthaginians taught elephants—those hideous, snake-handed creatures with towers on their bodies—to suffer the injuries of war and to throw into turmoil the great battalions of Rome" (5.1302-4).'* Elsewhere in this section of his poem,

he states that humans had trained horses for battle (1297-1301) and even experimented with the use of bulls, boars and lions as weapons of de-

struction (1308-12). It is only the elephants, however, who are linked to a particular nation—Carthage—in assaults against a particular nation—Rome. This specificity stands in striking contrast to the generality

of the rest of the section. Lucretius knew, of course, that the Carthaginians were not the only people to utilize elephants. At 2.537-8 he mentions that "India is fortified by a wall of ivory from its many thousands

of snake-handed elephants." Thus, when he attributes the first use of ? Pib. 15.12.17; Liv. 30.33. The terms of the peace treaty stipulated that the Carthaginians surrender all their elephants and agree not to train any in the future: PIb. 15.18.4; Liv. 30.37.3; App. Pun. 54; D.C. 17.82.

? Zonar. 9.14; App. Pun. 66. ^ [nde boves lucas turrito corpore, taetras, | anguimanus, belli docuerunt vulnera Poeni / sufferre et magnas Martis turbare catervas.

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JO-ANN SHELTON

war elephants to the Carthaginians, against the Romans, his interest is not in being historically accurate, but rather in creating an emotionally-

charged image. He invites readers to reflect upon the horrors of war by reminding them of the Carthaginian use of elephants. The abuse of elephants continued to delight Roman spectators long after Caecilius Metellus tormented Carthaginian elephants in the Circus. Indeed, his descendents were in part responsible for perpetuating the identification of elephants with military opponents. Members of the gens Caecilia continued to remind Romans of his exploits (and suggest that

they, too, were worthy of honor) by issuing coins which depicted elephants, the Barcid symbol of power, as symbols of a defeated enemy.”

The Romans began to utilize elephants in their own campaigns after the Second Punic War. In 200 B.C.E., elephants captured in that war were included among the equipment of a Roman military expedition

sent to Greece." In 121 B.C.E., Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus, with forces that included an elephant unit, defeated an army of Gauls in southern

France. He then flaunted his achievement by riding the territory he had secured for Rome." Beyond the that the height of the animal allowed Domitius to people he had subdued, the elephant's function as

an elephant through obvious implication "look down" on the a symbol was two-

fold. The enormous creature reminded the Gauls of the power that the

Roman army could unleash. However, because it, too, though massive and frightening, was forced into submission, it also demonstrated to onlookers that the Romans could dominate elements of Nature from even the most distant lands. The identification of wild animals as agents of a hostile Nature and the torment and slaughter of animals in public spectacles were part of

the Romans’ culture long before they first encountered elephants.” In agricultural areas, people killed animals that preyed on their livestock or consumed their food plants. At annual festivals they gathered together to celebrate their community's success in producing secure food supplies

and to thank the gods for their assistance in this task. Some of the festi55 Scullard (above, n. 1) pl. XXIV: a, b, c; discussion at 152. See also E.A. Sy-

denham, The Coins of the Roman Republic, revised and reprinted (New York 1975) pl. 27: 1051. 16 Liv. 31.36.4.

” Flor. 1.37.5; Suet. Nero 2.1.

'* On spectacles of violence toward animals and humans, see R. Auguet, Cruelty and Civilization: The Roman Games (London 1972); G. Ville, La Gladiature en Occident des origines a la mort de Domitien (Rome 1981); K. Hopkins, Death and Renewal (Cambridge 1983); T. Wiedemann, Emperors and Gladiators (London 1992); D.G. Kyle, Spectacles of Death in Ancient Rome (London /New York 1998); A. Futrell, Blood in the Arena (Austin 1997).

ELEPHANTS IN ROMAN ARENAS

367

vals included spectacles during which large numbers of pests, such as

rabbits and foxes, were killed." The victimization of the animals was undertaken to prove that humans were, with divine help, capable of gaining control over adverse elements of their environment. These festivals were celebrated also in urban areas, and, although very few town-

dwellers had direct experience with the damage done by rabbits and foxes, they understood the symbolic dimensions of the killings. The publicly-witnessed destruction of pest species provided reassurance that

the orderly and rational civilization that the Romans had created could confront a chaotic, irrational, and therefore dangerous Nature, and subdue it. Spectators had no moral reservations about causing pain because

the animals were "enemies," and their suffering was the penalty they paid for threatening human life. The origins of urban spectacles of violence toward animals can also be traced to the sport hunting enjoyed by upper-class men, many of whom held positions of power in the state. It was a traditional belief that

hunting aided the development of the physical stamina and moral courage necessary in a leader.? This leisure activity was, moreover, justified as a public service because the killing of dangerous or devouring ani-

mals strengthened the security of the entire community. Among towndwellers, only the wealthy could afford to travel to hunting areas and produce an elaborate hunt party. However, politically ambitious men,

who sought the support of lower-class voters, could bring the hunting experience to the town in the form of staged hunts. These events allowed even the poorest of residents to be involved, at least as spectators, in an

activity which was otherwise well beyond their means. The staged destruction of animals became a popular attraction and, correspondingly, the Latin word venatio came to mean both a pursuit of animals in a rural area and an urban display of killing animals which people attended as

spectators. A passage in Varro (R. 3.13.1-3) explains the similarities between the two activities. He is describing a country estate whose owner wanted

wild animals readily available to kill when he visited. The estate staff therefore trained the animals to appear upon command by placing food in the same location every day as simultaneously a man designated as Orpheus sang and played a trumpet. The animals soon learned to asso-

ciate his music with food and to appear when they heard it. Varro writes that deer, boars and other animals "flooded around so that the sight seemed as beautiful as the hunts staged in the Circus Maximus, at least

the ones without the African beasts." From a dining room window, the 9 Ov. Fast. 4.681-2 and 5.371-2; Mart. 8.67.3 and 4. ? Plb. 31.29.1-12; Cic. ND 2.64 (161) and Tusc. 2.17 (40).

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JO-ANN SHELTON

owner and his guests could watch the animals assembling. To modern readers it seems incongruous that the animals would be trained to trust

an "Orpheus," whose myth portrays a situation where the civilizing skills of a musician are able to pacify wild animals, when the purpose of the training is to make the animals easy to kill. However, Varro's com-

parison of the park to the Circus and his description of Circus hunts as "beautiful" reveal several factors about Roman attitudes to animals (in-

cluding the spectators' preference for African animals). For the Romans, hunts in the countryside were often carefully staged events, where the hunters simply waited for the animals to be summoned to their estab-

lished feeding area.” The thrill of the hunt lay not in the pursuit, but in the kill.? The arena “hunts” therefore resembled their country counterparts in their focus on killing animals. For Varro and his readers, the sight of a large number of animals destined to be destroyed by humans, and the ingenuity which their collection required, were the important links between the two locations. Both the park and the Circus were stages on which were presented spectacles that made manifest the superiority of humans over Nature.

As the Romans expanded their imperial territory, they began to im-

port to Italy animals from the most remote regions of their empire. Exhibits of these animals offered proof that the campaigns of pacification had been successful and also that the sponsor of the exhibit was attentive

to popular wishes, had the military and political connections needed to obtain animals from foreign lands, and was thus worthy of a position of great authority.? The display and slaughter of exotic and fierce animals continued to symbolize human domination over Nature, but acquired an additional meaning, signifying in particular Roman supremacy over the rest of the world. The capture and long distance transport of these animals entailed enormous expense, considerable danger and careful plan-

ning. Thus the apparent ease with which the Romans brought vast num? Compare the hunting party of Plin. Ep. 1.6 (also: 5.6.46, 5.18.2, 9.10, 9.36.6). 2 The themes of Roman artwork often reveal a fascination with animals kill-

ing and being killed. Toynbee (above, n. 1) Brown,

pls. 16-18 provides examples. See S.

"Death as decoration: Scenes from the arena on Roman

domestic mosa-

ics," in A. Richlin, ed., Pornography and Representation in Greece and Rome (New York / Oxford 1992) 180-211.

P? Suet. Jul. 10 comments that Caesar's shows greatly enhanced his popular favor. K.M. Coleman, "Ptolemy Philadelphus and the Roman amphitheater," in ΝΥ]. Slater, ed., Roman

Theater and Society (Ann Arbor 1996) 62, discusses the ex-

hibition of exotic animals as a demonstration of one's control over foreign terri-

tories and one's possession of powerful foreign allies. "Pompey's rhinoceros made a statement about his power base; and when Caesar capped it with his giraffe (in 46 B.C.E.; D.C. 43.23.1), he may have been assisted by Cleopatra."

ELEPHANTS IN ROMAN

ARENAS

369

bers of animals to their city, and the frequency with which they then destroyed vast numbers of them, verified that their state was powerful and prosperous, and could afford the costs of bringing pleasure to the urban

masses, for whom the victimization of exotic animals was both a reward for supporting the state's campaigns and also an opportunity to be in-

volved in these campaigns." Although the spectacles continued to be called venationes, they were in some cases designed as mock battles, and

they allowed spectators, even those who had never left Rome, to participate vicariously in the process of imposing Roman justice on a barbarian

world. In gathering together at these spectacles, the Roman community reaffirmed its ability to gain control over menacing elements of the environment, to impose order on the rest of the world and to enjoy the profits of its ventures. Roman society was very stratified, but at arena specta-

cles, all residents, whatever their class or rank, came together to watch the infliction of pain and death on something alien and hostile to their community. During their time at the spectacle, many members of the audience must also have enjoyed a sense of relief to be free, at least tem-

porarily, from the victimization they experienced elsewhere in their lives. In their seats, looking down on the victims of the arena violence, they who were ordinarily powerless and vulnerable reveled in the feeling of control over the fate of the victims.?

So popular were venationes of African animals that, when the Senate in the second century B.C.E. voted to forbid their importation into Rome, perhaps because of the dangers inherent in stabling animals in the city, public outcry forced a repeal of the resolution. Elephants were crowdpleasers for several reasons. Their enormous size and strength made

them ideal representatives both of the wild natural world and of hostile nations. They represented the most intimidating of Rome's opponents, and yet, because they are bulky and have large floppy ears, long flexible trunks, and a lumbering gait, they can appear comical. This combination ^ p. Plass, The Game of Death in Ancient Rome

(Madison

1995) 18, comments

on the "conspicuous consumption of public resources measured by both blood and money and carrying the symbolic meaning which frequently accompanies consumption." 3 Futrell (above, n. 18) 48 suggests an element of compensatory

violence in

arena events, as when impotent people gain pleasure from seeing others being harmed. J.C. Edmondson, "Dynamic arenas: Gladiatorial presentation in the city of Rome and the construction of Roman society during the early Empire," in Slater (above, n. 23) 84-112, and E. Gunderson, "The ideology of the arena," Classical Antiquity 15 (1996) 149, examine the social divisions within the audience. © Danger: Plin. Nat. 36.4 (40) records a story of a sculptor who went to the harbor to study the animals being unloaded from a ship and was killed by a

leopard which had escaped from its cage. Repeal: Plin. Nat. 8.24 (64).

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JO-ANN SHELTON

of qualities was ideally suited to amuse the Roman mob. A display of

elephants created a situation which reminded viewers of harrowing confrontations with their most formidable enemies, but also presented an opponent that could be easily ridiculed.” In the end, the audience was reassured that an apparently indomitable enemy was not just inferior, but absurdly inferior.

The abuse of elephants pleased audiences also because this species had a reputation for treachery. When the Romans tried to utilize elephants in war, they found that the animals often panicked and trampled the men lined up behind them. Lucretius (5.1308-40) describes as catastrophic the experiment to employ animals of several species in battle.

He writes that the animals ran about wildly “just as now elephants,” badly injured by iron weapons, often run about wildly after they have done much damage to their own people." The words "now" and "often" indicate that Lucretius knew that it was not uncommon for elephants to turn back on their troops. Other authors interpreted the unpredictability of elephants’ responses as untrustworthiness. In a passage in which he reports a Roman assault on a Celtiberian town in 153 B.C.E., Appian

(Hisp. 46) describes a situation in which elephants employed by the Romans were responsible for their defeat. An injured elephant reverted to

wild behavior, destroying everything in his path and no longer making a distinction between friend and foe. The other elephants, thrown into confusion by his bellowing, acted in a similar manner and crushed the Roman soldiers. Appian adds that, when excited, elephants are always accustomed to react in this way and to consider everyone an enemy, and

that some people call them "the common enemy on account of their faithlessness." It is interesting that ancient writers attributed to elephants the same characteristic of perfidy that was attributed to the Carthaginians.? Although the panic of the animals in battle was not a conscious act of betrayal, it was depicted as such. The attribution of perfidy sug-

gests that the animosity which the Romans maintained for the Carthaginians influenced their perception of elephants.

There may be other implications in the designation of this species as untrustworthy, implications regarding its ambiguous status as both wild

and tamed. The Romans knew that elephants inhabited wild regions and were therefore agents of a Nature that impeded human efforts to create a ? Cf. n. 6 above.

? In 5.1302 and 1339 Lucretius uses the phrase boves lucae to denote the elephants (rather than elephanti, as in 2.537 and 5.1228). The phrase is a reminder of the elephant's association with that other notable enemy, Pyrrhus: Plin. Nat. 8.6 (16); Var. L. 7.39-40.

* Punica fides: Sal. Jug. 108.3; Liv. 21.4; Hor. Carm. 4.4.49.

ELEPHANTS IN ROMAN ARENAS

371

predictable and secure world. And yet the Romans also knew that elephants could be trained to co-operate with humans and harnessed to perform tasks by which humans profited. Elephants were therefore different from lions, which remained savage and intractable when captured, and from bears, which could be trained, but only to do tricks. And

yet, elephants were also different from those species that had been integrated into human culture, such as oxen, horses and donkeys, because elephants, disinclined to breed in captivity, could not be truly domesti-

cated. They were wild-caught and, although tamed, retained a tendency to resist human mastery and to fall back on wild instincts in stressful situations. Trained elephants were liminal creatures in the sense that

they lived in the human world, but easily reverted to the natural world. Their reputation for untrustworthiness arose in part from the fact that they could not be counted on to be either always savage, like lions, or always docile, like donkeys.

Elephants were frustrating animals to deal with. The author of the Belli Africani (27) notes that it was a slow, difficult process to train elephants for use in battle. And they remained scarcely trained, even after many years of discipline and prolonged practice. When they are led into battle, the author comments, in a statement similar to that of Appian, they are a danger to both sides. Both these accounts illustrate a perception of elephants as animals inherently incapable of abiding by a contract

which obligated them to assist the men who trained and brought them to battle. The elephants' behavior in battle is portrayed not just as a "fright and flight" response, but as a rejection of human conventions of alliance and, correspondingly, a preference for the chaos that exists in the natural world. Elephants that trampled their own men were, in effect, refusing

to remain in the role that humans had assigned to them. They therefore seemed not just to be useless, in the sense that lions or bears are useless to humans, but to have betrayed the humans who offered them the alli-

ance. And therefore when elephants harmed their friends, they threw into confusion the boundaries which humans had constructed to differentiate between friend and foe and between culture and nature.

There is clearly an irony inherent in thinking that elephants were untrustworthy when they fled a partnership whose purpose was to expose them to mortal danger in that most disorderly of human activities: war. In Book 5, Lucretius exploits this irony by emphasizing that it is the human experimenters, intent on military superiority, who produced the horrific scene of chaos and erased the distinctions between enemies and allies and between

wild and tame. However,

few Romans

were as

thoughtful as Lucretius. For most, elephants were a particularly satisfying target of abuse because of their reputation for treachery. Metellus' display of elephants in the Circus in 250 B.C.E. may have

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JO-ANN SHELTON

been the first time that this species was killed by humans in a Roman spectacle. The report, that in 99 B.C.E. elephants fought in the Circus for the first time, may mean that elephants guided, or goaded, by riders

fought against one another in a mock battle or, alternatively, that elephants without riders were in some way forced to attack one another.” Twenty years later, elephants were displayed fighting bulls for the first time.” These records document three different types of spectacles. The

killing of elephants by humans was a display of human prowess over threatening forces. In events where elephants fought with one another or with other species, the attraction for spectators was the opportunity to watch, from a safe distance, "raw Nature" at work and to feel gratified to

be separate from and literally above the bestial violence.” A fourth type of spectacle was a public execution which involved the use of elephants to trample people condemned to death.? Here the elephant performed

as the agent of Nature, and the criminal, who had refused to comply with the conventions of human society, was cast out into the bestial

world which he had, by his lawless actions, chosen to inhabit. In all of these events, the elephant signifies something "other" and therefore something undeserving of moral concern. In 81 B.C.E., Cn. Pompeius (Pompey), a young man of 25 years, was

sent to north Africa to rout the army of Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus. Domitius’ forces included elephant units contributed by his ally, Iarbas, King of Numidia. For his swift completion of this campaign, Pompey was honored with the title Magnus. He confiscated his enemies’ war

elephants and shipped them to Rome. He delayed his own departure from Africa, however, in order to spend several days hunting lions and

elephants because, he declared, the wild animals of Africa must not be left without experiencing the strength and courage of the Romans.» ? Plin. Nat. 8.7 (19). ?! Plin, Nat. 8.7 (19).

* Coleman (above, n. 23) 68 observes that the Romans “set up Nature to stage a self-destructing spectacle of combat: the ultimate manifestation of the domination of empire." M. Beagon, Roman Nature: The Thought of Pliny the Elder (Oxford 1992) 153-156, contends that many Romans believed that Nature is a

theater that provides spectacles for mankind. 9 L. Aemilius Paullus, who celebrated his victory at Pydna in 168 B.C.E. with a spectacle in which men were trampled by elephants (V. Max. 2.7.14), may have introduced this event to the Romans, but was not its inventor. At the end of the First Punic War, for example, the Carthaginian general Hamilcar had executed rebellious mercenaries by having them trampled to death by elephants (Plb. 1.822).

* Plu. Pomp. 13.4 and 5.

5 Plin. Nat. 8.2 (4); Plu. Pomp. 12.5.

ELEPHANTS IN ROMAN ARENAS Upon

his return to Rome,

Pompey

planned

373

to enter the city trium-

phantly in a chariot drawn by four elephants, perhaps to prompt onlookers who lined his entry route to compare him favorably with that other youthful and "Great" military genius, Alexander, who had been depicted on coins returning from victories in the East in an elephant-

drawn chariot.” However, Pompey's plan was thwarted by the narrowness of the gates leading into the city, and he was forced to use horses

instead."

Like military leaders who had preceded him, Pompey capitalized on the symbolic significance of elephants. He is a figure important to our

understanding of Roman attitudes toward them because we have evidence of his exploiting these animals in various ways—but all designed

to emphasize his own ability to subdue forces that resisted the relentless expansion elephants examples few years

of Roman control. Pompey's decision to ship the confiscated to Rome suggests an intention to display to the urban crowd of a formidable but ultimately vulnerable military opponent. A later, Pompey commissioned a coin which, on one side, de-

picted him in a horse-drawn chariot, with a personification of Victory flying above, and, on the other side, a personification of Africa wearing an elephant-scalp head-dress.? The elephant motif served as a reminder to coin-bearers of Pompey's success in Africa. Also significant is the rea-

son provided in our sources for his hunting expedition in 81 B.C.E. His reported statement implies that the hunt was undertaken out of duty and was a mission akin to warfare. Both hunting and warfare are processes of dominating or destroying things that are perceived to threaten one's security. Pompey had strengthened Rome's political control over the humans of north Africa. His hunt was undertaken to force the wild animals to recognize the irresistible might of the Romans. Thus, when Pompey left Africa, he could boast that he had proved the dominance of Roman civilization not only over other civilizations, but also over Na-

ture. Later, when he desired to ride into Rome in a chariot pulled by elephants, he undoubtedly expected to reinforce on-lookers' respect for his

ability to subdue hostile forces—both political and natural—in Africa. The harnessing of an elephant to a chariot demonstrated a real subjuga-

tion of the natural world and also symbolized the subjugation of the * Scullard (above, n. 1) pl. XV: c; discussion at 254. This portrayal of Alexander may also have been designed to suggest an association of the military genius with the god Dionysus, who is similarly depicted as making a triumphant return journey from India in an elephant-drawn chariot. See Toynbee

44 and 49-5].

? Plu. Pomp. 14.4; Plin. Nat. 8. 2 (4). * Sydenham (above, n. 15) pl. 27: 1028.

(above, n. 1) 39,

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people in the territory inhabited by elephants.? Twenty-six years after his African triumph, Pompey again utilized

elephants to enhance his public image. In 55 B.C.E., he arranged for five days of public spectacles in which exotic animals, including about 600 lions, 400 leopards, some baboons, and perhaps even a rhinoceros, were killed in the Circus to provide enjoyment for the audience of city residents.? On the last day of the entertainments, about 20 elephants were

presented for slaughter. The Circus spectacles were coordinated with events at the opening of Rome's first permanent theater, built under Pompey's guidance as an enduring memorial to his exploits. For him,

the shows were calculated to elicit an unprecedented "show" of adulation from grateful spectators. Pompey perhaps also anticipated that the

elephant killings would remind the Roman populace of his glorious achievements in Africa in 81 B.C.E.“ Cicero was present at the elephant spectacle and describes it in a letter to his friend Marius (Fam. 7.1). After criticizing the earlier "hunts" as

boringly similar to other such events, Cicero writes: The final day was the day of the elephants. On that day, the mob and the crowd experienced great wonder, but no pleasure. In fact, a certain compassion arose, and an opinion of this sort, that this huge animal has a certain kinship with the human race. Although Cicero's account is that of an eye-witness, its negative tone

may reflect a desire both to console Marius, who had missed the biggest public event of the year, and to gloat over Pompey's failure, on the final day, to amuse the Roman people." Although Cicero does not, in his brief account, explain the origin of the crowd's unexpected sympathy, he juxtaposes compassion and pleasure, suggesting that, while the spectators were reflecting on the kinship between humans and elephants, they were unable to enjoy the "hunt." Pliny the Elder (Nat. 8.7 [20-1]) gives an account which is consistent

with Cicero's, but attempts to explain the spectators' anomalous re-

sponse to the victimization of the animals. # Perhaps Pompey also hoped to suggest that he deserved to be regarded as

semi-divine; cf. n. 36 above. ® Plin. Nat. 8.7 (20-21), 20 (53), 24 (64), 28 (70), 29 (71).

“ On the significance of the theater to Pompey as a location for a "continuous triumph," see R.C. Beacham, The Roman Theatre and Its Audience (London 1995) 157-158. *' For an analysis of Pompey's reasons for producing the shows of 55 B.C.E., see J, Shelton, "Elephants, Pompey and the reports of popular displeasure in 55 B.C."

in S.N.

Byrne

and

conda, IL 1999) 231-271.

E.P. Cueva,

eds.

Veritatis

Amicitiaeque

Causa (Wau-

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Twenty, or seventeen, elephants fought in the Circus against Gaetulian men armed with javelins. The battle waged by one elephant was remarkable. When its feet had been pierced through, it crawled on its knees against its human opponents, snatched their shields, and threw them in the air. The spectators experienced pleasure when the shields, as they fell to the ground, made a loop, as if thrown by design, not by

the rage of the huge animal. There was also a wondrous sight when another elephant was killed by a single blow, for the javelin thrust under its eye had reached the vital parts of its head. All the elephants together attempted to break out from the iron barricades which surrounded them, and this caused anxiety among the people. (Therefore, at a later

date, when Caesar the dictator was planning a similar spectacle, he surrounded the arena with trenches.) But Pompey's elephants, when they had lost hope of escape, sought the compassion of the crowd and supplicated it with an indescribable gesture and bewailed their fate with a kind of lamentation. There resulted so much grief among the people that they forgot the generosity lavished in their honor by Pompey and, bursting into tears, all arose together and invoked curses on Pompey for which he soon paid the penalty.”

Dio Cassius (39.38) also reports that the outcome of the elephant "hunt" was contrary to Pompey's expectations. Eighteen elephants fought against heavily armed men. Some of the elephants died on the spot, but others died a little later. For, in contradic-

tion to Pompey's plan, some were pitied by the people when, having been wounded, they stopped fighting and walked around and stretched their trunks toward heaven. And they lamented in such a way that they even caused talk that they were not acting in this manner by chance, but

were crying out against those oaths in which they had trusted when they journeyed from Libya. And they were calling on the gods to avenge them. For the story is that the elephants did not embark on the ships until they received a sworn oath from their handlers that they would suffer no harm.

These three authors provide our most detailed account of a display of elephants, but it is crucial to remember that the events were recorded precisely because they were so unexpected and because they served political and rhetorical purposes. Pompey's very public failure gratified his senatorial contemporaries, like Cicero, because it indicated that the mob had not been completely captivated by the grandiose spectacles. In fact, the sympathy for African animals could even be construed as a symbolic

public rejection of the military achievements by which he had earned his powerful position in the state. After Pompey's ignominious death, the event seemed to explain his pathetic end. His downfall began on that day when he failed to bring pleasure to the people. Coincidences could # “the penalty": a reference to Pompey's defeat in the Civil War and his ignominious death.

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be interpreted as significant. In 81 B.C.E., Pompey had displayed ele-

phants as a symbol of his victory in Africa. But in the Circus, in 55 B.C.E., the crowd had ominously turned against him. Then, in 48 B.C.E., he was killed off the coast of Africa. And, in 46, Pompeian forces in Africa were defeated when their own elephants trampled them.“ The accounts of Pliny and Dio are carefully constructed to accentuate the contrast between Pompey's expectations and the crowd's response and between Pompey's glory in 55 B.C.E. and his ignominy in 48.

The core element of the story is the audience's surprising expression of sympathy for the elephants. Both Pliny and Dio report that the spectators perceived the elephants as being able to communicate with them and that they were receptive to the message. The anthropomorphism in the accounts of the event is here an appropriate narrative device because it assists the authors' purpose, which is to explain why the spectators responded as they did (rather than why the elephants acted as they did). Both authors are intent on describing the scene as it was experienced and interpreted by those present. Pliny's account provides significant clues about why Roman audiences generally found "hunts" entertaining, but

also why, on this one occasion, their laughter turned to pity. In his account, the spectators had initially taken pleasure in watching a wounded elephant's attempts to defend itself and they were delighted when it crawled on its knees toward its tormentors and flung their shields into the air. Although the desperate animal was fighting for its life, the spectators responded as if it were a trained performer doing clever tricks. In their minds, the animal was simply an object whose purpose was to pro-

vide amusement, and they did not care whether its kneeling and juggling act was prompted by training or by distress." And when another

elephant was killed by a single javelin thrust though its eye, its pain was of no concern to the audience, which identified with the human "hunter" and focused on the accuracy with which he hit his target. The shift in the * Caesar defeated the Pompeian forces near Thapsus when his slingers and archers drove his opponents' elephants to turn and trample them (B. Afr. 27, 8184; D.C. 43.8; App. BC 2.96). The Pompeian commander was Q. Caecilius Metellus, a member of the family which had adopted the elephant as its symbol. 5 Elsewhere Pliny reports that performing elephants were sometimes taught to throw shields into the air as a clever trick: Nat. 8.2 (5). It is possible that he has

inserted into his account of Pompey's "hunt" a description of a "juggling" elephant which did not actually appear there. Nonetheless such an insertion would not invalidate the plausibility of Pliny's explanation for why the spectators responded as they did. The purpose of the insertion would be to establish the "normal" and expected reaction of Roman spectators (that is, they usually experienced pleasure because they chose to see an animal's action as a "trick," even if

it was an act of desperation) and to provide a point of contrast with the abnormal and unexpected display of pity.

ELEPHANTS IN ROMAN ARENAS audience's response began when the elephants banded

377 together and

charged at the iron barricades.“ The spectators did not expect to have their own lives endangered as they looked down to where other humans—designated hunters or warriors—engaged in a struggle against

animals. In the seating area, spectators, even those who endured victimization elsewhere in their lives, could rest content in the security of their

membership in a community which eliminated chaos from the world. However, when Pompey's elephants stampeded, and the spectators felt that they were being drawn into the combat as participants, their pleas-

ure turned to panic. But then, just as suddenly, the tormented elephants ceased to threaten and acted as if they were begging for mercy. An audi-

ence of detached observers might have laughed at the elephants' "performance" of supplication. However, the terrifying moment of the stam-

pede had forced the audience to become more directly engaged in the combat. Thus when the elephants abandoned their struggle and appeared to acknowledge the audience as victors and to appeal to them for compassion, the spectators responded, uncharacteristically, by assuming the role of a generous conqueror being supplicated by an abject and dis-

abled opponent. They, who had come to this event to enjoy the opportunity to demonstrate their power over the lives of others, believed that they were now being asked by the victims to end the torture. Their very receptiveness to the supplication was itself a display of power. Even the outburst of displeasure at Pompey made manifest the audience's ability

to control the outcome of the event: the spectators denied Pompey the acclamation he had hoped to win. Thus the elephants may not have acted in a manner different from other elephants being tormented at

other "hunts," but the peculiar situation on this occasion, when the stampede removed the protection of detachment, prompted the audience to interpret the animals' actions in a very different manner. Dio Cassius also attributes this audience's peculiar response to a

change in its perception of the elephants. The bellowing and stretching upward of trunks are behaviors typical of wounded and terrified ele-

phants. They would have been familiar to Roman audiences and would not have been expected to elicit pity. According to Dio, however, the audience interpreted these actions as a demand for justice, as if the ele# Plass (above, n. 24) 21 comments that public brutality was accepted as entertainment at Rome as long as there was an underlying "reassuring sense of order." Two other accounts of Pompey's hunt perhaps suggest that an unanticipated stampede occurred. Seneca (Brev. Vit. 13.6-7), for whom Pompey is an exemplum of a hubristic man who suffers a humiliating defeat, relates that inno-

cent men (presumably "hunters," not men destined for execution) were crushed

by the elephants. Plutarch (Pomp. 52.4) reports that the "hunt" was an astounding and terrifying spectacle, a reference perhaps to a stampede.

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phants, like petitioners before a court, were arguing that their handlers had violated sworn oaths that they would not be harmed.” The spectators believed that they had been placed in the role of jurists and asked to consider the morality of the situation in which the elephants found themselves. In these three accounts of Pompey’s “hunt,” the common factor is that the elephants’ behavior was construed by the audience as an appeal to be recognized as subjects capable of experiencing pain. And once the audience lost its ability to objectify the animals, it was moved to pity them.” The stampede mentioned by Pliny did not succeed in breaking

down the physical barriers, but nonetheless shattered the perceptions of difference and distance between observer and observed. In this extraordinary moment in the Roman Circus, the crowd seemed to ignore the boundary between human and animal which such spectacles were de-

signed to affirm. And therefore they who had assembled for an afternoon of merriment were not able to experience pleasure in seeing the animals abused.

The displeasure of the spectators in 55 B.C.E. was stunning, but they had not permanently converted to an opinion that the abuse of elephants was inherently wrong or that the terms of the human-elephant “con-

tract” needed to be modified. Pompey’s “hunt” was the exception which proved the rule: Roman spectators enjoyed watching elephants being slaughtered and the abuse of the animals was of no ethical concern.” In * The notion that elephants might demand a promise of safety was not unique to the audience described by Dio Cassius. Pliny (Nat. 8.1 [3]), a passage unrelated to the account of Pompey's "hunt") records that elephants were known to refuse to board ships until their handlers swore an oath that they (the

elephants) would be returned to their homeland. There is an irony perhaps in a situation where the Romans' betrayal of African elephants makes them appear similar to proverbially perfidious Carthaginians; see n. 29 above. * A story by Tacitus bears similarities to the Dio and Pliny accounts. In Ann. 3.22 and

23, he reports

that in 20 C.E. Aemilia

Lepida

was on trial for fraud,

adultery, and poisoning. While her trial was recessed for several days for a public holiday, she went to a show in the theater of Pompey and, with wailing and lamentation, called on her ancestors and on Pompey himself. She moved the audience to such sympathy that it wept and shouted curses at her accuser. I cite this story to indicate that the narratives of Pliny and Dio may contain elements common to descriptions of humans appealing their treatment.

“ ΚΜ. Coleman, "Fatal charades: Roman executions staged as mythological enactments," JRS 80 (1990) 58, cites the events at Pompey's "hunt" as evidence for her statement that spectators at executions were expected to identity with those who were implementing justice. If the audience transferred its sympathy to the "objects" being presented for destruction, the sponsor of the event would find himself alienated. 9 In 55 B.C.E., Pompey had about 1000 animals slaughtered at his “hunts.”

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fact, in 46 B.C.E., Julius Caesar commissioned “hunts” involving 40 ele-

phants, 400 lions, an unknown number of bulls, and a giraffe.’ These “hunts” were probably arranged to celebrate Caesar's defeat of the Pompeian army.” At the battle of Thapsus, Caesar captured 64 of the elephants, and it may be these which he displayed at his "hunts." A silver coin, minted perhaps after the battle, shows an African elephant trampling on a dragon and bears the inscription CAESAR.” There are no

reports that the spectators were displeased by the slaughter of elephants at Caesar's "hunts." Of course, he had learned well from Pompey's failure that it was essential to keep firmly intact the physical and emotional boundaries between observer and observed. For his show, as Pliny informs us, Caesar added an additional barrier by surrounding the arena

with trenches. The slaughter of elephants in arenas continued well into the imperial period and stopped only when the procurement of ele-

phants became very difficult.” During the celebrations of 46 B.C.E., Caesar was, on one evening, escorted up the Capitoline Hill by a procession of 40 elephants carrying

lighted torches in their trunks.? This incident is one indication that the Romans enjoyed watching elephants that had been trained to do tricks. To modern sensibilities, a display of trick elephants seems an event quite

different from a public slaughter, the former producing an exhibition of an elephant's talents and appealing to an audience which appreciates the art of training, the latter producing a display of its suffering and attract-

ing an audience which enjoys cruelty. The Romans, however, did not make this same distinction. The fact that elephants could be trained to work with humans meant not that they were treated humanely, but that they were used in a wider variety of spectacles than other species. The poet Martial describes an incident during a spectacle in which an elephant was pitted against a bull (Sp. 17). After destroying the bull, the elephant, with no apparent signal from a trainer, knelt before the emperor in a show of supplication and adoration. Martial does not record About 160 years later, in 108-9 C.E., Trajan sponsored 117 days of spectacles in which 11,000 animals were killed.

*' Plin. Nat. 8.7 (22), 20 (53), 70 (182); Suet. Jul. 39.3; D.C. 43.23.3; App. BC 2.102. Cf. n. 23 above on the propaganda value of the giraffe.

* See n. 44 above. 9 Sydenham (above, n. 15) 167: 1006 and n. 27. Sydneham dates the coin to 54-51 B.C.E., but Toynbee (above, n. 1) 38 and Scullard (above, n. 1) 194 suggest

a date in the 40s. SHA Ael. 2.3, states that the family name Caesar was derived

from caesai which meant "elephant" in Punic.

* On the difficulty of procurement, see Scullard (above, n. 1) 252. 5 Suet. Jul. 37.2; D.C. 43.22.1.

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whether the animal's movement resulted from an injury and whether, like the elephant in Pliny's account of Pompey's games, this elephant was actually crawling because wounded. Nor does he record whether the spectators, again like those at the beginning of Pliny's account, were

simply amused by the elephant's human-like behavior, without any concern for its cause, or whether, like the spectators at the end of Pliny's account, they were moved by the behavior to pity the animal's distress. Martial tells us only that the elephant's kneeling was interpreted as a voluntary act of supplication. The significant element of Martial's account is the indication that Roman spectators enjoyed seeing an ele-

phant, which had just triumphed over a powerful animal opponent, seem to acknowledge its own limitations and to beg humans for its life. Even non-fatal spectacles seemed designed to emphasize the hu-

miliation of the animals, rather than their ability to learn new behaviors. For example, Seneca refers to an elephant that obeyed the commands of

a very small person to kneel and to walk a tightrope (Ep. 85.41). The pleasure of the audience that watched the elephant perform derived presumably from the assurance the action provided that even the largest land mammal and the mighty symbol of Africa could be brought to its knees by a tiny human. The exhibition of a kneeling elephant was thus similar in intent to the destruction of an elephant in an arena "hunt." This concurrence of intent, this need to reinforce the Roman crowd's belief that it was dominant, may explain why Roman spectators seemed not to care what prompted an elephant to kneel and why they seemed so ready to interpret the movement as a posture of submission.

The elephant mentioned by Seneca was also trained to walk a tightrope. We have other reports of this trick. Dio, for example, records that, during Nero's reign, an elephant was led to the top tier of a theater and,

from there, walked down on tightropes, carrying a rider (D.C. 61.17). Pliny mentions an exhibition in which groups of elephants, four to a group, walked on tightropes, each quartet carrying a litter bearing an-

other elephant pretending to be a woman in childbirth (Nat. 8. 2 [5]). Toynbee considers such stunts as "harmless, clever and amusing tricks ... that provided a light relief to those grimmer forms of elephant entertainment."* However, the fact that the stunts did not deliberately cause the death of the animals does not mean that they were harmless. In the * Eric Scigliano, Love, War, and Circuses (New York 2002) 130 reports that Dave Whaley, who trained elephants for Ringling Brothers Circus, "says he finds it entirely plausible" that the Romans could train elephants to walk on tight-

ropes. * See also Suet. Nero 11.2; also Plin. Nat. 8.3 (6). * Toynbee (above, n. 1) 48.

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stunt which involved an elephant imitating the experience of human childbirth, we need to consider what exactly a mimicking of labor means, and why it would amuse the audience. (One wonders whether

the women in the audience were as amused as the men.) The mimicking of labor zations trained sounds

surely involves giving physical indications of pain and vocaliof distress. It is possible, of course, that the elephants were to make writhing movements as if feeling pain and to emit as if expressing pain, but it is more likely, because easier for a

trainer to accomplish, that the movements and sounds of the elephants "in labor" were provoked by causing them real pain. We have evidence

that methods of training elephants were harsh. Both Pliny and Plutarch report that one elephant, who was rather slow-witted in understanding the instructions given to him, was very often punished with beatings.? The lessons which elephants were taught were tricks designed to make them look ridiculous.” The intent of producing these exhibitions was not benign and it was certainly not to elicit the admiration of the audience for the elephants' natural talents. Audiences were amused by the grotesque sight of elephants walking tightropes because of the contrast between the animal's bulky body and the narrowness of the ropes, and because the action was so un-natural and could be produced only in

the context of human domination. Ancient writers record other tricks. For example, Aelian describes an exhibition in which elephants, wearing flowered dancers' dresses, entered the arena in two groups of six, their

bodies swaying. They formed a line, wheeled in circles and performed various movements at the trainer's order, keeping time by rhythmic stamping as if dancing, and sprinkling flowers delicately on the floor." Another stunt described by Aelian (NA 2.11) drove the spectators almost

wild with delight. Six male elephants and six female elephants in pairs, suitably costumed, took their places at a banquet. They used their trunks as hands to take food with great delicacy and drank from bowls placed

in front of them. Pliny (Nat. 8.2 [5]) describes a similar (perhaps the same) stunt, where the elephants made their way through scenery repre-

senting a dining room. They planted their footsteps so carefully that no human diners at the party were bumped or stepped on. * Plin. Nat. 8.3 (6); Plu. Mor. 968c. The abused elephant was discovered, all

alone at night, practicing his lessons. Toynbee (above, n. 1) 49 calls the story "endearing." © On generating contempt for elephants, see nn. 6 and 27 above.

*' Ael. NA 2.11. On dancing elephants, see also Mart. 1.104.9 and 10, and Plin. Nat. 8.2 (4). Shana Alexander, The Astonishing Elephant (New York 2000) 104 de-

scribes these elephants as "a corps of ponderous pachyderm Rockettes." Like

Toynbee's comment that such stunts were "harmless tricks," Alexander's remark reveals a failure to understand the nature of these events.

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The humor in these stunts lies not only in the incongruity of a huge animal being graceful and delicate. More significantly, the audience en-

joyed the illusion that a wild and dangerous animal had been civilized, that is, that it had been forced to learn the behaviors that are the hallmarks of the human development from savagery to civilization: wearing clothes, appreciating music and dance, and adopting dining etiquette. The audience realizes, of course, that the apparently polite behavior is just an impressive mime, a performance extracted from the enormous,

powerful beasts by much smaller, but much more clever humans. If the spectators were truly to accept the elephants' civilized behavior as a genuine renunciation of bestiality, they would have to grant them moral consideration. But then the stunts which were intended to ridicule them, as well as the abuse and torment of both the fatal and non-fatal displays, would be morally offensive rather than entertaining. Roman spectators chose to be amused, and therefore to objectify elephants, to deny them moral consideration, and to enjoy their distress. The same authors who document, without any critical comment, displays of dancing and dying

elephants, also record that these animals have many admirable qualities. Pliny, for example, states that elephants possess virtues rare in humans; they are honest, wise, fair, affectionate, and have a remarkable sense of shame.” The ability of these writers to discuss the virtues of elephants,

and yet not to advocate compassion for them, seems to reflect the attitude of the general public. Very few Romans had the opportunity to become familiar with elephants. Their opinions about them were shaped by the presentations which they observed at spectacles, presentations designed to deride, torment and destroy what was exotic and alien, and, in so doing, to demonstrate the invincibility of Roman domination.

& Plin. Nat. 8.1(1), 8.5 (12-15).

28 CITY SLICKER VERSUS COUNTRY BUMPKIN: FARMERS IN THE ACHARNIANS OF ARISTOPHANES AND THE DYSKOLOS OF MENANDER CAROL E. STEER

The contrast between town and country is a recurrent theme in Attic Old and New Comedy.' Old Comedy, in particular, is a valuable source of information concerning the details of daily life in rural Attica. New

Comedy does not deal with real life to the same extent, and therefore does not provide as much about the specifics of country life. Nevertheless, both Old Comedy and New Comedy tell us much about contemporary country living, how rural people were perceived by city dwellers, and the values associated with the country as opposed to the city. Rural life and city life are often set in opposition in order to compare different morals. Country dwellers are associated with a certain conservatism that favours stern old-fashioned morals, whereas town dwellers represent disruptive change and a loosening of morality. This paper will examine

the interrelationship of country life and city life as it is revealed in the Old Comedy of Aristophanes and the New Comedy of Menander. Characters in Old Comedy combine the real and the fantastic." Some

portray citizens of contemporary Athens, while others (even within the same play) are purely imaginary. Plots usually involve a protagonist whose motivations and conduct are, at least initially, firmly rooted

within the realities of fifth-century Athenian life. Reality may become unreality as the hero seizes upon a fantastic scheme to accomplish something that would be totally impossible in actual life. Yet references

to the real word continue to appear throughout the comedies. Sometimes the references are specific, as in comic ridicule directed against contem! For a brief survey of the theme of town versus country in Old and New Greek and Latin Comedy, see R.L. Hunter, The New Comedy of Greece and Rome (Cambridge 1985) 109-113. Selected ancient sources on country life are found in K.D. White, Country Life in Classical Times (Ithaca 1977). References to farmers and farming in Old Comedy are collected in V. Ehrenberg, The People of Aristophanes: A Sociology of Old Attic Comedy (Oxford 1943) 56-73. ? Ehrenberg (above, n. 1) 27: "[Old Comedy is a] mixture of extreme reality and extreme unreality."

383

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CAROL E. STEER

porary politicians, philosophers, and poets. At other times, contemporary life is more broadly reflected, through the political themes of the plays.

Aristophanes' plays were already valued for their historical content in ancient times.’ The plays were preserved and have come down to us not only because of their literary merit, but also because they function as primary sources for the study of everyday life in ancient Greece. In his People of Aristophanes: A Sociology of Old Attic Comedy, Victor Ehrenberg compiled hundreds of references from the complete plays and fragments of Old Comedy in order to document his investigation of daily life in the time of Aristophanes. An entire chapter is devoted to farms and farmers, providing a detailed survey of rural life in Attica during the last half of

the fifth century.‘ The majority of the population of Athens and Attica were farmers or had some connection with farming? There were very few large estates;

for the most part, farmers were small holders. These rural dwellers appear to have had rather modest ambitions. In several comedies, for instance, farmers express a simple desire to live in peace and enjoy the ba-

sic pleasures of food, drink, and sex. Balanced against these fantasies of rural delight are the harsh realities of farm life. The comedies make references to hardships of cold weather,

harsh winds, damaging rains, poor or rocky soil, wild animals, locusts, ants, wasps, seed-devouring birds, and ravens that could even pluck the

eyes from oxen and sheep." Sometimes farmers faced economic hardship as well. Towards the end of the fifth century, the rural economy began to deteriorate. By the fourth century, poverty increasingly became a matter

for concern. This decline is reflected in two Middle comedies of the early fourth century, the Ecclesiazousai (probably 391 B.C.), and the Plutus (388

B.C.). Ehrenberg points out that in the first play, a contrast is drawn between the rich farmer and the poor farmer. The rich farmer has a great * J.M. Walton and P.D. Arnott, Menander and the Making of Comedy (Westport 1996) 2. 4 Ehrenberg (above, n. 1) 56-73.

5 Ehrenberg (above, n. 1) 66 n. 13, citing H. Francotte, L'industrie dans la Gréce

ancienne (Brussels 1900-01) II, 336; and F.M. Heichelheim, Wirtschaftsgeschichte des Altertums (Leiden 1938) 388, on the basis of Lys. 34: "In the last part of the fifth century not more than a quarter of the Athenian citizens was without landed property." $ Ehrenberg (above, n. 1) 61, citing Ar. Ach. 270ff., 665ff., fr. 109, 387, 16 D, Nu. 408ff., Pax 571ff., 595, 1140ff., 1159ff., 1320ff., PI. 253f.

7 Ehrenberg (above, n. 1) 60-61, citing Ar. PI. 1140f. and V. 264f. for damage caused by wind and rain; V. 952 for wild animals attacking the livestock.

CITY SLICKER VERSUS COUNTRY BUMPKIN

385

deal of property and slaves; the poor one has no slaves and does not even have enough land for a grave. Only a few years later, the rural dwellers of the Plutus are uniformly poor, they are in need of bread, and some of them are even reduced to chewing the roots of thyme growing

by the wayside.f From the evidence of Old Comedy, it appears that in some respects, town dwellers were not rigidly separated from country dwellers. For one

thing, the economic relationship between them was mutually beneficial. Farmers marketed their produce in town, and artisans from town sold their wares in the country? Town and country were interrelated in political matters as well. The assembly was made up not only of citizens from town, but also citizens from rural areas. In Ecclesiazousai, for example, the men who arrive late “dusty and smelling of garlic" (290-2) are

from the country, as are the men "from the fields" (280-2).? Living in the country did not necessarily mean living far from the city. Furthermore, towns themselves were in some respects rural. Townsmen, for instance, regularly kept poultry, a donkey, and goats. Some even kept pigs and

cattle." Although there is evidence that city and country were inseparable, there is also evidence that, at least in some ways, they were opposed. In Aristophanes' plays, there are numerous references to the ideal of a peaceful, pleasant life in the country. This bucolic paradise is specifically contrasted to the infernal wickedness of the city." In his comparison of country and city morality, Aristophanes clearly favours the country.”

But in a different sort of comparison, he awards the superiority to the

city dweller. This time, the basis of comparison is social and intellectual. 8 Ehrenberg (above, n. 1) 62, citing Ar. Ec. 590ff., Pl. 219, 253f., 282.

? Ehrenberg (above, n. 1) 63, citing Ar. Eq. 316f., fr. 569, Pax 1200ff. 10 Translations are from Ehrenberg (above, n. 1) 64.

" Ehrenberg (above, n. 1) 65, citing Ar. fr. 18, 405, 44, Nu. 4, V. 170; X. Mem. 2.7.6; Cratin. 311.

12 Ehrenberg (above, n. 1) 66, citing Ar. Ach. 32ff., Eq. 805ff., fr. 387, Pax 530ff., 569f. P On the Athenian notion that farmers were morally superior to townsmen, see KJ. Dover, Greek Popular Morality in the Time of Plato and Aristotle (Berkeley 1974) 113-114; V.D. Hanson, The Other Greeks: The Family Farm and the Agrarian Roots of Western Civilization (New York 1995) 214-217. See also M.H. Hansen, The

Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes: Structure, Principles, and Ideology

(Oxford / Cambridge 1991) 119-120 for farming as the ideal occupation for Athenian citizens. For persuasive evidence of Aristophanes' general preference for the country over the city, and arguments in favour of the possibility that the

playwright himself was a country man, see A.E. Youman, "Aristophanes: Country man or city man?," CB 50 (1973) 111-117.

386

CAROL E. STEER

The ἀστεῖος (clever) townsman is contrasted with the (boorish) countryman. The word ἄγροικος was first used with a connotation of "stupid" and "boorish" in Aristophanes’ plays. The rustic from the comedies as a thoroughly inferior character. He rude, crude, and empty-headed. He does not notice when loudly. He is fierce, and talks like a country bumpkin,

boor emerges is uneducated, someone farts if he dares to

speak in public at all.'* Obviously, the country man is to be ridiculed for his lack of wit, language, education, manners, and customs. He cannot

compete intellectually with the more "sophisticated" city dweller." The theme of country versus city is illustrated particularly well in Aristophanes' Acharnians, performed at the Lenaia in 425. A central concern of the comedy is war and peace. Contemporary events form the

backdrop to the play, as the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta had begun in 431 and would not reach a conclusion until 404. The principal character of Acharnians, Dikaiopolis, is a farmer, one of many

who were required to move from the countryside into Athens during the war. In his address to the audience at the beginning of the play, he clearly associates the war with the city, and peace with the country. When he arrives on the Pnyx for a meeting of the Assembly and finds no one there yet, he decries the city's lack of concern for peace'*: 0085’ of πρυτάνεις ἥκουσιν, ἀλλ᾽ ἀωρίαν ἥκοντες, εἶτα δ᾽ ὠστιοῦνται πῶς δοκεῖς

ἐλθόντες ἀλλήλοισι περὶ πρώτου ξύλου ^ The word ἀστεῖος derives from ἄστυ (city, town) and its basic meaning is

“of the town"; hence "town-bred," “polite”; then, "refined," "elegant," “witty.” For a brief discussion of the derivation of ἀστεῖος and ἄγροικος as the antonyms "clever"

and

"stupid,"

see Dover

(above,

n. 13) 112-113.

The

word

&ypotxoc,

“dwelling in the fields," “countryman,” “rustic,” then, is the opposite of ἀστεῖος (LSJ s.v. ἀστεῖος IL1). For a history of the use of Latin urbanus and Greek ἀστεῖος in ancient rhetoric, see M.A. Grant, The Ancient Rhetorical Theories of the Laughable:

The Greek Rhetoricians and Cicero. University of Wisconsin Studies in Language and Literature no. 1 (Madison 1924) 119-125. 5 Hunter (above, n. 1) 110 identifies Ar. Nu. 628, 646 as the first instances of

ἄγροικος with the connotation “stupid.” Ehrenberg (above, n. 1) 66: "The word

agroikos developed from meaning a peasant to meaning a bucolic and uneducated man (cf. K. 40.f), 'making rude jokes, and telling idle tales in a stupid fashion, relevant to nothing' (W. 1320 f., cf. C. 492, 628f., 646, 655)."

16 Ehrenberg (above, n. 1) 66-67, citing Ar. Ec. 241 ff., Eq. 40f., 808, Nu. 492, 628f., 646, 655, PI. 705, V. 1320f.; and Com. Adesp. 694. 17 Possibly the gap between the dull rustic boor and the witty urban sophisticate widened as city dwellers came increasingly under the influence of the sophists. See Ar. fr. 198, 222 as noted by Ehrenberg (above, n. 1) 67. T8 The

text

for all quotations

from

Aristophanes

is from

W.

Rennie,

Acharnians of Aristophanes (London 1909); translations are those of the author.

The

CITY SLICKER VERSUS COUNTRY BUMPKIN

387

ἅθροι xatappéovtec: εἰρήνη δ᾽ ὅπως

ἔσται προτιμῶσ᾽ οὐδέν’ ὦ πόλις, πόλις. (23-7)

And the prytanes haven't come, but they'll be coming late, and then how do you suppose they'll jostle each other going around the front bench, streaming down in crowds. And how they don't care for peace!

Oh city, city!

Dikaiopolis goes on to describe himself as hating the city and longing for peace and a return to his rural deme: ἀποβλέπων elc τὸν ἀγρὸν εἰρήνης ἐρῶν, στυγῶν μὲν ἄστυ τὸν δ᾽ ἐμὸν δῆμον ποθῶν. (32-3) Looking towards the country, yearning for peace, hating the city and longing for my deme.

He is unable to persuade the Assembly to consider making peace with Sparta, but manages to arrange a private peace for himself and his family. He returns home to his deme of Cholleidai, and thereupon celebrates

with a specifically rural festival, the Country Dionysia (202-79). Aristophanes describes (or perhaps parodies) the festival in such detail that his account may be considered as primary historical evidence for the actual Country Dionysia.? By placing such importance on this rural ritual, Aristophanes reinforces Dikaiopolis' linking of country living and

peace.?! Dikaiopolis' celebration is rudely interrupted by a chorus of angry

Acharnians who oppose peace with Sparta and therefore oppose DiP? See A. Henrichs, "Between country and city: Cultic dimensions of Dionysus in Athens and Attica," in M. Griffith and D.J. Mastronarde, eds., Cabinet of the Muses: Essays on Classical and Comparative Literature in Honor of Thomas G. Rosenmeyer (Atlanta 1990) 259, where he notes that the Athenians differentiated between the City Dionysia and the Country Dionysia, recognizing different cultic identities for each. ® This is the opinion of both N.R.E. Fisher, "Multiple personalities and Dionysiac festivals: Dicaeopolis in Aristophanes' Acharnians," G&R 40 (1993) 34, and M. Habash, "Two complementary festivals in Aristophanes' Acharnians," AJPh 116 (1995) 559. ?! This is the view of Henrichs (above, n. 19) 270, who believes that Aristo-

phanes "adds ... visual as well as ritual urgency to his point that the rural Dionysus of the countryside [as opposed to the Dionysus of city cult] is the divine embodiment of peace, tranquillity and the pleasures of country life, epitomized in the wine and the phallus." Contra, Habash (above, n. 20) 567 suggests that the

Rural Dionysia is included in Acharnians because it is a rural festival that has not been held since the beginning of the war, and because Dikaiopolis wants to hon-

our Dionysos, whose wine is a libation and peace treaty which allows him to return home.

388

CAROL E. STEER

kaiopolis, who has made a private peace with the Spartans. Dikaiopolis simply wants peace in order to return to the pleasures and plenty of his

rural deme. The Acharnians, like Dikaiopolis, are men from the country; it is reasonable to expect that they would have joined Dikaiopolis in advocating peace, since very many of them had been forced to leave their farms as a result of the Peloponnesian War. But the Acharnians are mo-

tivated by revenge against the Spartans. They want to ensure that they “never again tread"

on their vines (μήποτε

πατῶσιν

ἔτι, 232).? Aristo-

phanes uses the confrontation between Dikaiopolis and the Acharnians to represent the various arguments for and against peace with Sparta.

The conflict is only temporary,

as Dikaiopolis eventually

wins the

Acharnians over to the side of peace. He then sets up his own country market-place, where he begins trading with enemies of the city of Athens. His trade brings him some of the culinary delights that have been denied to him during the war: little pigs from Megara and eels from Boeotia. The pleasures of Dikaiopolis' pri-

vate peace in the country contrast dramatically with the misery and misfortune of Lamakhos at the play's conclusion. Lamakhos, an elected army

general, is called away

to march against the Boeotians in the

snowy passes of Parnes, while Dikaiopolis is called away to dine with the priest of Dionysos in celebration of the Anthesteria. Lamakhos returns sober and wounded, but Dikaiopolis returns drunk up on the arms of two women. He has restored a utopia terms of festivity, prosperity, and personal autonomy—a food, wine, sex, and carefree living."? Dikaiopolis' utopia associated with the country; it is a life-affirming paradise

and propped "portrayed in hog heaven of is specifically set in opposi-

tion to the destructive forces of the city. The theme of city versus country continues in the New Comedy of the fourth century. Before turning to an investigation of city attitudes towards rural dwellers as revealed in Menander's Dyskolos, it is important to establish the validity of New Comedy as primary evidence for contemporary life. The plays of New Comedy are typically set in contemporary Athens but, unlike Old Comedy, they include very few references to actual characters or events. It would appear, therefore, that there is little connection between New Comedy and real life. However, in some ways,

New Comedy is more realistic than Old Comedy.* The characters of 2 The Spartans had invaded the deme of Acharnai in 431, devastating the land and destroying the vines. 3 J. Henderson, “Mass versus elite and the comic heroism of Peisetairos," in

G.W. Dobrov, ed., The City As Comedy: Society and Representation in Athenian Drama (Chapel Hill 1997) 137.

4 There is considerable debate as to the degree of realism in New Comedy.

CITY SLICKER VERSUS COUNTRY BUMPKIN

389

New Comedy may be types, but they are based on the observed characteristics of real people from various strata within Athenian society. The

psychological development of characters in the comedies may be superficial, yet the characters are very human in their motivation and interaction with others. Although most of New Comedy is set in Athens, the action of Menander's Dyskolos (The Malcontent) takes place entirely in the country.” A rich young man from the city (Sostratos) goes hunting in the countryside, where he happens to see a local girl (unnamed) praying at the shrine of Pan. He instantly falls in love and wants to marry her. Unfortunately, he is told that her anti-social bad-tempered father (Knemon, the δύσκολος of the play's title) is likely to oppose the marriage. Sostratos asks Gorgias (Knemon's step-son) for advice. Gorgias tells him

that Knemon will only allow his daughter to marry someone like himself. Sostratos then spends a day digging in the fields, hoping Knemon will see him working like a farmer. When Knemon accidentally falls into the well, Gorgias rescues him (with token assistance from Sostratos). Knemon's near-death experience makes him realize that no one can live alone; that is, without family and friends. He immediately arranges for Gorgias to take over his property and the guardianship of his daughter, instructing him to make sure he finds her a husband. Gorgias then gives his blessing to Sostratos to marry Knemon's daughter. In turn, Sostratos arranges the marriage of his sister (Plangon) to Gorgias. The play ends with a double wedding. Knemon is very reluctant to join the festivities, but is finally forced to join in the dancing. Sostratos clearly represents the young "urban fop" who can afford a life of leisure.” In the prologue, Pan introduces him as “a very well-off

young man” (veavioxov te xal μάλ᾽ εὐπόρου, 39) and a "city person in Ancient opinion was that Menander's plays were remarkably realistic. Aristophanes of Byzantium asks (ap. Syrian. in Hermog. 2.23 Rabe): "Menander and life, which of you imitated the other?" (ὦ Mévavôpe xai file, πότερος ἄρ᾽ ὑμῶν πότερον ἀπεμιμήσατο). Modern scholars do not necessarily regard New Comedy as realistic. See discussions in Ehrenberg (above, n. 1) 26-30; E.W. Handley, The Dyskolos

of Menander

Menander: Menander:

A

(London

Commentary

Convention,

1965)

(Oxford

12-14;

A.W.

Gomme

and

F.H. Sandbach,

1973) 21-28; N. Zagagi,

Variation and Originality (Bloomington

The Comedy

of

1995) 94-95; J.M.

Walton and P.D. Arnott, Menander and the Making of Comedy. Contributions in Drama and Theatre Studies No. 67 (Westport 1996) 41-42; C.A. Cox, “Is Sostratus' family urban?," CJ 97 (2002) 355-356.

5 There are numerous translations of the play's title, including: The BadTempered Man, The Grouch, The Peevish Fellow, Old Cantankerous, The Man Who Hated People, and The Misanthrope. See Walton and Arnott (above, n. 24) 39-40. 26 D. Konstan, Greek Comedy and Ideology (New York 1995) 101.

390

CAROL E. STEER

the way he spends his time" (dotixdv τῇ διατριβῇ, 41).7 Gorgias later points out that Sostratos has time for leisure, but farmers do not: "It's not right to create trouble for us [farmers] who have no spare time for leisure" (où δίκαιόν ἐστι γοῦν / τὴν σὴν σχολὴν τοῖς ἀσχολουμένοις xaxdv /

ἡμῖν γενέσθαι, 293-5). When Sostratos asks Gorgias why he has never loved anyone, Gorgias replies that he has not been given the "leisure time" (ἀνάπαυσιν, 344). Gorgias warns Sostratos that Knemon will not

tolerate his soft city ways: σὲ δ᾽ ἄγοντ' Gv ἴδῃ σχολὴν τρυφῶντά τ᾽, οὐδ᾽ ὁρῶν ἀνέξεται. (356-7) And if he sees you at leisure and living softly, he will not put up with the sight of you.

If Knemon sees Sostratos in his fine cloak, he will immediately throw clods of earth at him and call him"a lazy pest" (ὄλεθρον ἀγρόν, 366).

When Sostratos goes digging in the fields, his soft life shows—his back hurts, his neck hurts, his whole body hurts (524-5). Gorgias commends his willingness to pick up a mattock, dig, and work hard, even though he is a "delicate" (τρυφερός, 766) rich kid from the city. The opposite of city leisure is country labour. Sostratos is enlightened

by his experience on the farm. He begins to realize the value of hard work after he has been toiling in the fields. Near the end of the play, he congratulates himself on the success of his newly acquired work-ethic: οὐδενὸς χρὴ πράγματος τὸν εὖ πονοῦνθ᾽ ὅλως ἀπογνῶνται ποτε.

ἀλωτὰ γίνετ᾽ ἐπιμελείᾳ καὶ πόνῳ ἅπαντ᾽. ἐγὼ τούτου παράδειγμα νῦν φέρω. ἐν ἡμέρᾳ μιᾷ κατείργασμαι γάμον ὃν οὐδ᾽ ἂν εἷς ποτ᾽ Ger’ ἀνθρώπων ὅλως.

(860-5) For someone who has worked hard and thoroughly,? it is not necessary to give up on any problem. All things become attainable with care and hard work. I bear an example of this. In one day I achieved a marriage which not one man thought possible.

The stereotypical city youth dresses in expensive, elegant clothing. The country locals quickly identify Sostratos as a city slicker because of

his cloak. Gorgias refers to him as "the fellow with the fine wool cloak"

27 The text for the quotations from Menander is from E.W. Handley (above, n. 24) unless otherwise noted; translations are by the author. ? The translation here is based on εὖ πονοῦνθ᾽ for Handley's εὖ φρονοῦνθ᾽; see Gomme and Sandbach (above, n. 24) 264 n. 861.

CITY SLICKER VERSUS COUNTRY BUMPKIN (ὁ τὴν χλανίδ᾽

ἔχων,

257).?

Daos expresses surprise when

391 Sostratos,

dressed in his city clothes, decides to work in the fields alongside the farmhands: "What? You'll stand among us workers with your fine clothes?” (τί οὖν; / ἐργαζομένοις ἡμῖν παρεστήξεις ἔχων / χλανίδα; 363-4).

When the slaves discuss Sostratos' mother's dream, Sikon describes Sostratos as"the well-dressed young man" (κομψῷ νεανίσκῳ, 414). The dream itself is most alarming because it is a forewarning that Sostratos will be transformed into an agricultural labourer—he will be put in

chains, "given a [peasant's] skin cloak” (δόντα διφθέραν), and ordered to dig on the farm (415).

Whereas Sostratos represents the frivolous city youth, Knemon is the anti-social old farmer. Pan introduces Knemon as "a man very far from man and troublesome towards everyone and not liking a crowd" (ἀπάνθρωπος τις ἄνθρωπος σφόδρα / xai δύσκολος πρὸς ἅπαντας où χαίρων τ᾽ ὄχλῳ, 6-7). Knemon's desire to separate himself from all others is shown in several different ways. First, he avoids verbal communica-

tion, even with his family. In the prologue, Pan remarks that in all his life, Knemon"has spoken to no one with any pleasure" (λελάληκεν ἡδέως ἐν τῷ βίῳ / οὐδενί, 9-10). Later on, Gorgias says that Knemon "speaks only to her [his daughter], and he could not easily speak to any other" (προσλαλεῖ ταύτῃ μόνῃ ἑτέρῳ δὲ τοῦτ᾽ οὐκ Av ποήσαι

ῥᾳδίως, 334—5). In his apologia, Knemon admits that he has not spoken or chatted pleasantly with his stepson Gorgias (où προσειπόντ᾽, où λαλήσανθ᾽ ἡδέως, 726). When Knemon does speak, he does not talk—he

shouts. Pyrrhias describes him as "shouting aloud some stinking thing" (ὀξύτατον ἀναβοῶν, 116). Sostratos says that Knemon even shouts when

he is all by himself: "and he shouts while walking alone" (ἀλλὰ xai Bog / μόνος βαδίζων, 149-50).

Knemon is a demented farmer. At the very least, he is eccentric. When

Sostratos' slave Pyrrhias describes being chased from Knemon's field, he cries out, "my pursuer's raving mad; he's crazy!" (μαίνεθ᾽ ὁ διώκων,

μαίνεται, 82). Pyrrhias goes on to say that Knemon is like “the kind of person who's always causing distress to others, or someone possessed by an evil spirit, or some bad-humoured man" (ὀδύνης yàp ὑὸς ñ xaxoδαιμονῶν τις À / μελαγχολῶν ἄνθρωπος, 88-9). Chaereas, upon hearing

the story, adds, "You're talking about one really raving farmer!" (μαινόμενον λέγεις / τελέως γεωργόν, 116-7). He then observes that all poor farmers are the same: "And a poor farmer is exceedingly sharp in 29. Gomme

and Sandbach (above, n. 24) 177 define the xAaviç as “a fine cloak,

regarded as luxurious." Note also the possibility that Sostratos would have been considered effeminate for wearing this cloak; for the yAavic "as a mark of ef-

feminacy" see LSJ s.v.

392

CAROL E. STEER

temper, not only this one, but nearly all of them" (ὑπέρπικρον δέ τι / ἔστιν πένης γεωργός, οὐχ οὗτος μόνος / σχεδὸν δ᾽ ἅπαντες, 129-30).

When Sostratos tries to approach Knemon, he sees that Knemon does not have a very friendly look. He quickly draws back from the door, saying, "He seems to me not to be of sound mind" (οὐχ ὑγιαίνειν μοι δοκεῖ, 150). Sometimes Knemon's craziness turns to violence. Pyrrhias describes

his nasty encounter with the old man: "I'm being hit with lumps of earth, with stones!" (βάλλομαι βώλοις, λίθοις, 83). When Sostratos dares

to approach Knemon, he wonders if the old misanthrope will hit him (ἄρα τυπτήσει y’ ἐμέ, 168). Knemon's own daughter is afraid he will hit

her when he finds out she has ventured outside the house: "Is Daddy coming? I'll be hit by his blows, then, if he catches me outside" (ἄρ᾽ ὁ

πάππας ἔρχεται; / ἔπειτα πληγὰς λήψομ᾽, ἄν με καταλάβῃ / ἕξω, 204—6). If Knemon sees a city boy out in the fields, "he will hit [him] with clods of dirt right away” (ταῖς βώλοις βαλεῖ / εὐθύς, 365-6). When the cooks ar-

rive at Knemon's door to borrow a pot, one of them pleads, "Don't bite!" (μὴ δάκῃς, 467). Knemon’s reply is fierce: "By God, I'll even eat you up alive!" (ἐγώ oe, νὴ Ala, / xai κατέδομαί ye ζῶντα, 467-8). Sikon tries once

more to borrow a pot from Knemon and is met with another hostile reception:

"He

has

well

and

truly

pounded

me”

(καλῶς

vé ue /

βεβωλοκόπηκεν, 514-5).

Knemon's anti-social nature is characterized by his fierce independence. He always works alone in the fields, even though he could afford to hire farmhands. When the mattock falls into the well, he spurns Simache's offer to fetch Daos for help (594). After being rescued, Knemon

acknowledges that he does need others after all. He admits he has been wrong in thinking himself "independent" (αὐτάρκης, 714). Whereas Sostratos spends his time in leisure, Knemon does nothing but work. When he leaves the house to go to the fields, he tells his slave that he will likely not be back until after dark (427-9). He complains that

the crowd of sacrificers at the neighbouring shrine is keeping him from his work: "They are making me idle, for I can't leave my house unattended" (ποιοῦσίν γέ με / ἀργόν’ καταλιπεῖν γὰρ μόνην τὴν οἰκίαν / οὐκ ἂν δυναίμην, 442-4). Getas comments on Knemon's hard life as a farmer: οἷον ζῇ βίον. τοῦτ᾽ ἔστιν εἰλικρινῶς γεωργὸς ᾿αττικός"

πέτραις μαχόμενος θύμα φερούσαις καὶ σφάκον ὀδύνας ἐπίστατ᾽, οὐδὲν ἀγαθὸν λαμβάνων. (603-6)

What a life he lives! This is the pure unadulterated Attic farmer: fighting with rocks that bear thyme and sage, he wins himself torment, taking nothing good. Knemon

values hard work and hates idle leisure. When Gorgias intro-

CITY SLICKER VERSUS COUNTRY BUMPKIN

393

duces Sostratos as a possible husband for his daughter, Knemon immediately questions his suitability by asking about the young man’s attitude towards work: "Not living softly and not the idle sort to walk about the whole day long [is he]?" (où τρυφῶν οὐδ᾽ οἷος ἀργὸς περιπατεῖν τὴν ἡμέραν, 755).

Knemon, then, is not a one-dimensional stereotype. Certainly, most of

his characteristics are negative. He is anti-social, rude, and coarse; he does not usually think before he speaks (when he speaks at all). He is part boor, part misanthrope, and part miser.? But he has some positive qualities as well. He is a hard-working countryman.” As Konstan observes, Menander's Dyskolos "exploits the complex representation of the curmudgeonly old Cnemon as a rabid misanthrope and as a hard-bitten,

struggling farmer."? Some

scholars see Knemon's step-son, Gorgias, as a stereotypical

ἄγροικος, a country boor.? However, Gorgias does not have any of the negative characteristics associated with the ἄγροικος. He represents instead the good old-fashioned conservative morals of the country dweller. The respectability of Gorgias adds weight to the positive side of % Walton and Amott (above, n. 24) 98 see Knemon

as a combination of two of

Theophrastos' Characters: Mikrologos (the Miser) and Authades (the Surly Fel-

low). Knemon exhibits several of the characteristics of the rustic boor first identified in Aristophanes' comedies—he is coarse, loud, and does not communicate well verbally. Writing after Aristophanes, Aristotle characterizes the boor as one who avoids the pleasure of interaction with other people; see D. Wiles, The Masks of Menander: Sign and Meaning in Greek and Roman Performance (Cambridge 1991) 175, where he notes that Aristotle writes (EE 1230*18-20) that among insensitive people, "such most of all are those whom the comic poets portray as boors, people who avoid even moderate and necessary pleasures." See in addition Theophrastos' description of the ἄγροικος, or "boor" (Char. 4) talking at the top of his voice, distrusting his friends and kinsfolk (xal μεγάλῃ τῇ φωνῇ λαλεῖν" καὶ τοῖς μὲν φίλοις xai οἰκείοις ἀπιστεῖν). In Menander's Dyskolos, Getas specifically calls Knemon a boor: "You're being a boor!” (ἄγροικος el, 956). Handley (above, n. 24)

303 interprets this line as "a dance—'you are rude!', ‘your Gomme and Sandbach (above, the failure of his feet to follow

mocking reference to the old man's refusal to manners!" Another explanation is offered by n. 24) 285: "Knemon's 'clumsy stupidity' refers to the rhythm of the dance into which he is being

dragged." I would contend that Knemon is a combination of Theophrastos' Boor, Miser, and Surly Fellow.

?! For the Attic tradition of admiration for the hard-working countryman, see Handley

(above,

n. 24) 238; Gomme

and Sandbach

(above,

n. 24) 228; Hanson

(above, n. 13) 135-136, 214-215. 32 Konstan (above, n. 26) 9.

? Wiles (above, n. 30) 92, 158: ""Gorgias' is given to a young rustic or ‘boor’ in three of Menander's plays ... Gorgias the Boor works the land alongside his slave."

394

CAROL E. STEER

the perception of farmers in Attic society, balancing to some extent the predominantly negative view represented by the character of Knemon. In the prologue, Pan introduces Gorgias as a poor young farmer, but not

a boor.™ Despite his youth, he is responsible and has good judgment: χωρίδιον

τούτῳ δ᾽ ὑπάρχον ἦν τι μιχρὸν ἐνθαδὶ ἐν γειτόνων, ob διατρέφει νυνὶ κακῶς τὴν μητέρ᾽ αὑτόν, πιστὸν οἰκέτην θ᾽ ἕνα πατρῷον. ἤδη δ᾽ ἐστὶ μειρακύλλιον

ὁ παῖς ὑπὲρ τὴν ἡλικίαν τὸν νοῦν ἔχων᾽ προάγει γὰρ ἡ τῶν πραγμάτων ἐμπειρία. (23-9) And the small farm belonging to him is the little one in the neighbourhood here, where now he barely supports his mother, himself, and a faithful servant (once his father's), and the lad is now a boy who has a

mind advanced for his years, for experience in things is maturing him.

Gorgias is a good son. He not only supports his mother financially, but

spends time with her as well. As his reason for not accepting Sostratos' invitation to lunch, for example, he says that he would "never leave his mother home alone" (μηδαμῶς μόνην τὴν μητέρα / οἴκοι καταλείπων, 617-8). His strong sense of duty even extends to Knemon,

the miserable

old man who never bothers to talk to him. When Knemon falls into the well, Gorgias leaps in as quickly as possible to save him (670-1). After

the rescue, Knemon acknowledges Gorgias as the "good-hearted person" (εὔνουν) he thought could never exist (720). He has done "the deed of a very noble-minded man" (ἔργον ποήσας ἀνδρὸς εὐγενεστάτου, 723).

Gorgias has noble ideals concerning money as well. When Sostratos offers his sister's hand in marriage, Gorgias hesitates, saying "I don't want to live in luxury by means of the hard work of others" (ody ἡδύ mot / εἶναι τρυφαίνειν ἀλλοτρίοις πόνοις δοκεῖ, 829-30).

Gorgias' greatest concern is for proper behaviour. When Daos informs him that he has seen Sostratos talking to his step-sister at the well, he immediately assumes that Sostratos intends to dishonour her. He reprimands Daos for not keeping Sostratos away, and confirms his own

commitment to uphold the family honour*:

* Gomme and Sandbach (above, n. 24) 132: "Gorgias is a poor boy who works on the land in [Menander's] Heros and Georgos also." There is no indication that Gorgias is a boor in any of these three plays. 9 For the average Athenian citizen, the duty of maintaining the family honour was paramount; see N. Zagagi (above, n. 24) 98.

CITY SLICKER VERSUS COUNTRY BUMPKIN

395

οὐχ ἔνεστ᾽ ἴσως φυγεῖν οἰκειότητα, AG’. ἀδελφῆς ἔτι μέλει

ἐμῆς ...

(239--41) ἂν γὰρ αἰσχύνῃ τινὶ αὕτη περιπέσῃ. τοῦτο κἀμοὶ γίνεται ὄνειδος. (243-5)

It's not the place I suppose, Daos, to forsake a relative. My sister still

concerns me ... for if she's dishonoured by someone she's fallen in with, it's a disgrace for me.

Later on, Gorgias accuses Sostratos directly: "You seem to me to have set your mind on a low-down deed, thinking to persuade a chaste girl to do wrong"

(ἔργον

δοχεῖς

μοι

φαῦλον

ἐζηλωκέναι

/ neice

νομίζων

ἐξαμαρτεῖν παρθένον, 289--90). The theme of city versus country is best illustrated in Dyskolos by the contrast between Sostratos and Knemon. In many ways, Sostratos is the direct opposite of Knemon.* The city youth is an impetuous pleasureseeker: he spots an appealing girl, falls madly in love, and immediately does all he can to win her hand in marriage. Knemon always avoids pleasure of any sort, and even refuses to join in the wedding festivities. Sostratos is a man of leisure; he has the time to wander about the countryside and fall in love. Knemon spends most of his time toiling in the fields. The young city boy is delicate, and dresses in fine clothing. The old rustic is fierce and he wears a peasant's cloak made of hides. Sostratos is sociable and talkative, but Knemon is a loner and speaks to no

one. The difference between city and country in the Dyskolos is not simply a question of good versus bad. Sostratos seems a frivolous pleasureseeker at first. Yet his intentions turn out to be honourable. By the play's conclusion, he even comes to realize the value of hard work. Knemon and Gorgias are both farmers, yet they are not at all alike. Taken to-

gether, they represent the positive and negative sides of the country dweller as seen in fourth century Greek society. Aristophanes' comedy reveals a similar complexity. Both Dikaiopolis * It is likely that Menander deliberately intended this opposition; see Wiles (above, n. 30) 73-74 for the importance of binary opposition in Hellenistic thinking. Wiles cites, among others, Arist. Metaph. 1004¢29-31: “nearly everyone

agrees that tinges and substances are composed Metaph. 7.18-8.19: “Why

of opposites”; and Thphr.

... does nature and all existence consist of contraries?”

The influence of Aristotle and Theophrastos on Menander is likely to have been

considerable since Theophrastos was successor to Aristotle as head of the Peripatetic school of philosophy and Menander was one of his students.

396

CAROL E. STEER

and the Acharnians are from rural Greece, but they have opposite views on war and peace. Aristophanes associates Dikaiopolis' peace with the

pleasures of life in the country. Yet his plays are the first to ridicule the country dweller as the rustic boor.

29 CIRCULUS, TRIANGULUS, EPIDONICUS GEOMETRICAL DIFFICULTIES WITH LATIN LEXICOGRAPHY WESLEY M. STEVENS

Many terms for geometrical figures and functions passed from Latin into both Romance and Germanic languages without significant changes of usage: for example, circulus and circlus became circolo or cerchio (Italian), circulo or corro (Spanish), cercle (French), as well as Zirkel or Kreis

(German) and circle (English). Anyone speaking those languages may recognise without difficulty the implicit Latin root and its meaning. The

same may be said of words like triangulus with its derivatives, though the meanings of some special terms like epidonicus, transliterated from their Greek roots, were and are much less common but not difficult to understand in context. Nevertheless, the similarity of certain terms in modern languages to their Latin roots may be deceptive, especially if their applications need to be as strictly mathematical as their other usages may be specifically rhetorical.’

While at first the field is inviting, it is also full of potholes. Diametros or diametrum for example is always geometric in the sense of diagonal

but may not be the diameter of a circle. If one turns for assistance to a classical Latin dictionary, the word may be omitted. But dictionaries

which include the word will give the meaning "diameter," common to modern English, French, or German without noticing that no classical Latin text will use the word in the sense assumed: "diameter of a circle." Trying to apply that meaning to a text in which the term appears to describe an object or a figure or on a drawing without a circle must leave the diligent and imaginative translator at a loss for words. Another example is the pair of words punctus and punctum, for which many uses

are offered in every dictionary of classical Latin, but usually not punctum ! A broader range of Latin mathematical terminology has been discussed by W.M. Stevens, "Fields and streams. Language and practice of arithmetic and geometry in early medieval schools," in John J. Contreni and Santa Casciani, eds.,

Word,

Image,

Number.

Communication

in the Middle

Ages

(Florence

2002)

113-204; and "Addo et subtraho. Medieval glosses to modern lexicography," in H. Kranz and L. Falkenstein, eds., Inquirens subtilia diversa. Dietrich Lohrmann zum

65. Geburtstag (Aachen 2002) 237-259.

397

398

WESLEY M. STEVENS

est, cuius pars nulla est, the first definition of Euclid's Elements. There was no lack of translations of this work, though the earliest have not survived, for many selections were quoted in Latin by Varro, Censorinus, Cicero, Vitruvius, Quintilian, Hyginus astronomicus, Hyginus gromaticus, Balbus, et alii; several of those sources will be cited in any classical dictionary. Selections from the Elements were also known in later Latin to the middle of the ninth century and were quoted by Diomedes, Augustinus, Macrobius, Martianus Capella, Calcidius, Boetius, Cassiodorus, Isidorus, Beda venerabilis, Hrabanus Maurus, Iohannus Scotus Eriugena, and others.” Those authors were often used as sources for dictionaries, thesauri, and glossaries of both classical and medieval Latin. One should expect therefore to find the common geometrical terms in all of our lexicographical aids, with their mathematical definitions and uses specified. Yet there seems to be confusion about such words amongst lexicog-

raphers, early and late. Although punctum

or punctus is cited as a

mathematical point by Cicero, as a point of no dimensions at the end of a one-dimensional line by Augustine, or as the centre of a mathematical circle by Calcidius, it is an exceptional dictionary which would reveal

any of that. Thus, we should look further for the terms of mathematics and of the natural sciences which are given by lexicographical aids, and especially for the meanings attributed to geometrical words and phrases

until late in the twelfth century. I Six dictionaries and thesauri of classical Latin to about A.D. 200 have been consulted, along with ten of the most important lexicons and glossaries of medieval Latin, one of the latter for the period A.D. 180 to 600, while others extend to A.D. 1200 and beyond. (We have omitted meanings drawn from texts which are specificially dated 1200 or later.) Some

of the sources which they draw upon cross over their stated time-limits, so that classical sources may include Augustine, Macrobius, and Isidore, while medieval sources may include Quintilian and Hyginus. Some lexicons intend to be inclusive of all fields of interest, whereas others emphasise feudal and legal meanings, or give preference to ecclesiastical usages. These lexicographical works were created during the last four centuries by skilled lexicographers in England, France, Denmark, Ger^ Some of these sources were cited by the dictionaries and many others by Brigitte English, Die Artes liberales im frühen Mittelalter (5.-9.]h.). Sudhoffs Archiv,

Beiheft

33 (Stuttgart

1994)

149-182;

and

by

Gillian

R.

Evans,

"The

'Sub-

Euclidean' geometry of the earlier Middle Ages, up to the mid-twelfth century," Archive for History of Exact Sciences 16 (1976/77) 105-118.

GEOMETRICAL DIFFICULTIES WITH LATIN LEXICOGRAPHY 399

many, and the United States of America; some have been revised, and some are still in process.’ They are described in the Appendix below. II The range of geometrical terminology is wide: for example, circulus required both punctum at its centrum and circumferentia around the planum enclosed by extremitas, as shown on figura plana, forma, or pictura. Its circumferentia and superficies could be calculated but not as an area, a term unknown in Latin until the mid- or late-twelfth century.

In the following data for each term, Nil means that the word is not found as a main entry in that work; N/A that it is found but not with a mathematical meaning, one which is not left to the reader to assume but is defined specifically; Adde cit. that additional texts are cited for the same meanings; Ditto means that the same meanings are given in the revised edition, though not always exactly quoted; and the symbol + indicates that one or more meaning had been added. Longer definitions have been abbreviated without use of ellipses. Thus, we find the following classical meanings of circulus: circulus -i; circlus -i (m.) Freund”: (circlus, circus] Zirkellinie, Kreis; astron., Kreisbahn; geogr., Parallelkreis;

kreisfórmiger Kórper; gesellschaftlicher Kreis, Zirkel, Klub. L&S: [circlus] circular figure, circle, orbit, zone or belt of the earth’s surface. Cassell’: Circle, circular figure; of the orbit of a planet; any circular body (a collar); a group for conversation. Cassell*: Ditto + circuit. Oxford: [circus] a circular figure or form, circle; a more or less circular figure or

area, a ring, belt; an imaginary circle in the sky, e.g. a circle of latitude or longitude, one dividing two zones, the horizon, etc.; a zone in the sky or on the earth

(applied to the Zodiac, to the Milky Way); the orbit of a heavenly body, passage round an orbit; recurring sequence or cycle of activity. Thesaurus: Linea vel res rotunda, in se revertens; figura geometrica, res in cor-

poribus et rebus naturae in orbem circumducta; aliae res geometriae et astronomiae, ut punctum linea angulus triangulum quadratum sphaera: de lineis in caelo mundo terra circumductis, de caelestibus ab astrologis fictis, de cursibus lunae et solis, siderum, temporalium rerum, de orbibus in caelo interdum apparentibus; de rebus et instrumentis in orbem arte factis, armillum, ansae; coetus vel

congregatio hominum. ? Further detail about the history of each dictionary, thesaurus, and glossary will be found in Stevens, "Fields and streams" and "Addo et subtraho" (above, n. 1) and in F.A.C. Mantello and A.G. Rigg, eds., Medieval Latin: An Introduction and

Bibliographical Guide (Washington, D.C. 1996), especially the essays by Mantello and

Rigg,

"Latin

dictionaries

and

related

works"

(32-36)

and

Sharpe, "Vocabulary, word formation, and lexicography" (93-105).

by

Richarde

400

WESLEY M. STEVENS

Alexander Freund defined the term as a circular line; Lewis & Short gave "circular figure, circle, orbit"; and all others agreed, though Freund and the Cassells also included "a group for conversation." Each dictionary added examples of its application: for example, L&S also gave the

meaning "zone or belt of the earth's surface," and the early Cassell added "of the orbit of a planet." The Thesaurus knew circulus as "linea vel res rotunda, in se revertens" and was the first to specify "figura

geometrica," rather than hope the reader would assume it in some cases. Oxford took all of these into account in a very rich definition: "A circular figure or form, circle; a more or less circular figure or area, a ring, belt; an imaginary circle in the sky, e.g. a circle of latitude or longitude, one dividing two zones, the horizon, etc.; a zone in the sky or on the earth (applied to the Zodiac, to the Milky Way); the orbit of a heavenly body, passage round an orbit; recurring sequence or cycle of activity."* Lexicons and glossaries of medieval Latin however found other meanings: circulus -i; circlus -i (m.) Du Cange’: N/A. Hominum coetus collectus, vox latinis scriptoribus frequens; area seu campi spatium, quod pubilibus [sic: recte pugilibus] duello de certantibus dabatur; orbiculatus ὅς planus discus, assiete [sic]. Vide cyclus, circulus - cy-

clum orbis peragrave sol & luna dicuntur; cyclus paschalis - ad lunae aetatem

investigandum, et diem paschatis inveniendum. Du Cange*: N/A. Adde cit.

Henschel: Ditto Du Cange!. Maigne: N/A. Orbiculatus et planus discus: assiette, plat; une espéce de couronne. Souter: Nil. Blaise': Cercle (cl.); movement circulaire, giratoire; zone du ciel, (méton.) le ciel; cycle de temps, espace de, cours de: anni; cycle (pascal, lunaire de 19 ans), année; espace circulaire, espace (lieu); objet circulaire, bague, (pl.) ceintures, plat circulaire, anneau, pince-nez (pour conduire un taureau furieux). Blaise’: N/A. Entourage, environ; (fig.) cycle paenitentiae, cycle d'études; couronne; cercle, district; cycle de tempe; rouget (poisson); (scol.) circulus vitiosis, ou logicus. Niermeyer: N/A. Une espece de couronne; enclose; période. Worterbuch: Linea rotunda in se revertens, orbis, arcus -- Kreis(linie, -bogen); (geom.) aequaliter a puncto circumductus, circumferentia; (astron.) sphaerae; de lineis vel zonis caelestibus (terrae), de cursus stellarum (solis et lunae); tempus cursus - Umlaufszeit; de zodiaco, de via lactea; circuitus, cursus (constans), re-

* For each of these usages, see also M.G. Ennis, The Vocabulary of the Institutiones of Cassiodorus: With Special Advertence to the Technical Terminology and its Sources (Washington, D.C. 1939, repr. 1984) 15, 18, 114 with citation of texts from

the first century B.C. to the sixth century A.D. Many texts are quoted for these usages in the notes to Stevens, "Field and streams" and "Addo et subtraho" (above, n. 1).

GEOMETRICAL DIFFICULTIES WITH LATIN LEXICOGRAPHY 401 versio (periodica) - Kreislauf, (regelmaSiger) Ablauf, (periodische) Wiederkehr;

cyclus - Zyklus, index - Tabelle; (geom.) area circumferenti linea inclusa Kreis(fláche), Scheibe; (astron.) de plenitudo, de orbe plagarum; de imagine rotunda, de tonsura; (geog.) regio circumsita, territorium - Bereich, Umkreis, Bezirk; circus (orbis) - (Erden-)Rund; sphaera - Kugel, Sphäre (de hemisphaeria ut vid.).

BritSources: Circle (celestial or terrestrial), orbit ("sphere") or epicycle of heavenly body; cycle, period; disc, orb (esp. of full moon); (celestial or terrestrial) zone; (with lacteus) milky way; circulus angulus; turn, position in rota; circle in

reasoning; charmed circle; gathering of friends; group; gear-wheel; hoop for cask; rim of a coin; iris (of eye); anus (with pudicus).

For le Sieur Du Cange, therefore, circulus or circlus referred primarily to "hominum coetus collectus," "area seu campi spatium," or "orbiculatus

et planus discus"; it should be recalled that his campus was a place for duelling and his orbiculatus was an "assiete" [sic]. The others repeated or

elaborated those expressions for the meaning of circulus: for example, Maigne "a fighting ring for boxers," Blaise "entourage ... rouget (poisson); (scol.) circulus vitiosis, ou logicus," Niermeyer "une espéce de couronne," and British Sources expected a "charmed circle, gathering of friends." Nevertheless, Du Cange had also referred readers to usages in cosmology and in computus: "cyclum orbis peragrave sol & luna dicuntur," and cyclus paschalis, "ad lunae aetatem investigandum, et diem paschatis inveniendum"

[sic]. The astronomical meanings

were included

and elaborated in the Würterbuch and British Sources who found as many applications as had Oxford. Despite the various uses of circulus to characterise number, boundary, and orbit in one of the primary writers whose works are cited by almost every one of our lexicographers (Cassiodorus, ca. A.D. 490-583), the Mittellateinisches Würterbuch is the only medieval lexicon to refer a meaning of circulus directly to geometry? Punctum and punctus are necessary for drawing a geometrical circle and are spoken of as the end of a one dimensional line or as a mark in

mathematical series in many texts. But those common meanings are rarely acknowledged by our lexicographical aids for either the neuter or

the masculine form which are usually treated separately: punctum -i (n.) Freund*: [pungo] was imgestochen worden, ein kleines Loch; daher ein Punkt, ein Tüpfel; ein kleiner Theil, ein Gewichts, Maafes, Augenblick; der Stich, Punkt, ein

Schreiben; ein mathematischer Punkt; Auge auf den Würfeln; das Votum, die Stimme; der Beifall.

L&S: [pungo] that which is pricked, a point, small hole, puncture; a small part of 5 Flavius Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator, Institutiones divinarum et humanarum litterarum, ed. R. A.B. Mynors (Oxford 1937; revised ed. with corrections

1961) IL.iiii.6, vi.4, vii.2.

402

WESLEY M. STEVENS

anything divided or measured off in space; a small portion of time, an instant, a moment. Cassell’: [pungo] a mathematical point; the smallest quantity, a very small space; a small portion of time, moment; a vote; (in discourse) a short clause, section.

Cassell*: Ditto + a prick, little hole, small puncture; a point, spot; any small point in space. Oxford: [pungo]

a puncture, prick, sting; a vote; spot or mark

resembling a

puncture, a geometrical point (marked on a diagram or imagined), a point marked on a scale; an infinitesimal portion, degree, quantity (as a hair's breadth). Vide punctum temporis (horae), an instant.

punctus -i (m.), puncta -ae (f.) Freund’: [pungo] das Stechen, der Punkt.

L&S: [pungo] a pricking, stinging; a point. Cassell: Nil.

Cassell*: Nil. Oxford: [pungo] the action of puncture, pricking, stinging.

Thus, from classical sources Freund recognised punctum in general as a prick which could result in "ein kleines Loch; daher ein Punkt." The word could indicate a weight or mass, a moment, a stich (in time?) or a

writing, even a little mark on a cube with which one plays dice or the vote cast in an election. But he also noticed punctum as "ein mathema-

tischer Punkt." Lewis & Short said correctly "that which is pricked, a point, small hole, puncture" but noted more generally "a small part of anything divided or measured off in space," without indicating any mathematical usages. The Cassell editors did recognise punctum as "a mathematical point" and Oxford as a geometrical point "marked on a diagram or imagined," but Oxford's use of one "degree" of 360? is an assumption without textual source. (The Thesaurus has not yet published terms after the word progenies.) punctum -i (n.) Du Cange': N/A. Statutum (regis); in psalmodia, syllaba. Vide punctare. Du Cange*: Nil. Henschel: Ditto Du Cange! * prendre à point et pointer. Maigne: N/A. Texte, contenu d'un acte. Souter: N/ A. A centre; punctuation mark. Blaise’: Centre (cl.).

Blaise”: (Scol.) quantité indivisible, sans dimension; note (grégorién); arrét sur une syllable; paragraphe; point, article. Niermeyer: N/A. Coup, blessure en profondeur; paragraphe; note musicale; état, condition.

GEOMETRICAL DIFFICULTIES WITH LATIN LEXICOGRAPHY 403 punctus -i (m.), puncta -ae (f.)

Du Cange': N/A. Quinta pars horae. Du Cange*: Nil. Henschel: Ditto Du Cange!. Maigne: Quinta pars horae; articulus, caput; pactum, conventio; acumen, macro;

inusta ferro acuto et calido plaga. Souter: Nil. Blaise': [punctum] point (point en bas qui marque la fin d'un membre). Vide pungo -- piquer, blesser, frapper. Blaise’: Pointe; le cinquième ou le quart de l'heure; point, article; accord, convention.

Niermeyer: N/A. Division de l'heure, quart ou quint.

Du Cange's reference to the verb punctare is not helpful, as he also gave that word no mathematical significance. Niermeyer added "coup, blessure en profondeur; paragraphe; note musicale; état, condition." Rarely

has a lexicographer of medieval Latin acknowledged any geometrical usage of punctus, a point of no dimensions. Calcidius (A.D. s. iv) had

used punctus as a "centre." Until recently however most lexicographers of medieval Latin followed Du Cange in avoiding geometrical definition

or usage altogether. Of the works thus far surveyed, only Alexander Souter (1949, 1957) and Albert Blaise (1954) recognised that punctum could be used as "centre" of anything, but that meaning was deleted by Blaise from his second work (1967), while retaining "quantité indivisi-

ble." (Novum Glossarum and British Sources have not yet published defi-

nitions of words beginning with letters Pu.) Lewis & Short also knew punctum broadly as "a small portion of time, an instant, a moment,” and so did the Cassells and Oxford. That usage of punctus had been introduced by Du Cange with "division de l'heure,"

and he was more specific with "quinta pars horae," a phrase which Niermeyer and Blaise expanded "quart ou quint." The glossaries and lexicons of medieval Latin also noticed texts in which punctum or punctus represented a division of the day and a division of a scale on horologium, but all classical dictionaries and all medieval lexicons ignored numerous texts of astronomy and of computus

in which punctum or punctus repre-

sents a division of a zodiacal sign.’ The texts reveal that there could be four solar puncti or five lunar puncti per horam or ten puncti and thirty partes per signum? Uncertainty about these terms is not the fault of lexiSJH. Waszink and P.J. Jensen, eds., Plato, Timaeus a Calcidio translatus commentarioque e instructus (Leiden 1961) 59.

? Bedae De temporum ratione liber II1.10-12; XVII.11-14. ? According to the ancient astrologers there might be XII partes per signum or

404

WESLEY M. STEVENS

cographers, as historians of science have not clarified their various uses in textual sources of our period Oxford is the only dictionary or lexicon to notice the common usage of the word signum as "a constellation, sign of the Zodiac," but even that erudite editor did not consider the nature of the Zodiac as an astronomical instrument, that is, a geometric diagram projected onto the heavens in two dimensions with divisions into signa, partes, punctos, momenta, and

ostenta. To this sequence was added minuta in the ninth and tenth centuries. Those terms and their variety of usages are left by lexicographers without proper definition for literature written during either classical or medieval periods. Linea or linia of course has many meanings: linea -eae, linia -iae (f.), lineum -e (n.), lineus -i (m.) Freund?: Faden und Lein, Schnur; Streich, Zug mit dem Feder oder der Pinsel, Linie; in der Geometrie: linea ist longitudo quaedam sine latitudine et altitudine; linea circumcurrens — Zirkellinie; lineae extremae - die Conturen, das Umrif; linea

recta — gerade Linie; ad lineam (ergánze rectam) senkrecht, perpendicular; daher jede Linie, Reihe, Gránzlinie; exempla varia et numerosa.

L&S: [linum] a linen thread, a string, a line; a thread-like stroke of the pen; a boundary

line, limit, end, goal; lineage, line of descent or kindred; an outline,

sketch, design. Vide ad lineam, recta linea — in a straight line, vertically or perpendicularly. Cassell’: [linum] a line made with a pen or pencil; geometrical line; a boundary line; a linen thread, string; a fishing line; a carpenter's plumb-line. Vide ad lineam - exactly straight or perpendicular.

Cassell*: Ditto + a line drawn; the final goal. Oxford: [lineus] (geom.) a straight line connecting two or more points, alignment,

a figure, shape. [linea (f.of lineum) — linen, made of flax or linen] -- a string, cord, fishing line, thread for gems of a necklace; a cord used by carpenters, masons for

measurement or alignment (plumbline); a line traced on a surface by a pen or other instrument, a line or outline in a picture, a line for marking the hours on a sundial; a streak of colour or light (natural).

Thesaurus: Funiculus; linea est cuilibet usui in piscatu, ad rete adducendum, ad hamum adnectendum; in imagine vel allegoria, in ornamento muliebri, in imagine vel proverbiis; in aedificatione, re rustica de linea in rectum tensa ad directionem rectam efficiendam vel metiendam; terminus vel finis, quo quid definitur, dividitur; in geometria, architectura, astronomia, gromatica de notione et quali-

tatibus; terminus vel pars extrema, quo quid definitur, ab alia re separatur; definiuntur res in planum extensae, corpora tribus dimensionibus extensa. Freund

and

L&S

returned

to the root word

linum,

"a linen thread, a

CXLIV puncti per Zodiacum, but XV partes per horam or CCCLX partes per diem in

the horologium, and XXX partes per signum making up CCCLX partes per Zodiacum, reported by Beda DTR III.29-34. These examples illustrate Beda's point, but they are different from his own usage.

GEOMETRICAL DIFFICULTIES WITH LATIN LEXICOGRAPHY 405 string, a line," and thus linea, "a thread-like stroke of a pen"; exceptionally, L&S also gave one meaning of linea as "a boundary line, limit, end, goal." They referred the reader to the meanings of phrases ad lineam and

recta linea, "in a straight line," whether vertical or perpendicular. The Cassells, Oxford, and Thesaurus are similar to L&S; but Oxford elaborates: "(Geom.) a straight line connecting two or more points," as well as "a cord used by carpenters, masons for measurement or alignment

(plumbline)" and "a line for marking the hours on a sundial." No textual source is given for such linear marks which may be observed on small,

brass Roman sundials which have been found in England as also in various parts of Europe, but see also Oxford's definiton of punctum, "a point marked on a scale." linea -eae, linia -iae (£.), lineum -e (n.), lineus -i (m.) Du Cange': Regula qua longitudines explorantur; in pictura, est peniculli ductus; linea sanguinis et cognationis; vestis interior, stricta, ex lineo confecta.

Du Cange: Adde cit. Henschel: Ditto Du Cange! +lineam subducere, lineis circumdare. Maigne: N/A. Vestis interor; linea cognationis et sanguinis; modus agri. Souter: Nil. Vide linealiter, lineariter, by means of lines, strokes. Blaise’: Étoffe de lin, vétement

de toile; (pl) esquisses,

grandes

lignes d'une

ébauche; sillon, ligne de passage (d'un astre); (pl.) traites du visage; ligne de parenté; lignes de demarcation pour les places au théátre; ligne, marque (à la craie ou à la chaux, dans l’arène), limite, but, limite extrême de la course; un contour locatisé; ligne de conduite; ligne d'écriture, redaction, expression, formulation.

Blaise”: N/A. Vide rectilinium - droiture. Niermeyer: "Ligne de parenté; “ligne d'écriture; ère, âge. Vide linealiter -*portraits de plume; en ligne droit. NuvGloss: Ligne; vers, ligne écrite; degré (astronomique); suite numerique; mesure de superficie; ligne de monogramme; direction, route, chemin; durée. BritSources: [linea, lina] flax, seed of flax plant, linseed; flax fibre, thread, fishing line, cord, rope; a line drawn on surface (e.g. in geom.); what is placed in or on a line or between lines, file, one of parallel columns in math. or astron. table, rank or file on gaming board; line marking a boundary (geog. and astron.); land between boundary lines, row, strip; exempla varia et numerosa.

According to Du Cange, one meaning of linea is "in pictura, est peniculli ductus"; to this Henschel added "lineam subducere, lineis circumdare." Maigne did not include this sense of linea, but Niermeyer gave "en ligne droit," Blaise cited rectilineam, "droiture," and the Novum Glossarium expanded to "suite numerique; mesure de superficie." It must be pointed

out however that medieval terms like linea circuli, linea sphaerae, or linea superficiae, as well as pars circuli could be measured by puncti and partes but not by linea as "degré (astronomique)," prior to the first Latin trans-

406

WESLEY M. STEVENS

lation of Ptolemy's Megale Syntaxis from Greek perhaps A.D. 1160 in Sicily, an Arabic version of the same work called Almagest by Gerard of Cremona in Toledo about A.D. 1175, and various Latin translations of planetary tables from those of al-Zarqali which were adapted by Latin astronomers perhaps also in Toledo about the same time and distributed

thereafter. For the dictionaries, lineamentum is usually "a line or stroke made with a pen, chalk, etc." or simply "die Linie, die Federstrich." Freund, Oxford, and Thesaurus however spoke of "a line in geometry." To this, L&S would add the application, "a line of latitude, longitude." On the other hand, the sources for lexicons of medieval Latin revealed uses of lineamentum and linealiter to mean especially "linea sanguinus et cognationes" and "ligne de parenté." Maigne retained linealiter as "recta; en droite ligne," and Niermeyer gave both "portraits de plume" and "en ligne droit." British Sources could add a "line drawn on surface, as boundary." Thus, no reader of a medieval mathematical or scientific text would receive any assistance if his text dealt with the lines of a geometrical figure. The geometrical uses of planus and planum tended to be overlooked. Somehow, it was difficult for lexicographers to relate planum and planus with the form representing a two-dimensional surface: planum -i (n.), planus - i (m.) Freund*: [planus] Ebene, Fläche. L&S: N/A. [planus] level ground, a plain. Cassell’: N/A. A plain, level ground; plain, clear, intelligible.

Cassell*: Ditto. Oxford: (Geom.) a plane figure; flat or level ground; ground level, in a humble station, unofficial; simple sense of a word.

That such a flexible word had always been used for “a plane figure,” one

having two dimensions and contained within boundaries,’ awaited the Oxford Latin Dictionary which explained planus not only as terrain “having an even surface, level, flat” but also specifically: “(Geom.) flat, two-

dimensional, plane.” (Fascicles of Thesaurus X/xii seq. containing the terms planum and planus have not been available.) Planum was omitted by Du Cange, but its meaning “ager cultus, plane” was added later to the Glossarium. The meaning of planum as “level ground, a plane” was ? Lucretius, Cicero, Vitruvius, Lucanus,

Plinius Secundus

maior, Aulus Gel-

lius, Sextus Pompeius Festus, Ammianus Marcellinus, Cassiodori Institutiones II. vi.2 and vii.4, et alii. On two-dimensional drawing of a three-dimensional body,

see Ennis (above, n. 5) 116, 124; and Stevens, "The figure of the Earth in Isidore's De natura rerum," ISIS 71/257 (1980) 268-277.

GEOMETRICAL DIFFICULTIES WITH LATIN LEXICOGRAPHY 407

elaborated by all other lexicographers, including the divergent meanings "terrain non brisé" or "terrain nivelle, défriché, cultivé." Using adjectival planus and adverbial plane, others added "clear, intelligible" or "in a humble station, unofficial,” or even “sol, aire, cemetière; porche." None provided a sense in geometry. Figura plana, with the aspect of that flat surface, could be recognised on the top of some objects as superficies, "surface." However reluctant our reading aids may be to say so, it cannot be doubted that, in Latin texts of geometry

or in literary texts using geometry,

the synonyms

planum and superficies, along with figura plana which represents them,

refer not only to a surface but also to its length and breadth and to the area thereby delineated. For the use of this term in mathematics, L&S

specified "only length and breadth." But the two Cassells and Oxford maintained

"the upper part, top, surface, glace" without mention of

length and breadth. superficies -ei (£.) Freund*: [super-facies] der obere Theil einer Sache, Obertheil, die Oberfláche; in der Mathematik, die Flache.

L&S: [super-facies] the upper side of a thing, top, surface; (math.) only length and breadth.

Cassell’: The top, the surface. Cassell*: Ditto. Oxford: [superficium] the upper part, top, surface, glace (gloss); a building, as contrasted with land upon which it stands.

Du Cange’: Nil. Du Cange*: Nil. Henschel: N/A. Vide superficio, superficium. Maigne: N/A. Domus fastigium, culmen. Vide superficium - vestis quaedam exterior. Souter: N/A. Exterior, appearance; the obvious sense. Blaise’: N/A. Le haut de, la tête (d'un animal à sacrifier); l'enveloppe extérieur;

l'extérieur, le masque, le superficiel, l'apparence, la surface; la forme (d'un écrit). Vide superficialiter — superficiellement. Blaise’: Nil. Vide superficialiter - jusqu’ à la surface.

Blaise: Nil. Niermeyer: Nil.

The substantive figura was omitted by Du Cange but added later by the Cangists with reference to "juris formula," a rhetorical device. "Form, shape, figure" appeared in subsequent dictionaries with all sorts of meanings, for example: "shade of a dead person," "an atom," "a con"p

o

stellation," or "une figure de raisonnement, forme (au sense moderne)."

408

WESLEY M. STEVENS

Maigne D'Arnis referred to superficium as "vestis quaedam exterior," that is, something to wear on top of other clothes; so along the same lines, Souter.

A common figura plana could word circumferentia is defined by literated into English by L&S but ble meanings for circumferentia "tracing a circular course,"

be a circle with its circumference. The Freund as "Umkreis" or merely transomitted by the Cassells. Quite intelligiare given by Oxford in new language:

and by Thesaurus

ripheria." Wôrterbuch, Lexlugo, and British the geometric use of this word, while the omit it or prefer to give other meanings, (pass.) étre emporté ici et là (fig.); porter en The geometric signification of angulus

"Circuitus,

ambitus,

pe-

Sources are equally clear about other medieval lexicons either such as Blaise: "circumfero — procession." was included in most classical

dictionaries, with the exception of Freund: angulus -i (m.) Freund”: Winkel, Ecke, Kante; einsamer Ort; Meerbusen, Bucht. L&S: [&yxbAoc] (math.) angle; corner; a retired, unfrequented place, a nook; a

bay, gulf. Vide angulus obtusus; angulus acutus; meridanus circulus horizonta rectis angulis secat; quattuor anguli terrae — four corners of the earth; rectiangulum -- a

right angled triangle. Cassell’: (Math.) angle; extremity or corner of a country; a bastion; a retired spot. Cassell*: Ditto * a corner of anything; an awkward corner, a straight. Oxford: Angle or apex of a triangle or other plane rectilinear figure; corner. Vide rectis angulus — ἃ right angle. Thesaurus: Locus angustus [μυχός], domus vel arcae, sinus maris, regio abdita, recessus; angulus prominens [γωνία]; mathematico sensu; oculi vel oris angulus.

"Angle, corner, nook" in Freund or L&S does not specify a geometrical angulus. Even further afield would be "a retired, unfrequented place," "a bay, gulf,” "an extremity or corner of a country; a bastion” or "an awk-

ward corner, a straight." But L&S and the Cassells, if not Freund, agree that the word could mean "(math.) angle." Without explication, Thesaurus added "mathematico sensu," but Oxford is more specific for one of the meanings of angulus: "Angle or apex of a triangle or other plane rectilinear figure." With a single recent exception, the geometric signification of angulus was lost on lexicographers of medieval Latin: angulus -i (m.) Du Cange': Nil. Du Cange*: Nil. Henschel: Nil. Maigne: N/A [angula terrae]. Vide angularis — colatorium.

GEOMETRICAL DIFFICULTIES WITH LATIN LEXICOGRAPHY 409 Souter: N/ A. Vide angularis, a corner, cornerstone; angulariter, angularly; angulo, to make angular, fold up. Blaise: N/A. Tour d'angle (dans les ramparts); angle, pierre angulaire (fig.), soutien, chef; difficulté, detour; (métaph.) chernière (en parl. du Fils, entre le Père

et le S' Esprit). Vide angularis - qui loge dans un coin; qui forme angle, angulaire; lapis angularis - la pierre angulaire (qui soutient l'édifice); angulosus — sinueux, tortueux. Blaise’: Ditto. Vide angulum - enceinte; angulosus — fourbe, trompeur, astucieux; angularis ~ sorte de passoire.

Blaise*: Ditto Blaise’. Niermeyer: Nil. Worterbuch: Sensu constrictionis (vel remotionis); de aedificiis, rebus fabrefactis; laterba — (Schlupf-)Winkel, Unterschlupf; recessus - abgeschiedener Raum; kleines Grundstück; abgelegene Gegend, Ende; regio - Gegend; clima caeli (Himmels-)Richtung; (math.def.) est ... planus angulus duarum linearum in planitie e diverso ductarum ad unum punctum coadunatio; per angulos - diagonal, medietas; terminus, caput - Ende; cardo - Angelpunkt. BritSources: Nil.

The term was omitted by Du Cange and Henschel, as well as by Niermeyer and British Sources, which prefer cognate terms whose meanings are quite unrelated. Maigne, Souter, and Blaise gave the word but provided only non-geometrical usages, for example "angularis - colato-

rium," a sieve, especially for clarifying ecclesiastical wine. On the other hand, Worterbuch offers a full mathematical definition of the term, including the phrase "per angulos - diagonal, medietas." Amongst its wide range of meanings for medieval angulus, the Worterbuch also adds a bit of surveying with "cardo - Angelpunkt" and

of astronomy with "clima caeli - (Himmels-)Richtung.” Those are not fields of study included in this essay, but one wonders where such notions may have come from. Kardo or Cardo is a north/south line on a surveyor's instrument, transferred by metonymy to the military camp or land being surveyed. Clima may be used either for a band of space, terrestrial or celestial, perhaps as a synonym of regio in the later middle

ages; but "Richtung" or "Himmelsrichtung" are out of the question. No sources are known for any of these translations of angulus or of such

phrases using it. How did Alexander Freund and the editors of Wérterbuch suppose that such distant or literally impossible meanings were fitting as defini-

tions of angulus? Freund had defined the word orbis as "Kreis, Runde" and explained the phrase orbis terrarum as "Erdscheibe, Erdkreis, nach der Ansicht der Alten" or as "Diskus, Wurfscheibe." Did the old folks really used to think that the Earth was flat? Not all of his references were strictly two-dimensional; for example, orbis could be used "von Monde,

Himmel," presumably a three-dimensional mundus or cosmos. Neverthe-

410

WESLEY M. STEVENS

less, Freund was followed by L&S who affirmed that "the ancients regarded the earth as a circular plane or disk." Thus, when Freund proposed the geographical model of quattuor anguli terrae and was followed by L&S, there was going to be difficulty. A huge anachronism is carried by this neat, modern phrase, "four corners." By taking anguli to mean “corners,” Freund implied an image or model in which outer lines meet to form external angles. The context of Latin citations of the anguli terrae,

however, would usually have been the model of a Roman groma, a circular instrument with kardo and decumannus. On that common surveying instrument and on a model which assumed it, quattuor anguli terrae would have to be inner angles formed at the centre where kardo and decumannus meet and cross, for there were no outer corners. It would also appear that both Freund and L&S had in mind the extremities of a plane

figure, as they insisted with their two-dimensional orbis. But in some contexts, the reference to orbis could well be to a drawing on the forma of orbis quadratus whose quarters of the celestial globe result from the

crossing of heavenly colures projected onto a figura of the spherical Earth. On such a drawing, extensive portiones terrae are thereby delineated from

their inner anguli to their horizons or beyond. From the outer regiones of those portiones terrae, the winds blow against buildings and against the

sails of ships (Vitruvius); from distant regiones the peoples come to assemble (Biblia Vulgata), and so forth. None of those rhetorical devices

implied

flatness. Many

of the words

and

phrases implied

three-

dimensions. There were no outer "corners" in any possible context. Anachronism easily misleads. Quattuor anguli terrae is a very old and rather flexible figure of speech. It was corrupted during the enlightened eighteenth and nineteenth centuries unfortunately, whereby strange translations became embedded in some of the best classical dictionaries and in histories of cartography upon which historical and literary scholarship depends." Two writers have recently maintained for example that early Christian authors from Origen to Isidore and even Augustinus and Beda venerabilis could have ? Introductory chapters of several authors: for example C.R. Beazley, The

Dawn of Modern Geography, 1 (London 1897); Leo S. Bagrow, History of Cartography (1944, 1951; rev. ed. R.A. Skelton, Cambridge, MA 1964). One of the most often cited was a Harvard student of C.H. Haskins, J.K. Wright, "Early Christian belief in a flat earth," in his Geographical Lore of the Time of the Crusades (New York 1925) 53-54; Wright's speculative assertions about a "flat earth" for Christians are completely contradicted by his own evidence. The notes by G. Aujac, prepared by J.B. Harley and D. Woodward, the editors of The History of Cartography,

1, (Chicago 1987), are useful but confusing. More reliable is Evelyn Edson, Mapping Time and Space. How Medieval Mapmakers Viewed their World. The British Library Studies in Map History, 1 (London 1997) 1-13 et passim.

GEOMETRICAL DIFFICULTIES WITH LATIN LEXICOGRAPHY 411

endured the notion that the Earth was spherical only with cognitive dissonance. Each author either affirmed or implied repeatedly that, whatever their actual Latin words, such Christian writers may not have understood the Earth to be spherical, simply because they were Christians. The claim is that, if early Christian writers used the words orbis or rotunditas, they must have really meant two dimensions; if they used the word globus, they must have meant mass, not shape." Verification of such speculation was sought in Lewis & Short. Nevertheless, it had long since been demonstrated that religious commitment was irrelevant to cognition and representation of an orb in three

dimensions." This is another example of how reliance upon the dictionaries and lexicons usually available to modern historians may be mis-

leading if the Latin words and phrases in question had mathematical connotations and scientific contexts or if they assumed cosmological models. As rhetorical figurae, anguli terrae and quattuor anguli terrae should not be construed apart from their early geometric and gromatic

contexts." Lewis & Short also referred the reader to angulus acutus, angulus obtusus, and rectiangulum, “a right-angled triangle.” The terms acutus, obtusus, and rectiangulum are not given geometric senses or even found

otherwise in L&S, but those lexicographers added a bit of astronomy with “meridanus circulus horizonta rectis angulis secat.” For angulus, Oxford also provided the meaning “angle or apex of a triangle or other plane rectilinear figure” and cited the term rectus angulus, “a right angle,” but not rectiangulum. Portio anguli for “segment of an angle" was not noticed by any of our authorities; but see Euclid’s Elementa III Def. 8 and Prop. 31. A sector of a circle was expressed in early Latin texts as arcus circuli and as portio circuli, but it is difficult to find these usages explained any! W.D. McCready, "Isidore, the antipodeans, and the shape of the earth,” ISIS 87/1 (1996) 108-127; and Leo Ferrari, “Augustine's cosmography," Augustinian Studies 27 /2 (1996) 131-180. Each relied largely upon Lewis & Short, as do most medieval historians. We shall conclude this study by recommending The Oxford Latin Dictionary as more dependable. " FS. Betten, "Knowledge of the sphericity of the Earth duriing the earlier middle ages,” Catholic Historical Review n.s. 3 (1923) 74-90; C.W. Jones, “The flat Earth,” Thought 9 (1934) 296-307; and Stevens (above, n. 9) 268-277. The essays

by Jones and Stevens were reprinted in 1995. P? On drawings of the Cosmos and the Earth and on terminology of three dimensions, see Stevens (above, n. 9) 268-277; and idem, “Earth, models of (before

1600)," in Gregory A. Good, ed., History of the Geosciences: An Encyclopedia (New York

1998) 182-188. On

the failure of translation when

context is ignored, see

further idem, “Letter to the editors,” ISIS 87/4 (1996) 678-679.

412

WESLEY M. STEVENS

where. Modern dictionaries of classical Latin recognise arcus as "a mathematical arc": arcus, arquus -us (m.) Freund’: Bogen zu SchieBen; Regenbogen; von anderen bogen fórmigen Dingen; so Bogen eines Zirkels, Kreisbogen, die Parallelkreise um die Erde. L&S: [Arquus; arcuo] something bent, a bow, the rainbow, arch or vault; mathe-

matical arc; five parallel zones of the globe. Cassell: Mathematical arc; a bow; the rainbow; an arch, vault, triumphal arch. Cassell*: Ditto * anything arched or curved. Oxford: Curving line; (geom.) an arc, a segment of a circle; one of the five zones into which the sky is divided; the horizon; a bow for shooting arrows; rainbow; arch, vault; anything like an arch, a curved piece. Thesaurus: N/A. Instrumentum bellicum vel venatorium, arcuum alii usus; arcus

sagittarius; arcus caeli, iris; in architectura: camera, hapsis; incurvum aliquid.

"Bogen eines Zirkels" or "segment of a circle" is given by all except Thesaurus; L&S introduced "mathematical arc"; but Oxford put them together more precisely as not only "a curving line" but also "(geom.) an arc, a segment of a circle." In addition, all thought of arcus caeli as iris, the rainbow. Freund also reported arcus as "die Parallelkreise um die Erde" which L&S numbered five; the Cassells ignored this, but Oxford enlarged it into "one of the five zones into which the sky is divided," for

which however sources were not given. Once again, several centuries of medieval lexicography took a completely different approach: arcus, arquus -us (m.) Du Cange!: N/A. Fornix curvatus, aut camera; apsis. Du Cange: N/A. Arcus recordationis. Locus sic dictus Romae.

Henschel: Curvatus. Vide arca - modus agri a forma quadrata. Maigne: N/ A. Apsis, couronne, fornix curvatus. Souter: Nil. Blaise': N/A. Arc (symb. de puissance). Blaise”: Ditto + cintre, arc, roüte (arch.); arc (mystique); tout ornement d'église en forme

d'arc; abside; portique

de basilique; couronne

offerte à l'autel; barrière

séparant le choeur de la nef; arcus balearis — arbalète.

Niermeyer: N/A. Arcade. Worterbuch: Instrumentum aptum ad sagittas mittendas — Bogen(waffe); spectat ad usum deorum, Amoris; res in formam partis circuli curvata - Bogen; fornix, concameratio; iris - Regenbogen; (math. vel astron.) pars circuli - Kreisbogen; circulus meridiei; cursus planetarum, signorum, lunae; curvus astrolabiorum, horologiorum; quartae partis circuli in instrumente horologico; de partibus abaci in curvaturas exeuntibus; pars curva plantarum, corporis, vasorum,

coronae;

instrumentum, quo imposito chordae sonant; arco - Sattelbogen; folium pergamenae, plicatura; curvatura rotae - Felge; fluxus fluminis.

GEOMETRICAL DIFFICULTIES WITH LATIN LEXICOGRAPHY 413 BritSources: Bow; crossbow; rainbow; something bow-shaped or arched, curve; (geom.) arc.

Arcus had no geometrical connotation for Du Cange, but was a curved

place or a curved form, for example the choir of a church. To this, Henschel added a reference to arca, a measure of land in quadrilaterals. Maigne could mention "couronne" and Niermeyer "arcade," while Blaise supplied a great number of other examples, including "arcus balearis — arbaléte." The Würterbuch also described arcus balearis as "Instrumentum aptum ad sagittas mittendas - Bogen(waffe)" but softened the blow "ad usum deorum, Amoris." Souter and Lexlugo ignored arcus

altogether. But Wérterbuch recognised that it meant not only in general "res in formam partis circuli curvata — Bogen" and in particular "(math. vel astron.) pars circuli - Kreisbogen," with astronomical examples such

as "circulus meridiei" and "quartae partis circuli in instrumente horologica." Without citations or explanation, British Sources was satisfied

with "(geom.) arc." All classical dictionaries thought that portio, portionis could be “a share, part, portion," but none knew the phrase portio circuli, "part of a

circle." The Cangists gave several meanings for portio, of which one was "pars, portio terrae," an area or region. No dictionary or lexicon offers

any meaning of portio or of pars, however, which would be applicable to the notion of an angular segment of a geometric or geodesic circle. So far

as the author has found, the term portio circuli is not recorded.“ Lines forming the sides of an angle are not expressed as a usage of either angulus or latus by any dictionary, glossary, or lexicon. latus -eris (n.)

Freund*: Die Seite eines Menschen oder Thieres, eines Lagers, Hügels, einer Insel; die Flanke,

Seite eines Heeres;

die Seiten verwandschaft,

von

vertrauten

Freunden; exempla varia. L&S: Lateral surface of a thing, coast, seaboard; the side, flank of man or animal;

intimate relationship. Cassell’: [fero] the side, flank of anything.

Cassell*: Ditto. Oxford: Vertical surface of a solid object, side, slope (of a mountain); any of the

faces of a solid geometrical figure; the side of the upper part man beings; (proximity) one's side, a companion; the flank (of Thesaurus: Animantium (sc. partes corporis ab ala ad femur sum porrectae); figurarum geometricarum, quadrati vel cubi;

of the trunk of huan army). et a ventre ad dorde parentela, quae

est "ex transverso" (nec ascendens nec descendens).

! There are occasional references by classical dictionaries to pro portione “in

proportion" or "in the degree proper to each"; these words are found in the Latin Euclid for "relative proportion," though not for "part of a circle."

414

WESLEY M. STEVENS

The meanings of latus in Freund and other classical dictionaries would be "juxta," "the side, flank" of men or beasts or of anything; it could be ^the vertical surface of a solid object," a "coast, seaboard," and the "slope of a mountain." For readers of mathematical texts however, Oxford includes latus as "any of the faces of a solid geometrical figure," and Thesaurus recognised that there could be sides "figurarum geometricarum, quadrati vel cubi." latus -eris (n.) Du Cange': Nil. Du Cange: Nil. Henschel: N/A. "En long et en large." Vide ad latus — lateraliter; latitudo. Maigne: N/A. Juxta; latitudo; vectigulis species; panni, vel telae latitudo. Vide pro elatus — celebrare; a latere - seorsum, separate. Souter: N/A. (adj. as subst.) latus clavus.

Blaise’: N/A. Cóté, flanc, legatus.

Blaise’: N/A. Légat du pape, flanc (union conjugale), concubinage. Niermeyer: N/A. A latere alicujus - “de la part de ~ from; par rapport à l'union conjugale. NvGloss: D'étres vivants; l'attachement; (math.) area, racine carrée? BritSources: Broad, wide (w. spec. measurement); covering a wide space, extensive, widely spread; having a wide scope; (subst. n.) width or breadth; associate, companion; branch of family; party, faction; lateral surface of geom. figure; edge on extremity of an area or region, coast, shore.

While Du Cange omitted latus, Henschel and Maigne thought that it could mean "latitudo," far and wide, but not breadth for example in the northern and southern partes (divisions) of the zodiacal band. They gave reference also to prepositional phrases: a latere, "seorsum, separate" or "de la part de" and ad latus, "lateraliter." For lateraliter, L&S had suggested not only "of or belonging to the side, lateral" but also "ad latus," that is, "intimate relationship," which in Blaise's medieval sources seems to have became "flanc (union conjugale), concubinage." Oxford tempered these suggestions by saying "(proximity) one's side, a companion," perhaps in order to allow for Blaise's "légat du pape," who may have been innocent of "union conjugale." Maigne would lift our spirits with pro elatus, "celebrare." Franz Blatt, founder of the Danish Novum Glossarium, may also have been in high spirits when he defined latus as "d'etres vivants"; his second meaning is "l'attachement," perhaps again suggesting "intimate relationship." Unlike other lexicographers, however, he added two meanings which are not in the least ambiguous:

"(math.) area; side of a triangle." Except for this, none of them knew 5 Another mathematical meaning is given by the Novum Glossarium: "num-

GEOMETRICAL DIFFICULTIES WITH LATIN LEXICOGRAPHY 415

that the term latus could refer to one or both sides of an angle: lateres anguli.

These by Latin assumed however,

are usages of writers from to understand often ignored

terms whose geometric meanings were expressed 100 B.C. through A.D. 1200. Their readers were the language in context. Modern lexicographers, usages of those words when they had geometric

meanings.

III

There were also special terms in the discipline of Geometry. A magister would lay out for his disciples a problema and indicate the beginning of

an exercise, perhaps a Euclidean text or one of his own. The books of Euclid were organised into definitiones, petitiones, communes animi conceptiones, and propositiones with figura or pictura, though not often as they

were organised by Heiberg in the mid-nineteenth century Greek edition. The Latin Elements which survive were beyond the chronological limits for editors of most classical dictionaries (ca. A.D. 200), though they

and related texts were well within the range of medieval lexicographers because large parts of the Elements were translated from Greek into Latin

by the sixth century. The Elements of Euclid was said by Cassiodorus to have been translated into Latin by Boetius (ca. A.D. 500). Whatever the

origins, fragments survive from the sixth century, and from the ninth century there are manuscripts of several partial translations, especially

for the plane geometry of the first four books on plane geometry." In addition, the complete Book I of Euclid's Elementa and parts of Book V

were separately translated into Latin during the middle of the ninth century as a supplement to the Institutiones book II of Cassiodorius.' The ber squared (or square root?)." Those opposite meanings cannot both be the proper translation of a late Latin text, which in any case is dated well beyond our period and has been omitted from this discussion.

16 Euclidis Elementa, vol. 1, Libri I-IV cum Appendicibus post I.L. Heiberg (Leipzig 1856), based primarily on the incomplete ms. Vaticanus graecus 190 (s. x), with additions and corrections from later Greek fragments and codices.

17 The Latin text of Euclidis Elementa I-IV and other fragments were published by Karl Lachmann

in F. Blume, K. Lachmann,

A. Rudorff, eds., Die

Schriften der romischen Feldmesser, 1 (Berlin 1848) 377-392; I.L. Heiberg, "Beitráge

zur Geschichte der Mathematik im Mittelalter," Zeitschrift für Mathematik und Philosophie 35 (1890) 86-98; and N. Bubnov, Gerberti postea Silvestri II papae opera mathematica (Berlin 1899), though without proper attribution. Euclid's Elementa

I-IV in Latin, Greek, and a new English translation has been prepared by Wesley M. Stevens, together with ancient and modern constructs and a commentary. 18 The Institutiones I by Cassiodorus, with additions from Euclid, was desig-

nated "third version" by Mynors (above, n. 6) 169-172. The several versions,

416

WESLEY M. STEVENS

plane geometry of Euclid was taught in many Carolingian schools and spread widely, becoming known during ninth to twelfth centuries. The term problema therefore should have been clear enough for our lexicog-

raphers, but it was not": problema -atis (f.) Freund’: [πρόβλημα] zur Auflósung vorgelegte Frage, Problem.

L&S: Nil

Cassell*: Nil. Cassell*: Nil. Oxford: N/A. Vide problemata -orum [προβλήματα] — subjects proposed for aca-

demic discussion, debate; problems. Thesaurus: [npéBAnua, problisma] propositio; questio quod disputatione solvendum sit; enigma; tigandum.

usu sollemni respicitur potius aliquid explicandum,

inves-

The term problema had been transliterated directly from Greek into Latin. Freund, Oxford, and Thesaurus defined problemata as "subjects for academic discussion," while it was omitted by L&S. Thesaurus also indicated that problema could be propositio, questio, or an enigma requiring explanation. Problematica could be medical according to Souter or juridical with Blaise. But none indicated that a problema could be geometrical. Mathematical questions for study were often excluded from these possibilities in medieval as they were in classical lexicons. Latin definitio (from the verb definio) could mean "Bestimmung" or "Erklárung," according to Freund. It was identified by L&S with English "definition" in the sense of "explanation"; for the Cassells it is "a fixing," and for Oxford "a specification." Thesaurus may be more adequate with

actio definiendi and various applications which are not mathematical. The term did not appear in Du Cange, though it was added to the later edimanuscripts, and editions of Euclid's geometry were identified by M. Folkerts,

Euclid in Medieval Europe (Dunellen/Winnipeg 1989). Note that the Latin text

which accompanies Euclid in the edition by Heiberg (above, n. 17) is that editor's own translation from Greek into Latin and thus is not relevant to this discussion. ? This discussion is based upon Stevens, "Euclidean geometry in the early middle ages: A preliminary reassessment,” in Marie-Thérése Zenner, ed., Vil-

lard's Legacy: Studies in Medieval Technology, Science and Art in Memory of Jean Gimpel (Aldershot 2004) 229-262, in addition to a thorough search of the lexicog-

raphical aids named above. See also Latin manuscripts in Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale Latin 13955 (A.D. 825-840) f. 107-123; Munich, Staatsbibliothek CLM 560 (A.D. 825-875) f. 122-149; Paris, BN Lat. 13020 (A.D. 850-875) f. 59v-83; Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale V.A.13 (A.D. 850-875/80) f. 1-15; Paris, BN

Lat.14080 (A.D. 875-900) f. 65-88; Bamberg, Staatliche Bibliothek Class. 55 (s. ix/x) f. 1-15. Many more copies are extant from schools of the tenth through seventeenth centuries.

GEOMETRICAL DIFFICULTIES WITH LATIN LEXICOGRAPHY 417 tion only in the special sense "rei alicuius cessio, abdicatio." Many other applications of definitio occur in the dictionaries and lexicons, but none allow a statement to be true in geometry, especially not in a Euclidean definition. Petitiones in Latin geometry are "postulates" which may not be self-evident but must be assumed without proof in order to proceed

with a coherent statement. Although the term appears clearly with that meaning in our textual sources, this sense of it does not occur in any

Latin dictionary or lexicon. Communes animi conceptiones is a phrase meaning "common mental constructs," or concepts which are agreed by all to be self-evident and are stated because they must be kept in mind. It is the equivalent of

"axioms," as we use that word today. Our lexicographical aids give numerous meanings for each separate word: communis, concipio, and concep-

tio, though not for the phrase itself. Lewis & Short for example make it clear that communis means "that which is common to several, to all; general, universal, public," while concipio is "to see, perceive, think." Lacking any reference to the Euclidean context, however, the notion of geometrical axioms is completely absent from all dictionaries and lexicons. Propositiones are decisive statements of any theme or subject, deriving

from proprio. Propositio has many meanings, of which the most general may be expressed as "a design, purpose" by Freund and L&S, or as "a subject or theme of discourse" by the Cassells, or as "das Voraussetzen des Syllogismus" by all of them, Oxford included. However, it may also be a problem or an exercise set for learning geometry, step by step. Souter took propositio in medieval Latin not only as "major premise" but

also as "decision" or "proof." That emphasis on "proof" may be intended to include demonstration of a geometrical Proposition but, if so,

it would be inappropriate. The earliest evidence of a "proof" in that sense is an addition to Cassiodorus' Institutiones II of I Prop. 1 from the

Latin Euclid in the middle of the ninth century.” But thereafter no Latin demonstrations or "proofs" of Euclidean Propositions have been found until those introduced by Adelard of Bath (A.D. 1090-ca. 1150). In the

earliest manuscripts of his translation of books I-VI (usually called " Adelard Il”), a few "proofs" were added in the margins, apparently as

glosses to the text. Thus far, no one has established whether any came from Euclid. Lexicographers are left therefore without evidence for geometrical use of the word propositio before those glosses appeared proba-

bly after the second half of the twelfth century.” In Latin geometry, propositiones were usually accompanied by figurae, ? One wonders however about the source for Souter's propositio as "a mystery

^"

?! Stevens (above, n. 1).

418

WESLEY M. STEVENS

formae, or picturae, that is, by constructs which present visually the basic elements to be discussed verbally and numerically. Those constructs could be drawn with digitus on the ground or marking the pulvis eruditus which was spread for this purpose on tabula (writing board) or on mensa (table, desk). One might also use a stylus on tabula cerea or argillacea (a board covered by wax or clay), or write and draw with calamus or penna on membranae (made of papyrus or parchment). Definitions may have

such constructs and Propositions always have them; doubtless the magistri created the constructs ad hoc in order to lead their discipuli through each demonstration of a Proposition. Latin terms for demonstration or "proof" might have been argumentum or documentum in logic, but these terms are not found with geometric propositions. The phrase quod erat demonstrandum is also not found.

Classical dictionaries recognise figura as "a sketch, drawing," though none give reference to a geometric construct of any sort, nor do they cite

the term pictura or forma which serve as synonyms for geometric figura. The meanings which dictionaries give for pictura (from pingo) refer to "a painting, the art of painting" or "a picture in words"; and for picturatus (adj.) to images which are "painted, pictured, party-coloured, varie-

gated" (L&S), and their definitions of forma are entirely rhetorical. An exception may be Thesaurus, one of whose definitions is "forma certis lineis quae sub aspectum oculorum cadunt." There follow examples of “corporis hominum," "deorum," "bestiarum, and "rerum." Figura rerum as a technical term includes "figura litterarum, figura geometrica" and "ars geometrica." The term figura, however, is not even found in Du Cange and was added to its fifth edition only with reference to figuralitas, as "juris formula." Maigne, Souter, Niermeyer, and Blaise continued this rhetorical sense of "langage figuré." On this basis, a master of geometry could never teach with a construct, nor could a mensor ever produce the proper layout or drawing of limites of property or its lineas declinations, "contours," nor file with the regional office a forma recta which would have legal value for claims to possession, taxation, or sale. IV Other figurae may not be linealis shape would usually be planum, drawings could represent circulus quadratus, polyhedron, epidonicus,

or planae however. Drawings of any figura plana or superficia, but those or triangulus but also sphaera, cubus, and so on. These and many related

terms and phrases are commonly found in technical handbooks, such as

that of Vitruvius or the collection called Gromatici veteres, and in more general Latin encyclopedia, such as that of Varro. Both types of Roman literature were almost always cited as sources for the dictionaries and

GEOMETRICAL DIFFICULTIES WITH LATIN LEXICOGRAPHY 419

lexicons here under discussion. Much of the language could also be learned from the first four books in Euclid's Elementa. Many Greek geometrical terms were transliterated into Latin but are not found in late Roman and early medieval texts before the twelfth century, for example

isogonus, with omologus, conus, and epipedus. But those which do occur earlier may not have been remarked by lexicographers of Latin: for example cubus, cyclus, epidonicon, polyhedron, perpendicula, parallelos. Freund

took cubus

or cybus

(from

Greek

κύβος)

to be "der geo-

metrische Würfel, Kubus," as did Oxford; but not L&S or Thesaurus. The word itself was ignored by the Cassells. Du Cange did not know a noun

cubus, but for quadratus he introduced the adjective cubitus. Both cubus and

cubitus were ignored by Maigne, Niermeyer,

and Blaise. British

Sources merely acknowledged “[κύβος] cube" without explanation. All classical dictionaries gave the usage numerus cubitus, "a cubic number," but that appears among the medieval lexicons only in Souter and British Sources. Lexicographers also had difficulties with quadratus. No mathematical meaning is given quadro by Freund, L&S, or the two Cassells. Oxford defined it as "to make four times as great, quadruple," but this too was

perhaps not mathematical, as the editor illustrated his meaning by remarking that versus quadratus would be a verse of eight feet. Oddly, Oxford referred to the neuter noun quadratum as either a "geometric

square" with two dimensions or a "cube" with three dimensions and thus an object. quadro -are Freund”: [quadrus] viereckig machen, zurichten, zuhauen; einer Sache ein Ebenmaf geben, sie gehórig fügen, vervollkommen; viereckig sein, daher pessen, sich schicken; von Rechnungen, passen, zutreffen. L&S: [quadrus) to make four-cornered, to square.

Cassell?: N/A. [quadrus] to make square, to square; to join properly together, complete rhythmically; (accounting) to agree. Vide quadratus - squared, square. Cassell*: q [quadrum] ditto. Oxford: [quadrum] to give a square or rectangular shape to, make square, square up; to make four times as great, quadruple; (fig.) to square, accord, fit in (with). Vide quadratum — geometric square, cube; squared stone; square block.

The verb quadro was omitted from Du Cange, Henschel, Maigne, Souter, and Niermeyer. (Thesaurus, Novum Glossarum, and British Sources have not yet progressed to letter Q.) quadro -are Du Cange': Nil. Du Cange*: Nil.

420

WESLEY M. STEVENS

Henschel: Nil. Maigne: Nil. Vide quarta pars anni - trimestre. Souter: Nil. Vide quadras = quadrans, the number four; quadratum et seq. Blaise': Équarrir; cadrer, convenir; quadrandi lex - la loi du carré (par laquelle nous établissons des figures carrées); cadrer, convenir: Vide quadrum — carré.

Blaise”: Encadrer (fig.). Vide quadra - quartier du pain, quartier de lune, feuille rectangulaire de parchemin, renfort d'un chateau; quadrangulo - rendre quadrangulaire; quadratim - en form carrée.

Blaise’: Ditto Blaise’. Niermeyer: Nil.

Blaise may assist the reader with quadrandi lex, “par laquelle nous établisson

des

figures

carrées”

(1954),

and

quadratim,

“en form carree,”

though he did not distinguish between making something four-cornered and the squaring of a number facere in se. Only the latter would be mathematical, and even then we have found Arithmetic but no Geometry.

Other forms deriving from quadro are quadrans, “a fourth,” quadratus (adj.) and quadratim (adv.), which could mean either the form of a square

and “squared stone block,” or quadrifarius and quadrifarius, “fourfold, of

four kinds."? The Cangists had offered quadratus, “(Math.) in quatuor; latus alteri aequali; quadratus orbis, in quatuor partes divisus.” Incidentally, Henschel also referred to “quadrificum orbem"; when Blaise carried forward one meaning of quadratus as "divisé en 4 parties," he too tried to explain

it with the phrase "per totum quadratum orbem (aux quatre coins du monde)," carrying forward the erroneous notion of Freund and L&S.

This resulted from an accumulation of confusion which we discussed

above (pp. 412-415).? Triangulus appeared as either adjective or substantive in Freund and

L&S, though the Cassells and Oxford distinguish between the adjective triangulus, "having three corners," and the noun triangulum, "a triangle." As an adjective, triangulus applies to anything or any situation having three tight corners, extremes, or aspects, including a triangle, presumably geometric. Even so, the term did not occur in Du Cange, Maigne, or Niermeyer. Henschel inserted triangulare, "facere aliquid triangulum," 2 Arnobius Afer (fl. 295), Hieronymus (d. 420), Augustinus (d. 430), and Cassiodorus (d. 583). Quadruplus, "fourfold," and quadriga, "a four horse chariot,"

were used in all periods of Latin. * The term orbis quadratum can refer to a globe in three dimensions if its pictura plana is divided in quatro, that is, into four parts representing the four slices

of an apple, but such an orbis can never have four parts with outer corners like a cube.

GEOMETRICAL DIFFICULTIES WITH LATIN LEXICOGRAPHY 421 Souter has triangularis, "triangular." To his "triangulaire" Blaise added triangulates, “a trois cótes, triangulaire, placé en triangle." All usages were adjectival, and their examples from diverse texts do not indicate

the sense of a geometrical figure or the functions much later described as

trigonometry. The term trigonum is found in the phrase numerus trigonum, but with the figural meaning required by Pythagorean formation of points to rep-

resent the series 1, 2, 3, 4, et seq. Those points were placed in a triangular shape which could be enlarged by each new row of points to represent numeri 3, 6, 10, and so forth. Numerous references to trigonus and trigonum are found in classical and early medieval Latin literature, but

they often serve arithmetic rather than geometric purposes. Use of either triangulus or trigonum to mean a line drawing of three angles and continuous sides enclosing a triangular plana figura may be found in Ausonius and other medieval authors according to Du Cange, Souter, and

Blaise’, though not according to Henschel or Maigne. Forgetting his previous work, Blaise? found only ducere per trigonum — “multiplier par

trois" (arithmetic). None of lexicographers acknowledged the uses of trigonus (adj.), "triangular," and trigonum (subst. n.), "a triangle," in the Latin Euclid.” Other expected terms may be found in the sources for our lexicog-

raphical aids, but within our period they did not have mathematical meanings, for example example is ancient and "emplacement urbain emplacement rural ...; Mensores did survey

area, census, columna, and res. The word area for medieval Latin. Niermeyer defined it correctly as occupé par un batiment ou destine B à y bátir; emplacement industriel ...; aire B battre le blé." to determine superficies, the space enclosed by

boundaries, but they did not call that space area. Apparently, the term did not become synonymous with superficies in a gromatic forma or a

geometric figura until the last quarter of the twelfth century or later. Costa quadrati, radix, and several other terms were transliterated from ^ Trigonometric functions as such had not occurred to Euclid, Ptolemy, others writing in Greek or to anyone writing classical or medieval Latin until “Johannes Molitoris" or Müller or Regiomontanus (A.D. 1436-1476): C.C. Gillispie,

ed., Dictionary of Scientific Bibliography, 11 (New York 1975) 348-352. Although occasional arithmetical operations serve purposes similar to functions later designated as sine, cosine, and tangent, they are rare; and most citations of "Trigonometry” earlier than the fifteenth century in that Dictionary are not reliable. 5 See also an interpolation of Cassiodori Institutiones ILiii.1. Regular use of trigonus and trigonum as a geometric figure is found in the margins of twelfthcentury Latin translations of Euclidean texts attributed to Adelard of Bath who may have taken the term from a copy of the ninth-century Latin Euclid which he used for assistance with his translation from Arabic.

422

WESLEY M. STEVENS

Arabic, Syriac, or Hebrew for geometric usage, but not before the twelfth

and thirteenth century. All of the terms are found in the research tools upon which we depend, but very few of their geometrical uses in Latin as that language was actually written during the Roman Republic and the early Roman Empire, or as it was used by later Roman and medieval writers. Thus it appears that our dictionaries, thesauri, and glossaries are of quite limited value for translating and understanding a significant part of the surviving literature. This increases the difficulties faced not only by those who explicate texts from a specific subject area but also by those who attempt

to make broad evaluations of culture in those changing times. The work of Alexander Freund and its continuance by Lewis & Short must be judged quite unreliable in this regard and sometimes radically misleading. In some cases, this prejudicial situation of lexicography has induced historians to place quite a low value upon mathematical and scientific achievements of Roman culture or even to denigrate that part of early medieval culture. In view of the inadequacies and the evident confusion of many lexicographical aids upon which we all depend, perhaps the language in which the evidence of geometry and the several contexts in which that language has always been used should be reconsidered. On the other hand, several lexicographical aids published during the last twenty years have begun to meet this need. One is the Oxford Latin Dictionary, begun in 1933 by Alexander Souter and J.M. Wylie, and continued in 1939 by Wylie and Cyril Bailey. It was reorganised in 1954 by P.G.W. Glare" and finally published in a series of fascicles from 1968 to

its completion in 1982. Their Latin sources extended to the end of the second century A.D., to which were added third-century jurists quoted from Justinian's Digesta (ca. A.D. 530), Biblia Vulgata translated by Hieronymus (d. ca. 420), Macrobii Saturnalia and Commentarium in Somnium Scipionis (ca. 400), Augustini De civitate dei (413-426), and Isidori Origines (612-636), but not the latter’s schoolbook on scientific learning.” The ?5 Although they are cited by B. Hughes, “Arithmetic and geometry," in Medieval Latin (above, n. 3) 348—354, none of them are found from sixth to eleventh

century in the early translations of Euclidis Elementa, books I-V, edited by Lachmann or Bubnov or Folkerts (above, n. 19).

? Professor Glare joined the editorial staff in 1950 and became editor-in-chief in 1954. He established the principle that secondary citations would be ignored and each source would be newly read. 3 Isidorus, De natura rerum (612, revised 613). The 61 dedicatory hexameters

by his king (613) are a short introduction to astronomy and cosmology: "Incipit Epistula Sisebuti Regis Gothorum Missa Ad Isidorum De Libro Rotarum," in Jacques

Fontaine,

ed.,

Isidore de Seville.

Traité de la nature

(Bordeaux

1960)

329-335, from his protégé, the Visigothic King Sisebuto. These two works circu-

GEOMETRICAL DIFFICULTIES WITH LATIN LEXICOGRAPHY 423 sources for Oxford were similar to those which had been used by earlier

classical dictionaries such as Freund and Lewis & Short, but none of them included many well-known texts of significance for mathematics and science, such as Censorinus, Gromaticus vetus, Geminus, Vegetius,

Solinus, Chalcidius, or Martianus Capella. On the other hand, the firsthand use of texts insisted upon by Glare resulted in the recovery of many reliable definitions of mathematical, astronomical, and other sci-

entific terms which had always been present in the words and phrases of those same texts. Such progress in lexicography was great. That praise of The Oxford Latin Dictionary, however, applies only to words in the second half of the alphabet. Mittellateinisches Worterbuch commenced preparation during the mid-

dle of the 1960s, and its first volume shared in the common failings of other lexicographical endeavours for words commencing with letters A

and B. The situation changed however with the second volume (letter C) under the influence of the great Latin philologist and paleographer, Bernhard Bischoff (Munich). To some extent, the most recent fascicles of

the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae, beginning with the letter O, have also been more inclusive of arithmetical and geometrical meanings, again with the participation and influence of Professor Bischoff. Thus we may thank

those modern lexicographers whose literary humanism included the language of mathematics and natural sciences within appropriate contexts.

In addition, many Latin (n. 3 above) are matical and scientific limitations have been

essays edited by Mantello and Rigg in Medieval quite informative about the language of mathestudies in the middle ages. Their strengths and due to the use primarily of printed texts from the

late twelfth century to the fifteenth century, a very rich period for all the sciences. Regretably, each of them ignored most of the mathematical and scientific works written between A.D. 200 and 1200 which concern us here and display little concern for unpublished sources in manuscript. That early thousand years was quite productive of Latin mathematical and scientific sources. Those four aids to understanding Latin usage

have enlarged our appreciation of the richness of that culture in the early middle ages, a culture whose Latin terminology reveals itself to include major elements of Geometry.

lated through almost every monastic and cathedral school of Europe but have yet to be used for Latin lexicography.

424

WESLEY M. STEVENS APPENDIX

Information in this study has been selected from the following glossaries, lexicons, thesauri, and dictionaries?: CLASSICAL LATIN Freund? (1844-1845)

Gesammtwürterbuch der lateinischen Sprache zum Schul- und Privat-Gebrauch

by

Wilhelm Freund (Breslau 1844—45), two volumes.

N.B. This is an abbreviated edition of Freund's four volume Gesammtwürterbuch der lateinischen Sprache (Leipsig 1834-1845). The earlier and larger book identified his sources quite fully, but the shorter version also contains some corrections. Lewis & Short [L&S] (1850)

A New Latin Dictionary, founded on the translation of Freund's Latin-German Lexicon edited by E.A. Andrews, LL.D., revised, enlarged, and in great part rewritten by Charlton T. Lewis, Ph.D. and Charles Short, LL.D. (New York 1850, revised edition 1879). N.B. Elias A. Andrews translated the larger work of Wilhelm Freund, with additions and corrections from several other lexicons in A Copious and Critical LatinEnglish Lexicon (1850). Revision of Andrew's work was begun by Lewis (1-216),

completed by Short (217-2019), and published by Harper and Brothers (New York 1850). It has often been reprinted by the American Book Company and by Oxford University at the Clarendon Press, each said to be a "revised edition." No revisions have been noted. Cassell? (1886)

Cassell's Latin Dictionary, second edition by J.R.V. Marchant (London 1886). N.B. The first edition by John Relly Beard (1800-76) and Charles Beard (1827-88)

was published at London by Cassell & Co. in 1854. It was revised by J.R.V. Marchant in 1886, and that edition may be designated in sequence as Cassell’. Another revision was due to Joseph F. Charles in 1907 (= Cassell’). Cassell* (1959)

Cassell's New Latin Dictionary, fourth edition by D.P. Simpson. (London 1959). N.B. Simpson said that this version was "suited for the middle forms of public

schools" and that he had omitted many "archaic or post-Augustan" usages on the "traditional principle that ‘classical’ Latin ... should be the prime concern." If the definitions offered by Cassell? and Cassell‘ are in agreement, they may be

referred to here as "the Cassells."

Oxford (1968-82)

The Oxford Latin Dictionary, edited by P.G.W. Glare et al. (Oxford, fascicles published 1968-1982). A one volume edition was issued 1982. Thesaurus (1900 et seq.)

? Useful surveys of these and similar works are by Richard Sharpe, "Modern dictionaries of medieval Latin," in J. Hamesse, ed., Bilan et perspectives des études médiévales en Europe

(Louvain-le-Neuve

1995)

289-304,

and

his "Vocabulary,

word formation, and lexicography," in Medieval Latin (above, n. 3) 95-105, esp. 102-105; and by Mantello and Rigg, "Latin dictionaries and related works," op.

cit. 32-36.

GEOMETRICAL DIFFICULTIES WITH LATIN LEXICOGRAPHY 425 Thesaurus Linguae Latinae, letters A to M, O to P [progenies], sponsored by the five German academies (Leipzig 1951 et seq.) N.B. This great work includes classical and late Latin authors to the end of the sixth century, and it quotes them extensively. Fasc. VIII/ xii seq. for letter N has not appeared. No information about words after progenies has been published thus far.

MEDIEVAL LATIN? Du Cange! (1678) Glossarium ad Scriptores mediae et infimae latinitatis auctore Carolo du Fresne Domino Du Cange. (Paris 1678), tres tomi.

N.B. Charles Du Fresne (1610-1688) is usually denominated le Sieur Du Cange. This work was assembled from his notes late in life at the insistence of friends.

The Glossarium latinitatis was reprinted without change in two volumes at Frankfurt-am-Main (1679-81) and at Lyon (1688). The work of Du Cange was revised

and enlarged by several Benedictinie monks of Saint-Germain des Prés, especially Maur d’Antine, Nicolas Toustain, and Pierre Carpenter, Glossarium ad Scriptores mediae et infimae latinitatis, editio nova et locupletior et auctior opere et studio monachorum ordinis Sancti Benedicti et congregatione Sancti Mauri (1733-36). Du Cange (1688)

Appendix ad Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis auctore Carolo du Fresne Domino Du Cange, volume II, part 13. (Lyon 1688). N.B. This Appendix was prepared by Du Cange to supplement his previous work and was published shortly after his death in Glossarium ad scriptores mediae et infimae graecitatis, accedit appendix ad Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis, una cum brevi etymologico linguae Gallicae ex utroque glossario. The appendix was not usually noticed by later lexicographers. Henschel (1840-1850)

Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis, conditum a Carolo Du Fresne Domino Du Cange auctum a monachis ordinis s. Benedicti cum supplementis integris D. P. Carpenterii, Adelungii, aliorum, suisque digesset G.A.L. Henschel (Paris 1840—1850), 7 vols. N.B. The Glossarium latinitatis begun by le Sieur Du Cange and extended by the Maurists was enlarged again by G.A.Louis Henschel in seven volumes, incorporating also many other contributions. He did not use Du Cange's Appendix (1688). We sometimes refer to this accumulation of work as "the Cangists." Hen-

schel's work was reprinted by Léopold Favre (1883-87), and this last modified version has often been referred to erroneously as "Du Cange." Maigne d'Arnis (1866) Lexicon manuale ad scriptores mediae et infimae latinitatis, par W.-H. Maigne d'Arnis ... publié par M. l'Abbé Migne (Paris 1866) 9 Consideration should also be given to M. Plezi, ed., Lexicon Mediae et Infimae latinitatis Polonorum | Slownik Lacinuy Sredioweecznej w Polsce Academia Scientiarum Polona / Polska Adademia Nauk (Wroclaw 1953-1998): letters A-H; and to

J. W. Fuchs, Ο. Weijers, M. Gumbert-Hepp, Lexicon Latinitatis Nederlandicae Medii Aevi Woordenboek von het Middleeuws Latijn von de Moordelijke Nederlanden (Leiden 1977-1998): letters A-P. Unfortunately, they have not yet become available to this author.

426

WESLEY M. STEVENS

Souter (1949, 1957)

A Glossary of Later Latin to 600 A.D., compiled by Alexander Souter (Oxford 1949; revised edition 1957). N.B. The author (1873-1949) "intended to include all known 'common' words that ... do not occur in the period before A.D. 180 and yet may be certainly or reasonably assigned to a date earlier than A.D. 600" (iv). His own corrections were added only in a later edition (1957) which is cited here.

Blaise’ (1954) Dictionnaire latin-français des auteurs chrétiens, par Albert Blaise, revu spécialement pour le vocabulaire théologique par Henri Chirat (Strasbourg 1954). Blaise? (1967)

Dictionnaire latin-frangais des auteurs du moyen-áge/ Lexicon latinitatis medii aevi, praesertim ad res ecclesiasticus investigandus pertinens, par Albert Blaise (Corpus Christianorum continuatio mediaevalis; Turnhout, Belgium 1967). N.B. The second effort by Blaise is not only based upon a wider use of sources

but also often gives widely divergent meanings of words. Niermeyer (1954-64) Mediae latinitatis lexicon minus, Lexique Latin médiévale — Frangais/Anglais par Jan Frederik Niermeyer (Leiden 1976).

N.B. This work was intended to include sources from A.D. 550-1150; thus Niermeyer placed an asterisk (*) to indicate that the word had also existed with that

usage during A.D. 200-550. The primary editor died 1965, having published the

word vaccarius; the remainder was completed by C. Van der Kiest. Niermeyer seems to have preferred chronicles or legal works as sources, and the meanings he offers for mathematical or scientific senses for any terms are often quite bizarre. NvGloss (1957-1998, 2000 et seq.) Novum Glossarium mediae latinitatis ab anno DCCC usque ad annum MCC, edendum curavit consilium academiarum consociatarum, eds. Franz Blatt, Y. Lefevre, Fr.

Arnaldi et al. (Hafniae 1957-98), letters L to P [pezzola]; Supplementum (1989). N.B. This dictionary has completed L-M-N-O and part of letter P; it is now being prepared in Paris by Franz Dolbeau, with the assistance of C.N.R.S. and the Mittellateinisches Worterbuch. Worterbuch (1959 et seq.)

Mittellateinisches Würterbuch bis zum ausgehenden 13. Jahrhundert, sponsored by the Bavarian Academy in association with six other academies. Eds. Paul Lehmann, Johannes Stroux, Bernhard Bischoff; Redaktion von Otto Prinz, Johannes Schneider, Theresia Payr et al. (München 1959, 1967 et seq.), letters A to C [comprovin-

cialis]. Further fascicles have appeared recently, but they have not yet become available to this writer. BritSources (1975 et seq.)

Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources, letters A to N, prepared by R.E. Latham, David R. Howlett et al. (London 1975 et seq.).

N.B. Over 5200 sources for this lexicon have been cited by Richard Sharpe, A Handlist of the Latin Writers of Great Britain and Ireland before 1540. Publications of The Journal of Medieval Latin (Leiden 1997).

30 ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE FOR FOOD OFFERINGS IN THE GRAVES OF ROMAN NORTH AFRICA! LEA STIRLING

Literary, epigraphic, architectural, and iconographic evidence all indicate that activities involving food offerings, sacrifice, and ritual ban-

queting took place in the cemeteries of the Roman world, including those of Roman North Africa.? Nevertheless, despite a century's worth of excavation in cemeteries, archaeological remains from sacrifice or offer-

ings have contributed very little to our knowledge of Romano-African

funerary ritual. Such remains are identified at a number of cemeteries, but thus far there has been no attempt to evaluate or synthesize this information. As a component of funerary practice, food offerings have the potential to reveal aspects of social or regional identity, religion, or response to external influences. Does funerary "cuisine," for instance, change over time? Does it reflect a typical diet of the area, or are foods specially chosen for criteria of religion or expense? While it will not be

possible to answer all these questions at present, it is worthwhile to survey and evaluate the evidence currently available from North Africa. It is important to distinguish at the outset two different situations in which food could be offered at graves and come to be preserved in the

archaeological record. Activities taking place during the inhumation of the body, its cremation, or the redeposition of ashes could involve offerings made into the open grave or into the pyre. These procedures are referred to here as "rituals of disposal." Remains of offerings made dur-

ing rituals of disposal, if they survived, would be found with the body or in the grave shaft. Once the shaft was sealed, and a tomb marker possibly placed over it, further offerings and banqueting could occur, poten! This paper has profited from discussions with N. Ben Lazreg, A. Burke, D. Mattingly, R. Pelling, and A.M. Yasin. I am grateful to S. Jezik, M. Lawall, J. Moore, M. MacKinnon and D. Stone for valuable advice on earlier drafts of the manuscript. Naturally, they cannot be faulted for remaining infelicities. The Canada Research Council Chair in Roman Archaeology supported the research

and writing of the paper. 2 Toynbee (1971), Février (1977) and (1978), Prieur (1984), Lindsay (1998).

427

428

LEA STIRLING

tially leaving archaeological finds on or beside the tomb marker. These

activities might take place immediately after the tomb was sealed as part of the funeral, or on commemorative occasions long after it had been sealed, or both. Archaeologically, it would usually be difficult to distin-

guish the length of time that had passed from the sealing of the tomb to the deposit of food remains. Therefore, these rituals at the sealed grave are referred to collectively as "rituals of commemoration." Because finds within a grave and its shaft come from a relatively sealed context, our focus here is principally on the remains of foodstuffs used in rituals of disposal, although textual and iconographic evidence emphasizes rituals of commemoration. We concentrate on pre- or non-Christian practices. Before examining reports of actual seeds or bones found in tombs, it is useful for comparative purposes to survey briefly the nonarchaeological evidence for food offerings at graves. Literary texts (commencing with ones written in Africa) mention offerings at graves during and after the funeral. African epigraphic sources concur. Certain Romano-African tomb types have spaces and openings for offerings. Visual imagery on tombs encompasses food and sacrifice. Many of these sources seem

to refer to commemorative

occasions rather than the mo-

ment of disposal, and most are unspecific concerning food types. The archaeological evidence for food offerings comprises animal bones or seeds preserved from fruit, vegetable, or grains. Identifying and interpreting such finds requires nuanced consideration of the processes that created them, the context in which they are found, and the methods

used to recover them. Surveying the existing data for food remains (seeds and bones) in North African cemeteries, we will focus most spe-

cifically on evidence for offerings made during the disposal of the corpse. Archaeological evidence possibly relating to commemorative offerings and funeral dining at the tomb marker will be considered only briefly. There is scattered information from cemeteries at Sétif, Tipasa, and elsewhere, and deliberate sampling for seeds in graves at Leptiminus provides important evidence. Comparative studies from other re-

gions of the Roman empire show the potential information that can be gleaned from study of environmental remains. NON-ARCHAEOLOGICAL

EVIDENCE

FOR SACRIFICE

AND

DINING

AT TOMBS:

TEXTUAL SOURCES

A generalized account of non-Christian funeral practices in North Africa

appears in a treatise by a third-century bishop of Carthage, Tertullian. Veritatem Deus aperit; sed vulgus irridet, existimans nihil superesse post mortem; et tamen defunctis parentant, et quidem impensissimo officio, pro moribus eorum, pro temporibus esculentorum; ut quos negant sentire quicquam, escam desiderare praesumant. At ego magis ridebo

FOOD OFFERINGS IN THE GRAVES OF NORTH AFRICA

429

vulgus, tunc quoque, cum ipsos defunctos atrocissime exurit, quos postmodum gulosissime nutrit, iisdem ignibus et promerens et offendens. O pietatem de crudelitate ludentem! sacrificat, an insultat, cum crematis cremat? (De resurrectione carnis 1; trans. author)

God reveals the truth, but the crowd ridicules it, thinking that nothing survives beyond death. Nevertheless, they make offerings to their deceased relatives, indeed, with the further costly duty, mandated by their customs, of providing the right foods for the season. It's as though they imagine that the dead, whom they claim feel nothing, long for a meal! But I will mock the masses even more when they burn up those very dead whom

afterwards they nourish with the daintiest meals, reward-

ing them and offending them with the same flames. Oh, piety that mocks with cruelty! When the crowd cremates things for those already cremated (crematis cremat), does it sacrifice to them or insult them?

With the references to cremating the corpse, this passage clearly depicts rituals of disposal, although it may also extend to rituals of commemoration. The mention of the "same flames" consuming the body and the meal indicates that food was thrown into the pyre. The second reference to burned offerings (crematis cremat) probably also refers to practices at

the pyre, although it could be a more general reference to commemorative offerings at the tomb at the Parentalia, a yearly festival commemorating the dead, or other occasions (see below). Tertullian's portrayal of the opulence of the food offerings may be exaggerated as it fits in well

with a recurring stress on the drunkenness and excess embedded in pagan ritual. He does not specify foodstuffs. African patristic authors also refer to commemorative occasions with

feasting and food offerings at tombs. Tertullian speaks of people going to graves outside the walls with food and delicacies (obsoniis et matteis),

but derides them as consuming the offerings themselves and getting drunk Augustine (late fourth and early fifth century) decried Christian feasting or drinking in cemeteries, martyrs' shrines or cemetery churches. In a well-known passage in the Confessions, Augustine relates

how his mother Monica was rebuked by the bishop Ambrose of Milan for carrying food offerings to the shrines of martyrs? He describes her bringing porridge, bread, and wine (pultes et panem et merum) and con-

suming a little at each shrine to honour the martyr, as she had done in Africa (sicut in Africa solebat). Ambrose's objections were twofold: he

wanted

to avoid accusations of drunken behaviour by Christians at

tombs, and he felt these actions too closely resembled the rituals of the > De anim. 4: quando extra portam cum obsoniis et matteis tibi potius parentans ad

busta recedis, aut a bustis dilutior redis. * For instance: De mor. eccles. 34, Ep. 22, 29, c. Faust. 20.21, Serm. 273.8.

* Conf. 62.

430

LEA STIRLING

Parentalia. This passage bespeaks a deep-rooted Romano-African tradition of consuming food at tombs to honour the dead, but unlike Tertullian, Augustine is not directly discussing pagan practices. Rather, his

concern here and elsewhere is with Christians who feast and drink at tombs to commemorate martyrs and relatives. In his eyes, these practices too closely resemble pagan worship in temples and cemeteries. He too emphasizes the gluttony and inebriation involved in commemorative

feasting. Modern scholarship on the Parentalia in North Africa reflects Augustine's preoccupations with behaviour by Christians and is mainly

concerned with the continuation of funeral dining into Christian times rather than its significance or nature in pre-Christian practice. Outside Africa, there are scattered references, mainly élite and some-

times antiquarian, from the city of Rome concerning the role of foods during a funeral. Cicero and Ovid refer to animal sacrifices made to the dead during the funeral ceremony, with Cicero specifically mentioning pigs and rams.’ The funerary rites ended with a graveside meal for the mourners, referred to as the silicernium. A sausage named silicernium formed part of the sacrifice Another meal took place on the ninth day, the novemdial sacrificium? Sporadic references to this occasion mention libations of wine, milk, water, and blood. Eggs, vegetables, beans, lentils,

salt, The and both

bread, and poultry were elements in the accompanying banquet." second-century author Lucian of Samosata twice mentions libations burnt offerings for the dead in his satirical dialogue On Funerals, times in the context of mocking people who imagine these gifts

somehow nourishing the corpse in the Underworld." One reference is clearly situated at the pyre, the other at the tomb. The latter passage seems to refer to offerings made periodically at the sealed tomb. 5 For instance, Quasten (1940), Février (1977), (1978), Marrou (n.d). Because

the passages from Augustine focus on the behaviour of Christians and concern practices of commemoration rather than disposal, they are not discussed at length in the present paper. ? Cic. Leg. 2.57; Ov. Met. 6.566-70, discussed by King (1998) 403—404, 406.

8 Festus-Paulus 377L, cited by Lindsay (1998) 72. ? Most modern scholars view this meal as occurring on the ninth day

after

the silicernium: Lindsay (1998) 71-73. Charles King (1998) 411—413 argues that the "ninth day" refers to the ninth day after funeral rituals have begun and that the novemdial sacrificium is therefore another name for the silicernium. Another unclear term is feriae denicales.

1 Sources collected by Lindsay (1998) 73: Serv. A. 5.78; Tac. Ann. 3.2, Hist. 2.95; Juv. 5.85; Lucian Cat. 7; Tac. Ann. 6.5; Plu. Quaest. conv. 7, Crass. 19; Hor. S.

2.6.63. Lindsay (78 n. 13) adds, "There is little literature that deals in any depth with Roman funerary food." !! Luct. 9 (tomb), 19 (pyre).

FOOD OFFERINGS IN THE GRAVES OF NORTH AFRICA

431

The yearly festival of the Parentalia commemorated the dead through banqueting and offerings of food and drink at the tomb. The celebrations are described at some length by Ovid, and are frequently referred to in

other sources." Although offerings made at the time of disposal are the main focus of the present paper, Ovid's description of the Parentalia is

important in that it provides insight into the possible scale of offerings and ways to present them. Celebrated over nine days in February, this festival honoured the cult of ancestors and comprised some public ritual

alongside private observances in cemeteries. In one of the few specific descriptions of offerings at graves, Ovid makes it clear that families left

offerings of food or flowers for the manes: The ghosts ask but little: they value piety more than a costly gift: no greedy gods are they who in the world below do haunt the banks of Styx. A tile wreathed with votive garlands, a sprinkling of corn, a few grains of salt, bread soaked in wine, and some loose violets, these are of-

ferings enough: set these on a potsherd and leave it in the middle of the road. Not that I forbid larger offerings, but even these suffice to appease the shades: add prayers and appropriate words at the hearths set up for the purpose."ἢ

In contrast to the portrayal of extravagance in Tertullian and Augustine,

Ovid emphasizes that the shades value pietas over opulence and gives examples of modest gifts.# He also mentions setting up altars, perhaps temporary ones (positis ... focis)? Passing references by Tibullus and

Plautus indicate that food was left on tombs after the banqueters had

left.' The living also feasted during the Parentalia. Thus, the African and Roman sources concur in referring to food offerings during the funeral and at later commemorative occasions. The

inspecificity of the African sources as well as the vastly different contexts

12 Fast. 2533-70, discussed by King (1998) 420-428, Lindsay (1998) 74-76, Toynbee (1971) 63-64. Some ancient sources also refer to the denicales dies as a time of feasting. While there is dispute over the interpretation of this term, King (1998) 415—420 argues that it was a variant name for the main meal held at the

end of the funeral rites (the silicernium) and that it also referred to a yearly commemoration held on the anniversary of the person's death. As a graveside event, it perhaps included offerings such as wine. The living also worshipped the dead in May at the Lemuria, but these rites were conducted in the house rather than at

the tomb. 3 Fast. 2.53543, trans. J.G. Frazier, Ovid's Fasti (London/ New

York 1931) 97

(Loeb).

^ Note that most of these offerings would not be archaeologically recover-

able, even with archaeobotanical flotation.

55 King (1998) 425. 16 Tib. 1.5.53; Pl. Ps. 348.

432

LEA STIRLING

of all the passages make further comparison difficult. To what extent might testimonia from the city of Rome be relevant for Roman Africa as well? Certainly, Roman customs influenced other elements of African funerary practice. Most tellingly, perhaps, by the end of the first century A.D. North Africa adopted cremation, the norm in Rome. Then, as part of an empire-wide trend led by the city of Rome, North African ceme-

teries shifted to inhumation in the late second and third centuries." In the early empire, some types of tomb marker in Romano-African cemeteries were clearly modelled on Roman ones; one thinks particularly of the cippi and altars of the Cemetery of the Officials in Carthage, where inscriptions indicate that the deceased were slaves and freedmen of the imperial administration." Other Roman funerary usages may well have accompanied these Roman tomb monuments and practices of disposal.

Thus, the textual sources from Rome, such as they are, have the potential to contribute to an investigation of Romano-African practices. NON-ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE: EPIGRAPHIC, ARCHITECTURAL, REPRESENTATIONAL EVIDENCE

AND

Funerary inscriptions in Africa and elsewhere refer to commemorative

offerings at the tomb.? Wine is the most commonly specified item.” The epitaph of a man from Thagora in Numidia (who died in Rome) invites

the dead to attend the feast (alogia).? Alogies appears once in North Africa, on an inscription which refers to the tomb as a table (mensa).? The term mensa appears in North African funerary inscriptions from the late

third century on.” Many of these inscriptions are plainly Christian, although some do not give a clear indication of religious affiliation and may be pagan. The term "table" is certainly suggestive of dining at the tomb.

A well-known

inscription from Satafis, dated

to 299, makes

this

connection explicit, calling for the installation of a mensa for banqueting at the tomb and describing food, cups and covered vessels being brought to it.“ In the late third century and beyond, wealthier tombs were sup18 19 2 21

Février (1992), Morris (1992). Delattre (1889). Lattimore (1942) 132-135. Lattimore (1942) 134. CIL 6.26554.

2 CIL 8.20334, found near Gergur in Algeria: me(n)sa Crescentis eco tibi me(s)a ovbiftte alogies. The meaning of Ovbiftte is not known.

3 Février (1964) 113-115, 125, 128-130. #4 CIL

8.20277:

Funera

multa

quidem

condigna

iam

misimus

omnes/

insuper

ar(a)equ(e) deposit(a)e Secundulae matri/ lapideam placuit nobis atponere mensam] in qua magna eius memorantes plurima facta] dum cibi ponuntur calicesq(ue) et copertae.

FOOD OFFERINGS IN THE GRAVES OF NORTH AFRICA

433

plied with a masonry table and even couches for commemorative dining. Some tombs are decorated with scenes of dining.” Aspects of funerary architecture and decoration likewise refer to or presuppose commemorative sacrifice and offerings. Tomb markers in the shape of altars were popular in the first century A.D. (for instance at the Cemetery of the Officials in Carthage). The term ara (altar) is often

used in epitaphs to refer to the tomb.” Low, square tables attached to tomb markers or placed in front of them were a commonplace in cemeteries of the Roman era." A shallow depression in the centre of many of these tables seems designed to hold offerings, and sometimes the surface

is burned. Libation tubes opening from the surface of tomb markers are another architectural feature clearly related to offerings.” Embedded

within the tomb marker, these ceramic tubes normally lead to a catchment vessel or to a cremation urn interred within the marker. These openings provide a very literal way to offer drinks to the dead.

Decoration and iconography refer to offerings and dining, although it is not always clear whether these images specifically evoke activities at the tomb. Scenes with altars appear on some tombs, including altar-

shaped ones. One funerary altar found at Thagora in Numidia, for example, shows a man standing next to an altar with a sheep, while an-

other depicts a woman holding an item up to an altar.” Instruments of offering, such as pitchers and paterae, also appear on tomb markers.” Reclining figures appear on some markers, for instance at Ammaedara (Haidra) and Bulla Regia." A cupula at Chemtou shows a scene of two

people reclining, one holding up bread, the other holding up a cup. A

fish lies on a table between them.” At the Algerian cemeteries of Sétif and Lambaesis, there are offering tables with hollowed out platters on them.? Marcel LeGlay points out that sacrificial imagery on funerary Satafis is a different city from Sitifis (Sétif). Yvette Thébert (1982) 535-526 argues

that there is also a class of mensae, so labelled, that was not funerary in use, nor

used as altar. Rather they were tables consecrated to martyrs and were part of the liturgical furnishings of churches 5 Février 1977.

# Lattimore (1942) 132; African examples are listed in the index to CIL 8.352. 27 For instance, at Cherchel, Sétif, Tipasa, Carthage,

Leptiminus. ? Wolski and Berciu (1973).

? CIL 8.4660, 8.4670. Ὁ CIL 8.5239 (Hippo Regius). ?! Saladin (1887) 177-178; Carton (1890).

9? Carton (1908) 435. 9 Février (1964) 114.

Hadrumetum,

Thaenae,

434

LEA STIRLING

stelae and offering tables is similar to the iconography of funerary stelae and offering tables dedicated to Saturn.* INTERPRETING THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL RECORD

Thus, literary, epigraphic, architectural, and iconographic sources provide clear evidence that food was eaten or offered in rituals during and

after the funeral. As we have seen, these sources offer little detail on what types of food were typically proffered in North Africa. Tertullian insists that the foods were expensive, but this portrayal may not be reliable because of his general goal of portraying pagan practices unfavorably. Although the textual sources give little detail on actual foodstuffs,

archaeology offers an alternative method for pursuing this information through the physical traces of food offerings (bones or seeds). Before we

survey the existing archaeological evidence from North Africa, however, it is worthwhile to consider how processes of disposal, preservation, stratigraphy, and scholarly documentation influence the information that may be drawn from the archeological record. Bones from animals, birds, or fish that were sacrificed or served and deposited in tombs ought to survive in the archaeological record, al-

though it is possible that they may not have been observed or recorded, especially in earlier reports and at sites where soil was not sieved. Ad-

verse soil conditions diminish preservation as well. When interpreting finds of bones or the absence of bones, it is important to recollect that not all cuts or types of meat are served on the bone, as Roel Lauwerier has pointed out? Thus, it is quite possible that some meat offerings would leave no archaeological vestige at all. Moreover, rituals of animal sacrifice may not involve giving away substantial or edible portions of the animal. Except in some rare circumstances, seeds survive in the archaeological record only if they have been burned. Produce that had not been burned would normally decompose without a trace. Thus, in order for

seeds to survive, the ritual of offering would have to involve burning. Remains of fruit or vegetable found within cremation deposits seem

most likely to pertain to offerings made into the funeral pyre, though the possibility remains that they were part of the fuel or otherwise entered accidentally. Weed seeds are taken to reflect the natural environment

* LeGlay (1966) 258-261, 306-308. 5 Lauwerier (1993) 78.

* Unburned seeds can sometimes survive through desiccation, waterlogging, or as impressions in pottery or brick. In "favorable conditions" grape

seeds sometimes preserve without prior burning: Helbaek (1956) 287.

FOOD OFFERINGS IN THE GRAVES OF NORTH AFRICA

435

rather than funeral practices.” Some seeds (such as olives) are large enough for excavators to notice as they work, but burned seeds of all sizes can be recovered through soil sampling and flotation. Some offerings would not leave such substantial traces: liquids such as wine or oil, bread, fruit or vegetables that had not been burned, meat

not served on the bone. Jugs, bowls, plates and other vessels found inside tombs may have once held offerings that left no visible remnant. Alternatively, they may have represented symbolic dining or acted as gifts to the deceased or to underworld gods. Analysis of residues on the surfaces of pottery vessels is a promising avenue of research, but has not yet been attempted in North African cemeteries. In any case, grave goods are rare in cemeteries of the Roman period in Tunisia and Algeria. Findspot is an important indicator of how foodstuffs were used in

funerary ritual. Materials found inside the grave or its shaft must have been placed there during the disposal of the corpse or its ashes. Seeds or bones found within a sealed structure over the skeleton (such as pitched

tiles or an amphora grave) indeed seem to have been deliberately placed, although such structures did often crack or collapse, allowing dirt to sift in over the skeleton. The numerous shells of burrowing snails found inside grave structures give an idea of the size of openings that could be

found or made within burial structures.? In the case of finds in the shaft fill, one must also evaluate the possibility that they entered the grave as "background noise" in the cemetery fill. Finally, later activities at the

site, such as the digging of further tombs or grave robbing, may disturb the sealed tomb. Finds made on or around tombs, even those lying at ancient ground level, are the most difficult to interpret as they could relate to offerings or dining, but could equally well relate to post-cemetery depositions and usages. Thus, fill layers over one cemetery at Leptiminus contained ani-

mal bones, but the types of cuts were consistent with butchery debris rather than served cuts of meat. The stratigraphy and other finds in these levels made it evident that they pertained to post-cemetery dumping

rather than funerary practice.? Nevertheless, in individual circum37 Marinval (1993) 46-47 discusses methodological issues. See Kreuz (2000)

for interpretive strategies concerning plant remains in cremation graves.

38. Smith (2001) 432. ? Burke (2001) 451-452. Animal remains found on the ancient ground level outside tombs at Tipasa are interpreted as offerings by the excavators: Lancel (1970) 164—166. These remains are mainly the ends of long bones (epiphyses), cut or sliced. As Ariane Burke has pointed out to me, these are not meaty joints, and at other sites, epiphyses are cut this way to create blanks for bone working:

Burke (2001) 451. Baradez reports finding such bones within a grave, but describes this particular grave as probably disturbed: Baradez (1969)110.

436

LEA STIRLING

stances, the specific conditions of the find may point to a ritual use. Although libation tubes were designed for liquid offerings, other items are sometimes found in them. Again, there are broad possibilities

for interpretation.? These finds could have entered the tube at any time while the marker was exposed, that is, between its construction and its eventual burial under post-cemetery fill. Thus, they could have been put in as commemorative offerings at the grave, as part of magic practices

(like the lead curse tablets found in libation tubes at Carthage), or as part of non-funerary activities in later times. At Carthage, animal bones appeared along with lamps, coins, and curse tablets in libation tubes." A libation tube at Thaenae contained nuts, figs, and pinecones.” Finally, the reporting of food remains (bones and seeds) in RomanoAfrican cemeteries is rare and anecdotal in the early reports, then becomes more frequent and more regular (especially for bones) in publica-

tions of the 1970s and later. Archaeobotanical sampling and flotation has only been carried out at one cemetery site, Leptiminus. Thus, although not all food offerings would leave recognizable traces,

archaeological research has much to contribute in a study of food offerings in funerary practices. Individual cases must be weighed judiciously to distinguish deliberate funerary offerings from "accidental" material,

such as rubbish deposits or pre-existing finds in the fill. Archaeological data would be most reliable for investigating rituals of disposal (involving items sealed into a tomb or shaft), whereas literary accounts mainly report commemorative ritual. FINDS OF FOODSTUFFS WITHIN TOMBS

Bearing these caveats in mind, there is enough scattered evidence to war-

rant a first speculative synthesis. Because of the difficulties in interpreting materials found over or near tomb markers (as evaluated above), we

focus here on finds within grave structures, finds related to rituals of disposal. Indisputable evidence of food offerings left within tombs comes from

the east cemetery at Sétif in Algeria. The cremations of the first phase (roughly the first century A.D.) generally contained numerous ceramic grave goods. In several instances, an overturned plate covered dried grapes ("baies de raisin desséches"), partially carbonized wheat grains, or in one instance, carbonized olive pits.” The unburned surfaces of the * Wolski and Berciu (1973) argue that libation tubes originated in the eastern Mediterranean, but do not discuss contents.

*! Delattre (1898) 221.

42 Blondont (1908) ccvii. 43 Discussed by Guéry

(1985) 314. Grapes: 172, no. 161; 180, no. 178; 184, no.

FOOD OFFERINGS IN THE GRAVES OF NORTH AFRICA

437

pottery indicate that these vessels were added after the body had been cremated in situ.“ Thus, the olives must have been burned before they were placed in the tomb, but the "drying" of the grapes and the partial carbonization of the wheat grains could perhaps have resulted from contact with cremation ashes that were still hot. The consistent pattern of the overturned plate covering the seeds indicates that these foodstuffs were deliberately placed. A skeleton of a chicken was found over the

remains of one cremation. Bird bones found with cremated human bone in an amphora within the hypogaeum of the Flavii at Leptis Magna must relate to an offering or sacrifice made into the pyre.” Many plates and cups containing ani-

mal bones (mostly of birds) were found in situ within the mausoleum, which contained numerous redeposited cremations in urns and amphorae and some inhumations. These offerings more probably stem from rituals of commemoration. Charred seeds are not reported. Foodstuffs are also reported in inhumation graves. At Thaenae and Hadrumetum, early excavators occasionally mention food in graves. While these specific graves are not dated, other finds in these cemeteries

date in the second to fourth centuries. At Thaenae, a cluster of nuts, figs, and pine nuts lay beside a skeleton." At Hadrumetum, burned olive pits

are reported inside an amphora burial of an infant and again with a child grave.“ Desiccation as well as burning seems to be a factor in the preservation of items at Hadrumetum and Thaenae, as excavators also describe

a bouquet of leafy branches, a wooden sarcophagus, and clothing and shrouds that crumbled to dust.? North of Hadrumetum, bones of a small animal are reported in a chamber containing inhumations at Bir bou Rebka. A cremation grave in a cemetery at Raqqada near Kairouan contained fragments of eggshell. Also at this site, a casserole containing

small bones (probably from a bird) lay broken atop an amphora covering an inhumation.” An inhumation grave of the first century A.D. at Tipasa 188; 195, no. 226; wheat: 171, no. 158; 178, no. 174; 181, no. 181; 207, 190, no. 207; olive pits: 160, no. 140.

# Février and Guéry (1980) 114. 5 Février and Guéry (1980) 113 (tomb 142). # Fontana 1996.

“’ Bureau (1908) 209. He describes these as “petrified.” 8 Lacomble and Hannezo (1889) 124, 112. *? Bouquet: Lacomble and Hannezo (1889) 122; clothing, sarcophagus: Bureau

(1908) 207, 208. 9! Cassaigne (1909) 352, suggesting it could be a chicken or rabbit. Alternatively, these bones could result from an accidentally trapped animal.

*! Mahjoubi, Salomonson, and Ennabli (1970) 18 (eggshell), 12 (small bones).

438

LEA STIRLING

contained a complete fish lying on a plate.? Various other tombs there contained olive pits, a pomegranate, and a pinecone.? ARCHAEOBOTANICAL SAMPLING OF CEMETERIES AT LEPTIMINUS

Leptiminus is the only site thus far in North Africa where soil sampling and flotation have been used to recover carbonized seeds from cemeter-

ies (see Appendix 1).* Two cemeteries here have yielded intriguing data concerning possible food offerings (Site 10, Site 200). Located to the east of the ancient city, not far from the shore, the Site 10 cemetery was in use from the late second to early fourth century. Forty-four skeletons were excavated there. A mausoleum, cupulae, and other mortar tomb monu-

ments marked the graves. The Site 200 cemetery, where some 50 burials were investigated, lay on a ridge to the southeast of the city. It was broadly contemporaneous with Site 10 and had similar structures along with a rock-cut tomb and a mosaic-topped grave marker. During excavation of these cemeteries, soil samples were taken from 75 contexts, mostly inside grave structures, around skeletons, in shafts (including right on top of grave structures), and in layers with visible traces of burned material (including cremations, certain layers of cemetery fill and some post-cemetery dumping layers). Where possible, samples were 12

litres, though in some circumstances they had to be smaller. The graves were nearly all inhumations apart from three cremations at or near the Site 10 cemetery. A fourth cremation excavated in a separate campaign of salvage work is also discussed here. Burned seeds from olive, fig, grape, and stone pine appear, mostly in small quantities, in 46 of the 75 samples. Seeds from wild grasses and plants also appeared in the samples, but are not considered in the pre-

sent discussion because they are much more likely to represent the natural environment than to reflect deliberate human activities. There are differing published interpretations of the non-weed seeds came to be in graves. On the one hand, emphasizing the ber and density of seeds appearing in most samples, Wendy Smith argues that they may have simply been

and how they very low numpalaeobotanist present in the

Use of the cemetery extends from the first to the third century A.D.

* Lancel (1962-65) 59. % Lancel (1970) 164. In a more general sense, he also refers to organic deposits

on the bottom of vessels.

5 The palaeobotanical methods and data are presented in Smith (2001). All

references to specifics are drawn from this article and its tables. 55 Site 10: Mattingly, Stirling, and Ben Lazreg (1992), Mattingly, Pollard, and Ben Lazreg (2001); Site 200: Ben Lazreg (2001), Stirling, Welle, and Mattingly (2001).

FOOD OFFERINGS IN THE GRAVES OF NORTH AFRICA

439

normal cemetery fill She argues that burned olive pits were used as

binder in mortar masonry (such as the tomb markers at the cemetery) and could have fallen into the soil from decaying masonry (as was argued concerning refuse deposits in Carthage). Alternatively, excavators David Mattingly, Nigel Pollard, and Nejib Ben Lazreg argue that the botanical finds, especially pine shells and olive pits, may be the remains of offerings that were deliberately burned and cast into graves during funeral rites? In some cases, the olive pits were found in discrete clus-

ters near the skeleton. Certain aspects of the botanical finds from the Leptiminus cemeteries are suggestive. Shells of pine nuts appeared in three of the four crema-

tions discovered in these cemeteries. These shells come from the cone of the stone pine. They appeared in the ash of two cremations in situ at Site 10 and in the ash of a redeposited cremation in a tomb discovered near Site 200 during salvage work.” The fourth instance of cremation recovered at Leptiminus thus far is a buried urn containing redeposited ash

near Site 10. No pine shells appeared in this ash; the only non-weed seed was a single fragment of olive pit.” Smaller numbers of fragments of

pine shell were found in three other cemetery contexts at Site 10. The findings at the cremations done in situ strongly suggest that pine nuts

were used as offerings or that pinecones (and perhaps pine wood) were included in the fuel of the funeral pyres. By contrast, remnants of pine scarcely appear in remains of industrial fuel investigated at a contemporary kiln site and do not appear at all in fuel debris at a Byzantine kiln

site.” As we have seen, pine nuts and pinecones are attested in other * Smith (2001) 433. “Considerable bioturbation" brought about by the movement of snails into the graves after burial could cause seeds in the fill to move around.

57 Ford and Millar (1978). ** Mattingly, Pollard, and Ben Lazreg (2001) 163-164. An act of burning has to be inferred in the process of deposition because non-burned seeds would not survive. » Layers 425, 447, 1044, 1046 at Site 10. Tomb near Site 200 (Site 302): Jezik

(2000) 209; Longfellow (2000). 9 Tomb G at Site 8, very close to Site 10 and probably part of the same ancient cemetery: Smith (2001) 422. 8 Cremations: T9-425, T9-1044, T9-1046. Also: an amphora burial (T2-84), a grave shaft (T9-1043), cemetery fill (T9-409).

® Material from the contemporary kiln site (Site 290) is under study by Sandra Jezik, who has kindly provided these preliminary observations. For some interim remarks, see Jezik (2000). For the Byzantine kiln site (Site 1), see Smith

(2001). In a study of wood charcoal (fuel debris) from Byzantine cisterns at Carthage, Ellen Hoffman found that pine comprised only a small proportion of the

440

LEA STIRLING

North African graves (Thaenae, Tipasa). Given the importance of pinecones as funerary symbols evoking

rebirth (see below), this choice of

pinecones in the fuel probably had ritual significance. Four olive pits (and two fragmentary ones) appeared in a small bowl placed alongside a terracotta mask outside a pitched tile structure con-

taining a child's burial. Also in the bowl was a bracelet or necklace of glass beads. As the bowl, necklace, and mask were deliberately placed

in the grave, the olives too must be intentional. A cluster of 35 burned grape seeds inside an amphora burial at the site 200 cemetery is significant by its uniqueness; only two other grape seeds are reported at this cemetery.” The fact that the grape seeds had been burned may increase their significance, as grapes would not nor-

mally have been cooked as part of their preparation. More problematic are the olive pits. Complete or fragmentary, burned olive pits appear in 34 of 75 samples, in many types of contexts.

Taking complete and fragmentary olive pits together, we find that olive pits appear in about half the samples taken from inside tomb structures or around skeletons. Olives appear in 7 of 15 samples taken from am-

phora burials, where an amphora is cut in half lengthwise to create a coffin for a child. They appear in 8 of 13 samples taken near skeletons

within other types of burial structures (such as pitched tile structures or stone cists). Of 14 samples taken around skeletons inhumed in pits or otherwise lacking a burial structure, 6 had olive pits in some quantity.

They also appear in 5 of 11 grave shafts sampled; these could pertain to offerings thrown in during interment rituals.” In all these categories, olive pits (and botanical finds more generally) are found more fre-

quently in samples from the Site 200 cemetery than at the Site 10 cemetery, though it should be noted that more sampling was done at the former site. assemblage. Olive wood predominated. She argues that pine would be valued more for construction than for fuel: Hoffman (1982). ® Layer 3353; Stirling, Welle, and Mattingly (2001). * Amphora 3366. There were modern contaminants (such as germinating seeds) in this sample, however.

$ An argument used by Mark Robinson (2002) 97 in identifying domestic burnt offerings at Pompeii. ** Amphora burials with olive pits: T2-77, T3-141, 3263, 3356, 3366, Amphora C, Amphora

K; samples

taken

near skeletons

in burial structures:

3061, 3145,

3192, 3195, 3269, 3271, 3314, 3402; samples taken near skeletons: 17 /12-370, 3140, 3175, 3455, Burial D, Burial E. 67 T2-83, T9-81, T3-130, T3-136, T3-137, T3-142, T9-445, T9-1043, 3312, 3337,

3454. At Cherchell, pockets of carbonized seeds (unspecified) appeared within the fill of one inhumation grave: Leveau (1999) 97.

FOOD OFFERINGS IN THE GRAVES OF NORTH AFRICA

441

There are not many control groups with which to compare these data. At the two cemeteries, a few samples were taken from locations not in the immediate vicinity of skeletons. Four samples were taken within tomb structures but not adjacent to skeletons. Of these, only one contained non-weed seeds. Of three samples of general cemetery fill not as-

sociated with a particular grave, two had no botanical finds at all, and the third had three fragments of pine shell. All six post-cemetery layers sampled had small quantities of botanical remains, mostly olive pits.”

The number of olive pits in the samples is usually quite small; of the samples with olive remains, half contained only one pit (or fragment). Moreover, complete olive pits appeared in only 12 of the 34 samples containing olives. In the others, only fragments of pit were found. Fragmentary burned olive pits resist interpretation as offerings. Thus, it

would seem that in the majority of instances, the fragments of olive pit found in graves are residual items in the cemetery fill and simply repre-

sent the background noise created by the importance of the olive in the local economy. In other cases, where complete olive pits appear, an interpretation of these pits as a ritual gift remains possible, especially in light of the fact that excavators noted olive pits appearing in discrete clusters in some unspecified graves. One olive pit does represent an entire fruit, and it is possible that a single olive served the symbolic needs of the funerary ritual. As a funerary gift, a single olive or small handful of them accords

with Ovid's assertion that unpretentious gifts made with pietas satisfied the shades at a different graveside ritual, the Parentalia.” The food offerings in cremations at Sétif also appeared in modest quantities. Portable altars such as those mentioned by Ovid or even incense burners

could be used to burn the olives (see further discussion below). FOOD OFFERINGS IN ROMANO-AFRICAN GRAVES?

Despite such scattered evidence and uneven recording, we may make some observations. Table 1 shows plant and animal remains recorded at North African cemeteries. Olives are the most commonly reported items, followed by pine shells, then figs and grapes. Does this tenuous hierarchy reflect actual preferences or just the relative size and visibility of

seeds? There are not many other palaeobotanical studies in North Africa with which to compare this speculative hierarchy. Several contexts sam68 1-92, T9-409, T10-224. $' Cemetery earth: T1-92, T10-224, T9-409; post cemetery layers: T9-410, T9418, T9-433, 3025, 3181, 3266. ? It should be remembered that ancient sources provide very little information on offerings made into open graves during disposal.

442

LEA STIRLING

pled from different areas of late-antique Carthage can broadly be characterized as rubbish levels and may offer an impression of "normal" use and disposal of botanical items. Here too we find that olive was again by far the best represented find, followed by wheat remains and barley. Grape, fig, and other fruits appear in smaller quantities, and pine is scarcely represented." The olive pits are seen as remnants of olive pressing reused as fuel.” The predominance of wheat reflects its importance in agriculture and diet. Two kiln sites sampled at Leptiminus had vast quantities of olives, again interpreted as fuel, with fruits and cereals making up only a tiny fraction of the recovered seeds.” The cemetery and non-cemetery contexts thus are similar in the predominance of olive, but the greater importance of pine and small fruits rather than cereals in the cemetery contexts may be significant. At Sétif, where the identity of burned seeds as offerings is not in question because they were found deliberately placed underneath overturned plates, grapes are reported most often, followed by wheat and olives. Leptis

Hadru-

| Thaenae | Lepti-

Magna

| metum

minus

olives pine

X

figs

X

X X

X

x

grapes wheat pomegranate

Bir bou | Raqqada | Tipasa

| Sétif

| Rebka X X

X

X

x X X

small faunal fish | eggshell

bird

X

bird (?)

chicken x

x

Table 1. Botanical and faunal remains reported inside North African tombs”

It is possible to make some suggestions about the foodstuffs which

recur in North African graves. The pervasive appearance of the olive must stem from its importance as a staple crop in these regions. Pinecones appear frequently in funerary iconography in many parts of the Roman world and are found in graves across the empire.” As ever7! Ford and Miller (1978), Hoffman (1981), Stewart (1984). ” Ford and Miller (1978) suggest that burned olive pits entered the fills as part of degraded mortars, where they had been used as part of the binder. 73 Byzantine kiln debris at Site 1: Smith (2001); kiln debris of the first-third

centuries at Site 290: S. Jezik, personal communication. "^ The table records presence or absence of remains, not relative quantities. ^5 On

pine

trees and

their symbolism,

see Cumont

(1942)

219-220;

LeGlay

FOOD OFFERINGS IN THE GRAVES OF NORTH AFRICA

443

greens, pines evidently symbolized eternal life. They were often associ-

ated with Cybele's consort Attis, who was resurrected after his death. In North Africa, pinecones were a common attribute on stelae of Saturn; LeGlay argues that here they symbolized fertility more than resurrec-

tion. LeGlay also demonstrates a chthonic role for Saturn, pointing out frequent overlap in votive and funerary imagery as well as in physical location (graves around extramural sanctuaries of Saturn; votive stelae

found in cemeteries).” Thus, the use or offering of pinecones in graves may well be linked to Saturn as well as the more general symbolism of

immortality. Discussing the finds at Sétif, Roger Guéry notes that wheat and grapes were likewise important sacrifices to Saturn.” In envisaging possible funeral practices, we must remember that burning is necessary to create carbonized seeds. Tertullian emphasized the burning of food offerings, admittedly in a context where the human

remains were cremated, not inhumed (Resurr. 1). Ovid refers to offerings on altars evidently set up specifically for the occasion during the Parentalia; conceivably similar portable altars or braziers could be used as part of the ritual of interring inhumations.” Incense burning at graves is attested in literary and epigraphic sources. Perhaps an incense burner would suffice for small offerings such as may appear at some graves at Leptiminus. A brazier with iconography of Saturn appeared in a grave at

Sétif.”

Remains of animals, birds, and fish found within graves are reported less often than are plant remains. There are a few possible explanations for this. Meat may in fact be a rare offering in graves. Soil conditions may

decrease preservation. Bones of animals, birds, or fish may have

been too small or insignificant to be remarked by some excavators, especially those principally seeking inscriptions and grave goods in largescale operations.” However, there are several publications that do report animal bones found above ancient ground level but none within graves. Alternatively, as pointed out above, only some cuts of some meats were served on the bone." The apparent rarity of faunal finds could reflect ancient practices of food preparation as much as modern excavation (1966) 200-203; Kislev (1988). Graves: Kislev (1988), Giorgi (2000), Kreuz (2000).

7 LeGlay (1966) 258-261. ” Guéry (1985) 320, citing LeGlay (1966) 191-198. 7 Fast. 2.542: positis ... focis.

P Guéry (1985) 174. 9 Dry-sieving is necessary for systematic recovery of bones, especially the very small ones.

8! Lauwerier (1993) 78.

444

LEA STIRLING

techniques or ritual choices. The excavation burning on animal and bird bones; evidently been consumed in fire before being placed in the While the textual sources use terminology

reports do not mention these offerings had not grave. from the city of Rome

(such as the festival of Parentalia) to discuss the use of food in funerary

practices, it would also be important to investigate the relationships between customs in Roman and pre-Roman Africa (both indigenous and Punic). Bird bones appear in indigenous graves and are quite frequent in Punic tombs.” A plate holding a fish was recovered in the Punic cemetery of Kerkouane.? Plates carrying bones of fish, birds, and small animals were found inside Punic graves in Carthage. In some cases, pome-

granates, figs, almonds, grape clusters, and pinecones are reported within sarcophagi there.“ These fruit offerings show a suggestive overlap with those of Romano-African tombs. As we have seen, birds and

fish are attested in Roman-era tombs, but it is difficult to tell how prevalent they were. Evaluating mortuary rituals of the Garamantes in

the Libyan Sahara, beyond the southern frontier of the Roman empire, David Mattingly emphasizes the importance of food offerings ing.” Food remains, including dates, were excavated in some tombs. Pointing to the popularity of offering tables and altars tain other features) not just in Garamantian cemeteries,

and dinof these (and cerbut also

throughout the Roman Maghreb, he suggests that these structures and their accompanying rituals reflect deep-seated indigenous customs. Augustine evidently viewed food offerings as an African custom. Further research comparing indigenous, Punic, and Roman practices concerning food offerings and dining at tombs is clearly needed.

Perhaps the principal conclusion to draw from the North African evidence assembled here is that questions around food offerings deserve

more attention in the design of current excavations than they have received in the past. That systematic attention to animal and plant remains would be fruitful is evident from cemetery studies in other parts of the Roman empire, as a few examples will show. Widespread sampling of cemeteries in France (admittedly done by quite varied methods) allows comparison along some of the axes mentioned above. For instance, Gallo-Roman graves in the Rhone valley and Mediterranean France received more fruit offerings, imported fruits, and baked goods than did 82 Krandel-Ben Younes (1992-93) 189-190, giving examples at Thigibba Bure.

® Giugliani (2000) 187. * Benichou-Safar (1982) 263-266, 277-278. 5 Mattingly (forthcoming). 86 Conf. 6.2, discussed above.

FOOD OFFERINGS IN THE GRAVES OF NORTH AFRICA

445

graves in central France, which show a stronger continuity with Iron Age practices." This difference is attributed to the stronger Roman or

Mediterranean influence in the south. Comparing the "diet" of the living and the dead in Gaul, Philippe Marinval finds that cereals followed by legumes predominate in both, while lentils were much rarer in graves than habitation sites. Garlic, lupins, and dates seemed to be particularly associated with the graves. Cereals and beans were identified in Archaic graves in the Roman forum and are interpreted as remains of funerary meals.” Interestingly, grape pits appeared only in the later graves which had Etruscan influence. Plates carrying animal remains, most commonly domestic fowl (articulated but lacking heads and hind legs) and cuts of sucking-pig appeared in graves at a fourth-century cemetery at Nijmegen.? Comparing the cuts to artistic images and the recipes of

Apicius, Lauwerier shows that these were prepared as meals rather than sacrifices. Viewing this evidence in the context of faunal findings from

other Roman cemeteries in northern and central Europe, he identifies some regular patterns in the meals interred with the dead. Studies of botanical remains in cremations of central European sites show that certain garden plants and imported plants such as date, stone pine, and olive do not appear until after the Roman conquest.” At Augusta Raurica in Switzerland, graves with greater numbers of pottery offerings also had greater numbers and more variety of plant remains and were more likely to have unusual foods such as figs, garlic, or pastries.” A wealthy first-century A.D. cremation in London was conspicuous for containing several imported Mediterranean fruits: numerous remains of

stone pine, figs, and dates.” Other scientific methods of investigation can reveal additional infor-

mation about food or ritual. Analysis of residues on the surface of vessels left as grave goods could establish whether they had held food products, although it could be difficult to determine whether they had held those products before or during funeral rituals. Residue analysis has allowed the reconstruction of the funerary meal and offerings at the tomb of Midas at Gordion in Phrygia.™ Pollen samples from a beaker in

# Bouby and Marinval (2004). 8 Marinval (1993) 59-61. 9 Helbaek (1956). 9 Lauwerier (1983).

?! Kreuz (2000) 47. ?? Petrucci Bavaud and Jacomet (1997).

% Giorgi (2000). # McGovern et al. (1999); (Simpson 2001).

446

LEA STIRLING

one Bronze Age grave in Scotland allowed excavators to identify its contents as honeyed mead, while high pollen concentrations at other Scottish Bronze Age graves are interpreted as "floral tributes.”” The preliminary synthesis carried out in the present paper has found olives to be the most common food item found in the graves of Roman

North Africa, though there remains ambiguity in some cases as to whether these were intentional deposits. Pine shells appeared in several graves, particularly cremations. Figs, grapes, and wheat were also identified at different sites. Birds (or small animals) appeared at four sites. The

olives stem from a major crop of the region, while some of the other offerings may be linked to the god Saturn, who had an underworld aspect. With make been ering

the scarce data from North African tombs, it is not yet possible to detailed analyses of sites, regions, or diachronic changes, as has done elsewhere in the Roman empire. Greater attention to recovfaunal and botanical remains, for instance by dry-sieving the con-

tents of graves and their shafts and systematically sampling soil, would allow fuller, more reliable profiles of seeds and bones to be created and

compared. Further research offers the possibility of testing the proposals above and addressing a host of issues, from simply establishing reliable distinctions between offerings and random finds in fill, to considering questions of funerary ritual, changes in practice over time, or compari-

son of the food for the dead and for the living.

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᾿

, Lea 1990 and McGovern, Curt W.

M. Stirling, and Nejib Ben Lazreg. 1992. "Summary of excavations in preliminary typology of burials," in Leptiminus 1: 301-335. Patrick E., Donald L. Glusker, Robert A. Moreau, Alberto Nuñez, Beck, Elizabeth Simpson, Eric D. Butrym, Lawrence J. Exner, Edith C.

Stout. 1999. "A funerary feast fit for King Midas," Nature 402: 863-864.

Morris, I. 1992. Death-Ritual and Social Structure in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge. Petrucci-Bavaud, Marianne and Stephanie Jagomet. 1997. "Zur interpretation von Nahrungsbeigaben in rómerzeitlichen Brandgräbern,” EthnographischArchüologische Zeitschrift 38: 567-593. Prieur, Jean. 1984. La mort dans l'antiquité romaine. Rennes.

Quasten, Johannes. 1940. "Vetus superstitio et nova religio: The problem of refrigerium in the ancient church of North Africa," HTR 33: 253-266. Robinson, Mark. 2002. "Domestic burnt offerings and sacrifices at Roman and pre-Roman Pompeii, Italy," Vegetation History and Archaeobotany 11: 93-99. Simpson, Elizabeth. 2001. "Celebrating Midas: Contents of a great Phrygian king's tomb reveal a lavish funerary banquet," Archaeology 54 July/ Aug.: 26-33. Smith, Wendy. 2001. "Environmental sampling (1990-94)," in Leptiminus 2: 420-441. Stirling, Lea M., David L. Stone, Nejib Ben Lazreg, Ariane Burke, Karen Carr, R. James Cook, John Dore, Adam Giambrone, Sandra Jezik, Shannon Johnston,

Brenda Moore,

Longfellow, Belle Meiklejohn, Christopher Meiklejohn, Jennifer Andrei

Opait,

Helen

Park, Irene Schrüfer-Kolb,

Barbara

L. Sherriff,

and Douglas Welle. 2000. "Interim report on the Leptiminus Archaeological Project (LAP): Results of the 1999 season," EMC 64, n.s. 19: 179-224.

Stirling, L.M., D.J. Welle, and DJ. Mattingly. 2001. "General context of the cemetery (Site 200) and the grave containing the terracotta mask," in Leptiminus 2: 412-414.

Tipping, Richard. 1994. "'Ritual' floral tributes in the Scottish Bronze Age: Palynological evidence," Journal of Archaeological Science 21: 133-139. Toynbee, J.M.C. 1971. Death and Burial in the Roman World. Baltimore. Wolski,

Wanda

and

Ion Berciu.

1973. "Contribution

au probléme

des tombes

romaines à dispositif pour libations funéraires," Latomus 32: 370-379.

450

LEA STIRLING Appendix 1: Botanical finds from cemeteries at Sites 10 and 200 at Leptiminus (Lamta, Tunisia), after Smith (2001).

Context

‘

Site 10 T2-77 Site 10 T2-84

Site 10 T1-176

Site 10 Τ1.18 Site 10 T9-1010

2E doc ΝΥ |. bo ΘΟ

Site 200 3263

"E

Site 200 3356

Site C 200 Amph. Κ (3 samples) Te

Site 10 T1-188 Sue 200 3061

ES

Le

1

205. - |

᾿

Site 200 3269 Site 200 3271

-

2

où

τ

08

-

1

-

1

-

-

:

t .

Site 1011-178

Site 10 T9 445

ouo

:

i

:

τ S04

7

7

-

-

-

01 -

E

-

Site 200 3112

17

Site 200 3353

!

-

|

|

b

-

-

.

_] 1x . X

2.

74

ZEE

ZEN

14

E

Lu

:

-

obo:

o -

i

ie 5 io. poc

-

-

.

-

-

EE

-

:

207

τς

-

+

.

j|

e]

-

-e

1

ἝΝ

ep

os |

-

-

1

:

‘

-

oor ub ERE SFR

E

[Site 200 [3454]

—À]

x

.

tutu

Suc 10 T9 1043

Site 200 3337

fo. τὸς ! 7 1.1 taut q

m

o

-

-

u

bon

ΠΣ dod ol

ij

7 jd 07

9

fo: .

LEN

5

4

X

dH C) LS ERACME SRA EE 01 , ; -

Suc 10 T3-129 Site 10 T3-145

130 136 137 142]

ee

04 OO

203.02

Site 200 3402

,

Le

Site 200 3314

TA T3 T3 [13

.t2 -

τ e

|

13

Site 200 3365

Pesado

|

no seeds

i ΝΕ noonN - ΤῸ 37 07 SEES WEM s fiUi RT quem ες :

ULL

Site 200 3077

10 T2 79

t

35

-

2

Site 200 3437

ol

weocd**

τὸν e ,

5.

qi

Site 200 3145

10 10 10 10

uu

Ἅ

Doe

Sitc 200 Amph. C

Site Site Site Site

2

a,

i

Site 200 3373

Site 10 T2 83 Site 10 ΤΊ 91]

o.

poo.

Site 200 3366

Sue

t

bot. τὸ MEE

ΝΠ

| almond

es 0.09

22otu

to.

Site 200 3045

Site 200 3157 Site 200 3192 Site 200 3195

ἐπε"

QAO, ΕΕἝΕΣ

ΝΞ

Site 10 T3-132 Site 10 T3-140 Site 10 T3-141

olive*

^o

EIU

1

-ὐ s, -

ον os

ΝΣ

-

t

1

:

: .

τ

-

.

D

X .

|

-

C 3 ER -

DE

-

-

:

Edge

-

00.42

-

!

.

003

X

1 . τος

-

᾿

RE

11i

*Figures in this column give complete seeds followed by fragments **Includes weeds and unidentified seeds.

1 LL

-

᾿

FOOD OFFERINGS IN THE GRAVES OF NORTH

AFRICA

—

451

Appendix 1 (continued)

m.

|

i

elive*

Site 10 T2- 61 Site Site Site Site

10 10 10 10

-

T3-70 T7312 370 (5 samp) T13 833 T9 1029

:

Dol

Site 200 3077

Site 200 3140

7 lu

Site 200 3172 Site 200 3175

I: .

;

27.

Site 200 Bunal D (3 samp)

62

PB

19

[AT]

Sitc 8 tomb G

-

Ol

Site 10 T9 425 (tomb 440) Site 10 T9 447 (tomb 440)

m0. -

Site 200 Burial E (3

samp.)

Site 10 T9 1044 Site 10 T9 1046 (6 samples)

evasit 10 Th-92 Site 10 TIO- 224

|

Lo

P QU

pratis

b. t0. 7 d -

-

2l

-

-

o

0.

0

-

-

|

-

"

e

-

oe

-.

0.

!

0

-

-

]

-

07. -

+ -

s

000 -

-

+

.

ai 392

"Macar: anütar

mo seeds

Xx

+, to. . t qom ou s lo oc.. .

τὸς

.

weed**

-

Poe 01 00M, 05,

Sitc 200 3455

iube

004

-

-

almond

:

Fo T0.

jo

1

m

eje

Q 070, OS ΝΕ oT. 7

Site 10 T9 1041 Site 200 3171

Tia

.

X x

_

χ

12 X

-

56

-

15

-

.

3

-

|

tq 2

:

.

|

X

-

SCR

vas

been

-

x

Site 10 T9- 409

NY

Reser

er

"amem

Site 10 T9-410

0004,

Site 10 T9-418

-

ΠΟ

Site Site Site Site

1 -

09 l

10 T9 433 200 3025 200 3181 200 3266

Aat eros

|

ἔπιαν. MB

-

i

-

.

ANM

' -

ἢ

.

-

87

Lea

ETE

Site 10 T9 419 pot fili Site 10 3987 bone scatter

tl

T.

ες

-

Site 10 3276 under skeleton

-

-

-

-

ιν

c

Jon

-

-

x

-

-

Χ

"Figures in this column give complete seeds followed by fragments **Includes weeds and unidentified seeds.

31 ROMAN DRINKING SILVER TERMS, FORMS, AND FUNCTIONS: SOME NOTES

JOHN TAMM INTRODUCTION

Textual sources, primarily literary, make up an important set of evidence for Roman drinking wares of the first centuries B.C. and A.D. Not only

do they supply the ancient names of the various vessels and implements, but often also the contexts in which these objects were used. It is therefore possible, in many cases, to associate names and functions. In contrast, contemporary artistic representations of drinking vessels supply forms and (frequently) contexts, allowing connections to be made between forms and functions. Extant pieces from this period supply only the forms; functions and contexts must be inferred. Still missing are the connections between forms, functions, and names. Some textual sources, however, give details about vessel forms. It is possible, then, that a close

study of the texts, in conjunction with the other sets of evidence, may allow one to connect names with forms and functions, at least for this one point in time. This would be a useful undertaking, not least because

there is frequently confusion in modern scholarship concerning names and forms. Most modern accounts refer to ancient vessels, whether actual pieces or depictions in some form of art, by ancient Greek or Latin vessel names, as if the connections between the ancient names and the

vessel-types to which they refer were established facts.’ For drinking cups, the terms generally encountered are kantharos/cantharus, calix, and skyphos/scyphus, for ladles, cyathus and simpulum, for jugs, lagona and oinochoe. Other terms commonly used are crater, patera, phiale, and trulla. Close examination of the textual sources of the first centuries B.C. and ! As publication titles such as the following indicate: L.H.M. Brom, The Stevensweert Kantharos (The Hague 1952); L. Byvanck-Quarles van Ufford, “Le Skyphos de Tibére: un Skyphos de Claude,” in J.S. Boersma et al., eds., Festoen opgedragen aan A.N. Zadoks-Josephus Jitta bis haar zeventigste verjaartag (Groningen 1976); A. Garcia y Bellido, “Las trullae argenteas de Tiermes,” AEspA 39 (1966)

113-123; and E. Kiinzl, “Der augusteische Silbercalathus im Rheinischen Landes-

museum Bonn,” BJb 169 (1969) 321-392.

453

454

JOHN TAMM

A.D. suggests, however, that the connections between ancient names and vessel-forms are often tenuous. Moreover, modern scholars often use the ancient names inconsistently; the same form may be referred to by a number of names, or a number of different forms may be referred to by the same name.’ Also problematic is the use of Greek vessel names; these bring along associations from the Greek world which may be in-

appropriate in the Roman, even if the names and forms to which these names are usually assigned should in fact correspond. For those examples where the Latin writers used a Latinised version of a Greek name, one may still ask whether the vessels’ functions were the same in each culture. The foundations for a text-based study of vessels, their Latin names, and their shapes were laid by Werner Hilgers, in his Lateinische Gefässnamen.’ Hilgers studied all vessels and all functions, drawing conclu-

sions from the whole of Latin literature with equal weight given to all references. For many entries this does not matter, because of either a scarcity of references or a general chronological homogeneity to the references. The benefit of using all the literature available is that of

comprehensiveness. The problems, and they can be serious, lie in the application to earlier periods of information derived from later authors, and vice versa. Thus while Hilgers can get an apparently full picture of a vessel in this manner, one must ask at what point in time is that vessel to be located. Another potential drawback to Hilgers’ work is that it was produced before computer-assisted searching of Latin textual sources

was possible, and the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae, still incomplete in the present day, was even more so. Thus, although he did try for comprehensiveness, his work is understandably not comprehensive.* ? For example, the cup from Alesia in F. Baratte and K. Painter, eds., Tresors d'orfevrerie gallo-romains (Paris 1989) 66 is referred to as a skyphos. L. ByvanckQuarles van Ufford, "Le ‘Canthare’ d'Alésia," BABesch 35 (1960) passim, and M.

Lejeune, "Le canthare d'Alise," MonPiot 66 (1983) passim, call the cup a cantharus.

The term skyphos/scyphus is more usually applied to a quite different form: a cup from Thorey is characteristic (cf. F. Baratte, "Trois vases en argent d'époque républicaine trouvés dans la Saóne á Thorey,” RAE 40 (1989) 62-69, with fig. 1).

The term kantharos/cantharus is often applied to a more complex form: a cup from the Hildesheim

treasure is characteristic (cf. L. Pirzio Biroli Stefanelli, ed.,

L'argento dei Romani. Vasellame da tavola e d'apparato [Rome 1991] 177, fig. 168). ? W.

Hilgers,

Lateinische

Gefüssnamen.

Bezeichnungen,

Funktion

und

Form

rômischer Gefasse nach den antiken Schriftquellen (Düsseldorf 1969). * Attempts have been made to supplement and update Hilger's work. For example, W. Binsfeld, “Gefa8namen auf Keramik im Nordwesten des Rómischen Reiches," TrZ 60 (1997) is a collection of inscriptions, on various ceramic vessels,

many of which were unknown to Hilgers, that include a vessel name (1 thank Dr. W J. Slater for bringing this article to my attention).

ROMAN DRINKING SILVER

455

Nor were Greek sources examined. For a comprehensive study, both texts and inscriptions, Latin and Greek, would need to be examined, in conjunction with other contemporary evidence.” Moreover, all references would need to be studied, not

just those specifically mentioning silver or the drinking of wine. The material remains show that specific forms are not limited to specific media; it is possible that any form could be created in any medium, and probable that most were. Similarly, there is no reason to expect that specific forms were used, or not used, only for wine. However, the detailed philological study needed to examine fully the textual evidence lies beyond the scope of this brief article, which focusses on representative examples. This work is intended to give a brief overview of the evidence, and show its potential and its problems. It is highly selective, focussing only on references in Latin, for only a few vessel names, for vessels made of silver and used in a banqueting context. ANCIENT VESSEL NAMES IN TEXTUAL SOURCES

A great number of vessel names are encountered in the textual sources in

contexts dealing with the preparation, distribution, and drinking of liquids, but many of them occur in only a very limited number of authors. If one omits storage vessels, which would not in any case be made of

silver, one is left with forty-eight terms that refer to drinking vessels or implements. Of these, twenty-four appear in only one author or passage, while another nine appear only in two authors. No doubt the accidents of survival play some role in this, but it does suggest that these vessels may not have been standard banqueting vessels during this period.

Some appear in other queting sphere; others vessel names that have sometimes make clear,

contexts and seem to be intruders into the banare simply rare, amongst them early vessels or gone out of fashion, superseded, as the sources by others. Thus while there appears to be much

variety, only a few terms/ vessels are consistently encountered. And, of the four terms that appear in most authors (calix, poculum, scyphus, vas),

two are more-or-less generic (poculum, vas). Of these, poculum is ubiquitous. It resembles the English "cup" or "glass," which indicates function but never precise form. The term simply means a drinking vessel, and it is not surprising to see a vessel referred to at one point as a poculum, later referred to by another, presumably more precise, name. Vas appears less often, but is even more generic, meaning "vessel" or "equipment." 5 The problem with using earlier (or later) evidence lies in the possibility that vessel names, forms, and functions may all change over time, rendering comparisons with non-contemporary evidence less useful if not invalid.

456

JOHN TAMM As far as the authors are concerned, many had cause to use a vessel

term in a relevant context, but far fewer used a broad selection of terms. As might perhaps have been expected, two classes of writers use the greatest variety of terms, and are the most useful. The encyclopaedic, didactic, and antiquarian nature of the works of Pliny the Elder and Varro ensures that a variety of terms will be at least mentioned, and of-

ten further defined or described. On the other hand, there are those writers who frequently include descriptions of banquets in their works. Perhaps even more

importantly,

these are descriptions of contemporary

banquets, regardless of whether the participants are "real" or fictional. One may therefore expect the vessels and practices described also to be contemporary. Amongst the poets one can single out Horace, Propertius, Ovid, Juvenal, and Martial, in particular those of their works that are set in the contemporary world. Amongst the prose writers, Petronius and

Suetonius are particularly useful.

Some cautionary notes should however be made about the poets. The first is that some terms may not fit metrically with a poem, and so other terms must be substituted. This means that there may actually be fewer

terms used by the poets than if they had written prose; also there may be slight doubt regarding the aptness of any vessel term used, in case it is such a substitute. The second concerns the distance between the poet and the persona adopted in the poems. The two are not necessarily the same. Descriptions need not refer to contemporary objects, especially if specialised vocabulary is used, or Greek originals are being imitated. In banqueting contexts, a total of twenty terms are used to refer to drinking vessels, but eleven are found in only one or two authors. The nine that are used, more or less frequently, to refer to drinking vessels are: calathus, calix, cantharus, carchesium, cymbium, gemma, patera, poculum,

and scyphus. Poculum is generic; calix, although specific form references—most of which are consistent—exist, may be generic. Gemma is ambiguous—a specific form, or merely any vessel decorated with gems? Twenty-three terms denote vessels used in banqueting contexts as wine containers, pouring vessels, ladling vessels, or straining vessels. Eighteen of these occur in only one or two authors. This leaves the crater, cyathus, lagona, trulla, and urceolus as the most frequently encountered

vessels in this sphere, and of these even the trulla is scarce. As for the crater, the traditional function as mixing vessel, attested in the Greek

world, is not attested in the sources of the relevant period. For several of the vessels mentioned specifically in the previous para-

graphs, the sources mention silver as the material. Amongst the drinking * A point already made in Catullus 16.5—6: nam castum esse decet pium poetam | ipsum, versiculos nihil necessest.

ROMAN DRINKING SILVER

457

vessels, there are the cantharus, cymbium, pocillum, poculum, and scyphus. The phiala should also be added here; it will be discussed later. Of the

containers and the ladling/pouring/straining vessels, the sources mention silver for the crater, cyathus, lagona, and trulla. This does not mean

that such vessels could not be made of other materials, nor that only these could be made of silver; there rarely is a correlation between specific vessels and media. Vessel names appear to be independent of me-

dium; form and/or function appear instead to be the determining factors. Embossed metal is mentioned as the medium for the calathus; this does not necessarily mean silver, but the possibility that it does is likely. Finally, later sources mention silver as the medium for the calix and urceolus. SELECTED TERMS Calathus

This vessel appears in a variety of contexts, but only rarely as a banqueting implement. In both Vergil and Propertius it is part of the banqueting equipment; Vergil further specifies that a libation will be poured

with it? In both cases one may suggest that, given the context of the passages, it could also be a drinking vessel. The only other relevant refer-

ences are in Martial. In one passage the calathus is specifically mentioned as a drinking vessel, and in another the vessel is linked with satyrs and

Bacchus. In the wider world, the calathus is often encountered as a flower or

fruit basket. In the sources, the best description of its form is given by Pliny, in a discussion of a lily's blossom: narrow bottom, walls that rise

while tilting outwards, and a flaring lip? A number of paintings show a fruit? or flower" basket, which is most likely to be identified with the ? Prop. 2.15.52: ac veluti folia arentis liquere corollas, / quae passim calathis strata natare vides; Verg. Ecl. 5.71: et multo in primis hilarans convivia Baccho / ante focum, si frigus erit; si messis, in umbra / vina novum fundam calathis Ariusia nectar. * Mart. 8.6: miratus fueris cum prisca toreumata multum, / in Priami calathis Astyanacta bibes. Mart. 14.107 is more ambiguous, although a wine-cup is indicated: Calathi: Nos Satyri, nos Bacchus amat, nos ebria tigris, | perfusos domini lambere docta pedes. ? Plin. Nat. 21.23: et ab angustiis in latitudinem paulatim sese laxantis effigie calathi, resupinis per ambitum labris; ibid., 25.85 describes some other flowers as oblong, like calathi: in quo sunt flosculi oblongi veluti calathi. Columella 10.1.99 also calls lily-blossoms calathi: calathisque virentia lilia canis. '? E.g. Oplontis, Villa, Room 23; Second Style; in situ. Cf. A. De Franciscis, The Pompeian Wall Paintings in the Roman Villa of Oplontis (Recklinghausen 1975) 22-23, fig. 10.

" Eg. Stabiae, Villa di Arianna; Third Style; Naples, MN 8834. Cf. Le Collezi-

458

JOHN TAMM

calathus. One can see the flat base, straight or reasonably straight walls, and flaring lip which are mentioned in the textual sources. The banqueting vessel referred to by this name presumably has a similar form;

various extant examples survive." In this incarnation it can be made of metal, further qualified as embossed”, Hilgers adds, from later sources,

bronze and wood as possible media." Calix

In a banqueting context, only the generic poculum is used by a wider

range of authors than this term to refer to a drinking vessel.? Although this is its primary use, a few references imply that mixing would also

occur in a calix, and a calix is in one instance used to pour a libation." The sources mention a variety of media: terracotta, gilded terracotta, glass, jewelled gold, myrrhine, chased metal, wood, electrum, crystal,

and agate.'* Later authors add onyx, silver, stone, and amber to this list. Two authors mention form; the references are also varied. Juvenal calls a

vessel with four nozzles a calix.? Pliny, meanwhile, has several references; most occur when this spelling is used to refer to the calyx of a flower—lily, poppy or rose.” Although this is not very precise, it does suggest a hemispherical bowl. A vessel made from a pomegranate rind oni del Museo Nazionale di Napoli. I Mosaici, le Pitture, gli Oggetti di uso quotidiano, gli Argenti, le Terrecotte invetriate, i Vetri, i Cristalli, gli Avori (Milan 1989) 101-102, no. 111.

2 Cf. Künzl (above, n. 1) 328-338, for a copiously illustrated discussion of the term.

? Mart. 8.6. ^ Hilgers (above, n. 3) 128. 5 E.g. Catul. 27.2; Hor. S. 2.4.79; Mart. 4.85; Petr. 52.4; Plin. Nat. 33.5. '* Hor. S. 2.6.68: Prout cuique libido est, / siccat inaequalis calices conviva, solutus / legibus insanis, seu quis capit acria fortis | pocula, seu modicis uvescit laetius; Mart. 2.1: te conviva leget mixto quincunce, sed ante | incipiat positus quam tepuisse calix. 7 Suet. Gal. 18.2.11: cumque exterritus luce prima ad expiandum somnium, praemissis qui rem diuinam appararent, Tusculum excucurrisset, nihil invenit praeter tepi-

dam in ara fauillam atratumque iuxta senem in catino uitreo t[h]us tenentem et in calice fictili merum.

18. E.g. terracotta: Mart. 14.108; gilded terracotta: Petr. 73.5; glass: Mart. 14.94; jewelled gold: Mart. 14.109; myrrhine: Plin. Nat. 37.18; chased metal: Mart. 11.11; wood: Plin. Nat. 16.205; electrum: Plin. Nat. 33.81; crystal: Plin. Nat. 37.29; agate:

Suet. Aug. 71.1.5.

? Hilgers (above, n. 3) 133. 9 Juv. 5.47: tu Beneuentani sutoris nomen habentem | siccabis calicem nasorum quattuor ac iam | quassatum et rupto poscentem sulpura uitro.

? E.g. Plin. Nat. 21.14.

ROMAN DRINKING SILVER

459

is once termed a calyx”; this again suggests a fairly broad, shallow, hemispherical bowl. Such a form may or may not be confirmed by another passage in which a calix, said to have been dedicated in the Temple

of Athena at Lindos by Helen, is further said to resemble her breast in form.” Handles are mentioned only by later sources." Only two indications of capacity are given; Pliny mentions three sextarii, or roughly 1.5

litres, while Martial mentions a quincunx, or roughly 225 ml The indications of capacity by earlier or later authors given in Hilgers do not

clarify the situation.” Such variety suggests that perhaps the term approaches generic status. A number of inscriptions include the term. One particularly interesting example comes from a wall-painting in a caupona at Pompeii,

showing a drinker holding a cup and an attendant holding a jug.” The inscription reads: adde calicem Setinum.” This phrase, above the head of the drinker, and (possibly) have above the head of the attendant suggest that wine was held in the jug. According to Pliny, however, Setine wine was favoured even by Augustus, while Martial, who frequently men-

tions it, always does so in ways or in contexts that speak of the quality of the wine.? So presumably Setine was not characteristic of the usual wine available in a caupona. lt is possible that adde calicem Setinum was a catchphrase, perhaps popularised in some entertainment and adopted out of context by the painter for his scene. If so, it may be an ironical re-

flection on the quality of the wine in the jug, if it even is wine. It is interesting that the form the cup in the painting takes is a truncated cone, and not the hemisphere suggested by the literary sources. The difference in contexts may be a factor—drinking, perhaps at a banquet amongst the

upper levels of society, described by an author who also belongs to this ? Plin. Nat. 24.57: ex his ergo aliquis cum rosaceo in calice punici calfactus auribus

infunditur.

® Plin. Nat. 33.81: mammae suae mensura. ^ Hilgers (above, n. 3) 132.

5 Plin. Nat. 37.18: myrrhino LXX HS empto, capaci plane ad sextarios tres calice, potavit ... anus consularis; Mart. 2.1 (cf. above, n. 16).

* Hilgers (above, n. 3) 133: 1 modius or roughly 8.7 litres (Pl. Capt. 916), and 9 cyathi or roughly 0.4 litres. ” The painting is one of a series found on the south wall of room b in Pom-

peii VI.10.1. Cf. T. Fróhlich, Lararien- und Fassadenbilder in den Vesuvstädten (Mainz 1991) 214-222, Taf. 18.2.

8 CIL 4.1292. # Favoured by Augustus: Plin. Nat. 14.61: Divus Augustus Setinum praetulit cunctis et fere secuti principes. General references to the quality of Setine: Mart. 4.69, 6.86, 8.50, 9.2, 10.14, 10.36, 12.17, 13.124, 14.103.

460

JOHN TAMM

milieu, as opposed to drinking in the neighbourhood establishment, painted by someone who may well have been of lower social standing. This may be another indication that the term calix approaches generic status; alternatively, it may suggest that the term means different things to different social levels. Cantharus

The cantharus is only infrequently encountered in the sources. It is a drinking vessel; four of the seven relevant references also connect the vessel to Dionysus or his companions.? Most of the references are by

poets; the two prose authors to mention the vessel repeat the same story. As for medium, the passage from Horace's Epodes implies a polished metal, and later sources mention silver and gold.” A possibly Augustan inscription from Narona (Viddo) mentions a silver example; the vessel

was a dedication.” The cantharus has been associated in some of the literary sources with Dionysus and his followers. It is therefore possible that artistic representations of Dionysus and his followers might help in determining the vessel's form: a painting of Dionysus,? enthroned and holding a cup, may serve as a representative example. The cup is distinctive: stemmed foot, two-stage body consisting of a shallow bowl topped by concave

walls, and looping handles running from the bowl to the rim. Although no source makes the association of the term cantharus with this form ex9 As drinking vessel: Hor. Carm. 1.20.2: Vile potabis modicis Sabinum | cantharis, Graeca quod ego ipse testa / conditum levi; Ep. 1.5.23: Haec ego procurare et idoneus imperor et non | invitus: ne turpe toral, ne sordida mappa { corruget nares; ne non et cantharus et lanx / ostendat tibi te; Juv. 3.203: lectus erat Cordo Procula minor,

urceoli sex | ornamentum abaci, nec non et paruulus infra | cantharus et recubans sub

eodem marmore Chiron. With added Dionysiac context: Plin. Nat. 33.150: C. Marius post victoriam Cimbricam cantharis potasse Liberi patris exemplo traditur; Sil. 7.197: inde nitentem / lumine purpureo frontem cinxere corymbi, / et fusae per colla comae, dextraque pependit / cantharus, ac uitis thyrso delapsa uirenti ] festas Nysaeo redimiuit palmite mensas; V. Max. 3.6.6: lam C. Marii paene insolens factum: nam post Iugurthinum Cimbricumque et Teutonicum triumphum cantharo semper potauit, quod liber pater Indicum ex Asia deducens triumphum hoc usu poculi genere ferebatur, «ut» inter ipsum haustum uini uictoriae eius suas uictorias conpareret; Verg. Ecl. 6.13: (re-

garding a drunken, sleeping Silenus) serta procul tantum capiti delapsa iacebant / et gravis attrita pendebat cantharus ansa.

| Hilgers (above, n. 3) 137. * CIL 3.1769: Aug(usto) sacr(um) | C. Iulius Macrini lib(ertus) / Martialis (sex)vir m(agister?) M(ercurialis?) ob | honor(em). Idem ludos scaenic(os) | per trid(uum) d(edit) et canthar(um) arg(enteum) p(ondo) (unciarum septem). 9 Pompeii VI.10.11 (Casa del Naviglio), atrium 2; Fourth Style; Naples MN 9456. Cf. Collezioni MNN

(above, n. 13) 160-161, no. 259.

ROMAN

DRINKING SILVER

461

plicit, it is likely, given on the one hand the long-standing association of Dionysus (especially) and his followers with the cantharus, and on the other the frequency with which this form or variants thereof are met in depictions of Dionysus and his followers.

The vessel has also been associated with Sosus' "Drinking Doves" mosaic, in which a number of doves were perched on the rim of a large vessel; one dove was shown drinking from it. The mosaic survives only

in putative copies, but to include them clouds the issue somewhat. One version was originally in Hadrian's Villa at Tivoli.? The vessel the birds

are perched upon does not match the form found in the paintings of Dionysus and his followers. One might argue that the copies are not accurate, that Pliny did not get the term right, or that varying forms could congregate under the same name. Crater / Cratera | Creterra

The crater appears fairly frequently in this period, in a number of sources, but its precise function remains elusive. While the Greek κρατήρ

is well known as a mixing vessel, none of the sources from this period specifically mention this usage. In all the references with a banqueting context, when function is mentioned as opposed to just a mention of the

vessel, it can be a weapon used in the fight between the Centaurs and the Lapiths,* a vessel for holding wine,” or exceptionally, a vessel from which wine is drunk. On the other hand, some passages make a clear separation between the crater and the vessels from which the wine will

* Plin. Nat. 36.184, referring to Sosus' "Unswept Room" mosaic: mirabilis ibi columba bibens et aquam umbra capitis infuscans; apricantur aliae scabentes sese in canthari labro. 5 Tivoli, Hadrian's Villa; second century A.D.; Rome,

Musei

Capitolini. Cf.

JJ. Pollitt, Art in the Hellenistic Age (Cambridge 1986) 220-222, fig. 232. ** E.g. Mart. 8.6: hoc cratere ferox commisit proelia Rhoecus / cum Lapithis.

?' E.g. Ov. Met. 8.679: Interea totiens haustum cratera repleri / sponte sua per seque vident succrescere vina; Verg. A. 1.724: Postquam prima quies epulis mensaeque remotae, / crateras magnos statuunt et vina coronant.

* Plin. Nat. 36.29 most clearly indicates this: multa in eadem schola sine auctoribus placent: Satyri quattuor, ex quibus unus Liberum patrem palla velatum

umeris

praefert, alter Liberam similiter, tertius ploratum infantis cohibet, quartus cratere alterius sitim sedat. However,

this need not mean

that drinking out of a crater was

standard practice, as here it is the followers of Dionysus who do so. Some other references are more ambiguous: Stat. Theb. 2.76: effusi passim per tecta, per agros, / serta inter vacuosque mero crateras anhelum / proflabant sub luce deum; Verg. A. 9.165: discurrunt variantque vices, fusique per herbam { indulgent vino et vertunt crateras aenos.

462

JOHN TAMM

be drunk.? Only later authors, as well as one of unknown date, make the connection between the crater and mixing." However, in none of these instances does the context appear to be a description of a contemporary banquet. The vessel can also appear in religious contexts as a dedication,

an offering, or a libation vessel." Media include bronze, gold, silver, gilded silver, wood, and terracotta.? No indications of form are given besides Statius' characterising it as tall; a later author mentions two handles.® For capacity, Juvenal mentions one urna, or roughly 13 litres." Later sources mention 3 urnae (roughly 39 litres), and the rather astonishing 360 amphorae (roughly 9432 litres).5 Cyathus This term is frequently encountered, in a variety of authors. Whether in a

banqueting context or in the wider world, the term is used in two senses: to refer to a specific vessel —presumably the original meaning—and to refer to a set quantity, roughly .045 litres of liquid or, occasionally, solid material. In banqueting contexts, the strength of the wine mixture is of9 Ov. Met. 8.669: post haec caelatus eodem / sistitur argento crater fabricataque fago / pocula, qua cava sunt, flaventibus inlita ceris; Fast. 5.522: nunc dape, nunc posito mensae nituere Lyaeo; / terra rubens crater, pocula fagus erant. In another reference

the crater is brought round to the drinkers; presumably their cups will be filled from it: V. Fl. 5.694: tunc adsuetus adest Phlegraeas [qui] reddere pugnas / Musarum chorus et citharae pulsator Apollo / fertque gravem Phrygius circum cratera minister.

*? Hilgers (above, n. 3) 157, quoting Hyginus Astronomus, Astr. 2.40: Quod cum exoptanti Matusio accidisset, filias eius interfecit et sanguinem earum cum uino «in» cratere mixtum aduenienti regi pro potione dari iussit, who is himself referring

in this passage to Phylarchos, a third-century B.C. historian; Augustine, C.D. 17.20: immolavit suas victimas, miscuit in cratera vinum suum et ... ad craterem ... et bibite vinum quod miscui vobis.; and Macrobius, Sat. 7.1.16: ut crater liquoris ad laetitam nati adhibeatur non modo Nympharum, sed Musarum quoque admixione temperies. The date of Hyginus is uncertain; according to Fordyce he is not the contemporary of Ovid. Cf. C.J. Fordyce in OCD* (735) s.v. Hyginus (3).

*' E.g. dedication: V. Max. 1.1.ext.4: magni ponderis aurea cratera, quam Romani Pythio Apollini decimarum nomine dicaverant; offering: Verg. Ecl. 5.68: pocula bini novo spumantia lacte quotannis | craterasque duo statuam tibi pinguis olivi; libations: Prop. 3.17.37: ante fores templi, cratere antistes et auro / libatum fundens in tua sacra

merum. *' E.g. bronze: Cic. Ver. 4.131.9; gold: Liv. 5.25.10; silver: Juv. 12.44; gilded silver: Pers. 2.52; wood: Mart. 12.32; terracotta: Ov. Fast. 5.522. 9 Stat. Theb. 10.313; later authors: Hilgers (above, n. 3) 158. ^ Juv. 12.44: ille nec argentum dubitabat mittere, lances | Parthenio factas, urnae

cratera capacem | et dignum sitiente Pholo vel coniuge Fusci. *5 Hilgers (above, n. 3) 158, referring to Iulius Valerius 3.52.

ROMAN DRINKING SILVER

463

ten expressed by the number of cyathi of wine to be used. Alternatively, there can be a general statement of quantity to be drunk." Such references can be ambiguous; either sense works, although it is perhaps pref-

erable to suggest that the vessel itself is used to do the measuring. Other references are unambiguous.

Varro mentions

that in banquets,

the

cyathus was one of the two implements that took the place of the simpuvium, a ladle.“ Horace, the Appendix Vergiliana, and Martial also use the term to refer to a vessel.” Only once is a medium mentioned—silver, by

Pliny the Elder.? Later authors mention gold as well.? Similarly, there is only one indication of form, although it is very vague. Pliny mentions that the nests of some woodpeckers hang from a twig at the end of a branch, cyathi modo.” This suggests a combination of bowl and vertical handle. One Greek inscription, although outside the bounds set for this article,

nevertheless deserves mention. It occurs on a Hellenistic silver ladle with a vertical handle, apparently found in Akarnania along with a silver strainer

and

cup,

a gold

wreath,

and

earrings,

and

reads

᾿Αρχιφάω

xba8oç.® This is a very rare occurrence of a vessel's name actually being

inscribed on the vessel itself. While not matched exactly in the Roman finds from the first centuries B.C. and A.D., the form is nevertheless clearly similar. This suggests that it may be valid to use the term cyathus when referring to ladles with vertical handles.

*5 E.g. Hor. Carm. 3.19.12: tribus aut novem / miscentur cyathis pocula commodis; Mart. 8.50: Det numerum cyathis Instanti littera Rufi: auctor enim tanti muneris ille mihi.

*' E.g. Hor. Carm. 3.8.13: sume, Maecenas, cyathos amici / sospitis centum. * Var. L. 5.124: qui vinum dabant ut minutatim funderent, a guttis guttum appellarunt; qui sumebant minutatim, a sumendo simpuium nominarunt. in huiusce locum in conviviis e Graecia successit epichysis et cyathus; in sacruficiis remansit guttus et simpuium.

* Hor. S. 1.6.117: Cena ministratur pueris tribus, et lapis albus / pocula cum cyatho duo sustinet; Appendix Vergiliana, Copa 7: sunt topia et calybae, cyathi, rosa, tibia, chordae, also Catal.

11(14).4: quis deus, Octavi,

te nobis abstulit?

an quae {

dicunt, a, nimio pocula ducta mero? | "vobiscum, si est culpa, bibi. sua quemque sequuntur / fata: quid immeriti crimen habent cyathi?”; Mart. 10.66: quis potius cyathos aut quis crystalla tenebit? © Plin. Nat. 28.126: cyathus argenteus cum frigida aqua demissus. *' Hilgers (above, n. 3) 167. ? Plin. Nat. 10.96.

9 M. Crosby, "A silver ladle and strainer,” AJA 47 (1943) 209-216.

464

JOHN TAMM

Lagona | Lagoena / Lagena | Lagaena / Laguna This vessel is found more frequently in authors of the first century A.D. than first century B.C. It often appears in a banqueting context. When its function is more closely specified, it usually serves as a container from which wine is poured out for the drinkers It thus appears to be a kind

of jug; this is not contradicted by some of the other uses mentioned by Martial—a container for snow, and a container into which a boorish and greedy party-goer pours leftover wine to take home.? Outside the banqueting sphere, however, it can serve as a fermentation vessel, or a stor-

age vessel for various liquids or even solids, functions which do not in the first instance suggest a jug-like vessel. Petronius, Juvenal and Pliny mention media: silver, terracotta and a kind of wickerwork respec-

tively.” Later authors add glass and stone.* There are a few, inconsistent references to its form, again suggesting that a variety of forms might have been covered by the name. Pliny mentions a neck and also compares the way a stomach bulges out in length and width to a lagona. One of Phaedrus' fables implies a long, narrow neck—a stork with its long beak could get at the food inside, but not a fox; Columella, in contrast, calls in one passage for a lagona with a very

wide mouth.? A number of inscriptions mention a lagona, but do not clear up the confusion about its form. The vessels commonly known as amphorae take * Hor. S. 2.8.41 is the clearest such statement: Invertunt Allifanis vinaria tota / Vibidius Balatroque, secutis omnibus; imi / convivae lecti nihilum nocuere lagoenis. A

few passages in Martial imply it, e.g. 10.48: saturis mitia poma dabo, / de Nomentana vinum sine faece lagona; 12.82: fumosae feret ipse propin de faece lagonae. > Mart. 14.116: Lagona nivaria: Spoletina bibis vel Marsis condita cellis: / quo tibi decoctae nobile frigus aquae?, and 7.20: nec esculenta sufficit gulae praeda: | mixto lagonam replet ad pedes vino. ** E.g. fermentation: Plin. Nat. 14.85; storage: Plin. Nat.

14.66 (wine), Col.

12.47.2 (quinces). As a storage vessel, it could also serve as a transport vessel: Juv. 14.271.

? Silver: Petr. 22; terracotta: Juv. of the material, the reference in Pliny * Hilgers (above, n. 3) 204. He Mart. 7.53 (et Laletanae nigra lagona meaning is intended here.

5.29; wickerwork: Plin. Nat. 16.128. Because does not seem to be to a jug. also mentions nigra as a medium, quoting sapae), but probably just a simple adjectival

9 Plin. Nat. 28.174: calfacta vapore per lag«o»nae collum subeunte; 11.179: summum gulae fauces vocantur, postremum stomachus, hoc nomine est sub arteria iam carnosa inanitas adnexa spinae, ad latitudinem ac longitudinem lanae modo fusa; Phaed. 1.26.8-10: Quae vulpem cum revocasset, intrito cibo / plenam lagonam posuit: huic rostrum inserens / satiatur ipsa et torquet convivam fame. / Quae cum lagonae collum frustra lamberet; Col. 12.47.2: et in lagona nova, quae sit patentissimi oris.

ROMAN DRINKING SILVER

465

many forms; one can find examples carrying inscriptions that refer to

themselves as amphorae? Other examples, however, carry inscriptions that refer to themselves as cadi,* dolia? or lagonae.9 This multiplicity of forms and terms, all used apparently interchangeably, cannot be simplified; one cannot disentangle the connections and assign a specific name to a specific form. In this the visual evi-

dence repeats the varying descriptions of forms found in the texts. At some time, it is likely that specific forms were connected with specific

names, but by this period this is no longer the case. Forms and names have merged; what unites them may be function. Phiala

The phiala is encountered relatively frequently, always in authors of the first century A.D. or later. However, Martial and Juvenal are the only ones specifically to connect it to a banqueting context, and only Juvenal further specifies it as a drinking vessel. The Martial poem may suggest

that the vessel could be used for both mixing and drinking. Gold, silver, glass, and a type of electrum made from silver and bronze are given as

media. The vessel could be chased or engraved, and could have an emblema.9 No form indications are given. Martial once equates a leaf with a phiala, but the context does not allow for any conclusions to be drawn

from this However,

a silver vessel from the Boscoreale Treasure,

© CIL 4.2645: amp(hora?); 4.5524a: Imp. Vespasiano III | propertianum | amp. N

C; 4.5524b: Imp. Vespasiano III / propertianum | amp. N CII; 4.5532: vi idus decem. ab He(r)mete / vini amphora aper(ta); 15.4653: pr(idie) idus novemres vinum in cuneum (sc. compositum est); amfurae CCCLXXXIIX.

9 CIL 4.2637 (cadum | firmul«...- | ex cell) , 4.2655 (cad. lixsu / ex cell(a)).

€ CIL 4.5519 (from Pompeii): dol(ium) I / diffusum) est id. Iu. / L. Verginio C. Regulo / cos; CIL 4.5572 (from Pompeii): xv k(alendis) lan(uariis) / de Arriano dol(io?) xv; CIL 4.5573 (from Pompeii):

CIL 4.5577 (from Pompeii):

idibus ian(uariis)

/ de Asiniano racemat { dol(io?) I;

idibus / de Formiano dol(io?) xxv.

9 CIL 4.5882 (from Pompeii): grae / potho / lag; 15.4536 (from Rome): C. Cilnio

Proculo co(n)s(ule); Apianu(m) Cantl[i]niae Postumae ... XXI lacona D ... ..????. * Juv. 5.39: ipse capaces / Heliadum crustas et inaequales berullo / Virro tenet phialas: tibi non committitur aurum, / vel, si quando datur, custos adfixus ibidem, | qui

numeret gemmas, ungues observet acutos; Mart. 8.50. Later authors show a wider range of uses; cf. Hilgers (above, n. 3) 250. *55 E.g. gold: Mart. 14.95; silver: Mart. 3.40; glass: Petr. 51; silver/bronze alloy: Mart. 8.50. Juv. 5.39 mentions a jewel-studded phiala. Chasing: Mart. 14.95; engraving: Plin. Nat. 33.155; emblema: Mart. 3.40; Plin. Nat. 33.155. Mart. 8.33: De praetoricia folium mihi, Paule, corona / mittis et hoc phialae nomen habere iubes. Martial is being critical of a gift he has received, evidently much smaller than expected.

466

JOHN TAMM

popularly known as the "Africa Cup," is important in this regard. It carries a pair of inscriptions, giving the weight of the vessel and emblema, each of which refers to the vessel as a phiala.” Scyphus In relative terms, the scyphus appears frequently in a banqueting context. Often it is present as part of the equipment; a few passages show unambiguously that it was a drinking vessel. Mixing could also occur in a scyphus, as a passage in Martial shows and a passage in Seneca suggests.? In a few instances a scyphus also turns up in a religious context. Pliny mentions scyphi dedicated in temples at Rome and Rhodes," while Valerius Flaccus implies that a scyphus could be an attribute of Diony-

sus.” Silver, gold, iron and wood are mentioned as media.” The vessel could have embossed or chased decoration.” No indications of form are given save the indirect one that a scyphus was used to hand out lots at Trimalchio's dinner party, which suggests an open rather than closed form.“ Similarly, the only mention of capacity comes in Petronius—Trimalchio has some scyphi he claims contain roughly an urna, or 13.1 litres, each—presumably an exaggeration on his part.” 9' ILS 8619: phi(ala) et emb(lema) p(endent) p(ondo) (libras duas) (semissem et uncias quattuor) (scripula) VI, and phi(ala) p(endent) p(ondo) (libras duas) (uncias duas, semunciam), emb(lema) p(endent) p(ondo) (uncias septem, semunciam). The vessel is:

Paris, Louvre Bj 1969. Cf. F. Baratte, Le trésor d'orfèvrerie romaine de Boscoreale (Paris 1986) 77-81, with figs. * Plin. Nat. 21.12: ergo concerpta in scyphum incipienti haurire opposita manu (re-

ferring to Mark Antony); Sen. Dial. 5.14.2: Bibit deinde liberalius quam alias capacioribus scyphis (referring to Cambyses); Sen. Nat. 4b.13.10: non sorbere solum niuem sed etiam esse et frustra eius in scyphos suos deicere, ne tepescant inter ipsam bibendi moram. * Mart. 8.6: hic scyphus est in quo misceri iussit amicis / largius Aeacides vividiusque merum; Sen. Ep. 78.23: 'O infelicem aegrum!' Quare? quia non vino nivem diluit? quia non rigorem potionis suae, quam capaci scypho miscuit, renovat fracta insuper

glacie? ? Plin. Nat. 33.155: Acragantis in templo Liberi patris in ipsa Rhodo Centauros Bacchasque caelati scyphi; 34.141: videmus et Romae scyphos e ferro dicatos in templo Mars Ultoris.

7! V. Fl. 2.272: et sacer ut Bacchum referat scyphus. ? Eg. silver: Petr. 52.1; gold: Suet. CI. 32.1.9; iron: Plin. Nat. 34.141; wood: Tib. 1.10.8.

P Chasing: Plin. Nat. 33.147; embossing: Cic. Ver. 4.32.9.

™ Petr. 56.8: cum pittacia in scypho circumferri coeperunt. ?5 Petr. 52.1: in argento plane studiosus sum, habeo scyphos urnales plus minus ...

quemadmodum Cassandra occidit filios suos, et pueri mortui iacent sic ut vivere putes.

ROMAN DRINKING SILVER

467

Later authors mention handles, and terracotta as a medium." Cups with semiovoid or deep, rather rectangular bowls are often, in

the modern literature, referred to as scyphi. There is no evidence from the first century B.C. or A.D. that justifies this. CONCLUSIONS

The preceding examples are only a small selection of the numerous vessel names encountered in the sources, but they exemplify the potential

rewards, and real difficulties, of such a study. The potential is shown by examples such as those of the calathus, cantharus, cyathus, and phiala, for which associations between names and forms can be made with some confidence. For at least these, one may read the ancient texts and feel confident about the form of the named vessels, and modern scholars can expect to be understood when they use these specific terms. But it is use-

ful to remember that the ancient writers were not writing for the modern reader, and so vessel descriptions tend to be taken for granted. Their

audience knew what was meant, and that is all that mattered. Frequently, descriptions of form are lacking, incomplete, or contradictory. Here this is illustrated by the calix, crater, lagona, and scyphus. Doubt, at times considerable, must remain about the association of specific forms to these terms. Overall, generic English terms or descriptors would appear to be the better way to refer to ancient vessels and their forms, at

least in the majority of cases. In this way, potential confusion is avoided, and acknowledgement is made of the fact that the connections between names and forms remain dimly known."

7% Hilgers (above, n. 3) 275.

7 A detailed examination of the problems introduced here is currently in preparation. An earlier statement appeared in J. Tamm, Argentum Potorium in Romano-Campanian Wall-Painting (diss. McMaster 2001). For their invaluable assistance, I would like to thank Professors K.M.D. Dunbabin, W.J. Slater, and G.

Umholtz.

32 EUCLID'S NON-EUCLIDEAN GEOMETRY! R. S.

D. THOMAS

It is the object of this paper to illustrate that Euclid's Elements is not, as I have seen suggested, a compendium of the mathematics known in his day and place. To do this I shall use one possible counterexample; an-

other that once existed is his book called Conics. Certainly the conic sections are not contained in the Elements, but neither is Euclid's Conics ex-

tant; so all we have is the title. I shall come back to that later. The evidence I shall use is taken from Euclid's astronomy book Phainomena,

Appearances. This book consists of propositions concerning the movement of small

and great circles on the celestial sphere. The distinction in Euclid's day between mathematics and what we would call mathematical astronomy was clearer than that between astronomy and astrology. What concerned movement was astronomy; mathematics considered only static configu-

rations. There is no there is movement that Euclid has to point moves along other point moves

movement in the theorems of the Elements, although in the proving of some theorems. Because of the way talk about movement using phrases like "while this this arc from this position to this other position some along that arc from that position to that other posi-

tion," it is little wonder that scholars acknowledged a distinction be-

tween the static and comparatively rigorous mathematics and the moving and less rigorous astronomy.

Since the centrepiece of the paper is the theorems I want to display, I am going to get to them before spending any time talking about the Phainomena. What I am going to state are static theorems about small and great circles that are called upon in the proofs of the astronomical propo-

sitions. They are not quoted, and no source is given for them. This is entirely in accordance with the scholarly practice of the time, not so different from Baroque composers' borrowing from one another. When someone wrote a better book on the same mathematical subject, it simply displaced its predecessor. We have Apollonius's Conics, not Euclid's, the ! Work done with Len Berggren, Simon Fraser University, who also kindly prepared the diagrams. 469

470

R.S.D. THOMAS

Elements of Euclid, not those of Hippocrates of Chios. Euclid's Phai-

nomena endured presumably not so much for the reason his Elements survived as a model for centuries but both because of his authorship and because trigonometry was invented and his qualitative astronomy was

displaced by more quantitative work, which has come down to us in Ptolemy's Almagest. I shall elaborate further on how we can be confident

what the presupposed theorems are and, after I spell them out, why we think they are not just assumptions. As the examples show that I shall give, the theorems he is using could not be merely things he regards as obvious. They range up to the very far from obvious. One point about terms before we begin. A circle for Euclid is what we call a circular disk, the edge being its circumference, and a sphere is what we call a ball, a solid figure. A circle is not empty, and a sphere is not hollow. Here are some of the simple results: When a plane cuts a sphere, the intersection is a circle whose circumfer-

ence is on the surface of the sphere and whose centre lies on the diame-

ter of the sphere perpendicular to any parallel circle (I.1—book and proposition numbers in the Spherics of Theodosius for reference to be explained later).

Note the naturalness of the parallelism of circular disks. When a plane cuts a sphere through its centre, the centre of the circle of intersection and of the sphere coincide and the circle is a great circle in the sphere (1.6). Now two definitions:

The diameter of the sphere perpendicular to parallel circles intersects the surface of the sphere in two diametrically opposite points, called poles of the parallel circles, and the line joining the two poles is called an axis of the sphere (1.8).

Despite the use of the term axis, no rotation is involved except perhaps as inspiration. Any two great circles in a sphere bisect each other because they intersect in a line passing through the centre of each (1.11).

Notice that what we call circles would not intersect in a line. This difference makes it as easy to consider the angle between circles as between planes. Not so on the surface of a sphere, where a limiting process is needed. Two great circles in a sphere are perpendicular if and only if each

passes through the poles of the other (consequence of I.13 and 1.15, used in proof of Proposition II of Phainomena).

Now here are some theorems of increasing complexity:

EUCLID'S NON-EUCLIDEAN GEOMETRY

471

If two circles in a sphere are tangent then the great circle through the

point of tangency and the poles of one also passes through the poles of the other (11.5, used in proof of Proposition II).

The next theorem uses the Greek word asymptotic. In ordinary language it meant, referring to a face or figure, pudgy rather than concave, and, of a wound, not healing, not closing. In this context it means not intersecting and is applied only to semicircles of great circles, but it was used of parallel lines by another author. Its application to a hyperbola and what we call its asymptotes is first made by Apollonius in his Conics. In Figure 1, the circles C and C' consisting of the labelled semicircles C, and C;, C', and C", respectively, are great circles, each obtained by ro-

tating the other about an axis perpendicular to the other three parallel circles. The semicircles C, and C', are asymptotic, as are C; and C^.

Fig. 1

472

R.S.D. THOMAS If two asymptotic semicircles C, and C', are tangent to a given non-great

circle C at P and P' respectively and cut circles P, and P; parallel to the circle C, then the parallel arcs of P, and P; marked f and f' between the

asymptotic semicircles C, and C', are similar (that is, they subtend equal angles at their common axis) and corresponding arcs of the semicircles C, and C', between the parallel circles P, and P, are equal.

The theorem, "given a point between two equal parallel circles on a sphere, it is possible to draw two great circles tangent to the parallel cir-

cles and passing through the given point" (II.15) is used in the proofs of Propositions IV, V, XII, in the form of a consequence illustrated by Figure 2:

Fig. 2

EUCLID'S NON-EUCLIDEAN GEOMETRY If a great circle tangent to two equal parallel circles P, and P, in a sphere does not pass through a given point P between them and if C, is one of its semicircles running from one parallel circle to the other, then, on the two great circles constructible through P and tangent to P, and P,, one semicircle, 5, or S,, running from P, to P; through the point P is asymptotic to C,. If two circles P, and P, are parallel to a great circle C and on opposite sides of it, then a necessary and sufficient condition that they be equal is that they cut off from some other great circle G equal arcs on either side of C (combination of 11.17 and 11.18, used in proofs of Propositions VI,

VIII, XII, XIV).

The following theorem is illustrated by Figure 3.

Fig. 3

473

474

R.S.D. THOMAS Let a great circle H in a sphere be tangent to one circle P, and cut another P; that is parallel to P, but lies between P, and the centre of the

sphere.

Let the pole P of H lie between the two parallel circles P, and P,. Let

there be two great circles ABC and BDE tangent to P, at A and D. Let A lie nearer than D to the midpoint of the larger of the two arcs into which the great circle H divides P,. Then ABC makes a larger angle with H at C than does BDE at E (I1.22, used in proofs of Propositions VII, XIV). In a sphere, let two great circles cut each other and let two equal arcs AB, BC, be cut off on one of them and DB, BE, on the other from a point

of intersection B. Then the line segments AD, EC, joining the endpoints of the two pairs of arcs in the same direction are equal (IIL3, used in proof of Proposition XII).

Finally there are two theorems with similar hypotheses: Let a small circle A, a larger small circle T, and a great circle Q be parallel.

Let a great circle H be tangent to A. Let another great circle E be tangent to small circle

T where H cuts T

(and therefore E). Let two equal consecutive arcs a, a', be cut off on E

between its point of contact with T and its point of intersection with the great circle Q.

Fig. 4

EUCLID'S NON-EUCLIDEAN GEOMETRY

475

The first conclusion, illustrated by Figure 4, is that the circle parallel to A, T, Q, through the common endpoint of the equal arcs o, a’, will cut off unequal arcs 8, f', on H, the larger being nearer Q (IIL7, used in proof of Proposition VIII).

Fig. 5

The second conclusion, illustrated by Figure 5, is that the asymptotic semicircles tangent to A and through the endpoints of the equal arcs a, a’, will cut off unequal arcs fi, f, on Q, the larger being nearer to H (III.8, used in proof of Proposition XII).

I think that the reader will agree that these theorems are less and less

likely to be used because they are obvious rather than proved. The evidences that they are theorems rather than private notions of the author are three. One is their complexity. Another is that they concern the sections of a sphere by planes, and these theorems would be a reasonable

precursor to the construction of the substantial body of Greek mathematics called conics about sections of a cone by planes. The third evi-

dence is that there is extant a for which reference numbers know that Euclid did not use century after his traditional

book called Spherics where all the theorems were supplied above are proved. Now we the spherics book because it was written a floreat, but we know also that he himself

476

R.S.D. THOMAS

wrote a book called Conics, and it seems to me that the spherics material is the more elementary and so would probably have been developed first. The Spherics of Theodosius, incidentally, has not been translated into English, but it has been translated into French—twice. The 1927 critical edition of Heiberg has presumably been superseded by a new critical edition done as a thesis with commentary and the second translation into French by Claire Czinczenheim.

One might well wonder about the context of the theorems of spherics or the propositions of Phainomena. This is not the place to set out the mathematics and explain the astronomy. So I shall just try to give the

briefest notion of what the astronomical propositions of the book are about, and do so in geometrical rather than astronomical terms for the sake of brevity. A fuller explanation is available in our paper, J.L.

Berggren and R.S.D. Thomas, "Mathematical astronomy in the fourth century B.C. as found in Euclid's Phaenomena," Physis: Rivista Internazionale di Storia della Scienza n.s. 29 (1992) 7-33, and in our book, which is unfortunately out of print: J.L. Berggren and R.S.D. Thomas, Euclid's Phaenomena: A Translation and Study of a Hellenistic Treatise in Spherical Astronomy (New York/London 1996). The Phainomena concerns the mo-

tion of the ecliptic circle, which is the great circle on the celestial sphere along which the point centre of the Sun moves through the constellations annually, hence in Greek zodiacal circle. The real subject is the Sun, but it is treated as the leading point of a semicircle of the ecliptic and mentioned not even once by name. The celestial sphere is covered by the parallel orbits of the fixed stars—fixed, that is, on the rotating celestial

sphere. The poles of all of these parallel circles are the north and south celestial poles, the ends of the sphere's axis of rotation. The fixed stars travel around these circles daily, and their motion would be terribly

boring except for the fact that the Earth's axis—and therefore the celestial sphere's axis of rotation—are oblique to the ecliptic. This obliquity makes the sky look different at different seasons of the year and makes

the ecliptic, over the course of the year, do what Euclid describes as wobbling. The ecliptic is tangent to two of the parallel circles, called the summer and winter tropics (turning circles). When the Sun is at these points of tangency, we experience a solstice in June or December because

the Sun turns from northward motion to southward or vice versa. This is where the asymptotic semicircles come from that some of the theorems speak of. The horizon on the celestial sphere, which divides the part of the sphere that is above the surface of the Earth from the hemisphere that is hidden, is another great circle, and so it cuts the ecliptic in half. As the ecliptic moves daily it remains tangent to the tropics, and so succes-

sive positions day by day of its half above the horizon are nonintersecting semicircles.

EUCLID'S NON-EUCLIDEAN GEOMETRY

477

Let me show how one of the static geometrical theorems becomes an astronomical proposition. I quote again the horizon-arcs theorem, as we call it: Let a small circle A, a larger small circle T, and a great circle Q be parallel. Let a great circle H be tangent to A. Let another great circle E be tangent to small circle T where H cuts T (and therefore E). Let two equal consecutive arcs a, a', be cut off on E

between its point of contact with T and its point of intersection with the

great circle Q.

The conclusion illustrated by Figure 4 is that the circle parallel to A, T, Q, through the common endpoint of the equal arcs a, a’, will cut off unequal arcs B, fj, on H, the larger being nearer Q. This theorem is used to prove the first half of Proposition VIII: The signs of the zodiac (the conventional twelfths into which the ecliptic circle is divided) rise and set (across the horizon, that is) in unequal

segments of the horizon; those at the equator in the largest, those next to them in smaller segments, and those at the tropics in the smallest.

The proof of this proposition is scarcely more than a translation into the moving astronomical system of the static findings about the sizes of arcs in the theorem. The great circle H is the horizon, so that we see in

the diagram natural but ecliptic. The circle, which

a view of the celestial sphere as it were from outside, unconvenient. The great circle E oblique to everything is the great circle Q, which is the celestial equator (the equal-day the Sun crosses at equinoxes) serves no purpose here except

to divide the ecliptic into halves, as does the horizon, leaving three of the

twelfths of E between Q and T. The small parallel circle T is the northern tropic, which E touches. The small parallel circle A is the circle surrounding the stars that are close enough to the north pole star that their orbits are always above the horizon H. The size of the circle A depends on the latitude of the observer. When we project the equal arcs a, a', of the ecliptic onto the horizon using parallel circles that are star orbits, the projections f, B', according to the horizon-arcs theorem, are unequal, with the more southerly the larger. The result is to show that the twelfths of the great circle labelled

E do indeed rise (and set of course) crossing

unequal arcs of the horizon.

The propositions are not all so directly translations of theorems of spherics; I chose this one for its simplicity of exposition because my em-

phasis here is on the spherics, not on spherical astronomy. There is quite sophisticated geometry here in the spherics, and it has been consistently underrated by scholars for many years, to the point

that most persons—even among those that should—do not even know

478

R.S.D. THOMAS

that it exists. I think that it motivates the cutting of cones by planes, an otherwise unintuitive thing to do. If one looks spherics up in a text on the history of mathematics, astronomy, or science one finds amazingly little written about it if anything. Let me conclude with a word about my title. It represents a reason for

historical interest in spherics, namely the fact that the geometry of small and great circles on the surface of a sphere is a model—one might say a version—of the second non-euclidean plane geometry discovered in the

nineteenth century when the denial of the parallel postulate of Euclid, to the effect that through a point not on a line there is a unique parallel line, took the form of assuming that there were no parallels at all (elliptic geometry). The first assumption was that there were many parallels (hyperbolic geometry). That Euclid himself was perfectly at home in this very geometry tells us something about the axiomatic method and the original Greek understanding of it. That nineteenth-century mathematicians discovered this version of non-euclidean geometry second also sheds light on the nineteenth-century understanding of the axiomatic

method.

33 GLADIATOR REPRESENTATIONS ON EGYPTIAN LAMPS IN VANCOUVER HECTOR WILLIAMS

Interest in Roman gladiators has developed considerably in the past decade or so with an ever-growing number of major books, articles and dissertations appearing about one of the most intriguing of Roman institu-

tions.’ There has, however, been relatively little discussion of the iconography of gladiators and almost no discussion of the subject of my tribute to Edmund Berry, a man who helped form me as a classicist over

forty years ago (1962-66) at the University of Manitoba. In spite of their appearance as parts of small decorative reliefs on hundreds of Roman oil

lamps of the first to fourth centuries after Christ from across the empire, gladiators and lamps have received a treatment in few articles? It is

clear, in fact, that the reliefs on the top of lamps make up by far the largest group of images that we have of gladiators and their equipment. This paper will present a small group of examples from Roman Egypt in the collection of the Department of Classical, Near Eastern and Religious

Studies at the University of British Columbia? Any study of gladiators in the eastern Mediterranean must still begin with Louis Robert's magisterial work of 1940, Les gladiateurs dans l'Orient ! Coleman, Eplett (2002), Futtrell, Kyle (1998), Wiedemann (1992); for a brief but useful general introduction, see Grant (1967), and for more substantial treatments, Robert (1940) and Ville (1981). Useful also is a recent catalogue of an ex-

hibition in Germany and London on the subject (Koehne and Ewigleben 2000) as

well as Gabucci (2001), a collection of essays that deals with much more than its nominal subject, the Colosseum. I would like to thank Dr. Donald Bailey for advice and for permission to use his drawings of lamps in the British Museum to illustrate our fragmentary examples. ? Wollmann (1917); a convenient source of illustrations of many gladiators on

lamps in the extensive collections of the British Museum are Bailey (1980) and

(1988). The presence of lamps with gladiatorial representations from a grave in Roman London was recently misused to suggest it was the grave of a woman gladiator; in fact such lamps are common in many graves.

> Acquired from the Moustaki Colllection, which was made up before 1949 in Alexandria, Egypt; the collection is said to have originated from sites in and

around the city. 479

480

HECTOR WILLIAMS

grec and subsequent supplements to this still unmatched treatment of a large body of evidence from three hundred and two inscriptions and commemorations in relief sculpture.‘ Robert's discussion did not, however, consider other evidence from lamps, figurines or figured mosaics, although he acknowledged their potential value.

The particular interest in the lamps at UBC comes from their origin in Roman Egypt, an area from which we have remarkably little information about gladiators; much of what we know—in good part from epigraphy—appears in a recent article by F. Kayser, who mentions lamps but

does not discuss them as a potential source? It is ironic that much of what we have comes from inscriptions found outside Egypt; they attest to the importance of Alexandria as a source of gladiators and trainers. Even the recent synoptic work by Alan Bowman does not, for example, include a reference to gladiators or arenas in its index. The few studies of lamps from Egypt provide almost no information either.’ CATALOGUE

1. VL 2002.1 (Plate 1; Fig. 1) M.P.D. 0.047. Fragment of a disk and rim

preserving most of the left-hand side. Dark brown clay, dark brown slightly uneven slip. Details are not very clear in some areas. Heavily * Robert (1940) and supplements in REG. 5 Kayser (2000).

$ Robert (1940) 242-243 mentions the topic briefly but only to emphasize the lack of information; he refers to an amphitheatre at Alexandria on the basis of an

inscription in Naples (his no. 70, pp. 124-125) naming the procurator of a ludus familiae gladiatoriae, but he pushes the evidence too far. He also mentions some papyrological evidence for a ludus and for a woman abandoned by a gladiator. Elsewhere the large theatre at Oxyrhynchus, for example, according to Bowman (1986) 144-145, "would present spectacles of various kinds. Gymnastic displays by the ephebic youths, athletic and artistic performances by the stars of the world-wide, travelling guilds or musical and dramatic performances of a more modest kind," but there is no evidence of conversion of theatres in Egypt for gladiatorial spectacles as elsewhere in the eastern Mediterranean. Even when atrocities against the local Jewish population took place in the theatre at Alexandria they were not in the context of typical events in the arena (Philo, In Flaccum 85). The absence of the imperial cult played a major role in the paucity of gladiatorial events, and what there were may well have been associated with the Roman military presence, although a recent book on the Roman army in Egypt (Alston [1995]) does not even mention gladiators.

7 E.g. Shier (1978): among the 517 lamps from Karanis in the Fayoum discussed in her book there are two with gladiatorial equipment (#305-6) displayed in a round band around the filling hole; they imitate imported Italian lamps of the first century C.E. See also Petrie (1905) pl. 53, no. 56 for a pair of gladiators on a somewhat crude lamp; on p. 6 he refers to 12 varieties of gladiators on lamps from his site but gives no other examples.

GLADIATOR REPRESENTATIONS ON EGYPTIAN LAMPS

PI. 1. VL 1 (below); VL 2 (above)

481

482

HECTOR WILLIAMS

Q 2791 Fig. 1

Fig. 2

armed gladiator (hoplomachos) with full helmet and oblong shield with groove around edge advances right with short sword in right hand. Armour on right arm and greaves on shins; wears loin cloth with heavy belt. Below shield is trace of a leg of an opponent. Double groove forms a

framing ring around the disk; slightly sloping shoulder and start of Ushaped nozzle set off by a horizontal groove from the disk. This lamp, much smaller than the average, shows a figure very similar to Bailey (1988) 347, pl. 86 Q2791 from the Sanctuary of Demeter at

Knidos and might be a local copy of an imported lamp. The small size often indicates a pirated representation copied directly off an import;

after each copying the reproduction shrinks. Compare also gladiators (hoplomachoi) like Robert (1940) no. 148, Pl. II and 149, Pl. I from Tralles.

The style of the rim and nozzle make a date in the later first/early second centuries C.E. likely. Bailey suggests that the fighters might be women, but our lamp is not clear enough to be certain. All things considered, the identification seems unlikely. 2.

VL2002.2

(Plate 1; Fig. 2) M.P.D. 0.060. Fragment

of a disk and rim.

Dark brown clay and slip. Two gladiators: the one on the right (a hop-

lomachos) holds semicylindrical rectangular shield out in right hand and short sword in left hand which is pulled back. Wears crested helmet, loin

cloth, protection on sword arm, possible trace of greaves on leg. Slight

traces of opponent's arm and helmet on left side above filling hole. Sin-

GLADIATOR REPRESENTATIONS ON EGYPTIAN LAMPS

483

gle groove preserved around rim. Bailey (1980) 139, pl. 3, Q785, Italian from the first third of the first

century C.E., shows complete scene of hoplomachos fighting a stricken Samnite. Egyptian imitation of imported lamp. 3. VL2002.3 (Plate 2; Fig. 3) M.P.D. 0.088. Fragment of right side of a disk, rim and start of nozzle. Pale buff clay, red/brown slip, worn in

places. Back view of a gladiator wearing a helmet with cheek pieces and facing left; right arm pulled back holding sword; right leg turned to right with greave which protrudes above the knee; back view of left leg which seems to end in five finger-like toes. Wears loin cloth with broad belt.

Start of volute nozzle; flat rim with three concentric grooves. Bailey (1988) 414, pl. 122 Q3296 from "the Greek East" is close in a number of ways (form of helmet, position of arm, form of loin cloth) and

depicts a veles, a lightly armed soldier with spear and small round shield

fighting a hoplomachos on the other side; it is related to a lamp in Berlin from Egypt, but the British Museum lamp is later in date from the first half of the second century. Our lamp is dated early or middle of the first century on the basis of the rim form; unfortunately it lacks the diagnostic

left side of the gladiator and his opponent.

Pi. 3. VL 3 (right); VL 4 (left)

484 HECTOR WILLIAMS

GLADIATOR REPRESENTATIONS ON EGYPTIAN LAMPS

485

4. VL2002.4 (Plate 2) M.P.D. 0.067. Two fragments (mended) of disk and

rim. Pink red clay, red /brown slip. Barbarian horseman riding left at the gallop and holding out long narrow hexagonal shield in left hand; long

sword sheath down left side. Bare torso and breeches; trace of torc at neck. Horse has broad saddle held in place by cruppers across shoulder and flank. Traces of three fine grooves around rim. Italian, middle of the first century. Perhaps not Rome's barbarian enemies, probably a Gaul to breeches; other representations of barbarians are

Very sharp details. a gladiator but one of judge from torc and rare, however, and he

might rather be a fighter in the arena in ethnic dress. It is a popular subject and known on a number of other examples? TYPOLOGY

Lamps 3 and 4 are typical of the thousands of volute nozzled lamps created in the first century after Christ; it is likely from the appearance of the fabric that both were imports, probably from Italy. Lamps 1 and 2 are of a different fabric and are probably local Egyptian products, perhaps

from the Delta. Their disk scenes would have been taken from imported lamps. Lamp 1 preserves traces of a U-shaped nozzle, a type that comes in later in the first century and that eventually supplants the volute nozzled type everywhere. It is worth noting that gladiators appear to be much more popular in the first century on lamps than subsequently, al-

though they do continue to appear until the fourth century.

REFERENCES

Alston, Richard. 1995. Soldier and Society in Roman Egypt. London. Bailey, Donald M. 1980. A Catalogue of the Lamps in the British Museum. Vol. Il. Roman Lamps Made in Italy. London. . 1988. A Catalogue of the Lamps in the British Museum. Vol. III. Roman Provincial Lamps. London. Bowman, Alan K. 1986. Egypt after the Pharoahs. Berkeley. Coleman, Kathleen. 1993. "Launching into history: Aquatic displays in the early empire,"/RS 83: 48-74. Eplett, Christopher. 2001. Animal Spectacula of the Roman Empire. Diss. British Columbia. Futtrell, Alison. 1997. Blood in the Arena: The Spectacle of Roman Power. Austin. Gabucci, Ada et al. 2001. The Colosseum. Trans. Mary Becker. Los Angeles. Grant, Michael. 1967. Gladiators. Harmondsworth.

8 Leibundgut (1977) no. 250, pl. 44; she notes that this image is popular across the empire except in the East and cites other such images from northwestern

Europe and North Africa.

486

HECTOR WILLIAMS

Kayser, Francois. 2000. "La gladiature en Egypte," REA 102: 459-478. Koehne, Eckart and Cornelia Ewigleben. 2000. Gladiators and Caesars. London. Kyle, Donald. 1998. Spectacles of Death in Ancient Rome. London. Leibundgut, Annaliese. 1977. Die rómischen Lampen in der Schweiz. Bern. Petrie, Flinders. 1905. Roman Ehnasya. London.

Robert, Louis. 1971.

1940. Les gladiateurs dans l'Orient grec. Paris; repr. Amsterdam

Shier, Louise. 1978. Terracotta Lamps from Karanis, Egypt. Michigan. Ville, Georges. 1981. La gladiature en Occident des origines a la mort de Domitien. Rome. Wiedemann, Thomas. 1992. Emperors and Gladiators. London / New York. Williams, Hector. 1981. Kenchreai, Eastern Port of Corinth. Vol. V. Greek and Ro-

man Terracotta Lamps. Leiden. Wollman, H. 1917. "Retiarier-Darstellung auf rómischen Lampen," RómMitt 33: 147-167.

34 THE LEGEND OF CONSTANTINE THE RELIC-PROVIDER JOHN WORTLEY It has been demonstrated elsewhere that, unlike Rome on the Tiber and probably unlike any other major city of the Empire, New Rome on the Bosporus inherited almost no martyrs' relics from the age of persecutions. Even when every possible case of martyrs who had any connection

whatsoever with the old Byzantium is taken into consideration, the list is still a very short one. When the names of those who died elsewhere are subtracted from that list, plus the name of Bishop Metrophanes who was no martyr, it shrinks to no more than three cases: Lucillian and his companions, Mocius and Acacius. Of these three only the last might with any confidence be thought to have been known in the earliest days of New Rome. Yet, slender though it may be, it was on this basis that, during the succeeding nine centuries, Constantinople built up the most extensive relic-collection ever assembled by that date anywhere in

Christendom; a collection which became the envy of the Christian world and which may have been a principal reason for both the sacking of that City in 1204 and the subsequent dispersal of its relics. The object of the present study is to determine to what extent the feeble legacy of relics from old Byzantium was expanded in the time of Constantine the Great.

The “window of opportunity" extends from the opening of the city in 330 to that emperor's death only seven years later.

The Byzantine writers (and in this Eusebius of Caesarea, author of the Vita Constantini, is to be reckoned as the first culprit) often tend to assume that since Constantine was the founder of Constantinople, so too

must he have been the instigator of most things Constantinopolitan. Thus, if relic-acquiring was a characteristic of later emperors (which, in some cases, it undoubtedly was) then Constantine must of course have

endowed his city with relics. The argument is tenuous to be sure, but the legend of Constantine the relic-provider persists (especially in literature addressed ad populum). It still persists even in rather more sophisticated

literature, for as late as 1975 one distinguished scholar was claiming (and ! John Wortley, "The Byzantine component of the relic-hoard of Constantin-

ople," GRBS 40 (1999) 307-332. 487

488

JOHN WORTLEY

being quoted with approbation by another) that "Constantine was only the first of the Byzantine rulers who filled New Rome with relics."? Even more recently it has been reasserted that "Relic acquisition began with

Constantine ...'? It is not difficult to perceive a second reason why

the legend of

Constantine the relic-provider arose. Would not he, who despoiled the entire οἰκουμένη of its treasures to ornament his new city, also have requisitioned for its fortification the yet more formidable treasure of mar-

tyrs' relics? Would not he whose mother was later credited with spectacular relic-inventions in the Holy Land have proved himself at least equally zealous in the quest for holy remains? These and similar syllogisms would have contributed liberally to the development of his reputation as a provider of relics. But they are in fact the projection into the past of beliefs and practices characteristic neither of that emperor nor of his time. In order to transcend those anachronisms one must consult the evidence which stands most closely related to that emperor's age.

To what extent the Vita Constantini genuinely reflects conditions in the age of Constantine is a question too complex to be debated here. Yet, whenever and by whomever it was written, it represents the closest and most comprehensive view of Constantine and all his works available, albeit a view seen through the eyes of a later generation. There are three

passages in the Vita which either imply an interest on Constantine's part in the matter of relics or may have provided a point of departure for the development of his reputation for having had such an interest. The first of these passages is a general provision, made shortly after the victory over Licinius: Furthermore, the places themselves which are honoured by the bodies of the martyrs and stand as monuments to their glorious decease [τοὺς τόπους αὐτούς, of τοῖς σώμασι τῶν μαρτύρων τετίμηται καὶ τῆς dvaχωρήσεως τῆς ἐνδόξου ὑπομνήματα καθεστᾶσιν) who could doubt that

they belong to the churches, or would not so decree? Since no gift could be better nor other labour more agreeable and rich in advantage, than at the instigation of the divine will to take active steps about such things, and that what was on evil pretexts of lawless and foul men taken away, should be rightfully restored to the holy churches and conserved

? Nicole Hermann-Mascard,

Les reliques des saints: Formation coutumière d'un

droit (Paris 1975) 33-34, quoted in Charles W. Jones, Saint Nicholas of Myra, Bari and Manhattan: Biography of a Legend (Chicago/ London 1978) 71. 3 Liz James, "Bearing gifts from the east: Imperial relic hunters abroad,” in Antony Richmond, ed., Eastern Approaches to Byzantium (Aldershot 2001) 119-131, at 124.

* VC 2.40, edited by Friedhelm Winkelmann in Über das Leben des Kaisers Konstantin. Eusebius Werke, 1.1 (Berlin 1975) 65.9-16; translated by Averill Cameron

THE LEGEND OF CONSTANTINE THE RELIC PROVIDER

489

This statement (which reads very much like a legal definition of the word μαρτύριον) is clearly concerned with property rather than with relics. Yet it may very well be the basis of a later claim for which there is

no justification to be found in the Vita. Writing in the sixth century, Alexander the Monk says that, after the victory over Licinius, Constantine

"ordered the relics of the holy martyrs to be gathered up and given decent burial, and that the property of those who had been wronged was to be returned to them" (τότε ὁ βασιλεὺς ἐκέλευσε συναχθῆναι τὰ λείψανα τῶν ἁγίων μαρτύρων καὶ ὁσίᾳ τάφῃ παραδοθῆναι καὶ τοῖς ἀδικηθεῖσιν τὰς οὐσίας αὐτῶν ἀποδοθῆναι). Here the burial of the martyrs’ remains is

portrayed as one aspect of a program of restitution for the wrongs done during the persecutions. But when Theophanes Confessor came to rework Alexander's statement at the beginning of the ninth century, he gave it a different emphasis. Omitting the second part of it about the restoration of property, he portrays the recuperation and pious disposition of relics as a matter of first importance: "When Constantine, the co-

worker of God, gained control of Rome, before all else, he ordered the relics of the holy martyrs to be gathered up and given holy burial" (κρατήσας τὴν Ρώμην Κωνσταντῖνος ὁ θεοσυνέργητος πρὸ πάντων τὰ λείψανα τῶν ἁγίων μαρτύρων ἐκέλευσε συλλεγέντα ὁσίᾳ τάφῃ παραδοθῆναι).

Whereas this first relic-statement in the Vita Constantini concerns the Empire at large, the second and third statements are of greater interest for present purposes as they refer specifically to Constantinople: Throughout all the provinces he also furnished newly-built churches, and so made them far higher in public esteem than their predecessors.

In honouring with exceptional distinction the city which bears his name

[i.e. Constantinople] he embellished it with very many places of wor-

ship, very largely martyrs’ shrines, and splendid houses [ebxtnpioic πλείοσιν ἐφαίδρυνε μαρτυρίοις te μεγίστοις xal περφανεστάτοις οἴκοις], some standing before the city and others in it [τοῖς μὲν πρὸ τοῦ ἄστεος, τοῖς δὲ ἐν αὐτῷ τυγχάνουσι]. By these he at the same time honoured the tombs ἱμνήμας] of the martyrs and consecrated the city to the martyrs’

God.

The third passage gives some indication of how many sacred edifices Constantine is alleged to have intended to raise up at Constantinople; it is found in a letter from the Emperor to Eusebius of Caesarea: In the city which bears our name ... a great mass of people has attached and Stuart G. Hall, Eusebius: Life of Constantine (Oxford 1999) 109. 5 Alexander the Monk, De Inventione Sanctae Crucis, PG 87.4056A.

$ Thphn. Chron. 1.14.26-28 De Boor. 7 VC 3.47, 48 = 104.5-11 Winkelmann; 140 Cameron and Hall.

490

JOHN WORTLEY itself to the most holy church, so that with everything there enjoying great growth it is particularly fitting that more churches should be established. Be ready therefore to act urgently on the decision which we have reached. It appeared proper to indicate to your Intelligence [τῇ où συνέσει) that you should order fifty volumes [σωμάτια] with ornamen-

tal leather bindings, easily legible and convenient for portable use, to be copied by skilled calligraphists well trained in the art, copies that is of the Divine Scriptures, the provision and use of which you well know to

be necessary for reading in church?

In the passages cited above, the author appears to be claiming that Constantine planned to provide no less that fifty new ecclesiastical foundations (or restorations?) in and around his capital; also that many of these ("numerous sacred edifices") had actually been completed at the

time of writing. Some of these foundations were of the type known as martyria, meaning edifices which in some way or other housed the re-

mains of martyrs. The implication appears to be that there were several of these martyria. If this were the case, since Constantinople was somewhat impoverished so far as indigenous martyrs are concerned, the relics in at least some of these martyria must perforce have been imported from elsewhere. But for the Later Romans no such complicated reason-

ing was necessary. In the course of the fourth and fifth centuries churchbuilding and the provision of relics became inextricably linked with each other: the one often led to the other and (more commonly) vice-versa. For later generations it would have been axiomatic that if Constantine was a great builder of churches, he must also have been a great provider of relics. Yet the truth of the matter seems to be that, so far as Constantinople is concerned, Constantine was not a great church-builder. True, there are well-documented cases of Constantinian foundations at Jerusalem and

elsewhere in the Holy Land. Dagron suggests that this is because Constantine recognised Jerusalem and the Holy Land as the Christian capital and heart-land of the Empire (which, in turn, explains why Constantinople was not at first so regarded). Hence the generous provision of religious buildings in Palestine and the lack of any sound evidence that he ever provided any specifically Christian foundation at Constantinople.? It is remarkable

that while the Vita

Constantini (3.2943)

not

only lists but carefully describes the buildings in the Holy Land, it does not record a single unequivocally ecclesiastical foundation at Constan-

tinople. The dubious case is that of the Imperial Mausoleum, for the word νεών in the first line of VC 4.58 may well only mean “mausoleum” and not "church" (sc. of Holy Apostles)—which the monument in ques-

ὃ VC 4.36; 134.1-11 Winkelmann; 166-167 Cameron and Hall. ? Gilbert Dagron, Naissance d'une Capitale (Paris 1974) 388—400.

THE LEGEND OF CONSTANTINE THE RELIC PROVIDER

491

tion became known as (or was conjoined with) in the next reign. A long list (probably between forty and fifty items) could be composed of re-

ligious buildings later alleged to have been founded at his new capital by Constantine, but that is a very different matter from proving that they were Constantinian foundations. The fifth-century ecclesiastical historians who witnessed the intense church-building activity for which the Blessed Pulcheria (the sister of Theodosios II) was largely responsible, were the first to start naming churches for which they claimed a Constantinian foundation; but it was only after the age of Justinian I that Constantine emerged in tradition as a truly prolific builder of churches.

Hence it is hardly surprising that when the list of supposed Constantinian foundations is examined critically, most of the items are found to

have no historical validity whatsoever. Dagron has expressed the opinion (from which it is difficult to dissent) that with the exception of Holy

Apostles'

(an extraordinary

case demanding

special treatment)

"no

church of Constantinople can be attributed to Constantine with certainty."!! However, of the above-mentioned list there remain a small number of

Constantinopolitan churches whose alleged Constantinian foundation cannot be definitively rejected. These have this in common:

they are

dedicated in a way which indicates that they most certainly were not martyria, e.g. Hagia Eirene, Hagia Sophia, Saint Michael the Archangel. Such shrines required no relics; and in any case, none could be had by any stretch of the imagination. As already noted, relics of Saint Acacius probably, possibly also of Saint Mocius, were already to hand before Constantinople was founded; thus it was recently alleged:

"[Constantine] may have been responsible for the large basilica to the local martyr Mocius, outside the city wall (Soz. HE 18.17.5) and the church of Saint Acacius within the Constantinian wall (Socr. HE 6.23)."?

There remain only the two martyria of Saint Menas and Saint Agathonicus, neither of whose claim to a Constantinian foundation is very convincing. What follows from this is that even if church-building activity implied relic importation at this early date (which is by no means

certain), it

probably would not apply in the case of Constantine so far as the capitalregion is concerned. It cannot be categorically stated that Constantine ? For a summary of recent scholarship on this vexed question (which now

tends increasingly to think that the mausoleum was not originally a Christian church), see Cameron and Hall (above, n. 3) 337-338. n Dagron (above, n. 8) 399.

” Socrates, HE 6.23 says Constantine founded Saint Irene. 7 Cameron and Hall (above, n. 3) 297.

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JOHN WORTLEY

did not import any relics to the capital of course, but the likelihood appears to be that he did not. It is not without significance (given the importance placed on relic-provision by some later emperors) that in spite of so many ecclesiastical buildings later being claimed to have been founded by Constantine, still there are very few instances indeed of that Emperor being credited with the provision of relics. In the few instances

which do exist, moreover, the claim is encountered in sources so late that it is difficult to imagine they are relaying a tradition of any substance. THE PALLADIUM

Greatly though an undeserved reputation for church-building may have contributed to the formation of Constantine's equally undeserved reputation as a provider of relics, there was in his city a structure of undoubted Constantinian foundation alleged, perhaps not entirely without justification, to have been endowed with powerful relics by the Great Emperor. The structure in question was no Christian temple, but a pagan (or at best a religiously neutral) monument: the great porphyry column in the Forum of Constantine, probably the most impressive monument that city possessed until Justinian raised up his Great Church. The column stood at the heart of the Constantinian city and in some ways it re-

mained the heart of the city, for it was there that the inauguration of the city was celebrated in 11 May 330 and there that the annual commemoration of that event was held, while a wooden representation of the column was hailed at the tyché of the city in the Hippodrome." The column consisted of seven great cylinders of porphyry, their joints concealed by laurel-wreaths worked in bronze. It was topped by a splendid golden

statue of Apollo known as Anthélios. Constantine had brought this from Philadelphia; as early as 440 Socrates claimed that this was a statue of the Emperor himself, in which he was followed by many later writers.? As the column rose to a height of almost fifty metres, the top of it could be seen from almost anywhere in the city and also far out to sea. The ^ On the monument in general see Jean Ebersolt, Sanctuaires de Byzance: Recherches sur les anciens trésors des églises de Constantinople (Paris 1921) 71-74; Raymond Janin, Constantinople Byzantine (Paris? 1964) 77-80; Dagron (above, n. 8)

36-40, specifically 39-42, 307-309. 'S Socr. HE 1.17, PG 67.120B; Thphn. Chron. 1.28.23-29 De Boor. George Cedrenus (I. Bekker, ed., Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae, 1 [Bonn 1838] 518.1-9) takes an independent line, claiming that it was an original Phidias. Migne has an interesting comment on the assertion of Nicephorus Callistus Xanthopoulos (Historia Ecclesiastica 7.45) that the statue held a golden “apple” in its hand: sunt auctores qui propter malum istud aureum a Turcis Constantinoplitanum urbem aureum malum dici putant (PG 145.1325D.) I have sought in vain to dis-

cover whether the word Istanbul might contain a reference to this “apple.”

THE LEGEND OF CONSTANTINE THE RELIC PROVIDER

493

statue was blown down in a severe gale in 14 April 1106," eventually to

be replaced by a cross. The dilapidated remains of the lower part of the column are still in existence, referred to by the Turks as "the burnt column" (cemberlitas).

The earliest datable reference to a connection between the great por-

phyry column and the growth of Constantine's reputation as a

relic-

provider is to be found in Procopius. He is speaking of the Palladium,

that statue of Pallas Athena which came allegedly from Troy and was ultimately placed in the penus Vestae at Rome where it was regarded as

the guarantor of the safety of the Eternal City." He says the Romans have no idea of the statue's whereabouts (Goth. 1.15.14 [Bella 5.15.14.]):

"The Byzantines, however, say that the Emperor Constantine buried this statue in the Forum which bears his name." A more precise statement was to be found in the common source used by John Malalas and the compiler of the Chronicon Paschale, a source which cannot be dated but which could predate Procopius. When the two extant recensions of the statement are compared, it appears to have said something like this: The same Emperor Constantine [the Great], secretly taking away from Rome the image called Palladium, placed it in the Forum he had built, beneath the column of his [sic) statue as certain of the Byzantines say (having heard this from their forefathers) and it lies there still."

How far back can this tradition of the requisitioning of the Palladium be traced? The silence of the Vita Constantini does not rule out the possibility of it having any validity, for the author of that work had good reason to keep silent about it. His Constantine was a builder of Christian

churches, not an importer of pagan relics; one who trusted his city to the protection of the Christian God, not to a graven image. We may never

know when or how the legend started but, whether it was due to the interment of the Palladium beneath or to some other factor, the great porphyry column soon came to be regarded itself as the Palladium or

guardian of the city. Whether as a consequence of the above or caused by it, a belief existed that the great column had also been fortified with Christian relics. The

earliest evidence of this comes in the first half of the fifth century. Ac16 Anna Comnena,

Alexias 14.4 (see Du Cange's extensive note ad loc.); Zona-

ras, Epitome 13.3. Thus Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Ant. Rom. 1.69. 18 Βυζάντιοι δέ φασι τὸ ἄγαλμα τοῦτο Κωνσταντίνον βασιλέα £v τῇ ἀγορᾷ fj αὐτοῦ ἐπωνυμός ἐστι κατορύξαντα θέσθαι. ? John Malalas, Chronographia 320.13-16 Dindorf, Chronicon Paschale 1.528.14-16 Dindorf. See also Theodore Preger, ed., Scriptores originum Constantinopolitanarum ("Patria"), 1 (Leipzig 1901) 174.2 (Patria 2.45).

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JOHN WORTLEY

cording to Socrates (in a passage echoed by Sozomen) Helena Augusta

sent her son a relic of the True Cross from the Holy Land; it is the one and only alleged case of relic-importation to Constantinople in the time of its founder which might conceivably have some basis in fact (see be-

low). Socrates continues: When

[Constantine] received [the fragment of the True Cross], being

convinced that the city in which it was kept would be fully guaranteed,

he concealed it in his own statue [sic] which stands on the porphyry

column in the so-called Forum of Constantine at Constantinople. I have written this down from hearsay but nearly all the inhabitants of Constantinople say that it is true.”

Thus there are two traditions concerning Constantine: one, that he placed a pagan relic beneath the column, another that he set a Christian relic in the top of it. These appear to have coalesced to the disadvantage of the pagan element in due course, for, by the middle of the eighth century, there was a legend circulating which combines something of both—and more beside: In the Forum [of Constantine] beneath the great column there are sev-

eral crosses bearing the likeness of the great cross?! and the crosses of the two thieves who were crucified together with Christ are interred there in that place until this day. But the glass amphora of myrrh with which Christ was anointed (B(ootov ὑελοῦν μύρου, Mark 14:3 etc.] and

many other significant objects are also beneath the Forum, which we ex-

cuse ourselves for not naming individually. These were put there by Constantine the Great and they were sealed up by Theodosius the Great.”

Subsequent writers were less reticent; they set out at length the treasury of “significant objects” believed to be in or under the great column. In addition to the Holy Nails in the head of the statue Anthelios, the twelve baskets of Mark 6:43 and their contents; the seven baskets of Mark 8:8; something of the “two small fishes” of Mark 6:38, the crosses

of the two thieves, the alabaster box used by the myrrhophorai, not to mention the axe which Noah used to build the ark—all these objects (they say) were conserved in or under the great column.” 20 Socr. HE 1.17, PG 67.120B. ?! τὸ σημεῖον τοῦ σταυροῦ τοῦ μεγάλου φέροντες is a curious expression. Does it mean that they resembled the cross of Christ in form (as opposed to the X-cross for instance) or perhaps that these were comparable in size to the cross which Justinian I set up in the Great Church which was exactly the height of Jesus? 2 παραστάσεις σύντομοι ypovixat (PSChron) c. 23, Patria 1:33.

2 Patria 2.45 (2.174); Georgius Monachus, Chronicon 500 De Boor; George Ce-

drenus 1.518.1-9; Zonaras, Epitome 13.3.26; Nicephorus Callistus Xanthopoulos, Historia Ecclesiastica 7.49, PG 145.1325CD—and others.

THE LEGEND OF CONSTANTINE THE RELIC PROVIDER

495

A number of twelfth-century visitors report the presence of some of these relics, for instance in the so-called "Letter of Alexis I Comnenus to Count Robert of Flanders": duodecim cophini fragmentorum ex quinque panibus et duobus piscibus." Anon. Mercati says: suptus autem ipsius columnae sunt xii cophini fragmentorum de v panis.? Nicolaus Thingeyrensis lists the twelve baskets and "aux Noa, er hann smidadi med cerkina" (Noah's axe with which he built the ark). Of these the report of Anon.

Mercati is particularly interesting because it relays a legend explaining

why these objects were inaccessible. He was told that in former times there was a door which opened up into a space below the column; that one could then go down with lights and reverence the sacred objects. But in the time of Theodosius I a poor but pious man tried to steal a little of the bread in one of the baskets. An earthquake of thirty days' duration ensued and only came to an end when he confessed his misdemeanour. The Emperor caused the subterranean chamber to be walled up as a security measure." Much of the above can be decisively rejected as fiction, for excavation around the surviving base of the column in 1929-30 revealed that it is of solid masonry with no trace whatsoever of a subterranean chamber.” Cyril Mango revealed in an unpublished lecture that

subsequent excavations discovered tunnels beneath the column dug in the nineteenth century, doubtless by clandestine archaeologists in search of the Palladium. Alas, we may never know what (if anything) they found. Even if the archaeological evidence (such as it is) did not call the legend of Constantine the relic-provider into question, the very nature of the legend itself does. For, whilst tradition undoubtedly credits him with providing his city with a wealth of "significant objects" at the great col^ Count Eduard

Didier Riant, Exuviae Sacrae Constantinopolitanae, 2 (Geneva

1878) 208.

5 Anon. Mercati = S.G. Mercati, "Santuari e reliquie Constantinopolitane secundo il codice Ottoboniano

Latino 169 prima della Conquista latina (1204),"

Rendiconti della pontificia Accademia Romana di Archeologia 12 (1936) 133-156, improved edition (cited here) by Krijnie N. Ciggaar, "Une description de Constantinople traduite [du grec] par un pelerin anglais," Revue des Études Byzantines 34 (1976) 211-267. 26 Riant (above, n. 23) 2.215. Anthony of Novgorod, trans. Marcelle Ehrhard, “Le Livre du Pélerin d'Antoine de Novgorod,” Romania 58 (1932) 44—65 claims to

have seen the twelve baskets and their contents at Blachernae: "ces pains sont scellés dans le mur" (58).

7 Anon. Mercati c. 13. There is an oblique reference to this legend in the

eighth-century PSChron., c. 23 (Patria 1.33), hinting at an even more generous provision of relics by both Constantine I and Theodosius I. 2 Janin (above, n. 13) 77.

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umn, tradition gives him no credit whatsoever for acquiring those objects. On the very few occasions on which tradition says anything at all about how he came into possession of them (the fragment of the True Cross, the Holy Nails), tradition affirms that it was his mother, Helena

Augusta, who acquired them and sent chem from the Holy Land to her imperial son. Thus tradition only credits Constantine with disposing of sacred objects which had come into his hands through no merit of his own; and tradition seems strangely insensitive to the somewhat unChristian manner of his disposing of them. It is no secret that the Lady Helen's reputation as an inventor of relics in the Holy Land rests on no sound foundation and that the most she might have sent to her son was a tiny fragment of the True Cross. In this perhaps might be discerned the grain of truth at the heart of the legend of Constantine the disposer of relics. We are left with the thought that the only relic he might conceivably himself have obtained was a pagan one: the Palladium.